Speaker 1 00:00:04 Inch by inch row going make this garden roll going mulch deep and low. Gonna make it fertile ground the inch by roll, please bless the seeds. Please keep rains down. Speaker 2 00:00:38 Hello case squid listeners. It's every other Sunday again, and you're listening to sustainability. Now, a biweekly case, squid radio show focused on environment sustainability and social justice in the Monterey bay region, California and the world. I'm your host. Ronnie Lipshitz. Many of our listeners cultivate their own gardens, but amidst the Hurley Burley of daily life gardens sometimes take second place to other needs. If you have procrastinated or have been too busy to sew your seeds, it's not too late to plant in July and harvest in October. That's what we're going to talk about today. My guest is Renee shepherd owner of Renee's garden and seed entrepreneur extraordinaire. And she's gonna tell you what can be sewn now to be ripe and ready in late summer and fall, and also cover topics such as heirloom heritage and hybrid seeds. And tell us where the seeds for your garden come from and how she gets them and distributes them. Renee shepherd. Welcome to sustainability now. Speaker 3 00:01:39 Thank you. It's a pleasure to meet with you. Speaker 2 00:01:42 So why don't we start with some, some background, uh, on how you got into this business, uh, and doing research for today's show. And I should add that I know nothing about the seed business, unlike other topics that we've had on the show. I read that soccer got you into the seed business. So when and how did that happen? And were you already a gardener when it happened? Speaker 3 00:02:06 Oh yes. Well, I guess you could say soccer got me into the business. Um, my grandmother was a great gardener and I spent Saturdays often with her and really enjoyed eating fresh food from the garden that she made me and we picked. So that was a really strong memory. And then I started a garden when I moved to California. Um, but it wasn't that great. And I was a graduate student at UC SC and we used to invite all the graduate students over for pick up soccer games, uh, on Sundays and the European students. This is in the eighties a thousand years ago. And they were the ones who really knew how to play soccer because it wasn't that popular in the state. So we always used to invite all the Europeans we could, and I became very good friends with a Dutch couple and he was here the, um, to sell, um, lettuce seats to all the growers in Salinas. Speaker 3 00:03:00 We became good friends and he saw my garden. He said, well, these varieties are fine, but how about some really good tasting varieties cuz in Europe, most people shop for fresh produce almost two, three times a week and we breed more for flavor than what I'm seeing growing in the farms here mm-hmm <affirmative> and of course I said, yes, I'd be delighted to try them. And then, so I tried some French tomatoes and Dutch lettuce, and then I got the idea if I like them, then anybody else who had a garden would probably like them just as much. So that's how I got into the seed business. Speaker 2 00:03:33 Well, that of course tells us what was the impetus, but what did you do then? Speaker 3 00:03:38 Well, I was, uh, I was, had got my PhD from U C S C in, in the history of consciousness, which was that and still is an interdisciplinary program. And I was teaching wherever I could pick up a job as an instructor, which has no real future because you, you're not in a tenure track. So I decided why not, uh, try and start a business about which I knew nothing. So I called up some other people in the sea trade and they were most kind and helpful and giving me some ideas. And then my friend case Boman, who is still one of my best friends, who I got the original, um, seats from said, why don't you just start a catalog? You can write, well, you've proven that and I'll help you with the seeds. So I got a second mortgage in my house and did it, Speaker 2 00:04:29 You started, so you started writing a catalog and you imported the seeds. Is that how that Speaker 3 00:04:33 Worked? That's right. I, um, wrote a print seed catalog called Shepherd's garden seed. This is back in the late eighties. Uh, we got the seed varieties from many places United States, largely Europe because we focused on only European varieties and then little later it was successful and I started to sell flowers and I got a lot of help and advice from the U C S E farm and garden and from camp joy, which is an organic, uh, farm up in Boulder Creek. And then I started traveling and meeting people in the seed business. Um, and it was just very good timing cuz people were getting very interested in food and um, right, right. I was really selling seeds for varieties that tasted great. Speaker 2 00:05:19 Huh? Um, I, I have, I do have a question. Did you have any trouble importing the seeds with, you