Episode 2712

- [Narrator] Succulents grouped in containers. Succulents tucked in a stone sculpture. Succulents in a garden bed. These plants dazzle, yet are easy to care for. Annette Shrader has some kind of fun exploring this garden. Plus, we'll learn regenerative farming practices as we tour the herb garden at No. 9 Farms. Come along! First, intriguing is one way to describe this group of plants.

- Carter's Valley. It's far away and before I'm finished I believe that you're gonna have a overall view of some of the most beautiful containers and plants that I think I've ever experienced. And Jeff Calton, you are the man of the hour! And I've waited to see this for a long time.

- Well I'm glad you're here. And the succulents you'll find, it's a very popular group of plants now. People, it's a thing.

- Yes, I understand.

- It's a thing. And they're very easy. The only problem with 'em, people tend to love them to death. You really wanna neglect 'em, not give 'em a lot of care. And very little water! Very little water. This container is mostly echeverias and one little aloe right here. Echeverias are easy, they'll flower. You have nice flowers on them. They require a high amount of light. Outside, they're fine. Indoors, they give me problems. I don't have the light for them. But they perform very well, they're very photogenic. They give you a look--

- Yes, I know!

- [Jeff] They give you a look you can't get with somethin' else and they're just fun. They are not winter hardy at all. I take 'em in or give them away when it drops down to about 40, when the nights are 40. Cold weather will get 'em. Cold and wet will wipe 'em out very quickly. Heat doesn't bother them. It's just sunlight and fast-draining soil, and you'll have terrific success.

- [Annette] And I say they're lovin' this mornin' sun.

- [Jeff] They are. These get sun until about two o'clock. But these are echeverias, some agaves. This is a Ming Thing cactus, very slow, I've had this forever.

- [Annette] And some of these you do take in.

- [Jeff] Some of 'em I do take in, like this, this. None of the echeverias.

- Okay.

- [Jeff] None of the echeverias I take.

- [Annette] 'Cause you can find them most anywhere.

- [Jeff] They're cheap, and I just treat 'em as an annual.

- [Annette] Isn't it wonderful to see that beautiful pink bloom?

- [Jeff] These are nice, they're fun. These are Adenium obesum, a desert rose. And people grow them not only for the flower, but for the caudex, trunk. You take 'em out of the pots, bare root 'em to expose that caudex even more. These are easy, because in the winter you bring 'em in. You do not water them at all, all winter.

- Yeah, that's a good thing.

- Put 'em in the closet. Put 'em in a corner and forget about 'em 'til spring. These get more sun here. I like agaves, so I have a lot of agaves here. They're very painful. They'll take 35 to 40 years to flower and then they will die. They flower one time and then they die.

- [Annette] Wow.

- [Jeff] But when they die they leave you lots of pups.

- [Annette] And that is called?

- [Jeff] They're monocarpic, meaning they'll flower once and then they die. This looks like an agave, but it's not. It's a Dyckia, right here, they're vicious.

- [Annette] Looks like a alligator.

- [Jeff] Yeah, they're vicious. But any of the agaves are easy, they're just painful. With this, they like it dry.

- [Annette] So that's how you recognize an agave, it has spines?

- [Jeff] Well, a lot of 'em have spines but they have this rosette. They're pretty obvious. This of course is an aloe. It's gettin' ready to flower.

- [Annette] But now this is neat.

- [Jeff] That's another aloe, it's called Swordfish.

- [Annette] Okay, well I know that you have used them so beautifully in with your landscape. And I know you have some more there. Let's go to where those are sited.

- Okay, this is a slab garden that my friend and cohort Dylan Morgan made. I did not build this one. But he used fragments for a sort of a post-apocalyptic kind of thing. But he used various sedums and sempervivums in there and pieces of, just an industrial kind of look.

- Oh, and even the stone pebbles that he's put that little lavender color with. And then this beautiful piece of the slate, or what that is. But this . Why don't you, just an old common rock.

- [Jeff] This stuff right here, if you grow succulents, this is chicken grit. So that's a very helpful thing for succulents is chicken grit.

- [Annette] Yeah, and I bought some of that for use in my garden but not for my succulents. And that looks like a piece of an old block--

- [Jeff] It is, it is.

- [Annette] With concrete in it. Oh my goodness.

- [Jeff] It's from a wall teardown.

- [Annette] So you repurposed and now it's become a work of art.

- [Jeff] Yep, these do very well, you just have to be careful what you plant in 'em. Because they do dry out quickly and they do get hot, and they get cold.

- [Annette] Well, that's just simple research.

