It’s my pleasure to welcome back to the Sense-Making in a Changing World podcast –  author, climate activist, regenerative farmer and creator of tiny gardens, Acadia Tucker. Acadia is also an ambassador for regenerative agriculture with the Rodale institute .

Acadia was actually my very first guest on this podcast. We explored the themes in her first 2 books – Growing Perennial Foods: A field guide to raising resilient herbs, fruits, & vegetables , Growing Good Food: A citizen’s guide to backyard carbon farming

In this show we talk about her latest book Tiny Victory Gardens: Growing Food without a yard. We get super practical in this chat because I know its something so many people are keen to learn about – particularly if you are renting.

Click above to listen to the episode or watch it on the Sense-Making in a Changing World youtube.

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Full transcript below.

Morag Gamble:

Hello and welcome. I’m Morag Gamble and you’re tuning in to the Sense-making in a Changing World podcast. My guest today is author, climate activist, regenerative farmer and tiny gardener. She’s also an ambassador for regenerative agriculture with the Rodale Institute. Acadia Tucker was actually my very first guest on this podcast. We explored themes in her first two books which were Growing Perennial Foods: A field guide to raising resilient herbs, fruits, & vegetables, and also her second book Growing Good Food: A citizen’s guide to backyard carbon farming. I’m delighted to welcome Acadia, back to the show to talk about her latest book, Tiny Victory Gardens: Growing Food without a yard. We get super practical in this chat because I know it’s something that so many people are keen to learn about, particularly if you’re renting. So every episode of this show is hosted and sponsored by the Permaculture Education Institute. The host of the globally recognized Permaculture Educators Program. The intro music is arranged and played by my very talented friend and neighbor Kim Kirkman. And the sound is edited by my fabulous niece Rhiannon Gamble. Before we begin, I’d like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the unseated lands from which I’m speaking with you, The Gubbi Gubbi people, and pay my deep respect to their elders past present and emerging. I’d like to recognize their ability to care for this land, the waters and biodiversity for so many thousands of years. So let’s dive in. I hope you enjoy this practical tiny garden conversation as much as I did. And make sure to check out the show notes for links to Acadia’s books. More information about the work she does a copy of the transcript and more information about our work at the Permaculture Education Institute. Oh make sure to subscribe so you get notification of these weekly podcast episodes. And leave us a lovely review. It really does help the bots to find our little podcast and I’d love you to to share this with a friend.

It’s my absolute delight to welcome back to the show, actually, the person who was the very first guest on my podcast. I don’t know if he knew that that was you at the time. Acadia Tucker is a regenerative farmer, author, climate activist, environmentalist based in Maine in the United States, and we’re here today to talk about your new book. Well it’s probably been out for a little while now came out this year didn’t it sometime. Acadia when did it get released?

Acadia Tucker:

It came out this spring actually, this spring.

Morag Gamble:

Okay. And for people who are in different parts of the world spring would be which month?

Acadia Tucker:

Like, it’s funny coz I should know this exactly but around March, April.

Morag Gamble:

Okay, so early this year. Tiny Victory Gardens: Growing Food without a yard, which I think is an absolutely brilliant topic to be exploring because of you know, particularly, I know here in Australia, people in lockdown have been, you know, trying to bring their food as close to home. And your other books have been about more outside gardening. And you are also a regenerative agriculture ambassador with the Rodale Institute. So your experience is kind of spanning from the farm, you’re organic market gardener before. And you talk about backyard carbon farming. And now you’ve gone into the tiny gardens, what brought you into the tiny gardens before we start talking about it.

Acadia Tucker:

That’s a great question. I mean as I’ve kind of gone along this journey of you know, more, you know, getting out there and speaking to people and informing people and trying to motivate people to grow their own food, I started to realize there’s like a huge part of the population that couldn’t participate, and that I wasn’t addressing, and I realized those are the people you know, who don’t have a yard, whether it’s in an apartment, or maybe they’re renting, and they’re not allowed to have a garden. There’s just so many people out there that are passionate about food and regenerative food, that, you know, I was kind of missing the ship. So I wanted to write a book that could be inclusive to absolutely everyone and kind of address those people that I was leaving out of the conversation.

Morag Gamble:

Yeah, that’s really great. And just before we press the record button we were talking too about how there’s been a lot of movement going on in the world, people moving out of the cities or people being stuck in the cities and people jumping you know, moving around because of the changing of the real estate market, that there are a lot more people I think, who are in this either transition mode or just still trying to find a place getting started. So I think, you know, this idea of tiny gardens being something that you can just even if you’re not settled yet, you can kind of get started now. And I love that immediacy of it. And that we can really start start to kind of be growing more healthy food, because that’s something that we need more right now to particular to keep us healthy and strong. So absolutely.

Acadia Tucker:

Absolutely. I think it’s true, it’s not only healthy in body, but healthy in mind, right, especially when we’re dealing with kind of this kind of tumultuous time. For me gardening indoors has given me or in containers has given me just like that little bit of Zen of my day, something, something that’s larger than yourself that you can focus on that can kind of help wash away all that fear and anxiety.

Morag Gamble:

Yeah, and you know, there’s something also about having, you just mentioned indoors, I know it’s indoors and outdoors. But something about having plants indoors. There’s a difference in the air.

Acadia Tucker:

And oh, it’s it’s absolutely fabulous. Yes.

Morag Gamble:

Do you know any of the science, because I know you’re also a scientist? So do you know anything about the science of air quality with plants inside?

Acadia Tucker:

There is a lot of open for debate in that realm. I have researched it a tiny bit, and there’s definitely clear evidence that yes, plants do help to purify the air indoors, what’s up for debate is just how much they do do that. There’s a little bit more research on to just that mood-boosting effect that they have just seeing that greenery, taking care of something that’s living that has some more, you know, background in the sciences, just that mood elevation that you get when you’re kind of living with other things.

Morag Gamble:

Yeah, this one I’ve got behind me, I know that it’s like a trendy plant. But where I’m here in the subtropics, this Monstera, it was actually something that I took a little clipping of. It actually grows wild in and around here. And so I took a little clipping of it. I cultivated and they have edible fruits. So you know the monster it’s like a fruit salad plant. So yeah, I really enjoy. I’ve made my notes beside me here. And I’ve got, you know, an ink that runs so I gotta be really careful what I put beside it, because it does it kind of it humidifies the air inside, which is kind of a nice thing as well.

