The Edible Yard: Organic Gardening and Permaculture Tips for Beginners with Ingrid Fromm of Ralstead Foodscapes

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#28 The Edible Yard: Organic Gardening and Permaculture Tips for Beginners with Ingrid Fromm of Ralstead Foodscapes

If you’ve ever looked at your yard and thought, “Could this be more than just grass?”

Maybe a place that feeds your family, supports pollinators and actually works with nature instead of against it…then today’s episode is for you!

We’re talking about the idea of the edible yard, turning everyday outdoor spaces into thriving, beautiful ecosystems that produce food, build healthy soil and invite biodiversity right to your doorstep.

Our guest today is Ingrid Fromm, a certified permaculture designer, garden consultant and the founder of Ralstead Foodscapes in Raleigh, NC. Ingrid is on a mission to make gardening feel accessible, empowering and joyful. Her philosophy is simple but powerful: gardening shouldn’t feel intimidating, it should feel like coming home to work alongside nature.

In today’s conversation, we talk about:

+ what a foodscape actually is
+ how permaculture principles can make gardening easier and more resilient
+ practical organic gardening tips for beginners who want to start growing right where they are
+ and we even learn an unexpected beauty tip

We also dig into the deeper idea that gardens aren’t just about plants; they’re about community, connection and learning to see your yard as part of a living ecosystem.

So whether you’re dreaming of your first raised bed, curious about companion planting or wondering how to turn a patch of lawn into something more meaningful, this episode is full of inspiration and practical starting points.

Let’s dig in!

Chapters

[00:00]

