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Back at the beginning of the year, I asked you to think about
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why you garden. Whether it's a hobby, our
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family's main food source, or anything in between, I maintain
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that understanding why you garden is really important to
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planning the garden and defining a budget.
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But what about the garden being more than just a source of food,
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exercise or a connection to nature?
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What if it were something? That is the question that Bailey
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Van Tassel has asked and answered.
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Bailey is the founder of the Kitchen Garden Society and
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author of the recently released book Kitchen Garden Living.
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She has taken an approach to gardening that is not just
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seasonal in nature, but all-encompassing in its
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seasonality, growing not just food, but friendships, gifts and
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time with family. Like many of us, Bailey feels
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like our society has become disconnected from what we really
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need versus what we've been programmed to want.
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And that having a sense of getting just enough from our
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garden can take us back to being really connected not just to our
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own bodies cues for what we need, but also to our food and
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the true flavor of it. Today, I'll just grow something.
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I sit down with Bailey and chat all things kitchen garden flavor
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gaps, winter bulk, and moving a garden from one climate to
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another. We also get into her book and
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her unique way of determining exactly what gets prioritized in
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her garden beds using playing cards and the game of poker.
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Let's dig in. Hey, I'm Karen and what started
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as a small backyard garden 20 years ago turned into a lifelong
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passion for growing food. Now as a market farmer and
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horticulturist, I want to help you do the same on this podcast.
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I am your friend in the garden, teaching evidence based
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techniques to help you grow your favorites and build confidence
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in your own garden space. So grab your garden journal and
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a cup of coffee and get ready to just grow something.
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So Bailey Van Tassel shares her gardening skills online through
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her blog, her Kitchen Garden Society monthly membership, and
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now her new Substack newsletter, while also sharing her personal
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story of growing up on a hobby farm in California but then
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ending up in suburbia. Bailey focuses on kitchen
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gardening and cut flowers with her three young children
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alongside her. And she and I are in total
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agreement about the reasons why we should all be eating
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seasonally. Why do you think eating
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seasonally is so important? That is a great question.
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For one, it's the most nutritious way to actually eat
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because eating vegetables when they're not in peak season, they
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reduce a nutritional density as each.
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You know, as that peak window closes, the amount of nutrients
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available to your body does as well.
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So eating seasonally by design, from like a biological science
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perspective is the healthiest way for you to consume food.
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Aside from that, I also feel like it is part of our humanity
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to not expect everything to be available all the time and also
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not force things to travel to us.
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So what nature is going to provide for you nutritionally
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and seasonally is what's going to be best for your body, where
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you live, and where you are in your life.
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And I really feel like getting back to that sort of
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connectedness is so important for our sanity and just the
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state of being as humans. And that is something that the
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garden really taught me was you're not supposed to be able
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to have a tomato in December. That's not the job of a tomato.
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I. Find that that changes also
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based on. Where you live?
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If you live in, you know, sunny California and or in Florida
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where citrus is available in the winter time because that's the
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climate that you live in versus somebody like me who is in West
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Central Missouri where none of that is available.
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But in the winter time, our sustenances things that can
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easily be stored, you know, potatoes, winter squashes,
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onions, and they pair with the meats and stuff that are sort of
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comfort foods, which is something that you would eat in
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the winter time, but not necessarily something that your
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body craves in the summertime when things like fresh greens
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and tomatoes and all those vibrant flavors are available to
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you. And you know, I mean, you just
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moved, you've moved from California to Tennessee here
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recently. How has that changed been?
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It's been wild. It's the first time I've
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experienced living somewhere that gets a hard frost.
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And we have the greenhouse, but it's a new way of thinking about
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things. I mean, gardening in a Southern
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climate zone 10B, it's really a marathon instead of a Sprint.
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You don't have to be super vigilant about when you start
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things. It's very easy to mess up as a
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gardener in Southern California. You just kind of like restart
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here. It's more of a Sprint where I'm
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really going to have to be active in March and April to
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make sure I get a great crop. I'm really going to have to be
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figuring out fall gardening, which typically is my favorite.
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But here it's really going to be playing between, oh, is it still
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too hot and humid for these things?
