Chris: [00:00:00] Okay. So
Phil: [00:00:00] What's going on, Chris. Thomas, how are you today?
Thomas: [00:00:03] for having me
Chris: [00:00:03] Hey, Thomas. Yeah. No, thanks for joining us. We're super excited to have you, we've been looking forward to this for a little while. Maybe, maybe because I'm personally just looking forward to spring and there's some kind of inspirational thought behind all of that, but yeah.
Thanks. Thanks so much for joining us today.
Thomas: [00:00:17] of course.
Chris: [00:00:18] I've read a couple of the interviews that you've done and you know, we're kind of like a podcast that focuses on. Yeah. And making the kitchen approachable for dads, just because it's maybe not traditionally seen as something that or a place that guys spend a lot of time. So it's always like super interesting and cool to find other dads that like to cook and enjoy being in that space.
And so, like, I have seen that you've, you've said that you've enjoyed that. Like, how did you get into, cooking? Just because, you know, so many of us, don't have like an obvious path into that. 
Thomas: [00:00:50] Yeah. I've been cooking since I was a kid and I've been watching for fun food network since I was a kid too. You know, I, in a garden, I used to love watching her show and I would just sit on the couch and watch hours and hours of that. And then baseball would come on and then I would watch baseball.
So it's always kind of been a part of my life. And I actually been in the coffee since I was  five and which is kind of crazy, but we got like a espresso machine with  a steamer when I think I was like 10 and I was making lattes for my family when I was  that old. I've always really been interested in coffee and food.
And I think just  cooking was a natural part of that. And I love to continue it today because, well, why, one of the things I love the most is cooking for crowds. I'm a huge, big green egg fan. And I love any excuse to get that fired up. I've done 15 pizzas on my big green egg.
I've done turkeys and yeah, like multiple levels. I have the XL, so I will do like multiple levels. 
Phil: [00:01:50] like 15 at a
Thomas: [00:01:51] no, uh, I'll do like two at a time, but I'll do like, , 15. I wish I could do that. That'd be really 
Chris: [00:01:58] shoot. 
Thomas: [00:02:00] yeah, I love it. I mean, I would only recommend the Xcel's uh, the large for me, unless you're like really big I'm we're very Vegetarian  leaning. So I'm not doing big, like briskets or pork butts or stuff like that on it. So everything is typically, I would say it's more grilling where it's, you know, a chicken or a fish with  vegetables taking up a huge amount of the space.
Chris: [00:02:24] Yeah, that's probably way more in line with kind of how we, we typically it's, it's usually like chicken fish and some type of vegetables. So 
Thomas: [00:02:32] Yeah. And I think one thing, um, we grew up in the central Valley in California, which if you know anything about that, that's where a ton of our produce in the United States come from. So we've always had some of the best vegetables fruits, nuts that you can get our hands on and, and always been cooking with those.
I spent a summer as a reach researching as a charcoal analyst and was working on like prototypes of new charcoal products. So I was grilling for every night for an entire summer. I've just always loved to cook. I always love to help my mom out. My mom was the chef in the house.
My grandma is an amazing chef and I just always kind of loved helping out especially on the grill.
 Chris: [00:03:13] Nice. Yeah. I was kind of wondering if that was a little bit of a family thing. Kind of, he came from a, a food family where that was just a little bit a part of like your culture growing up 
Thomas: [00:03:21] yeah, I would say, I would say my family is not necessarily like foodies. my parents and my grandparents do enjoy really good food, but I think my mom just cooked, you know, six nights a week, at least. So  she was always in the kitchen. 
So being able to help out where I could.
Chris: [00:03:36] Yeah. Yeah, that totally makes sense. So, you're from California, but you're out in Charleston now. how did you make  your way across the country?
Thomas: [00:03:43] So when we graduated from university we went to school at university of the Pacific in Stockton, California, where we were my wife and I both kind of grew up in the area. Then we moved to San Francisco for six years, worked a little bit in tech. My wife got a job and she had started her blog and she had a job and it got to the point where her commute was just getting too crazy.
And she realized that she was making more money from her blog doing it part-time and on the weekends then You know, she was making in her job. She said, what if I focused on this thing? Full-time I could at least double how much I'm making. And so she went and she left and she did it full-time for about a year and a half.
And I was working in tech, in San Francisco, then it got to the point where it was too much work for us, where she either needed to hire a professional photographer to help or a business partner to help her out. Or I could leave my job and focus on the blog, which we had built together. every weekend we'd work together. we were always together doing that. And so it just made the most sense for me to leave my job and to pursue building our blog and our business around that.  And so once we went full time on the blog, we kind of had this like, , Why are we living in San Francisco?
Obviously it's a great city, but we were like, we could live anywhere in the entire world. And so, you know, we had thought about you know, London or Paris or something  crazy like that. 
And then we just happened to go to Charleston and within, hours, we were like, , we should move here. And we had a friend that was already here. We had drinks with her that night and her husband, we said, tell us why we shouldn't move here. And they're like,, we can't think of any reason. 
Phil: [00:05:16] that's amazing. I actually have a really similar story. Um, So I I'm originally from Colorado as well. And that's how Chris and I got to know each other. We've been friends for 20 years, best men in each other's weddings type of thing. And, but we moved here because we went on vacation to Charleston and I was in the process of selling a business in Colorado.