Mentions

Craig LeHoullier - author of Epic Tomatoes

Robin Wall Kimmerer - author of Braiding Sweetgrass & The Serviceberry

Bill Mollison: Permaculture Designers' Manual

Graham Bell: The Permaculture Garden

Toby Hemenway: Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture

Documentaries: Kiss the Ground and The Biggest Little Farm

Read Transcript ↓

Transcript

Marguerite Buer (00:43) welcome to the show Ingrid. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Of course. we're going to talk a little bit about gardening today, beginner gardening and permaculture. And so first I want to find out what sparked your interest in edible landscaping and gardening. Well, when I moved from New York down to Raleigh, we... discovered there's so much we could grow here. I mean, I always garden. was an avid gardener. even in my grandmother's house in Norway, they just in Europe, they grow everything right out front, you And when we got our property here in Raleigh, we just kind of transformed it from a suburban lawn with like a bush and trees And we completely transformed it into like an edible landscape. So took years, but every part of our property is usable and it's just a quarter acre. And there was so much that you can do on a quarter acre and so much you can grow. we went to the local farmer's market and we sold micro greens and other things. And it just kind of grew from there. And as ⁓ I was leaving a job and I realized I've been in marketing for so long and it's like, hmm, this is what I love to do. You know, there's so much you can do and people don't realize how much you can grow in a very small space. Yeah. So I this is, this is, this is my future now. ⁓ good. So you followed your passion. Right. I read that too on your website, how you, when you were selling microgreens at the farmer's market, you were like, you know what? I love teaching people. Like this is what I really like. So that's awesome that you followed your passion like that too. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I learned so much from people like other gardeners as well, which is that's the thing about gardeners. They all are great information and they share freely and always here's some seeds, here's a plant, you know, that whole thing. So it's ⁓ it's just a nice it's nice being outside. It's nice getting my hands dirty and it's nice showing people what's possible. Yeah, I love to how you said that you did yours on a quarter acre because a lot of people think like, oh, I don't have a lot of space. Like this isn't for me. I can't do it, but you can actually maximize your space through it. Yeah. I love that. So for listeners who have never heard the term before, what exactly is a food So food scape is just, it's like an edible landscape. you know, we're used to growing in raised beds and that's fine, but there's so many other things like blueberry bushes and blackberry bushes and fruit trees. and elderberry bushes. So all that can be planted in your landscape and that becomes a food scape or a food forest. There's food for, you know, people talk about food forest. That's another word, right? So, but food scaping is just basically instead of having, you know, grass and, and, know, azaleas and things, know, bushes that we're used to seeing, which they have a place, but for food scaping, can do a raspberry bush or a blackberry bush, persimmons trees, apple trees, which don't grow great here, but Yeah, that's more of a New York thing. That's a New York thing. I love that. So how is a food scape different than a traditional backyard vegetable garden, other than like the raised beds? Well, I mean, you can have raised beds in food scaping, but it's just, It's more intentional as it's dotted throughout the landscape as opposed to just having one little area. And that's what I, that's what I grow. Although that's what I do. I don't expect everybody else to just completely rip out their lawn. Well, it would be nice, I would like that, but I don't expect people to all do it, yeah. So you can do it. You know, people would come, we would have this garden. and people would come and see what we did and people like I can't do all that but it's like but I never thought of just sticking a raised bed on my front yard because that's where the sun is you know so I think it's kind of just whatever you want to make it you can have a backyard vegetable garden and it's still like your own little food scape you might throw in like a blueberry bush they do really well here almost everywhere they do well ⁓ there are certain trees that you can have that bear fruit that are native like pawpaw trees So there's different ways that you can kind of integrate a food scape into just your regular Yeah, I love that too that you say that about blueberry bushes because for some reason, I don't know why it's always seemed kind of intimidating to even get berry bushes, which is weird because it's not. It always just felt like that to me. Yeah, it's like that. And I think that's that's kind of what I'm trying to do with Ralston food scapes is kind of demystify and not make it so so difficult. because it feels like you need to know everything. And you can't possibly know everything. Master gardeners don't know everything. I learned a lot just from being here, which was a completely different zone than I was used to for my entire life. And I've been here like 12 years now. So I had to learn, oh, I wanted to put this in here. It's like, this doesn't grow well here. that's when I learned the importance of natives. because I was trying to grow stuff that I remembered in New York. And I was like, this is great. I love this. It's like, ⁓ it's not growing. didn't come back. Yeah. think that's, that's really important too. Cause like for us, it's a little bit overwhelming to think like, where do we even start? So you have to understand what, is native to the area? What's resilient, right? So that we don't, you know, it's a little bit easier to get going. Right. But, I really love the idea of planting in the front yard with, know, going with the sun. How do you deal with like HOA? for us when we were looking for a house, I was like, no HOAs. Yeah. Cause we knew we wanted chickens. We knew we wanted solar panels and I just, and I, we knew we wanted to garden. And for us, like when we were looking at houses, we were thinking about gardening in the backyard. That's just kind of what's ingrained into us. Right. But the house that we bought was on the corner and the sun was mostly in the front yard. So it's like, okay. So with HOAs, It depends on how strict they are. just saw today that I believe it was Pennsylvania they enacted a law that HOAs can't prohibit you planting natives. wonderful. That's good news. So sometimes like when one state has to do things like that, It just depends on what your HOA does. If it's better to have it in the backyard and it might involve removing a tree or something like that, then you might have to consider that. I know it's tough when you have those kind of restrictions. But like you can stick garlic bulbs in there. They're not going to know what it is. there's other things that are nice native plants that you can put in there that at least feed the pollinators. and help the ecology and diversify everything from what is normally planted. Right. Okay. Great. And I do have a quick question to you that I was wondering, would you need less equipment for a food scape than a regular traditional Yeah, you need a wheelbarrow. You need a shovel. You need a pitchfork. These are things that are just basic. We don't have any heavy equipment. So we would get wood chips from Chip Drop, which is a free service from arborists and tree services. They have to pay to get rid of their wood chips. And if you sign up with them, you have to be able to take the entire load of trucks. So that could be like, 13 yards of wood chips, it's a lot. But they would dump it and then we would use that on our garden. So you'd need like a pitchfork and a wheelbarrow. And that's like things that I'm helping somebody now with coaching. And I was like, do you have a shovel? you have like, need all these like, just basic things like that, know, a trowel, something to get at weeds if you need to, you know, things like that. But nothing particularly Pretty basic. Okay, that's good to know. So if more neighborhoods embrace food scaping, how do you think that would change the community? Well, for instance, I, you know, the strip of land right between the sidewalk and the street, the hellscape, hell strip that people I didn't, when we got rid of our lawn, didn't want to mow that anymore. So I just like ripped everything out and I started planting herbs and just things that would keep coming back. You know, flowers, mint. And sometimes I would throw like pepper plants in there. I've just like dot stuff in there and flowers that would come in the spring and then other ones that would come in the fall, lots of perennials. And for me, I told my neighbors, I'm like, listen, here's some rosemary here. And I would show them where everything was because they weren't growing food and they couldn't grow food because it was too shady, but they would walk past and they, you know, so I saw the neighbor that's like, I'm going to go get some. I'm like, you don't have to ask, just go get it. Yeah. So if more people did things like that, just diversifying their whole, landscape is just a huge benefit. Yeah. Native plants, huge benefit. So besides just having food or having herbs or having fruit, any kind of veggies and stuff like that, would be less running to the store for everything or people might eat more in season. people don't think about where their food comes from. Yeah, I know, which if you really think about it, it's like crazy. Yeah. Like it's, putting it in our body and we don't really know where half the stuff we eat comes from. No, and how old it is. I mean, think about it. So they have to grow food commercially to look good and to withstand transportation. Right. So that's why the tomatoes at the store don't taste anything like the tomatoes you grow. Cause they just, they're just raised, they're hot house raised or they're raised differently because they have to look nice. Right. and people don't think about food miles. Right. I noticed during strawberry season, which we're almost here. One thing I noticed is like the strawberries from the store, they're always like white inside, but fresh strawberries are always red and juicy inside. Yeah. Like, the difference is so there. Yeah. I think tomatoes are probably the best example of the difference of growing things. But even like, for instance, like blueberries, I started picking, we had this big blueberry bush and we have it out by our chicken. So it's constantly fertilized and it's huge. and the chickens love it and they jump up and get blueberries. So they get all the blueberries. They even learned how to jump up on