Tanya Denckla Cobb - Author of The Backyard Homestead Guide to Growing Organic Food: A Crop-by-Crop Reference for 62 Vegetables, Fruits, Nuts, and Herbs

A Tiny Homestead

Today I'm talking with Tanya about her accidental journey from fledgling homesteader to author of The Backyard Homestead Guide to Growing Organic Food: A Crop-by-Crop Reference for 62 Vegetables, Fruits, Nuts, and Herbs.

Also, trap crops, patience, and integrity.

Full disclosure, if you buy a copy through the above link, I receive a small commission.

00:00
This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. Today I'm talking with Tanya, the author of The Backyard Homestead Guide to Growing Organic Food. Good afternoon, Tanya. How are you? I'm doing great. Thank you. Yeah, tell me about yourself because I've done some homework and you have accomplished many and great things in your life. I'm sorry, I have to laugh.

00:29
I have had many lives in this life and so I've gone in many different directions. Yeah, so I've wandered all over the place and found a place that I love to be, you know, spiritually and mentally and all of the rest. And so, yeah, I mean, I started.

00:56
After college, I started in international labor rights and then relevant for this podcast and listeners is then I retired at an early age to go and the idea was we were setting up a self-sustaining homestead out in West Virginia. I was supposed to be in charge of managing a large organic farm.

01:25
I knew nothing at all about any of it. And in fact had killed my two peach trees in the backyard in DC and had, you know, had many, many disasters in the garden. And so I thought I really need to get my act together around this. And then, you know, that never really actually happened, but the story around this book is really quite.

01:56
quite unusual in that I didn't set out to write a book at all. I mean, that was not my goal. My goal was just simply to do a good job in managing this organic farm that we envision. And so I just started doing a lot of research, and this is in the days before Google, actually before much internet at all.

02:22
This is way back in the late 80s and when I started down this path. And so the book that's out today is really in some ways, you might even say it's like a classic because it's on its fourth life and it's been updated each time and some things changed and so this and retitled and so this is

02:52
book that is really one of my first babies. I mean, it was born in the late 80s for this homestead that never quite materialized, but basically threw me into sustainable agriculture. And I just...

03:13
You know, was surrounded by magazines and books and was so frustrated that I finally said, I've got to start organizing this material in a way that makes sense to me for what I can do. And I, you know, just felt like, oh my gosh, here's a great thing on pests, but there's nothing on how deep to put the seeds and here's something that's great on allies and companions, but there's nothing on how to harvest. And so it's like, I needed everything in the same place.

03:43
And I didn't know at the time what I was doing. I, today we might call it a kind of a database. You know, I mean, this is really, it feels like, you know, dinosaur time looking back. And so I went out to this, as part of my research, I was going to different farms and I went to this one Yupik organic farm outside of D.C. near Harper's Ferry.

04:12
And they had said, I had asked if I could come and pick their brains. And they said, yes, if you weed. And so I went with a girlfriend and we brought our gloves and we spent a beautiful morning, the entire morning weeding. And so finally midday, you know, we sort of like, you know, sort of slink up to them and like.

04:37
could we possibly get a minute of your time? And they looked at us and said, do you know in all these years of asking people to do that, nobody ever has, you're the first. And they said, nobody's ever actually weeded. And so you get as much time as you'd like, which was a riot. That's awesome. I know, I know it really wasn't, it changed my life because in...

05:03
talking with them and getting to know them, I ended up and they were asking, obviously, well, why do you care? What are you doing? And so I very scared, sort of tentatively shared what we might be aspiring to. And they said, oh my gosh, would you be willing to share what you have put together? And I said, well, yes, but it's...

05:32
It's like a lot. And they said, well, yeah, can you print it out? So this is again, the days of dot matrix printer, you can imagine it was like a box, you know, folded up. And so I did, I took the box out and left it with them. And about a week later, I got a call and they said, oh my gosh, Tanya, we wish we had had this 10 years ago. You would have saved us years of.

06:01
agony and I was like, what? And they said, would you, you need to publish. And I'm like, what?

06:12
And they were quite serious. They said, this is really important and helpful for other people. And I just, my mind kind of exploded. And I talked with my husband at that time and friends, and we sat around and talked about what the heck.

