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Hello and welcome to Sustainability is Sexy, the podcast where we talk about all things sustainable from regenerative agriculture, alternative to single-use plastic, and everything in between.
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I'm your host, Liz Murphy, and each episode I will talk to leaders in the sustainability space to provide insights, innovation, and inspiration for all of us to create a healthier planet.
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Today I'm joined by Stacy Messina, owner and founder at Seed and Trellis and local garden coach.
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Welcome to the podcast, Stacy.
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Thank you so much, Liz.
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Thank you.
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Absolutely.
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I'm so excited to have you here today.
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I we've known each other for quite some time now, which is crazy because it was back, I think, when we both were doing completely different things than we are now.
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I know I was working for Imperfect Foods and I think you were running some like local events, like pop-up shops and things.
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So it's so fun to reconnect and kind of talk about what we're doing now and how that relates to sustainability.
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So thank you so much for being here.
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Yeah, it's kind of funny how we kind of circled back together again and found our found each other in a different way.
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I was working through the um pop-up shop, and that's how yeah, that's how we met.
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And since the pandemic hit, I kind of transitioned um due to the event capabilities.
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So I just kind of literally dug into my roots here and started a new business, um, aligning with my passion of design and gardening.
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So it just kind of fell hand in hand and um I'm really loving it.
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And have you always loved gardening?
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Is that something you've kind of done your whole life, or is it something you found?
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I feel like it's something that's always been in my life and may not necessarily have always been something that I would actively be doing.
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But since I was little, I grew up in San Jose, California, and um my folks um had me there.
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And my, let's see, my grandparents had a home in Cupertino and they had a large property.
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And so anytime we would go over, it was always gramps in the garden, go get some beans, zucchinis, whatever.
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So I was very young, and my earliest memories were my sister and I going up and down the bean aisles and just being covered with the sticky bean leaves.
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And then we would come out, you know, and grandpa would have the bucket at the end, or he'd send us up on the really tall cherry picker, like looking back, that was probably not safe.
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But we would pick cherries with the big bucket and do that too.
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So I've always loved it.
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And anywhere I moved, you know, we would always try to find a way to like, whether it was container gardening or build a raised bed somewhere, like we'd I'd always try to find a way to grow something along the way.
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I love that.
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I love that.
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I kind of similarly, you know, I grew up around my family members gardening like in Iowa and California.
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And my dad always had like this really gorgeous huge garden when I was a kid.
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And I have that same memory of cherry picking.
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And now that I think about it, you're absolutely right.
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Like I was way too young to be up on the top of a like ladder thing picking cherries, but it's such a great memory.
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Um, so when you, you know, I think a lot of people gardened, but you decided to kind of make this into a livelihood and a business.
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What led you to that?
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Sure.
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Um, let's see.
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So I have a fine arts background.
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So with that in mind, like I love to garden beautifully.
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Like I get to the point where when I plan out my gardens, like I want this at this height and I want this color here, and I want this position to the sun, and I want the screw up on the trellis.
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So a lot of my gardening kind of falls into my my training um in design.
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Um so those I've noticed that both of these two passions that I've had have literally merged into one, which is pretty cool.
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That is so cool.
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And it's I'm so excited to learn more about that because I can only describe my style of gardening as like jungle, where there's no plan and I just let everything grow over everything.
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And so I need your help.
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You got it.
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Yeah, no, you got it.
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There's a method to my madness, which is pretty fun.
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Um yeah, I mean, I usually always try to support somebody to figure out what is their lifestyle, what is it that they want to grow?
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And I usually focus on growing food.
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And that's that's unique, you know.
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I think a lot of people, especially when you talk
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about designing a garden for like maybe aesthetics, for example, you don't really think about food.
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Um, but that's so important, especially in regards to sustainability.
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So I'm gonna switch gear, not switch gears.
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This is called sustainability is sexy.
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So this is the whole gear.
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What I would love to know, you know, we'll get more into seed and trellis and what you're doing with the business, but what does sustainability mean to you?
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You know, it's such a loaded word.
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I mean, my first like gut reaction to sustainability is, you know, I'm a I'm a mom of two.
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I have a nine and a six-year-old, and making choices that's going to hopefully benefit their future is is kind of how I like to look at sustainability, you know, like meeting our needs as best as you can without being wasteful and just taking a step back to see like what can what else can I do, like to eliminate maybe my plastic waste, or what else can I do to reduce my you know, carbon footprint?
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Like, can I stop buying lettuce at the store?
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Can I grow my own?
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Do I no longer need these plastic containers that then go to recycle?
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So um think little things like that, I think make a huge difference, like taking one thing at a time and looking at it and say, is this the last uh detergent bottle that I'm gonna buy?
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Yes, I'm gonna find an alternative.
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And I think that's what sustainability means to me, like making the change when it's when you're ready for it.