things to get, them higher so they could get to a. I'd love to see a video of that. I have a video of that. Okay. share it. I love that. That's great. the taste of the homegrown blueberries was amazing. And then my husband like started, I was like, Sean, you have to try these. And now he's like, He's like militant with the blueberries. Like there's birds out there. I can't have the wild birds getting the blue. Now he realizes how good they taste. That would, that's good. That, was actually going to be one of my questions is like in a neighborhood like this, how do you stop animals, pests, anything from getting in? You don't, you just let it be. Yeah. So so we have deer that just kind of roam the neighborhood. Like little packs of dogs at all times of the day. And they can jump a fence. They can jump a fence, but I don't have a fence out front, so they're just like on our property. And we always said that we grew so much that we could share with the rabbits and the deer. Although we do protect things, so you can protect tomatoes and peppers and things like that with deer netting. Pests is another, that's a whole other thing. That's more of... trying to have Brazilian plants and good soil and companion planting and beneficial insects and things like that. But, you know, people always say, I can't plan. I have deer. It's like, you're everywhere. Yeah. You can't win that battle. Yeah. No. Okay. So you can protect them like deer netting. there's other things we use, motion sensor sprinklers that go on at night. So we have them set up. And if you pass by the noise startles them. Yeah. And it also keeps neighbors out of the yard. That's brilliant. I did not know that even existed. I love like a low key security system. is. Because my neighbors will walk by and they'll trigger it like a dusk and I'm like, sorry. That's a really good idea. I love it. Yeah. You can use like a fishing line. around there and like strategic places because if they walk into something they can't see, they kind of back up. But that also creates an obstacle for you So you have to be concerned about that as well. That makes So speaking of knowing where your food comes from too, just going back to that for a second. You know, a lot of people, I feel like, don't understand the benefits of organic. They're like, that's just something they label to, charge us more or whatever. But so what would you say is the difference between organic and regenerative. Well, that's pretty much the same organic and that's I thought. OK. So regenerative is more of like a farming principle. So it's not tilling the soil like traditionally farmers with tilled soil. And they're, they pull out weeds and they use pesticides and GMO crops and all that kind of stuff. Right. With regenerative agriculture, you don't do that and you and you don't plant monoculture. So it's not like a cornfield, There's an amazing movie called Kiss the Ground. And it's all about regenerative farming and agriculture and these farmers that were losing their crops year after year and they were featured in this documentary. And they said that when they started like having more biodiverse crops, then when catastrophe came like a flood or a hurricane, whatever it was, their crops still survived. and they didn't have just one crop to rely on. So that's kind of the principle behind regenerative farming. For organic, organic just means you're not using the kind of pesticides that there are some organic pesticides, you're not using pesticides because, do you want to put that in your no. And it's unfortunate that we have to charge more is because the process to get organic certified is so much greater and so costly for the farmers that it's hard for a lot of them to do that. Right. It's just cheaper to produce food that's not organic. Absolutely. when I go to the farmers market, most of the farmers to depending on the farmers market, most of the farmers do go by organic practices. They just don't have the certification because of what you mentioned. And that's the same thing that we do. Like we were selling for a short time, we were selling basically out of our front yard to our customers that we had from when we sold microgreens and we stopped selling there. And I remember distinctly, somebody ordered bok choy and she ended up writing me back. She's like, that had so many bug holes in it. I had to throw it out. I'm like, It just means it's organic. Something's gonna eat your crops. You know what mean? It's not like you're used to shop It's just not whole foods. I'm sorry. I literally like you were coming, you wanted this and I cut it. You can't get anything fresher than that. Does it have a bug hole? Probably. It doesn't make it any less nutritious. That's just their reality of it. Yeah. If you're not seeing anything like that, it's either completely covered and they have a big farm that they can do this well. If you're getting it from someone's front yard, chances are there's going to be something eating at it. Exactly. And that's another thing that I heard about too is even with some of the berries, like strawberries and raspberries, some of the commercial farmers or I won't say farmers, but distributors, even to make it look so perfect in the grocery store, they actually dye red strawberries. I'm like, what's the point of eating strawberries? We've gotten so used to what the ideal food should look like in that it's just not right. Right. Yeah. Exactly. So for somebody like us, where do we start? Well, when we started, we just got two raised beds and we just stuck them in the bottom of our property. We just started with two. That's it. You know, so here in North Carolina, the soil is not it's all red clay, Yeah, I was gonna ask about that. Yeah. So we did raise beds. That's the best way to combat the red clay. you mean you can make one, you can buy one. There's the metal beds, there's wooden beds. You know, there's people that do a combination of like galvanized steel and like roofing panels. And I have a bed like that. I have all sorts of it. Yeah. Whatever, whatever you can do to And it's like, just start. So I always ask people, what do they eat? What do you, what does your family eat? A lot of, so do you eat salads? Like lettuce is super easy to grow. It's one of the easiest things to Oh, okay. I didn't even know that. Yeah. And it starts from seed very easily. So it's not, I mean, you can get the little starts, the little cell packs and stuff. That's like anything that's like a small plant is considered a starter. so you can get that at, at the big box stores or nurseries at this time of year. and you can plant that or you can plant, you can buy seeds. They come up, lettuce seeds come up very quickly and you can keep harvesting it. So you can harvest that all through the summer. might bolt to go to seed when it gets real hot, which you can also succession plant, which is starting at like three weeks later, start another row or start somewhere else. So it lasts longer. have something fresh. And you can put something like lettuce seeds in a planter too, like in a big planter. You know, if people put like, They buy all these like impatience and all these different like flowers. I'm like, you can put lettuce in there. Like put lettuce and like a rosemary plant or parsley. like then at least you have something that you can harvest from and it's on your patio. So that's another thing. Like if you have an HOA, you can do things like that with patio plants or big planters and things like that. I always see that with like tomatoes, right? That's what everybody's go to would be on the deck in some kind of planter for the like for the raised beds, does the material you use really matter? Like does anything seep off of that material into the soil or anything like I mean, if you use pressure treated, there is leaching. They've done a lot with the wood now where that doesn't, that doesn't seem to be as much of a concern. But for us, we always use cedar when we did wood. Cedar is a very durable pest resistant wood. Black locust is another one Douglas fir certain types of wood There's other things you can do to protect the wood. There's like linseed oil, which will just seep in There's shoshugi bond which is a Japanese method of burning the Okay, I've seen that on just on videos. Yeah. Yeah, it's I've done that I made a couple of benches and things like that. So I like to do some woodworking. It's a cool look too. So it's burning the wood. So yeah, you take like a little blowtorch. It's fun too. There's something like cathartic about it. We've got a little blowtorch in the garage. can show you later. It's a lot of fun. So take it and you, you burn it. keeps it from, it actually makes it ironically fire resistant. That's why they use it on houses in Japan, like that method, you'll see like these like black wooden houses and makes it fire resistant. And pest resistant and it's just, it's a way of preserving it. So that's great. That's really, really cool. I had no idea about that. I love things like that. Me too. Cause I was thinking about building a few boxes for the spring and we'll be behind now but I want to just go grab two by fours but I want to make sure that they're you know safe and they'll keep the products organic you know and yeah nothing would leach out because we're kind of psycho with that yeah a little bit oh yeah and or or you can buy like galvanized steel yeah anything that as long as it has an open bottom because you want to be able to Drain. You want to drain and you also kind of want the symbiotic relationship between the soil and the ground and the bugs and everything getting in there. Right. Instead of people like that put down landscape fabric or something to block it, then you've just basically made a big pot. Right. It goes to like a bed where there's, yeah, you want worms in there. You want all that good stuff in there. Did we do that? Yeah, we left it open. Okay, I got it. We have two cedar boxes and So we always go into the gardening season with high hopes we put cucumber plants in there. got a starter from one of my favorite local farms around here. And then I just like planted some seeds and the Tulsi grew like no problem. Of course mint always comes back. The cucumbers did okay. I got a couple. probably could have got way more if I actually gave it some TLC, but it did pretty good. But the others, I'm like, okay, so I love what you do because you also consult gardens for people. I was like, when I'm ready for that, like I'm calling you because I need that. It's so much work. It's so much knowledge. And even like you said, even the most experienced lifelong gardeners don't even know everything. So I'm like, my gosh, how am I going to be able to do all this? Well, think, well, thank you. I also do coaching where I can go like however many times that you want. once a month or twice a month or once a season to just kind of help you like this is the best way to prune