From HerbMentor.com, this is Herb Mentor Radio.
You are listening to Herb Mentor Radio on HerbMentor.com. I'm John Gallagher. My guest today is Tammi Hartung. Tammi is author of Growing a Hundred and One Herbs That Heal, Gardening Techniques, Recipes, and Remedies, published by Story. Tammy is a medical herbalist, certified organic grower, and consultant to the natural products industry. She and her husband Chris own and operate Desert Canyon Farm and Learning Center in Colorado. Welcome Tammy.
Hi, it's good to be here.
You were saying, we were talking earlier, and you're saying that it's pretty hot down there.
Yeah. We're located in Southern Colorado, and we have gotten off to a very hot and very dry summer, which is a little worrisome.
But, you know, it's just the way it is when you live in the high mountain desert, and we're making the best of it.
Do do you have, use a lot of, like, how do you do irrigation?
We have, surface irrigation water that is delivered to us periodically, and it comes off the backside of Pikes Peak if any of your listeners are familiar with, Colorado geography. And and it's wonderful cold mountain water. It comes to the farm, and we hold it in a pond, and then irrigate our fields and our greenhouses with that, as we need it.
And so that's all well and good, except, most of the snow is melted off of Pikes Peak already.
And so that's a little worrisome.
Colorado as a whole has gotten a lot of extra snow, but Pikes Peak sits out on the on the front range, so it's a little different there in that respect.
So, wow. That's, so so, like, if I'm looking at Colorado, like, what part what part are you near?
Well, we're about forty minutes south and west of Colorado Springs.
Okay.
If you can find that on a map and kind of in the center part of Colorado, just, you know, just beginning into the southern region.
And we sit right up against the mountains, which is typically a a great place because the hail misses us and our our we grow flower seeds in our field, and so we're always happy if the flowers don't get beat up by a hailstorm.
Oh. And, yeah. It's it's a beautiful place.
Well, let me you know, wanted to say that it's, it's it's great to have you here because we we love your book, and I know that when anyone wants a book for growing medicinal herbs, it's yours is always the first one off the off the tip of their tongue.
Oh, well, thanks. I'm glad it.
Well, when when people on the on our on our user forum wanted to know, you know, wanted to had all these gardening questions, I'm like, well, I'm just gonna go right to Tammy because she wrote the book.
Well, I don't know if I have all the answers, though.
Well, you know, but, you know, our our site is is about the process of learning and, and and kind of getting going. You know, it's not about, I don't think, you know, having all the answers, but it's about, you know, the the learning, and and and you just do such a beautiful job walking people step by step and, you know, through this this process of, starting from scratch and making an herb garden.
Well, I think the most important thing for people to remember when they're planting any kind of an herb garden is that it is a process. It's like painting a picture.
Every year will be different.
And never be afraid to try some plants in your area because even though all the books may tell you they need this requirement or that requirement, we find that plants are a lot more flexible for you you've been working like crazy this spring, and I'm so thanks for taking the time because I know it's been, you know, that's that's what you're doing. So so so tell us about Desert Canyon Farm and Learning Center and and what you do there and what life is like there because Well, Desert Canyon Farm is a wholesale, certified organic farm.
My husband and I own it. And we wholesale potted plants, mainly herbs, but also in the springtime we do some heirloom and ethnic vegetable plants.
And we sell them to garden centers and nurseries throughout Colorado and New Mexico.
And so we started out with one greenhouse, and now we have seven, filled up with these potted herbs. And the spring, there are over five hundred different varieties of them.
And, so that does keep us pretty busy because in, April and May, we're delivering all of those, you know, to the garden centers just like as fast as we can possibly do it.
And then in our fields, my husband grows perennial flower seed for a German seed company called Gelido Seed Company.
And that is all there's probably about fifty two varieties of perennial flowers out there. And many of them are things that I would call herbs because they all have therapeutic or culinary or tea uses.
But the flower seed company just cares about them for, you know, flower seeds.
But it's beautiful. There's they're all planted in four foot by one hundred foot beds, and they're everything is done here by hand. It's all handpicked.
And every day, he's picking chocolate flower, or agastache, sunset hyssop, or some other beautiful plant. And and we grow a hearty hibiscus, which could be used for tea.
But that has to be hand pollinated because we don't have any native pollinators here. So every morning, Chris put in the bumblebee and gets a paintbrush out and hand pollinates every flower in that in that planting.
Oh my goodness. It's quite a project.
That's kind of what we do here. We have a lot of display gardens. We open the farm to the public on Saturdays and Sundays in May so that people can visit the farm. We did have a learning center here, but the learning center is closed.
I'm retiring from teaching. So, we're not doing that bit of the farm business anymore, But, lots of other things going on. We try to bring wildlife into our farm operations here, and utilize the birds for pest management. And, of course, we have all of the native as well as honey bees for pollinators.
And so there's just a lot of stuff happening around this place.
What what what's your background? How'd you get started in all this?
Well, when people ask me that, I never quite know what to say, to tell you the truth. Yeah. I've been doing it since nineteen seventy nine, and I was just very interested in gardening and learning how to use herbs. I had a great aunt who was probably my initiator into the whole realm of medicinal herbs and and cooking with wholesome foods.
And so I I guess she's responsible for what I do now, but all these years, I've been, you know, working with herbs and and doing everything organically. And, at one point early on, I realized I needed to get formal training, so I began that process. And I've studied with people like Rosemary Gladstar and Michael Moore Moore, and lots of others, Susan Weed. And so I've had some wonderful, wonderful teachers along the way.
