Episode 3318

- [Narrator] The most popular fruit among consumers is strawberries. And there's nothing better than a fresh picked one just off the vine. Tammy Algood visits Lester Farms in Lebanon, Tennessee, a family operation where they devote 11 months a year to growing these tasty berries. Troy Marden strolls the home garden spaces of horticulturist and popular YouTube personality, Brie The Plant Lady. Her passion for growing is infectious, and her mixed border beds are an inspiration. Plus, April Moore gets tips on long blooming pollinator-pleasing plants from a devoted gardener. Join us! First by growing the varieties Ruby June and Chandler, fresh strawberries are ripe for the picking through the month of June.

- [Tammy] More often than not every spring we're gifted with local strawberries, and we are at a farm with seven acres worth in one spot. Our guest is Mitchell Lester, owner of Lester Farms here in Lebanon. Thank you for having us.

- Thank you guys for being here.

- Tell us about your strawberries and how you got started in this, because seven acres is a lot of strawberries.

- Yes, seven is, so, especially 'cause in the strawberry world, everything is still done by hand for the most part, especially when you're talking about local strawberries. So, planting by hand, picking by hand, all the way down to selling direct to the customer at our retail farm market. My beginning in agriculture began with just raising a family garden, right here on Coles Ferry Pike. Back when I was six or seven, we planted our first garden. One summer, we had an abundance of different things, so, I set up a little produce stand at the end of our driveway.

- Love it!

- It was a lemonade stand with produce.

- Right.

- And that is how I began growing and selling produce. Strawberries came a little later when I recognized the demand for 'em, how many people wanted them. So, that's become a significant and primary crop of Lester Farms in our operation. Just because, who doesn't like local strawberries in season?

- [Tammy] Talk to us about the challenges that you face in-

- Oh!

- Growing local strawberries.

- Yes, myself, or anyone who raises local strawberries of any quantity or size, whether it's home gardener or larger scale grower, the challenges are numerous and they are different it seems every year, depending on what the weather is doing, primary, because strawberries are from start to finish in Tennessee, an 11-month crop. So, the crop we're standing in right now, began last June. Field work began in August, working the ground, the beds and irrigation, all of this was laid in August. Planting happens at the end of September, beginning of October. So, it's a very large window of time- to have the crop grown.

- Right.

- [Mitchell] And cared for, which also presents lots of numerous challenges. So, you're dealing with hot and dry at planting in the fall. That's often our hottest and driest time of year.

- Right?

- End of September and October. You're dealing with cold freezing events in the winter, dealing with numerous cold freezes when your blooms begin to bloom in the spring. We're having to put frost covers on and off, the whole month of March and the whole month of April, protecting our crop. It does seem to work out whether one season is no good and the next is, you know, you're always just keep farming, keep moving and change as as you need to through the year to take care of issues.

- And so this year, what are your specific challenges?

- Yes, so, as we stand here today, yesterday evening, we're standing here, I think it's 88 degrees today, May 2nd in Tennessee, I think yesterday was 84, 83 or 84, which is hot.

- Yes.

- Especially for ripe fruit. So, two challenges. One, is the problem you would rather have, and that's the yield has been significantly good this year. This crop has yielded lots of strawberries very early. The problem with that is keeping up picking. How fast can you pick 'em? Because the hotter it is, the faster they ripen. We're seeing a lot of the fruit become over-ripe, blistered by the heat. So, we're having to remove it from the plant and throw it on the ground.

- Oh.

- So, that was a problem, just here in the last two days. And that's related to heat.

- That hurts.

- It does.

- [Tammy] And so, these plants that we're looking at here, it's got a combination of everything going on.

- Yes.

- You've got ripe fruit, you've got blooms. You've got buds.

- Exactly.

- You've got not ripe fruit.

- Exactly.

- [Tammy] So, every day is picking.