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I know that they'll germinate, but will they mature
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appropriately? So there's going to be a lot
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more nuance to uncover and then allowing sort of wintering to
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happen, which I'm not used to, but I've been enjoying so far.
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So it'll be a change for sure. But there is something to be
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said for also, which is so counterculture.
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But like, you know, you bulk up and you put on a little layer to
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keep you warm in the winter. You're sleeping more in the
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winter, but in the spring and summer that's going to change.
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You're more active, you're out your longer days, you're doing
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those things. So I think like, humanity needs
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to just allow the seasons to like, let us be a little bit,
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which I love. But yeah, it will be.
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It will be crazy to see what a real gardening season this first
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year. I'm going to have to ask
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everybody to give me some grace on potentially just absolutely
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failing, which will be really fun to do publicly.
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Bailey is a big proponent of living seasonally, not just
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eating with the seasons, something that may change a
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little bit now that she's moved from a warmer climate to one
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that actually has more variations to the seasons.
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Do you think making that change from California to Tennessee now
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is also going to change, you know, sort of your concept of
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living seasonally and, and kitchen garden sort of living
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because the seasons are so drastically different?
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Yes, for sure. I can already tell that one.
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We really have to change our mindset around like what we're
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capable of in the winter. And that whole philosophy I just
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keep telling myself like, there's no such thing as bad
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weather. There's just bad clothing and
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really pushing everyone to get outside even when it's cold
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because there are blue skies. But it's, you know, 15°, which
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it typically is, not this cold in Tennessee, we're being told,
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but really pushing ourselves to continue to enjoy nature and the
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seasons in just a different format.
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But likewise, in the summer, I just imagine so much more
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outside time in California. It's always nice and it's just
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so easy to take advantage of it. But here it's like, I can just
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really see how we're like going to be truly living outside in
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spring and fall especially, but even in the summer, just like
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really, really packing it in. I just, I can already see our
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bodies like reorienting in that way where we're really like you
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just hype it up in your mind where you're like, I can't wait
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for these like being able to take long walks.
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You know, now it's like, oh gosh, if we can make it 20
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minutes, like then we're stoked And you're kind of figuring out
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how do we do inside better? But I can just really see how
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everybody is going to maximize their outside time because you
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kind of get fatigued by that when it's like 70° all the time.
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I don't think that's natural and and it's boring to be totally
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honest. But you just you don't take
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advantage of that great weather when you're in it all the time
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and and therefore I think end up inside oddly more than you
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would. So there's a bit of a shift for
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sure when you are, you know, changing up different climates.
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I remember as a gardener in the out here in the Midwest, it, it
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was like this aha moment that I had when I was growing Rosemary.
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And here, you know, Rosemary is most times not a perennial.
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You have to replant it like every single season.
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It doesn't get huge unless you put it in a pot and then you
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bring it in the house over the winter time.
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And for some reason one day I remembered that my ex in laws in
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California had a Rosemary Bush in their front entryway.
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They didn't use it culinarily. It wasn't an herb to them.
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It was. Just this.
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Bush. It was ornamental, yeah.
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For a part of the landscaping and I and I just kind of went.
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Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh.
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What a huge difference. Between that and what I'm
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struggling to do here, you know, in in the in the Midwest and I
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just think it, you know, it's a it's a really interesting sort
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of, you know, juxtaposition. You get it.
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You get the chance to experience that now having going from, you
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know, one climate SO10B to what's your what's your growing
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zone now? 7B Yeah, it will be interesting
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for sure. Yeah, we had giant Rosemary
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bushes at our last house, and citrus cheese and avocados and
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everything pretty much could grow as a perennial if you
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wanted to. When I tell you my gardening
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friends to check and see whether something is a perennial in your
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area before they deciding to plant something, this is exactly
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what I mean. Rosemary is often listed as a
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perennial on tags in the garden center, but it is most decidedly
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not one in my zone 6B garden, although it was in Bailey's zone
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10B1. We'll see how it does for her
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now that she's in seven. As you can tell, Bailey believes
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that living seasonally and staying grounded to the natural
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world is really important to creating a meaningful life, no
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matter where you are. So much so that she's written a
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book about it. You just released a book and
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it's called Kitchen Garden Living.
