Josh Wilder: [00:00:00] Thank you for joining this episode of Mother Earth News Audio. This audio article read by Amanda Sorell is called Bloom Where You’re Planted. Amanda Sorell is a storyteller who lives in Seattle, Washington. She’s an editor for Mother Earth News and is passionate about food access and foraging.
Read her personal newsletter at eclips.substack.com
This audio article will be followed by a discussion with Amanda about different details in her story.
Bloom Where You’re Planted article
Josh Wilder: Thank you for that. I appreciate your time and I have a few questions for you. The article mentions finding salvage materials. When you source those materials what safety considerations are you using especially for food crops when you’re gardening? A major thing I find in salvage are containers, and I don’t worry about it too much when it comes to containers.
Amanda Sorrell: So I think the main consideration is around wood. I would not probably salvage wood that I wasn’t sure wasn’t treated. [00:16:00] I’m gonna start over. Can I start over with this response? Absolutely. Yeah. My brain got scrambled after reading. Okay. If you’re gonna salvage stuff to use in your garden, what I would be most careful about is treated wood.
Which you can, most of the time you can tell it’s greenish or damp, or it smells like chemicals or gasoline. If you come across wood, that’s like that, I wouldn’t grow food in it. I wouldn’t use it for a compost bin. I wouldn’t make a cutting board out of it. Anything that’s gonna touch food, I’d be extra careful about.
And wood that’s been treated sometimes has a little stamp on it that says that it was treated. So another consideration when I’m salvaging is, and to be honest, my partner does a lot of the salvaging, but wood that he finds at a construction site is gonna be a little more mysterious than wood. That came from [00:17:00] someone’s backyard project where they built a garden bed, had a little extra and threw it out on the curb.
And a lot of the wood we found falls into the latter category, just people having extra that they’re not gonna use. So the stuff that we weren’t sure about became fences or stuff that isn’t gonna touch food. And then the stuff that seemed safe enough, at least from my perspective, became the garden beds, the compost bin or firewood.
So if you’re concerned, I’d be extra cautious around wood, but mostly I’m salvaging just all manner of containers off the side of the road that are made of plastic and I grow in them. I’m not too worried about it. I’ll clean them first and then garden tools, there’s really no concern there other than maybe watching out for splinters.
Josh Wilder: So for different climate zones, is there specific [00:18:00] easy annuals that are good for beginners in container gardening?
Amanda Sorrell: Yeah, I haven’t lived in all zones. I’m just gonna speak a little casually based on what I learned living in this zone. I think I’m in zone nine. See, I don’t even know for sure.
I just walked around and looked at people’s gardens and saw what was thriving, and it was very clear to me quickly just by looking into other people’s garden beds that kale grows extremely well here all through the whole year. And sure enough, I saw that, so I got some kale to try myself, and it overwintered, it just keeps giving.
It’s been more than a year since I’ve planted it, and it just goes and goes. I started just by looking around to see what people were planting and having a lot of success with. If I were gonna grow in zone six or Kansas, like where I came from I would do a similar thing, like my mom grows peppers and they [00:19:00] just, she does so well, she has so much success with peppers.
So that would probably be where I would start. And, the plants that love heat are gonna do better in certain places. And if you live there, hopefully you know what those are, tomatoes, peppers. So I guess what I would suggest is that no matter what zone you’re in, look around at the gardens around you and see what’s doing well.
Or ask the gardeners who live around you, what they would suggest, and then start small. Don’t try to grow everything that you think will do well. Pick one thing. I think that’s what makes it easy, is not getting overwhelmed by trying to learn every single thing about every single plant.
And then there are some that just are easy. So I don’t know, radishes, they come up so fast. Like it’s a really quick way to feel like you’re a successful gardener within three to four weeks. You can have a harvest and you’re like, okay, this works. So ask the people around you, I think is my advice [00:20:00] for sure.
Josh Wilder: And you mentioned another set of characteristics that you use to choose plants, such as obviously what you’re going to eat or some of those personal aspects that you mentioned near the end. So for someone with that wants to start smaller, just has a really tiny space, like a balcony or a few feet of a patio besides obviously those impactful characteristics, what sort of plants might maximize your yield?
