Episode 3313

- [Announcer] This first year, pollinator garden is flourishing. Even during the hottest days of summer. Rita Venable introduces us to the high school student with a passion for Mother Nature, who teamed up with some can-do community partners to establish this pretty and sustainable habitat. Biodynamic farmer Jeff Poppen depends on compost for healthy plants and a plentiful harvest. Learn the specific weeds and herbs he adds to his compost pile that raises the nutrient value in each scoop. This and more, so stay tuned. Creating a garden space filled with colorful wild flowers and happy pollinators.

- Well, it's late summer in Middle Tennessee, and it's not only dry as a chip but hotter than a pepper sprout. I'm here at Ravenwood High School in Brentwood with Sara Kertai, who is going to tell us about how to keep a beautiful pollinator garden going even with no rain and very hot heat. Sara, what inspired you to plant this garden?

- So I started volunteering at TEC in my freshman year.

- That's Tennessee Environmental Council.

- Yes, yes.

- Okay.

- And seeing the work they had done at different high schools inspired me to show people just how beautiful native species can be, and I wanted to really educate people and bring awareness to how beautiful a natural environment can be.

- Awesome. That's awesome. Well, you've done a fantastic job. This is 700 square feet, a little bit over than that of pollinator garden. We can see the bees coming in and lots of things using this. What was the hardest part about getting this plot installed at Ravenwood High?

- [Sara] I think the most difficult part about installing this was just having the confidence to reach out to people about building this garden in the first place because it was a big step to not be scared to ask questions when I wasn't sure about something or to ask for help.

- Yeah. Okay, good. And the most rewarding thing, what do you think?

- I would say the compliments that I've heard from students about how much, how beautiful the garden is and how much joy it brings them by seeing it and how it's inspired them to possibly build gardens in their own homes.

- Oh, that's so cool. I'm assuming you did not put this garden in all by yourself.

- No.

- But you did start a garden club two years ago in 2022, the Ravenwood High Garden Club.

- Yes.

- What were you doing? What were you thinking?

- So a large part of building this garden came from the inspiration, obviously, from the Tennessee Environmental Council, but also I've always had a strong love for biology and Mother Nature in general. So I really wanted to... That's where the idea really came from, from wanting to connect those two. The volunteering experience I've done in my own personal things I love together in order to create this club.

- [Rita] So the passion created the action? And you wanted to go into biology and nature-related things since you were how old?

- [Sara] Since I was 12, I believe.

- [Rita] That's wonderful. Thank you so much, Sara, for showing us this today.

- Of course.

- We appreciate it.

- [Sara] Thank you.

- I'm talking with Monika Pretz of the Tennessee Environmental Council who is instrumental in generating some buzz about pollinator gardens. Monika, how many of these have you put in all over the state?

- So Tennessee Environmental Council has already created 50 gardens, and we are maintaining 40 of these gardens all over Middle Tennessee.

- That's amazing. So tell us a little bit about the three-step process that you helped Ravenwood High School go through in order to create this beautiful space out here.

- So these community gardens are created mostly at public schools, libraries, sometimes at companies, communities reach out to us, neighborhoods. And we created a three-step solution for this. First step, we reach out to communities, sometimes they reach out to us. For example, in the case of Ravenwood High School Gardening Club, they reach out to us. We come out, we evaluate, decide, we look for the best possible location for a pollinator garden. And we make sure that there is an agreement within the school administration, library or community. The second step is really on Tennessee Environmental Council. Often, we look for grants, we look for sponsors who would help us create a pollinator garden.

- Because you have to pay for seed and signage-

- And soil.

- And soil preparation, things like that.

- [Monika] And also, you know, creating, preparing the garden site, removing all the invasives, all the sod, all the grassroots.

- [Rita] And this is mostly done with volunteers?

- [Monika] Yes, and the third step really is that we create an event, we reach out to communities, we look for volunteers. It can come volunteers as a school gardening club, but sometimes we have corporate partners who come out and help us with creating the gardens.

- That's amazing. If someone sees this, the gorgeous blanket flower, the yarrow, the black-eyed Susan that is surviving in this heat and drought, what would you tell them, what advice would you give them?

- I think the most important advice is that the best time to create a pollinator garden, native wildflower pollinator garden is late fall through the end of winter. Because native wildflower seeds need a cold dormancy, cold stratification. And that will, if they receive that, if we create a garden in November, December, or January, the seeds are out here right on the soil, they get this winter cold, and that will enhance their germination and will lead to a beautiful pollinator garden. The pollinator gardens are not just for communities. We have a residential program. Anyone can get these native wildflower seeds from our website, which is TECTN.org. So Tennessee Environmental Council. And you can look at our website. We have created beautiful native wildflower seeds. This one is actually curb appeal seed mix. It is especially low-growing, drought-tolerant seed mix, perfect for a location, front yard, maybe next to a mailbox or curbside.