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I'm going to pull that up for everybody so they can they can
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see this. The first thing that I did when
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I got this was I had to flip through and look at all the
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pictures because they were just so amazing and your garden was
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beautiful. The next thing I did was have a
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little bit of a panic attack seeing like you wearing a white.
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Shirt. But the.
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The next. Thing that I found that I found
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it very interesting. The way that you broke down the
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chapters, I think was was very compelling.
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It was a very interesting breakdown.
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It basically laid out in terms of how the garden is used, you
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know? So I mean, yeah, you start with
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the seasons, but then it's plan, grow, tend, make, gather,
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connect and inspire. I found that to be really
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interesting and kind of inspiring.
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And I think that really goes along with what your message has
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been, which is it's the garden is more about you're actually
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living in it. Like this is, it's more than
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just food, right? Right.
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Yeah. That was really, you know, it's
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funny, I guess I haven't actually read that many
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gardening books. There was one that was like
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really, really key to establishing fundamentals and
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how I grow the way that I do in terms of sort of a French
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intensive style, like really dense planting, a lot of
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biodiversity, companion planting, all that.
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I read a book that really like inspired that for me, but yeah,
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I didn't realize how different the layout and message of my
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book was compared to other gardening books.
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My point in all of it is like the kitchen garden can help you
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reorient yourself to the rhythms of nature and enhance your life
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in that way because it is providing you with this moving
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meditation and this ultra nutritious food and this really
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cool way to reconnect with yourself and with nature and
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overall just enhance your life. That's kind of always been the
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message and trying to really get back to that and maintain that
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sense of inspiring people. I obviously want to equip
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everyone. There's a ton of practical
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knowledge in the book, but I did really want everyone to think
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about it on that cycle of like, OK, we like we get the garden
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going, we plan it out. We've got everything we need to
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know to make the garden happy and beautiful.
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But then what you know, then what it's like, OK, well then
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you know, this is how we properly harvest and preserve
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things and share it with the world.
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And like just kind of lean into it more.
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It's similar to like someone coming to you with a problem and
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you give them a solution, but you don't give them the support
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to like, overcome the actual problem.
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And I think that is something I really want to where it's like,
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OK, I'm going to teach you how to garden, but I'm also going to
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teach you how to, like, fall in love with gardening for the rest
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of your life. So it's not just a fat pad.
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I love that. I love that I that's, I love
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that that whole message and I think, you know, in terms of
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practical application. The other thing that I.
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Thought was was really interesting.
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Is your your? Poker Card.
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Method for planting. Talk to me about aces, faces,
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planes and jokers. Yes, I'm so glad everyone's been
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excited about this because it's sort of my own little
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proprietary method. I immediately when I started
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gardening was like, I want to try and grow as much of what we
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consume as possible. So like grow the grocery store,
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replace the grocery store, whatever.
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And that felt really overwhelming to me because I
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just couldn't figure out like how to make that happen.
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And So what I did is the poker planting method is just, it just
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helps you prioritize the plants in your garden to give you a
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very easy way to say like, OK, these plants go in first because
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they're going to, I want them to have the most space.
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They're most important to me. And then these plants go in next
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because they're of a little bit less importance to me.
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Or I can get them at a farm. These even less so because
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they're more just for fun. It was just a way for me to
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organize the plants in my mind and get them into my garden so I
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could actually maximize the space that I have.
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I know this struggle of figuring out what to plant and where to
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fit it all in is very familiar to a lot of us.
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It's one of the things that we spend a lot of time on in my
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plan, like a pro course, because it can be very overwhelming.
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I generally teach gardeners to fit it all in using companion
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planting combined with inter planting by going high, low,
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fast, slow, OK, this is pairing the tall plants with the low
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growing ones and then the fast maturing varieties with the slow
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growing ones. What Bailey is doing is
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combining the plants in such a way that the high priority
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plants, the one she really needs in the garden, get the spotlight
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and most of the space, and then tucking in and the other plants
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in order of priority from there on down.
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It's a unique way to organize the beds in terms of making sure
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that you don't run out of space for the things that are most
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important to you. Essentially, each plant is
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assigned like an ROI or like a value in your mind.