know, custom regulations or anything like that? Speaker 3 00:05:27 Uh, no. The seed trade is a very international business. If you, if you go to the store and look at a seed rack, you're seeing seeds from probably 60 or 80 countries because seeds are grown where they grow well. And every seed comes with a phyto sanitary certificate, identifying its origin and showing a lab test. There is a lot of U S D a bureaucracy involved, but it's very, it's manageable. Speaker 2 00:05:52 Okay. No, that, that, that I get the, uh, the phytosanitary certification. Um, I know that, I know that sometimes people try to carry seeds across borders, uh, which is apparently not legal, um, because governments are afraid of, of, uh, I guess invasive species. I'm not quite sure anyhow, Speaker 3 00:06:14 Uh, uh, pest and diseases and invasive species with pretty good reason. It seems pro totally unfair that you can't bring a couple back it's from here or there, but, uh, you know, it's probably the right intention anyway. Speaker 2 00:06:28 Yeah. So I read in, when I was doing the research, I read that Alan Chadwick was an important influence on you. Um, and why don't you tell us, uh, how that was, how, how he influenced you? Speaker 3 00:06:41 Would you wanna say something about who he was? Speaker 2 00:06:44 Well, why don't you tell us who he was? Speaker 3 00:06:46 Well, a Chadwick was a, a tremendously interesting and wise man who started, uh, garden here in, in several other places at the Zen center up in San Francisco and a few other places. And he was an early advocate of organic gardening and gardening by the seasons. I did not know Alan directly, but a lot of the people I worked with were very influenced by him. And he's one of the progenitors of the whole organic movement in the United States. So you could not live in Santa Cruz when he was around without being influenced Byman. Most people helped me, uh, new and revered him. Speaker 2 00:07:24 Yeah. Well, I, I, I remember he wasn't the founder, I think of what became the Chadwick garden on campus, but he came, yes. He, he came, he did, he did. He was, Speaker 3 00:07:34 Yes. He was brought here by the original provost, um, page Smith to start a garden. Speaker 2 00:07:39 Ah, okay. Okay. That's right. Um, on that very unimpressive piece of land just below Merrill college, right. Um, or was it elsewhere? Yeah, Speaker 3 00:07:50 Uh, it, it started out as the garden by Maryland. It was unbelievably wonderful garden. A lot of people became gardeners and went into the area of farming and food because he was an incredibly inspiring and charismatic person. They don't make them, they, you know, come more, just a few come around in each generation. Mm-hmm, <affirmative> he influence a tremendous amount of people who I respect and Revere. Speaker 2 00:08:19 Yeah. Our listeners should know that the garden is still up there. And, um, I it's probably has, has regular open hours, but it's quite an impressive site. Um, did you, did you ever work, did you work in the garden or maybe on the farm? Speaker 3 00:08:33 Neither. Speaker 2 00:08:34 Neither. Okay. So, so it was, it was an influence without you being sort of, uh, initiated into gardening there. Um, do you have a philosophy of gardening? Speaker 3 00:08:48 Well, you know, I'm not sure what you asked. You gave me these questions in advance, but I'm not so sure what you mean by a philosophy of gardening. Um, I'm an organic gardener. I use organic techniques and have done so in our trials for, for many, many years, uh, with all that, that implies, I am interested in finding varieties that are easily to grow easy, to grow for most people in their backyard, but widely adopted. And that the vegetables taste are, are chosen for ease of cultivation. And because they are really good to cook with mm-hmm <affirmative> and for flowers, for ordinary flowers, but in all their forms and colors, I'm interested in the stories of seeds because seeds are closely tied to human history. So it's really a fun business to be in cuz you hear about, uh, stories and how people use things and where things come from. And there's always tales and stories to it. That's, what's really fun. Speaker 2 00:09:47 Well, by, by philosophy, I meant, you know, some people plant gardens for, oh, I don't know, transcendent purposes and others just to grow food. It, you mentioned the history of seeds. Do you see yourself as being in the sort of business of, of propagating seeds through history or something like that? Speaker 3 00:10:06 Well, gardening is something that ties everybody together because we all do have to eat mm-hmm <affirmative> uh, food is a subject of endless interest to everybody. So it's a common ground for every culture and you can learn a lot about people and have something in common with them. If you talk about food and you eat together. So I think it's a unifying principle for, for