Fascinating Stuff, In and Out of the Garden

Season 6, Episode 18, March 20, 2024

and

Mar 19, 2024

Dee’s ‘Frizzle Sizzle Lemonberry’ pansies.

On this week’s episode, Dee and I talked about some fascinating stuff—at least to us. We’ll let you judge for yourself when you listen.

But before you click that first link and start listening, we have some notes to share with you!

As many of you know—because we told you and shared the video with you— we use Zoom to record our podcast episodes. Well, Zoom has added an AI feature that listens in and then provides a written summary of what you talked about. I had been turning that feature off, but decided to leave it on this time. Are you wondering what Zoom-AI said we talked about?

Wonder no more! Here’s a sample:

Carol and Dee had a varied conversation about several topics. They discussed Carol's research on irises and a quote from Elizabeth Lawrence about kitchen garden seeds. Dee shared about a new burr oak tree in her garden and the history of marigolds. The conversation ended on a somber note with Dee mentioning the passing of Carol, Bill's sister. In a subsequent conversation, Dee and Carol discussed different types of marigolds and a client with vocal cord issues. Dee shared her plans to plant cherry tomato seeds and reintroduce tomatoes to her diet, and also expressed a desire to sell her marigold and pepper seeds. (From Zoom AI)

What is wrong with the above? Practically everything. It’s almost like someone got into our seeds, opened all the packets, dumped the contents into a big bucket, and then tossed them into the garden. Once those seeds germinated, you might have recognized some of the flowers and veggies, but they were all in the wrong places.

Here’s the real scoop on this week’s episode, all nice, neat, orderly, and correct:

If you haven’t seen it, check out Dee’s Instagram reel showing how she pots up her roses.

For the flower topic, we discussed marigolds, inspired by an email we both got about rediscovering marigolds from John Scheeper's Kitchen Garden Seeds. We also elaborated on the four kinds of marigolds. You can read a recap of the four types in Carol's Family Handyman article on marigolds. And Carol got some seeds for a new All-America Selections winning marigold for 2024, Siam Gold F1.

Big Duck marigolds from Dee’s garden last summer.

For the veggie topic, we reviewed a new book on growing vegetables: Simplify Vegetable Gardening, by Tony O'Neill. (Amazon Link). The complete title is “Simplify Vegetable Gardening: All the Botanical Know-How You Need to Grow More Food and Healthier Edible Plants - Veggie Gardening with a Side of Science.” That’s a mouthful! Listen to hear our thoughts on it.

Then on the bookshelf, we had The Cut Flower Handbook, by Lisa Marie Ziegler. (Amazon Link), which has the subtitle “Select, Plant, Grow, and Harvest Gorgeous Blooms.” Do you need a big flower farm to grow cut flowers and enjoy this book? The answer is… listen to find out.

For our Dirt, we talked about Old Fruits and Vegetables and how they used to look. I also talked about the new movie about Mother Cabrini and how I was delighted that there is a story from her young life that involves violets!

Then down in our rabbit holes, I shared another lost lady of garden writing, Ella Porter McKinney.

Finally, I mentioned I’m giving a talk on “Introduction to Substack” for GardenComm members only. If you write, speak, teach, coach, or otherwise share information about gardening and related topics, maybe YOU should join GardenComm, too. If you join by Thursday, March 21st, you can sign up for the webinar that evening or sign up anytime and ask for the recording!

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