Farmgirl Farmstead

A Tiny Homestead

Today I'm talking with Regina at Farmgirl Farmstead.

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00:00
This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Regina at Farm Girl Farmstead. Good morning, Regina. How are you? Good morning. I'm excellent yourself. I'm good. I keep doing this thing where I introduce people and then I stutter through the rest of it and I don't know what is going on with me, but that's okay.

00:29
So tell me about yourself and Farm Girl Farmstead. All right. Well, I am 65 and a half years old. About three years ago before I retired, I decided I wanted to have a farmstead. I spent most of my life raising four kids and I raised three kids and I raised two tiny grandkids for about a year and a half. And I was like, when I get out of the classroom of learning and I actually have time to have a farmstead,

00:58
I'm going to start one. So three years ago I started, but I was still working full time as a supervisor, so I didn't have a lot of time to commit. But then I retired in December. I just worked two days a week remote, and now the Farmstead Dream is coming true. I mean, it's happening, it's happening fast because I did a lot of research prior to get into the full time. And it's almost self-sustaining with the products that I sell.

01:27
But my goal is next year, because it would be my, this year was my first real year of running a full time. Next year I hope to make a profit. Awesome, congratulations on retiring and starting your next season of life. That's amazing. So I have many questions. I was looking at your Facebook page and it looks like you're located in a neighborhood. Is that correct? Absolutely, I'm an urban farmer.

01:55
I have a tenth of an acre and I'm surrounded by the medical field right across the alley from me is ear, nose and throat within a block is a hospital, four blocks is another hospital. So I have a big population of buyers because I'm so visual where I am. Okay. So tell me and tell the listeners how you are.

02:22
utilizing what little space you have to produce lots. Okay, I gotcha. Well, the way that the homestead pays for itself is I start vegetable plants downstairs in the basement. I think I have 38 grow lights, we pot breakers like four times a day. And so this year I grew 5,000 plants from seed. Last year just like 500, just cause I wasn't retired yet. I sell those for $2 each. And I think I have about

02:51
150 left. So that's how the farmstead pays for itself. And I plant everything that we eat. We have dwarf apple trees, dwarf plum trees, a ton of grapes, strawberries, and I sell strawberry plants too. Every vegetable that we like to eat I plant. And that way we can be self-sustaining. I have a friend who has 55 hens, so she provides me eggs,

03:22
like three or four hens and see if something I want to do. I grew up, we raised chickens grown up in California and San Diego. Cause I don't want to jump in and then be like some people who are like, no, let's get rid of them. So I make sure it's something I can and I do want to do. And then also we planted mulberry trees too cause my 29 year old granddaughter loves mulberries but we plant everything that we love.

03:49
I'm hoping to do a beehive next year. There's classes locally and none of my neighbors spray. Nobody sprays anything. I don't use any chemicals. So I wouldn't have to worry about a loss of a beehive due to neighbors. Well, that's helpful. That's great. Yes. Okay, so when you started growing stuff, you grew 5,000 seedlings in your basement with grow light this spring.

04:18
Yep, yep, this spring. I started in January. As soon as I got back from Georgia visiting grandkids, I started in January because I knew with only 38 grow lights, I have to do succession after succession. So some went to the big greenhouse. It's only like 8 by 12, the small ones, 6 by 8. And I'd have a heater in there if the weather dipped, but they would rotate to the big greenhouse or the small greenhouse. And yeah, successfully 5,000. My goal was 8,000.

04:48
But with just me, I just couldn't do it. I couldn't do 8,000. That's a lot to handle, yes. So do you grow anything outside? Like you have the fruit trees and stuff. But when you, okay, I asked that whole thing wrong. Let me start again. When you started growing things outside on your property, did you have to amend the soil because you were in the city? Absolutely, yeah. And when we first moved here, and I would say we, but I'm single.

05:18
When I first moved here, I rented the house. That was nine years ago. And the first spring, my landlord said, hey, what do you think about ornamental grasses in the front? And I said, hold on, let me grab my sketch pad. He's like, you drew something up. And in the backyard, I drew all these raised beds. And he's like, oh. I said, I just want permission to do it. If you say no, I'm fine with it. This is your house. And I will take care of everything. I don't expect you to pay for it.