06:38
And then I started thinking, well, my grandparents, you know, ran a newspaper. My mom and dad had started a, started a small, um, uh, academic medieval and Renaissance press, uh, you know, at a university. And I thought, well, maybe it's in my blood. Uh, maybe I'm supposed to be a publisher. And so, um, I had just enough.

07:06
I guess lack of humility in that regard to give it a shot and got this thing called Dan Pointer's Bible to self-publishing before self-publishing was cool. And basically went through the checklist and self-published in 91 and sold out the first run of 5,000 in six months and then did another run. And after a year and a half or so decided, you know, I'm going to do this.

07:35
This is not in my plot. This is not what I meant to do. I love to write and I love to do other things, but this is not gonna be my career. And so I sold it to Story Publishing where who has had it ever since. And they have updated and renamed and we've worked on it.

07:58
three different times this last once they republished in 94 and then again in 2004 and now 20 years later they said let's update it. It is still going. It is needed out there. Let's do it. And so here it is. I'm very excited by this book. I'm so glad that you did it because

08:23
I finally had a chance after having this book in my house for three weeks, I finally had a chance to look at it this morning. That's how long it took me to get to the book I'm holding in my hands right now. And did it come out in hardcover or is it all paperbacks? It's all paperbacks. Okay. It's beautiful, number one. And I love that it has an index so you can cross reference. Yeah.

08:51
And I love that you basically preface it with anybody can grow a garden, really. And then there's all these things like how long germination is for basil or whatever it is you're putting in and what to do with it and pest control and stuff. I'm like, oh my God, I love this book. This is great. Yeah. I mean, that is, that was the goal. It's, is really.

09:19
Um, you know, in cell in, in basically story publishing, taking this over is we reached an agreement that the vision of everything being in one place would be retained and so that if you want to find it, you know, about Basil, everything's there from the allies and the companions and the pests, and then later in the book, you, you know, you can come through and find the pest and see.

09:48
you know, how do I know if this is the pest that's affecting the basil or the tomatoes? And you know, what can I grow basil for other than an herb? Well, it turns out it might be really good for stimulating growth and flavor as an ally. So yeah, all of, to me, it was just fascinating to learn about this stuff. And I'm so excited that you like what you see.

10:18
Oh, it's lovely. I'm very impressed because my husband and I have been growing a garden for over 20 years. And when we started, we had no idea what we were doing. We dug up our little tiny backyard and did not dig out the over 100-year-old rhubarb patch because my neighbor said, don't touch it. It's been here for that long. It'll be here for another hundred years. And I said, okay.

10:42
But we put in herbs and we put in tomatoes and we put in cucumbers and all the usual suspects for our backyard garden. And we did okay until the squash bug showed up. Then the nemesis of every backyard gardener everywhere is some kind of bug that shows up out of the blue and destroys your plants and you just want to give up.

11:05
Yeah, well, not only that, I mean, the reason why I killed my peach trees in DC is because my reaction was to panic and go out and get some, you know, big guns, right? And before I learned about organic and so really, this book is a result of my own journey and learning and understanding that we really, you know, that we need to begin with this question of what is our relationship?

11:36
with the other elements in our world? You know, are we, do we think of ourselves as interconnected or do we think of ourselves as, you know, the dominant power here and you must do as I say. And so for me, it really was coming to understand and this is the philosophy behind Organic is that we are in relationship with the earth and all of its elements.

12:05
and that our role is as a steward. And that one of the beauties of a garden that I learned along the way is that even though there are, I don't even know how many pests, but it's a hundred and some pests, I believe, 200 pests that we've got documented in this book is really only, every garden only has, only really ever gets three to five.

12:35
Right. And so if you come to understand, you know, what, what your, your particular microclimate and the plants that you're growing are susceptible to, and you can learn the organic methods, then you're going to continue to create a healthy environment for your future plants. And, and it's really all about feeding the soil. And, and that's one of the biggest lessons I had.

13:04
in going organic. I want to say the other thing, I've experimented with so much through the years, and I love that you picked up in this book that I'm trying to get across that really it's for anybody and anybody can do it. It's really actually not hard. It's actually in many ways easier

13:34
The message is you're really only gonna have three to five pests and that you can lose up to 20% of your foliage and not seriously, significantly impact the yields. Now, flower gardens, that might devastate you, but if really what you're caring about is tomatoes, because you're gonna put them up and make tomato sauce or whatever.

