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Planthropology
Planthropology
114. Food Communities, Growing Together, and No-bots w/ Dr. Jessica Tullar Caroom
Dr. Jessica Tullar Caroom returns to the podcast to discuss the evolution of her community food systems work and the importance of building meaningful connections through growing and sharing food.
• Growing Together Texas supports gardeners, growers, and cooks as three interconnected parts of a healthy food ecosystem
• Creating an online farmers market (LBK Grown) that helps local producers collaborate rather than compete
• Offering subscription produce boxes with seasonal vegetables and recipe guides that consistently sell out
• Starting small is key to garden success whether at home or in community settings
• Approaching plant growing by difficulty level - begin with herbs (easiest), then leafy greens, roots, and finally tomatoes/peppers
• Community gatherings like "Garden Guardians" provide vital support and knowledge sharing among garden leaders
• Finding meaning in the process of gardening and community building, not just in the harvest
• Building resilient local food systems by diversifying beyond the conventional market
Join Jessica's Garden Guardians events and learn more about subscribing to local produce boxes at growingtogetherTX.com or follow @GrowingTogetherTX on Facebook and Instagram.
As always, thanks so much for listening! Subscribe, rate, and review Planthropology on your favorite podcast app. It helps the show keep growing and reaching more people! As a bonus, if you review Planthropology on Apple Podcasts or Podchaser and send me a screenshot of it, I'll send you an awesome sticker pack!
Planthropology is written, hosted, and produced by Vikram Baliga. Our theme song is "If You Want to Love Me, Babe, by the talented and award-winning composer, Nick Scout.
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What is up? Plant people it's time once more for the Plantthropology Podcast, the show where we dive into the lives and careers of some very cool plant people to figure out why they do what they do and what keeps them coming back for more. I'm Vikram Baliga, your host and your humble guide in this journey through the sciences and, as always, my friends. I'm so excited to be with you today, and one of the reasons I'm so excited is I get to talk to an old friend of the show, dr Jessica Tuller-Caroom, and if you're a longtime listener, if you're one of the OGs, as it were, you may remember that way back in March of 2020, oh, yes, that March of that 2020, you know the one. You remember it, maybe fondly, probably not.
Speaker 1:Jessica came on to talk about her community garden efforts, to talk about what do we do, what do we do in the midst of a global shutdown and food shortages and all of those things and some themes that we're kind of dealing with today in some ways, and so Jessica and I, community building and the food production everything else that goes into a healthy food economy is as important or more important now than it has ever been, as it has ever been, and this is just such a fun conversation. We get shockingly philosophical and introspective through the whole thing and maybe not shockingly. I think that actually lends itself well to the space of those things today through food efforts, through community gardens, through school gardens, through working with local producers, and has just such a cool story. So, without belaboring it anymore, grab a carrot or your favorite piece of garden produce, send a text to your community garden friends and your neighbors and get ready for episode 114 of the Plantthropology Podcast with Dr Jessica Tuller-Caroom. Jessica, welcome back Thanks.
Speaker 2:Thanks, Vikram, for having me.
Speaker 1:It's been five years.
Speaker 2:That is a little shocking.
Speaker 1:Does that upset you too?
Speaker 2:I may have told someone about recording this and said oh yeah, I talked to him five years ago, in 2000.
Speaker 1:That's not. It's not OK.
Speaker 2:And she said that's 25 years.
Speaker 1:And I said oh, I know that I know I'm in 2020.
Speaker 2:I'm in 20. Just kidding, sorry, that's how old I am.
Speaker 1:Well for one. From my perspective, the fact that people are still listening to this podcast five years later is a little bit bonkers for me. Yeah. Good job, thank you. Thank you, I'm giving myself a sticker, but the fact that it feels like we blinked and we went through a whole lot while we blinked.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because we recorded. I think we recorded in March of 2020.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which was right after it was right as it was shut down. I remember, because I remember the themes around that were about like, what do we do, how do we do this? And, like my thought, my thinking was very insular and closed Finding the joy then, and now it's. We're not all at home at all, but there is some work to finding the joy again, so that's okay. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's some rhythms and themes in our life that are circling back, circling back, yeah, for sure. In terms of food and like a lot of things, a lot of things.
Speaker 1:Yes, and so that's one of the reasons that I wanted to have you on today and we'll get into this as we go. But talking, I think this season is largely going to be built around community. How do we build community in food practice and just in general, and that's something that you do very well. I want to talk about, like the, your new things that you've started since then and what you've learned through that process and how people that want to do similar things can start it. But first, why don't you just quickly reintroduce yourself, tell us about you and where you come from, all that stuff?
Speaker 2:Okay, so I am born and raised in Texas. I've lived all over Texas and my husband's work brought us to West Texas. If you'd asked me years ago, I would not, would have predicted that we would be here. And here we are and I have always. I didn't even realize through line of growing something. I have always. I didn't even realize through line of growing something. It wasn't something I was necessarily. I never I'm not trained in horticulture. My undergraduate was in biology. My graduate work was in public health. I have a PhD in epidemiology and I was doing population health and occupational health, interested in those kinds of areas, and my husband had a medical, traumatic medical situation that luckily resolved and he had that in 2014.
Speaker 2:And yeah, and after that I just couldn't. My work in public health research, I don't know, it was just much. It wasn't as meaningful to me, which is kind of funny. Actually, my dissertation was on meaningful work. My title of my dissertation was around a program called Sacred Vocation, anyway. So I did all that, studying about meaningful work and talking about meaningful work and getting meaningful new work, and then I was doing my stuff which I guess didn't realize at the time, I wasn't finding very meaningful, and so it's kind of funny, right, yeah, anyway, and so and I was like I don't know, I want to do something different. I'm going to go part time and I'm going to start a garden at my kid's school and I'd been growing in my backyard but I kind of wanted to share that with others and do something together. It's a whole other animal to think about growing in community, to think about teaching someone, to think about having grace for each other, learning from each other. That's like a. I mean you have to be in the right headspace.