Acadia Tucker:

Beautiful Yeah, I know. Normally, my background is a little bit more plantcentric. But as we were talking about before we hit record, I just recently moved myself so everything’s kind of in a bit of a shuffle and turmoil and all my plants are tucked downstairs under lights right now, which kind of give off this kind of pinkish hue. That’s not very attractive for videos.

Morag Gamble:

Oh, yeah. Yeah, you’re at the moment going into winter?

Acadia Tucker:

Absolutely.

Morag Gamble:

So let’s talk about tiny gardens in winter. Indoors. Like, how is that what can you grow in the winter in tiny gardens?

Acadia Tucker:

Yeah, so depending on what level of climate control you’re comfortable with in your space, you can grow anything. So here I am in northern Maine, and I have banana trees. I have lemon and lime trees inside. I even gorgeous passion fruit vine. That is giving me passion fruits. So you can you know, again, as whatever you’re comfortable with in terms of heat. So for me, that’s the big, the big kind of equalizer right now in my life where we do rely a lot on a wood stove at the moment just to where we moved in this cabin. And it’s been a little bit hard to to keep tropical plants happy as the temperatures coming down. So again, it’s whatever you’re comfortable with, yes, there’s a level of effort involved when you’re bringing plants in the home because you know, they’re living things you have to take care of them. But you know, the sky is really the limit. And that’s what I tried to point out in the book. It’s like, you know, whatever you’re willing to do, can be done. If you’re just starting out, I definitely recommend you know, dipping your toes in the water before you dive in. So I always say for people who have never done it before, you know, just start with a few kitchen herbs. You can put them in your kitchen window or wherever you have a sunny sill and you can grow these herbs and that kind of for me I always call it’s like the gateway plants like those once you get you know, used to growing herbs and you love it and it’s just so nice. You’re like Oh, I’m making a pasta sauce. Let me cut off some oregano or rosemary or thyme, and it’s fresh and it’s right there. That’s, that’s the hook that I think can get people excited about it. And then from there, they can grow, you know, their own salads, their own, you know, salsa is one of the things I like to do in this book is to point out certain recipes, plant recipes that work good in a pot. So you know, grow the food you want to eat. I think that it sounds very simple when you say it out loud. But so many people forget to do that, right. So I like to combine certain plants that are an ingredient like salsa, or spaghetti planter or a salad planter, because then it’s all right there ready, ready to go.

Morag Gamble:

I love that idea. You know, it’s like, pizza pot. Or things grow really well that go into sort of, you know, Thai food, you know, with all their chilies and spices, you can have a pot my bag, that’s so brilliant. So it’s thinking about, because often when you think about a culinary type, that those plants are often from the same environment. So the same conditions work really well, which is they make sense? It really makes sense. So just let’s just rewind a little bit for those people, the gateway plants. You mentioned a couple but if you were to list off, say, five of the easiest plants to grow in pots on the windowsill, what would they be?

Acadia Tucker:

I would so I definitely start with a few of the herbs and then you know leafy greens so whether like right now, it’s even despite our kind of getting drafty indoors, I can grow lettuce, spinach, arugula, I can grow kale. I can grow some root crops, carrots, beets, radishes are really easy to grow indoors. And there’s they’re they’re really quick. It’s almost like immediate gratification. Yeah, and then you know, it’s Taco Night, I have fresh radishes and cilantro to garnish my tacos with.

Morag Gamble:

Let’s talk about the carrots, because I know that one thing that, you know, as a, if you can grow carrots, you know, I feel like I’ve done it, I’ve grown carrots. Because it’s something that you know, particularly when you’re working with young kids as well to just be able to pull out and reveal a carrot. It is something so beautiful. So to be able to do that from from a tiny garden that you’ve got going on inside, what would you do to prepare to grow carrots, what would be your step by step guide to grow carrots inside.

Acadia Tucker:

Carrots are a little bit trickier, because they take up so much underground space. So you want to make sure when you’re talking about any tiny garden, you know, your your container selection is going to matter a lot. You need something that’s going to fit the crop. So if you’re trying to go for a tree, you’re going to need a really large container, if you’re going for you know, a carrot, you’re going to have to make sure it’s a deep container. You can also circum navigate that a little bit by picking maybe carrot varieties that don’t go as deep. They have some I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of the oxheart Carrot, but it’s this kind of stubby wide carrot rather than thin and long. So you can you you can think about, you know, what am I growing? So what does it have to grow into? And then once you pick a suitable container, you have to fill it with soil. Right? And that’s kind of the big question with container gardening is, you know, what do I use for a potting mix, right, a lot of container soils are actually soilless. And they do that for a reason garden soil doesn’t really work that well in a container. It’s filled with clarity and the drainage you know, soils are used to draining in all directions up down sideways, the water has a lot of places for movement. When you can find that soil into a container, it can only go out those few drainage holes that you’ve put in the bottom. So choosing a soil mix, whether you make it your own or you purchase it, you need to make sure that it’s light, it doesn’t have any clay, it drains really well. And I do go quite into length in the book about you know, you can actually make your own which I prefer to do because it can be really challenging to find a good products it doesn’t it’s hard to find when you go to your hardware store. And you know either it doesn’t have the ingredients that you find sustainable regenerative or it’s been sitting in a bag baking in the parking lot for who knows how long, you open it up, it’s all crusty and hard. So after the container, soil selection is really important and I know we’ll probably talk about that a little bit more. And then once you’re ready to go you just put your seeds and you have to keep it keep it well watered, when you’re growing, especially indoors in containers, you know, it’s kind of nice because you don’t really have to deal with maybe some of the pests that you would outdoors. But one of the things when you bring things inside and maybe they don’t dry as quickly or the drainage is not as good, I find that I have a little bit more issues with like molds and diseases rather than pest.

Morag Gamble:

Yeah. Right. Because you don’t have the sort of the wind going around. And I wonder, what are some of those other issues around? You know, growing inside, you don’t have pollinators. So initially, you know, you might have to get a couple of hours sun but then the rest of the day, you’re not getting that much sun some things do okay with that like herbs , but how do you deal with plants that might need longer sun time or need pollination? I guess that’s why you should start with the herbs they can grow, or like they don’t need pollination, they kind of self pollinating. And you know, forgot the word is for that sorry. But I think, yeah, what are your tips for those ones that are a little bit more challenging? So I’m glad we got the carrots sorted. That’s good. They need to be, take quite some time to grow.