anybody from anywhere mm-hmm <affirmative>. So I think that's one of the things that interests me, um, about it. So I don't think just growing vet, I do just grow vegetables, but through that, um, I've learned an awful lot about a lot of things in a lot of people. Speaker 2 00:10:53 Um, you know, he, I, I wanted to ask another question about history and, and, and that is, have you ever thought about how people discovered that, you know, you could plant seeds and grow food? Speaker 3 00:11:08 Well, I'm, I think that was probably a long gradual process, um, because it's not too hard to figure out that a seed grows into a plant because they do it before your eyes. Speaker 2 00:11:21 Yeah. But I've always, I've always been sort of, uh, mesmerized by this idea that, you know, hunter gatherers were going around collecting various kinds of wild seeds. And somebody noticed that when they fell on the ground, they started to grow and, and said, oh, well, we could do that too. Um, of course I'm projecting backwards. Uh, Speaker 3 00:11:42 Well I think the ones that more, more, I think the questions that get me is how did anybody figure out that you could eat an olive Speaker 2 00:11:50 <laugh> yes. Are many, there are many things that, that, uh, uh, raise that kind of question aren't there. Um, so going back to your seed company, uh, what happened to it with it? Speaker 3 00:12:06 Well, I started shepherd. It was called shepherd garden seed. It grew very large. Um, in the end we were circulating 17 million catalogs a year that was in the heyday of catalogs and yeah, it branched out and we started selling, you know, we sold a lot of flowers, so we got into VAs and flour, food and baskets and so on. And, uh, I sold it to a very large nursery, Becky east, who had, uh, all the fulfillment, in other words, the wherewithal to pack and ship orders and a huge warehouse where I didn't have that. And so I did all the choice of the varieties and all the customer service and so on. And they did all the filling and shipping of orders. And that was a good arrangement, but it kept getting bigger. And I left because I wanted to stay closer to the, to the seeds. Um-huh, <affirmative> turning into a general catalog. We were sending people to, you know, to Italy, to design tableware and so on. And I left. And so I, then I started pretty quickly a company Rennes garden, which was to sell seeds, not only to direct to home gardeners in a print catalog, um, but to sell to garden centers and nurseries, the kind of premium seeds we were selling. Uh, so the garden centers could have something a little more special as well. Renee's garden has never had a print catalog. We've always been entirely online. Speaker 2 00:13:31 Yeah. I was gonna ask about that. How did you, uh, how did you figure that one out? Speaker 3 00:13:36 Well, we had a website really early, like 1996 or 97. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. I was the virtue of the web for people in my business and see businesses. You can add things, you can subtract things. You can tell the stories, you can put up photographs, you can be interactive with customers. I think it's wonderful way, uh, to, uh, join in a community with your customers. I've, I've enjoyed it a lot and put things up, take things down. And now with YouTube, we can show how we do things. Been on the web. Our website for Renee started in 1997, early. Speaker 2 00:14:15 Yeah. That's uh, that isn't early, before, before lots of people had access to the internet actually are most or all of your customers home gardeners. Speaker 3 00:14:26 Yes. We are exclusively for home gardeners. We don't sell seeds to growers or farmers. We sell 'em to garden centers and nurseries and our wholesale division and to home gardeners. And our website is oriented toward home gardeners. So we sell seeds and knowledge about how to grow them and how to succeed with them. With a lot of support, we have lots of photos. And the main thing that differentiates my company is we don't sell anything that we haven't grown. So we have a big trail garden here in Felton, and we have another one in Vermont. So all our packet instructions are based on our own experience. Speaker 2 00:15:06 Where do you get the seeds that you, you know, that you try out? Speaker 3 00:15:10 Well, let's say I am looking for most. I try to buy things from their country of origin. Mm-hmm <affirmative> so most all our basals we sell about 18 different kinds of basal mm-hmm <affirmative> come from all the green ones come from Italy. And the Thai basal comes from Thailand and yeah, and so on. So we get a lot of eggplant from Italy. We get a lot of, um, Braas from Korea and Japan where they eat a lot. So we try to find things where they are their most varieties and their most diverse. Speaker 2 00:15:43 And so once you've, you've identified something that you, you know, you want to sell, what