14:00
You know, you can afford to lose up to 20% of your, when I read that, oh my gosh, my, my mind exploded again going, then I don't have to panic. Right. I do not have to panic. And, and the other thing I want to say that I learned that is so interesting in organic is there are all kinds of what I would call mechanical remedies, organic, um, pest control has like three different, um,

14:30
approaches. One is the more mechanical, the other is the botanical, where there are sprays and substances derived from plants and trees like neem oil is well known by a lot of people. And then there's the third category of the biological where you might want to import

14:57
large scale organics a lot in something called integrated pest management. But for us home gardeners like you and me, just trying to get a good crop so we can make some tomato sauce or salsa or pickles or pickles. Absolutely. Yeah. I'm now making pickles by the way, you know, the pickles with a kick.

15:27
We don't, we're ideally using the botanical and the biological as little as possible. Like I really just don't ever use the biological and I only, I think the last time I used a botanical spray was maybe five years ago. But the mechanicals are really fabulous. For example, what that means is for like the squash bugs, you know,

15:56
There are a couple things. I have a little Dustbuster handheld vacuum and you can vacuum them up and dump them into a bucket with some soap in it and some oil and on top to create a layer that smothers them basically. You know, you can, I will typically go out

16:25
with gloves on and early morning, it's sort of like a zen in the garden where you're turning over every leaf and you're just smushing the eggs and trying to stay ahead of it. You know, doing that three times a week, I can generally stay ahead of them. So if I need to travel, that creates a problem, then the dust buster might be used. Yeah. And another thing might be...

16:51
you know, something like diatomaceous earth, which I consider to be a mechanical remedy in the sense that it's just, it's this powder that gets, that gets dusted over the crop. And, and it's basically doing some pretty intense stuff to the bugs because it's got these microscopic little sharp edges from, from river beds.

17:18
It basically cuts into the soft body skin. And then also because it's hydrophilic, it sort of causes them to blow up with water. And so it's such a... And it is totally non-toxic to your garden. So those are just like examples of...

17:44
the wonders of doing organic gardening that can be fun and easy and low cost and, you know, not a big deal. Yeah. I agree with everything you just said, and that's all stuff we had to learn. And thank God for the internet because we had it at our fingertips, which was really helpful. Yes.

18:14
He's known as the Barefoot Armor and talked with him about his take on organic. And he calls himself a worthless hippie, literally in the beginning of the interview. And I'm like, I don't think you're worthless. You've done an awful lot of good. And so he finally calmed down, settled into the interview. And I pushed him on organic, whether anything is truly organic anymore, because you can do everything you can do.

18:44
to practice organic things, but there's always going to be drift from other people's properties. And he talked for, I don't know, probably five minutes straight about his take. And he said, basically, we need to work with the plants, work with the earth and work with the bugs so that they all do what they're supposed to do. And I loved that.

19:14
We grow a huge garden. My husband grows a huge garden. I stare at it and think it's pretty. And then you get the word out. Yeah, I get the word out. He sells at the farmer's market. And people were asking him if we were an organic grower. And he would say no, but we do the best we can to use organic practices. We're not organic certified because it costs so much money to do it.

19:43
Everybody was satisfied with that answer. And so for anyone out there who's thinking about becoming a certified organic farm, and you can afford it, do it. Please. That's awesome. But for those of us who don't have deep pockets, the answer is no, but we're doing everything we can to do the organic practices in our growing.

20:09
Yeah, no question. And Mary, I love that you're saying this because one of the things that I tell people is that, you know, the word, some people think that the word was co-opted in 2002 when the National Organic Program went into play. And that, you know, it constrained that these national regulations that went into place that

20:39
anybody who is selling their stuff as organic to be certified, right? And that costs, as you just said. So, you know, that can, and they created a set of regulations that in some ways constrain the incredibly large vision of organic that is at the roots of organic gardening. And so there were lots of big fights over.

21:07
those regulations and there continue to be a big fight. But I love, I mean, what I tell people is exactly what you and your husband do is I say, talk to the farmer, they may not be able to afford the certification. And there are all kinds of other terms they can use, they can say sustainable, they can say natural, they can say no spray, they can say all kinds of things.