Speaker 1:Sure, oh yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:To do any of that Versus you in your backyard. Make all my own decisions. This is how I want to do it, whatever. So I started to garden at my kid's school. It's a private school. I basically became the best volunteer ever and was there all the time and I loved it. I was happy. Maybe it wasn't balanced, but I was definitely getting a lot of meaning out of it and I learned a lot. I learned a lot, a lot, a lot. So that was really great. I had a lot of support from other parents and teachers and staff and that was great. And on that process I met you and was talking about starting gardens and you said whatever you do, start small, and I tried to bring that back, but my version of small is perhaps not what's relative.
Speaker 1:It's all relative right, not what's relative.
Speaker 2:It's all relative right. So I'll remind everyone that's lesson number one start small, but at any rate, I got to a point especially around 2020, where I was wondering I've done this great work at this one school I'd been working on, I'd already been making connections with other school and community gardeners. How do other people do this? I'm not from here. Teach me what in the? What am I doing?
Speaker 1:wrong.
Speaker 2:What do you grow here? Because I was trying to figure things out with Instagram and Googling things and watching YouTube and whatever, and so I realized around 2019, 2020, that I needed to start a nonprofit that supported school and community gardens, because there wasn't anything here for our area for this, for this kind of work, and so that's kind of what led me to here. So it's a kind of windy road from public health but I like to say it's public health research to public health practice yeah because my meaning ultimately I'm not.
Speaker 2:I'm learning about the flowers and native plants and whatever else, but honestly, my ultimate like motivation motivator from all this was eating more plants.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:How to eat more plants and doing it in an edible way edible landscaping, whatever that is and so, yeah, that was a public health practice side.
Speaker 1:That's an interesting thought too, because I think, especially today in general, we have to, I think, contextualize the work we do differently in some ways right, whether we're in the sciences or whether we're in a strictly basic research field or an applied research field. Everything is currently in flux.
Speaker 2:Yes, for many reasons. So many reasons, so many reasons yeah.
Speaker 1:And being able to sort of like redefine value in your work is important. Yeah, and I think, as people stress out which I think a lot of us are right there's a lot of anxiety of what am I going to do? What if I lose my job? Being able to recontextualize is really important and that's a learned skill, maybe. Maybe that comes with maturity, maybe that comes with experience, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Uncertainty is high right now. I think I heard something recently that like there's like somebody has developed a measure of uncertainty and it's like its highest level.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's depressing. I don't want to Sorry there was a measurement, someone measured it.
Speaker 2:I know us nerdy nerds, so so yeah, and I think, having re, re reminding ourselves why, why do I do what I do, can I find another way to do that If this changes?
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And, as a nonprofit person, we do that all the time. We figure out another way. Okay, that's not going to work anymore, let's try something else. What was? Why are we doing this? Oh, right, to get people to eat more plants. Okay, how do we do that again?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, Keeping the main, I guess, staying mission focused right, Keeping the big picture. One of my colleagues said the mission doesn't change the things that we are trying to accomplish with our students, with our communities. It doesn't change. We may have to approach them differently. We may have to approach them differently.
Speaker 2:We may have to talk about them differently, but our goals don't change Absolutely, absolutely, and we can still have those goals. There can be lots of changes and we can still have our same goals.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that doesn't stop.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I like that.
Speaker 1:So okay, in the last five years then, as I guess a response to some of these things that you were interested in that, you found, I guess, a passion in or some meaning in potentially what's come out of that, because you've started a whole lot of new things, you do a lot of things.
Speaker 2:Some would say too many, but not me. No, I'm kidding. The nonprofit Growing Together Texas has three focuses gardeners, growers and cooks. I see these to be interrelated. I see them to be. If you imagine a three-legged stool, you need all three for that thing. So gardeners need cooks to be able to cook there. If it's not themselves, someone else cook their vegetables. They also need growers, I would argue, because I think that we can learn from each other.
Speaker 2:You can learn from growers. If you go to Farmish Market, ask them questions, you can learn what is it, what is the variety you're planting that looks so good, because my stuff looks like crap. So I mean, like those are great questions to ask. I've asked, I've learned about, like, how do you get these stupid carrots to germinate? Oh, you have a seed mat on top. Oh, no wonder. Okay, now I'm figuring out what you do that helps keep your moisture consistent so that you can then have that germination, consistent germination for carrots. So, like those kinds of things you learn by asking. And who better to ask than someone that's doing it hopefully for their livelihood? I mean, they're doing it on a massive scale. Not everything's going to work, but it's a great, that's a great source. So and then growers need cooks, because who is going to eat their food unless we know how to cook it? It does us no good to grow a field of turnips if nobody knows how they like turnips Right.
Speaker 1:I don't know how I like turnips.
Speaker 2:I have ideas so. So, yeah, I see them as all interrelated and feeding into a larger piece about food access, and a lot of my work is honestly about food access and I, while I'm interested in, like I said, pretty gardens and pretty things and all the things, ultimately it's about. It's about food and hopefully nutritious food.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so that led you to.
Speaker 2:so did that lead you first, I guess, to growing together, texas, or so I yeah, I wanted a nonprofit that supported that supported school and community gardens, so that was the okay. I wanted a nonprofit that supported school and community gardens, so that was the okay. I'm going to do Growing Together, texas. I also wanted to support growers, so that's where I came up with this like whatever my like trilogy gardeners, growers and cooks. And so to do that, some of the programs that we've done things have evolved over time, so I may have started out one time like like for cooks, for a really focused project for cooks. I used to do during actually 2021, very early on. I did these meal bags and it was an idea, kind of like Green Chef is a thing I used a while ago, but people have like meal prep companies that bring it to your door.