05:47
He looked at it and he said, you can do it. He came the next weekend, brought a rototiller and tilled everything, came the next weekend, built all the beds, came the next weekend, filled in all the dirt. And he would not let me pay him for anything. But we have both. I build an outdoor compost and we have an electric indoor composter. And we bring all the coffee grounds. My granddaughter brings coffee grounds from work. And I pick them up at Dylan's from Starbucks.

06:17
And I mean, we compost everything that's organic so we can put it into our soil. I did buy five cubic yards of compost from a local place last fall. That was a lot of compost, but my soil now is amazing. It used to be so compacted. There was no life in it. You could not find a worm. Now, anytime I try to dig something up, I'm like,

06:42
Sorry, worm, sorry, didn't mean to bother you. It's just, it's the healthiest soil, it's just beautiful. Awesome. Regina, I have to say it. I love you. You are proving my point about the fact that anyone can do this on a small piece of property. Exactly. And you can make it go. Yes, yes. And you know, I'm 65 and a half. I would say a half because I'm almost at 66 and I've always had a high level of energy, but I have...

07:12
visions and they're written down in goals and I make new goals every day and Sometimes I don't make some of those goals but a ton of them I do and that's the ones I celebrate not what I didn't get Done, but what I did accomplish and that's Yeah Absolutely, that that's how you should do it because then you have hope that you can get some more things accomplished later Yes, it's it's plans for the future. It's great. Yeah

07:39
The other reason I'm excited about talking with you is because we had a tenth of an acre as well where we used to live and we made our entire backyard gardens. And so I understand completely what you're talking about. And we now have a hard-sided greenhouse that just was finished a couple of weekends ago. And it's 18 by 40, I think, are the measurements. And so...

08:06
So my husband and I have big, big, big plans and dreams for next year because it's going to be heated. So we're going to try doing bedding plants too for people. Oh, I love, oh my gosh. And they just sell themselves. I market them on the marketplace and then have a sign on the corner and word of mouth gets people, they come back from last year or the year before, they send friends, they're like, hey, Darcy sent me. And I mean, it's just, it's...

08:34
growing itself with me putting like maybe $10 a week into marketing during my busy season and that's it. Yeah, yeah. And I don't know if the city that you live in is a food desert, but a lot of cities end up being food deserts. So is it? Yeah, absolutely. And we don't even have a grocery store close. There's a committee trying to build one about four blocks away where one used to be.

09:03
and they asked if I would help provide vegetables to sell in it. And I told them if I can fit it into my yard, I sure will. I won't be able to, you know, be the only supplier because I never want to be big like that, but I will absolutely be a part of that. Yeah. And yeah, not a lot of people garden here. There's a couple of community gardens, people, I don't know. I don't know why. I think maybe they think they can't do it.

09:30
Yeah, and I mean, if you've never done it before, it can be really daunting. Oh, yeah. There's a large, steep learning curve if you're starting from scratch on how to grow food. Absolutely. Yeah. And I don't want to discourage anybody. It's a really fun learning curve, but you've got to want to do it and you've got to have the time to put into it. Yeah. And it's like anything we're going to, if it's something new.

09:58
We're always gonna be learning with gardening. We're always learning and we're always gonna have our failures, but if we look at what we did and did well, that's what keeps us motivated, keeps us going. Cause I've already made my list of things that I did well this year and things that I have not. And we'll learn from that next year, take those have nots and put them on. We got it. Got it done. Yeah, for sure. It's really funny.

10:25
We live about four and a half miles from the nearest town, which isn't that far. And we are surrounded by cornfield right now. And the corn's coming up. It's about, I would bet it's about eight inches, 10 inches tall right now. And we put in some stuff before all the rain hit weeks ago. I'm in Minnesota. I don't know if you know what the weather's been in our area, but we've just been pounded with rain. But...

10:54
A volunteer lettuce plant came up and we're having grilled ham and cheese sandwiches tonight. I was thinking about it. I was like, what can we have with grilled ham and cheese? I'm going to have my son go out and grab that lettuce because it's big enough to have as a salad. Yes. We're just going to have a basic lettuce salad from the garden with our sandwiches. I love it. This is the first year I actually grew lettuce.