sort of arrangement do you, do you have a, a distributor in the, the, you know, vegetables, home country? I mean, how do you, how do you get the seeds? Speaker 3 00:15:57 Okay, well, every year there's a big meeting, an international meeting Uhhuh. They usually happen in the us and it moves around and there's probably around a thousand seed growing companies from all over the world that come to it. I see. And it's like a five day speed dating experience. <laugh> so you meet with, um, I literally, you literally have 12 or 15 meetings over a day yeah. With different seed producers. And that is a specialized industry. So for example, I work very closely with the company and the Czech Republic for a lot of vegetables. So we meet with them and they show us what they're working on and what new varieties they have. And I make sure that all the things I already selected from them are still available. And I tell them what I'm looking for. For example, little snack peppers, you know, the little sweet peppers that are yellow and orange and red that you seen supermarkets in a bag. Yep. So I tell 'em, well, I'm looking for more colors of that or sweeter ones. And so it's an interactive meeting and then they send samples, we grow them out. And the ones we like, we place purchase orders. Then they send the seeds in bulk quantities, usually by air freight, in large quantities. Sometimes by ship, we receive them in our warehouse and we fill them in packets. I receive it in bulk and break them into packets with most seed packets are printed here in the us. And I write the packets and provide all the Speaker 2 00:17:26 Packets. Huh. Uh, so these companies that you're buying the seeds from, uh, how do they know, what, how do they decide, what kinds of seeds to grow? I mean, I'm just sort of curious about how, you know, this sort of matching takes place. Do they try to grow special varieties to match what you're looking for or are you looking at what they have available? Um, and then decide, yes. I want that, Speaker 3 00:17:53 Well, the home garden seed business, which I am part of is a relatively small amount of business for large seed companies. So yeah, sure. The check Republic is mostly selling seeds to farmers and large growers. Mm-hmm <affirmative> and people in Western Europe eat very similar with certain specialties, but check people, eat cucumbers and tomatoes and cabbage and cauliflower and peppers, you know, too. So they're developing and they, and they sell a lot of seeds to, to China and Russia as well. And as well as all the other old Eastern block com countries. So they're developing a whole range and they have certain specialties. So I'm buying what they sell to a wide range of customers. There are not many seed producing companies that only make seed, uh, for home garden. Mm-hmm <affirmative> yeah, there are exceptions to what I just told you. There are a lot of small, wonderful companies that grow their own seed and save it and then regrow it and they have local seed and so on. But if you're gonna, you know, we feel 50 or 60,000 orders a year. So I can't afford to buy a pound of tomato seed. I need 10 pounds of tomato seed or 2000 pounds of corn or whatever. So you have to buy from companies that are producing in the right place with a lot of science. So there's no seedborne disease and the seed has good germ and as pure and so on. So I buy from recognize people whose business it is only to breed and produce seeds. Speaker 2 00:19:23 Mm-hmm <affirmative> well, what are the differences between let's see, heirlooms hybrids, hybrids, and open pollinator seed varieties. Speaker 3 00:19:33 Well, uh, an heirloom seed is a variety of seed. That's more than 50 years old. Mm-hmm <affirmative> so you and I are heirlooms <laugh>, but, uh, all heirlooms are also open pollinated, which means that the, the seeds are pollinated either by some plants like tomatoes are self pollinating. In other words, they have male and female exchange, um, the necessary components, right on the plant, or they're pollinated by wind like corn seed or by insects, which is why bees are so important. The bees move the pollen around. And therefore if, uh, it's open pollinated and you save the seed, you can plant it again and you'll get exactly the same thing. If, if it's properly spaced from another similar variety, mm-hmm, <affirmative> a, a hybrid variety is what a lot of modern vegetables are. That simply means that you choose a male. Let's say you decide you're gonna make a tomato hybrid. Speaker 3 00:20:35 And you want one that is ex you take a mail that may ha um, you save the mail parts of the flower that you put the one variety in a greenhouse and you emasculate and, and you save only the female flowers. And then you introduce the male. Um, uh, you, you get the male flowers from another variety. Mm-hmm <affirmative> so you hand pollinate them. But the reason to do