- We are picking every morning, starting at five or five 30. The crew will come in, we will build all of the boxes that we pick into, load them with all of the quarts, and then at about 5:30 or six, we will head to the field to start picking. The heat determines how long we can pick in a day. Today's gonna be hot early. It's 9:30 now, and it's already hot, so we won't be able to pick much past 11, just because the fruit gets softer and it's harder to pick and keep the fruit, not bruising it when it's so hot

- [Tammy] And all of yours is picked by you.

- Everything is pre-picked, picked by our crew, and then taken to our farm market down the road and sold there.

- So, if our growers that watch this show have a few plants of their own, can you give us a few tips about when to pick and how to pick?

- Yes, so, you always want to pick red fruit. You're not ever wanting to pick immature fruit or overripe, so, there really is a specific stage of ripeness that you'd like to pick to be the most sweet and the best for the customers. And that is fully red. So, I'm always stressing to our pickers to leave the orange for the next day or the following day. So, we will try to pick the same plant, every two or three days.

- Got it.

- And that typically is the turnaround time for having the right ripeness on the plant. So, when it comes to actually picking the fruit off, you would take your hand and you just twist a little bit, twist up, and it will pop the stem- right off the fruit.

- Oh!

- Right off the plant, instead of pulling the fruit directly off, then you run the risk of pulling the whole plant outta the ground.

- Right.

- Which is obviously not what you wanna do.

- Exactly, so, the twisting keeps you from having to pinch.

- Yes, and twist, I don't mean from like right to left, I mean, just-

- A forward kind- of motion.

- Yes, forward and backwards. Just literally almost popping it right off the stem.

- So, your pickers are probably very experienced at that and can do it really quickly, right?

- [Mitchell] Yes, I have been really fortunate to have a really good crew of pickers that have been, some of them have been picking, this is their 13th season.

- Wow!

- [Mitchell] They have been picking strawberries with us since I was a junior and senior in high school.

- Wow.

- So, I am incredibly grateful for that. We have two varieties this year, Chandler and Ruby June. Primarily everything we have this year is Ruby June. That being said, it's a newer variety on the market. They're bigger and they have a great flavor and they also handle sun and rain better than some of your older varieties.

- I noticed you're spacing on this. Does it need air in between the plants?

- Yes, so, we space our plants a little further apart than, than we used to, specifically for that reason. It allows more sun to get to the fruit.

- Right.

- Which makes sweeter fruit. It allows air to pass through, which helps with plant diseases. So, ours are spaced at, it's like 15 and a half, 16 inches from center of plant to the center of the plant.

- Got it.

- And then there's two rows of strawberries on each bed.

- Right.

- [Mitchell] And we stagger those rows so that wind can pass through.

- [Tammy] Got it. Got it. Very smart. And the plastic is here to just keep the weeds out of the plants.

- [Mitchell] The plastic is, so the plastic beds, it's actually the term is plasticulture. It's a way of growing horticultural crops, fruits and vegetables. For strawberries, I don't know that I would do it any other way on a large scale, because these beds are built in the fall. The irrigation line is underneath the bed, the drip irrigation, so, what it does in the winter, it warms your soil, in the winter and spring, it warms your soil. When you have red fruit, it's laying on the plastic and not dirt. So, the fruit is really clean.

- Right.

- It's a weed block.

- Right.

- So, you're not having weeds growing up all through the season. Having said that, we have to hand weed every single plant in late winter, because you will have winter weeds that like to grow right next to the plant, right through your planting hole.

- Like that crack of the sidewalk- right.

- Yeah, so we are still hand weeding all seven acres in late winter.

- [Tammy] You hope this extends through June.

- We like to see our strawberry season begin as early as it can, but really we'd like to see the first or second week of June be, we'd like to harvest through the first or second week of June. So, that would be the goal. It doesn't happen every year.

- [Tammy] A lot of people think that end of May, end of strawberries.

- Yeah.

- But that's not necessarily the case.