tomatoes or cucumbers. I mean, there's pruning of cucumbers too that's also makes them more productive and less crazy. So it's just kind of sharing along the way to kind of give people support when they just feel like over, cause it is overwhelming. It was overwhelming for me and. Quite frankly, I killed a lot of stuff. So you can't be afraid to fail. That's what it is. You can't be afraid that things don't do well. Then you won't like that. You know, people say, I don't have a green thumb. That's okay, right? Right. reason that came from, my friend of mine just told me that the term came from actually getting your hands dirty in the soil and touching the leaves Cause I don't like to always wear gloves and my hands are like green. That's where it comes from. You have to actually go out and do it. I do that. I do all the yard work with just no gloves, even no shoes too, but just to catch the energy from the earth. It's therapeutic for me for sure. I it's the same for a lot of people. Absolutely. And there's even, Certain things that you get from the soil. That's like really good for your immune system and your body. Yeah. Like just from even having your hands in the soil. absolutely. Yeah. And for women, it makes your nails really strong too. Really? Yes. So I always had really strong nails. I always had my hands dirty. I don't wear nail polish, I wish I knew that when I used to go get gel nails like every two weeks and then I ruined my nails and I was like, how do I make these strong again? So now I know if I ever go through that phase again, just being soil record. Replace the salon with the garden. Yes, I love that so much. so let's talk about soil quality and sunlight. They're super important for any garden, of course. And so how can beginners figure out what their best setup is? Like, what if their front and backyard is shady? Well, there are things that will grow in the shade. it depends if it's full, full shade or not. it's kind of just looking at your land and seeing the sun and seeing how the rain falls. Where does it pool up? does it just distribute equally? Does it sink into the soil? Where's the windy side? Where's the north side? So you want to plant, you want like as much sun as possible. like south or southeast and But I put stuff in my backyard, which is also north-facing. In the heat of the summer, lettuce is also good because it will want some shade and it won't bolt. Like, so in my front yard it will bolt, but then in my backyard it's got the shade of trees and stuff. So that will last longer. Okay. So it's kind of figuring it out. I think one of the things that when people come to our house for like garden tours and says, you know, I never have luck with tomatoes and I'm like, how much sun do you have? And they're like, oh, we have a lot of sun. I'm like, do you have a lot of sun though? So people think that like in the middle of the summer, you know, it's high noon and yeah, they're yards full of light. It's sunny, but that's only for like maybe an hour. So tomatoes are kind of a high maintenance plant. it needs six to eight hours of like strong sun to survive. that's important to kind of figure out what your limitations are based on your sun. So you might not be able to grow tomatoes if you don't have a lot of sun, but there are other things like radishes and carrots and other like sweet potatoes and things like that that you might be able to grow without a lot of sun. that makes me think too, like with food scaping and just talking about like the neighborhood and communities, what a great way that you could just like trade things. Kind of like what they did back in the old days. Yes. Yes, or if like people like we threw two peach trees in that hell strip too. So my husband's thinking was the squirrels would go after that instead of eating all the ones in our backyard. It's a distraction. Yeah. Look over here, shiny keys. Yeah. But I don't know if that's going to work. But you know, the other thing is that wouldn't it be great if you people in the neighborhood could just pick peaches? Yes. You know what I mean? Yeah. We could feed so many people if we all just kind of grew food as much as possible or if the municipalities kind of instead of planting, you know, bread for pears, which are horrible, that planted an actual pear tree. Something that grew fruit. Yes. Do you hear that people? Let's do it. Let's all get together and do it. I remember I spent my early years in South Florida and there was orange trees and lemon trees. And so you run around the neighborhood, you just stop and have an orange. I loved it. Yeah. Love to see more of that. I know. And even I'm sure you probably know or maybe had that experience in New York too with apple trees. it's just really cool. I also saw like when I went to California, I know California you can grow like anything there. Yeah, they have great growing season. Yeah. And they had avocado and lemon trees in the yard. was like, how cool would it be? Cause I love avocados and lemons. Like how cool would it be to just like go and grab one off the tree? But you can grow lemons here. Are they hard? It's like a tropical plant. So it's a little bit high maintenance. But I have a couple of lemon trees and I put them out in my patio. They're in pots and I put them out in my patio, start them in shade and then slowly bring them into the sun. And it's funny in the winters when they start flowering and fruiting, it just takes like three months for a lemon to like. It's just slow, which is why like you have a big tree. It's fine. But if you have like a little tree in a pot, it's like, oh my gosh, that lemon's taking forever. But you can do it. I have grown lemons. And key limes are pretty easy to grow here. Do you have to cover it in the wintertime? You either have to bring it inside. You can bring it in the garage and let it go dormant or. It's not gonna it's not gonna withstand a harsh frost. So it would have to be like in a closed patio of some sort Okay, yeah, I could probably take the cool temperatures I used to let it just I did this in New York with tropical plants to just kind of let it go dormant cut it back and just water it enough to keep it alive but let it just kind of sleep and then in the spring just Start feeding it and watering it Okay, great. and I did have a question too about soil so I know there's a lot that goes into soil. It's like basically the most important thing. so can you explain like how the easiest way for a beginner to get healthy soil like was composting? And then also I was curious about what things to look for in bagged soil, if you just have to kind of go that you're right, the soil is the most important part because I always say it's like, I'm not making a garden, I'm making soil and then the garden comes. Yeah. That's a way to look at it. we did the woodchipping and if you like Google back to Eden gardening, it's kind of that whole thing where you just change the soil by woodchipping, because woodchipping breaks down, it breaks down the nutrients. within like three years, we changed our soil. What didn't take that long. Okay. So we were planting in beds, but we were woodchipping all around the beds, all around the property and got rid of the grass and that completely transformed our soil. And now it's like you can just stick a shovel anywhere and there's black rich soil. kidding. Transformed it. leaving the leaves. know that's, that's people here at every fall, but I don't know. People love to bag their leaves. It's like you're making extra work. They break down so quickly. It's one of the quickest things to break down is our leaves. And it's like, if you just, if they're not going to kill your grass, grass grows dormant in the winter. And it's great for the insects too. Like think about it. There's all these, you know, the fireflies and there's a bunch of bees that live underground. That's where they nest and that's where they have eggs so they come up from the ground. The more we keep ruining the soil and putting pesticides and fertilizers and all that stuff, we're ruining their homes. And that's why people don't see fireflies like we used to when we were kids. And that whole problem with bees too. Right. And there's so many other, like there's tons of, like we all think of honeybees. Honeybees aren't even native to here. There's so many other native bees that we're killing with Mosquito Joe and all those, pesticides which don't work to get rid of mosquitoes either. yeah. You know, the thing about bugs is there's life cycles. So you can't just like, if you kill the adults, they're still like larva. And it's the one thing I've learned from with chickens too. It's like if you're treating something, can't like you're treating for mites, you have to find out what kind of mite it is. And you have to find out the life cycle is. Cause It has laid the eggs already. So you're going to have to treat something probably two weeks later, you know? So that's important to know what you're dealing with, but the soil that that's one way to do it. You don't have to do your whole yard like I did, but say there was like a patch that you want to be able to like plant in. Just mulching, mulching leaves, wood chips, not the bag stuff that you buy in the store, but like stuff you get from an ⁓ arborist or all natural, if you can get all natural wood by leaving the leaves and leaving all the debris and that kind of stuff, that also is composting. It's just like, it's breaking down. It's all the same thing. It's breaking down. Yeah. And making a compost pile is fantastic and it's easy to do and you don't need equipment for it. And you can make it really hard where you're like, I need this much brown stuff and this much green stuff and I want to make it hot. So I have a thermometer. You can do that or you can do the lazy composting like we do and just kind of throw everything in there and have a bunch of composters and then it will break down and then you just take it from the bottom and there's this great soil in there that you can add to your raised beds. Right. And how do you keep animals and things like that away from a compost pile? Well, you buy like a commercial one or any kind of one with a cover, If you're doing it on your property and it's not covered, then you will run the risk of getting possums and raccoons and animals that are looking for easy food. This is how psycho I am though, because then the word that comes to my mind is microplastics. I'm like, oh my gosh, it's so hot here. It should be food safe. OK. So there's a lot of like high density polyethylene that's food safe. You can get things that are rated food safe. Like I have that for my compost or my rain barrels or the rain barrels, the chickens, the water bar, that's all food safe, Right. I actually was just reading about that, having anything to do with gardening. was about a washer I was looking at that had a polyethylene, like the little middle thing. yeah, so