it is let's say you wanna variety. That's extremely disease resistant mm-hmm <affirmative>, um, is deep red and, um, tastes really good. And you, you get some of the qualities from one parent and some of the qualities from another parent, and you cross them to make a cross. And those, um, new tomatoes, like early girl, better boys, sun gold, little golden cherries. Um, they will produce seeds, but they won't make the same cross. You have to artificially make the cross each time. So hybrid varieties are CRE are created, um, and they don't come true from seed. You would, if you planted the seeds of a sun gold tomato, you would get many tomatoes, but they wouldn't necessarily have attributes that you cross them for in the first time. So most, a lot of vegetables that you buy in the supermarket. And, and for that matter, uh, if farmer's markets for fruiting varieties are hybrids Speaker 2 00:22:04 And are, are those hybrids patented then? Speaker 3 00:22:07 No, not particularly patenting doesn't really happen much with vegetables. Uh, what more, more ornamental plants. Speaker 2 00:22:14 Oh, I see. Okay. Um, so what, what is most, what, you know, for the home gardener, are there advantages to these different kinds of, um, seeds? Speaker 3 00:22:27 Well, it depends so heirlooms or, or open pollinated heirloom open pollinated seeds that are older heirlooms. So some of the older varieties, particularly with tomatoes have wonderful stories and interesting colors. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, but they're not, they're not particularly, they weren't hybridized crossed with varieties that had good shelf life, for example, which can be a good thing, but also means that they don't last very long and they split, and they're not, they weren't bred for disease resistant. Most hybrids are, uh, crossed for variety with one of the selected parents has good disease resistance. Mm-hmm <affirmative> um, it depends. So for example, here on the coast, there's a very famous heirloom tomato called Brandi wine, which is revered for its intense flavor, but it only tastes that way as good as that and produces well, if you're in a climate where tomatoes really do well, cause that's where it's from, that's where it was developed. Speaker 3 00:23:25 So if you're in a hot, humid climate, you can't beat Brandy wine, but here on the coast, they crack and they don't taste as good and they can be disease pro. So it depends. Heirlooms are good in the really good in the areas they were first selected in. They may or may not be good in a home garden and it's worth experimenting. There's a tremendous diversity, but some plants, I always grow hybrid, uh, brass or coal crops because they mature earlier and they're more re disease resistant. So I would say for home gardener, both are fine. Speaker 2 00:24:01 Both are fine. Okay. Um, is there any, are there any issues with genetically engineered varieties? Speaker 3 00:24:08 No. There are no genetically engineered varieties in the home garden market. There will probably never be because our customers don't want them. Wouldn't buy them. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, we would all have to sign our life away to even offer them. They're very expensive. Uh, it's just, it's just not part of our marketplace. Speaker 2 00:24:30 So, uh, you mentioned, you mentioned, just mentioned about, uh, you know, growing heirloom tomatoes in the places where they were, uh, originally bred and or Speaker 3 00:24:40 Selected, you know, they weren't really bred, they were more Speaker 2 00:24:43 Selected Uhhuh. Well, you know, we've got lots of micro climates on the California coast and some things grow better in some places than others. And so how do gardeners determine what will grow best in their particular location? Or how can they, Speaker 3 00:24:59 Well, you know, a lot of it is just kind of where you are. For example, I think I'm in Felton above Santa Cruz. So if you live in Santa Cruz, you know, you have cool nights and cool weather compared to inland. So you're gonna look for tomato that can stand, you know, cool weather. You're not gonna be able to do grow all those heirlooms that like it hot humid. Uh, so it depends on looking for the right varieties for your, for your weather climbing. On the other hand, if you pick the right time of year for a leafy greens, you can grow almost any leafy green, if you, if you grow them in the right weather. So fruity vegetables have more requirements than leafy greens. Speaker 2 00:25:43 So what grows well in, uh, in this area? Speaker 3 00:25:47 Well, just about everything we live in an absolute paradise and for anyone who is thinking of trying to grow garden, hasn't done it before. A really great way to start is with a little salad garden Uhhuh. <affirmative> our coastal climate, obviously not in the Hills where it's to be a hundred degrees. Midsummer is not