Speaker 2:And I figured if I could use that and that's helpful, surely everyone could use this. And so we sold, like I don't know, 12, 15 bags, very small amount, not like a. This isn't a large thing, but it was like, okay, I can find enough produce for this many, and then I would buy also like a box of pasta or whatever else to round out the recipe. And $5 of your bag that you bought went towards a bag for someone in need. And so then I did a version for a bag of someone in need because it wouldn't be the exact same time. I had to kind of like do those funds and then do the next one, and we paired that with coming out to a community garden and also hopefully like harvesting, some kind of trying to connect further in that way.
Speaker 2:Those I no longer do. Those meal bags, I know people loved them. My customers are like, well, we missed the meal bags. Yeah, it's a lot of work and me going around to multiple grocery stores buying like eight boxes of pasta here and four boxes of pasta there, it's kind of nonsense. And yes, I could order them online or whatever else. That would require planning. I was not that planful.
Speaker 1:No, it's a lot of work. Anything like that is a lot of work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so what I started to do instead? The last two years it's evolved into a subscription box and so we offer that. So my support of growers has evolved and I got a grant to start an online farmer's market and that online farmer's market is called LBK Grown, so you can type in lbkgrowncom, and at this one moment we are not open, but hopefully, maybe by the time this releases we will be live again. There's not enough produce in the winter, winter months, it's really hard to have enough produce to be able to open up. So, and there's also I feel like I joke, it's like that ground equipment where it's in a circle.
Speaker 1:They probably take them out because they're super dangerous. No, not a merry-go-round.
Speaker 2:The kind that you like if you're on it and someone's like running.
Speaker 1:Oh, you like, hold on for dear life. Yes, for dear life. Yes, right.
Speaker 2:Yes, and you're like jumping in and people probably I'm sure there's many injuries off this thing there's got to bring to us. So I'm trying not to do that. I'm trying to have enough that orders would be big enough that it would make sense for people to collaborate and come together and bring their order together. So, at any rate, one of the things we added on to this online farmer's market was a subscription program, just like a magazine subscription, and so you would order for 10 weeks at a time, eight weeks at a time, and you would get a box of vegetables we have priced box priced at $25, and then a box priced at 30 that has no chemical produce. That's what we're calling it. None of our farmers are organically certified. That's like a whole conversation, so I won't get into all the details, but that's a whole thing. And so our farmers have agreed to a terminology they call chemical-free, which involves no only organic certified chemicals. According to the USDA right.
Speaker 2:If you have to use but little as possible.
Speaker 1:Right sure.
Speaker 2:And so those are the inputs. Okay, and so that was. A request from our customers was to create a chemical-free option, and so we've done that. I have to charge a little bit more because those things often cost more number one and I need to be able to have enough room in the box to still kind of make it worth people's while but, we have sold out the box every time I never I.
Speaker 2:I have more people. I think I could sell 100 boxes and I don't have 100 shares of radishes every week kind of thing, so I can't do that. I've had lots of compliments on what we put in the box. We always have a range of things. I'm not going to put five heads of lettuce in it and that takes some nuance there.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:That takes some decision making and sometimes some creative thinking around. What do you have? What could we do to round this out? And then I have two recipes in the box. I'm no longer doing any extras of pasta or tortillas or whatever, it's just the produce, but I'll give you an idea. So if I put turnips in the box, I have a recipe for turnips. If I put a spaghetti squash, I had a recipe card that had a QR code you could scan. That would show you a video not my video I've got time to make that but a video of someone's video of how to cut a spaghetti squash.
Speaker 2:Also, people have made these things. I'm just making it that much easier so you can just boop all right, cool, that's how you cut it Done and our customers have loved it and they've really been very appreciative. I almost feel guilty because, like I said, I have more people interested than I have produce, and so I literally have friends who are like every time you send me a note, it's already sold out by the time I look.
Speaker 1:I'm like I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:I disappointed you once again.
Speaker 1:That's a good problem to have. It's a good problem to have.
Speaker 2:It is, it is.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think so on like the community business side that should be showing people growers, producers. Yes, that there's room in the market. Yes, I think people have this weird idea around here that oh, you can't grow food here.
Speaker 2:Oh right For sure.
Speaker 1:There's also the idea that people don't want fresh produce here Absolutely, which is a? Weird concept to me. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2:I disagree and I have these conversations with my growers, with our community. Anytime I have something about that, I'm like, yeah, those people aren't our people, I'm not worried about it. Yeah, we're going to keep talking about what we do. We're going to keep and guess what? It's fine.
Speaker 2:We're selling as much as, and nobody's upset about the price, nobody's upset about the. They're upset they can't get in. So that's that's that speaks to the market, that speaks to the to the demand is absolutely there and it shows. I think that's what had been one of the revelations for my growers. I luckily have a fantastic farmer advisory board.
Speaker 2:I have four farmers that I bring decisions to. I'm like okay, what are we going to charge for X, Y, Z? What are we going to do about this? How many weeks do you want? Whatever, it is okay. Those conversations are with farmers. It's not Jessica Brando Gardner making these decisions, and I've learned so much from them, and one of the things that they've learned from each other is the trust in each other that there is more demand in the market than they could ever meet, and so they're actually better together. They've actually gotten to a point where they're specializing more. So it's like you're really good at growing. I'm going to let you do that, I'm not going to do that. It doesn't make any sense for me, and so that is the mark of like. We have ratcheted up a food system where people are trusting each other to do some of those things.
Speaker 1:And I think you use that word exactly right. What you're doing is building a food system.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And a lot of times. I think you have hit on a very key component of, I think, what we'll discuss a lot of the rest of the episode, and what one of the big challenges is is finding how these pieces fit together.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, because I think a lot of these local and I've been doing this a long time- here too. We've worked together on this for I mean more than 10 years at this point More than a decade, yeah. And what we see over and over in these local food efforts is kind of what you're talking about, that everyone's like oh, I have to grow all the things because I need to take all the things to the farmer's market and I need to compete with Bobby over here, and so we get nine people growing tomatoes and lettuce and whatever right, whatever it is.
Speaker 1:Instead of saying you know what I really hate growing tomatoes.