And I was just , like, I don't really know what I'm going to do. I mean, I could do the same business somewhere else. Where, where should that be? And then, and then my wife was like, I don't know, we liked Charleston and we should just move there. And so he did, 
Chris: [00:05:43] how long have you and your wife been kind of doing the block thing?
Thomas: [00:05:46] so we started dating in 2010 and we started the blog in 2011 became my full-time job in 2015. So we're coming up on April 20, 21 will be 10 years that we've had this 
business. 
Phil: [00:06:01] and we'll, we'll have a lot of this in the show notes, obviously, but do you want to just talk briefly on what that blog is?
Thomas: [00:06:06] Yeah. So in 2011, my. Then girlfriend now, wife, Julia came home from class one day and she's like, , I started a fashion blog and I was like, I don't know what that is. And she was like, well, here's the camera. Like, we're going to go take outfit pictures together. from that moment on, it kind of just became  a hobby and, you know, blogging was just kind of this thing that she did on the, on the side for fun.
 this was before Instagram was really, even existed. And there was all these other fashion bloggers and you would, you would be on people's blog rolls and they would talk about like who their favorite bloggers were. And then it was really in like 2014 when she went full time that  there was starting to be an industry that was developing around it. And there was this natural carry over from all of these people were, who were on our site. Uh, They wanted to follow us on Instagram too.
And then when we went full time, that was when Instagram was  really, really growing. So we were traveling and creating all this content. And we at one point, I think we were like the fastest growing fashion blogger in 2015, which is when I started full time. And it, over since the moment we moved to Charleston, we kind of started gardening more. And anytime we shared my garden or our garden, people would just kinda like perk up and be like,  , Oh, this is like amazing. you know, normally there's, there's a lot of gardening influencers out there, but they're kind of appealing to people that already garden I would say our appeal was that it's a lot of people who are interested in gardening, but don't know how to start. 
Chris: [00:07:32] that that's, that's exactly where I wanted to get to. I think we were kind of in that space personally, where,  you know, we're not necessarily established gardeners and in a way we didn't necessarily know where to start.
And it was finding, finding someone that , could help create that, that entry point for us was something that we were super interested in.
Thomas: [00:07:49] it's interesting because Up until the last 10 years, like brands. And the people that ran brands have never had the personal connection with their customers and audience. And we were able to sense very quickly that people were responding to the gardening.
so much, and , I was still gonna be gardening anyways, but it influenced what we would share and, you know, it started just being on  Julius feed. And now I'm kind of launching a whole nother business out of it, 
Phil: [00:08:16] So Thomas is, as we're kind of also in that same place, like trying to tag along into that concept of wanting to be better cooks, but maybe not necessarily knowing where to start or what to do. I mean, that's, that's kind of our mission here at dad's kitchen. So it's like perfectly aligned with what, you know, your origins are with, with wanting to be a garden blog and garden influencer and whatnot.
So help us out. , I know a little bit about gardening, Chris is probably a million times more knowledgeable on just about anything than I am, or at least at least our wives, you know, kinda kind of know what to do, but  if we were to pick like three or four things, you know, just. I don't know if it's  carrots and cucumbers or if we can start small, what recommendations do you have for us?
Thomas: [00:08:54] Yeah, so I would say like the places that I started and kind of where I like people, or I recommend people to start is start with containers, start with, with pots start with flowers and herbs. I would say herbs are probably like, , you know, they're incredibly easy to grow. The biggest note I would say is make sure to know like a lot of the Mediterranean herbs,  they prefer drier soil compared to something like, Rosemary or lavender.
That's kind of like a drier soil compared to a Bazell or a cilantro. and that's the great thing about containers is that you can kind of customize that when you're filling up those pots.
So I would say like the easiest way to start is definitely with pots, like pick your three favorite herbs and keep them relatively close to your, to your front door. Because you're going to be passing them all the time and you're like, , Oh, you might be walking in with groceries or, you know, just coming in from the car and you could take off some cilantro, you can take off some Bazell and add it to the, to your dinner.
I think flowers are awesome because they, Add a beautiful accent to your house. Like One of the first places I started was with our front porch and our front steps and just loading that up with flowers. Cause you know, it gives it curb appeal and you know, it also kind of gives you, gardening, there's maintenance is a really important thing to keep up with.
So putting it on your front porch,  make sure that you're going to make  keep up with it and, and keep it alive and keep it healthy. 
Phil: [00:10:16] I can already tell this is going to be my wife's favorite episode.
Chris: [00:10:19] Yeah, uh, I do kind of love that Arab suggestion. That's something that we have been able to keep alive is like a little, we have like this galvanized tub, but we, we did kind of make that mistake of mixing a couple of different things, kind of based on what we used often. we use a lot of, a lot of Rosemary, a lot of basil maybe some mint and, and time and things like that.
And we were noticing that some of them did better than others. And   
Thomas: [00:10:44] Yeah. Yeah. I would say exactly that. And the nice thing about herbs is that they don't always have to have full sun. So if you do have them in a covered porch or, behind your house and does get some shade most of them will be okay with not in full sun for kind of that next step of just like, , you know, most people start with a smaller race bed. I think a four by four foot is kind of perfect. Because you can do a number of things there. If you're growing with kids, I think , you know, we'll talk about.