- I would call that an average, but I that is certainly not fact, or science. May is typically Tennessee's strawberry season, middle-Tennessee, specifically. Last year we picked through the third week of June last year.

- Perfect.

- And there were some farms in the area that almost picked the the 1st of July. So, I've never seen that before.

- [Tammy] So, you know what, so don't discount June.

- No, don't discount June.

- Right.

- [Mitchell] But also don't wait till June.

- Right .

- If you need strawberries, don't wait till June. You know, just 'cause some years you do not harvest that long.

- [Tammy] Right, thank you Mitchell, so much for this. And thank you for the effort that's gone into building Lester Farms into what it is today. It is a gift to those of us that live here in middle Tennessee, and we appreciate it.

- Well, thank you so much for coming out and thank you for saying that. I just, I would like to also say, I feel from an early age, I have felt that it was a gift to be able to do this. And certainly, the people who have helped me along the way, family, employees, vendors, mentors, there's been just a wide group of those people, so, they have been a gift to me. And it is certainly all of that, that has made this operation and Lester Farms exist as it does today.

- And it's why we're here.

- Yes.

- Thank you so much- Mitchell.

- Thank you so much for coming out.

- 15 years ago, I met a wonderful friend in Brie Arthur and I'm so happy to be here today to share Brie's Garden with all of you. Brie, thanks for being with us. Tell me how all of this began.

- Well, first thank you for visiting- my favorite friend .

- Oh, thank you.

- And you know, this garden was my third garden living in North Carolina.

- Right.

- And to date, it's the longest place I've lived.

- Right.

- To actually see something come to fruition.

- That's nice.

- And you know, it was a blank slate. This was a tobacco field.

- Okay.

- And in all of my life, I had never actually lived with such poor soil.

- Right.

- It's beach sand.

- Okay.

- It's full of disease, it's full of root-knot nematodes.

- [Troy] Right, but we're not close to the beach here.

- [Brie] No, we are in this really unusual situation where we're about four miles from a river-

- Okay.

- That in thousands of years has flooded into this area-

- Right.

- And deposited the sand.

- Ah, gotcha.

- And its as deep as you can dig.

- Wow!

- Nothing but-

- Nothing but sand.

- Yeah.

- [Troy] So, first of all, then you had to do a lot of soil improvement.

- It became my like only life's mission.

- Right.

- When we were building out this garden, we actually started with 60 yards of purchased compost.

- Wow.

- And we don't have a machine.

- Okay.

- So, this was all done by hand .

- By hand. Wow.

- A great way to stay in shape.

- Exactly. Exactly.

- And I very quickly realized like if I wanted to create the soil I grew up with in Michigan-

- Right.

- I had to do something more than just bring in offsite substrates.

- Right, because once you incorporate that, eventually it breaks down. And then you're-

- It's an annual habit.

- [Troy] and then you're back to sand.

- [Brie] Exactly, it goes away.

- Right.

- Particularly, in the southeast where our ground doesn't freeze. We get a lot of wet in the winter. All that good stuff washes off your property and lands ultimately in the ocean.

- [Troy] Right, you have spent a lot of time improving it and in a variety of ways, cover crops and-

- Very strategic-

- Yeah, right.

- Annual plantings.

- [Brie] You know, I think a lot of times people dismiss annuals because they think they're more work. You know, they aren't permanent.

- Right.

- But what I realized is I can do this really inexpensive over-seeding and really engage the ground plane in a really meaningful way.

- Yeah.

- Allow those roots to do the rototilling for me. I incorporate nitrogen fixers, so lots of legumes.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Brie] There's also nutrient scavengers and then chop and drop cover crops that are all a part of this.

- [Troy] Yeah, I know, I've seen you post several times through the years about just coming in and mowing everything down.

- [Brie] Yes, at the end of the season, we collect the seed. So, this is a cottage garden-

- Right.

- Flowering border.

- Right.