- [Jeff] Yeah, tough, durable plants. Don't get too attached to 'em 'cause they could very easily die.

- We have stepped out of the sunlight into this shade, Jeff. And this is a beautiful arrangement. And tell us about what it's getting as far as exposure to sunlight and then give us a total of the plants there.

- [Jeff] Okay, these, well they're in shade 'til right after lunch and then they cook, right on 'til the sun goes down. So they'll get a lotta hot, direct sun. That won't faze 'em at all. We have Euphorbias in here that they like it hot. More agaves, elephant bush, ghost plants. Tryin' to get kind of a coral reef look, so that's why we use the octopus.

- [Annette] Yeah, that's an octopus.

- [Jeff] But this pot is very heavy. So I was worried at first it was gettin' too much shade, but there's no way I could move it. We'll dismantle this. I'll be givin' all these plants away for friends to be propagating. Then I can get fresh plants next year.

- [Annette] Ah, creativity award.

- [Jeff] I got those funnels on a clearance rack for a little nothin', knew I could use 'em for somethin'. And succulents, you can grow succulents in anything. They don't need much soil.

- [Annette] Old tennis shoe!

- Yeah, I've done that, too. But they don't need much soil at all. These are Pork and Beans. They're normally very red but we've had a lot of rain. So they haven't colored up, they need to be stressed.

- And you have a natural--

- You have a drain hole.

- [Annette] Drainage hole, that is just...

- [Jeff] This is a kalanchoe right here.

- All right now, this is, has its own beauty also. What's in this one?

- [Jeff] Those are Opuntias, Beavertails, Topsy Turvy. And this is a Euphorbia trigonum rubra. It'll turn more red when it gets stressed and dries out.

- [Annette] And more chicken grit!

- [Jeff] More chicken grit. And this is a good tip for people. They'll fill up their pots like to here with packing peanuts, I don't like to do that.

- [Annette] Oh, blow away?

- [Jeff] All you gotta do is get some old nursery pots to use as inserts, that'll just lift right outta there.

- [Annette] And then that's protected.

- [Jeff] And that's empty down there. You don't need that much soil. I like big pots but I don't like to--

- Fillin' them.

- Mm, no.

- [Annette] Okay, well, I know that I can't see all these. But there might be one more or two we'll catch up with. Well Jeff, I think I've seen it all now. And you know, when I look at this, and think about a grill and how the succulents like it hot, and then you've got the lava rock there, looks like charcoal. So goodness, guy, tell us about that one.

- That was my mother-in-law's old grill. She was moving, that was in her throw away pile. I don't ever throw anything away. I pick it up along the side of the road, I have no pride. And somebody asked where I found that mid-century planter. Well, I found it in the trash pile. It's a grill. You can grow succulents in anything. They don't require very much soil at all.

- [Annette] Is it rusted or did you drill a hole?

- [Jeff] Well, it has a hole in the middle of it already. I didn't have to drill anything. I painted it, I spray painted it. But don't ever throw anything away. And a grill by the patio's kinda required.

- [Annette] It is.

- [Jeff] That's one way to use up, to get a few more plants in.

- [Annette] What are they?

- [Jeff] Those are old cultivator discs. And I was at somebody's house and they had 'em in a pile to throw away. So I threw 'em in my truck and brought 'em home.

- [Annette] I see some repeated plants in these, but what's not repeated is this little guy over here in these funnels that you'd pour oil through?

- [Jeff] Yeah, yeah.

- [Annette] You twisted 'em together?

- [Jeff] I did, and I thought it would be a fun project. But it was the dumbest thing ever because it's very top-heavy. So I had to glue it to a saucer to keep it upright. But the plants seem to like it. That's the biggest, that's a Neon Breakers echeveria right there. That's the biggest that I've ever had one get. So they like, but there's not very much soil in there. So that just goes to show you can grow succulents anywhere. Stick 'em in a crack in a rock anywhere, they'll grow.

- Well I'm gonna insert You can! Okay! Well you know what, Jeff, when you run out of containers, don't worry! Come out in one of these isolated spots and do somethin' else. What have you done here?

- Well we bring in rocks from everywhere. These all came from a job site. These are all hardy succulents. They're kind of a mess now after that heat. It's mainly sempervivum, some cactus. More sedums through there, some Chinese Dunce Caps, Orostachys down here. Now this has not been in very long, but give it another season or two and it'll just be full.

- Okay.

- And runnin' over.

- [Annette] I think you've done a wonderful job.

- [Jeff] I love the succulents, they're a lot of fun.