21:34
You know, beyond organic is a phrase, you know, that I think Joel Salatin started here in Virginia, because he was so fed up with what he said, you know, the regulations were calling organic. So he's like, I'm way beyond organic. So yeah, you are so, what you're saying is so important that people understand that they may be getting organic.

22:03
fabulous organic produce that is not certified and it's still just as great. Yeah, exactly. I have one little tiny story about basil that I'm going to share because most people don't know this about basil. You probably do. Well, maybe not. I love to learn. I am a basil fanatic. I love basil. I love to grow it. I love to smell it. I love to pick it. I love to cook with it. And we had been buying basil seedlings from

22:34
nurseries for years and like eight to ten years ago, three years in a row we bought basil and halfway through the season it got this powdery stuff on it and I didn't know what it was and it killed the plants. So I did some googling as we do now and it's called powdery mildew. Right. And it will kill the plants and it will ruin the dirt you grow the plants in for that for you to grow basil there again.

23:03
So we no longer buy basil seedlings from anywhere. We buy seed and that has pretty much eradicated any issues with powdery mildew. So if anybody out there is gonna grow basil, you might wanna get the seeds and just start them. They don't take long to germinate and they grow into beautiful plants that last the entire season. Yeah, I love what you're saying because...

23:30
A similar thing happened to me with powdery mildew with flocks is I grew tall, beautiful, gorgeous flocks here for like the first five years we were here at this property. And then I could no longer grow it. And it took someone else, you know, sharing with me, well, it was probably something like powdery mildew because it will live in the soil. You won't be able to do it again. Yeah.

23:58
But basil is like my, I want to say, yes, you can buy it commercially seedlings, as you say, but why would you want to when you can grow all kinds of basil that you can't get commercially, you know, like purple basil or Thai basil or lemon or cinnamon or.

24:26
And, you know, broadly basil and just some of the, you know, the Genovese, I think, is often available commercially. But just, I think, starting it from seed, as you say, so easy and so rewarding. Yeah. We were very happy to figure out what we were doing wrong. We weren't doing anything wrong. We were just not growing it from seed. So yeah. And then I got...

24:55
We had here, and I don't know if this was national or more here, but we had, I think it was a national issue where one of the big chains was selling tomatoes that was bringing disease into a garden, much like it wasn't, I think it was verticillium wilt, not the powdery mildew. And so...

25:22
It just was devastating for so many farmers who had gotten their tomatoes from this chain store. And yeah, but I remember that year because I'd started buying from seed and didn't have that problem. So another, you know, just to emphasize what you're saying. Yeah. And then I have a story about squash bugs that is very funny. Oh, good. I want to hear it.

25:50
Squash bugs are very stinky. They're a soldier bug. So if you smash them, they stink. And we had a cat named Honey. And she was the loveliest cat. And she loved to be on our front porch, especially who were sitting out on our front porch. And it was a three season porch. So, you know, it wasn't usable in the wintertime. And we're sitting out there one day and there was a squash bug on the screen of the window.

26:19
And of course, cats love bugs. They love to chase them. They love to catch them. They love to eat them. She caught this bug. It was a great big squash bug and she bit it. And she, I can't even tell you how ridiculous her reaction was. She dropped it after she chewed it like twice. And then she was taking her paws and trying to scrape her nose off her face. And then she started frothing at the mouth.

26:49
No! And I knew, I knew that she was probably not gonna die. It was just that they're stinky and they probably taste terrible. Yeah. And it was the funniest freaking thing I've ever seen in my life with a cat. And I didn't have a phone that had a video function on it back then. Wish I had. It would have gotten a million views on YouTube. It was so funny.

27:14
And I felt so bad for her. She was such a sweet kitty, but oh, she was miserable for another hour with this. Yeah, did she ever try to get another squash bug? She gave bugs a pretty wide berth for the rest of her life, any bug. Yeah, well, see, she learned. Oh my gosh. Yeah, they are pretty stinky things. And that's why I try to.

27:42
out in the garden, try to get them when there's just that symmetrical pattern of eggs on the backside of the leaf and smush them or get them when they're still in their soft body stage before they get hard and stinky. Uh huh. Yeah. They're just gross. They're gross. I do not appreciate them at all.