I guess it just depends on like the temperature that it heats up to and very rarely does it heat up to the point where that material would actually release microplastics. That makes sense. What is something about growing food at home that completely surprises people I Think it's the taste Yeah. Yeah, I think it's a taste. I don't think people realize how nutrient dense and how flavorful the food that you grow is That and the other thing is I was You know, we were talking about people don't know where their food comes from. were, we do like garden tours. We've been doing this for years, And I remember we had onions growing and onions. don't really bury you kind of half bury. they're like, they come out on the ground so you can see them. People are like, what is that? It's like, it's an onion. Like people don't even recognize when it's growing the way it's supposed to grow in the ground. You know, asparagus is another one that people don't realize what it looks like. the little tips that you buy, that's exactly what it looks like when it comes out of the ground. So I think that's what that's one thing they're surprised at, the taste. And also, I think how easy some things are to grow, like, again, everybody gets intimidated by it's not intimidating. just have to start. that's really good advice. that was one of the reasons why I really want to have you on because that's what you are wanting to try to, you know, make gardening approachable and accessible for people. And I do get intimidated by it a lot. So it's really good to know. I know when I started and I wanted to grow tomatoes, I didn't know what I wanted to grow. I know I didn't really care for tomatoes. So that was kind of why that tomatoes became like my crop because I didn't really like them. never put them on sandwiches. They didn't have any taste to me. And I started growing tomatoes I got like a seed catalog and I've gotten like 19 different varieties of tomatoes and these dark tomatoes and yellow tomatoes and all. And it was great because that's how I discovered what did well, what I liked, how big it went, whether it cracked, whether, you know, what, how it behaved. And unfortunately with tomatoes, you could have like a good year and have a bad year. The weather here is so unpredictable and it makes it hard to garden in Raleigh or in this zone. you just kind of like do the spaghetti thing. I throw everything out there and see what I like. And now I have like my core five tomatoes that I always grow. And then like, I'll always introduce a couple of new ones. Tomatoes is great too, because you can make so many things with tomatoes. all four seasons like salsa in the summer tomato sauce when you want something heavier with pasta. It's great, right? I was thinking I love the idea of just starting and seeing what what sticks right throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what comes up and then seeing what you actually enjoy eating as a family to yeah, and then one thing I discovered with tomatoes was you know, a lot of people can't eat them because some they're very acidic nightshades and there's certain types of tomatoes that don't have as much acidity and don't bother people that are normally bothered by them. there's some varieties that are so flavorful, like really flavorful grape tomatoes in a salad or pasta salad. The tomatoes are either determinant or indeterminate. Indeterminate are the ones that grow nice and big and like eight feet tall and just kind of go everywhere. Determinate ones stay short. but they tend to fruit all at once, is the ones that you usually make sauce from. there's somebody from Raleigh it's called Epic Tomato and his name is Craig LaHoolia, And he developed a bunch of tomatoes that were larger. So the one I'm growing is Yellow Dwarf. but it's a regular size tomato, but the plant stays nice and short. ⁓ so it's a little bit more Manageable. That up. Epic tomato. Yeah. Remember that one. Yes. when you see a client for the first time or you're, you're taught coaching them or helping them build out their foodscape, where do you usually go with water? Do you usually look at like building a hose system or do you go straight to rainwater collection? That sort of thing? depends what they want and it depends on how big of a, of an area it is. Yeah. it's always one of the things that intimidates me the most too, especially around here. Cause it can be so hot and things get so dry so quick. Yeah. And if it's not specifically native to this area and can survive that, I, we lose stuff all the time. Right. You might just forget for a couple of days to go out and make sure it's watered. Right. And especially in raised beds and things like that where it's going to tend, it's not in the ground. So it is going to get drier quicker, if they're taller. there's irrigation that you can do this drip irrigation. There's soaker hoses, which is a good way. Soaker hoses are a great way to kind of like snake around. Yeah. you just have to make sure that your faucet to the house isn't leaking. You you don't want to, you don't want to add to your water bill. we did rain barrels and we connected them. And we have two 500 gallon cisterns that ⁓ we take from the roof. we luckily here in Raleigh, have a rain reward system. So people across the country should check their municipalities because we didn't know about it. We found it out from another gardener. So that's, I mean, that's great for us cause you don't want to have to keep watering. And I know that becomes, that becomes a chore for people. Even I have a client now that's like, I just had a hard time watering everything. Cause you're like working and you come home and you're like, everything's drooping. it days go by. I'm like, wow, I didn't even realize it. It's been a week now. Haven't even looked at it. You know, I can barely keep track of our indoor plants. Well, and it's good best to water in the morning. So, if you water earlier in the morning and not like in the middle of the day where it'll evaporate. I think the other thing is if you are watering by hand or by hose or something like that is you're not really supposed to get like food plants wet. I mean, obviously when it rains, they get wet, but that's also where you get like mildew and things like that. But it's not terrible. I don't think anyone really waters deeply enough, for instance, with tomatoes. if you water really deeply when they're first starting out, the roots will grow down and down and They're going looking for that water. Yeah. So you won't have to water them as often as they get bigger. Once the roots get nice and strong, it won't, it'll seek out water down below when you won't have to constantly water the surface is what we do is he looked at it it's like, it looks dry, but the plant is fine. So we kind of teach them like, go find water. You're on your own now. find water. So we don't have to baby them. Right. Yeah. That's a great tip. the other thing with plants is mulching the base. And that's not a great thing about wood chips is if you mulch the base, and I do this with tomatoes for a couple of reasons, is you mulch it, keeps the water in. And the great thing about wood chips is that when they get wet, it keeps the soil nice and wet, but as it dries, it releases that water back into the soil. So it's kind of, it serves a lot of purposes. Instead of just being, you know, oh, it looks nice. And also when it rains, the dirt doesn't kick up on the plants. So if the dirt kicks up on the back of the tomato leaves, it can get bacteria and get a bacterial infection. Same thing with basil. So if you mulch around it and you kind of mitigate that, not guarantee that you won't get any kind of bacterial effect, but it mitigates that splashback that you get from the dirt. ⁓ So mulching around anything, even whether it's in the ground and that's part of companion planting or guild planting, which is a little bit different, but it's, you're using other plants as kind of a ground cover that will keep the roots shaded and help with that as well, not just with insect control, which is normally what we think of. That's great. That's a good tip. And what is guilt Guild planting is it's more of companion planting is when you plant like marigolds and basil with tomatoes because it helps like the marigolds help to deter pests. And they have similar needs. Guild planting is usually around a fruit tree or a nut tree. And it's more of a permanent ecosystem. So the plants kind of work together to help the tree whether it's like pest control ground cover Like a say have peach tree do you plant comfrey which has a very deep taproot and that will bring nutrients up and With comfrey you can also chop the leaves and use that as mulch It's a great. It's a great garden plant actually for people. Yeah, and it's a really good pollinator. They're also tracks pollinator. So guild planting differs in that it's more, of an ecosystem and it's done usually with perennials around the fruit or nut Okay. Wonderful. I want to do a really quick game Okay. So it's called plant or pass and I'm going to throw it. are you ready? I'm ready. love this. I'm going to throw out the name of a plant. Some of them are common and some are a little unexpected. And you tell us whether it's worth planting in a home food scape or if it's a hard pass in this beginner edition. Okay. Okay. So beginner edition. Okay. either plant it, which is great for beginners. Proceed with caution or hard pass. Okay. Tomatoes. I say plant it. You got to try it. Blueberries. Mint. Proceed with caution because it will spread. Yeah, we found that out for sure. Yeah, it's crazy. I can't keep it under control. Lavender. I would say for the beginner, would say pass. It's too hard here. Kale. ⁓ definitely. Plant. Watermelon. Perceive a caution. Fruit trees. That's too vague. It depends on the fruit. Yeah, I would say, you know what? I would always just say plant it. If it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. Yeah, plant it and see what happens. And last one is zucchini. I would say plant that. How easy is it to grow watermelon in this area anyway? It's not that it's, so it's not hard. It's just that. to get those big watermelons, takes a long time. During that time, so much can had ones get really, really, really big and then just crack right before then. Or the deer are like, oh, what's this? And they stomp on it and need it. I would say if you were gonna grow a watermelon, do personal sized ones, because they don't take as long to grow. but also last year I had a whole bed of cantaloupe and they were beautiful, beautiful cantaloupe. I was so excited. And then we got tons of tons of rain in the middle of the summer, which is unusual. And I went out to go look at them and they all split open. So the thing with watermelons, when they're starting to almost be ripe, you don't want to water them. But when mother nature doesn't, doesn't listen to that, then