Acadia Tucker:

Yeah, there’s a level of patience involved, especially for me with carrots, I’m like, Well, you kind of when you’re dealing with tiny spaces, you have to weigh the pros and cons is this worth taking up that much space? Right? So you kind of have to ask yourself these questions. And in the terms of growing things indoors that need pollination, right, so a lot of things are pollinated by the wind. So you can kind of get around that by setting up a fan, you know, create that, that wind environment. The other thing you can do, too, is self pollinate. And I always joke once someone does this for one season for one crop, one plant, they get this newfound appreciation for our pollinators. Because if you imagine a world where you wake up, and that’s gone, and then this, this seemingly free, you know, invisible service goes away. That’s a really big deal. So it allows you to gain some humility, when you think about that when you’re there with your little qtip rubbing pollen from

Morag Gamble:

Stuff that happens in the unseen world or just, it’s like breathing or growing, we don’t think about it, it just happened, right? But and the same thing in nature, like we often call them ecological services, right? That seems to be a very sort of anthropocentric view of life. You know, we are part of nature. But often our lens doesn’t allow us to see all the things that are part of our world that makes our world happen are the things underneath our feet that everything. So yeah, a deeper appreciation of the web of life.

Acadia Tucker:

Yeah, absolutely. And then in terms of like light, right, you’re saying, you know, not everybody has a gorgeous self-facing window. Especially if you’re in an apartment building, or wherever it may be, there’s another house, blocking the sun next to you. So I do use grow lights quite a bit when I’m growing indoors, and grow lights come in all shapes and sizes, all different price points. So you really can shop around and find something that works for you.

Morag Gamble:

I know nothing about grow lights. I’m always an outsider, because I live in the subtropics. It’s sort

Acadia Tucker:

Oh a you’ve got plenty of sunshine.

Morag Gamble:

For people like me who know nothing about growing with grow lights. Can you just give us like the quick 101 of how to set up a grow light system or what is a grow, what they are, how they work? Do they use energy? These are the sorts of questions that I kind of..

Acadia Tucker:

Growing lights have come a long way. They used to be pretty energy intensive, kind of cumbersome things. But now a lot of grow lights are made with LEDs, so they don’t get hot. They don’t use a lot of energy. And basically when the science comes down to it, you’re they’re trying to mimic the sun rays as much as possible, right? But it’s really hard to recreate something that happens in nature. We don’t fully understand all the different wavelengths of sun. So, you know over the years people focus on okay, what UV rays or what rays of light do plants need to photosynthesize? So a lot of grow lights will focus on just a few different wavelengths, right? The best grow lights are what we call, you know, include all of the wavelengths or as much of the wavelengths as they can. A full spectrum Some light, if you will. So those are usually what I tend to gravitate towards. But they do tend to be a little bit more expensive. So I’m pretty frugal myself. So I have plenty of grow lights that just do a few of the wavelengths. And they work, they work pretty well, there’s supplemental sun coming in from the windows that I think help, you know, to beef up how they’re growing. But if you’re going to grow a plant in a completely dark room without windows, you definitely want to focus on that full spectrum wavelength. The other thing I’ll mention which I did briefly say is, you know, they can have a, right, so here in Maine, it gets dark around 415 430 right now. So in order to help my plants along, you know, I like to leave micro lights on until around 7pm, which means I have quite a long window of dark hours sitting in a house in this lights on. And that can throw off kind of a different hue that you’re not used to, which is why I’ve come up here to upstairs away from the croak lights. So they can be some people can probably find them a little bit intrusive. Again, you can get around that by you know, putting your plants in a tent and putting the Grow lights and attend

Morag Gamble:

Away maybe in a you know, a carport or garage or something.

Acadia Tucker:

Exactly. So you can kind of you know, if you have enough space, you can put put the grow lights in a room where they’re not going to bother you. But again, if you get a more full spectrum light, it tends to look like our normal light bulbs a lot more. And in that case, you’re really not going to notice it at all.

Morag Gamble:

Yeah. So my other question about before we move to outdoor tiny gardens. My other question about indoor, tiny garden growing at this scale is water. So how do you manage the water and the and the leakage in a way that you’re not actually storing your floorings frozen process?

Acadia Tucker:

No, it’s a very good question. I think I mean, the, it’s a hard question, right, because on the for the plant growing side of it, you want as much drainage as possible. You want as much leaky water all over the place to help your plant roots be healthy, right. But then again, you might have hardwood floor a nice wooden countertop or window sill that you don’t want to damage. So I do rely on using those saucers that you just place under the pot, whether it’s plastic or a chipped plate that I didn’t want to throw out or it could really be anything. And you can also use what I like to call like the pot inside the pot technique. So you can have this really pretty decorative pot. That looks gorgeous, looks great goes to their home decor with no drainage holes, but then you want to put a liner pot inside of that decorative pot that’s going to adequately drain and you need to use either like stones or pebbles to elevate that liner pot away from the bottom of your decorative pot. Just to allow a space for that water to go.

Morag Gamble:

Yeah, great. And what’s your best way of watering as well? I love that idea what you just suggested that simple it’s a simple response. Thank you.

Acadia Tucker:

Very simple. Yeah.

Morag Gamble:

You know, we’re not talking automatic watering system then, you know, as imagine that you have big pots and I think my mind was going to you know, I’ve seen lots of people doing indoor sprout production and they hit like sprinklers and all sorts of things. Without doing sprinkler systems inside. It’s just simple hand pouring I’m imagining.

Acadia Tucker:

There’s a lot of hand watering, but the good news is there’s not as much evaporation indoors right? Because you don’t have the wind you don’t have the direct sun beaming on the soil. So you water a lot less frequently. You can also do things that you would normally do outside like utilize mulch to help your your soil retain moisture. You can use decorative stone mulches, pea gravel, you can I mean you can even use hay and straw like you would outside. So that’s that the watering it becomes a lot less challenging when you bring it indoors. I also just like to use like a just a squirt spray bottle to maybe spray the leaves keep the humidity up if you know we do run a woodstove so it gets pretty dry. So keeping some of my more tropical plants kind of feeling humid I do kind of spritz them which helps, but I love I have a few watering cans that I like to use. You can also use I think people call them water steaks. I call them water steaks, but it’s this bowl with a straw and you fill it and you flip it upside down and that’s it slowly drains into the soil. Okay? So like if I know I’m going to go away for a week or two, you know, I want to set my plants up with someone or in that regard, you can make them your there’s tons of tons of DIY versions, or you can get these really ornate, beautiful blown glass ones as well.