- There's poppies, larkspur, bachelor buttons, Nigella, greens, like, you know, mustard and kale. We've got garlic and onions. And then we have grains that are actually growing in clumps. We have barley, oats, wheat-

- Okay.

- And rye, all incorporated in this. And right now we're at a kind of awkward stage, but in a few weeks it'll really-

- It's magnificent.

- Start to come together.

- Yeah.

- And everybody wants their Mother's Day picture in front of this border-

- In front of this border.

- It's really satisfying.

- That's great. You also use daikon radish.

- Yes.

- And that has a really long taproot and probably in your sandy soil, when that breaks down, it helps organic matter. But for us in Tennessee, where we're gardening on a lot of clay, those big taproots-

- It opens up a cavity.

- Yeah, it helps, not necessarily break down the clay, but open up-

- Exactly.

- Air spaces and water spaces in the soil.

- I think, daikon radish, carrots, actually, even things like poppies, which also-

- Right.

- Have a large taproot. When you start thinking about them in a different application than maybe how they're traditionally used, you start to realize how powerful they are- as tools in the garden.

- Right, right.

- And when we started doing the mow in place, allowing everything that was grown here to decompose where it was grown, it completely changed how the soil profile was created.

- Right.

- It was an absolute game changer, I'm always trying to encourage people to spend a little bit more time filling in open space with seed and let the plants do the work for you.

- Well, and that's another important thing here, is that this is sewn so thickly-

- There's no opportunity.

- That you don't have.

- For weeds .

- That you don't have any weeds . You know, which is great. And I think that's something that we all miss out on. Plus when this all comes into bloom, it's early in the spring, the pollinators are beginning to be active, and so you've got a great pollinator garden here also.

- Yes, yes, and that's a big goal. You know, I think one of the great things about growing food for yourself is that you have to have pollinators in order- to get food set.

- To have food, yeah.

- And so it really goes hand in hand with what I'm seeing is this new approach to what could your landscape offer? And it's bigger than being pretty- Right.

- It's an ecological service. Ideally you'll be able to get something that you bring into your kitchen from it.

- Yeah.

- And it really can be an example for the next generation of how we have a responsibility to do better with our developed spaces.

- Yeah.

- And the suburbs are a ripe opportunity.

- Exactly.

- Well, you also have a beautiful back garden- so I'd love to go.

- Yeah.

- And take a stroll.

- Let's take a stroll.

- So, before you really transitioned into media and your YouTube channel and all of the other things that you do, you were a plant propagator for a long time.

- Yes, a passionate plant propagator.

- Yes, yes.

- And you know, most recently I was at Camellia Forest, right.

- Where I specialized in Asian native broadleaf evergreens.

- Ah hah.

- Very specific niche.

- Yes.

- And I planted them as if they were annuals. And so, I always tell people who visit like, do not do what I've done. You don't need trees.

- Right.

- Six inches apart

- Learn from my mistakes.

- Yeah,

- Exactly. But you know, over the years, and I've been now 10 years self-employed-

- Sure.

- Which is amazing.

- Yeah.

- I wanna keep pushing my limits, and so, I'm diving into North American natives.

- Right.

- Learning more about those. They are not my wheelhouse. I really never propagated them. If you think about the discussions that we were having about horticulture in the nineties-

- Yes.

- And early two thousands, natives really weren't one of the key- element of that.

- Part of the part of the topic, yeah.

- And so it's exciting now to pay attention more to what's local, and you know, this is a big border of a wonderful phlox paniculata called Bright Eyes. And in the summer when this is in bloom, there'll be hundreds of swallowtail butterflies.

- Right.

- And that's something that I think having a mix of plants from all over the world, because every plant has a purpose.

- Right.

- It's your job as the gardener- to figure out-

- To figure out.

- Whether you should grow.

- What that purpose is.

- It or not, you know.

- Exactly.

- But what I love most about gardening is like, I'll never get bored because there's always more plants to grow.

- Exactly.