And and, my husband was trained as a horticulturist and a botanist, and he used to work for Denver Botanic Gardens. So together, we just pooled our resources. And, you know, when you're in, a field as a career of herbalism or horticulture, you work really, really hard at certain times of the year, of course. And and we just decided about thirteen years ago that if we were gonna do that anyway, we might as well do it for ourselves.
So we started Desert Canyon Farm, and and we've been here ever since.
Wow. Just doing our thing and and, you know, helping people learn about plants.
And you're selling your herbs to to mostly local nurseries then besides the flower seed company in Germany?
Yeah. They all go to garden centers and nurseries all over Colorado, and then, we go to Santa Fe and Taos and, occasionally, to Albuquerque and New Mexico. But, mostly in Colorado, we don't like to ship plants via the postal service or the shipping companies. You never know quite how they're gonna arrive.
Mhmm. So we feel better knowing that we can just drive them there ourselves and know that they get there in good order, and it gives Chris a chance to connect with our customers because he does our delivery work. And and I talk to people on the phone every week when they place their orders. And and it's it's just a a nice mom and pop, farm business here.
We're we're trying to keep small farming alive.
Well, you know, I wanted you to to you know, I asked you that question as well, not just because I wanted to know, but also, a lot of people listening, you know, they they they can see themselves, in the the future doing something with herbs, with further livelihood. And and I like to kind of expose people to different options and opportunities to see, you know, somebody might be like, oh, I wanna be a run a nursery, and others might wanna make remedies or you know?
So, so there's all kinds of things out there that you can do so to give people ideas and inspirations, you know, to Yes.
It's an unlimited realm, really, you know. There's just so many different things that you can do, you know. And but be realistic about it. I I think that's the important thing when you're taking on a project like that to start a small business that's related to plants, whatever it might be, whether it's some type of, product manufacturing or or growing project or or consulting project or teaching project, whatever it is. You know, you just need to be fully aware of of what's gonna be involved because you're gonna work twenty four seven of, product mix. That's how small business is. I think it's not any different for any type.
But Me neither. Even though I'm not out in the garden all the time, doing a lot of computer stuff, I'm still on and on.
I know. You know, for me, I just I get in the office only when I have to because there's lots to do outside and that's where I'd rather spend my time. But you have to do it all. So that's the long and the short of it.
That's it. You gotta wanna you wanna you gotta wanna do that. Yep. And not expect your two week vacation.
No.
Not very many of those. I do outside, and that's where I'd rather spend my time. But you have to do it all. So that's the long and the short of it.
That's it. You gotta wanna you wanna you gotta wanna do that. Yeah. And not expect your two weeks vacation. No.
There's not very many of those.
You know, like, could you see I'd like to start out by by asking you, do people can understand when they're because some folks, you know, they come on our venture dot com and and they're they're like, oh, you know, I I wanna join because I wanna know about, a certain herb to to help this condition or that condition or or maybe they have some curiosities and whatnot.
And, I wanted to ask you, someone getting interested in this, what's the real importance in growing our own medicinal herbs?
Because if if anyone is gonna be open to doing it, it's gonna be people that already have this bit of curiosity who are, like, people some of the people who might be on our site. And but they might have not considered. So maybe you could tell them, like, inspire them in in in a way that that, like, why why why should we do this?
You know, there's so many different reasons why it's important to grow your own herbs, whether they're for medicine making or for personal care items like shampoos or lotions, or whether you wanna cook with herbs. And and I think that cooking with herbs is so important because you can actually use the herbs medicinally in your cooking. So that's kind of a partnership reason for growing your own herbs. And there's there's environmental reasons for growing your own herbs, you know. We just we have to think about where did these plants grow, and how were they cared for while they were growing?
And especially if you're gonna use them medicinally, you you wanna make sure that they didn't get exposed to pesticides and chemical fertilizers and all those sorts of things because you're gonna take that into your body or put it on your skin.
And so by growing your own, you can harvest it fresh out of your garden, and you can take it in your kitchen and make your tinctures or make your salve.
Straight away, you know exactly what's happened to that plant from the moment it came into your life, you know. And you harvested it, and it's fresh, and it's vibrant, and and there's no better quality than that, really. I I just don't think so. And, you know, when you buy things in the store, at the health food store, that's fine too.
There's wonderful products in the health food store, but you don't have any personal connection to those plants at all. Mhmm. You know, other than to just put the good energy out in my backyard and pick go out my backyard and pick my calendula flowers, which is what we did yesterday, and put them in a basket. And they're drying right now.
And in another week, I can make some hand cream from them for sunburn and and chapped lips and so forth. And if someone cuts themselves, they'll be able to use that to, you know, help with the healing process of their their cut and their scrape and and so on. But just to be able to go out there and pick those calendula flowers and see the the bright orange and yellow color and feel the resin on my fingers, that's that's amazing.
That's a really important thing to me. I think it's also really important for the environment to to start thinking about growing your own gardens. You know, whether you wanna do it on a large scale, and and not to foster businesses that don't care for the environment in a responsible way. You know, don't give them your business because they're not doing it right.
So I think that's another really important reason. It's also a lot more economical to grow your own garden. You know, especially with herbs, many of them are perennials which means that they are gonna come back year after year. And and so that's wonderful because you invest in the seed or the plant initially, and you care for it, but you don't have a lot of expense. And when you make your medicines from those plants, or you cook with those plants, or whatever you're doing with them, there's very little cost that be that is involved. So it's a it's a great economical way, you know, to have herbal products in your life.