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Yeah, that's absolutely true because that makes the process sustainable as well.
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Yeah, you can do it all at once.
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It's just too overwhelming.
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You can't change everything.
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And so, how does that concept in your definition relate to what you're doing with seed and trellis?
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Yeah, so um I think I touched it on it a little bit.
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Like if you can grow something of your own, you know, that's one less thing that you need to purchase at the grocery store.
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For example, I love to encourage new gardeners to start using, you know, or growing their own herbs.
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Those tend to be the most expensive items that you would purchase at a store.
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And then you come home with all the plastic or the other containers, and it's you know, it's expensive.
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So if you can start there, and then the next level up, you know, it's that progression.
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Um, okay, let's take a look at your lettuce intake.
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How much greens are you purchasing from the store?
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Do you have the space and the ability and your climate?
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Can you grow those as well?
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And can you eliminate um, you know, the plastic and so forth from there?
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You have so much more say in what goes into your food.
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Um, you no longer have to worry about is it organic, is it sprayed, um, how old is it?
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It's it's really awesome to just be able to step outside and clip something and come back inside and you're ready for your next meal.
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So let's dive into what you are, what is seed and trellis?
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What are you doing with that business?
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And you know, tell us about what you offer so that I we our listeners can can take advantage of it.
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Sure.
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So I am a garden coach.
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I am um my business name is seed and trellis.
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So the idea was, you know, helping other gardeners um learn to grow from seed to trellis.
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So I offer two main services.
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One is kitchen garden design.
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So no matter what the size of your space is, um, we or I work with you to figure out where your borders, your pathways, your raised beds, and your trellises would go.
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So that's kind of like the nuts and bolts of my kitchen garden design.
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And then with um coaching, you know, like once you get all this stuff built, it's like you have to be consistent, right?
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So you can't just, you know, plant your garden and hope for the best, but you have to, it's a lifestyle change.
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So I support you in that change.
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Just like if you were to adopt um a new workout routine, you would have to be consistent if you want results.
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So being a garden coach is the same kind of concept.
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I just kind of encourage you along the way, give you tips and how to make that situation grow better.
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Um, and then I have support services on my website um with live Zoom calls, or I can even come to your house and we can do uh one-on-one, hands-on if you're local.
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That is such a great resource.
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I I feel like, you know, people would so many people would more people, so many more people would garden, you know, or take those those steps, even the smallest steps, to grow their own food or their own herbs, if they just had somebody
guiding them, you know, because it can be daunting, especially for people that have never grown anything before.
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Um, and this is this is so amazing.
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It makes me so happy that you're doing this.
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Yeah, and I think it's like a it's it's a natural need.
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You know, once you get into something new or a new hobby, it's natural to want to learn more.
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And I'm still learning, you know, as somebody who's been gardening for so long, it's this, it's just like this giant uh wormhole of information when you get into gardening.
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But once you understand how the soil works and how it supports your plants, it becomes a lot easier.
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The pest pressure goes down, you're wondering of like, you know, what's eating this?
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How do I grow this?
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Or all those questions kind of start to eliminate once you start looking at the soil and you start learning about the microbiology of the soil and all the insects and beneficial insects that come above the soil.
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So once you kind of, with my coaching, once you kind of learn a little bit more about that, gardening becomes a lot easier.
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You it's it's just a little bit easier to take in.
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Well, then what is your favorite tip for someone?
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Let's say someone who doesn't grow anything right now, maybe has never had a garden.
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Do you have any tips for them on where to start if they want to start growing some food at home, but they just don't know how to begin?
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Absolutely.
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Let's see.
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So I would first figure out what is it that you want to eat?
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Um, what are your favorite things in your day-to-day that you would like to substitute and not have to buy it at the store?
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And I have a little download worksheet on my my website if you need a little help with that, like trying to narrow down what is it that you know would you want to grow?
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And then once you kind of figure that out, you know, then you start looking into okay, what kind of space do I need to grow that?
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And then just really focus on your soil.
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Um, and that's where a lot of my education is helpful to a lot of my clients is learning about the soil, what soil to pick, how deep your soil needs to be if you're, you know, using raised beds or planters.
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Some plants only need six inches, whereas some other plants need up to 18 inches for the roots.
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So it's really about the setup, it's really about consistency and um just really growing what you want to eat so there's no waste.
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For anyone that has listened to this podcast before, um, the episode where I actually am interviewed instead of uh am not the interviewer for Santosha, my tip at the end is about herbs because I love that you mentioned that earlier because that is so near and dear to my heart.
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I find that in regards to sustainability, this is all incredibly important, but as a really simple first step, you can eliminate so much waste and plastic by not buying herbs in the store.
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It's that I think I feel like that's one of the simplest things because that can be done, you know, in a windowsill or you know, without much space or earth to play with.