- So you don't have to think about with a pollinator garden that you have to have the five-foot sunflowers and the 10-foot whatevers. You can do a low grow like this and still have a beautiful garden. And how long will this garden last? I mean, is it one season and done or what happens?

- Very good question. Most of the seeds in here are perennials. So day will return year after year. What it means is that if we start a garden in the fall, you will start to see shoots coming up, little greens coming up in April. The first flowers will start to produce May, June right in the first year. This garden is only six months old.

- Wow, wow.

- Not even six months old.

- [Rita] So planted it this spring and now look at it.

- Yes, we planted this garden in March this year. So this is a six months old garden. It would definitely get more thick, have more flowers year after year.

- Yes.

- And we do have to come back, do a slight maintenance. Removing invasives, which unfortunately return, but otherwise these are really sustainable garden, no requirement for watering these gardens is just the rain. And they, as you can see, survive the summer heat.

- That's so great. And what if a person just says, "Well, I'm not really in a community but I'd like to try this in my front yard." The curb appeal seed mix you can buy just online at the Tennessee Environmental website. How many square feet will it cover?

- [Monika] Okay, so one seed pocket has enough seeds for a 20 square feet pollinator garden.

- So a 4x5 or a 2x10?

- Yes, exactly, exactly. It's a perfect starting size, I think, and it is from $9 99. And you can look at different seed mixes, whether you are looking for a short-growing, low-growing or you may be looking for a taller growing next to a fence line.

- Yeah, okay.

- We have a variety.

- [Rita] Do you have a shade mix?

- We don't have a shade mix, but we're coming off with it. That's in the plan.

- Okay. We'll look for that in the future.

- Yes indeed.

- Thank you so much, Monika, for your involvement with this garden and also for letting us come and see it. It's just gorgeous, and I think a real inspiration with both you and Sara, so thank you so much.

- Thank you so much. Thank you.