And I also have, I have concerns about plants being taken from wild spaces. I think that there's just so many people that are harvesting from wild spaces. And I think that tradition is a very important tradition to honor on a personal basis. You know, me going out and and picking a little bit of ousnia to make into ousnia tincture for my family's use this next winter. I think that's a very important tradition, to keep alive and to participate in. But I don't think it's appropriate for people to be going out and harvesting pounds and pounds of plants from wild spaces to make herbal products because it's not a sustainable way to do things. It's better to get them those plants into cultivation where the wild spaces can nurture wild spaces and wildlife, and be there for us to enjoy as a visitor.
So I just think there's lots and lots of reasons to plant gardens. And one of the most important reason, if there is a most important reason, is just the beauty of it and the peace that you get when you're out working in your garden and you can see the results. I mean, you know, my garden is a weedy mess right now because we've been so busy in the greenhouses this spring, but now we're beginning to get them cleaned up.
And it's immediate satisfaction. I'm telling you. You can you know, you weed an area and you look at it and you think, oh my gosh. Look how wonderful that looks.
And the colors stand out. It's it's so good for my ego, you know, to see this wonderful cleaned up patch of garden there. But it's just it's just a nurturing thing. It it's nurturing on so many levels. I just can't imagine not at least having a little pot of basil, you know, growing on your window seal at least. Just that one little thing or an aloe plant that you can use on a regular basis and and care for. I think that's really important.
In your book, in Growing one hundred and one Herbs That Heal, you say that as we create garden spaces and designs, we must learn to think a little more like the plants and less like a person. Can you elaborate on that?
Absolutely.
Well, one of the things that we all are guilty of is analyzing what the plants need. We do that. We just love them to death. We analyze them to death. We think we know everything about, you know, where to plant the plant, how to grow the seed, everything that the plant needs. And unfortunately, that information comes from other humans. It doesn't come from the plant often.
And so many times, people will struggle with plants. They'll have them in the wrong place, or they won't have done something that the plant seed needs in order to get it to germinate. Because plant seeds are like little science books all wrapped up in a seed coat. You know? They have little time clocks in them that tell them when it's right to sprout depending on what the temperature is, and how many days of sunlight there is, and how much moisture there is, and all these things that indicate to the plant when it's time to grow.
And, you know, if we think like a person, we're probably gonna get it wrong, quite frankly.
But if you think about, okay. So this nettle's plant, where does this nettle's plant grow out in nature? Well, nettles always grows near moisture, whether it's along a stream side or in a place where there's lots of runoff or soggy spot. It likes extra moisture, and it likes to grow in at least part shade. Rarely do you see nettles growing in the full hot sun. And so that plant, if you stick it out in the hot sun in a dry location and try to grow it like a xeriscape plant, it's not gonna work.
The seeds aren't even gonna come up. You know, so you have to think about this plant. Where does it grow? If it was gonna grow out in nature in its most favorite spot, what would it be like there?
What would the seasons be like? Would it grow in Colorado where there's a winter season that makes the seed go through a cold period? Or would it be in California where it's warm most of the year? And, and you have to mimic that in some fashion.
And you don't have to be sophisticated about it. You can just you know, use common sense about it. And so a lot of times what we have to do is, let me give you the example of Echinacea.
Echinacea or purple coneflower is a prairie plant.
It grows out in places where there's a hard winter, usually a cold winter.
And so the flowers, they grow these beautiful seed heads, these big cone seed heads, and the seeds stay in the seed heads for a long time until it's well into the the late fall or the winter. And by that time, the birds have begun to try and eat a lot of those seeds, and some of them get scattered on the ground.
And as they're being scattered on the ground, the wind carries them around, and they get scratched up by the soil and the stones and so forth. But they lay on the surface of the ground all winter long exposed to the elements, to the cold, to the snow, and in the spring, there's a lot of moisture in the spring, and then it starts to get hot. And as it gets hot, the echinacea sprouts. But if you take echinacea seeds straight out of those cone flowers, you harvest the seeds in the, you know, early fall when people would think about harvesting seed, And you just put them in a paper envelope, and you set them in your house until spring, and then you plant them. Well, they didn't get dropped on the ground and scratched around by the soil. They didn't get exposed to the cold and the moisture and the warming and thawing and warming and thawing process that the seasons would normally provide.
And they don't sprout. They just sit there.
Maybe you'll get one or two that will sprout, but most of them will just sit there because they didn't get exposed to the right thing. So you have to think like that plant and do what needs to be done.
So instead, I would leave those seeds until late fall, and then I would take the the cone head, and I would crush it up somehow.
I use a rolling pin because it's really hard hard cone head to Yeah.
Mash up to get the seeds out. Once the seeds are out, I put them in a paper envelope inside a Ziploc bag, and then I stick it in the freezer for three months because that's about the time winter takes.
And when it gets close to being time to plant, I pull that Ziploc bag out of the freezer for a day or so, and then I pop it back in, and then I pull it back out a couple of times. And that's that freezing and thawing. Freezing and thawing. And then I plant them. Them. And you have to keep your seeds moist because when seeds germinate, they germinate at the moist time of the year.
And so you keep them moist, and up come all these beautiful echinacea seedlings, and you're good to go. So you just have to be able to think like that plant. You know? What is it gonna experience?
And then you'll succeed. It's not a hard thing. It just takes a moment of thought.
Yes. Yes. And then and then there's what's what's great is you you, you know, you you have a lot of these you have these great charts in the book that kinda talk about all the characteristics and requirements and everything about so many herbs.
So that's really handy. You know? Nice and nice and easy for for the rest of us.