11:21
and spinach and it grew so well. I'm like begging my grown kids, please, please cut it, take some, please. Because before I'd get like one lettuce, because I didn't have time to focus, but this year I had so much. I'm like, please, please, this is so expensive at the store and it's so good, it's organic. Then I take my granddaughter, she's 29. We, when we bought the house, we cohabitate, we share everything. I raised her, put her through college, so, and we get along so well.

11:51
But she's a vegetarian. I'm like, if I see you buy bagelettes one more time while we have all this lettuce, she's like, I know, I keep forgetting. So, first ever growing so much lettuce and because we eat a lot of vegetables, we eat a lot of fruits, we try to grow or I try to grow everything that we'll eat. Yeah. And I mean, you're already doing it. You might as well reap the benefits of it. Exactly. Yeah.

12:18
Because I didn't start with the idea of selling plants to other people. I wanted to give us healthy foods and to reduce our, because I only spend $40 a week on my groceries. I buy my own groceries. I spend $40 a week. And I was like, I'm going to garden because gardening is going to be a big part of keeping that bill at a minimum and eating as healthy as I can. Yes. And with the inflation prices that have happened in the last year, that's a great plan. Yes.

12:46
three grandkids here for three weeks from Georgia. There was six, eight, and 14. And we went shopping the day after they got here. So we went shopping Monday. I was like, good Lord. Grocery bill is like, good night nurse. That's crazy. Yeah, it's ridiculous. I am, I'm offended at the fact that we live in America and it's the land of milk and honey. I said this the other day too on a podcast.

13:16
interview and a lot of people quite literally cannot afford to eat now in the last year and a half. Agreed. Absolutely agreed. And actually, it's been that way for a long time. When I was middle management at Boys and Girls Club, probably 30 years ago, we'd have kids on Friday night who are like, Mr. Regina, do you have anything I can eat? I'm like, did you eat? Did you eat lunch at school?

13:42
On the weekends, they'd be like, I haven't eaten anything all day. So we started a program where we cooked real meals every weekend for every kid who showed up. So it's been that way for so long, but I think people are just realizing it. I mean, for some people, it's always been like that. It's been a hardship just to feed your kids or to eat. But now it's for everybody now. Yeah.

14:04
Now I love you even more because of what you just said. And yes, I knew that there were lots of people who couldn't afford to eat before the last year and a half. But like people who are making okay money at their job are having to make choices about where they spend their money more than they did before because it's a choice of whether the car payment gets made or they eat. Exactly. Absolutely.

14:33
It's ridiculous. I hate everything about this situation as it stands right now. Me too. I thought after COVID was over and through and the trucking crisis, I thought that prices would go down kind of where they need to be, but that just didn't happen. Yeah, we'll be donating produce to our local food shelf this summer. And we did last summer, and we did the year before that, and we did the year before that. We moved here almost four years ago.

15:02
So every summer we've had the big garden, we've donated zucchini and tomatoes and cucumbers and stuff to the food shelf because we have so much and we're so blessed that I'm like, we need to take that big old box down the food shelf right now. Yep. Yeah. In the front yard, we, we changed that to a growing area. So I always plant tomatoes and peppers out there. So anybody, any neighbor, anybody walk them by who wants them, they can just pick them.

15:31
So it's kind of like a little community food station.

15:40
Yep. Awesome.

15:45
Are you still with me? Yeah, I'm still here. Okay. It just got really quiet. And usually when it does that, I think that it's cut out on me. We have a farm stand on our property where we sell produce as well. And we don't have cameras. We don't monitor it hard because our theory is if somebody takes produce without paying for it, they need it more than we do. Yeah. And I shouldn't broadcast the fact that we don't monitor it because now people just come and take stuff.

16:14
It's an honor system and we just hope that people who can afford to pay for what they take do. Yeah. And if they need it, then they can have it. Yeah. I do that too. I do a lot of self-service. I was out there nine to five or 96 every day, but then when it started slowing down, I started doing the self-service Venmo cash app. I have a cash box. And I think I only had one person who didn't actually pay for their stuff. And that was my whole idea too.