Morag Gamble:

Oh, wow. The other thing I was gonna going to ask I just maybe we can like this is sort of a segue into the soil question that I have for you about living soil. But we’re still sticking on the the idea of the indoor plants, what do you feed your indoor plants to make sure that the sort of the food for the plants is there for them to continue to grow and thrive, and they don’t start to sort of yellow, and what Yeah, plants inside is

Acadia Tucker:

A unique challenge with container gardening, right, because in outdoor gardens and ground gardens, the roots can grow and expand and find what they need a little bit better. So when you’re growing in containers, you definitely have to take a little bit more care in terms of feeding your soil. So I always, if room allows, I always add compost at least twice a year to just the surface of my containers, and that helps a lot. Or if I’m repotting a plant. So say it’s grown out of its current pot, and I want to put it into a larger one, I use that opportunity to again invigorate the soil with more compost or powdered soil amendments. When I’m in a pinch, and I know that you know, there’s absolutely no matter, no more materials can fit inside this container. I’ll rely on liquid fertilizers, and one of my favorite is just like a fish emulsion. But I do have to warn, it’s you know, it’s some of these, especially a lot of organic liquid fertilizers have a very unique odor.

Morag Gamble:

That’s a very polite way of saying it.

Acadia Tucker:

And when you bring that into the home, sometimes it can be a little offensive. For example, when I first got into container gardening and researching my books and stuff and bringing a lot more plants inside my home, I just use my favorite fish emulsion fertilizer that I would use in the garden for my tomatoes, and I watered all the plants inside and my partner comes home and he starts you know, doing the nose thing. And he goes, Oh my gosh, something’s died in the walls. And he’s he doesn’t know that I fertilized all the plants. He’s going over he smells and he goes right here. There’s something dead in the walls right here. And Well, lo and behold, my
tomatoes are right under him.

Morag Gamble:

Oh, yeah, that would do it.

Acadia Tucker:

That would do it. But there the the nice thing is you can kind of neutralize those odors as well. So like, I’ll put in a few drops of like an essential oil like lavender. Okay, into the water and can with the fertilizer. And that goes a long way as neutralizing that kind of oh, that’s you? Well, yeah,

Morag Gamble:

I’ve never thought mixing essential oils with fish emulsion.

Acadia Tucker:

The things we do right.

Morag Gamble:

Oh, that’s wonderful. Yeah, things you do for the plants and growing food. Yeah. And you know, what you saying is really, entirely, very straightforward. And very simple steps. And there’s nothing rocket science about this is it? It’s just..

Acadia Tucker:

Absolutely. And that’s why I get so passionate about talking to people about it. Because these are all, like you said simple steps that you can all do. That’s not crazy. It’s not out of the box. It’s I don’t want to say easy because I feel like when people fail, that’s, you know, they’re not failing because they couldn’t do something easy there. It’s just a lot more matter of fact, and straightforward. And I think people lead themselves to believe because maybe they have killed a few plants in their life. Or maybe they always, you know, I hate when people say, Oh, I have a black thumb, I can’t grow anything. And they kind of use that as an offense not to try anymore. Right, but there’s always room for improvement. I kill plants all the time. And I’m a professional grower, right?

Morag Gamble:

It is about being in that playful space and experimenting with it and when something goes wrong to you know, to notice. So you know, if that plant dies maybe take out the soil, see what’s going on in the soil and feel its moisture, have a look, smell the soil was it you know, like, see what’s going on and see if we can troubleshoot that and that’s doesn’t. Yeah, I just did a workshop the other day in the city about small gardens and getting your edible garden started and someone came up to me at the end said I was a bit embarrassed to ask you during the session because I feel like a bit of a dummy but I you know, basil it should be really easy to grow, but it died. I said, it’s okay. It’s an annual it will die. Like, Oh, I didn’t kill it? Sometimes I find that no, there is a there is this sort of a gap of I mean, you know, be playful with it keep researching, keep asking other people, experiment with it and you know, you’re the joy of it is once you get a few going and a few really hearty ones happening, and you start to experiment. It’s just a wonderful thing.

Acadia Tucker:

The best thing about growing food and gardening in general is that trial and error process, like, oh, geez, oh, that didn’t work. Let me try something new. And for me that that’s what’s fun, because each season is different, you keep building upon what you’ve learned, and there’s no real ceiling to that knowledge. So every every growing season, every plant, it’s just that opportunity to learn something new.

Morag Gamble:

Yeah what I learned about bananas the other day, because I have bananas out here in my in my garden. You can eat the young shoots, you can eat, obviously, the bananas and even the banana peel, you can have the green bananas, you can eat the banana flowers and all the different parts. And there was a woman in the workshop, the same workshop the other day, she said, Have you ever tried the banana hearts, like the stalks banana stems, and I said what? I always just use the banana trunks as you know, to put on contour to help build up the soil. So you just peel off the edges and use that as marked and then you get this stem in the middle which you can chop up and use it as a vegetable. I didn’t know that I’m so excited. You know, this

Acadia Tucker:

I’ve had palm hearts before and I imagine it’s it’s very similar, but I didn’t draw that connection.

Morag Gamble:

I love this possibility of always learning something new about either plants, or how to grow them or, you know, experimenting yourself. But before we go on, though, this sort of cycle about we were talking about soil and soil in pots. And one of the biggest things that I always am talking about within Permaculture is about the basis of creating, like a thriving and abundant garden. And, you know, that grows healthy, robust food that’s, you know, resilient, all sorts of things is having a living soil. So, how do you create living soil in a pot? That’s my big question for you know, that I know, it’s entirely possible, but what are the ways that we can do it and make sure that it continues to stay thriving? Because it’s easy for life to die in a pot.