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So aces are the most valuable for me.
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That's like potatoes, onions, garlic, those really like.
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I am cooking with these on a daily basis.
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I know I if I give them the time and space in the garden, I can
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completely replace them for my family.
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I know that they grow well. I know that we use them.
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I know that we love them something like radicchio, like
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we don't eat that that much. It's like really cool to grow
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because I think it's really pretty, but my kids don't really
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like the taste of it. We're just not eating it that
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often. So that's de prioritized.
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If I have space, I'll sneak in some radicchio, but it's not
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actually going to like enhance the quality of our lives, you
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know, like onions. Well, things because I really do
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find every single spring people are completely perplexed by seed
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starting and by just mapping out the garden.
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Like just where do all the things go and how do I like stay
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on top of it? And sometimes the problem is
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you're trying to fit too much. You don't have to grow 12
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different varieties of tomatoes if that's not your main thing,
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you know, Yeah, they look cool, but how?
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How is that serving you? This is a problem for beginning
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and experienced gardeners alike. There is often a temptation to
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grow as many things as possible because they look cool, or we
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think it's expected, or it's the trend, or we're trying to
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literally replace all, all the things from the grocery store.
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By prioritizing what we plant by how we'll use it, we can save
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ourselves a lot of stress in not just the planning phase, but in
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all the phases of gardening. There's an idea that Bailey
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stumbled upon in her own garden of just enoughness.
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Oh, in chapter. Five the make chapter.
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I want to read just a little portion of that.
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I loved the I the idea of just enoughness in the kitchen garden
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are parallels. A handful of cherry tomatoes on
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a summer's day is all we need. Not a big plastic clamshell full
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of gas ripened fruit wandering out into the garden to find a
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rogue potato plant that yields 2 perfect spuds for the following
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mornings. Breakfast burritos makes us
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happy. There is a just enoughness in
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the garden which you'll find quickly leaks into the rest of
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your home and the lives of you and your family.
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How can you make what you already have enough?
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And if you do need more, can you make it yourself?
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And I, this is what I'm talking about with this book and just
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sort of your whole, you know, idea and the way that you do
00:18:16
things in this community that you've grown.
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It's not just about, OK, well, here I grew this and then here's
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a recipe for how to use it. And then I'm I'm done.
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There are so much more you know that you can do with the garden
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and what comes out of it and how it sort of flows into the rest
00:18:34
of your. Life.
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I love that you picked that up. It's just something I think the
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garden is an endless well of, you know, inspiration and life
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analogies. I like to let the garden dictate
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what we cook and going out there and seeing what's available and
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bringing it inside and like letting that be where I come
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from for instead of being like, oh, I'm in the mood for
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enchiladas. And then like, you know, it's
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more like, what do we have and how, how can we do something
00:19:00
good with it? And tomatoes I don't really love
00:19:04
to grow. I think they're Divas.
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I think they're high maintenance.
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I think they're overhyped. And so I never grow like that
00:19:09
many of them. But every time I do, it's like
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truly my handful of cherry tomatoes like is enough to saute
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with a little bit of garlic and olive oil to coat our pasta.
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And it's there's just so much overconsumption or sort of just
00:19:23
like allowing other people to decide quantity for us because
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of how we shop in the grocery store that you're not even
00:19:30
realizing what you need to like make the meal happen.
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So I kept seeing that in my garden where I was always
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yearning for like more garden, more veggies growing more.
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It was kind of like a weird ego thing where I was just like, I
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just wanted this big garden, but I always had enough to make an
00:19:47
amazing meal and let what I was growing be the star of the show.
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And so it was really this cool experience for me to be like,
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whatever the amount of space is if you.
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Allow it to be good enough for you right now, you'll find a way
00:20:04
to maximize it. And I do think that leaks over
00:20:07
and it just gives you that deep sense of satisfaction.
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And I tell people this all the time, whether you have a one
00:20:13
acre garden or 1 pot full of just culinary herbs, we are all
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going to experience the same joy of like harvesting something
00:20:21
that we grew, adding it to our food and making that taste
00:20:25
amazing. And there's just this sense of
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like, I did this. It doesn't matter how much you
00:20:29
have or how big it's like that. It's just that fundamental tiny
00:20:33
little moment where you're like, I did this and then you get to
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share it with someone and they love it.