16:43
They must need it more than me. And one guy hit me up on Marketplace. He's like, I don't have any money. Do you think I get plans? I'm like, absolutely. I said, let me know what you want and let's meet. And you can absolutely have him. He's like, I really don't have any place to plan them. I'm homeless. But I'll find a place. I said, let's do it. Nice. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. He doesn't have a home, but he has this want or this need to grow food.

17:10
And I'm just like, that's where it all starts. That's where everything starts to pivot and change for somebody. When they have these little grains of ideas and put those into motion, then it grows and it grows. And then all of a sudden, his whole life has changed because he wants to do this one thing that's going to move him forward and provide food for him. You're literally planting seeds, literally and figuratively planting seeds for his life. Oh, thank you. Yeah.

17:39
So what's your favorite favorite thing about what you're doing? Do you have one favorite thing or is it just all your favorite? I think it's that I get to wear overalls all the time.

17:52
When I picked up my grandkids in Georgia, my six-year-old granddaughter who's very, very fancy, she's like, Nana, are you wearing overalls? I'm like, yes, ma'am. I said I brought a pair for tomorrow, a pair for the next day. So every day when she gets up, she's like, you have overalls. I'm like, this is what I wear. I call it my pants purse because I always got people on one side for squirrels that eat out of our hands. Then everything I need is in my pockets. And I don't have to worry about what.

18:20
what I'm wearing, how I present myself, that's just who I am. And when people come to buy things and they have overalls on, we talk about overalls, it's just so sweet and just so simple. What's your favorite brand of overalls? Cause I need a pair. I like the old Navy ones because they have some slouch in them, they have some give in them, and they have the boyfriend cut, so they're just a little bit higher and they have a lot of pockets. But when I'm down in the dirt,

18:48
I don't wear those, any of those. I wear the key, K-E-Y, they're older ones. Just because they have all the pockets to hang your tools in. If I get mud on them, and I will, then I'm not worried, because I have a lot of overalls. So I wear all the, let's see, other ones I have. I got them from the grain store. Found one pair at a yard sale. I was like, what? A bag of clothes for $5? Yes, ma'am. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I like the ones from the Sparm store because they're just built better.

19:18
But then my city, I say going to town ones, even though I live in the city, right in the middle, those are my old Navy ones because they're a little bit more feminine and not so muddy. Well, you got to spruce up a little bit now and then just to feel better. So your farm girl farmstead uniform is overalls. I love that. Exactly. Yeah. And one time a guy came and he's like, my friend said you always wear overalls.

19:44
I'd been out there from nine in the morning to six at night. He came at seven and I had just changed. I went out and he's like, where's your overalls? I'm like, I'm so sorry. I said, I just changed. I was just exhausted and dirty. He's like, they said you always wear overalls. He said like eight times. I knew that that was gonna be my image. That was gonna be my uniform because that's what people expected. And they, I don't know, it just makes them happy when I have overalls on. Great. Do you have different color overalls or are they just denim? All denim.

20:14
because you know, yeah, you know, I'm retired. I'm on a budget. I'm gonna have to find out your size and find some really crazy looking overalls and ship them to you from Amazon. That has some, but I'm like, oh, I can't pay that much for overalls. I've been looking at. Yeah. Yeah, you should get some with flowers on them. Oh, I see those and I'm like, oh, I'm gonna have to wait because you know, when I knew my grandkids were coming, I'm spending a lot of money this month.

20:43
Yeah, so that's where my budget's being thrown to. But yeah, well, I wear the same size as my age, 18. I'm 18, so that's a giveaway. I'll have to look and see what I can find. I'm so tempted to buy you some really fun overalls just for Grins and Giggles. I bought some off a big blue box store. I bought them online and they got here and they were a whole different size than what they should be.

21:08
and you had to put your own clasp on them. Like, what is this? This is worse than math trying to figure that out. Yeah. No, they need to be ready to wear. Yes, yes, exactly. See, I wear Levi's jeans and tank top and a t-shirt over the tank top and really cute socks. I bought these socks a year and a half ago. They're little ankle socks and they look like the rag wool socks, but they're not. And calaboutes all the time. That's my...