Well, I think that for me, you know, a chart is is good. I can drag it around with me. I can drag it out to the garden or sit on the back porch and scrutinize it while I'm ordering my seeds from the seed catalog or, you know, it just keeps it easy and concise way to to get some information fast.
It's not a bad idea. You do some copy copy some of the pages and hang them up in your potting shed. Right? Yeah. In a little folder. Exactly.
So, I'd like to kinda move on to some questions that, the Herb Mentor members have submitted for you. Mhmm. Because, that's that that that was because there's I I one of the reasons that I was as well that I wanted to talk to you because it seemed that there'd be there was a lot of members who were having some, some challenges with living in drier areas like you. So I said, hey. Not only does Tammy write this great book, she also lives in a dry area, so she knows.
She's got experience.
So, this is Jennifer, and she's from Nevada. And she is curious.
She says she wasn't she she wants to know how to keep alive, like, herbs in Las Vegas, stuff she has stuff like nettle, St. John's wort, chickweed, plantain. I struggle with these because they grow in areas of the country that are obviously not desert and it's hot and sunny. So what type of growing conditions need mimicking? Plants that say they need full sun don't apply to us here, they cook.
And also most of my plants are in in containers. Can I grow nettles, St? John's wort, etcetera, in containers? I have some really huge pots, she says. So I don't even know what to say.
Well, she might have some trouble growing chickweed.
Yeah.
I think that one's probably not going to like Las Vegas at all because it does prefer really shady, moist, cooler types of temperatures.
But those other plants that she's wondering about, you know, she can grow those especially in a pot where she can provide some decent soil, just some good organic soil, in those pots. But if she's growing them in the ground, she's right. You can't put them in full sun in that kind of situation. Even here in Colorado, we don't have nearly the heat temperatures, but the sun is very intense, and you know, you don't get a lot of clouds.
And it's it's hard on plants. It's the combination of sun plus temperature heat that really stresses them out. So I think putting them in part shade is a better option especially if you can use provide some afternoon shade when the sun is extra intense.
The morning sun is not so hard for the plants to cope with. And then keeping them evenly moist. You know, I'm a pretty stingy waterer in my garden because of where we do live, and I I don't feel like I should be frivolous with our water resources.
So my gardens here get watered once a week, And if we have good water in that water year, but if we don't, they get watered every several weeks.
And only for about fifteen or twenty minutes in one area at a time.
So it's not copious amounts of water that they need. It's just respectful watering. Now in Las Vegas where you have temperatures over a hundred degrees on a regular daily basis at certain times of the year, she's going to need to water more frequently. You know, maybe every two or three or four days is what she's gonna be able to stress it stretch it out to. And if they're in containers, even if they're really big containers, they're probably gonna need watered every day if it's over a hundred degrees, and every other day if it's under a hundred degrees.
Containers just dry out a lot quicker.
But fertilize them once a month if they're in containers. If they're in the ground growing in a garden space, if she has prepared her soil with organic matter on a regular basis, then she should be good to go for fertilizing by just doing some top dress fertilizing with an organic fertilizer in the spring and then letting it be, that should be enough for the rest of the of the year. So I wouldn't be discouraged at all to grow those things. You know, Saint Joan's wort or Saint John's wort will, grow nicely, and so will nettles if she can provide it shade and some moisture. Plantain is the same way. All of those plants will will perform for her if she thinks about them, she's gonna have to provide a little different conditions than what the books are gonna recommend. So part shade, extra moisture.
So on a similar type of question is Jetta and she's from Missouri.
And she bought a plot of land and plans to build a cob straw bale house there next year. The ground isn't great, and the whole lot is, she says, it's pretty much trashed by the previous owners cutting down the forest there. And there's a couple of inches of solid of soil, then solid rock.
So there's a deeper gully with some soil and a lot of composting pine branches from the trees that were cut down. There are some plants. She's noticed a patch of nettles, wild raspberries, have moved in there.
And so she wants to ask you, the best way to start making this into a garden. So she plant planting certain plants and, she plants certain plants and let them heal on the land for a year or two or, just leaving what's there to do its job, you know. And so any advice she'd appreciate.
Well, what she's going to need to do is is incorporate some organic matter into her soil. And and that can be green, leafy matter, like, maybe tilling up a well, let me backtrack. One of the best things you can do in that scenario is to plant a spring crop of oat seed.
And this is just regular oats that we get the cereal grain from. You can buy the seed at a feed store inexpensively.
And oats grow as an annual. They grow quickly.
And they're very good as a what we call a green manure crop to nourish and build the soil.
And she doesn't have a lot of soil. So she's got to build up her soil, but it's not about measuring pH levels or anything like that. It's just about building the quality of the soil, if that makes sense. Mhmm. So by planting these oats in the spring, and then letting them get to the stage where they're about a foot and a half or so tall, and then tilling them in with a rototiller.
She's gonna be adding lots of leafy, green, nutrient rich material to the soil.
Now it's past the spring, and so for this year, what I would encourage her to do is to just go ahead and plant some annual types of herbs out there. Because fortunately, herbs aren't too picky about the soil, you know. She's she's saying her ground isn't that good. But I can tell you horror stories about ground that I've planted gardens in.
And and they always thrive, you know. They do really, really well. So she plants some annual types of herbs for this year. Maybe just some basic cooking herbs even.
Things like basil or sweet marjoram or whatever she likes to cook with, cilantro.
Those things she'll have to use, but they'll be starting the process of building the soil. She's got some nice herbs already growing in her little gully, and she can just let those be there and and harvest from them and, enjoy the raspberries, enjoy the raspberry leaves for medicine making and the nettles, and just let that take care of that bit of earth on its own.