it's hard. So it's, it's a little bit more challenging, even though it's such a great fruit, but, but you can buy that locally in season. So you can find that at your farmers markets and stuff like that. And if you're going to try it at home, would say use the smaller personal sized ones. Okay. That's a good tip. But as far as, most of the vegetables that you grow, it's like, why not try it? Try things. Yeah, right. You never know. Even if you just get one cucumber, right? It's a it's a win. Right. And it's just, it's you know, everybody wants to be like the best at everything right away. And I'm like that, I'm the same way. get it. Like I get really mad when it doesn't work out and I can't do things and stuff. So I get that. But it's, it's so important to just keep going. You know, and sometimes bell peppers are harder, but, hot peppers are easier, you know? So you gotta just keep trying. Yeah. Right. I mean, just through trial and error too, you can perfect whatever your favorite crops are. It's not like you have to have like every single thing at the grocery store. And try like weird stuff too. Like kuka melons which are little tiny, they look like little watermelons, but they're like in the cucumber family. try something weird, you know, that's what we do. We try like weird stuff all the time, you know, and just grow crops that you wouldn't normally think of, but that's like, this is like there's walking kale and there's, Molochia, which is a Egyptian spinach. and it grows very big and it's kind of woody. And it turns out it's a trap plant for us, which is a plant that the Japanese beetles love. So if we plant Molochia, they'll attack that and not the plants that we want to like harvest So the word permaculture, can sound really intimidating. Can you explain that in like simple terms? it's permanent agriculture. That's where the word came from. it was developed basically by following the Bill Mollison, kind of coined the phrase, looked at, he's Australian, he looked at aborigine tribes and how they would grow food and how they would grow plants and how they would basically garden. And it's taking into consideration all those things like the sun, the wind. And it's working with nature and not against it. I was just thinking those words in my head. And that's really how you become successful. And there's like three tenants, which is like care for the earth, care for people share the surplus. So it's just it's giving back, and it's. finding what goes well together, finding how to redirect water, like working with the land and animals are usually a part of that. it's really trying to find out how your land works, where you would situate. If you were getting a piece of land, where would you situate your house? Where does the sun come? Where would fruit trees go? Where does the water pool, you where does the water go when it's like a heavy rain? They say like stand out in this huge rainstorm and see what happens on your property. And all those you can do on a small scale too. So it's kind of just working with nature. what role do pollinators play in edible Well, everything. mean, without pollinators, we don't have food. That's just, that's it. And it's not just bees, it's so many other pollinators. There's so many insects and I couldn't even begin to describe, name them all. But things like hoverflies that look like bees, but they're not. There's beneficial parasitic wasps. There's all sorts of just butterflies and... cabbage white butterflies and not just, you know, we know the monarchs, we know the swallowtails, but there's so many other kinds. So they all play a role in diversifying the garden So if you plant tomatoes near each other, which you usually do, like you plant like a row of tomatoes, but technically the seeds you might get from that tomato might have cross pollinated or. Sometimes they call it open pollination, which is fine. know a certain, think it was so true seed, which is local I think a lot of times they'll say open pollinated. Yes, or hybrid. And that could be just because they were growing near each other and when they harvest the seeds. And I collect all my seeds. you might not have the true plant, but it's close enough. Or it might be something really good too, because we all know that. mutts are good. exactly. how can someone make their yard more welcoming to like birds, bees, and all the beneficial insects? Well, I would do a research on what is native in your area, we don't want to introduce non-native species. So we want to concentrate on the native plants. Here in the South, Joe Pyeweed is a great pollinator plant. It gets. butterflies and moths and bees and all sorts of flying insects. comfrey again, I mentioned that that pretty much grows everywhere in the United States. Echinacea, Purple Coneflower, Black-eyed Susans, and things like that. All that kind of stuff that people are used to seeing. They're great pollinator plants. ⁓ So I think it's just find out what's native because it's so important to get the right insects and to have the right balance. And even though, you know, that butterfly bush looks beautiful and will attract butterflies, it's not the right thing to feed the butterflies that we need to feed. I mean, it's, if you're going to have that, make sure you have milkweed for monarchs. or butterfly weeds or other kinds of type of milkweeds. Monarchs will feed off of other plants, but they'll only lay eggs on the milkweed. So find out things that support in your area. That's the most important thing. that's good. so I saw on your website that you offer dog-friendly garden consultation, which I thought was really thoughtful because most people have dogs. So are there plants that people love but should never plant or dogs frequent? So it depends on if your dog eats the plants, but there are things that are poisonous if they tend to eat plants like castor oil. Castor plants are actually just like ornamentally pretty, but I wouldn't plant those. Carolina Jasmine, think is also, the flowers can be poisonous. A Sago Palm, which I know if my neighbor has like two of them, which is really like a house plant that can adapt to here. And those are poisonous, but it depends on what you're like, for me, the dog friendly is more like growing things that your dog will like. know, my dog is going to go in the bed. It's like, give it a reason not to, it's kind of like working with the behavior of the dog, what dogs like to do. I like to have a digging area for my dog. So she has a place that she can just dig, ⁓ get that out. you can also grow certain grasses that dogs like, and dogs don't usually like things unless they know they're supposed to like it So if you so like if you don't feed them strawberries from a strawberry patch, they'll probably leave your strawberries alone because they're not appealing to them there's not much as far as veggies that that are bad for dogs Yeah, that's what I figured. Yeah more like fruit fruity stuff like grapes and things like that. Yeah. Exactly. Well, we can't grow avocado. Yeah. Yeah. And avocado is really just the pit is the problem. It's not, it's not the flesh of the avocado. well that's good. So we don't have to be so psycho about our kids dropping avocado on the floor. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like they, know, they can't really have onions and garlic, but they're not going to want to eat that. Right. You know, And it's kind of like people say that with chickens too. It's like, well, is this poisonous with chickens? they're great at like realizing what nature really is supposed to be like when you have backyard chickens, because they kind of just like, they're not going to eat that anyway. That's right. That's unappetizing for them. They have intuition. They do. So what's one simple dog friendly change that any garden owner can make this weekend? I would say grow something for your dog. Like my dog loves beans and beans are so easy to grow. So plant something just for your That's a great idea. That is a great idea. Okay, so what are some easy wins that could make a really big difference early on? Well, I think again, like go back to planting lettuce. Lettuce is easy and everybody eats salads. You can grow kale, kale even though it likes the cool weather, you can still harvest the small leaves. So I would say, get out, some lettuce, herbs. Yeah, herbs are easy. Herbs are easy. I I use parsley with my cooking all the time. And I have a garden, a little raised bed that's got a bottom to it, on my patio. And I have it so I can just go out my kitchen door and it's just 10 feet from the porch. Put those where you're use them. I need one, I need those. I need like 10 of them with all the herbs. Especially mint because I use so many herbs. Yeah, I love it. you know, I know mint is like it gets invasive and everything because it the way it grows but we still have mint on our property. Yeah, we do too. And it deters insects and mosquitoes. It does help with the mosquitoes. I've noticed that. Yeah, after having it for a couple years right right on the outside of our deck, actually. That's great. It's been great. so what's one biggest mistake new gardeners make that you wish people would stop doing? I think the biggest mistake is that they think they don't have enough light. And then they're like, well, I can't grow anything. The other thing is, like you had mentioned this before too about like bagged soil and things like that. the stuff that they sell for raised beds, it's all very woody and mulchy. Yeah. It's like that. It's not really good. It's like, you have to realize a lot of the soil bags that you're looking at is just marketing. Yeah. It's not, you know, you want something rich and black and loamy and you want to see, you know, those little white specks you see that's from vermiculite, which is a natural occurring substance. It's not, it's not styrofoam, even though it feels like that, that helps aerate it. And so it's, I think it's just kind of like, don't buy into this is for raised beds and this is for this. Yeah. Yes. had the stinky stuff. Yeah. I always think too, um, microplastics in those bags when they're just sitting out in the, like the a hundred degree weather, right? No. Yeah. Yeah. I understand why people have to use bags. It's not, but I think, I think the other thing is just try to get something like if you're going to do a raised bed with soil, grab a bag of mushroom compost. It's like $8 or something of $10 and mix that in there. I just don't feel like there's like enough nutrients in a lot of these bag soils. So I get a soil amendment or something like that, whether it's compost or That's a really good tip. if you're starting out with just a raised bed, you just want to get going. You have to buy bagged soil maybe because you don't, too much to go make your own soil. Get the mushroom compost and mix it up, get something else to put in there. Yeah. It'd be in a better spot. Yeah. And