28:10
And then the other thing that I was going to say regarding working with nature instead of against it is when we lived at our old house, we had climbing roses that went up trellises in front of our garage. And then in front of those trellises was where our garden was. And the Japanese beetles showed up. Oh boy. And Japanese beetles love broadleaf.

28:38
plants. That's what they want to eat, but they will eat stuff in the garden. And so I saw something black on the rose leaves and I was like, what is that? And I went out and looked and I was like, oh no, they're going to eat our garden. And so we just kind of kept an eye on them. And we had a huge hedge of these climbing roses on both sides of the steps up to the garage. The Japanese beetles just kept eating the roses and they did not

29:09
So for the next five years after they showed up, the roses... You kept the roses. And you know, Mary, this is what in the book, you can find information on this as trap crops. So basically, your roses were what we would consider a trap crop. And I remember seeing...

29:33
the same kind of thing with one year I was experimenting. I'm always putting something new or trying something new. And so I was trying borage and oh my gosh, I finally understood why somebody had once told me trap crops are marvelous, but you've got to have a strong stomach because the entire, the plants were literally almost bending with the weight.

30:03
of the beetles because they just and but they were staying off of the blackberries. And so, so I finally understood a trap crop really is incredibly effective, but you've got to have a strong stomach, because it really works. Yeah, and you've got to be willing to lose that crop.

30:33
If you're going to do a trap crop, you need to psychologically put it in with that in mind and knowing that this is the proverbial sacrificial lamb in the interest of the broader health of the garden. Yeah. And the roses had been there for quite a while. They were really well established, so they kept coming back every spring. So they would bloom before.

31:02
the Japanese beetles actually found them again. So I got to enjoy that first flush of roses all over that trellis. And then Japanese beetles would come in and eat everything, but they would not eat the stuff that we could eat. So I was like, I think this is a great plan. This is working fantastically. Do you still have them? No, cause we moved.

31:26
So, and there has been one Japanese beetle in our garden in three and a half years. Ah! And my husband killed it and we have not seen one since. So we don't have any roses here. We don't have, well, we have apple trees, we have cherry trees, we have two peach trees that we're hoping will actually do something. Yeah. And they're not near the garden. So hopefully, even if the Japanese beetles do find our new place, they'll go to the...

31:54
the leaves on the apple trees and the peach trees and the cherry trees before they go to the actual garden. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, it's so interesting because I had never, honestly, even despite all of this is where I love to continue to learn, despite all of this work on allies and companions, and I know that Japanese beetles love roses, but I never thought, never had thought of roses.

32:23
as a trap crop and I just was given like eight, well it was nine rose bushes by somebody who was taking them out of these raised beds and it never occurred to me that I could use them as a trap crop in my vegetable garden. Well now you know. I know. And it took somebody who doesn't even like the garden to tell you about it. I know. It's a fabulous story. And this really goes back to what you were saying.

32:53
you know, about, about working with the garden and working with nature and saying, okay, let's give you something to eat. Right? So let's give you if you, if you are prevalent in this particular microclimate, which they are where I grow, you know, what can I do to make you happy so that you don't eat the things that I really want to keep? And that's the whole idea behind a trap crop.

33:21
Yeah, I didn't even know it was called a trap crop. So we both learned something great today. Yeah, awesome. I love it. I love talking to you and to everyone else I've talked to so far because I learned something new every single time. Well, I'll tell you one other thing about Japanese beetles that was shared with me by a viddieculture.

33:49
farmer, I guess, a winery, basically somebody who's growing a vineyard. I was just saying, how the heck do you deal with Japanese beetles in a no-spray vineyard? What the heck? The answer was, we are up and out very early. For those who do have Japanese beetles, you know that they are really...

34:18
like asleep in the morning hours when it's cool. They are not moving. They're sedentary. They're not flying off. And so what this farmer told me is, he said, we lay down these long tarps, we lay them down and we have a broom handle and we basically are tapping all of the grapevines

34:47
And guess what? They nicely fall off onto the tarp. And that's when that bucket of with water and a layer of oil on top, you don't need kerosene. In the olden days, it said you needed some kerosene in there with some oil. And I have found they suffocate just nicely with everyday olive or whatever kind of oil you're using. And you dump those beetles.