But after this first year, when the fall comes, if there's a stable nearby or an organic dairy that she can get some composted or some aged manure from. Spread it on top of her garden area, and let it soak in through the winter.
Then in the spring, she can, begin to dig up and and turn the soil and plant any perennial herbs that she wants at that point in time. And then the soil will just get better and better every year. And and if she's planting perennial things like thymes or echinaceas or, whatever, skull caps. Those things, of course, she's not gonna be digging them up, so she won't be rototilling the land each year, but she can just, continue once in the spring to top dress with some organic fertilizer.
And that you apply, maybe a quarter inch deep and kinda rake it in with a hand rake, and it it soaks in as you water, and it it begins to, you know, provide nutrition to the soil.
So, you know, soil is a very forgiving thing for the most part. And the main thing is it's gotta have organic material in it because that is what helps it to hold moisture and provide nutrition to the plants.
The one kind of organic material you don't wanna put into the soil itself is brown, organic material like a lot of straw or wood mulch because that takes nitrogen from the soil in order to break it down and compost it. And that will take nutrition from the soil.
So those things are better on top of the soil as a mulch to hold moisture in the ground, but not to actually turn them into the ground until they're fully composted.
I see. I see. So that's okay if you're doing, like, sheet mulching using straw.
Absolutely. It's wonderful in that way, but just make sure that you don't turn it into the ground that you're gonna plant in.
Wasn't that another option she could do as well? Is you just kinda not till, but just build up, haul in leaves and manure and straw and stuff and just build the soil up?
Yeah. She can definitely do that. Make sure that if you're gonna do that, that your layers are are thin. Mhmm. Because things like straw and, grass clippings and things like that tend to pack. And that's great if you're trying to accomplish weed management.
But if you're trying to build the soil, you don't want it to compact because the moisture doesn't get down in there as well as it needs to to, you know, to begin that breaking down process.
Okay. Great.
Alright. Well, Jetta, I hope that helps you. Get going there.
I like the idea with the oats and all. That's really great.
Yeah.
What if I could do that in a little suburban neighborhood here if I Oh, sure.
You know, and and, actually, the thing that's really nice about oats is you plant a, like, maybe a four foot square patch of them, and if you let them go to green milky stage seeds, you can strip the seed heads off and use that for medicine making and for drying for tea for the winter, and then till it in. And you've got two things accomplished. You've got all that wonderful tea material and medicine material as well as building your soil.
Oh, I like that.
I like when you can do have a couple of things going on at the same time. Do.
That's great.
Joan from California, is I don't know a part of California, but, because there's lots of different parts, but she's planting in containers this year. And since there is such limited root space, how often should she feed with a compost manure or slash manure tea? What signs should she look for if she's feeding too often or not enough? And so she was okay. And, and, also, she was trying to figure out how to best utilize different size pots and never having grown, basil or parsley. She's put them both in the same pot, and she's wondering if that was okay.
So alright. So there's two questions going on. There's one about the compost manure tea. Maybe we can talk about that one first.
Okay. So, the thing that's very important with herbs is not to over pamper them. So it can be a fine line between respecting the needs of the plant, you know, providing it with appropriate water and fertilizer and so forth, and overdoing it, and loving your plants to death, so to speak. And especially with herbs, you have to pay attention to that line because if you fertilize your plants too much or you water them too much, then what you are gonna get is lush, gorgeous foliage that doesn't taste like anything, doesn't smell like much, and doesn't have very strong medicinal properties.
Mhmm.
Because the plant has all of those attributes for its own survival in one way or another. We like to think that it's for our purpose, but it really isn't. You know, plants develop oils and so forth to ward off predators or to protect themselves from the sun or various things.
And those are the same components that we like to use for medicine or for taste or fragrance and so on.
So if you water your plants, if they're in containers, it's not unusual to have to water them daily during the really hot times of the year. But otherwise, if they're outside usually every other day to maybe every three days will work. And if they're in your home, you can often go once a week with watering, and and that works pretty well depending on how warm you keep your house.
Now with fertilizing, and this is very I think this is very important because we have a tendency to wanna fertilize our plants in containers too often. Once a month is plenty.
And even every six weeks is is fine. But once a month, whether she's using her compost manure tea, whether she's just brewing up some really strong nettles tea to water her plants with. That's an excellent fertilizer, source.
Or whether she's buying, an organic type of fertilizer at the garden center, liquid seaweed or something of that sort.
Once a month, we'll provide the nutrition that the plants are using up from the soil that they're restricted to just in that pot.
So it is important to fertilize.
A lot of times, it's the opposite problem. People will put things in containers, and then they never fertilize them again, not remembering that the plant has no way to get any additional fur nutrition, you know, because it lives in a pot. Mhmm. So I would say, you know, do her compost manure tea once a month.
In terms of container size, Usually, something between a six inch and a twelve inch size diameter container is sufficient for most herbs. Mhmm. It's fine to put herbs together in a container with a couple of guidelines to think about. Mints are not good neighbors.
They take up the whole pot for themselves, and they choke out everybody else. So they need to have their own container.
So that's where her basil needs to go in its own container.
Well, basil is different from other types of mints. I'm talking about things like peppermint or spearmint. Okay.
Those types of mints that tend to spread red a lot.
Basil on the other hand is fine in containers with other plants.
Parsley is also usually fine in containers with other plants. But here's the thing about parsley, it has a tap root like a carrot.
So if it is in a shallow pot, as soon as that root hits the bottom of a shallow pot and it doesn't have anywhere else to go, it gets stunted.