Just plants that kids love to start, but you know, our daughter, I planted some radishes and radishes are ready to harvest in like 30 to 45 days after planting. So they're pretty much the fastest thing you could do, but besides baby lettuces which is another great thing, but she  had a she's 18 months.
And she just had a blast just pulling up the radishes. I planted like 16 and she went through them in like four days that's also something that's awesome because you can kind of what's called like  succession planet.
So you could plant, you know, 16 out of the time, then plant another 16 a month later so that you kind of always have radishes. Lettuce greens are awesome. 'cause you can harvest those both as  a full head of lettuce or they call it  cut and come again. So like you can harvest a few baby leaves and just kind of keep picking at it and make a few salads over the course of a few months.
The other things, you know, I, I bought  18 strawberry plants, which you could probably even get those at Lowe's. But you know, that's something that I expect in when they are fruiting later this spring and summer that  our daughter's gonna love just going in and picking. So anything that you are planting and you plan on them.
Depending on the age of your kids, but anything that you plan on them kind of helping you out with radishes or strawberries or lettuce, planet, closer to you. So it's accessible for them cause they love to just reach in and grab it. Carrots are another good example. Cause you just plant the seed and you know, you kind of just let it do its thing.
They don't need a lot of, attention. another type of plant is  things that bring in pollinators. So things that bring in bees and butterflies are great for kids.  I planted zinnias last year uh, which is a type of flower you keep deadheading them and they'll just keep growing and growing and you have flowers all summer long and butterflies would be the, on them all day long.
And our daughter would just Marvel at them. 
Phil: [00:13:09] Yeah, we actually had a pollinator garden that we planted last year, and I could not believe the amount of things that it attracted. So like a ton of different types of butterflies in including, you know, we planted some milkweeds. So we had 
um, 
yeah, thank you. Some monarchs. But also hummingbirds and big furry bumblebees, which was just like, , Super fun to just look at, you know?
And then we actually had a a Chrysalis form which turned out to be a Monarch. And so that was like super exciting. And, the cool thing about the Monarch Chrysalis is that it will, it will actually turn  translucent right before it, I guess, hatches, so we know like, , Oh, this is the day. I think it's the skin emerge like today. And so my wife actually sets up her iPhone with  a, a little, you know, miniature tripod. And then she turns on this time-lapse so that we could like, see the whole thing happen and , no joke as she pushes play, the thing just emerges like right before our eyes. And it was just like  this magical moment. And I was like, , I never knew that I love gardening so much until 
Thomas: [00:14:07] yeah.
Chris: [00:14:07] I think some of those are like really awesome places to start. yeah. I feel like this might be Molly's favorite episode too. We, we radishes, we love them. You know, we'll, we'll have them by
themselves. Yeah. We'll like make radish sandwiches, ,  butter radishes and then Saul on the top of it.
But one question that I, I think I did have, as you were talking was in terms of starting things, are you kind of mostly a proponent of starting with seeds or that you're planting.
Thomas: [00:14:37] Yeah, I personally will start 95% of what I, what I grow from seed, at least in the vegetable garden. That's my preference because I'm. You know, doing so much research and I have all the seed catalogs and I just have this vision for what I want to achieve. But you don't have to do that. You know, there's things like radishes and carrots, like most of the root vegetables you will have to start those from seed because they don't transplant well.
But you know, that's just kinda my preference. you know, Lowe's right now, it's February when we're recording this, but  Lowe's has. Almost full size,  tomatoes to buy right now, like that's way too early. And they probably have them all throughout the United.
I saw someone I follow on, on in San Diego, they were showing these tomatoes that were two or three feet tall, ready to go in someone's garden. And like here haven't reached the frost date, the last frost date yet. So those would be at risk and they could die. So like  don't go to Lowe's and get them, but go to a local nursery and see if they, sometimes there's local providers that will have a really good you know, maybe they're growing the seeds themselves and their, or their organic providers.
Just kinda look around and, I would say more local nurseries will probably have a really good options.
Phil: [00:15:50] well, and then uh, at a place like Lowe's, from what I understand, like, , you know, Thomas, you and I are on the right on the coast.  the buyer for our Lowe's is going to be the same buyer for, you know, say. North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, like that, that border area. Right. And it's just got a completely different growing season up there, higher elevations, a little bit cooler.
yeah, I'm with you on the, on the local nursery, there's actually a place which I'm sure you're familiar with called called Hyams. They're on James Island. So 
Thomas: [00:16:17] yeah, just another one to his roots and shoots. so I'm like really into natives and so they only carry natives. And then they also have citrus trees and fruit trees, and then they will also sell some vegetable plants and herbs from a local grower. I saw a stat that there were 16 million new gardeners that started last year 
during the pandemic. So like everyone is, is getting ready for this big, old, like it to all happen again and potentially even more gardeners to start. So there's a lot of useful resources out there, but one of the things that's just super easy, just type in your zip code and growing zone. And one of the things that that will yield is what's called the date of last spring frost. So any date after that is kind of, you are safe to plant things outside because most plants,  let's say tomato if it were to freeze, then they would die.