- Diversity is a spice of life and a sure sign of good health. This is true whether we're talking about a landscape, a forest, or human society in general. The more variety, the better. This is certainly true in the compost pile where the more the merrier. The plant world has a wide range of different kinds of plants with unique properties that can ensure that our compost piles will have just a wide range of these minerals and nutrients and microbes. And so we wanna get as much different kinds of stuff into our compost pile. So the composting process then helps to release these minerals so they're available for the next crop. So the composting turns into a humus. You want your finished compost to not have traces of anything that you put in it, but just to be this black chocolate cake looking like stuff that just, oh my gosh, the plants just love it. 2,000 years ago, Cato taught that all of the things you put on your field should be composted first to digest them, so the soil itself didn't have to digest the raw materials. Plants have really strong root systems that gather lots of these minerals and elements that other plants need. Pennsylvania smartweed is a relative of buckwheat, which tells me that it's gonna have a strong root system and also have plenty of that valuable calcium that our plants love. So we just pull up the plants. And any of this stuff right here is great stuff to just sprinkle on the compost pile. Look at all these molds and stuff. This is all beneficial fungal activity. Oh my goodness, that's so beautiful. Yeah, and so you can just shake it into your piles 'cause this is a fairly done pile, but then, yeah, you just break 'em up and just layer the weeds right in there when you're making your pile, you know, and put your dirt and rotten hay and rotten leaves and manure and everything in and you mix 'em in. That's Pennsylvania smartweed there. This one here is a plant called... Well, I call it wild basil. It's actually perilla. In Japan, they call it shiso, and they use this as a seasoning for a sushi. So this plant, again, we pull it up, and, yeah, you get these strong root systems full of all kinds of goodies. And, yeah, just put these into the compost pile. There's nothing wrong with any kind of weed going in there, but the stronger the plant, you know, this one has a big odor, so I think that that has some kind of value, but I don't even know what it's. But it's not gonna hurt anything. I know that much. Yeah, so this process then will help our compost have all these different things, and that's really valuable. A late summer garden is sure to have plenty of weeds. We like to use the real tall-growing weeds for layering in the compost pile because the pith rots quicker than the outside making tunnels, and this allows air to get into the center of the pile. One of the best ones that we have a lot of this time of year is pigweed, amaranth. But we also use ragweeds and lamb's quarters and any of the real tall, growing late summer weeds. Here's a beautiful lamb's quarters plant that we could use in our composting. When it's young, we eat it. It's a relative of spinach. Sunflowers are a crop that's often grown just for the compost pile. The big stalks are perfect for layering into the pile. Another plant that's grown for a composting is comfrey. So comfrey has lots of minerals in it, particularly calcium, which is great for the compost. The nickname for comfrey is knit-bone, and that's because it's such a healing plant for broken bones. Pokeweed is a edible plant in the spring, and then has some medicinal qualities. And what a vigorous grower it is. I've seen these things get 10 or 12 feet tall, and I know then that it has lots of oxygens and hormones that help plants grow. So we'll take this plant sometimes and chop it up and put it in water and let it ferment for a few days maybe with some stinging nettle and other weeds and make a potent brew that we can water our compost piles with. Fermenting or decomposing herbs in a specific way enhances their beneficial influences elements in microbial populations. In the biodynamic method, we make humus-like preparations with herbs. Because these preparations are already decomposed for a year, we only need a spoonful to add homeopathically, so to speak, to our compost piles. This is the plant yarrow that has been made into a humus-like product that now we're gonna put a spoonful in this big compost pile, and it will help with potassium and sulfur in this pile to become more available to the crop. So I'm just gonna put a spoonful of this in a hole right here. Kind of push it down in there. Cover it back up a little bit. And the influence from this homeopathic treatment will ray out through the whole pile. When we wanna work with iron and silica, we like a really nice plant called stinging nettle. And this plant here is just a jack of all trades. It's really a great plant. You know, in Europe during the wars, after those wars, a lot of people lived on stinging nettle because it's 36% protein. So it's an amazing plant, and it makes a really interesting humus-like product that, you know, it's just kind of colloidal in nature. See how it kind of bounces back when I press it? Yeah. So this is a great preparation to put in a compost pile. When we want to have potassium and sulfur working, but also add a little calcium, we use to plant chamomile, which makes a nice preparation that we can then add to the compost pile. This preparation is made from the white oak tree bark. And look at that little white stuff in there. That's indicative of some really beneficial molds and things of that nature. This makes it good for preventing disease. This is a white oak preparation that we're gonna put into the compost pile. We also make a preparation out of Equisetum arvense, the horsetail plant. It's got a lot of silica in it. And we make a tea out of it, and then ferment it for a few weeks, and I like to add a little of that to the compost pile. The wonderful little dandelion plant has a deep taproot, which is bringing up all kinds of minerals and stuff. It's a very medicinal plant, good for your liver. We take the little dandelion flowers and make a preparation out of it that we add to the compost pile. This works with the elements potassium and silica. Well we have one more river to cross, and that's taking the juice of valerian and we've fermented that a little bit. And we're gonna put a small amount in this water here. It's about a gallon of water or so. And then we're gonna stir that up real vigorously like we do other biodynamic preparations. Going around one way for a little while, you know, and getting a nice little vortex. And then we kind of go back around the other way and we'll stir that up for 10 or 15 minutes. And then we simply take some of it and pour it a part of it into the hole that we've made there. And then... And I always like to cover these things up and keep those things in there. And then we just take the rest of it and simply sprinkle it over the pile like that right there. And this helps with the influences of phosphorus. Our compost is made with hay, which has a wide variety of weeds in it. And we also use the manure from the cattle, which they've eaten a lot of weeds. And then we add a little soil and all of these weeds and herbs and stuff that we like to put in our compost piles to keep our gardens growing vigorously and healthy. When we have this wide mixture of things in the compost pile, the plants have the availability of a wide array of nutrients. That way, the plants can grow naturally the way Mother Nature intended. The fertilizers in the future won't be chemicals, but they'll be compost made of ingredients like yarrow and chamomile and nettle and oak bark and dandelion and valerian. And this will ensure that nature has its way.

- You know, that wonderful space right outside your door? Well, maybe one thing you haven't thought about is how it is directly connected to one of our wonderful creeks and rivers in Tennessee. And today we're gonna talk about how what you do affects not just what you see outside, but all of our fun and the whole environment in fact. So we're gonna talk to Ryan Jackwood from the Harpeth Conservancy about something near and dear to your heart, right?

- Absolutely. So, really, the river is kind of connected through what we call a watershed. And the watershed is gonna be all the land that actually, when it rains, that water drains to our river. And so how we take care of our land, our yards, is really gonna impact the water quality that we see in our rivers because all of that wash out is eventually gonna get there.

- Aha! Those storm drains, those stitches.

- The storm drains, yes.

- Yes, yes. Now it all starts to make a lot of sense. Well, let's think about that because, you know, we've all seen a lot about your typical lawn and maintenance, which involves a lot of chemicals. Is that really necessary?