Mhmm. Which is probably what has happened with her parsley, I'm thinking, is that maybe it's not in a deep enough pot. So things that have taproots, like fennel or parsley or, echinacea and gustafolia, those types of plants need to have twelve to fifteen inches of depth in the container in order to live happily in a container.
Oh.
So aside from, you know, keeping those two things in mind, you can pretty much combine plants, herbs, and containers together. I always like to be present with the thought that maybe lavender and basil aren't gonna complement one another with fragrance in the same container.
Mhmm.
So maybe you'll put the lavender with the chamomile and the basil with some parsley or some chives.
Something that those fragrances blend a little bit nicer.
You know? So you can you can kind of think about those things. But in terms of the growing requirements, it doesn't much matter.
K. You know, I was just I was just thinking back, to the previous question about the soil, you know, building for a second, and I had I just had this flash. Have you ever seen this this old documentary called Man of Aran? Uh-uh. It's it was it was, made when in the film's early era, you know, like, a black and white, choppy film, you know, and they first started making film. And they went to, filmmakers in Ireland on the Aran Islands. And this is when the Aran Islands were still wild with the people living out there and before it was, you know, modern times and people were living traditionally, in other words, as they've been for, you know, thousands of years.
And, and so this is recording this, documentation of really rough life in Ireland and and and this island, and and and this is where people built the soil. It's just bare rock face, and all of the soil in this whole island is manmade.
And, they gathered seaweed and layers of seaweed and rock dust like chipping rock.
Mhmm.
They they chip rock and then they mix it with seaweed. Then they'd find little pockets of soil that would naturally grow in crevices, and they'd harvest it in baskets and spread it on their fields so they could grow things. And And and, I've been to this island and, it you you where I was trying to camp, you know, I was camping there, and you bang it in, and it only goes in a couple of inches before you hit the rock. You know? Yeah.
But it was, amazing that the the whole island that you see is all just, you know, human made soil from, you know, from, from that from from that whole process.
So Well, when you live in a place where you have a very shallow topsoil, that's exactly the kinds of things that you have to do.
And it's a constant process, you know, but it's a natural process.
Mhmm.
And using just like we use whole foods to cook with versus processed foods, you use whole ingredients in your soil building like the seaweed or, aged animal manure or whatever it is. You know? Leaves if you live where there's lots of trees, which probably will be limited if you have very thin soil.
But building that soil using whole ingredients and not going to the garden center and buying, you know, this component and that component, and some other component. Because then you have to be a chemist to get it right. You know? Most of us aren't.
Who wants to do that?
Yeah. Because then you also have to keep it up. You can't ever let it go because it will just convert back versus just continually building richer and nicer soil on an ongoing basis.
And Well, that's great advice.
That is so key right there.
It's very important. And and if you wanna grow tap roots and you have very shallow soil until you get to a place where your soil is deep enough to really do that, containers are a good solution.
You know, there's nothing wrong with container gardening. That's a a wonderful way to do things, especially if you have plants that need special requirements that you can't provide in the ground.
Right. Exactly. Or or if you wanna make harvesting some things easier, like, if you wanna harvest burdock.
Oh, yeah. Definitely.
Just pull it right out of your container instead of trying to Yeah.
Or if you're like me and and my flower pot containers and herb containers in my yard are like furniture in my house. I'm constantly moving them around to get a different look in the garden. So it's much easier to move containers than it is to move plants that are planted in the ground.
Good point.
So, so Alicia in, Pennsylvania says she, recently got a large clump of from a friend, and she brought it home and planted it in partial sunshade.
And it has certainly took a turn for the worse. It's drooped and appears to be dead. And, will it come back next year once its roots get reestablished, she asks. And, so, yeah, what what do you think of it?
Well, comfrey is is a difficult plant to kill, but it's not surprising to me that it looks like the dickens right now.
Mhmm.
Because it's it's gone through a big shock to be, you know, transplanted, trim off the tops to about an inch and a half above the ground. So to about an inch and a half above the ground so that she just has the root crown with, you know, just a a little bit of growth on it. And that will allow the comfrey to rest a little bit and put all of its energy into getting its roots established and not have to worry about taking care of all this top growth that is already wilted and and not doing well anyway.
So trim it back, let it get established, keep it evenly moist, but not soggy.
And just be patient, you know. It it may take a month or so, but eventually, it will settle in and and it will thrive. And then she'll have a big glorious comfrey plant that she won't know how to use all of it because it will just be so prolific.
The thing with comfrey though that people need to know about and are often afraid of is that comfrey roots, even a little rootlet piece the size of your small fingernail will root. So I never ever, under any circumstances, dig my comfrey root in the garden. I only harvest the leaves, which have just as good a properties for ninety nine point nine percent of the things you would use them for as the roots do. As long as you don't dig the roots, you will have one comfrey plant in that place for a hundred years thriving and growing beautifully.
But if you dig up the roots, you risk scattering little tiny bits of comfrey root and having it root and and spread around in your garden. And then people have a comfrey forest that they're not too happy about because it's it's very hard to get all of the root out if you try to dig it out.
Like horseradish, you know, that way. So put it where you want it to stay and then and then just leave it there and just use your leaves of comfrey.
Hey. That's great advice. And I imagine that, I didn't realize that about I didn't think that through, through about it. Because I've just because I think, you know, because, where we are now, I've just had it in I just have it in a container.
Mhmm.
So then that way, if I do want fresh root in the winter, I can just go dirt and grab it.
Well, and that's a good way to to do it. We grow comfrey in big deep pots that are about fifteen inches deep in our greenhouse to use for propagation of more comfrey plants because comfrey doesn't produce viable seed.