Phil: [00:17:16] Thomas. What about, what about someone? And , that's maybe more interested in  urban gardening, you know, that's, that's kind of a trend right now. There's some amazing things that are happening. there's some celebrities that are getting on board, I think is really cool to try to like, , You know, just bring more awareness into, into what urban, urban gardening can become.
And for someone that say, maybe has an apartment with maybe, maybe a balcony, or maybe not even a balcony, but they've got, you know, some, some indoor space with some sun. What, what recommendations might you have?
Thomas: [00:17:44] you know, I think it's different for us because one being a parent and being a gardener kind of go hand in hand because you kind of have to.   Have figured out who you are as a person, you need to like, have an established,  I'm going to be living here for the next few years or, you know, buying a house, but  kind of have, you know, a consistent life pattern.
And I think gardening and that kind of really worked together, but sometimes you just, you don't know where you're going to be living next year or, or you're an apartment, but you maybe go into a house or so you want to be able to garden and. It needs to be able to kind of travel with you. One of the things that I use, because right now, like we're mid, mid relandscaping, our entire yard.
We're putting in a pool, putting in all new vegetable beds. And so I've known that that process was going to start for pretty much a year. And so instead of planning things into the ground I've been using the what's called grow bags. You can get them on Amazon. Like A pack of five is like 20 bucks.
They're super inexpensive, but they're really awesome. And a lot of the ones have handles on them. So they're super easy to transport. I actually had a friend who wanted to do my grow along, but she lives. Here during the school year. And then she moves like an hour away during the summer.
And so she wanted to be able to move her garden. And so I was trying to figure out these different ways. They actually make grow bags that are like a four foot by two foot, or even bigger than that. They may actually make a four foot by four foot. So it would be hard to pick up that, but like it could be done.
Um, You could put it on a pallet or something like that if you really wanted to move it. But you know, they make five gallon grow bags and make 10 gallon grow bags. And like, with one person or even two people could pick up a 20 gallon together. They have with handles that had makes it pretty easy.
So that would be a good place to start if you are a if you have  a balcony, if you have an outdoors to grow indoors, I'm not the best indoor grower. I'm pretty good at keeping certain things alive, but I don't know how to make them  super, super healthy. I'm really good at starting seeds indoors, but you know, as far as like keeping things on the window sale, one of the problems is that some windows have  UV coating and plants will need  that UV light to grow properly.
So you might have to supplement it somehow you could. And like I said, like herbs earlier, I said, herbs that can do well without  full sun. You know, those would be good options of things to keep inside. And you could even keep them in smaller pots. So like maybe for a month or two weeks, you kind of cycle those pots from outdoors to in you know, that that's something that could work.  
Phil: [00:20:20] how do you feel about arrow gardens? 
Thomas: [00:20:22] one of the things that  like last year, because I had all this time on my hands, I was getting , so obsessed about  mixing my own soil and buying  six different ingredients to mix the soil. And I think this year, I just want to like,, keep things super simple. I'm doing a gardening method called no dig and no dig just uses a ton of compost and very little of other things you don't add fertilizer.
It's like, there's no weeds. I just try to simplify everything and that's for me. But that's also because I'm teaching other people how to garden. And I don't, I don't know what fertilizer is doing underneath the soil. I don't know how to tell exactly people what they need. Precisely what they need for their specific plants or their bed or whatever.
Like You can solve so much with just three to six inches on top of what you already have. It was just mixture of really good compost. And so going to all the indoor things like the Aero gardening or the hydroponics, like to really do it, right, you almost have to be a chemist and you have to just be on top of your system and you have to be mixing in different  fertilizers and chemicals.
I'm like to me I don't get the joy out of that. I know it works for a lot of people and, you know, there's businesses of that are growing lettuces and herbs indoors using aeroponics and hydroponics. So it works. I just don't get that much enjoyment out of it. 
Chris: [00:21:46] Yeah. Um, You mentioned composting and that's something that actually has been super interesting to us, but it's another one of those things that it's like, , I don't even know necessarily know where to start. 
Thomas: [00:21:57] Yeah. We go through, so I have a, what's called like a tumble composter you know, you typically think  a compost heap that has to be turned every once in a while to introduce oxygen in it. And uh, tumblers just above ground and you can just spin it and that brings oxygen back into the composting and can, kick it back up notch.
My, the, our hardest part is gathering, you know, the kitchen scraps and. The in-between of when they're gathered and when they go into the tumbler, because especially with the tumblers, you really should be adding at least like five gallons of material at a time. And so what we've struggled with is like,, you have the thing of this out on the counter, and then you forget about it. And all of a sudden, even though I have a filter and all these things like bugs get in and there's flies and it's just, it's kind of nasty. So we go phases of it.
I actually will keep on our back door. I will keep   a galvanized bin that I'll throw kitchen scraps into. And then I'll put  shredded paper. Or I'll put  these it's basically saw dust pellets. They use it, it's used for like animal bedding um, for like horse
bedding. so I'll put like a layer of that,  maybe a cup of that.
And then I'll put a bunch of kitchen scraps uh, on there and then I'll just keep building that layer. And then after every like two or three weeks, once that  five gallon thing is full, then I'll dump it into my composter. 