Acadia Tucker:

Absolutely. And you know, that’s still a question. I’m figuring out how to do better and better and better. And obviously, for me in my outdoor large containers, like I would consider a raised bed a container because your soil’s confined by walls. So out in my raised beds, I absolutely know I have beautiful, teeming ecosystem of life out there, it helps because it has an open bottom right? so that soil in the container is actually in contact with the ground. So bugs, microorganisms, fungi, all that can kind of naturally colonize that container. But it gets a lot more complicated when you’re talking about a container, say indoors. So the way I tried to build that same kind of regenerative living soil ecosystem is I do rely very heavily on compost-based potting mixes. I try to avoid peat, just for kind of the ecological reasons. And it’s pretty inert, it doesn’t offer that much plus it can kind of mess with your pH a little bit as well. So I rely very heavily on very heavy based compost potting mixes. And you can do different things to kind of you can have perlite, vermiculite, I try to use pumice stone, just because it’s goes through less chemical processes. And one could argue,

Morag Gamble:

Can we just stop there and say, what is the difference between perlite, vermiculite and pumice?

Acadia Tucker:

I don’t know if I have the best answer for that. Basically, they’re all used right for aeration and some more than others a little bit of water retention. They’re all minerals from what I can speak to. But perlite and vermiculite go through these chemical processes that make them kind of puff up like a cheese puff so that they have more surface area. Whereas Pumice Stone is a more naturally occurring. Let’s develop volcanic rock that has all those air pockets kind of naturally in it. So yes, it is mined and is dug up and it is shipped. all across the world when you’re speaking environmentally about it, but it’s not kind of processed in a, you know, manufactured plant unless, of course, they’re dyeing it or something like that. So when I can find it and it’s not always easiest, I do rely on that for my aeration. But then, you know, that kind of living ecosystem aspect of the soil and the pots I do use soil inoculants. So I’m actually because the containers not open to the ground, like my race beds where they can naturally flourish, I do use say, you can buy powdered mycelium you can buy cotton, you know, kind of cultures. So I do use mycelium the most. And like I say, you just kind of mix it into your potting mix, you want to make sure you know, it’s not freezing or it’s not too dry, you know, you have to make the conditions right for your soil inoculants as well. There’s even, I guess you could call them tinctures of just like living Oregon, a whole host of different living organisms that you can just kind of include, like you can put it in your water and can and watered into your soil. And that will kind of inoculate your soil. And then from there, it’s up to you to keep feeding it you so you still need organic matter, you still need to like I said make those conditions tolerable for them. So that’s when I do like to use mulch is on top of my potted plants as well because again, just like you’re feeding the soil out doors, when you’re when you’re mulching with anything organic, you know organic matter based, you can do the same for your containers. And I will have to admit it’s, it’s it is a big experiment. And, and it’s hard to say if the microorganisms I introduce are living and thriving and carrying over from year after year, or if just this ritual of me inoculating my soil is keeping up a community of soil organisms within that container, there’s still a lot of research that can be done a lot of experiments that can be done, but from what they found, it really helps those potted plants flourish.

Morag Gamble:

And that was what I was gonna ask you next what have you noticed between a pot that you don’t do that inoculation and upon the plants that you do that? What’s the difference.

Acadia Tucker:

I think one of the biggest difference is they just do a better job of growing. So you know, there’s obviously more nutrient cycling and things happening. But have you ever like grown a house plant, and you know, it gets so bone dry and dusty and you go to water and all the water just leaks out the sides immediately and it’s never sinking into the soil. I find that happens a lot less when I tried to cultivate this living soil in containers because it has the air pockets, it has the existing moisture, it has kind of that soil aggregates that are going to make watering your pots a lot better. So I find that it just it. I mean, it’s very hard to recreate garden soil in a container.

Morag Gamble:

It keeps the condition of the soil for longer and it keeps it Yeah, I understand. Yeah.

Acadia Tucker:

Yeah, yeah. So I just find that. Yeah, my plants are just happier. And then you have kind of these you know, a lot of things that the soil organisms do, we still don’t really understand what but there’s, you know, pests, and disease defenses. There’s kind of all this stuff we don’t really understand exactly yet. That cultivating a living soil can help to recreate those conditions that these plants would naturally be thriving.

Morag Gamble:

And so what kind of size pot do you recommend them for having that living system? I mean, imagine you couldn’t really get much of a living system in a tiny pot. So what’s the when you’re talking about tiny gardens that have living soil? What’s the size we’re exploring?

Acadia Tucker:

Yeah, as I mentioned, the easiest like I 100% know I’m achieving this in my raised beds that are like four by four, right? With a decent depth, you know, six inches minimum. I believe it’s possible and say like, I have a seven to 10 gallon pot as well to kind of create this the self sustaining ecosystem that just takes care of itself. Once you get smaller than that I’ve had you know, then it becomes two. The smaller your pot gets, the harder it is to feed that soil right with compost or you know any other nutrients that you want to any organic matter that you want to add to the system. So, once you get to that smaller pot size, you’re very limited on what you can add to that pot. It’s kind of, you know, either you’re going to have to completely redo the soil and put it in new pots each, you know, season or month or however you want to do it. But yeah, I would definitely stick to the larger, deeper containers, if you’re looking to experiment with, with really cultivating living soil in a container.

Morag Gamble:

Yeah, great. I just want to come back to that point about refreshing pots. And you were saying every season or even every month, you know, and I think possibly this is actually repotting plants and adding more compost in the fact that, you know, that is the entire life or source of nutrients that the plant can access, we need to keep that in mind. So, you said a month, that’s, that’s, that’s quite often.

Acadia Tucker:

That’s more of like you’re growing something from seed, right? And you know if you keep potting it, because you can have a pot that’s too large for a plant, right? The roots don’t absorb the moisture, it can be soggy, you’ll get disease or molds. So, keeping a plant in the right size pot can be really important for that plant success. So as the plants grow, so say, if I wanted to grow a tomato indoors, you know, I’m going to start my seedling in a cell tray, very tiny inch tray, and then I’ll upload it to a two inch pot and then maybe a four inch pot before I put it in, you know, a gallon pot. So each of those steps is another opportunity to introduce more compost or we’re, you know, a refresh of that soil in that container.

Morag Gamble:

Yeah, correct. Okay, that makes a whole lot of sense. Yeah. So let’s just step outside in terms of tiny gardens and let’s talk maybe a little bit more about growing fruit trees in pots and, and thinking a bit about design and thinking about trying to create an ecological system in a pot with a fruit tree. What have been some of your best experiments, we were getting fruit trees growing.

