Garden When You Don't Have a Clue, Don't Want to Use Pesticides, & Have No Green Thumb with Jill Ragan

Do you have to be a good planner to start a garden? How can you avoid pests if you don’t use pesticides? Are “companion” plants a thing? What plants are best near others?

These are some of the questions addressed by Jill Ragan of Whispering Willow Farm in this week’s podcast episode. Jill is the author of “The Tiny but Mighty Farm,” and she has lots of ideas for how to get started gardening. She made plenty of mistakes that she openly shares so that we can learn from her and avoid duplicating the bad stuff. She offers ideas for both the beginner gardener and the one with more experience under their belt.

Since Jill is a “market gardener,” she knows how to scale up and what works for gardeners with a lot of lands and those with very little. She covers the importance of practical space usage, why string trellises work better than plastic cages, and more.

Visit Jill’s website: thewhisperingwillowfarm.com

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Episode Transcript

Within the below transcript the bolded text is Hilda Labrada Gore and the regular text is Jill Ragan.

Are you interested in starting a garden but not sure where to start? Do brown thumbs run in the family? No green thumb, no problem. This is Episode 479, and our guest is Jill Ragan. She is the author of The Tiny But Mighty Farm and the Owner of Whispering Willow Farm, nestled in Central Arkansas. Jill is an educator who inspires and encourages thousands on her social media platforms and YouTube.

In this episode, she gives simple and practical ideas for where to start. She gives ideas of what to plant and why. She goes over the basics for the novice and why soil health is critical, for example. She also offers tools for the more experienced gardener, including how to use a string trellis and why it’s superior to cages and other more conventional gardening systems.

Jill also goes over how to manage pests without harsh pesticides, think insect netting and handpicking, and why she is convinced you can’t afford not to garden for your health. Finally, Jill explains how she did everything wrong at first, which is also why she’s committed to educating future gardeners. She made mistakes so that we don’t have to.

Before we get into the conversation, I want to let you know that censorship is real. Let’s have a direct line of communication. Join the Weston A. Price Foundation email list to stay abreast of action alerts in your area, along with important topics of interest, food freedom, upcoming events, and more. We’ll keep you posted on all of it. We also won’t spam you, so we will be judicious in what we send you. Go to WestonAPrice.org and click on the yellow button on our homepage to sign up for our email list.

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Visit Jill‘s website

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Welcome to the show, Jill. We’re so glad you’re here.

Thanks for having me.

Tips For Beginners

I know you have a history of farming and providing for your family, but you also have a history of educating, inspiring, and encouraging people who want to garden and that is the focus of this episode. I want you to frame it for beginners. Where do we even start if we want to start a garden? I feel like it can be overwhelming when we stop and notice that we have to pay attention to the climate, where we live, what plants thrive there, and all these things. It can seem like a lot. Where do you begin? Tips for beginners, please.

I would start by encouraging people to be motivated with the spaces that they’re in. We live in a culture of going big or going home. If you want to provide food for your family, you have to sell your house in the suburbs. You have to buy a big piece of land. You need tractors and equipment. I want to encourage you guys that it’s not true. Whether you are in an apartment, whether you are in suburbia, or maybe you are rural in the country, you can grow food where you are.

Wise Traditions | Jill Ragan | Gardening Tip — Gardening Tips: Whether you are in an apartment, in suburbia, or in the country, grow food where you are.

1) If you’re a beginner, I want you to be encouraged by that, and 2) Yes, there are a lot of things that play into the effect of that climate zone, but you have to have a plan. What is it that you want to do and achieve? I feel like for many of us, it’s very easy and common to want to do all of the things, grow all of the things, and be that person we are inspired by on social media. I am guilty of it myself, but you’re going to get overwhelmed.

You’re going to end up having a lot of issues, whether that’s with pests, disease, burnout, you name it. I like to encourage beginners to plant a seed, buy soil, or whatever before they sit down at their table with a pen and a notepad, and let’s get back to the basics. What is it that you want to achieve? Do you want to reduce your grocery budget? Maybe you just do not want to have to buy tomatoes for the year. You want to can all your salsa, diced tomatoes, or marinara sauce.

What is that tangible and attainable goal that you can do with relatively no experience? Instead of growing a garden where you’ve got tomatoes, pepper, squash, zucchini, or cucumbers. You have twenty different varieties and no idea how to grow them, but you set the goal of, “I don’t want to have to buy any tomato products from the grocery store.” You can just focus that first season on growing tomatoes. You’re learning about varieties that do well in your climate.

You’re learning how to add amendments. You’re learning how to prune and trellis those tomatoes. You have to have a clear idea of your and your family’s goals and then be okay with starting small. That next garden year, maybe you add jalapenos. Maybe we’re talking about, “We want to make some sauce over the year. We’re going to add in another crop. We’re going to learn how to nurture that crop. How does that crop grow and thrive in our climate each year? Keep adding on that, but don’t overwhelm yourself. Have a clear plan with realistic expectations.

Having a clear understanding of your and your family’s goals is crucial, followed by embracing the concept of starting small.

I love that as a starting place, and I’m not a huge planner, but I think if you just ask yourself the question you were asking, Jill, “What do I want? What is my goal here?” You’ve also helped us to realize we need realistic goals and realistic expectations. You’re also reminding me of something Justin Rhodes said, which is only plant what you’re going to eat or use because what if you don’t like squash? For goodness sakes, don’t plant it.