Amanda Sorrell: Perhaps if you’re looking simply for quantity, I again, would probably mention tomatoes or peppers. It depends on whether your balcony is facing the sun. If it is facing the sun or south facing, you can get quite a yield out of even just one cherry tomato plant. Or you can set up some peppers. And I think having I don’t know, such a.
It’s not a huge vegetable, but it’s like a satisfyingly big vegetable that you can [00:21:00] yield in a small amount of space peppers, I think. So I think if I only had a little space or if I could go back and do again when I just had a little space that was south facing, I think I would do herbs. Herbs will do well on a balcony and probably a cherry tomato plant. And then say I had just cherry tomato and basil. I could make my own caprese salads or sandwiches all season. And I think that would be very satisfying to have grown the ingredients for even just one dish. Herbs in the mint family, like lemon balm are good growers so much so that you probably want them to be in containers so they don’t take over your entire plot.
Those made me feel very successful and had a high yield very early in gardening. Or you could do a salad box. If you’re committed to just, I’m gonna eat salads from my garden. Throw in solid greens, [00:22:00] spinach, radishes, it’s continuous yield. It comes up quickly. And then you can feel like you’ve grown again, like a primary dish you’re eating throughout the whole season with just a small space.
And then, yeah, so don’t grow pumpkins or squash and the things that spread out or need a ton of space, those aren’t for you. But the stuff that can climb, or even just a cherry tomato plant, I think would be very satisfying. Oh, and potatoes. You can grow potatoes in five gallon buckets. I have some growing in five gallon rubber made containers right now, and they’re so happy and I hardly touch them and I’m not sure people think of potatoes for container, just like balcony containers, but.
I think that’s a pretty cool thing to harvest without needing to do a whole lot or having a lot of space. Yeah. I know someone on our [00:23:00] team, they’re testing out growing potatoes in a laundry hamper that has like holes on the side. Yeah. Yeah. Mine are so happy. And that was my new thing. I wanted to try this year, see how they did, and they’re doing great and.
I think could be doing just as great on a balcony. Okay. Now just talking about resources in general. Obviously when you’re a renter, things can be transient and you want to, maybe find some organizations or resources that, have a bit more staying power. Now how do you suggest finding, or, if you can’t find.
Starting a community garden or a seed swap in their, in someone’s area. I’m in such a big city. I’m so rich with resources here. So if you’re in a city that’s sizable large or [00:24:00] even mid-size, I think beyond looking online, asking Facebook groups in your area, you can go to garden centers and ask the employees or.
Go to a farmer’s market and ask the onsite master gardeners who are there. I think you can get a sense of what’s around by checking these resources, looking at bulletin boards, going on a walk around where you live, to see if you spot any community gardens and ask the people who are attending them what the deal is with them.
So if you live in a place that has them, I think those are the ways to go about finding them. If you wanted to start your own in any size of city, I think your options are basically getting together some like-minded people to do it. But I would probably start with, I would start with my neighbors, go door to door gauge interest.
Find an unused spot in like a [00:25:00] curb strip or a front yard or a nearby park. Figure out who owns it. Figure out what the rules are. If the rules are restrictive, figure out if they can be changed. Be even if you only have a couple of neighbors or friends and one curb strip. I feel like you can do quite a lot with that, and that will probably encourage other people to join you and you can grow up from there.
So I would say the same thing I’ve been saying over and over you don’t have to do it all at once. Start small. You don’t need a hundred people, you don’t need a huge park. It doesn’t have to be big or splashy for you to start making these connections or grow some stuff together. And I think it’ll grow organically, pun intended.
Seed swap, same thing like. You could just set one up, set a date, post flyers, post to local forums and Facebook pages, bring your seeds to the park, and even if only a couple people [00:26:00] come, that’s a couple people walking away with new seeds to try. And so I’m all about starting small with your expectations and seeing even just one new connection as a success.
One plant that you plant with somebody else, that’s a success and you can go bigger from there.
Josh Wilder: Yeah. And speaking to expectations I remember Karena Poke outta Houston and does Lettuce Live. She’s done some work with us on the Mother Earth News Fair and videos. And I remember her saying like, when you’re setting up a community garden, when you’re talking to your neighbors or you’re meeting people at the garden center, find out what they are looking for, what they need.