Speaker 2:I hate picking okra yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're itching for days.
Speaker 2:I'd prefer not do okra ever again. If I could not do okra, exactly Great.
Speaker 1:But somebody else is really good at it, yes, and so I think finding these pieces and the ways that all these like gears turn together to make a machine that actually runs is super important. And that is I hear this from people all the time Like I've worked in again the food space for quite a while, the food production, local food production space for a while is that, oh, these systems don't work, they can't work together, they can't like there's. I hear it, I've heard it at all levels. I was in a meeting in DC about eight years ago for this like southern region food production thing and I had like eight people say that it doesn production thing and I had like eight people say that it doesn't work.
Speaker 2:Okay, but it has to work. So here's the thing the existing system doesn't work, so either build a new system or fix it Like that's. I mean, I talk about this when I'm dealing with any new project or any whatever. There's certain people in our lives. I call them no bots.
Speaker 1:I like that.
Speaker 2:You just once, and once you have that term, I don't know it helps me. I'm like oh hi, you're a no bot, that's definitely good. Good. So like you can, I mean it does not matter what I say to you, because you're uninterested in finding a solution. I either need to go around you, I need to go above you, but we're like that, and then not wasting my time.
Speaker 1:Who's got time? Nobody's got time for that I'm done.
Speaker 2:So yeah, once I figure out oh you're a no bot, oh it's like it's freeing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think, I think, being honest, that and that's really an interesting thought too that we have to be honest about the systems in which we work.
Speaker 2:Some of them don't work.
Speaker 1:Some of them don't work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but what's the alternative I'm going to have? We have growers in our system and we all know this. Okay, the age of the average age of farmer is super high. There's not as much food being produced in the U? S I'm not stating new knowledge so how do you get there? I would argue that if you already have someone growing something on a small scale, it's a lot easier for me to hopefully come alongside them. There is demand out there. They're doing all the things hopefully help meet a little bit more of that demand and help them grow bigger in a safe and sustainable way. Let's all take care of our employees. Let's do this in a way that protects the soil. I'm in no way sacrificing that. There's reasons why we have those friction points, but that doesn't mean we can't envision a new way.
Speaker 1:Right, absolutely so the pieces of, I guess, your overall. I'm going to use the word brand yeah, we had a conversation about this not long ago. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the pieces of your overall brand. I'm going to use the word brand. We had a conversation about this not long ago. Oh my gosh, yeah the pieces of your overall brand. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So you have Growing Together Texas, which is, I guess, the collaborative piece between the farmers, or is that more school and community gardens? Yes or yes, both, yes, both. All of the above yes.
Speaker 2:So gardeners, growers and cooks, and then under growers is where I have LBK Grown. Yes and for now LBK Grown is a community business run by the nonprofit. It is a nonprofit itself because if I were first of all, I'm losing money. If I were to make money, it would be reinvested anyway. So whatever. But eventually I do envision that to be something I spin off and it becomes a farmer owned a farmer co-op owned whatever situation. But right now it's not something a farmer could take on because it's a loss.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, and so like either it doesn't happen at all.
Speaker 1:Yeah right.
Speaker 2:Or it happens and we invest in the system to hopefully get us somewhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah, building infrastructure for sure, Right, I like that a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's really interesting and I think that the nonprofit space is not for the faint of heart just in general, yeah. It's a challenge at the best of times and in the best of circumstances.
Speaker 1:Yes yes, but I think that we've seen the need for those kinds of efforts in our space, right In our societies. In general, yeah, but especially in the food space, because there's a lot that's not working about with, again, our traditional food system and this is not a and I don't want people to think that this is intended to be a knock against conventional markets because we need them. They're integral to our way of life.
Speaker 2:Going back to. We are not open right now for the online farmer's market. So, yeah, I'm buying my carrots at Costco this week, like that's what it is, because it's where they are. So, yeah, so we need our conventional growers. Maybe it looks different, maybe I would like it to look different, but I think I'm not saying that I want to exit that completely.
Speaker 1:No, it's just a different one a diversification of the market.
Speaker 1:I think what we've seen in 2020, for sure, yeah, for sure, yeah, and now again, for again a lot of reasons is that it's as big as the system is, it's not resilient and it's fragile, right, and we've got food rotting in fields and places. We have things that are grown and can't be harvested. We've got we're going into a La Nina year, so we're going to have water shortages across the country, especially through the South and the West, where all of our produce is grown.
Speaker 2:For sure.
Speaker 1:Not all. Most of our produce is grown and so we have to think about okay, we have this big system, but how do we also regionalize it a little bit to add resilience to the ecosystem, the food ecosystem, right?
Speaker 2:I heard someone say we have built networks. We've built for efficiency and that served a purpose, but, like you said, our network is not resilient and now we really need as many connections as possible, more of a web, because that's going to be strengthened when something hits it and so it's a nice I don't know. It helped me think about like I don't have to be thinking about the most efficient way. If I build a connection, there's still something my online farmer's market so it's primarily aimed at bigger orders, so restaurants or even those in food service, like we had some schools ordering this year thanks to some funding, so that's great.