  
it helps. Yeah. I just, I don't want to burn a food processor and have to clean it all just to be able. So, so one thing I found is once I fill up that bucket,  and I've been looking for a better process. Like Actually I've seen some YouTube videos  of people that have taken, garbage 
disposal. 
So they'll take a garbage disposal and they'll build like this apparatus and they'll basically like put all their vegetables that they want ground up and then they'll put a bucket underneath it and they'll basically just like, have it go straight into a bucket.
And that works perfectly. So I think once I have my new greenhouse, I might build something like that. Cause it's you don't want to have to clean something every time. You just want to break it up. So in the, in the meantime, I'll put it in that  galvanized bucket. And then I have like a, either a shovel, like a spade or it's like an edging tool and I'll just  mash it and just cut it up as much as I can.
And then I'll put it in because it's really important that  the smaller, the pieces that the faster it's gonna compost.
Phil: [00:24:21] and I would imagine that tumbler probably not only is convenient because you can easily kind of turn it around and keep it off the ground and regulate moisture and all that fun stuff. But also,  and this is important. It probably keeps the smell down.
Thomas: [00:24:32] Yeah, it definitely does. so when you're composting, you need to know like food scraps, those are like really high in nitrogen compared to, so those are called greens. So you need your, the proper ratio of greens to Browns. it's kind of overly complicated and like every time I'm, I'm putting new stuff in there, I'm like using  a compost calculator to figure out  how much greens I'm adding.
So that how much Browns I need to add. So like greens are a food waste, coffee grounds. Lawn clippings. Browns would be like shredded leaves, shredded paper,   the sawdust pellets. I, I mentioned wood chips could be used, but they don't break down as quick. So   you kind, you have to balance the proper amount.
And the recommended is, a 25 to one what's called like carbon to nitrogen. So those Brown items where the are the carbon. So it's a lot of, a lot of calculation, but if you get that right, then it, it really it's crazy how, how much it works the first time, my first batch ever, I literally only through greens, I only threw nitrogen and stuff and I'm like,, okay, I'm going to go check on my compost.
And it was this green nasty slime. It was. Disgusting. And I was like, , Oh my God, how do I salvage this? But eventually I, you know, I just, I figured it out. I threw in some bark and other Browns and they eventually just   
But I think composting is not for everyone , and also like a warm Ben would probably not be for everyone too, but it looked like what I've seen about like warm bins. It looks even easier than like the compost tumblers.  I haven't always had the best success with mine and I, I don't always trust that I got it up to the proper temperatures to kill the weed seeds or kill any pathogens.
So I feel better using my compost outside of my vegetable garden. I will use it under trees and shrubs and use it in spots where I can. But I'm pretty sure that you can just take food scraps. And if you just don't want to throw those in the trash, I'm pretty sure you can put them in your like yard waste bin.
Chris: [00:26:32] Yeah. So I guess maybe that was going to be my next question is if you're maybe not up to, or don't necessarily have the time to get like your own compost going    
Thomas: [00:26:46] Yeah. If you're just talking about using compost so you can get it you can get compost anywhere. I've always found that like blending composts will give you the best kind of combination. I will typically use anywhere from three to five different types of compost.
Two to three is totally fine, but I'm always trying to  kind of average everything out. You know, something like a chicken manure based compost will be like really, really high in nitrogen and co if used exclusively, especially if it's young compost could like burn your roots. So it's kind of about  mellowing, everything the three most commercially available ones there's a brand called black cow and I think you can get it like. .
Anywhere. So they make mushroom compost, which is really nice. So that's basically in the mushroom creating process. They need all of these different materials. And after they harvest all the mushrooms, they just basically turn all that stuff and they compost it. I think it's already a manure and different, really good Brown ingredients.
So a mushroom compost, they have a cow manure compost, and then they have a chicken manure. Those are the most common that I've seen, but you know, there's all types and your region is going to have some completely different composts that we don't have. You know, a lot like here, cotton is a big agriculture by-product so  cotton Burr.
Compost is really, really common to see here.
Chris: [00:28:08] So, I guess, uh, one thing that I was a little curious about is how often are you able to, like have stuff from your garden in your dinner?
Thomas: [00:28:15] so. every year, like gardening kind of goes through this like stages of, of mental,  excitement. And I would say like right now is like the peak, like I'm going to have this big, huge garden. I'm going to buy all these seeds. I'm going to buy all of these plants. And then like that builds.
And like that energy lasts you until summer. And then you harvest. And then by the time that like mid summer comes around and you've had all that food  you kind of start to get some fatigue and it's very easy for like, , you know, come.   Let's say August for that energies to really dissipate, and then you just kind of let your garden go after that.
So I like to be realistic and here in Charleston, I could grow all year round, but  fall for me is not that exciting. I'd rather just like put plants in there that can stay there and pick from them every once in a while. But definitely in that spring and summer, you know, it's, probably lettuces.
We would eat probably like two or three salads a week. When tomato season comes around, I'm growing, you know, four to five tomato plants. So it's probably something like, , I don't know, five to 10 tomatoes a week. It very quickly goes from.  , this is great. I'm making, I'm able to make meals out of it too.