the time to start a salad garden. They wanna be started in spring. And then when the weather cools down, but in Santa Cruz, for example, right along the coast, you can grow salads just about year round. So salads at herbs are a really good place to start. Speaker 2 00:26:21 Y you know, I, for, for, I don't know how long for as long as I've been in California, I've, I've heard people say, well, it's difficult to grow tomatoes here. And I know we have varieties now that will grow in this kind of weather, but, uh, is that, is that the case, or am I just repeating an old, uh, an old myth? Speaker 3 00:26:40 Well, I guess I wouldn't have to use to, when you say here, I mean, what, Speaker 2 00:26:43 Well, I'm on campus, I'm on campus are, but I mean, lower, lower Al uh, altitudes, not, you know, places that don't get that have fog in the summer that get foggy. Speaker 3 00:26:55 I would say the, well, first of all, you can buy dry farm tomatoes there. And there's no reason to ever try to grow your own when you can get dry farm tomatoes. Cause I don't think there's anything better in the whole world. Um, but if you wanted to grow tomatoes along the coast, you would wanna choose varieties that can handle cooler weather mm-hmm <affirmative> and there are a handful, one of the best snow perhaps is sun gold. There, there are commercial variety too. They're the little golden cherries mm-hmm <affirmative> that'll do well, early girl does well along the coast. Um, Soche I mean, you just go to the local garden centers who will give you some guidance. Speaker 2 00:27:36 Okay. Speaker 3 00:27:37 Or you can simply grow broccoli and cabbage and lettuce and so on and trade with someone who lives in <inaudible> gets great tomatoes. Speaker 2 00:27:45 Aren't those seasons are those seasons coincident. I mean, I thought that the, the greens were more winter crops and the tomatoes more summer crops. Speaker 3 00:27:55 Well, California has so many different climates, but right. I'm usually 20 here in Fulton. I'm usually 20 or 30 degrees warmer than in Santa Cruz, right? Yeah. I don't get much fog. Right. So my glowing conditions are different. I can grow perfectly fine tomatoes. Mm-hmm <affirmative> it would be, you'd have to choose a cold tolerant or fog tolerant Friday down in Santa Cruz, but in Santa Cruz, because it's mild, you can grow lots of things year around. It's really very easy to grow almost anything. Speaker 2 00:28:27 Wow. Okay. Okay. So, um, one of the things we, we did talk about was, um, what could people plant right now? Uh, that would be ready for September and October. Speaker 3 00:28:42 Well, we're talking right at right after 4th of July. Mm-hmm <affirmative> so you could plant now some gorgeous, colorful, pollinator friendly, uh, we sell 18 different colors. You could certainly plant sunflowers and sunflowers come beside the yellow pet ones. They come by color doubles, reds, all kinds of those would produce a nice crop. Uh, you could plant another planting of basil now, uh, or parsley. You could grow cucumbers. The only thing you knew you could, if you planted right away, you could get a, a large, large variety of summer vegetables. You could do another planting of zucchini, or you could still plant a little winter squash. You could not from sea plant tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant simply because they take a long time to mature and there wouldn't be enough time. Yeah. Then anything that can mature before, let's say November, you could still plant. Now, if we were talking in New York, I wouldn't say that, but in California we have a very long season. So if you started in the shade in a container, you could still plant some salads, Speaker 2 00:29:55 Uhhuh, what else? Speaker 3 00:29:57 And it tends, I usually start with, what would you like to eat? And then we'll work on what you can grow based on what you wanna eat. If we're talking vegetables and flowers, what are your favorite colors and what do you want the flowers for bouquets polls and so on? Speaker 2 00:30:14 Well, so I live on, on the, at the base of campus, uh, in Santa Cruz and, and the campus is usually about five when it gets sunny, about five to eight degrees warmer than downtown. Um, so it's somewhere in between, you know, the Wharf and I guess, uh, Felton, what would be, you know, what would be good for me to grow if I decided to do it? Speaker 3 00:30:41 Well, I, I'm sorry. I'm going to be a little bit argumentative to say, what do you like to eat? There's a chicken and egg, but I used, I wonder, like, what do you, well, what you, I could say, okay, you could start some, let me think some, this is actually too late to start this, but ridiculous. And you, you would never grow that because you don't like it very much. So mm-hmm Speaker 2 00:31:04 <affirmative> Speaker 3 00:31:04 Yeah. It only makes sense. If you plant things you enjoy, so you