Speaker 2:Some rural school districts and I was joking, I was talking about my farmers earlier today and I was like you cannot understate the value of being able to go online, click a bunch of things, put it in your cart and be able to, like, purchase it that way. That doesn't mean that I'm that I don't want someone to have a phone call and say, hey, how are those things looking, or do you have two more pounds? I know you listed this many. Absolutely I want both. And because those connections, that community, that I mean that's how we continue to grow and build, and so it doesn't take the place. And I mean that's how we continue to grow and build, for sure, and so it doesn't take the place and in no ways it's coming alongside if that makes any sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, yeah, absolutely, yeah, well, and I think that leads us well into our next topic of conversation. I want to take a quick break and talk to the people about whatever things I say during the mid-roll and then we'll come back, and I want to talk really about community, community building. For the back half of this, okay, great, we'll come right back. Well, hey there, welcome to the mid-roll. How are you doing? How are your houseplants? Tell them I said hi. Especially if you have a fiddle leaf fig, they get like real lonely sometimes and all of their leaves fall off. If you want more information about that, go back to the Q&A episode from last time. But thank you so much for you, thanks to the Texas Tech Department of Plant and Soil Science for all of the support, thanks to the Davis College of Agricultural Science and Natural Resources as well, but mostly thank you the listener. I have done this for again, as we were talking about in this episode more than five years, and some of you have been with me since the very beginning, and that means the world to me. If you want to support Plantthropology, the best thing you can do is tell a friend about it. Find someone who loves plants or who you think should love plants, and tell them hey, give it a listen, send them your favorite episode, get them started right. If you want to support the show in other ways, you can do so financially. You can go to buymeacoffeecom slash plantthropology and for the price of coffee you can buy me coffee and hosting fees and other stuff as well, but mostly coffee. That is the important thing here. You can also leave a rating and review for Plantthropology anywhere that you can Apple Podcasts, podchaser, spotify, anywhere else. Also, go follow on social media. Plantthropology is all over the place. It's on the Facebook machine, instagram, is that all? You can also find me all over social media as the plant prof and the tour related, and I do pretty much everything on both accounts. But follow on social media. Leave a comment. Let me know what you think.
Speaker 1:If you want to send me an email about something you've heard on the show, or with advice or critiques or whatever episode ideas, whatever it is, shoot me an email at planthropologypod at gmailcom. I would love to hear from you. Also, what would mean the world to me is if you could share clips. Tell me what your favorite parts of episodes. What do you really enjoy about the show? Those things just make me feel warm and fuzzy inside, but it also helps me know what to focus on.
Speaker 1:As far as Jessica's information, you'll hear a lot more in the second part of the episode, but she's got some great events coming up, from Garden Guardians to grower gatherings and all kinds of other things, and so I'll have dates for that. If you're in the Lubbock Texas area and are interested in these food systems we discussed and you want to be a part of it, come, join up, follow her on social media. But, generally speaking, just build community. If you want to know what you can really do for me, just build community, just be in community. It's really important. Okay, time for the second half. Thanks, bye-bye. Okay, well, we are back. So a couple of things I want to discuss. One I want to talk about some of the actual garden efforts that you're a part of, that you've built over time or that have been built over time. I think I give you a lot of credit.
Speaker 2:I appreciate that. But you're absolutely right, there was already interest in community gardens, there was already interest in school gardens and I definitely hope that I have helped to make Lubbock more green, like more growing spaces. I hope I've supported that. I know I have I shouldn't say I hope. I know I've supported that. But also this couldn't be done by just me. In fact, that's my pinch point now, honestly, is trying to figure out how, where do I hire? Whether that's a person that's going to run a community garden workday, whether that's a person that's going to go provide some maintenance at a school garden.
Speaker 2:So that's been in the last year or so. It's been like trying, like, oh right, I should be, I can. Actually I don't have to be at every single workday and in fact it's probably better for the system if I pay someone else to do that, because, number one, I've trained someone else to do the things I hope in a way that would help those places grow. Number two, there's more people that know what we're doing. There's more it's spread out again back to that resilience If something horrible happens to me where I'm like, there's people that know how to do this. So so yeah, that's been the last year or so of growth was like, oh right, I need to be sharing that load and creating even an economy for gardeners. Yeah, so helping pour into that.
Speaker 1:And that piece of handing things away is hard.
Speaker 2:It's so hard.
Speaker 1:I understand that.
Speaker 2:And it's and yes, there's some ego. I'm going to acknowledge there's some ego. I'm not great about acknowledging that there is, but also like it's just. Also my heart is like I love to be there. That's what I want to do, of course. I want to be there. I'm also exhausted. What?
Speaker 1:And it's less than two days, whatever.
Speaker 2:And it's no good to anyone if I do that Right. So so anyway, for all the reasons, yeah, no listen, you know what. I'm talking about.
Speaker 1:I do I do but so okay. So let's start off with some of the garden projects.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Because I think there have been. I know you've learned a lot through this process and I've learned a lot kind of working through some of this with you. Yes, there's several around our community that are up and running School gardens, community gardens, et cetera. Like what are your thoughts on how to develop something like this? Are there? What are some of your success stories and maybe what are some of the pitfalls that you found along the way?
Speaker 2:I have. So, yeah, just like no bots. I have several other mottos. One is we don't need more gardens, we need more gardeners.
Speaker 2:And not to say that I don't love putting in a new garden Obviously I do, I can't not love it but there's so many places around our town that someone put a ton of resources, a ton of energy into and so supporting those spaces and making sure they're still as thriving as possible is hugely important. And I think that people, when they're thinking pie in the sky I love another word, forgive me, it might be slightly inappropriate when someone says you should, you should go do this, I'm like stop shitting on me, please. Yeah, no, it's good and it's helpful because when you're in this space and you're in a nonprofit or whatever else like, people think that they want to share all their special ideas with you, and I love it. But also I'm already doing a bunch of these things. So what is it I'm going to take a replace of, and so, anyway, all that to say there are, I did create, I have on my website a map of school and community gardens for Lubbock.
Speaker 2:You can, it's a Google map so you can click on the location where possible. I have contact information, and so that's something I created a long time ago because, again, I had started my one garden and was like everyone needs a garden. I love it, all the gardens. And now I'm like, oh crap, there's a lot of gardens, guys, are all these being maintained or are we growing things? Are we are?
Speaker 1:they active.
Speaker 2:No, they are not. No, they are not. And so that's one of my lessons is we need more gardeners, and and I think a community garden is a great place to come and be a novice gardener, even if you're not even taking ownership just come hang out for one of the work days, whether that's at the heart of Lubbock or roots Booker to Washington Community Garden. They will show you what to do. You don't need any information, you don't need any education. They will teach you how to do it. So I just share that. To say for sure, come out, be a novice gardener and, honestly, you might learn something you take back to your home garden, your patio, whatever. So that's one of my.