35:14
into a bucket and they suffocate and it is a completely, you know, harmless to the rest of the garden. Yeah, so that's a really, you know, low-key, easy thing to do. You can put a sheet down, put an old sheet down, put newspaper down and just knock the babies off when they're, you know, when they're cold in the morning. When they're when they're napping, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

35:42
Well, that'll help some people, I'm sure. I'm hoping it helped me. Yeah. I.

35:52
Gardening is is Okay, I don't love it. My husband is obsessed with gardening. I've talked about this Ridiculously long on a lot of these episodes. He loves it. He adores it. I used to like it now I'm not as into it, but it's how he de-stresses he goes out. He gets his hands in the dirt He he prunes the tomato plants when they're ready to be pruned. He harvests he sells he loves it and

36:20
He'll come in and say, there's a bug that I've never seen in the garden. And I'm like, what's it look like? And he brings out his phone and shows me the picture he took, of course. And we had potato bugs show up like two summers ago and tomato bug. I'm sorry, not tomato. Potato bugs are a real problem and a really hassle. And he tried for like a week to just pick them off.

36:49
And he said, I can't keep up with it. He said, they're going to destroy all the rest of the potato plants. I said, honey, I said, the only thing I can tell you is what my dad did. And you're not going to like it. And he said, what? And I said, he used seven's dust, one, one coat of it and they were gone. He said, but I don't want to do that because that's bad. And I said, um, I'm still alive and I ate the potatoes from the potato plants that he seven dusted.

37:19
I said, it's not great, but it's a choice between losing the 20 potato plants. Oh my Lord. Or using seven dust. I said, it's up to you, but that's what he did and it worked. Wow. So he went and got some seven dust and he did one shake of that on those spots where those bugs were and they were dead and gone the next day. Well, yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. Finish.

37:47
and then it rained and washed all the powder away. So I don't know if it was a bad thing or a good thing, but we ended up with good potatoes. So. Well, I think what you're talking about is a really important choice that we have to make. And one of the things that organic growers talk about is that the focus is not on the plants per se, but the focus is really on healthy soils.

38:17
and making sure that... So soils are, some people call themselves, you know, like they call it dirt. It's not dirt. Dirt is something that's grimy and stuck on your clothes, right, but a soil is alive and it's a thriving, you know, micro ecological system. And...

38:46
and it is full of microscopic and macroscopic types of animals. And, you know, from the mycorrhizal fungi to earthworms and more, everything in between. And so, so one of the things when you're thinking about, well, what the heck am I going to do about these, these potato beetles? You know, you have to think, well, what, what is

39:17
What are my principles? What are my basic principles? And if the basic principle is that I wanna make sure that I'm protecting the soil, then what do I do? And so that's what, because something like seven and others actually might be persisting in the soil. That's the difference between an organic remedy and one that is not. An organic remedy does not persist in the soil over time, whereas an organic remedy will not persist.

39:47
It's biodegradable, et cetera. And organic sort of comes, the word relates to living organisms. It relates like organic chemistry, relates to carbon compounds and living beings. And so if we think about that, well, is the seven or whatever I'm gonna put on it gonna harm the soil? Then we might wanna say, well,

40:15
what else could I do? I mean, for potato beetles, I'll just say that, you know, they are, they are pernicious. They're awful. And, um, you know, there are supposed to be organic remedies. Um, there's a new thing that's, that's a fairly new thing that's out that I have not tried. Um, but is supposed to be really good. And that's a thing called spin of sad.

40:44
I may not be pronouncing it right, spinosad. But it is a naturally occurring substance that's made by soil bacterium and it is toxic to the Colorado potato beetle or the potato beetle as we call it and a host of other insects. And then there's a thing, you know, what I was talking about is the diatomaceous earth. If you can catch them before they get big.

41:13
Like when they're still just crawling around in these soft bodies and cover them with the diatomaceous earth, that is something that can be done for the potato beetle. But I'll tell you one thing, that I actually stopped growing potatoes because I just couldn't take it. And I made that decision. But I did find out just...

41:41
Two years ago, that timing is, and I had read about this, but I had never tried to do it. But some things were happening in my life that meant I was putting in a crazy late garden. Like for me, typically, you know, everything will be last frost is mid May. So imagine putting in a garden late June.

