SHOW NOTES / TRANSCRIPTS : Simple Garden Life Introduction
The introductory episode of Simple Garden Life. Hosts Jim and Mary Competti discuss their new gardening podcast, and their unique approach to keep gardening fun, simple and rewarding. Join them for the first of many episodes to come!
SHOW NOTES / TRANSCRIPTS – Simple Garden Life Introduction
JIM: Hello and welcome everybody. I can’t tell you how excited we are today to introduce our new podcast series that we’ve affectionately called Simple Garden Life. If you haven’t figured out by now, I’ the Jim in the Jim and Mary. And before we go too much further, I want to take a moment to introduce my co-host. She also happens to be the co-owner of World Garden Farms. And of course, the most important part of all, my wife, Mary Competti.
MARY : Thank you, Jim. I can’t tell you how excited I am to launch our first gardening podcast. It’s been a long time since we’ve gotten to talk about gardening. It’s amazing, we used to be able to go around and speak at garden conferences, or have events and talks here at our own farm. But with everything that has gone on in the past year, that kind of went away. We really miss connecting with people on a one-on-one or even a speaking basis.
Keeping It Real
JIM :That’s right. And you know what, for this first show, we will be a little shorter, but we want to go over what the show is going to be about and cover. We will post a new episode once a week, always covering a garden topic, whether it be in the vegetable garden, flower beds, talking perennials, trees, shrubs, or any and allall things gardening. The average will be about 30 minutes an episode, and it will really give us a chance to get a little more in depth that we’re used to.
When we write an article, we can only put so much into the space for the written word. But this gives us the opportunity to really go in-depth on topics. After this intro show, we have our first official garden show on How To Grow The Best Tomatoes On The Block. It will be a 30 minute episode packed with all kinds of information about getting the most from your tomatoes. And it will include many things we can’t fit into an article. In fact, you can listen to that right after this broadcast as our first true episode on the podcast.
MARY: And I think we have to clarify real quick that we’re going try to keep it to 30 minutes, but just like most gardeners, sometimes when you start talking gardening, you tend to go a little longer. And I think that’s okay too.
A Little History
JIM : When we first started Old World Garden Farms back in 2011, we really wanted to share and relate to the simple aspect of gardening with our readers. Too often. new or even experienced gardeners get so caught up in all of the information that they become paralyzed – and they end up not being able to do anything at all, or they become overwhelmed and quit. What we have always done is try to take the approach that things are not always going to work out, but if you keep at it, and you have fun with it, things tend to be enjoyable, and that’s what gardening should be about.
MARY : I really think that’s our whole approach to life in general, to find enjoyment in everything that we do, and that includes gardening. Beyond popular belief, gardening does not have to be complicated. In fact, our first garden we had here at the farm was about as simple as it could get. It was truly born out of necessity, we had to use the supplies here that we had on hand, and we didn’t have much equipment. In fact, and all we had was a shovel and a postal digger.
You Never Know With Gardening
JIM : We lived 20 minutes from the farm at the time. We now, of course, reside here, but at the time we came out with very limited supplies to put that first garden in. I still remember well planting our first vegetable plants and leaving the farm that night, fully believing the next day to walk into a disaster because probably the deer and the raccoon and every other animal was going to come out of the woods and eat our plants overnight.,That didn’t happen, but I remember those fears, and I also remember how we started out of necessity, as Mary said. We had to be simple, and we’ve kind of kept that same way with Old World Garden Farms. Trying to keep our advice simple and to the point so that every day gardeners can really get the most enjoyment out of gardening.
MARY : And I think you have to enjoy not just picking your produce at the end of the season, but you have to enjoy the process that goes along with it, I mean, every time we plant a plant or a vegetable seed, we are excited about what might come of it in the future, good or maybe not so good.
JIM : And you know what, the failures make the success that much more enjoyable when they occur. I can think back of how many trials we’ve had now over 11 plus years, and as much fun as we have with things that go right, we found a way to have fun with things that go wrong.
Learning From Mistakes
JIM : Including me over-seeding Mary’s onion crop with what I thought was annual rye seed. That would have been bad enough. However, it turned out to be actual grass seed. Let’s just say that that row that year had to be dug up in its entirety. But those are the kind of things we laugh about. You can sit around and be upset about gardening or things that don’t go your way, but at the end of the day, if you have fun with it, it stays fun.
MARY : And you’ve never done that again!
JIM : No, I definitely learned my lesson on that one, and I’m sure I won’t do that again, but I’m also pretty sure that I’m going to do something else, and that’s the fun of it. You make mistakes. Gardening isn’t about what goes wrong, garden is about having fun with it and really enjoying when things go right, and that’s what we really hope this show will be about.
Let’s Get Down To Talking About Gardening!
So with that, we’ll wrap up this little introductory session here in our first podcast. And let’s get started! As we mentioned earlier, we have already loaded up our first show. We’d love for you to head over and take a listen to it. And hopefully, you like what you hear and sign up to follow each week. Mary, can you tell them how to go about that?
Absolutely, you can subscribe to the Simple Garden Podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, Apple Podcasts, IHeart Radio. Or, you can also see each episode at simplegardenlife.com. So feel free to share this podcast with others, and if you have any questions, show topics, or ideas that we can implement in our podcast, please email us here at thefarm@owgarden.com.
JIM : Absolutely. So, you know what, with that, we will wrap up our introductory podcast. Remember, whatever you do, find the fun in gardening and grow something beautiful. That’s what it’s all about!
MARY : Until next week. Happy, gardening.