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And it's just that really that's joy in my opinion.
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I just really wanted people to feel like it was accessible,
00:20:46
that joy, that satisfaction. It's not about growing 100
00:20:49
tomato plants, it's growing just enough tomatoes to be able to
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experience the joy of that homegrown flavor.
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I have said before, it is a very visceral feeling when you can
00:21:00
look down on your plate and see just one thing that you grew
00:21:05
yourself. It's like something primal deep
00:21:09
inside that you provided for yourself, you're providing for
00:21:13
others, and it was sort of like what we were meant to do and buy
00:21:17
all of your stuff in the grocery store doesn't give you that
00:21:20
opportunity anymore. Science has shown us that doing
00:21:25
things with our our hands, manual tasks like gardening and
00:21:29
cooking, releases serotonin and endorphins.
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All those feel good hormones and it reduces cortisol, the stress
00:21:38
hormone. Doing manual tasks like
00:21:41
gardening don't only give us a sense of pride in our
00:21:44
accomplishment or satisfaction in providing for others, but
00:21:48
they have been clinically shown to improve our mood, our
00:21:51
attention span, and even our memory.
00:21:53
I think we're like disconnected from what we need to a certain
00:21:59
degree too. You know, we're planning
00:22:00
everything for like efficiency instead of waking up and being
00:22:03
like, you know, I'm really craving papaya today.
00:22:06
And I think our body gives us a ton of use and there's a lot of
00:22:11
stuff going on with everyone's body that if we were just like
00:22:13
listening a little bit more closely to what our body's
00:22:16
craving and wanting and needing, we can unpack a lot of that.
00:22:20
But we're so distracted and we're so numb by like everything
00:22:24
else that we're just like meet the fundamental need as quickly
00:22:28
and efficiently as possible and, and make it feel good.
00:22:30
So you know, I am not perfect at this by any means, but it's just
00:22:34
something I'm always thinking about.
00:22:36
Yeah, Yeah. I think the fact that that we,
00:22:39
we live in such a global economy now.
00:22:41
And as the, you know, especially in the US, we rely a lot on sort
00:22:46
of those outside, you know, sources for a lot of how we live
00:22:52
that it's gotten a lot more difficult for us to be able to
00:22:56
understand the signals that we're getting from our own
00:22:59
bodies that say, you know, hey. We work, We need.
00:23:02
Something sweet or we need, you know, and it's like, Oh well,
00:23:06
I'm just going to grab, you know, this piece of candy or
00:23:08
this chocolate or this whatever instead of hey, maybe.
00:23:11
Some fresh fruit. That's nice and sweet.
00:23:13
That might be the carbs that your body is looking for, not
00:23:16
necessarily that cream filled doughnut that's sitting over
00:23:19
there on your counter. You know, it's made it a little
00:23:21
bit confusing I think for people and doing something like having
00:23:26
a kitchen garden and being out there and in it, physically in
00:23:31
it, I think, you know, probably would put people you know
00:23:35
further or closer to understanding a little bit more
00:23:38
about what their body is asking of them.
00:23:41
What's really interesting, I read this study out of the UK,
00:23:44
like out of London, and they were talking about how doctors
00:23:48
were prescribing people with 20 minutes of gardening a day as an
00:23:53
sort of antidote to anxiety and depression.
00:23:56
And the reason that gardening makes us feel better or reduces
00:24:02
the feelings of depression and anxiety is because it increases
00:24:06
the amount of perceived happiness that we have.
00:24:09
And since with humans, perception is reality, that's
00:24:14
why it's so good for us. It, it makes us feel more
00:24:17
content, feel more happy. And then that transcends
00:24:21
throughout the rest of our day. And to make it like, it's like a
00:24:25
rising tide lifts all ships. But like on the emotional level,
00:24:28
where it's like these happiness feelings are pushing away the
00:24:31
depressed or the anxiety feelings.