- No, we really try to discourage using fertilizer. Fertilizer contains what we would consider NPK, and that's nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. And yes, those are the kind of building blocks of plant life, but when they're not used up on the land, they make it to our river. And that's where we see excess algae growing and we can get a lot of problems in our rivers. In addition to that, most of the soils in Middle Tennessee are already inundated with phosphorus. And so when you're adding more fertilizer to that, you're just adding excess that's kind of being useless. So we really kind of discourage using fertilizer and we also really encourage doing soil tests on your lawn because that's really gonna, that's gonna help you develop a diet for your lawn and that makes it much healthier than just throwing a bunch of fertilizer out there and hoping for the best. I think we also really kind of wanna change the mindset a little bit about having this, like, very uniform green lawn that is, you know, one species of grass and nothing else is growing there. It's okay to have a little diversity and to have some native plants and stuff. And so instead of worrying about a herbicide that's, you know, you're targeting trying to kill those things, you know, maybe it's okay to let some of them grow.

- All right, so what are some of the benefits of letting my yard go a little bit wild? I mean, I still want it sort of green, though.

- Sure.

- I let it go a little wild?

- Diversity is one of the things that we really preach in kind of having a natural habitat. And so having different types of plants and different species of plants really kind of, they make the soil healthier, they make the whole kind of your, we could call it your yard environment, you know? It's gonna make it those things a lot healthier and provide plants and flowers for pollinators and bees, and that's gonna help, you know, with the insect life and with just the environment in general.

- What about other plants that I choose? Are really great plants that I can choose for being, especially if I'm near a river or something,

- We really would encourage native grasses, particularly native grasses kind of on the buffer between your yard and maybe you live next to a river. They do really great at basically picking up any excess nutrients that we wanna maybe prevent from getting into our waterways since they grow really fast. So that would be some of them. I think there's a lot of, you know, woody vegetation that would also work well, that would, you know? And we just kind of really, our big thing is trying to stay native as best as we can.

- All right, so native plants make a lot of sense. I imagine you don't want anything really invasive in there. So one other thing that I have noticed is, this right here with all this erosion going down into the river, this looks like a problem to me.

- [Ryan] Yeah, so this would be one of the things that we see erosion all over the place. And we would really wanna keep more of a buffer here. And if you notice, you know, we see some trees around here, and we like to think that we at least want three trees in width from the river as a good kind of buffer and way to kind of prevent soil from falling into the river and flowing downstream and, you know, getting spots like this.

- [Julie] Ah, well, I have heard that our soil sediment is the biggest pollutant in our rivers.

- [Ryan] It's one of the biggest, absolutely. I think nutrients are up there as well. Nutrients and bacteria, but certainly sediment. And one of the reasons that is, those three are kind of tied together because both nutrients and bacteria are attached to sediment. So when we lose sediment, oftentimes, we're losing those things too into the river.

- Yeah, it's all stuff to be aware of. Now, for my neighbors that like to really mow a lot 'cause probably 'cause they're fertilizing a lot, so they're mowing a lot. And so it drives me crazy when they blow all their grass clippings and leaves into the road.

- Yes, we would really encourage that you can actually leave the grass clippings on your yard after you mow, and it acts as kind of like a natural fertilizer. They'll break down, they'll get back into the soil. So you're kind of recycling, you know, the nutrients that you already have on your yard. And that's really great. Blowing it into the road is then gonna, it's gonna wash down to the road into a storm drain, and then show up in the river, and then that's really not great either for our river health and wildlife.

- So in terms of taking care of a lawn, now, I personally just don't like to mow very much, but I know some people like to mow a lot. So, do you have any sort of really good tips for people that maybe wanna be a little more natural?

- Yeah, if we're talking about soil health, in general, the more we let a plant grow, it's gonna put down roots farther. And so if we let the grass grow maybe an extra week, week and a half than our typical kind of mowing cycle, the root structure is gonna be a lot better in your yard and for the grass. And so that's gonna help the soils be heartier, be healthier, and really kind of be more stable.

- Well, Ryan, this has been most informative. I'm happy to know that being a little lazy with the lawn is gonna help the river here. So, thank you so much for joining.

- [Ryan] Thank you so much for having me.

- [Julie] So I want you to think about enjoying your wonderful rivers that we have here in Tennessee. And as you're thinking about where you might go on a river adventure, I want you to remember that the health of that river starts with you and with your front yard and everything that you do.

- [Announcer] For inspiring garden tours, growing tips, and garden projects, visit our website at volunteergardener.org and find us on these platforms.