Mhmm.
So you have to do it by root divisions. And that comfrey stays in those pots where I have control of the situation.
Mhmm. That's under, you know and then I can take it out of the pot and divide up the roots or harvest some roots if I were wanting to do that. The comfrey that's in the garden is my personal plant for my personal use, and I use the leaves of that, and I never dig the roots.
Thank you for that. That's gonna probably save me a lot of headache later.
Horseradish is the same way.
That's I never knew that even about horseradish. What family is horseradish?
In? I can't really tell you off the top of my head. Yeah.
That's just I'm just trying to think of the characteristics of of the yeah.
We'll have to look that one up sometime.
So she also, planted in her garden this year, and she did it mostly from seed, some from plants. The seeds don't seem to be doing much. Is it not warm enough? Will they take many years to get the full will these take many years to get I guess it's hard to know without knowing what plants.
And Yeah.
It is kinda hard to know without knowing which plants because some seeds will take a long time to sprout, and so it depends on what what she's got there. Other seeds though will come up within two to four weeks, typically. But they usually won't sprout until the soil is warm enough.
So it's possible, depending on where, you know, where you live, that you may have to wait a little bit until later in the spring or even early in the summer for those seeds to start to sprout.
If you don't keep your seeds moist, if you let them dry out even for a little while, that kills the seed. You know, if it has already started to sprout a little bit inside and then it dries out, it dies.
So it's very important with seeds to keep track of them. You know, you may have to sprinkle them couple times a day if it's a very hot or windy day, just to keep them moist enough that they can sprout.
But But what is it yeah.
Go ahead, Sarah.
Well, once the seeds do sprout, then they usually get going pretty quick. So if her seeds are sprouting, then she should have mature plants by mid to late summer.
If they're not sprouting at all, then that's a different problem.
You recommend broad I mean, like, just planting seeds out? I mean or or because I I seem to have had success with starting them in little trays and giving them a you know? Like like, what's what's a better way, or is it just depend on the plant?
It just depends on the plant, and it also depends on what your circumstances are. Most of us don't have the kind of light in our homes that is really sufficient to get seedlings off to a good start. They may sprout, but then they often will stretch or get very pale, and that's because the light quality is just not good enough. Even if you use grow lights, they have to be, like, twelve to fifteen inches above the seedlings in order to really have any positive effect.
So that's that can be a challenge if you're growing them inside in little pots or in little seedling trays. It is easier to take care of them that way though if if you have good light.
So, you know, my my preference is to start them in small containers or seedling trays. And then when they get their first true leaves because the first leaves that come up don't even really look like normal leaves, and those are called cotyledon leaves.
Mhmm.
And and then they'll develop another set of leaves that's the first set of true leaves. And at that point, you can think about transplanting them if you want to, but not until you see that first set of true leaves.
If you plant them out into the garden, it's a little harder to care for them because it's not as easy to keep them moist. But it's also easy for seeds to get lost in the garden. You know, if it rains, they might walk till you see that first set of true leaves.
If you plant them out into the garden, it's a little harder to care for them because it's not as easy to keep them moist. But it's also easy for seeds to get lost in the garden, you know. If it rains, they might wash away, or if the wind blows and it's chamomile seed, it's gonna go to the next door neighbor's house. And you, you know, you won't even know what the problem is except that they don't seem to be coming up, and then you'll be working in the garden.
And And over in some other corner, you'll see something coming up and think, I didn't plant anything over there. What's the deal? But the seeds have moved via the elements to another location. So that's that's kind of a, a challenge with planting seeds directly in the garden.
And and if you do plant them in the garden, you have to be sure you cover them with a little bit of soil because otherwise they will just blow off off the top of the soil. You can't just broadcast them usually. I mean, some things work like that, but most things don't. Diameter it is. The common guideline is twice the diameter is how deep you plant it in the soil.
Oh. Oh.
So if it's a teeny tiny seed like thyme, it it hardly gets any soil over the top of it at all. Any seed like thyme, it it hardly sage seed that's a big fat seed. You know, it's gonna get covered with maybe almost a quarter inch of soil.
People can make little cold frame type of greenhouse things too, I mean, I imagine to do this.
Right.
And one of the simplest, least expensive, easiest ways to do that is to just get yourself four bales of straw or hay Mhmm.
And set it down on your ground, and you can either put your little pots inside there or you can plant straight in the soil inside there in the ground and then transplant out as things get big enough. You can cover those four bales of straw with a piece of clear plastic.
Mhmm. And then during the day, you have to prop the plastic back so that it can vent, doesn't get too hot. And then around three or four in the afternoon, depending on how hot the day is, you cover it over so that it can build up a little bit of warmth to get it through the night, and that will keep a little warmer at night so that they'll sprout more quickly.
Good idea. I like that. So many great handy tips today. This is great. So one more quick question, from Kelly, and she is in what's MS, Mississippi?
Mississippi? Oh, that's Emma. I think so. I think that's yes. Because MI would be Michigan, wouldn't it?
So, she's planting she's planning on putting a rain barrel in one of her downspouts, and they're, going to hook a soaker hose and bury it in the ground with rocks around it so the water can get through the soil. I would like to plant nettles and ginger since they need a lot of water to grow. Would this work?
And, would I need to leave the soaker hose turned on all the time or just a few hours each day? So, let's start with that now.
Rain barrels are are wonderful supplements to normal water to the garden. And the soaker hose will definitely work buried in the ground, but she is gonna restrict her self to how she can use a rain barrel if she buries her soaker hose in the ground versus leaving it on top of the ground where she might be able to move it around to different areas.