Speaker 2:The other mantra I have, especially in growing in community settings, is always be planting, especially in schools. That's my very favorite saying for schools, because I mean schools are the knob, they're all novices, they're novices at everything. I mean all the things. And so this isn't my story, the story I heard, but I love it so I'll share it. And that said a school garden. They sent out the fourth graders to go pick all the cucumbers and they came back from the garden and they were like look, look we, this is what we got and and the teacher says oh, that's not cucumbers, and that was the year they had no watermelons oh yeah and so like, because baby watermelons for anybody who's new to this, they look like cucumbers kind of they're pretty similar.
Speaker 2:So always be planting, because you, if you're gardening in community, it could be a dog. We've had one of our school gardens. A dog gets inside the fence and digs up their freshly planted garlic. Thanks guys, it doesn't have to be a child's mistake, it's gardening community.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so there's anything can happen. So always be planting, and I try when I can. Another gardening mantra is I don't have to be good at everything, I don't. Spoiler alert, I do not start tomatoes and peppers from seed. That's just not a thing that has gotten to the height of my to-do list, because I can buy great transplants, whether that's at a local nursery or from one of my farmers, and that's what I would recommend is to buying from those two sources first, if at all possible, because those places are generally going to be growing things that are better for our area versus our big box stores.
Speaker 2:Okay. So I've had people say to me like how come the plants I'm buying at Home Depot aren't doing like they used to do?
Speaker 1:And I'm like well, it's not North Carolina.
Speaker 2:So here's a step. Here's a step is to go to a local nursery. Go to a farmer at a farmer's market. Ask them where they, where they or if they're growing any transplants. Ask them if they could grow some for you. If they're not selling them already, ask why not. So that's my, that's one of my lessons. I don't start those. There's things I do because I either know how to do it already and there's like one or two new things I take on every year to learn.
Speaker 2:That's that just everything is its own. It could be its own book. You have a whole book on carrots, and so if I, there's no way you're going to know how to grow all the things in one year. So, just like pick one or two things, do that and then add on.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I think that is such a good piece of advice because people get scared about starting gardens. They get scared about being part of some of these efforts, because it's like I don't know Good.
Speaker 2:Fine yeah, we love it.
Speaker 1:Come on Sometimes there's less to unlearn.
Speaker 2:Yes, oh my gosh, because we get into these ruts of like I have to grow these things. It's like do you like those things? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, okay, stop, don't grow that thing.
Speaker 1:That's a lot of work. You'll spend $1,000 to get four tomatoes, exactly, and you don't even like tomatoes, oh my.
Speaker 2:God.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:That would be the worst. Everyone wants to grow tomatoes. That's another piece of getting into this space, and I'm stealing this from another influencer online person, but Gardenary. She's great. Check out her Instagram. She's got a lot of great lessons. So I've followed her for a very long time and one of the things she talks about is how different plants are different levels of difficulty. So your tomatoes, your peppers, those are like a marathon. No one starts out running a marathon, and if you do good for you but not many of us can just start out doing that, okay, most of us have to go to the couch to 5K first time. Okay.
Speaker 2:So, like and your couch to 5K is going to be your leaves, because we think about plants and how they grow. That's the first thing that happens, so it's a shorter thing. So lettuces and cilantro and like leafy green things. Okay, those are your shorter things. Your next level of and I would say even easier than that, maybe it's just your walk around the block and on a couch to 5k is you buy herbs. From wherever you're going to buy herbs, I don't care if you buy at the store, the big box store. Buy an herb and put it in a pot or put it in your raised bed and keep it alive.
Speaker 2:That's great. That is level one. And then level two is maybe those leafy greens, and then you've got roots. That's like your level three, and then maybe you finally might get to like tomatoes and peppers. So yeah, but a lot of people want it. They want that summer tomato. It's so alluring.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, and it's wonderful, and like I don't want to diminish it because like I think there's people that do that really well, sure. And there's people that are actually A-OK with spending a bunch of money and time to grow a handful of tomatoes.
Speaker 2:They get meaning out of it and that's great, good, good for you Love it.
Speaker 1:But, but I think that more people end up discouraged by that than than actually find joy in the small return on that investment. But but, like you're right, there is no almost like, from a vegetable standpoint, fresh veggie standpoint like being able to go out and pick cherry tomatoes off the the bush and eat them is just like the best thing, it's joy. It's the best. Thing.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and they're so good yes.
Speaker 1:But that is sort of a second, third, tier.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because it's a lot of work, and so if you want to experience that, please come join a community garden in August.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:In September, maybe even better, a school or community garden, because they will probably have a cherry thing. That's going crazy and you don't have to do it yourself and you can still have some of that joy. So there's ways of still enjoying that. That's how I see the gardener space and supporting those spaces.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, which I guess I think sort of leads me into our last point of the key here, I think, to this whole thing it's not the plants, it's not the infrastructure, it's the community that builds and develops to support those things, to develop those things, to operate those things.
Speaker 1:And it sounds weird, but in any like I think, everything is ecology and I say this to my students Everything is ecology, yeah, ecology, and I say this to my students, everything is ecology, whether it's our personal ecosystems, where the more good things we sort of put into our ecosystem the more resilient we are from food to exercise, like all of those things. But then, like when something goes wrong, there are interventions you can like vaccines and medicine.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's why we have medicine. Yes, so we intercede in the ecosystem when we need to Right Right.
Speaker 1:But then we look at the community and it operates, in my mind, very much like an ecosystem. It has all of these different parts and all of these parts have a role to play in that they have a niche in that ecosystem and then, when you start to lose those parts, the ecosystem does not function as well, our food webs are that way, our economies are that way.