00:24:33
And it's just because you're, you're feeling more accomplished
00:24:36
and more content and more joyful.
00:24:38
There's also sort of the science of like the microbes in the soil
00:24:41
releasing serotonin in our brains, which is yet another,
00:24:44
you know, biology telling us we need to be gardening.
00:24:47
But I thought that was so interesting because it was like,
00:24:51
it's such a beautiful way to like create the environment to
00:24:54
thrive in where it's really like this is something that overall
00:24:59
enhances your life just because it's it's giving you those
00:25:02
feelings of happiness and contentedness that are really
00:25:04
hard to come by in other ways. It's not this like false
00:25:08
dopamine. It's not like this checking that
00:25:10
I did the laundry off the list. It's it's the sort of Co
00:25:14
creation moment and I think that that's a really, really cool
00:25:19
part of the entire situation. The National Health Service in
00:25:24
the UK are increasingly prescribing time in nature and
00:25:29
community gardening as part of its green prescriptions.
00:25:32
Scientists have found that spending two hours a week in
00:25:36
nature is linked to better health and well-being.
00:25:39
Doctors with the NHS already use social descriptions, non medical
00:25:44
treatments that have health benefits to tackle things like
00:25:47
anxiety, loneliness and depression.
00:25:50
This often involves referring patients to a community or
00:25:55
volunteer organization for the social aspect.
00:25:58
And increasingly, doctors are opting for community gardening
00:26:02
because it's not just social, but has the added benefit of
00:26:06
time spent in nature. And it's not just the UK.
00:26:10
Parks Prescription Canada is a national nature prescription
00:26:14
program led by the BC Parks Foundation.
00:26:16
They are making the intersection of health, medicine and nature
00:26:20
more accessible to doctors and patients by giving healthcare
00:26:25
providers practical tools, including custom minimized
00:26:28
nature prescription files and patient handouts to make
00:26:33
prescribing time outdoors just more simple and effective.
00:26:37
Of course, all of these recommendations are based on
00:26:39
scientific studies that have shown the universal benefits of
00:26:43
spending time in natural environments regardless of age
00:26:47
group or health status. In short, gardening is good for
00:26:51
you in more ways than just food. Speaking of food, it's a little.
00:26:56
Bit about like when to harvest and the difference with.
00:26:58
Ripeness and and all those. Types of things, but the one
00:27:01
thing that got me was the reference to the flavor gap and
00:27:06
how, you know, there is such a difference between truck
00:27:10
ripened, you know, fruits and vegetables versus either what we
00:27:15
can get from our own gardens or what we can get locally from,
00:27:21
you know, locally sourced, you know.
00:27:22
Farms or whomever. Talk a little bit about, you
00:27:26
know, the difference between or what you've, you know, kind of
00:27:28
discovered when you talk about things that are grown in like a
00:27:32
depleted soil on a commercial basis versus things that are
00:27:36
grown in, you know, a, a, a better soil or something that
00:27:40
has grown, you know, by us in our own.
00:27:42
Hands and our own gardens. Yeah.
00:27:45
I mean, the amount of flavor that your food is able to access
00:27:50
is going to be in direct relation to like how nutritious
00:27:53
it can be, how dense it can be, how full.
00:27:57
Like this is going to sound so woo woo, but like how much life
00:27:59
force energy can the food hold? And so that's access to more
00:28:05
clean water. That's that's access to more
00:28:07
pure soil, that's access to the right amount of sun during the
00:28:11
right part of the year. And so that's why I like a vine
00:28:15
ripened by the natural sun. Tomato is going to taste better
00:28:20
is because it's drawing in all the different minerals and all
00:28:23
the different elements like that are accessible.
00:28:26
Just like if someone gave you like 1000 compliments versus
00:28:29
just two, how good would you feel about yourself?
00:28:32
And so I think that people are really, it's hard to understand
00:28:37
it until you've really tasted the difference.
00:28:40
But they're just some things you cannot perfectly mimic in
00:28:44
nature. And that's one of them.
00:28:45
And I remember spinach is another one.
00:28:48
When I eat spinach from the grocery store, it kind of gives
00:28:51
me this weird feeling in my mouth, almost like a coppery,
00:28:55
like there's like a weird coating on my tongue.