Mhmm.
Rarely do you need to have water every day to an area.
In fact, it's not really advisable because then the plants will think, oh, gosh. There's always water given to me, and so I don't really have to put down deep roots to sustain myself.
So it's better to water every couple of days or every three or four days or even just once a week so that the plants develop good strong root structures deep into the ground. So that then when you go on vacation, if you get to go on vacation, and there's no one there turning on the rain barrel, you know, or the hose, the plants aren't freaking out because they're not getting any water that day.
Mhmm.
So I would say, you know, use your rain barrel just every few days as a water source for those plants. And those plants will definitely benefit the nettles, the ginger, from having that extra water from that rain barrel.
If she wants to bury the soaker hose, that will be fine. But it will, you know, it will not give her as many options as being able to move it around.
I think that one of the things to consider with a rain barrel, we have some rain barrels that are hooked up to our washing machine, and they need to be up higher than the ground level. So she may wanna put her rain barrel up on a couple of cinder blocks so that there's a bit of gravity pull so that they drain well. Because you don't want any water to stay standing in your rain barrels for very long periods of time or it can become stagnant and be a a mosquito breeding area.
Right. Right.
So have the rain barrels up a little bit higher than the ground that the water is gonna flow to, And that way, it will flow better. And rain barrels have a little switch on the bottom of them where you can turn them on or off, you know, just by a toggle switch kind of thing. Mhmm.
And so, if she wants to hold water in the rain barrel until the rain barrel is full or whatever, she can just close that nozzle and then just open it up when she's ready for the water to flow.
Okay.
Now it would be a good idea to plant things she wants to know, on a septic tank drain line. The grass is always looking there.
No. You've you only plant things over septic tank line if if it's something that's just to prevent soil erosion.
And nothing that's really deep rooted because you don't want it to get into your septic system and and damage it. So shallow rooted things like grass, something like that is is what goes over the top of the septic. Things you're not gonna use.
Mhmm.
Just to hold the soil in place to keep it from eroding away or blowing away and to to make it look tidy. But nothing that you're going to use and nothing that's really deep rooted.
No. No. My I I have a question related to that, which is my town, just got a sewer systems installed.
And like any days, the final large truck backyard, which has some higher growth in other areas. So for me, on the other hand, I could pretty much do what I want there. Right?
Yeah. Yeah. You can pretty much do what you want. I would wait a little while before you harvest things for medicine or food off that space, you know Mhmm. A couple of seasons. But you could plant trees or or, you know, berries and things like that that you would use in a couple of seasons after you assure that septic system is has cleared and flushed itself through.
Oh, that's a good point.
That's a good point. Wow. That's, yeah, we've been living here for a few years and we've been we haven't really started our real gardens. We want to start because we just had this little patch where we parked our plants.
We've been waiting for the city forever to they dug up our yard in the fall, and they put the lines in. And now they're gonna come in any day. I've got a little marker back there where it keeps saying, we're gonna come this week. We're gonna come this week Uh-huh.
Before they finish the finish the job.
So, so for us, we we're, I guess, a good time. Well, I mean, we definitely want to get things going for next year, but should I start my just planting my beds and preparing the soil and doing some sheet mulching and all this summer? Or shall we Yeah.
You can do all of that. And if there's things that you wanna put in that are gonna be perennial types of things Mhmm. That you wouldn't necessarily be harvesting from right now.
Mhmm. Mhmm.
So then I can okay. Okay. Great. That's fine. Wanted the best time to start my beds, you know, like, to get them Anytime. Anytime. Oh, great.
Thank you for that. Well, and, of course, I plan on using your book here as my my bible.
My goodness.
You never thought people were gonna I know.
It's it's just supposed to be practical. That's all.
That's it. But that's all I want. Like, I don't want, like, you know, like like you said before about just the advice about giving your soil whole foods. Like, I just need the practical advice. I don't need to know all of the the details.
It's the same with, with folks who come to me in my practice, and they start going off on, you know, analyzing all of the supplements and things and dietary get them into trouble. They just need to get back to their common sense.
Eat whole foods. Exactly.
You know, we just we need to start teaching our children classes of of common sense.
Yes. Yes. Exactly. Start a new school. The common sense. Mhmm.
Yep.
So, Tammy, I wanted to ask you, let's see. When people wanna pick up a copy of Growing a Hundred and One Herbs that Heal, do you have a preferred place they go and pick it up online?
Or or They can they can buy it online through the booksellers online, or they can buy it at their local bookstore.
You know, anywhere is is just wonderful. So I'm just thrilled when people can find it a useful tool.
And and do you have a a a website, or do you just kinda keeping that that low tech at the moment?
We are very low tech.
No website.
No. There's there's really not any way, for people to reach me via the Internet.
That's probably a good thing because it can Yeah. It can get a little crazy sometimes.
Yeah. We're we're just sort of prioritized to the greenhouses and the gardens and and, leaving everybody to work in their gardens as well.
Oh, that's that's wonderful. So everyone, when you finish listening to this or maybe you're out in the garden right now, weeding and listening to this on iPod, so that would be all all the better. Right?
That's perfect.
So, Tammy Hartung, we would love to have you back sometime, and, that would be because I I I have loads more questions I could ask you. So maybe maybe over the winter while you're while you're have a little quiet time.
Yes. And that's when we'll all have garden fever, won't we?
Yes. We will. I just wanted to, thank you so much for joining us on on Urban Inter Radio today. We really, really appreciate it. It was really great of you.
My pleasure.
Thank you.
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