Podcast

Growing Gardeners During a Pandemic

November 1, 2020November 3, 2020 Mike Nowak 2020 environmental election issues, Ball Publishing, Chris Beytes, eco-influencer, Get Growing Foundation, Grower Talks, Illinois Master Naturalist, Mac Austin, Peggy Malecki, Plant Truck Chicago, The Mike Nowak Show, Tony Abruscato

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:55:27 — 53.7MB)

(November 1, 2020) Welcome to the day after Halloween. We had about six trick-or-treaters show up at our house last night. Kind of what I expected. Which means lots of left over chocolate for Kathleen and me. Quel dommage! My point is that we still live in a COVID-19 world. That is not likely to change soon. However, there have been some silver linings. For instance, we have been growing gardeners during a pandemic. That story is from Canada, but it’s still a good thing, even if people are a little panicky about where their food is coming from. That’s partly what we will be talking about on today’s show.

Skip to a specific segment in this podcast

4:21 Chris Beytes, Editor of GrowerTalks
46:38 Tony Abruscato from Get Growing Foundation
1:03:34 Master Naturalist Mac Austin
1:33:16 Meteorologist Rick DiMaio

Related to that, some horticultural businesses have been thriving during the pandemic, while others have struggled. It’s something we have addressed on this program for months. Today, we talk to Chris Beytes, who is editor of a number of online and print magazines, including GrowerTalks/Green Profit and Acres Online. They are all part of the Ball Publishing empire.

I communicated with Beytes in April about being on the show. Recently, he wrote this.

I can tell you that, as of April 29 when you queried me, I still didn’t quite know how the garden business was going to fare. Now I can tell you that many growers and retailers had record years, and by one industry company’s reckoning, there were 16m to 20m new gardeners “born” in the pandemic.

In case you’re not sure, that’s 16 to 20 million new gardeners. So, obviously, something clicked with people as the pandemic hit. Where does that number come from? A company called Bonnie Plants, which was once an advertiser on The Mike Nowak Show. In this edition of Grower Talks, Beytes reports on what Bonnie Plants was experiencing in May of 2020. You’ll have to scroll down the newsletter to see the story, but here’s what Bonnie Plants President and CEO Mike Sutterer said at the time.

“What we’ve seen through that research is some 16 million brand new vegetable gardeners have entered the category just in the last eight weeks since the crisis started,” Mike stated. “A staggering number of people entering the category.”

Who knows what it’s been like since then? By the way, as we reported earlier this year, Bonnie Plants has partnered with AmpleHarvest.org and the Grow More, Feed More campaign, which encourages home gardeners to donate their surplus vegetable harvest to food pantries across the country.

One more thing we might talk about with Chris Beytes is the explosion of “controlled-environment agriculture” and “urban farming” in all its many forms, including indoor/vertical/hydroponic/aquaponic/whatever facilities. Beytes writes about three of them in this newsletter: AppHarvest, Plenty Unlimited, Inc., and Lufa Farms in Canada. I was especially intrigued by his story about the “$1Billion Tomato Greenhouse.” AppHarvest is a Kentucky-based hydroponic vegetable greenhouse startup that isn’t even online yet, but investors are lining up to back it.

Those massive indoor growing facilitiest are ready to change the food-growing world. Or are they? As Beytes tells me,

Basically, the whole field is nuts! (Lee Jeans is now the official denim supplier of AppHarvest). But the main thing people need to know is that vertical farms are not going to feed the additional 2 billion people that will have arrived on earth by 2050. Not unless they like organic lettuce and basil. However, they do have their place … like Antarctica and the Space Station. ; )

Chris Beytes has been writing about these issues for a long time. He knows his stuff.

Growing Gardeners with Plant Truck Chicago

Tony Abruscato is a friend of the show and joins Peggy and me each spring in his role as president of the Chicago Flower and Garden Show to talk about the upcoming show. This past March, when the show was unfortunately cancelled due to COVID-19, Tony joined us along with several show speakers for a Virtual Flower Show broadcast. Tony is also part of the alliance of organizations that present the Chicago Excellence in Gardening Awards.

This morning, Tony joins us wearing his hat of Founder and Executive Director of the Get Growing Foundation (GGF), a Chicago non-profit with the mission “to inspire, educate, and motivate the next generation of gardeners through community outreach and education.” They create education programming, conduct year round public and youth outreach, and also work with schools and special-needs programs to grow plant material that is then distributed to under-served communities.

Back in September 2019, Tony stopped by to talk about the then recent launch of Plant Truck Chicago. That summer, the GFF had received a donated 1974 GMC Utility Van converted to mobile plant boutique that was designed, created and donated by artist Jason Verbeek. Tony and the team soon started the rounds of Chicago area festivals and markets to educate customers and sell a variety of plants to benefit the GFF. According to the GGF website, Plant Truck Chicago (PTC) is

A mobile garden boutique teaming up with special-needs and school programs to grow plant material distributed in under-served communities. PTC also creates job training programs and additional funding sources for the Foundation.

This year, PTC has been crisscrossing city and suburbs to present Plant Truck Pop-Up. Today, Tony and his crew bring the truck to the Local By Laramar residential property at 1806 N. Halsted St, in Chicago, where from 11am-3pm CST you’ll be able to stop by, say hello and shop for unique houseplants, succulents, terrarium kits and more. According to the Facebook event posting:

Come get your fall plants and support nonprofit The Get Growing Foundation (GGF).

Plant Truck Chicago is making its maiden voyage to Old Town. Every purchase from this mobile garden boutique supports GGF in its mission to bringing ‘green’ to those in need with a focus on inspiring, education and motivating the next generation.

We’re looking forward to talking again with Tony this morning about the challenges (and joys) of operating Plant Truck and GFF in a pandemic, as well as some of the current trends in houseplants and indoor growing this winter.

Vote for the environment on Tuesday

While political commentary slips into our show from time to time, we try not to be obsessed with it. However, two days before the most important election in the life of anybody now living, we will be explaining why you should run screaming from the current administration.

We start with friend of the show Mac Austin. Mac has been working in educational publishing for over twenty years. She’s back in school to study the environment and urban agriculture, and is an University of Illinois Master Naturalist. But the important thing is that she has spent the past few weeks working to get out the vote for the 2020 election. She is a hero to me, and we will get some advice about how we can all save our country from catastrophe on Tuesday.

Then, depending on time, Peggy and I will go into the environmental reasons why you should run screaming from the current administration. They include the following stories, which are just drops in the bucket. Read them if you can.

That enough? Vote this Tuesday. And not for the most corrupt, immoral, uncivil and indecent administration in our country’s history.