Because when you start something like that, you might have a vision, but you are not gonna be able to do it on your own. So the more buy-in you can get from other people and, integrate or, compromise on goals, the [00:27:00] more you know help you’re gonna get and the stronger it’s gonna be in the long run.
Amanda Sorrell: Yeah. Absolutely. I can’t say it better than that. Okay. It’s so true. I like, if you’re doing it for yourself, figuring out what you will actually eat is essential if you’re doing it with community. Yeah, maybe you all are just like, oh, we really want, we want some extra potatoes, we want some extra food security in this time when grocery prices are astronomical, and potatoes are cheap, so maybe y’all decide to plant something that’s otherwise expensive like herbs.
But either way pulling the group, figuring out what would be the most useful, starting small and yeah, because it is so easy in Seattle to find other groups. I think I have been more slow to just talk to my neighbors, and I think it’s just so valuable to know who lives around us and what they need and what they’re capable of, what they enjoy, even beyond gardening.
I think that’s just useful and [00:28:00] practical for any type of. I don’t wanna be disaster minded, but if something happened in your neighborhood, those would people, those would be the people that you would be around and need to know. Yeah. It’s something that Kyle Furman talks about and he talks about is he’s the author of our practical preparedness, but the people who survive are the people that, know their neighbors and know what their neighbors have and what their neighbors need.
And vice versa, like that’s when mutual aid matters the most. Definitely. So I can go across town and I can participate in a community garden that’s several neighborhoods away, and I’ll learn from that and I’ll make connections from that. I also, I see so much unused land all around in my neighborhood, and so I guess this is a way of saying I need to take my own advice.
Josh Wilder: Yeah, we had Leah Webb in town for the Community Garden Common Ground C onference here in Topeka. And she came into the [00:29:00] office talking to us about her experience with the hurricane there in North Carolina and how, one of the big needs that people in her area had was childcare.
Just while they were digging themselves out or, trying to help other people. It’s just like somebody needs to take care of all these kids. So yeah, that’s something they would rotate and share responsibility for. There’s a lot of things that you don’t think about that are necessary during those times, the more you understand what you have and what you can give, the better that you can,
Amanda Sorrell: yeah. And I just. I expect that no matter what group of neighbors you’re talking about it’s I think common, at least from what I witness in my life, to self-select into groups that. Think the same way that you think or are interested in the same things you are. And that’s really beautiful.
But that may not be the case with the people who live around you. You’re probably gonna have some really varied opinions and different kinds of people and I think that can be really beautiful too. And I just have this [00:30:00] feeling that a lot of people are sitting on this desire to know their neighbors or to grow things together, but dunno even how to get started.
You don’t have to figure that out by yourself. It’s just my guess that a lot of people just wanna be asked to be part of something like this or would love to be part of something like this, but don’t wanna be the one to go door to door, setting it up. I wonder for myself and for everyone else what beautiful types of connections we can find that we wouldn’t have otherwise right around us.
And. I think all the time of an article we published in Mother Earth News years ago about a homestead Hamlet in Nebraska where an entire city block gradually like all met each other and grew this incredible farm together just on their city block. And what an incredible model. I would love to do that.
It’s hard as a renter, but it’s not impossible. Yeah, [00:31:00] honestly, every apartment complex could have a community garden. Like it’s not, it’s very reasonable to share the load with that many people in a space. Tightly, and not every apartment complex ha has the space for one, but.
Many do, especially in a town, a city the size of Topeka, for example. And especially if you stop thinking about it as like little individual pods of space that each have to have the perfect location and more as like a community where somebody’s gonna have a spot with sun. Yeah, you can just, you can do so much more outside of just yourself
Josh Wilder: I agree. That’s, that’s probably the best place to, to leave it because that’s all that it comes down to is that, when you’re, no matter where you’re at there’s some place that you can grow. Yes, there are resources.
Amanda Sorrell: Yes. Such an abundance of resources and people who will want to join you or advise you.
Josh Wilder: I appreciate your time and [00:32:00] looking forward to your next article. Thank you.