- [Annette] It's just, I can't give you enough adjectives to tell you how much I've enjoyed this. And I looked forward to this day, thank you!

- [Jeff] Well we're really thrilled that you're here. But the succulents are fun, more people should use 'em. Even people who think they aren't gardeners, or they say they don't have a green thumb? Get succulents. Give 'em light and no water, and you're good to go.

- [Annette] Good thing.

- We're in Ashland City today, visiting No. 9 Farms, where they practice regenerative farming. And we're gonna learn all about it as we visit their herb gardens. Gosh, Stephanie, this vitex is looking awesome today. It's really peaking out for us, just for show! So how would you go about using the vitex?

- Right now we're using it in our cut flower arrangements. It's also an edible blossom. It has a real peppery taste to it, but as a medicinal herb, it is used for women's health. Supporting the production of progesterone, really. So we use it in a tea that's for women's health.

- [Sheri] Can you tell us a little bit about No. 9 Farms?

- Our main focus of our farm is on the soil. So when we are farming, we are thinking about what can we do to benefit the macro and microorganisms that are living in the soil, who are going to help us grow better plants? So we are basically trying to copy what naturally occurs in nature. So there are organisms that we can see like spiders, and lizards, and ants, and things like that, that are breaking down organic matter to a place where they can be absorbed into the soil. And then from there we have our microorganisms that are breaking down things even more, and living in a symbiotic relationship with the roots of the plants, to a point where those nutrients can be taken up by the plants and form nutrient-dense food for you and I.

- So what kind of things do you do to create this?

- Okay, so we don't have a lot of inputs from outside the farm. All of our inputs come from here. We're both putting down compost that we've created all throughout the year. We typically do that in the fall so that the organisms have a chance to break that compost down while a lot of things are dormant. We also are constantly mulching. We never wanna leave bare soil. We are laying down various types of mulch, depending on what kind of bed it is. And that helps retain moisture in the soil. It provides food for the organisms. And it also helps regulate the temperature of the soil.

- Which is important because?

- It helps plants not be stressed out. Any plant that's stressed out is gonna be liable to succumb to pest problems. Insects we think of as the bad guys, really they're decomposers and pollinators. So if they feel like a plant is stressed out, then they come to decompose it for us. And so we want to keep our plants really healthy and not stress out.

- Let's go on and see what other herbs we have up here. Stephanie, the basil looks great. It smells yummy, also. What kind of basil is this?

- This is Sweet Genevieve basil.

- And so tell me a little bit about how you keep production strong on basil?

- [Stephanie] Well this is our second planting of basil. So our first planting, that happened in May after that late freeze, is in the garden by our peppers. And then this is our second planting of basil. So we do successions throughout the season of basil, so that we also have really good, beautiful leaves going.

- [Sheri] Will you do one more before frost, or no?

- [Stephanie] Absolutely, yes.

- Okay, well I'm familiar with this basil. But there's something up here that I'm not. So I would like you to explain it to me, please.

- Okay.

- What is this, it's beautiful!

- So this is called red shiso--

- Shiso?

- Shiso.

- Okay.

- Mm-hm. Sometimes referred to as purple shiso. It is a Japanese culinary herb. So they're using it typically fresh in their Japanese dishes, similarly to how we would cut basil on top of dishes.

- [Sheri] Did you start growing this for one restaurant in particular? 'Cause I know you supply several restaurants in Nashville.

- Probably the main inspiration for us growing it was Two Ten Jack. We work very closely with them. Jess and Trey are wonderful people, and we actually just had a farm dinner with them here at the farm this week. For me, growing flavorful herbs is about the nutrient content. And the chefs do care about that as well. But for them, the flavor is so much better when you're getting it local.

- And it looks so pretty on the plate.

- Yeah, it does.

- [Sheri] Stephanie, I grew this plant several years ago, but I cannot remember what it's called. What is it?

- This is called Toothache Plant.

- And so, medicinal then?

- It is! It was used by ancient civilizations when they were doing oral procedures. It's numbing to the mouth.

- And so, that's the flower, the leaf that they would use?

- The flower, typically. You can use both but the flower is strong.

- If I remember right, as the flower matures it opens up and it looks like a decayed molar or something like that, right?

- Yeah, it does look pretty terrible when it's, right when it's.

- Well it looks great here, and then we've got some catnip or catmint?

- Yes, mm-hm.

- [Sheri] And so, talk a little bit about that. What would you use that for, teas?