Speaker 1:Everything goes back to ecology because we are part of the ecosystem of the planet. Right In that, I think we do a lot of work in ecosystem restoration, and how do we rebuild these ecosystems where they fall apart? And I think that's somewhere that you have been very successful, whether you did it intentionally or with this. You've been very successful in building this community, as you've sort of, and you've answered this a little bit, but, like, the question I really have is, as you've started pulling all these very diverse groups of people together, like I don't even know how to ask the question Like what, how, how did you do it?
Speaker 1:Because that's something that I think is so hard to replicate sometimes, but I think that if you have like tips, tricks, things that you have found that are like, hey, this was a really good way that the or my growers, I don't know glommed onto, or they really hated this, I'm not doing that again. Like do you have like practical pieces of advice in that community building?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think one piece of advice which I haven't thought about this in a meta way is that some of these things I inherited. I inherited a gathering. It was part of a coalition of people addressing hunger, and so that gathering name was hunger and horticulture, and that was both growers and school and community gardens. And I just started I, I joke, don't act interested in something, I'll put you in charge of it. I, I wanted to be, I wanted to go see the places and I wanted to do the things.
Speaker 2:Next thing, I know I'm the one inviting people and like doing things, and so, right, and so here we go, and I would say, with 2020, that ended and as we've kind of rebooted in our gatherings, it's actually specialized, and so now I have meetings, I have grower gatherings I call them with growers, and we've done that at farms. We've done that at restaurants, usually, hopefully, restaurants that are either currently buying local produce from us or we're hoping to encourage them to start buying and meet the farmer. And here you go, we're coming to your place of business and giving you business, et cetera. Right, and so those are grower gatherings that we've done off and on. My goal would be to be more consistent I would like to be, but that hasn't been, hasn't been achieved last year at least anyway.
Speaker 2:And then next is school and community garden gatherings, and so I'm calling that as of last year I renamed it as garden guardians okay and so the idea is that school and community gardens gardening community is a whole other thing and I wanted to think but if you care about it, then you are guarding that space Like you are taking care of that space and so like thinking about that. So that's opportunity for me. I try and make sure quarterly to obviously advertise and host it. We're going to have our next one on March 22nd at 10 am at Roscoe Wilson Magic Garden. It's a school garden. That's one of the oldest, I think the oldest school garden that we have here in Lubbock and I always try at these places to make sure that's a chance for me to bring seeds, transplants, soil if I have it supplies to come alongside these people that are gardening in community Because I know firsthand how exhausting it is to be in charge of that are gardening in community because I know firsthand how exhausting it is to be in charge of that, and that's part of what I remember and I remind myself is it's it's.
Speaker 2:It can feel pretty alone sometimes if you're the one making all those decisions on your own about that community garden space, and so this is a chance to like how do you do that? What's that about? I, as far as tips, I do this out of self-interest. I like these are my people, so like I want to see these people. And I get a little in my head sometimes like, oh, I want to get perfect and I haven't sent an invitation and whatever, whatever, I don't have the right supplies. But honestly, we need to. We need to get over our imperfections.
Speaker 2:We just host the gathering. Host it. Is there a group of people that you want to build community with? There's some overlap. There's something you're curious about? Let's do it and don't worry about that. You don't have it perfect. Pick two things. Like I know a location, I got a time. I got at least two people that want to come Check and just go out on a limb and see if we can't do it, cause I think the the value is in the gathering, it's not in the the little things I made for it, the muffins or whatever like that the values in the gathering. And so and I never know what I'm going to get- at the gathering.
Speaker 2:We never.
Speaker 1:I can't predict it, it's always valuable it is, and I think it is. I see a secondary benefit too, and I'm trying to figure out the right way to say this, but I think that there's value in the primary gathering right, getting people there to whatever.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Have snacks hang out talk about oh my God, the squash beetles are so bad this year.
Speaker 1:Whatever it is Right, but you're also teaching community, teaching the I don't know ethos of community.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, more than just this, there's this gathering today, and I understand how that feels too, because sometimes it's like, well, there were two people here today, but those two people are learning community.
Speaker 2:Sure For sure.
Speaker 1:They can build their own Again, if we're building a web, right A wheel and spokes.
Speaker 2:Yes, they're the next spokes. They're the next.
Speaker 1:Right, and so I think that it sounds weird, as a species that very much has evolved and was built for community, that we don't know how to do it. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like we don't know how to do it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like we don't, yeah Cause I think we used to know how to do it. I think we have, as a society, fallen out of community there's over the past 50 years or whatever. There's some.
Speaker 2:I just saw something on some major news network and they had somebody did a study about, like, how many parties people go to and like it was like that like the average number of parties like has really decreased over the past 40, 50 years, and so I do. I have a another person I follow. Yes, I'm following a lot of people. Whatever, it's fine. How to gather. She wrote a book called how to gather. I'm blanking on her name, but she is amazing and her instagram is amazing because she does give you those. The thing I said. I stole it from her. I was like don't you don't have to be perfect, just invite people over. You could have a build my Ikea furniture party, like I mean. And for my gardens, I hope to have my garden guardians like, okay, at this session we're going to build a compost sifter, I'm going to bring some scrap wood and some. Whatever, we're gonna do it together.
Speaker 2:I don't have to have it made yeah whatever it is, gather around something that is your. You are excited to talk to those people. That's that. That is, that's the recipe I.
Speaker 1:I think you're absolutely right and I again I'm. It makes I I feel old saying things like this, but I grew up running around the neighborhood until the streetlights came on.
Speaker 1:Yes, and slightly past. Absolutely In the summer we'd stay out and enjoy the cooler weather. Yes, and I don't know if it's these. If do know it's, it's fear, often from whatever the source of that fear is that keeps us from community and drives wedges into that to those communities. But you know, what's interesting is I see it sounds so weird, but like Gen Z throws PowerPoint parties. Have you seen these?
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Like everyone will make a powerpoint about a topic and they go over to someone's house. Oh wait, I have seen this and it's like, not like it's, it can be important. Yeah, a lot of times it's not yeah but it's like, here's a funny way to spare us to share a special interest, right, yeah, like I think we, we find community where we can, but I I really like this idea that everything doesn't have to be Instagrammable.