, Oh my God, this is overwhelming. What do I do with all of this too? Then like now my plants are starting to fade and I don't have the, I have like a manageable amount. So we do a lot of salads. I love kale and different lettuces, why I was talking earlier about , the cut and come again, lettuces.
So
one of the deterrents for me from actually eating a lot of the food is  having to clean it. So like salad, greens, there's kind of like, , no way around, like having to get the spinner out and like washing them. It's like, , yeah, you could technically wash them Brinson once and then eat them from there.
But there's no way to like, 
Phil: [00:30:00] you're just going to have really 
wet salad . 
Thomas: [00:30:02] Yeah, I was, I was talking to my friend here who like converted his entire yard into  a farm basically. And he's also a chef and I was like, , is there any way around this lettuce conundrum? Cause I love it, but like the cut and come again.
If I'm harvesting every single, I technically could make a salad every day, it's so much  extra work to clean it, all that it's to me, it's not that, worth it. Cause it's just not realistic. So what I, I prefer to grow like head lettuces so that it's like one harvest and then I could plant them in succession so I could start them like every week,  one every, every week or two every week so that I have them ready to go and then I could harvest it and I have a whole head of lettuce to use and  one big salad for the family.
To me that's a much more realistic. So I think like that's one of the things I've learned over time is that going to get to a point where you can't even keep up with everything that's coming out of the garden. And so like, , I love cucumbers and I had no idea how many cucumbers I was going to get.
I had two plants and I was like, I gotta figure out how to pickle, because I'm like I can't have a cucumber every day. And like one of the things too, this, this year I'm going to start doing is, is freezing. Things , like, unless you're using  a slicing tomato, if you're, if you have a paste tomato or something, you could freeze it as soon as you pick it like freezing them separately.
So you take  a  a cookie sheet and you place each individual separately and then you put it in your freezer, And then once they're frozen separately, then you could put them in a bag and consolidate. Otherwise they're going to all freeze together. And if you just want it to use one tomato, you wouldn't be able to do that.  Because they would all be stuck together. 
Chris: [00:31:38] I think it's interesting. Like How, how much you actually can freeze. I feel like Yeah, my, my wife is, is a Baker. And so we have just a ridiculous amount of bread around, and I never really knew that you could freeze half of the things as well as you can. So but then I think, I think kind of that idea of being realistic with, with what you're doing is something that I've been trying to, I guess, really work on a bit um, kind of like what what's sustainable for me,    
Thomas: [00:32:11] yeah. And that's, that's another reason why, like, , This year, I'm mixing so many more like flowers and herbs in the mix. like This year, I'm thinking more about  overall health of the garden and like the health of pollinators and like the system, the ecosystem that it like creates than I am about harvesting enough to feed our family.
Cause we're still going to the store. Like we're not replacing the things. We're just kind of like supplementing it. And, when you're trying to decide on what plants to plant,  kind of a, an interesting or a challenge is figuring out, like, how much are you actually going to be able to harvest from this one square foot of, of space.
And is there something that you would prefer to have there, for instance, like broccoli and cauliflower? they're big. They take up a ton of space. You can use all the greens on, on broccoli. It's really good. Like, You know, steamed or sauteed, like just use them like a, you would like a kale or a collard green.
They're really, really good. And that's like,, the only way I can justify growing broccoli is just , you get one head and then when you cut it, it will sprout again. it's so much space for not that much reward. Like You can't even make a meal out of one head of broccoli. thinking about it and like meals versus like supplementing.
if you grow peppers or tomatoes or eggplants, you're going to get those, those are going to continue to come throughout the year and you're going to be able to use them, you know, all the time. Like we were eating probably  five eggplants a week. Last year, but we did  the small egg plants.
So they were great as side dishes. But if I did  the big egg plants, I'm like,, what am I going to do with eggplant? That's like the size of my head. And even having  one or two of those every week, I'm like, , I don't like eggplant that much.  yeah, so it's like, , every everything like you'll learn, like spaces is so important and every new gardener will be super, super eager you know, they have their baby plants and they're gonna put them way too close together.
So that's one thing for, for new, for new gardeners, like look how big that plant is going to get. And I do everything by like square foot. It's called like square foot gardening. , think about your bed is like a grid and like one square foot sections. So how many plants will fit?
How many mature plants will fit a single square? So for broccoli, that's, that's one for tomato. It's like one tomato per two square feet for a zucchini. That's like nine square feet, one zucchini will produce like a zucchini a day for months  
Phil: [00:34:36] I think there's some concepts there that we can definitely relate to. Cause when you, when you say you're going to get into garden, you want to do all the things and you want to plant is absolutely as much as you can inside that, bed.
And not only are you not going to end up  having the room for it, but you're not going to have, at least my experience is that you're not going to have healthy plants.  We planted some carrots that were admittedly too close together. There's too, too much stuff around it. The nutrients weren't, you know, dispersing between the plants and super excited it's harvest time.
The carrots are like really big and bushy and green on top. And we pull them out and they're like an inch, an inch long. Somehow they had flavor. I don't really understand how that works. Like It actually tastes like really good carrot, but it just was , it was, it was a one biter, you know? But I think like getting down to these basics of, instead of trying to have, you know, a plethora of things, taking a few things and then doing them well,  we, we actually had a whole knives, kitchen knives episode on this idea.