21:38
That's my uniform here at our place. And mostly because I really like being comfy and I don't have to like pack away winter clothes and bring out summer clothes and pack away summer clothes and bring out winter clothes because it all works. It's all year round. Yes, yeah. That's my big thing is being comfortable. It's always been, I've never been into fashion. I've never cared about my nails just because I was always in dirt. Anywhere I can be in dirt, I'd be in dirt. I just don't care about that. I just wanna be comfortable.

22:08
And, you know, I want to look clean, of course, I share every day, but I just want to be comfortable. I don't want to wear what I want to wear. You know, I had to wear when I worked for the state of Kansas, I had to wear what I needed to wear, but now I just want to wear what I want to wear. Yeah, there's a woman on Facebook, her name is Casey. I think her last name is Heister, H-E-I-S-T-E-R. And she's a girly girl. She wears the most beautiful dresses.

22:36
and she gardens in them and she shoots guns in them and she actually has like videos and photos of herself in these really beautiful dresses. That's so cool. I love that. And she's beautiful. Yeah. I love it too. But I really don't move as easily in a dress as I do in jeans and I am always doing something. I'm cooking or I'm chasing after the dog or I'm outside.

23:04
I don't own a dress. I haven't owned a dress in forever. So I watch her and I'm like, I love her for what she's chosen for her life. And you were mentioning pockets and the overalls. I don't carry a purse ever. I always wear some kind of jacket. It doesn't matter if it's 90 degrees out. I have a light jacket that has pockets because my jacket is my purse.

23:32
Partly because I don't ever forget my jacket, but I have literally walked out of places without the bag that I brought with me. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, I just slide my debit card in the top pocket if we're going somewhere, my ID if I'm driving, and off we go. Yeah, I have a wallet. I actually carry a wallet just like a man and it's always in my back pocket because it's just easier and I know where everything is. Absolutely. I wish that I could wear dresses because I like long flowy garden dresses.

24:03
the medical center that butts up to the alley. Their break room is right there. And every time they come over, they're like, oh my gosh, we watch you all the time. It's just so awesome over here. We wanna be over here. So it's like I'm being watched for 10 hours a day. So if I was wearing a dress, I'd probably, I don't know, it wouldn't be pretty. Yep. And like you said, you have earned the right to make your choices to be comfortable in your clothing choices and what you're wearing.

24:33
Absolutely. Yeah, now I have to donate a ton of clothes because I haven't touched most of it since I retired. Well, someone will benefit who needs them. So that's great. Absolutely. Okay, so what's your least favorite thing about what you do? That the time is limited every day. Because if I could be out there for like 30 hours in a row, I would do it. I love being outside. I love being in the dirt. I love

25:02
Starting a seat. I love deadheading. I love everything. I just hate that Time is so limited Yeah, there's never enough hours in the day. I don't think it matters what you're doing There's just not enough and you have to sleep at some point. Yeah. Oh and I hate aphids I'm again this week. We every week we're at war somewhere different in the yard with aphids Okay, tell me

25:29
We don't really have trouble with aphids and we never really have even at the old house. What is it that aphids are a problem for? Right now they're on the calendulum. Last week they were on the grapevines. We have a ton of grapes. And then they were on the daisies first. And so we use neem oil and I've listened to your podcast. You use neem oil too. Yep. And that takes care of them. But I'm like, good night. Every time I turn around there's somewhere else. I'm like, I thought I got rid of you guys. I hate aphids.

25:59
But do they eat the plants? Is that the problem? Yeah, they suck the juice out of the plants. And last year I was like, oh, there's ants on there. The ants are going to take care of those aphids and eat them. Well, my granddaughter, the one I spoke about, she's a biology major. She's like, no, they're harvesting the sugar off the aphids. They are profiting from the aphids. They're not going to kill them. They're going to try to keep them alive. So I had to start using neem oil.

26:24
Yeah, it seems like a lot of insects do not appreciate neem oil at all. I like that. Yeah, it works. I saw it on something on a YouTube video years ago and I was like, huh, it's not going to hurt my dog. It's not going to hurt the barn cats. It's not going to hurt the chickens if by chance they get into it and it doesn't hurt the plants. So let's try that.

26:51
if you do it in the morning or after they all go to bed. That was my big thing, the pollinators. But yeah, and I think you had mentioned on one of the podcasts that you used it on the apple trees. Like, oh, I never heard that because we have two dwarf apple trees. So I started using it on the apple trees too. Yeah, we started that last year because we had little, we had a couple of tiny little apples developed two falls ago on one of the trees.