Acadia Tucker:

Yeah, so fruit fruit trees are kind of been one of my grand experiments, right? Because, for me growing in containers allows me to grow foods that I traditionally can’t grow in Maine, right? Like bananas, pomegranates, the passion fruit. So all of these things I wouldn’t normally try to grow because they don’t survive here. But the ability to let them grow outdoors in the summer, and then bringing them indoors for the winter opened up all these new plants that I can kind of play with and experiment with. So that’s been really, I think, by far that’s my favorite benefit of tiny gardening is the ability for me to do more with less. But in terms of kind of creating that ecological space, say on your patio, right? I really like to use fruit trees, for example, they’re tall, they produce shade. So I like to grow more shade loving things, you know, at the base, or in pots at the base. So I would might not be able to grow lettuce on my porch throughout the summer, but with the shade of a banana tree. I can.

Morag Gamble:

Yeah, great. So it can kind of use microclimates.

Acadia Tucker:

Exactly. Yep, exactly. And then there’s other things too, you can plant for pollinators. So mixing in flowers around my containers in my containers of plants to kind of attract the types of bugs and the types of situations that I want for that small space.

Morag Gamble:

Have you played with gardens..

Acadia Tucker:

Like the fabric bags?

Morag Gamble:

Yeah, the fabric bags you’ve ever played?

Acadia Tucker:

Yeah, yes, yes.

Morag Gamble:

What are tips for those? heavy..

Acadia Tucker:

So I really enjoy those because they really do help to cultivate that living soil environment because they allow that soil to breathe. So when you’re growing in a plastic container, it can be a little bit suffocating, you’re closing off that airflow and that circulation. When you grow in plastic pots, you can have more issues with drainage and soggy soil. So those fabric pots are amazing. Because it lets the soil breathe in a way that it normally would. They can be a little bit cumbersome because they’re a bit awkward. You know, there’s not much integrity to hold all that weight. So I tend to fill them where I want them to be and not move them around. And they can, depending on which ones you buy, they can deteriorate. You know, they don’t last forever. So not that, that I’m not in love with but the price point matches, you know, kind of its durability. The other benefit I really like to the fabric pots is say if you’re a renter, right, you can just pack up your pots into a nice little box and move to your next home. And I because I think that that is one of the limiting things, especially like me recently moving, having all these indoor plants, two pickup trucks kind of cart them away. But when you’re growing annuals, and in those fabric pots, that process of moving your garden becomes really, really pragmatic.

Morag Gamble:

Yeah, yeah. And have you have you noticed at all the possibility of growing things to seed in a tiny garden? Or is it? Because the plants are limited? Do you find that the vigor of the plants is not quite enough fruit to successfully go to seed? Or have you been able to do that? Maybe in the larger pots again, maybe? Yeah,

Acadia Tucker:

No, that’s a great question. And to be honest, I’m always just so excited. I’m like, Oh, I have a carrot. I’m not gonna wait for it. So I’ve actually I’ve never allowed myself the patience to let things go to see for more annuals, like, say, arugula, it’s pretty prone to going to seed as soon as it’s unhappy. So sometimes growing in a container, can make it go to seed faster. Lettuces and annuals and stuff like that. But when it comes to biennials and perennials, I have to admit I didn’t I do not have the patience.

Morag Gamble:

No, no, no, not for those [inaudible], they get messy. For the ecological that’d be attracting lots of beneficial insects as well, I suppose. Yeah, absolutely.

Acadia Tucker:

So there are some herbs like say, like my cilantro every spring I planted at the base of trees, or if I have a larger container, and I just have some extra room. Cilantro is one of the things that I plant quite regularly. And that always goes to seed. And I’ve started to leave I used to cut the bolt off and try to coax it along a little bit longer. But now I find myself letting it go to flower. And now and that just becomes another component that’s going to attract a pollinator to come.

Morag Gamble:

Yeah, and they just, and they, they’re just a buzz mine have just finished the moment, they just getting all the seeds of drying and waiting to sort of let them scatter out in the garden and brings them into the kitchen as well. It’s just such a beautiful plant to to grow. It’s such an easy one. So let’s talk a little bit more about then. Design. So design of your balconoes. If you just got a small balcony, what would be the first things you would think about in terms of setting that the the layout of a balcony garden to get them the most food possible out of that area?

Acadia Tucker:

Yeah you always need to look at where’s your light source, right? Before you consider anything you need to figure out, where’s that sunny corner, where’s that shady corner so that you can place plants appropriately, right, you don’t want to be fighting nature, you want to be working with it. So at any point, you can find yourself working with nature, it’s going to make your job a lot easier. But then I like to kind of employ these design principles that say a florist to my views, right. And it’s kind of cheesy cliche, saying but they always say you want to aim to thrill fill and spill. So you always want that thriller plant, whether it’s the tall or the most attractive one that’s kind of like your centerpiece. And then you can view that as a single large pot or a cluster of smaller pots, right, we’re not tied to just being one container. It can be also how you arrange your containers, but you always want that one thrill that one center tall piece and then around that you have your fill. So you know typically an example would be my thriller could be you know, a bean plant crawling up a trellis and then around the base of that bean plant. I could plant carrots and lettuce. You know, they they’re kind of fluffier, they take up space on that middle tier, and then you can increase eke out the last square inch of every container by growing things up flop over the edge or the spillers. So you know, tomatoes can do that. And beans, peas, you know certain herbs can do that as well. cucumbers, squash pumpkins, if you really want to, you know, they just need their roots in the soil, but they do all their growing outside of the container. So you can really maximize your space and do it in a way that’s actually, you know, quite attractive.

Morag Gamble:

I love that I get I’ve not heard that not being a florist through skill that’s, it’s so easy to remember, but

Acadia Tucker:

and again, it’s using your, you know, you’re thinking vertically as well as horizontally. So you want to use every, you know, tier of space that you have. And it is very aesthetically pleasing. And then my favorite benefit is, you know, you can really maximize the space you have.

Morag Gamble:

Yeah, yeah, fantastic. Now on the balcony too what would be your best advice for people doing compost on a balcony? So we know we need to keep the soil, adding compost, to how can we do compost without having a big yard? Or, you know, that kind of thing? What’s your ideas on that?