42:10
crazy late and I thought half of this stuff will never mature and what I learned was I had no squash bugs because it was after the timing was so much later and I had read about this and I thought this is fascinating so then I did it again last year and guess what I had no squash bugs. And so I'm wondering it's just a question I haven't experimented but I'm wondering.

42:38
Like if you could time the planting of the potatoes to be later and maybe grow a shorter season potato, could you avoid the potato bugs? I don't know. I don't know either. And I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna convince him to do it this year because he's chomping at the bit right now to start planting. And in Minnesota, we're not gonna be planting for another month and a half. Yeah. But.

43:07
What he did last year is once the potatoes actually sprouted and got to be about three inches tall, the stems, he just sprayed them with it like Codoneme oil from the very beginning. And he did that like every other day and he didn't have any potato bugs. Right, exactly. And neem is called a botanical control and it will biodegrade.

43:36
And it comes from the name tree. Yeah, that sounds right. That sounds like a beautiful, a beautiful way to go. It takes vigilance. You know, he's got to get it on a calendar. Yeah. Yeah, well, it broke his heart to use that sevens dust two summers ago. He was just so bummed out. He's like, I ruined my garden. I said, didn't ruin your garden. It's going to be okay.

44:04
He's like, I went against my principles. And I'm like, yes, yes, you did. And sometimes we have to do that to get to the thing that you want, which was potatoes. I said, we'll figure it out. We'll find a better way. I promise. And we did. So it's all good now. I think, you know, what I love about what you're saying is that it sort of follows this thing as of everything in moderation. And so...

44:31
I'm not, I am sure there are some organic growers that would not agree with what I'm about to say. That's okay. But you know, like I feel if you're doing something, like if he sprayed heavily, you know, like this entire field full of seven, you know, like that might be one thing, but you know, it's targeted towards a particular crop.

45:00
It was a one-time deal. There is, if your soil is healthy, my philosophy, which could be proven wrong, but my philosophy is just like humans, I mean, humans, we get sick and we might need penicillin. We know that by taking penicillin, we are

45:25
slowly creating many penicillin resistant varieties of bacteria, right? So, but we may need it. And, and, and the damage in doing that is that we're contributing towards these penicillin resistant bugs. But there are times when you need it and then you recover and you're building your immunity. So ideally what we learned from that is we need more sleep.

45:54
We need to eat better. We need to maybe mask in these days. And we learn more about hand washing, about how do we protect ourselves? Well, the same kind of principle, I think, applies in the garden is there might be times when you need to do something. And ideally, you know, like you don't want to be taking penicillin every day. No. And every year, you know, like for weeks on end.

46:21
Same thing in a garden, like if in our, I'm going to say it, in our industrial farms, one of the harms that we have done to massive tracks of land is we have found that repetitive, it's the repeated use of pesticides, herbicides over many, many years that has basically contributed to what I would call

46:50
open field hydroponics, meaning there's nothing alive left in the soil and that you have to then feed your, you're like, you've got your soil on this ivy drip, you know, as you've got to give the soil everything it needs because there's nothing living in it anymore that is contributing to its health and wellbeing. And that is the practice that is

47:20
really harmful long term, but a one-time use I have to say I'm, you know, I, I, I, as I said, some might disagree with me, but I think as long as it's not like this repetitive long time practice, you should be okay. Yeah. I felt so bad for him. He was so sad about it. And I was so proud of him for being so sad about it. Yeah.

47:50
Well, I think it sounds like your husband really is connected to what he's doing, that he really cares about the ecosystem of his garden and the life that he is supporting in that soil and in the plants. And so I very much resonate with him. I understand that. Yeah, no, he's a lovely man.

48:13
His garden is terribly important to him. He will do it until he is not physically capable of doing it anymore. Yeah, I would probably be like that myself. Uh-huh, yep. Okay, well, Tanya, I don't wanna take up too much more of your time, because we're at 48 minutes, and I try to keep these to half an hour, but I knew we'd run long, because I knew we would be sharing stories about growing things. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me, and I will put your book.

48:43
title in the description for the episode when it comes out and I don't know the link to the Amazon page and if you have anything else you want me to link just let me know. Okay, I'll do that and Mary thank you so much. It's been a real honor to be with you and I've enjoyed it immensely. I'm so glad. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Have a great day. Thank you.