could still plant some green beans. If you wanted to some cucumber, I don't know what you like to eat. Speaker 2 00:31:11 Well, I like tomatoes and it's too late, right? Basically Speaker 3 00:31:15 I, you could still, you could still go down to any of the most wonderful nurseries we have in Santa Cruz by plant. Speaker 2 00:31:21 Oh, okay. Speaker 3 00:31:22 It is too late to start them from sea mm-hmm Speaker 2 00:31:25 <affirmative>, Speaker 3 00:31:26 But there's a lot, you know, but there's a lot of things you could still judge, you, you use fresh herbs. Speaker 2 00:31:33 Can, can, um, people go online to your, to your website and, you know, find out about all these kinds of things. Speaker 3 00:31:42 Yes. We have a full service website at Renee's garden.com. We have garden resources. We have probably six or 80 videos, which we make in our trial garden. We've got lots of articles. Mm-hmm <affirmative> and we have a lot of, we sell about a thousand varieties of seed and it is organized. So if you wanna go salads, there's salad, selections, there's Asian varieties. We sell tremendous amount of flowers. So the goal that you can achieve in Santa Cruz, that not that many places can, as you can actually plan a garden and go out in it and decide what you're gonna eat based on what's growing. So you can really become much more independent, um, in your food choices and get a lot of pleasure out of it. You can support an ecology in your backyard that feeds all kinds of wildlife and supports pollinators, and you can have more birds that way too. And it can just be a delightful environment and you, and you don't have to go to the store that much. Speaker 2 00:32:43 Hmm. Speaker 3 00:32:44 That's the goal Speaker 2 00:32:46 Uhhuh. Wow. Speaker 3 00:32:47 So you could also do it by cuisine. I like Mexican food. Okay. I'm gonna go a Regno and I'm gonna go cilantro and tomatoes and peppers and you know, to tomatillos, you know, it depends what you, what you enjoy cooking. Speaker 2 00:32:59 Um, well, let me, let me shift shift the topic a little bit here. Um, how important do you think home gardens are in terms of, uh, food, the country's food supply or, you know, California's food supply? Speaker 3 00:33:13 Well, um, seed companies that sell seeds for home gardeners during the pandemic on the average increased 150% sales, if that tells you anything. So that's, I think sort of, and in an era of super inflation and higher cost, most people want to be a little more self-sufficient and self reliable self-reliant and not depend on the food system. Mm-hmm <affirmative> and in Santa Cruz, you can really do that. Speaker 2 00:33:48 And, and what about elsewhere? Speaker 3 00:33:50 Elsewhere too, but, but certainly in Santa Cruz, because of the long growing season, I mean, most people do it because it gives them pleasure, meaning and satisfaction mm-hmm <affirmative> in some sense. And I think it's a, I think that people really enjoy growing things. It's a natural cycle that you can be part of mm-hmm <affirmative> and it makes you happy Speaker 2 00:34:12 Mm-hmm <affirmative>. So there are therapeutic therapeutic reasons to be a gardener, as well as, uh, Speaker 3 00:34:20 You know, nutritional, I've been a gardener for so long, and it's such a focus of my life to kind of stay stand back and say, well, what are the good things about doing something that is integral to who I am? It's really hard for me to step back. It gives meaning to life. It makes you part of nature. Um, it's fun. It's great exercise. It's beautiful. You create a beautiful environment. Uh, you encourage world wildlife. Um, there's no negatives. Speaker 2 00:34:51 No, I suppose there aren't. Uh, what happened that we talked about that you might like to, to talk about? Speaker 3 00:34:58 Oh, well, I'd like to just encourage people to just start very small. Like I really like X, Y, or Z, just try growing one or two things. You can have lovely garden and large containers. We specialize in varieties, especially for containers. So we have varieties that are compact and developed for containers. So we have short tomatoes, zucchini that don't spill out all over and vinyl all over. We have lots of lettuces that you can cut. You can grow like grass and then cut off and just eat the tops mm-hmm <affirmative>. So you can have five or six pots in your backyard and harvest a significant amount of really delicious things. And you can grow your own flowers, which is a delight and pleasure in every regard. So just start small. And it doesn't matter if everything works perfectly, um, and ask other people, gardening is something that you can learn from your friends and your neighbors, and everyone's eyes light up because it's really fun and people love to share it. Speaker 3 00:36:05 It it's a language that people can, you, you know, if you talk gardening, you, it doesn't really matter who you are, where