00:28:57
And when I grow spinach at home, that is not the experience at
00:29:01
all. It's much sweeter.
00:29:03
It's light on your palate. It's in my opinion, it's an
00:29:08
entirely different spinach experience.
00:29:10
That is the flavor gap right there is like the the difference
00:29:14
in the nutrition and the taste from a homegrown tomato versus
00:29:16
one that you just picked up from the store that was ripened in
00:29:19
the back with gas that travelled, you know, 10
00:29:22
miles on a truck. The vegetable is never able to
00:29:26
reach its full potential, so the flavor is never going to reach
00:29:28
its full potential. It's funny.
00:29:30
That you said that about spinach because my husband hated
00:29:33
spinach, absolutely refused to eat it until we started growing
00:29:37
it ourselves, and he said the exact same thing to you.
00:29:39
This is not. This is a completely.
00:29:41
Different vegetable. This is nothing like I have ever
00:29:43
tasted before, you know. And so, yeah, he'll routinely
00:29:46
eat fresh spinach out of our garden, but he haven't touched
00:29:48
it anywhere else. It's one.
00:29:50
It's one that I love to use. This is an example because you
00:29:52
can really, I could like feel the difference too, but I think
00:29:56
most herbs as well. Like I never liked chimichurri
00:30:00
until I made it myself with my own herbs and it tasted
00:30:03
completely different. And there are just so many
00:30:07
things like that. But that's also the difference.
00:30:08
Like when you do have a restaurant experience from
00:30:11
someone that's shopping the farmers market seasonally versus
00:30:13
just like a in the box restaurant.
00:30:15
You know what I mean? Like that's why sometimes these
00:30:17
flavors are so much better is the chef really knows how to
00:30:20
like pick what's ripe and what's its season and source it from
00:30:23
the right place. Like that is the mark to me of
00:30:25
someone that's like a very thoughtful chef or restaurant.
00:30:28
It's like they're really able to make what's in season sing and
00:30:32
that's what I want to eat and also like learn about too.
00:30:35
I think it's so fun to go and be like, oh, wow, this is how you
00:30:38
made delicata squash. Amazing.
00:30:40
You know, in the gardening world too, there are you have a way
00:30:44
bigger selection. So one of my favorite things to
00:30:47
grow is cheddar cauliflower. It's like like an orange
00:30:50
cauliflower and my kids, the way they devour it, they, they like
00:30:56
cauliflower in general, but it's so buttery and like nutty and
00:31:00
smooth. And it's just what you're
00:31:03
getting from that. Essentially it's a flower, but
00:31:05
what you're getting from that vegetable is just so different.
00:31:08
You, I mean, you can't buy that most places either.
00:31:10
So you just have so many more options to experience a much
00:31:13
wider range of flavors when you're growing from heirloom
00:31:16
seeds and just from the garden. There's just so much that you
00:31:20
can cultivate. I really can't.
00:31:21
I mean, I think it's so fun to have someone taste something
00:31:24
homegrown for the first time and just see everything like their
00:31:28
their brain chemistry changes and they're like, wait, what?
00:31:31
Like, what have I been doing with my life?
00:31:33
It's like, yeah, I know, I know. I got it.
00:31:35
Yep. Yeah, I know.
00:31:36
Absolutely. As a horticulturist, when I say
00:31:38
to people you are what you eat, and I mean that very literally.
00:31:43
Like what is coming out of your soil is creating this plant, and
00:31:48
that plant is creating your. I mean, it's I I am very literal
00:31:51
about it. And they look at me like, huh.
00:31:53
Oh, OK. So had my godmother.
00:31:55
I talk about her in the book. She's a huge inspiration for me,
00:31:57
a fantastic gardener. Come visit me in Southern
00:32:01
California. And she was like daily, I hate
00:32:04
to like be this person, but your water smells so strongly of
00:32:11
chlorine that I'm like, I can't even stand it.
00:32:15
And we had gotten so used to it. And so she was the one that that
00:32:19
taught me this. I put RV water filters in every
00:32:23
single one of my beds. So then the water was getting
00:32:26
filtered before it watered my veggies.