Acadia Tucker:

Yeah, there’s there’s two methods, there’s like a microbial composting method, I can’t remember the name off the top of my head right now, which is terrible. Which uses a much smaller space, but I love to promote worm composting in small spaces. So you can just have your worm bin. And there’s a few steps, you know, definitely research it a little bit before you just dive in because they are living creatures. And you want to make sure you’re treating them appropriately. But once you kind of set up your bin would usually put like, you know, could be a plastic tote with holes drilled into it, you get your carbon source in there like shredded newspaper, or you know, things like that. And then you can start adding in your food waste. And depending on how many worms you have, is, will determine the quickness that all these things get broken down. But then as a result, you have this beautiful worm casting deep rich compost, it doesn’t smell, it doesn’t take up a lot of space, it’s easy just to sprinkle onto your plants, you can store it under your kitchen counter, if it’s cold outside, it kind of really opens up composting to, you know, a tiny space.

Morag Gamble:

Because that’s a thing, isn’t it that the worms operating in a dark space, as long as they’ve got enough warmth to keep going. They don’t want to be obviously too hot or too cold that just that nice warm that is comfortable for us. So if it’s a comfortable temperature for us, it’ll also be a comfortable temperature for the worms.

Acadia Tucker:

I think the tricky thing for people when they start permaculture worm composting is a lot of people might tend to overfeed their worms. So they put in more food than that can easily break down. And that’s when you’re going to get like a bad smell or maybe fruit flies. So just knowing how much you can add and then you know, worms can be picky. There are some foods they don’t love. So if you realize that you’re putting stuff in the bin that isn’t getting eaten, it’s a pretty good indication that hey, these guys don’t really like your lemon peels. So maybe you shouldn’t put them in there anymore.

Morag Gamble:

Yeah. And so just yet again, that experimental approach and being in observation and noticing that, I mean, a trick that I always isn’t really a trick, but a tip that I have to always when I’m using my worm farm is that the last thing that I put on the top is either hay or paper or something. So see, when you open up the lid, you’re not seeing all the food scraps because that’s when you end up getting the fruit fly type thing. So if you put something in then you’ve got either other leaves or paper or something on top of that.

Acadia Tucker:

Yeah, or even like I like to use the like wood chips that you would put in like a chicken pen. And for their bedding like it’s just really thin wood shavings that is just a nice source of carbon. That if you know you don’t have newspapers to shred up, you can easily get it at your hardware store.

Morag Gamble:

Yeah, and a blanket on the top. So, you know, I most of my clothes are all compostable clothes. So when something kind of completely go through something, it just goes into their worm farm. Like even though sheets bedsheets, so when they’re finished, that becomes the blanket on top, that just keeps everything a bit more moist, and then they end up eating that and I’ve been able to pull out the last around the edge of the bedsheet and then everything else is gone. I mean, that’s the thing about even in a small space like this, you could get this far more circular economy, this nutrient cycling happening even for things that you don’t necessarily think of so you know, if compostability becomes a key criteria of what you bring into your home Then through the systems, you get that cycle happening, you can actually go into your food growing. And when you think about I suppose that you’re going to be eating it, you also choose differently what you bring in.

Acadia Tucker:

Sure. Right, you are what you eat, you know, exactly. I think that’s fantastic. And, and I think the biggest critique that I hear from people is, oh, I just don’t have that much space, right. And there is an element of creativity you need when you’re trying to design a tiny garden, specifically, when it becomes indoors, right, if you’re sharing your space with this, so people say, Oh, I don’t even have room for a bag of soil, or, you know that there are space constraints that that make it a little bit more difficult. And I, I always just like to point out, you know, with a little creativity, you can solve all sorts of problems. So, you know, you don’t have room for a bag of soil. You know, I’ve had people dump out a bag of soil and those really thin Tupperware, totes, that you know, are meant to slide under your bed, and you can store your soil under your bed. You know, there’s just outside the box, creative solutions, that if you’re willing to make them, they’ll definitely present themselves.

Morag Gamble:

Yeah, that’s a great idea. Wonderful. I was also just thinking too, about being creative about use of space. I mean, I wonder about, you know, we also have the possibility of using, you know, walled gardens, if you’ve got a got a wall that’s facing towards the sun, you can have things attached to the wall, and they come in all different shapes and sizes, homemade ones, or prefab ones. And then I wonder whether you’ve experimented with hanging pots at all with edibles. So you get the one down to the roof as well.

Acadia Tucker:

Absolutely. I haven’t done hanging pots indoors. I think my partner would be a little.

Morag Gamble:

It’s like, No, you’re going to far.

Acadia Tucker:

I think of his bumping his head hanging pots. But no, I’ve definitely used like, you know, like, I’ve experimented with, you know, last year’s plant hanger, and I’ve done tomatoes, I’ve done cucumbers, that way, I’ve done peas and beans. That way, I will have to stress though piensan bees, that while they do spill quite nicely, they’re always trying to grow up. So find anything that they can attach to to start going going the direction they want. But it works beautifully. You can do it with strawberries, as well, it works really well with. And again, it’s it once, you know, realize you have a lot more space, when you start to view any space as a growing space, right. And that’s including this vertical space that normally we never really consider that much when you have a lot of inground space. So you know, there’s the table top, but you can fit as many planters on as well. But yeah, like you said, there’s a there’s a beam above that table, I can hang up from that as well.

Morag Gamble:

So one thing that I I’ve experimented too with hanging pots even sweet potatoes, you plan a sweet potato in there and it will spill out over with all the leaves. And the leaves are like a spinach. So you know, even regardless of how much sweet potato root you get, you can be eating, the more you trim, the more you get. And so absolutely wonderful possibilities.

Acadia Tucker:

They’re really pretty leaves too. You know, speaking from that floral design aspect too like a lot of potted flower arrangements include some sort of sweet potato vine because it’s that nice spilling element.

Morag Gamble:

Yeah, that’s right. I never heard about that either before. I’s true, though. You know, I often go out into my garden, and I pick a whole lot of flowering vegetables or herbs and make bouquets and bring them in. And we can use those as garnishes. So you could actually have pots in the middle of your table, which you could be trimming from and having these garnishes, why not, you know?