27:20
They're fairly new trees. We just put them in three and a half, four years ago. And they had the, the yuck on the inside from the moth larva that get into apples. Yes. And I was trying to find a way to not have that happen again. And I saw something about that you could use neem oil once that the little baby apples developed from the blooms. And I said to my husband, I said, do we have any neem oil left in the spray bottle thing? And he was like, yeah. I said,

27:50
Can we try spraying the apples with that and see if it helps? Like spray the base of the tree and spray the actual apples. And he's like, I will try anything at this point. I was like, okay. So we did. And we ended up with probably a hundred honey gold apples last fall. That's amazing. That is amazing. And they were small, but they're dwarf stock trees and they were young trees. We didn't expect them to be big apples. Yeah.

28:17
And I don't like them. I don't like Golden Delicious Apples and Honey Gold's taste a lot like Golden Delicious Apples to me. But my husband loves Golden Delicious Apples. So he was thrilled that we got them. That's funny. I think we planted one Gala and one Fuji because those are our favorites. And how are they, you don't know how they're doing yet. You won't know for a while. This is their second full year.

28:44
So you're supposed to get apples within two, three years. So we should have apples next year. Okay. One of them bloom this year, but I don't see any apples on there. Yeah. It's after the blooms. Cause that's when I heard you say to use the email. I'm like, man. So next year. Yep. Um, we don't, I don't know if, uh, Gayle's or the other one you said would grow here because we're further north than you. Oh yeah. You're a little north.

29:14
Yeah, but the ones that we have are the honey golds. We have two honeycrisp trees that are, they were saplings when we bought them two years ago. So they're finally starting to branch out. So we're hoping to have apples next, not this coming, but fall of 2025 from those. And we have Regents and we have Harrelson.

29:39
And we have a couple old varieties that I can't think of the names of right now. We have like 16 or 18 trees. Wow. That's so, so hopefully within a couple of years, we'll actually have enough apples that we can sell them and we can donate some of those to the food shelf. I love that. I love your heart. I'm trying. I I'm trying so hard to figure out ways to make this place support itself. And also without.

30:07
without charging any money to people, support the community as well. Yeah. Yeah. And it's a balance. It is. Absolutely. Like my prices on my vegetable plants, three years ago, was $2. Last year, $2. This year, $2. And I told everybody, and that's even my perennial flowers that I grow, I told everybody next year I plan on keeping it at $2, but I said I need y'all to return your pots though, because my goal is not to put any money out for pots and...

30:36
no more plastic out into the world, that's new. I just want to reuse. And so everybody's been fantastic about returning pots, pots that didn't come from me. But because people are like, we went to this store, it was this much for one tomato plant? They're like, that's why we always come back to you. You're organic, it's $2. You did all the work. We don't know where the seeds came from, what they were sprayed with. We know what yours were sprayed with, nothing. Uh-huh, yep. You're doing a good thing.

31:05
Regarding the pots and the baskets and things, the plastic, somebody on Facebook Marketplace last week had a whole bunch of nursery pots, the plastic ones, one and two gallon ones, for free. She got them from the nursery and she was like, I need these gone, come get them. And I was like, pick us, we'll take them. So my husband and my son drove down and brought home like 30.

31:34
of these pots. And because we now have the greenhouse, we need those size pots for plants. And I put out the call on Facebook, you know, on my friend page. I was like, if anyone has hanging plant pots from their, the stuff that they got this year that they want to get rid of, let us know. And one of my good friends who lives nearby, she's like, I have three, we'll bring them all over. And I said, okay, great.

32:00
So I'm putting out the call for the ones that people are just going to throw away because we need them. We want to grow hanging potted plants in the greenhouse next spring. And the landfill does not need them. That's my whole... I don't want to buy any more new ones. And when we put that call out, all of a sudden we start getting what we need. Last weekend, I have a friend who works on the weekends at an auction house. They had an old greenhouse that they wouldn't let anybody go into because it was in bad repair.