Speaker 2:Your house doesn't have to meet the aesthetic for the algorithm when your friends come over?
Speaker 1:Yes, I don't have any. I don't have many friends that are going to go take a picture of the clutter in the corner of the kitchen and post on. There's one I can think of that I'm like you're such a jerk. Sure, yes, and we all have that corner and it's okay, it's.
Speaker 2:Let's normalize that sometimes we're going to have a little clutter on the like. Okay, that doesn't mean we shouldn't gather.
Speaker 1:The value of it is so much larger and whether that's in your kitchen or on the farm or whatever, like the clutter is part of being human yes, I think also that our habits habits are.
Speaker 2:if we don't have a thing that's drawing us out or a scheduled thing. Our habits are, they make us, and so I think about our children, I think about our digital lives. It's not as to why don't I, why don't I have a glass of wine on the patio with my neighbor? You know, and it's because I'm, I just didn't think about it.
Speaker 1:And it's not my habit to do it.
Speaker 2:My habit is to watch a show with my kids and go to bed.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So like. But we, I think we benefit, we will have some real growth if we stretch ourselves in this way, and it is a, it is a thing to to work, and I think that all these things take time. We didn't talk about this a little bit, but changing our habits takes time. It takes time to garden. It does, but we, we get something out of that. We benefit from that time. We've talked about it before, but the I mean the mental health benefits of gardening, physical benefits of gardening.
Speaker 2:Yes, I want you to eat more vegetables, but guess what, Like all the stuff along the way, it's the, it's the path, it's not the end goal. You didn't get any tomatoes. Well, you know what you did get. You were trying, you had vitamin D from when you went outside, you had your fingers in the soil. You're getting beneficial microbes, Like I mean, like there was a lot of things that were happening along the way that were still benefiting you, and so it's I, and so it's. I say this, please do not hear me throwing. I live in a glass house and I'm not throwing stones.
Speaker 2:I'm calling, I'm calling us forward to try and have better habits, including my own. Yeah, I think that's really important.
Speaker 1:I think we encourage people as we go and we encourage each other as we go and we walk through. You know, I don't know who said it, but someone said that all struggles are connected and I think about that a lot, because as we struggle to learn to garden, as we struggle to learn to be in community, like all those things are connected and there's no reason to struggle alone. Right, we walk together. Oh gosh.
Speaker 2:And if I ever another tip if you want a tip about this and about whether it's habits or growing or whatever is, if you are struggling with something, the first thing that helps me is calling a friend.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:The first thing and I've done. I, I literally will. I've texted you before I know I, I will text another friend of mine. She actually is the director of the or the, whatever, the parent in charge of the Roscoe Wilson Magic Garden and I'll be like hype me up, hype me up for this. I need a little like help me out. Help me out Because I'm in my head about it. I want to make it perfect and she's like dude, we're going to have so much fun. It's going to be great, like just.
Speaker 1:Yeah, take a deep breath.
Speaker 2:Yes, and having those people in your corner, guess what it feels good that you called them. You're not in position.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:They felt good about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And then when I hear like that's the gathering I want to go to, I want to talk to these other people. You know who these people are. I want to talk to these people that are running community gardens. I want to learn how they did their signage. I want whatever it is so like, sometimes I need, we need that for each other and we, we, we can, we can share and we can serve each other.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Normally, I close these episodes by asking for like a piece of life advice, but I think you've given a lot of it.
Speaker 2:I may have just done that.
Speaker 1:So I think you did pretty good. I think you've covered all the bases.
Speaker 2:I don't know how to realize I was going to get so philosophical.
Speaker 1:It's good. What do you have coming up? Is there stuff you want to plug? Tell us where to find you all the different things.
Speaker 2:Yes, so coming up, as I mentioned, we have Garden Guardians and we're going to do those once a season-ish, so you'll see announcements for that on my socials. So I am at GrowingTogetherTX on both Facebook and Instagram. I do have a TikTok, but it's not active. Anyway, bear with me, I'm old, so and then I have a website, so I do have some updates and some general information, like the maps of school gardens there, so it's really helpful. You can obviously find lbkgrowncom, and we not only have subscriptions, like I said, that sell out really quickly as soon as I post them, but we also offer custom orders. It's $40 minimum so you can go in and put together whatever there is available. So I highly recommend. We had some great customers that were doing custom orders last year, and so it's a midweek pickup. It's a great way to get vegetables in the middle of the week, not just have to go to the farmer's market.
Speaker 1:And if someone out there listening is a grower or an interested grower who wants to get plugged in through the website, is there a better like? Is there an intake form? How does that work?
Speaker 2:So you can reach out to me at growingfairtexas at gmailcom, and there's also a contact information on lbkgrowncom, so yeah.
Speaker 1:Very cool. Well, thank you for coming to talk to me again. Yeah, that was fun five years later.
Speaker 2:I know, thanks for having me. We're not strangers, so.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to say, don't be a stranger. Yeah, no, we're not.
Speaker 2:But yes, thank you for having me again. I appreciate it. I look forward.
Speaker 1:Y'all. If there's one thing you take away from this whole season of Plantthropology, I really hope that it's. Community is important, that building community is, in my opinion, the way forward and the way through. So many things, so many things. Thanks so much to Jessica for being on and for her wisdom and her knowledge and just for her work in community building and in the food space. Thanks again to you, the listener. You know that I do this for you and I'm so glad that you're on this journey with me. Thanks once more to the Texas Tech Department of Plant and Soil Science and the Davis College of Agricultural Science and Natural Resources. Plantthropology is hosted, produced, recorded, edited and all the things by yours truly. Our theme music is by the award-winning composer, nick Scout, and all the listening is done by you. Thanks for being a part of it. Keep being kind to one another. If you have not been kind to one another, find a community and be kind to them. Be safe, be good and keep being really cool plant people you.