also I'm curious, what if somebody, feels too intimidated to make their soil for their first year, but then they don't want to get the bagged soil. ⁓ Is there any place is that person in the room with us? Yeah. Is there anywhere like locally that you can just like go and pick up like a truckload of soil or have it delivered? Yes. OK, so there's there's soil three. They're out of Cary that they call the big yellow bag we use them and that's composted soil and they'll drop this big three. cubic yards in a bag wherever you want it like in your backyard. They're amazing. They come in a big truck and then they have this like little skidster or whatever. They pick it up and they put it exactly where you asked for like you can put an X there. They're terrific. If you need a lot of soil, garden centers a lot of times will have things mulch masters here and stuff will drop a truckload of soil. We used to do that. We used to split it with our neighbor. They'd pour it in this like right in the corner. of our yards and she would take what she needed for her beds and then we would take the rest and we'd split the cost. know, a good idea. Community, community. Yeah. Yeah. See that's, that's what makes it. That's the other thing about gardening. If you can get a bunch of people to garden around you, then you definitely can share resources like that. Yeah. That's really cool. and of course, you know, here's my crunchy side of course, my psycho crunchy side. That's okay. So when you get Any of those services, how do you know that there's not like roundup in it or any type of chemicals in it? do you just ask them? Yeah, you have to kind of research So you can buy compost or soil from the city here, but they're also collecting stuff from people's yards that clearly probably use chemicals or have gardeners and things like that. So I don't like to do that, but garden centers and soil three, the big yellow bag. They, they will say that they don't have that kind of, you know, you have to kind of look at it. Yeah, you have to look at what they say. and not just get it from your municipality because they're doing it from all the leaves and all the stuff that people Yeah, it's got stuff all over it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I always worried about. Okay, so let's do a lightning round. Okay. Favorite herb to grow? Parsley. okay. Garden tool you can't live without. my clippers. Raised beds or in-ground? I would say raised beds. Favorite pollinator? You mean plant? Yeah. actually mountain mint is really good for like, yeah, it's, an amazing plant. I need to look into that annual or perennial. Perennial. Favorite fruit tree. Front yard or backyard garden. ⁓ both. All around from back and sides. Wherever you can. One plant everyone should grow. So if it's a pollinator, I would say grow either comfrey or joe pieweed, depending on your area. For like a veggie, everybody should just grow lettuce. I it's so easy. Yeah. I'm keep going back to that. And you always use lettuce? Yeah, it's easy. One plant you wish people would stop planting? ⁓ there's Nadina, which is a shrub. It's not native and it's just killing the ecosystem. does that look like? It's almost looks like little bamboo. It's a dense plant. You'll see it in subdivisions like this all the time. And I mean, it gets flowers and things like that, but it's just, it's so bad that and like the Bradford pear with it will actually come and take it out for you because it's just so bad to the ecosystem. wow. Okay. Okay. So I just wanted to talk about Rolsted Fruitscapes. So who's your ideal client? You. Yeah, could totally see that. Yeah. No, I mean, I don't think I have an ideal think it's just somebody because there are, I have a client that doesn't have the time to get involved, but wants to grow food for her family. I guess maybe my ideal client is someone that likes the coaching that wants to. which seems almost like self-defeating, because it's like if I teach them to grow, they'll never use me again, but that's okay. And I think they will because there's still so much, there's so much, there's so much to do. Yes. And also you're always wanting to add more every year. Right. And I just want to empower people to be able to grow their own food. So I love the idea of that. I also give advice and consultations on keeping chickens and gardening with chickens, because if anybody's ever had chickens, they dig up everything. They're much worse than a That's still my dream. Yeah, they dig everything. like you have to protect. I have all these creative ways to protect plants and I'm able to grow in the yard where the chickens mostly are. And then I just give them other spaces and they're great for getting rid of weeds and insect control. Like I don't have that many Japanese beetles anymore because of the chickens we treated. for them as well. There's a Milky spore, which you can put down, which is organic. You put it down and that kind of just hurts the Japanese beetles because they, there are larvae in the ground. Okay. Also, like I, I don't get mad when I see moles and mole hills because they eat the pests underground. Yeah. So that's, that's fine with me. So yeah. So I think it's just, it's the coaching that it's somebody that really wants to learn. Cause I love to, I mean, it's like chickens and gardens and dogs. could talk all day. Yeah. I love it too. okay. So when you walk into someone's yard for the first time, what are you looking for? Well, that also depends, but usually before I I look at their property on Google Earth and see where the sun is, kind of sun. So I'll look and see where, and you can look at that and then when you're actually there, it's like, okay, so I see that you put a garden here, but you're getting shaded from the house next door. So that's gonna determine what we can grow. So I think I would look at the sun, because that's pretty much the most important part. And then if they have nothing set up, so that would do like, is where I would put a bed or this is where I would start. or pollinator patch, which I also do like this would be a good place for that. and then I would talk to them about how much time they want to spend, you know, what is their day like? What do they want? What do they eat? What do they grow? So sun where the water is like, are they going be able to use a hose? Would they be able to do drip irrigation? Would they be willing to do a rain barrel? you know, so that kind of thing. So do you help DIYers or only full installs? no, definitely help DIYers. I like to say I meet people where they are. So if you want hands off, then I'll do hands off. But if you want to learn or you wanna, help you source materials to buy it, but know, build your own bed or where you can find. things. After doing this for so long, it's like, these are the products I love. These are the things that make my life easier. So if I can give that to somebody else, why not share all that? That's great. Let's not make it so complicated. the one thing is we do like an open house every year, usually around early June, late May, early June. And, I'll announce it and everything, but it's just so people can come and look and see the garden and tour it and we'll answer questions and kind of give you free advice and might go home with some plants and things like that. Sounds awesome. I'd love to come to that this year. We need to do that. Absolutely. Yeah. It's a lot of fun. We enjoy it. ⁓ We didn't do it for a couple years and it seemed like it was a lot of work, but it's like, I don't make it look perfect. I kind of gave up that everything's gonna look I think with anything to even outside of gardening, people appreciate just like the reality, their authenticity of it and what to like realistically expect. So I think that's great. And I you know what I see people aren't seeing. It's kind of like how we're more of ourselves when we look in the mirror. And when I look at my garden, it's like I see the mistakes or I see the weeds and I see this shouldn't be here and this looks terrible. And people are just like Wow, look at this, you know? Yeah. I can't believe it. You have it. Yeah. You did it. people see the abundance and they see, you know, what it looks like. about that anymore. Yeah, no, that's good. OK, so do you have a favorite book or resource that you'd like to share? There's a couple of books that are from Robin Wall Kimmerer and she's a Native American heritage and she wrote The Service Berry and Braiding Sweetgrass and they're kind of about the gift community. So like growing things and sharing it and. giving back to the land and stop taking so much. It's kind of like those kind of lessons that the indigenous people have. It's just like you grow. You don't take more than you need and you share. Those are great books to get into the right mindset of how we constantly take and take and take from the Yeah. give back. If you want to learn about Permaculture, just research, Bill Mollison. There's other ones as well. So those are great resources. It's hard, don't get on TikTok and find gardening hacks. Don't do that. Because that's the things that are probably not made for real gardeners. That's just made for TikTok and marketing stuff like that. There's great resources out there. So those are my faves. All right. And then what's your best crunchy wellness tip? Meditate. That's very good tip. Right up Marguerite's alley. That's what I would say. That's what I do every morning before I get started. It's just take 10 minutes and meditate. Excellent. OK, so where can people connect with you? My website is ralstedfoodscapes.com and I'm on Instagram. So, and I do free 15 minute discovery calls. So if you fill out any forms, I have all the different forms, whether it's like chicken friendly, dog friendly consulting or coaching, whatever you want, and you don't have to commit to anything. If you fill out a form, I will give you a 15 minute discovery call and see if we're a good fit and see what your goals are and how to move forward from there. And I had the open garden house tour, ⁓ probably beginning of June, usually like the first weekend of June. And I'm hoping to do some workshops where that may be. I'm not sure. I approached a couple of nurseries, so I might be at my house. So if you sign up, I will send an email and you'll find out, if I have like a workshop that you guys can come to, people can come to. That's awesome. love that. All right. and what's your Instagram handle? It's Ralsted Foodscapes. Perfect. All right. Well, guys, definitely check out the website. I thought that your services that you offer are awesome. Thank you. So definitely check it out. Everyone who's local and yeah. So thank you so much for coming. Yeah, thank you. I really enjoyed it. I had a lot of fun. I'm inspired now. This weekend I'll be in the backyard for sure. I really appreciate you guys having me on. what you're doing, so thank you. Thank you. you.