- [Stephanie] Yeah, so our catmint we use for teas. We use it in our Calming Infusion. As funny as it sounds, it has a very different effect on humans than it does on cats. So we blend this with chamomile and lemon balm, and the three of them together just make a very calming tea. Our rotation of our beds, we are always cognizant of what minerals are being put into the soil. So every plant is taking up nutrients from the soil, many times in the form of minerals. And also depositing. So every plant is going to do that, including those that we would consider weeds.

- Okay, so let's say this crop is spent. You're pulling it out, what would you do?

- So--

- To prepare your bed for another planting.

- We would put a layer of compost down. We would also pull aside some of the mulch that's existing. This particular bed has aged wood chips as its mulch, and we don't necessarily want that mixing into the soil. As wood breaks down, it's pulling nitrogen, actually just binding it up during its decomposition. So for beds that have aged wood chips as the mulch, we're pulling that aside, laying some compost down, and then transplanting. If we are going to be doing it at the end of the season, like we will with these guys here, we'll be putting in a cover crop. And typically that will be Austrian winter peas or red clover.

- Okay, this is one of my favorites, lemon verbena. Even if the regular gardener just wanted to grow it for the fragrance in their garden, it's perfect. But what are you using this for?

- So a lot of restaurants use this both in food and in cocktails and infusions for teas. We use it as a medicinal herb and as a culinary herb. So we are using it in a tea called Lemon Infusion. We put lemon peel in it as well, and also lemongrass. So that tea is very flavorful, also high in Vitamin C. And then medicinally, it's very immune supportive and they're also finding it really supportive for brain health.

- And so what other herbs do you grow specifically for making your soil stronger, better?

- Yeah, so this is a perennial herb. So even here in the South with our harsh winters, there'll be a few plants that don't come back. But it will keep coming back. And so we have to actually interplant with all of our perennial herbs to really restore minerals back into the soil. So some of those, one that I already mentioned, the red clover, is the big one. So then also some of our annual ones. Chamomile actually is a great one for restoring minerals to the soil, and is self-seeding as well.

- Are you using German or Roman?

- We use German, yeah. Roman has a different flavor and medicinal profile. And here in middle Tennessee it's not perennial like it is in other parts of the country. And then, we'll also interplant different vegetables actually in with our herbs. So legumes, beets, things like that that are really putting things back into the soil.

- [Sheri] So tell me about this hibiscus, why are you so excited about it right now?

- [Stephanie] So this is Red Thai Roselle hibiscus. This is the hibiscus where if you get a really red hibiscus iced tea or something, it's from this plant.

- [Sheri] And do they use the stems of it, I noticed the stems are the red. Or are they gonna steep the flowers?

- It's actually not even the flowers, it's the pods that form after it has blossomed.

- Okay, that's very interesting.

- Yeah, so to me this plant is just a beautiful plant to have in the yard. And this part of the country, we have to start it from seed every spring, but to me it's worth it. It's a beautiful plant.

- Well, Stephanie, I want to thank you very much for sharing with us today. I don't know when you guys have time to sleep! You and Brian have something going all the time! You are, let's see, you're at the Ashland City Farmer's Market, you're a CSA, you have an Airbnb. And you also do workshops?

- We do classes here at the farm. Typically it's fall through early spring that we do those. During the height of the growing season we're very busy. But during that time we will offer cooking classes, classes on how to grow both herbs and vegetables, how to create a farm, even, if you want to, how to ferment food, preserve food, really and also how to eat locally and seasonally. And then we also are a huge provider of just local restaurants for herbs, edible blossoms, and specialty vegetables.

- [Sheri] So I'm sure our viewers could get on your website and learn more. What is your website?

- [Stephanie] It's no9farms.com, N-O-9 farms.com.

- [Sheri] Well Stephanie, again I wanna thank you for sharing today. It's been very educational for me and I really appreciate your time today.

- [Stephanie] Thank you.