32:30
Tell me what you want. She got me, I think, 2,000 pots. She got me 12 of the real heavy, heavy plastic trays that have the drain holes in it. These are trays that will never, ever break. She got me a ton, probably about 40 hanging hooks to hang plants in the greenhouses. And she's like, $2. I'm like, I am not paying you just $2. I said, it was your time, your wear, and these are valuable to me. So I over, over, overpaid her.

32:58
but I didn't overpay her for, you know, I made sure it wasn't too much for my budget, but I gave her a lot more than she wanted. But when you put that call out, all of a sudden, everybody's showing up and dropping off stuff at your porch or your greenhouse. Yes, because if you don't open your mouth, nobody knows what you need. Exactly, or they think she probably has plenty, she's been doing this for a while, I'm just gonna throw it away, nope. Everybody shows up, they'll be like, hey, I just dropped something at your greenhouse. I'm like, yes, or the medical center next door,

33:28
they walk over when they see me out there like, where was I come when you're out? Cause you like talk about plants and boy, do I like to talk about plants. You're educating the medical field. Good for you. Yeah. Yeah. They're, they're just, they're a blessing. They're just so sweet. One of my plants, when I saw last week, one of the ladies over there sent an email to everybody in the building and said, Hey, Farm Girl Farm said this is a price this week. And a ton of people came over. So I sent her, I walked over.

33:56
bouquet of flowers for her from the garden. Awesome. We're doing that, yeah. I was gonna say before before I cut you loose because we're at we're over half an hour now but I still have questions. Do you, what do you grow for flowers? You said calendula, what else? Well this is the first year I've ever grown flowers that weren't just for me so I grew dahlias from seed. First year I ever did it.

34:25
I think about 40 for me and then I sold the rest and I started Status and oh my gosh, that was probably 100% germination rate. Planted what I needed because I want to try bouquets this year just because when the vegetable plant season ends, it gives me something else to sell. Oh gosh, I started Black Eyed Susan's, yarrow from the seeds that I saved and purple cone flower because I like perennials. I don't like to waste money. Everything came up except for rosemary.

34:54
I hate rosemary. It hates me back. I tried a lot of fashion plantings and everyone did not make it, not one. But yeah, I started so many flowers, but I put on my list for next year not to plant as many flowers, Regina. We should have planted more vegetables and herbs in all that flower space, but I love flowers. I just think they're beautiful.

35:19
Well, don't eradicate the flower growing. Just grow slightly less and you'll be good. Yeah, but I also did a lot of research this winter because I wanted to learn about dahlias. I've never grown them. And I didn't want to buy them, the tubers, because they weren't in my budget. So I bought the seeds and wow. And then I learned that when you pull up that tuber or tubers in the fall, it's going to be whatever the color of that flower was, that's going to be the color of your next flower.

35:47
But the seeds will be so many different colors. And that's how they come up with all these new varieties. When they plant seeds, all of a sudden they have this one. They take it and they breed just that one. So I said, so, you know, I always educate people, this is what you're gonna get. When you dig it up, make sure you dig it up, save those seeds, same, I mean, zinnias, every, zinnias are my favorite. I always have so many seeds every year. But I love, I love flowers. Yeah, zinnias are really fun because they're easy. Yes, yes.

36:17
And there's so many different colors and they're great for bouquets. Mm-hmm. They have a long base life. Yeah. We have, we have some growing. Yeah. They're so forgiving. If you forget to water them for a couple of days or a week, they're like, we're still here. We're not going anywhere. They grow like a weed. Exactly. A pretty weed. Absolutely. All right. Well, Regina, I am so excited that you took the time to chat with me today because you proved.

36:47
My thing I've been saying on the podcast for almost 10 months now, I think, that anyone can grow produce and flowers and herbs on a small city lot. Yes, ma'am. And you can get that soil amended. Oh, and I forgot to tell you, I did buy this house five years ago. I told you I was renting it initially. Yep. Then I ended up buying it. So it's mine. Yay. Yeah. That's awesome.

37:16
Thank you. And I bought it before, excuse me, before the housing market went crazy. Oh, even better. Yes. Good. All right. Regina, thank you so much for your time. I really do appreciate it. You're welcome, Mary. And thank you. You have a wonderful day. Okay. Have a great, have a great day. Thank you. Bye bye.