• ABOUT THIS GUEST

  Ingrid Fromm is a certified Permaculture Designer on a mission to make gardening accessible, empowering and joyful for homeowners in the Triangle area. She feels that gardening shouldn't feel intimidating, it should feel like coming home to work with nature, not against it.

  Ingrid’s approach is rooted in permaculture principles and the three ethics that guide everything she does:

  • care for the earth

  • care for people

  • share the surplus

  She helps people transform their yards into thriving foodscapes and biodiverse havens using regenerative practices that build soil health, support native plants and pollinators, and create resilient ecosystems.

  Whether it's designing a kitchen garden that feeds your family, a cutting garden that brings beauty indoors or a pollinator habitat buzzing with life, her mission is to show you that you already have everything you need to begin.

  Biodiversity is at the heart of what she does. Companion planting, beneficial insects, native plants, chickens as garden allies- these aren't just techniques, they're relationships. Ingrid’s own garden is a living classroom where her pitbull, Millie, patrols (with questionable effectiveness), her chickens scratch through mulch, control pests and close nutrient loops and every plant plays a role in the larger ecosystem. Watching it all work together has deepened her love for animals, wildlife and the interconnected web of life that makes gardens thrive.

  In 2017, Ingrid and her husband launched Ralstead Farm (a portmanteau of Raleigh Homestead) and started selling microgreens and produce at the local farmers' market. Sharing what they grew was rewarding, but what truly lit Ingrid up was teaching others. After years of learning from generous gardeners, making plenty of mistakes and discovering what thrives here in Zone 8a, she realized her real calling:

  Empowering people to grow their own food and cultivate their own connection to the land.

  That's why Ingrid created Ralstead Foodscapes. She’s here to take the intimidation out of gardening and replace it with confidence, curiosity, and community. You don't need to be an expert to grow your own food, you just need to start. She'll guide you every step of the way, sharing what she’s learned and learning alongside you…because the best gardens are grown together.

  👀 you can find Ingrid:

  + email ingrid.fromm@gmail.com
  + on the web Ralstead Foodscapes
  + on instagram @ralsteadfoodscapes
  + on Facebook Ralstead Foodscapes

👀 you can find us:

🎥 watch → youtube
👂 listen → spotify, apple podcasts, amazon music & iheartradio
💌 read → substack (weekly emails & all the extras!)

🤩 follow along with us on our socials!
instagram → @crunchypod
facebook → crunchypod
youtube → @crunchypod
pinterest → /unapologeticallycrunchy

📝 on the web → crunchypod.com
🛍️ shop merch → unapologeticallycrunchy.com

💫 connect with karl → uncommonstandpoint.substack.com

💜 peace, love + CRUNCH!