you came from, what your educational level is or anything. And it can make a real difference in people's lives. I like what I'm doing and have done it this long. Cause it's a business that involves stories of hope and success. So we donate a lot of our outdated seats to like prison gardens, community gardens, school gardens, and there's so much positive things going on in those areas that, um, you're just joining a network. That's making the world a better place. And that's, that's a great network to be a part of Speaker 2 00:36:47 You. You just mentioned that you, you, you give, uh, outdated seeds to various, um, places is that, you know, seeds from the past season, Speaker 3 00:36:58 Does that mean yes. Seeds are like race horses. Um, well, seeds are like racehorse, racehorse. They have arbitrary birthdays Uhhuh. So every year we pack seeds for 18 months. That's the federal law. Does that mean they'll all die in 18 months? No, it's just the way the rule is. Because years ago, people used to buy Iraq seeds, set it outside their drug store and sell it for 10 years. And of course, half the seed was dead by then. So there are many laws in place, um, about minimum germination. So we have to retire the season seeds at the end of the year, and then they become, uh, donations. Mm-hmm <affirmative> to a wide variety of causes both here and broad Speaker 2 00:37:36 Uhhuh. Oh, okay. Um, Speaker 3 00:37:39 So we skipped a lot to food deserts, places that don't have access to food, empty lots. I mean, it's unbelievable all the ways people make use of them. It gives me great pleasure and satisfaction. So it's something very positive in world that seems very negative growing, you know, said, well, when fails, there's always the garden and it's, there's always a positive Speaker 2 00:38:07 Well, okay. Um, I don't know if there's anything else you'd like to talk about or there's nothing else that I would like to ask at this point. <laugh>, Speaker 3 00:38:17 <laugh> sorry. I think I've just chattered away. It's just a lot of, it's a lot of fun and then you get to, it's a lot of fun and then you get Speaker 2 00:38:24 To eat, you get to eat it. Right, right. Yeah. Speaker 3 00:38:26 Um, but I grow as many flowers as I do vegetables and I get a lot of pleasure. And you're tying your, you're handing yourself back in history to people who have been enjoying the same thing as you for hundreds of years. Speaker 2 00:38:42 Uh, but are people, is it possible to come and, and visit your test garden? Speaker 3 00:38:47 Uh, no, because we're in a residential neighborhood in Felton, but we donate a lot of seats to U C SC and to, Speaker 2 00:38:55 Oh no, I know that. Yeah. Speaker 3 00:38:56 Every year. So a lot of what they do, I think U CSCs farm and garden, um, is where I got a lot of inspiration from. And I would encourage people to visit those gardens cuz they're wonderfully inspiring and they still give good classes. And we have a wonderful program at, at Cabrillo and they do outreach as well. And we are, we are blessed to have really good nurseries, um, in Santa Cruz that can help you get started Speaker 2 00:39:23 Well. Okay. I think that's about it. So I want to thank you Renee for being my guest on sustainability now. Speaker 3 00:39:33 Oh, well that, it was really fun. I, I am an avid listener and I've enjoyed, I don't know if my interview's gonna be as interesting as some of the ones you've done, which I've really enjoyed the program. So thank you for having me. Speaker 2 00:39:44 Well, you're welcome. And, and where, where should people go to look to, to learn more about, uh, Renee's garden? Speaker 3 00:39:50 Uh it's Renee's garden, R E N E E S G a R D E N. Renee's garden.com. But our seeds are sold at all the garden centers in town. Um, you can find them there as well. And throughout the country, we, we sell our seeds all over the country and in and in Canada. Speaker 2 00:40:08 Again. Thanks very much. Speaker 3 00:40:10 Thank you. Speaker 2 00:40:11 Thanks for listening and thanks to all the staff and volunteers who make case squid, your community radio station and keep it on the air. And so until next every other Sunday, sustainability now Speaker 1 00:40:32 Gonna make this garden grow, going mul deep and low, gonna make it fertile ground inch, please roll. Please bless these seeds. So please keep them safe below till the rains down. We, the king stone we are made of dreams and bones need a spot to call my own for the time as closer grain, the grain sauna and rain find my way in nature's to tune my body and my brain to the music, the lamb, this Speaker 0 00:41:56 Please, Speaker 1 00:42:00 Please keep them tumbling long season with a cheerful song. Mother will make you strong. If you give her loving from tree, got his hungry eye on me in my garden that buy inch, make this garden long, make it please bless these seeds, Speaker 0 00:43:11 Please.