00:32:30
And that's another reason why I love growing like onions is
00:32:32
they're so they hold on to so much water and people are always
00:32:37
talking about like glyphosate in the soil and like our soil
00:32:39
health. Well, what about our water
00:32:41
health? Not only are we is the water
00:32:43
either really, really toxic, like full of things that you
00:32:47
shouldn't ingest, but then if it's over filtered, it's not
00:32:50
being re mineralized. So that's why like water in
00:32:52
Italy is so fantastic because it has the minerals that water is
00:32:55
supposed to have. That was another thing where I
00:32:57
came in and was like, OK, you are what you eat and what you
00:33:01
drink, but just anything that you're going to put into your
00:33:04
veggies or your animals or your chickens that are laying eggs or
00:33:07
your pigs that you raise. That's all so important.
00:33:11
Love that message. I think you.
00:33:12
Can preach into the choir I love.
00:33:13
That anyway, yeah, but that's OK.
00:33:16
Everybody wants to hear this. Bailey, thank you so much for,
00:33:20
you know, talking to me and and I, you know, I'm really going to
00:33:23
encourage everybody, you know, grab, grab this book.
00:33:26
You are also in the middle of recording a whole year long
00:33:31
series with your greenhouse builder and that is super
00:33:35
exciting. So where can everybody sort of
00:33:38
what's the best place for everybody to sort of find you
00:33:40
and follow you and see keep up with what you're doing
00:33:43
throughout the rest of the year? Yes, thank you so much.
00:33:46
Bailey vantassel.com is going to be just my primary website and
00:33:51
then on Instagram is where you could like DM me and I'll
00:33:54
actually respond. I'm just Bailey Van Tassel on
00:33:58
Instagram and that's where I'll I share a lot of updates and a
00:34:00
lot of like links and all that stuff.
00:34:02
So yeah, I've got like a newsletter you can sign up for
00:34:06
so you don't miss anything. But yeah, just Bailey Van Tassel
00:34:09
everywhere. And of course, I will leave
00:34:13
links to how to find Bailey, including how to get her book in
00:34:17
the show description, and those links are also in this morning's
00:34:20
e-mail for those of you on the newsletter list.
00:34:22
Bailey really is everywhere. She just participated in an
00:34:25
online gardening summit, The Great Grow Along, this past
00:34:28
weekend on March 1st and 2nd with the likes of Kevin Espiritu
00:34:32
and Jacques in the garden and Jennifer McGinnis and a bunch of
00:34:34
other people. That online event is actually
00:34:37
continuing over the next couple of weekends.
00:34:39
I don't think Bailey has another session, but there are others
00:34:41
coming up that are pretty interesting.
00:34:43
I will leave a link to that in the episode description as well
00:34:46
and maybe they'll have a replay of Bailey session.
00:34:49
I will say Baileys book to me is less like a step by step how to
00:34:57
and more like a beautiful blog put into print with eye-catching
00:35:02
photos that explains her background and how she does
00:35:05
things in the garden and why she does them and not the sort of
00:35:10
why or how. The way that I explain it.
00:35:13
Bailey is less science, more practicality with a side of
00:35:18
anecdote. She feels her garden and wants
00:35:21
us to feel the garden in the way that she does and have it just
00:35:25
permeate our entire life. I appreciate that viewpoint
00:35:28
because it's not something that I do well.
00:35:32
She gives advice on things like planning walking paths and the
00:35:36
garden's location in relation to some exposure while we're
00:35:38
reminding us to stop and breathe and take it all in.
00:35:43
I highly recommend it, both the book and stopping to breathe.
00:35:47
Honestly, that's it for me this week.
00:35:49
I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Bailey.
00:35:51
Spring is inching closer, thank goodness.
00:35:54
So next week we're talking all about spring planted perennials
00:35:58
and bulbs. Yes, we are talking veggies and
00:36:01
flowers next week. So until next time, my gardening
00:36:04
friends keep on cultivating that dream garden and we'll talk
00:36:06
again soon. If you want more for my
00:36:08
conversation with Bailey, head to patreon.com/just Grow
00:36:12
Something to hear what didn't make it into today's show.