- So, I'm just like, going to a nursery, I feel like they should roll out a red carpet.

- Yeah.

- It's like, as long as I can fill my Prius- I'm satisfied.

- Right, right.

- So, you've got native plants, you've got non-native plants, you've got vegetables right here,

- [Brie] Everything mixed in. My goal is to just blur the lines, make it so that people don't feel like there has to be a space for this. Like, I don't think vegetables need to be segregated. You need the same light-

- Into a big rectangular spot- in your backyard.

- Exactly.

- [Brie] Like put your vegetables where you actually walk on a regular basis. You'll notice them when they're dry or when they need- to be harvested.

- Well the cabbages are beautiful.

- Well, that's exactly it-

- Yeah.

- [Troy] And they look great with herbs as ground covers.

- Right.

- [Brie] And that actually helps to some degree with the animal browse.

- Sure.

- Deer are definitely-

- A problem here.

- An increased problem.

- Right.

- And for most gardeners, I find that animal pressure is the thing that is almost one of the biggest barriers because they can be so destructive.

- Right.

- Always trying to come up with creative plant pairings .

- [Troy] Yes. To keep the deer pressure at bay. You mentioned native plants and I know that a couple of years ago you had the good fortune to be able to buy the house next door, which you are now operating as an Airbnb and you are really focused on making that a native landscape. So, back to that sort of mindset, you know, that shift that you have to do in order to make that happen.

- [Brie] It's a big shift. The plants perform differently. Many of our native plants are deciduous. And I'm actually really struggling because the front borders are full sun. They're really dry in the summer-

- Right.

- Because it's all sand.

- Because of the sand.

- And it's hard to source material that's actually native to that environment. You know, here in North Carolina, most of our areas are wooded.

- Right.

- And bringing in plants from woodland and putting it out there on basically the surface of Mars, I've had a lot of plant failures. Even though they are local- it's not the right place.

- It's not the right environment.

- [Brie] And there's a huge opportunity for more native nurseries to sprout up, you know, focusing on different environments, especially full sun, very dry. I'm looking at Texas natives, panhandle of Florida for that environment.

- Right.

- [Brie] Just because it's so incredibly hot and there's nothing native about that space to begin with.

- [Troy] Right, it is a subdivision space that was a tobacco field.

- Exactly.

- And so I think that part of this native plant movement, which is great, it's a great thing to have happening, but it's also a matter of sort of changing our mindsets-

- Yes.

- And our expectations about what our landscapes look like.

- [Brie] Exactly, and what your maintenance will be.

- [Troy] And what your maintenance will be.

- Many of the plants run in a way that make me feel a bit uncomfortable. I'm used to clumping- but well-behaved.

- Well-behaved.

- Asian plants.

- Right.

- Like camellias, they stay in one spot.

- Yeah, exactly.

- And so it's definitely an exercise in, you know, pushing your limits, learning new things, accepting and acknowledging new boundaries.

- Right.

- I appreciate that we still have a fair amount of turf and that helps kind of keep things- in boundaries

- In bounds, because you can mow around it.

- Yeah.

- You know.

- [Brie] And we do a lot of entertaining. And, of course, the goal with these two properties is to really share the experience with people through video- but also through.

- Right.

- Having people come to visit, having intensive classes and sessions. And I wanted to be able to show the difference between the North American palette and the more traditional southeastern landscape plants which do-

- Right.

- [Brie] They are primarily- Asian.

- Asian. Sure.

- [Brie] And so for me, it was just really important that I keep that native so that when I'm having a discussion, it's not difficult for people to understand.

- [Troy] Exactly.

- [Brie] There's so much to learn. I feel like I have like 0.5% in my brain.

- Right.

- [Brie] Every day is a-

- Is a learn. And I think that's so important for all of us. And probably a great note to end on is that we are all learning every single day-

- Yes.

- In this business. I've been doing this for 40 plus years, and every day when I walk out into the garden, I learn something.