Like,, you don't actually need the set of knives, like the,  these nine set knives. , I dunno why we really have those. 
Thomas: [00:35:35] Yeah, professional chefs will have like their one knife and maybe  a small knife, but a lot of them will just use like a $20 thing they could throw away when it's not sharp, like I only buy Japanese knives that are like $200 a piece. And of course, like I now want a new set, even though my says perfectly fine.
Like It's such a consumer thing.  We're led to believe that we need 
Phil: [00:35:56] Yeah, 
 
exactly. yeah.
So we're down to like, , you know, the chef's knife, the paring knife and the bread knife, and then we can get good at those knives. And we can, if we want to, and shoot, there really is nothing wrong with those $20 knives is if you're going to just continue to replace them. But I think it gives you space to spend maybe a little bit more on a really good chef's knife if you want it, you know, because smaller is better, you know, and that's that's just a cultural thing.
Like you said, like we, we are consumeristic and we, we want the biggest and we want the most so I don't know, you know, something super deep that I can, I can get on board with. I know Chris can get on board with, but gardening with, with what you can maintain.
And I think what also it does is I think you mentioned this earlier, but if you're only doing a few things where your growing season is maybe going to be a few months, it's going to allow you to take a break because you are going to get burned out. I think we were really, really good gardeners this summer and then the fall rolled around and we just got really lazy and we just weren't great gardeners anymore.
And there was, Some harvests that we probably could have taken advantage of, but we just didn't. Cause we got burnt out, you know if it wasn't harvesting one thing, it was another, you know, started out with the radishes and then the carrots and then, you know, the, these lettuces that you're talking about and absolutely I can relate to the amount of zucchini that come out.
they were growing into my neighbor's yard and he's like, , you gotta do something about these Aquino. I can't keep up. I don't know what to do. I'm just 
Thomas: [00:37:17] Yeah, yeah. And that's, that's the thing is I also want to like, , You know, one thing I've never done before, which I'm planning to do this year is like, once it gets to fall, I'm doing so much in spring and summer that once it gets to fall, I'm expecting myself to be a little bit burnout. So while I'll have five new raised beds you know, and you talked about pollinator gardens, like that's as something like  you don't need to harvest that.
Yeah. You'll have to deadhead some flowers to keep them coming, but like you're, you're also growing that for someone else,  you're growing that to benefit the bugs that need it. And the birds and the animals that, that benefit from having it. So it's like, , that's for me, that's the extra motivation.
For like having that Panera garden, it's not so psycho. I need to have more and more food, but one of the things I'm going to be doing this year is growing cover crops. So once I'm done harvesting things in summer and late fall is planning something that can just basically keep the ground not bare.
Cause that's like, bad to pull plants and just leave the soil there. It's preferable to have some sort of plant on there because all of the  soil microorganisms, they benefit from the exchange of having those roots in the ground. And it's basically food for them. They they're sharing food back and forth.
So the plant is, is sharing food with the  soil, bacteria and fungi. so if that's not there, then they have to go onto some other type of food.
Chris: [00:38:43] Interesting. you did also mentioned a girl along that you're doing  
Thomas: [00:38:53] Yeah. So I talked about how, like we noticed that gardening content was, it picked up and people were paying really close attention to it, especially last year. And one of the things I noticed were people were kind of following along on what we were sharing, but I wasn't sharing everything.
And the amount of mistakes that I know this people making where , like, were kind of driving me a little crazy. so. I started talking to people. And then I saw that I started talking to a few other people that follow me, and there were, I knew were also gardeners and they were asking me for advice and  tips on what I was growing.
And,  I saw that stat about 16 million new gardeners, and I figured, wow, I'm only being tagged in some of these things. I'm sure there's, we're influencing so many more people to start new gardens. if I remember what it was like to start a garden, I knew nothing about it. And for the most part,  I just wanted to be told what to plant and I maybe only kind of wanted to know why to plant it.
I just wanted to do it. And I wanted to be able to harvest something like have some sort of return for it. And so I kind of played around with the idea of, you know, I'm going to be growing all this stuff. Why don't I just kind of. Do this thing called the grow long, tell people everything that I'm, I'm growing.
You know, there's, I think there's 17 or 18 plants in a four by four square foot area. And the whole thing is based on, you know, foods that most people like there's tomatoes, cucumbers beans, lettuce, kale, and then there's like herbs and flowers that are specifically meant to you know, you can obviously enjoy, but a lot of them are meant to bring in beneficial insects That have  symbiotic relationships with like,, you know, kale is protected by the predators that camomile brings in. so it's all about having like this beneficial system that should stay naturally healthy and you know, nothing's going to be pest free, but it should kind of balance itself out.
So I'm, I designed a garden that should help the beginning Gardner. And then every week I've been sharing videos and blog posts like what to do now. And a lot of people, I would say, had never started seeds from, from, you know, inside, before maybe they'd started some characters, some radishes outside, but I was really trying to encourage as many people as possible to buy the grow lights, to buy the seed, starting things, and then teach them how to start seeds and doors so that they kind of had this lifelong skill to grow whatever plants that they felt like,, because, you know, I could go buy a tomato for.