Acadia Tucker:

Can you imagine? We just had our big Thanksgiving holiday here in the US. And I always my dream is to have like that center table arrangement be the herbs or the garnish or something that people can just clip right there and add to their plates, it would be really special.

Morag Gamble:

Yeah, that’s really nice. There’s a Christmas idea! Maybe if you want to do this before Christmas. Table decorations of edible pots of herbs and you just leave some scissors around the edges, for clippings. There’s been so many tips that you’ve suggested it’s absolutely brilliant. One of the things that what all of your books do are really about calls to action for for being more ecological. It’s about climate action. It’s about what we can do in our own homes and our gardens and in our food choices. But also, as we’re talking now, right, in our home with the tiny gardens, I think it’s absolutely fantastic. There’s a quote that I read of yours is talking about, this is all about gardening as the future dependent upon it. And maybe as a way to sort of close. Just want to talk a little bit about, what do you mean by that?

Acadia Tucker:

Yeah, so I mean, one of my big passions about growing food and gardening is that soil ability to store carbon, right. And obviously, that gets turned on its head a little bit when we’re talking about tiny gardens, and victory gardens because they don’t quite have that power. But what I think is interesting about growing in a small space is one learning how to grow your own food, right? Like, that’s a really powerful skill, that I think a lot of people would benefit from practicing on a daily basis, right. So you know, if you can imagine a dystopic future where, you know, maybe the sun’s covered up, or maybe it’s too hot to grow food outside you have this climate, this indoor climate, that you can utilize. And I think, you know, it sounds horrible to say, but I think we will need to lean on that a little bit more in the future. And without, you know, cultivating the skills on how to do that, you’re, you lose a lot of that self reliance. Right. So for yourself and for your community to develop these skills, has a lot of power and weight behind it.

Morag Gamble:

Yeah, absolutely. I think you I think you’re right. And, you know, we’re hearing talk, even here on some of the outskirts of Sydney, one of the cities in Australia that 50 degrees in summer is going to be kind of a new normal. I mean, that’s horrific. Absolutely. So how could you possibly go through there and like you’re saying having those skills and making it a new normal, that growing food is something that we do know how to do, and we can do it in really awkward situations or highly urbanized situations here in Australia, we have possibly, well, I think it’s well over 80%, maybe 85% People who live in cities and more and more in smaller towns. So these tiny food gardening skills are really quite essential. So thank you so much for writing this book. I mean, it’s such a valuable contribution. And I wonder, where can people find this book and find more about the work that you do?

Acadia Tucker:

Sure. So you can, we love to support buying from your local bookstore. I know being in Australia. Unfortunately, my book won’t be any local bookstore. But anybody who’s listening today or in the future can find it at stonepierpress.org or on my website, Acadia Tucker dot you can order it from there as well. They make really good gifts.

Morag Gamble:

Down below. Yeah.

Acadia Tucker:

You can even find it on Amazon, if that’s your last resort as well.

Morag Gamble:

Yeah, and maybe just mentioned a little bit about your co-author for this. And as the and also the stonepierpress is an interesting, independent publisher that does good stuff, as well.

Acadia Tucker:

Yeah, and we have new books in the pipeline. Just speak about my co-author on this book, Emily Castle, she did an amazing job. She taught herself how to illustrate using the computer for this book. She’s just a phenomenal, talented human. And it was just so great to have a partner this time going through the process, because it is an arduous one. So I have a teammate there. And the support was really fantastic. But as you mentioned, stonepierpress is, you know, they only publish ecological books. So there’s a great book if you’re interested in turning your lawn into a meadow. There’s some interesting cookbooks down the pipe. So it’s definitely a website if you guys are interested in this kind of stuff to keep going back to, there’s new articles popped up. So it is a really great resource for anything kind of regenerative agriculture.

Morag Gamble:

And so your other books so there’s growing perennial foods and also growing good food that Citizens Guide to backyard carbon farming as well as your book tiny gardens growing good food without a yard and they’re all available on stonepierpress . So we’ll put the link below. Thank you so much for joining me again today Acadia. It’s been absolutely a delight to see you again and to hear about the new directions of your of your. You know, the possibilities are endless. Now you can be market gardening can be backyard gardening, or it could be indoor gardening and you’ve got it all covered.

Acadia Tucker:

Well, it’s it’s funny you say that my newest adventure which you know, maybe one day there’ll be a book about I’m definitely taking a little bit of a break, but I’m kind of exploring the realm of seaweed farming. So ocean regenerative farming.

Morag Gamble:

Oh, I would love to find out. When it next comes out and get you back on the show to talk about seaweed farming. Fantastic. The other thing that I would like to experiment too would be doing on sort of things like spirulina, a friend of mine who lives in an apartment in Nairobi grows spirulina in a fish tank in her living room. Oh, that would be so fantastic.

Acadia Tucker:

I’d love to chat with her. Yeah.

Morag Gamble:

So so many possibilities in this in these tiny garden spaces and spaces that we’re not normally thinking about to grow food. And I think really putting creative thinking caps on and out possibility of buying with it and experimenting. Yeah. And then sharing it as much as possible. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you again, Acadia. It’s been absolutely delightful to speak with you today. And I hope that you have a wonderful Christmas and I look forward to chatting again.

Acadia Tucker:

You too. Thank you so much for having me on.

Morag Gamble:

Okay, take care. Bye. Thanks everyone for tuning into this Sense Making In A Changing World episode. I’m delighted to have been able to share this conversation with Acadia Tucker with you. Remember, check out the show notes for more links, and leave a lovely review, subscribe to get notifications of our weekly podcast episodes. And thanks to the Permaculture Education Institute for supporting this show. Wishing you all the very best.

It’s my pleasure to welcome back to the Sense-Making in a Changing World podcast –  author, climate activist, regenerative farmer and tiny gardener, Acadia Tucker. Acadia is also an ambassador for regenerative agriculture with the Rodale institute.

Acadia was actually my very first guest on this podcast. We explored the themes in her first 2 books – Growing Perennial Foods: A field guide to raising resilient herbs, fruits, & vegetables , Growing Good Food: A citizen’s guide to backyard carbon farming

This time we talk about her latest book Tiny Victory Gardens: Growing Food without a yard. We get super practical in this chat because I know its something so many people are keen to learn about – particularly if you are renting.