- There's something new. It's hope springs eternal in the garden and- you'll never know it all.

- Yes.

- So, that's why it's the greatest hobby of all time. Plus every plant that you put in the ground makes the world a better place. Not every hobby can actually claim that.

- That's true. It's pretty powerful.

- Thank you so much.

- Thank you. Ohh !

- It can be difficult in the fall to find beautiful flowers that have lots of color. But today we're here in Goodlettsville, with Susan Tinnin to learn about a few of her very favorites.

- Well, we're gonna start with Cosmos because it's my most very favorite fall flowers for the bees and the butterflies. Rarely, can they find this many plants to gather what they need in the month of November. I do collect their seeds every single year. Just pull 'em off, put 'em in a baggie and they .

- [April] Do you put 'em in like a plastic bag or a-

- [Susan] Just a little baggie.

- Okay.

- And then I kind of lay 'em out to make sure they've dried off. Especially, if I pick them like a day before that it's rained. Sometimes I don't do anything but this. Throw 'em back in there and they come right back next year.

- Oh, that's awesome.

- But it takes about two, three, four, years for it to reseed. You're gonna have to plant it for a few years

- Oh, now I didn't know- that about these.

- Before it comes back.

- Wow.

- But once it comes back, you have it for life.

- Yeah.

- And thank goodness, because it certainly helps the bees out. Some days when I'm over here gathering seeds, I'm swatting 20 bees outta my way. I don't know where they all are today. There was one little honeybee- just a second ago.

- Yeah.

- But the great fall colors and who can be beat U-T orange. Right, I mean, you just can't beat it. Doesn't really go with my color palette of pink and purple, but we're just gonna let it do its thing every single year.

- That's beautiful. I recognize this plant as Gomphrena, Susan. And tell me a little bit about how it performs in your garden.

- [Susan] Well, it loves heat. It doesn't require a lot of water. I gather the seeds every year as an annual, but I also understand that I can drop its seeds and that it will reseed itself. So, I'mma working on that. For every one I pick, I probably throw one back down in the pot.

- Yeah, these are really, I like the purple. I think they're my favorite. But there is a red one and maybe even a couple of other colors of these. And they're just a really good thing. You can find 'em usually in the summer. And then look at this.

- Yes.

- This is November. And these are just gorgeous.

- [Susan] This was one little six pack that came from Gardens of Babylon-

- Yep.

- And they're everywhere in my garden.

- That's awesome. They're beautiful. Why wouldn't you want 'em?

- Absolutely.

- I used to to plant 'em along a path.

- Yes, yes, yes, yes.

- Yeah.

- Great idea. Those are nice. Now Susan, I really quite like this combination of the Gomphrena and Pentas plant, but then also this really pretty color of Mexican Heather.

- Yes.

- [April] So, tell me a little about this.

- Well, because of the placement of the flowers here in the summer, it's as if they were like in a pressure cooker. So, geraniums and things, things like that don't wanna grow in the heat. But this Mexican heather will take heat. It will almost take it to a drought level and still perform without having to be watered every single day.

- It's really beautiful.

- And the bees love it. The butterflies love it. And it has just a little dainty look to it.

- [April] I think I'm getting a new appreciation for it too, because look at this pretty shiny foliage.

- Yes.

- It's really an attractive plant.

- Yes.

- [Susan] And it just keeps blooming.

- [April] I think I'm gonna have to think about including some of those next year in my planters.

- Absolutely.

- That's a really pretty combination too.

- I like it.

- Yeah. Gorgeous. Susan, I just wanna say thank you for letting us come and visit your lovely garden and sharing these beautiful fall annuals with us. It was really a pleasure and I so enjoyed talking to you, but thank you very much.

- Well, I learned so much every single week from Volunteer Gardener. I would've never known to have cut my hosta back if it wasn't for an episode that you did last week. So, thank you very much.

- Well, thank you.