$9 and plant it in my garden, or I can get a pack of seeds and grow 25 for $3.  I mean, no one needs 25 tomatoes, but  I could do it. Um, And I'll have so many extras. I can give them the family and friends. So it's just, it's a great skill that I think will benefit people and it will also help teach them about the processes that they have more respect so that they, if they do go buy a plant, they're not going to Lowe's and buying the one that's available today.
They're going to their local nursery to get the one that was, you know, grown with a little bit more care. So my Instagram handle is T barrels. My,  nickname is garden, Tom. and it's the garden. Tom, grow up. 
Chris: [00:42:07] That sounds kind of like exactly where we're at checking that out and kind of jumping in there as well. 
Phil: [00:42:12] talked about how it's our wives favorite episode.  
Chris: [00:42:15] No, no, I, I actually, I do feel like legitimately super inspired and, can't wait for spring now. 
Thomas: [00:42:21] Another thing that I love about gardening is you can do it for so inexpensive. it's not like a lot of other hobbies where, you know, you can start with a pack of $3 seeds and the soil that you already have it at your house.
And like, , just start from there. You know, but that's why part of the reason why I started the grow along, cause most people are probably starting in the complete wrong spot and I wanted to get people hooked on what I think can be a lifelong you know, hobby  and passion of theirs. 
Phil: [00:42:49] and I think doing what you can and like staying within your capacity. I think gardening can be expensive if maybe you're not really fully aware of what, what you, what you can do, what your limits are, or if you're trying to do all the things.
Because I remember when we first started, I built my garden box and that was a hundred dollars. And then my wife told me that, Oh, you actually got treated wood. You can't get treated wood there's chemicals in that. So then I had to build a new garden box and then I bought a whole bunch of seeds that I didn't know if they're gonna work or not.
You know, I just didn't really do my research. But as Chris will tell you, he's going to be laughing at this. That's kind of on brand for me. I'm not really much of a researcher where he is like I think I need those boundaries to say, okay, we've got three bucks.
Can you go buy some seeds? And we're just going to try this. We're going to start small. And I think that's how change happens, you know, change starts small. And then you know, before, before too long, you've you've, you've got an amazingly curated and a well-informed Instagram. 
Thomas: [00:43:41] Yeah, I would say the biggest difference. Like biggest difference between cooking and gardening is cooking. You literally, you could screw something up today and try again tomorrow. And by the end of the week, if you cook that same thing for seven days straight, it's going to be a much better interpretation than it was like the very first time you tried it.
And gardening is something that. It's hard to get good, fast. And we're kind of at this like really interesting,  moment in gardening where we now know so much more about the scientific aspect of it, especially like the soil,  biology stuff is just in the last 10 years.  How much has been learned that, you know, if you think about people who have been gardening their whole life, let's say they're 70 or 80 years old.
A lot of the things that they learned. Might actually not be backed up by science. It's just kind of the way that they've been doing things forever, you know, a good example of that is tilling. You know, people would go in through their tiller and they would just tear up the ground. And the thought was, you know, there's nutrients in there.
You're putting new compost or new fertilizer on top of theirs. There's, we're mixing it all up. And now like there's an even you want a light fluffy soil and like people have been doing that for 60 years and now it's thought that, well, actually what's happening is by tilling. You're killing every microorganism that's in there.
Every bacteria, every. Fungi, every answer pod,  every earthworm they're just being disintegrated either from the rotation or from the exposure to oxygen and, or too much air, too much light. And so what happens is every time you do that, not only are you doing that, but you're bringing new weed seeds back up to the top.
So every time you do that, your, your soil has to reheal itself. And so we didn't know anything about all those teeny tiny microorganisms until really the last like 10 years. So all of these new gardeners can start with the newest research. They might not even need to go that far,  but , I want them starting with the best technique. And I've been like basically reading a book a week for the last few months about gardening it's something I always want to know more. Cause I can never fake it. There's a lot of people out there that can like, just talk on a topic and not know anything and just  wing it and just  have more, I dunno if  bravado would be like the right word, but they just  act like they know what they, what they're talking about and people believe them.
  I could never do that. So I have to, before I write a blog post, sometimes I'll read a whole book 
Phil: [00:46:11] Wow. 
 Do you, do you have a good book recommendation for us on gardening? 
Thomas: [00:46:17] the thing that got me hooked was, was square foot gardening. The whole thing just made sense. It was the first time I'd ever learned anything about compost and like the benefits of it.
And so I would kind of  start there.
his name's like Mel Bartholomew. The current, the current book I'm reading right now is teaming with microbes. And then the next two books are teaming with nutrients and teaming with fun guys. So it's all about like the soil microbiology. 
Chris: [00:46:46] yeah. Well, it does seem like you've kind of compiled a lot of Really great information and research and really awesome place to start there on. you mentioned is it was both Instagram and, and do you have the blog 
going as well? that really just sounds absolutely perfect.
So yeah. Thanks again, Thomas. we really did appreciate all of your time and kind of the impartation of wisdom.  I don't know if you want to just kind of one more time,    
Thomas: [00:47:13] Yeah. So on Instagram I am T barrels. and on my website, I am garden Tom that's garden, tom.com.
Phil: [00:47:21] Great.   Perfect. Thanks Thomas.