- So one of the fun things that I get to do as I travel around the country and speak to different groups, and as we shoot the television show and travel to different nurseries, is I get to collect really cool and unusual plants. And so I thought, since we were at my house today, and we have an opportunity to look around my garden a little bit, that I would show you some of the really unusual things that I've collected over the years. Some of which are hardy, and some of which are not. And one of my favorites that is not, that I have to dig up and take in every fall, is this beautiful elephant ear that's in front of me. This is actually quite a rare variety called Okinawa Silver, Alocasia Okinawa Silver. And it's a smaller-growing plant. A lot of times plants that are very highly variegated like this one is, are not quite as vigorous. But it really is a beauty. Some of the other unusual things that I've collected over the years, I'll pick up a couple of things down here on the ground. This is one that I haven't obviously gotten in the ground yet. But believe it or not, this is a Euonymus. And it's a variety called Rokujo Variegata. And it grows in this very tightly congested, little finger form growth, very unusual. And it will never get more than about 18 inches tall and wide, but really, really unusual growth habit. And a pretty little plant and a Euonymus that you don't ever have to worry about becoming invasive or anything like that. And then the other plant that I was going to show you that I just picked up recently is this really beautiful variegated ginger. This is a variety called mioga, or Dancing Crane is another name that it goes by. This is actually hardy all the way up into Zone Six. I've left it in this pot for now because I want to grow it up a little bit bigger before I plant it outdoors. Big enough at least to have one division off of it that I can keep inside, just in case. But I've actually seen this plant growing in a garden all the way up north of Saint Louis. And it had been hardy in the ground for five years. So that's even Zone Five, so we're pretty sure that this is going to be a very solid Zone Six plant, and a real beauty. Well I've always loved tropical plants. We've shown you a couple already, as well as some hardy ones. But a favorite group of tropicals has always been banana plants. I grew my first ones from seed when I was about nine or 10 years old, from some that I ordered from a catalog. And I'm still growing bananas today. And this one has done me the favor of flowering this year. This is a variety called Musa ornata, Red Jewel. The bananas don't bloom every year, but this one has decided to give me this beautiful blossom. This is actually a bract, and the real flowers are right here. As a banana flowers, the bud actually elongates and these bracts fall off. And where the flowers are pollinated, it will actually set fruit. And you can see down here at the base of this cluster, I have little red bananas forming. Technically, they're edible. They wouldn't hurt you if you ate them. But they're probably not going to be very palatable. I'm hoping, though, that they'll go ahead and ripen before the end of the season and I'll get a good crop of seed out of these. This little guy is actually very rare. This is a variegatded pine called Golden Ghost. And it's not very big now, but it was even smaller when I first bought it. In fact, it was so small that this is one of those collections I made when I was traveling at a conference that I was at. And this little pine tree came home in my suitcase. So it was in a one-gallon pot, it was about six inches tall. And now it's up to about two feet. It's been in the ground about a year and a half or so. And it's grown quite well. But you can see that the very ends of the needles are green and the entire rest of the needle is kind of a cream color. So overall, it looks almost golden or chartreuse in the landscape. And eventually it will get on up to 10 or 12 feet. The banana tree won't be here forever. And eventually this will become the dominant feature in this bed and other plants will move around it. This is a plant that I'm particularly fond of. A lot of people have sort of a bad perspective on cannas, but I really like them in the garden. And this is a particularly unusual one. This is a variety called Canna ehemanii. And this is an old hybrid from the 1870s. And the thing that I like about it so much is that the flowers actually kind of cascade off of the end of the stem. It's a great carmine red color, kind of a pinky red. But it's just so graceful. Big, bold foliage like most of the cannas have. And to give you an idea of how fast this grew, I actually tried to get this for two or three years and they were sold out every year. And finally this spring I was able to get my hands on one plant. And it came wrapped in a plastic bag with one shoot on it. That was in April. It's September now of the same year. So basically in five months' time, from one tiny little shoot in a plastic bag, I have a seven-foot plant that is four or five feet wide behind me. I'm not sure about hardiness on this. I will actually dig a small chunk of this at the end of the season, pot it up, and take it into an area that I have that doesn't freeze for the winter. And plant it back out in the spring and I'll leave the rest of the clump in the ground to see about how hardy it's going to be. So one last favorite that I thought I would share with everybody. Succulents have been all the rage the last two or three years. And this is a particularly nice plant. And this is actually an easy houseplant. This is Agave desmettiana, Joe Hoak. And it does have a spine on the end of the leaf, but not nearly as lethal as most agaves are. This is actually a soft-leafed agave, it's pretty flexible. And it does make a really good houseplant because it's tolerant of lower light levels. This comes in for the winter. It goes in front of a bright window. I barely water it, I hardly pay any attention to it at all. The following spring, I bring it back out and set it in a shady spot first, to get it reacclimated. And then slowly move it into more sun. But the variegation pattern on this particular plant is just really stunning, and it has become one of my favorite container plants that I own. So you just have to keep your eye out for plants that you think are particularly good-looking or kind of cool. Go to some of those great websites like Plant Delights Nursery and some of the purveyors of more rare and unusual things. Just be aware that when you get into the rare and unusual things, success is not always a guarantee. Sometimes plants haven't been trialed well, some things may be touted as being hardy that really aren't. You're taking a little bit more of a chance with some of these plants, but the reward, when it's successful, is well worth the effort. And have a great time doing it.

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