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And so I love that you mentioned that as an intro thing too.
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So herbs are such a great place to start.
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Yes, I kind of go with the gardenary way, is like you start with herbs and you graduate to lettuce, and then you graduate to roots, and then you graduate to fruit.
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So that kind of methodical approach, if you're just beginning, yes, herbs is number one.
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So I'm gonna ask the question that I ask every guest.
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Do you have a favorite sustainable product or practice that you can share with us that you use in your personal life?
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Oh, yes.
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Um, composting.
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Yeah.
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I'm such a compost compost geek.
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I love it.
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So specifically more, I've gotten into this past year and a half Bokashi, which is really cool.
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Let's let's talk about that a little bit because we've talked about composting on the podcast, or other people have talked about composting, but I don't think we've really gotten into Bakashi, and I also am quite passionate about it.
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So can you tell
our listeners what is Bokashi and and how does it relate to composting and why is it such an amazing option?
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Okay, I'll do my best to describe it.
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So bokashi is a way to pre-ferment your food scraps, and I mean all of your food scraps, all of your vegetables, eggs, meat, dairy, all those things that um kind of frustrate you from a composting standpoint.
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You're like, I can't put my meat in, I can only put a certain amount of citrus in.
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It's like it's so wonderful, it's so forgiving.
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You can just throw it all in.
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When you collect your food scraps, you put it in a five-gallon bucket and you sprinkle a pre-inoculated rice bran, where I get from my friend Ron.
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He uh inoculates that bran.
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And so you sprinkle it on your food every couple inches in a five-gallon sealed bucket, making sure that it's an anaerobic process.
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Once that bucket is filled to the top and you can let it sit for two weeks in the dark, like in the garage.
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Um, check on it after that, and then after it smells like pickles, I usually incorporate that into my compost routine.
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And it's exactly what you mentioned is what makes it so amazing, especially for introduction to composting, or people that maybe don't have the time or energy to spend on making sure that their compost pile is the right temperature and how much, how acidic with a pH balance, all of those things that go into a successful compost pile is that it's so forgiving, so easy.
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You can put those things in like meat, even bone, dairy, things that you don't normally put into a compost pile.
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And then also the fact that you can leave it for so long versus like, you know, it's anaerobic, so you're not turning it.
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It doesn't need that movement, that oxygen to break down.
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So I could have a bucket that sits on my porch as long as I have, you know, every few inches put that bran in, that Bokashi bran, it can sit there for months and be fine before I put it into a compost pile.
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So yeah, it's it's such an amazing thing that, you know, I think composting can be so daunting if it's not something you are used to or something that you don't have space for, or any of those reasons, you know, why people don't get started, that bakashi composting is such such a great resource.
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And I'm gonna shout out the Solana Center for Environmental Innovation right now because they do have a program.
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So if you don't have your own compost setup or pile that you can put those fermented scraps into, they have a program that uses
that same style of composting, but they will they put it on their their compost piles.
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So if it's something that you're interested in and you're in the San Diego area, Solana Center is a great resource for helping out with that.
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They have what's called the food cycle program.
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Exactly.
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Yeah, and that's if you have you don't really have a place to put it.
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Yep.
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Um they'll take that bokashi bucket from you and they'll they'll move it in.
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But if you if you have a place where you you can dispose of your bokashi on your property, that's where I come in.
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That's where I do one-on-one consults and kind of teach you how to do it.
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I just strongly believe that I think everybody should try growing something again.
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If you've if you've tried it before and you've struggled or run into pest issues, um, take a look at three things.
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Whether it's your your setup, your timing, or consistency.
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These three things are what will make you a better gardener.
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That's such a great way to look at it.
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Because I think so many people have tried and maybe not succeeded, you know, when they've ventured to grow something and they just assume that they don't have a green thumb.
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But just like everything else, everyone can learn.
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And a lot of these tips are from um where I got my certification from.
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So I just want to put a quick shout out to Gardenery.
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If you guys need a community that is focused on gardening to support you, I am a garden coach with them, and it's called Gardenery 365.
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Awesome.
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We'll post a link for that in um the information from this podcast episode so that people can link directly to that for sure, as well as all of your information, of course.
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So just I want to give a massive thank you to you, Stacy, for being here today.
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I learned so much in this short amount of time and cannot wait to continue to connect with you and and just learn more about gardening and make my growing better.
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Awesome.
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You can do it.
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Thank you.
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You can find more information on Instagram at seed and trellis and online at www.seedandrellis.com.
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As always, all of the resources and brands that are mentioned on today's podcast will be linked for your reference.
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And until next time, I'm Liz Murphy sending you sustainability love from San Diego.
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Sustainability as Sexy is a nonprofit organization located in San Diego, California, focused on inspiring and driving innovation within our community to create real change.
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Learn more at sustainability issexy.org and find out how you can be involved.