For us, we deal with squash bugs so bad and they’re super invasive. For me, it is more affordable and a better use of my time and labor to buy squash and zucchini from the farmer’s market every year, then grow it myself. You will not catch me growing corn. You’ll not catch me growing squash or zucchini. There’s no efficient way to trellis that. It brings in pests. It’s just not worth it.

I can support another farmer who has dedicated his whole career to, “We’re going to combat against these. I’m going to succession plant it.” It goes back to I don’t have to do it all. I’m not called to do it all. I’m going to feel good about what I’m doing and I’m going to source out the things that would require more time, energy, and labor out of me.

Jill, what did you start with? I’m curious.

I started with everything, which is why I am giving the advice I give now. I grew watermelons, tomatoes, and beans in my first little suburban backyard. I joke about it in my book that these things rotted on my kitchen counter because I didn’t eat them. I grew a garden before I learned how to adopt a healthy lifestyle. I was in college for agriculture. I took a plant science class I was sold. “I want to do this.”

I borrowed a David Brown tractor from my employer at the time. I tilled up my backyard. Now, I practice and teach no-till. There were so many things, but I grew everything. I got overwhelmed and I had no success, but that was a good learning opportunity for me like, “Why did I grow tomatoes if I hated tomatoes?” Why did I grow cantaloupe when that’s not even really something I buy at the store.”

It allowed me to realize that there has to be a little bit of strategy to this. Now years later, so much of the success of my garden is from planning. By nature, I’m not a planner at all. I’m very much a free spirit. I do what feels right. I am very intuitive, but to reach the goals I want to reach for my family, I have to dedicate and be more goal-oriented when it comes to the garden.

I feel like I’m wired like you. I like to go where the wind blows or what I’m feeling, but I still plan things. “What am I going to eat for breakfast? How are we going to do this barbecue with the family?” I am planning. I don’t think there’s anyone who doesn’t plan something. Life doesn’t just happen by accident.

Seedlings Or Seeds?

I want to ask you now. I have a friend who’s into this and has a lot more land than I do, but she’s also just making better use of her land than I do. She has a lot of little seedlings or sprouts inside under certain lights. At this time of year, it’s May, and I know it varies according to zone, but is it too late to get going with the garden and should we start with seedlings or seeds?

Not at all. It’s never too late because we can always grow something and we do a lot of succession planting, which is how we are able to grow year-round. Literally, every single week, whether it’s food or flowers, I have things that I’m starting and I’m transplanting out. That is how we achieve the success of growing year-round. The downfall of succession planting in some of our zones and waiting until later, when most people would deem the normal time to plant a garden, is that if you want to buy transplants, you might have a harder time sourcing them.

We’re super rural and you’re only finding transplants at an associated farmer’s co-op or a feed store. They’re only going to be carrying those during the peak time. You can’t even find those in the fall and the winter. To achieve year-round gardening, I have to start my things from seed and I’m growing a lot of the things that I don’t have access to here.

Even if you don’t have a large piece of land, but you have a shelf, a dresser, some grow lights, and a rack, you can easily start your own things inside. Make that one-time investment that you can use year after year, year-round. You can certainly start from seed. If you have access to buy transplants, I would say that if that overwhelms you, you shouldn’t start there. If that’s going to prevent you from starting a garden, go to a garden center and try to buy whatever you can.

The great thing, too, is most garden centers are discounting their plants right now because they technically think you’ve missed the window. You can start your garden relatively affordable, especially for organic starts. It depends on what’s going to overwhelm you or what’s going to set you up for success. If you are challenged by that, you like the idea of starting from seed and nurturing it, do it. However, if that’s going to die, it’s going to discourage you, and you’re never going to get in the ground, just by the transplant and there’s nothing wrong with that either.

Soil Challenges

That’s great advice and a big relief to some of us here. What if the soil where you live is not conducive to having a garden?

That is my soil. We live on a ridge in Central Arkansas and we probably have the worst plot of land I’ve ever lived on ever. We have massive rocks and boulders. My husband jokes that we can’t grow grass. We grow rocks, but that is true. We didn’t quite realize how big of a challenge that was going to be until we bought our farm. We cannot use any native soil. What we have to do is budget for that, and we’ve had to figure out those costs.

We pay a dump truck driver every single season to come and drop loads of organic compost. We built out all of our beds. Some of them were raised beds that were on our farm when we bought it. Since we’ve been here, we have prepped in-ground permanent beds. It’s beds on top of the soil, but there’s no permanent border or structure around it like a raised bed. We’re just amending that every single year. We’re adding all of our different trace minerals, N, P and K and everything like that.

I would encourage you if that is the case, how worth it is it to you? For me, we live from waste from a grocery store. Our farm before here, it took an hour to get to the nearest grocery store. It was a necessity for me to grow my own food. I would do whatever it took. If you have bad soil, that’s very common. You can bring in compost. Get a soil test. See what it’s lacking in and if it can improve.

I always tell people soil is the life and longevity of your farm and garden. You can’t afford to not prioritize it, which stinks because it’s not sexy. Talking about soil doesn’t get people excited, but it is absolutely a necessity. I think that’s where a lot of our success derives from because I realize that without nutrients in the soil, that is the life of everything it will produce. We’ve been very intentional about bringing in organic compost. We top dress and amend every single season. We’re taking soil tests every season. We’re prioritizing that, but if it is not good land or usable, source it out, bring in some compost, amend it, and make it better over time.

Soil is the life and longevity of your farm and garden. You can’t afford to not prioritize it.

I live in a city and I didn’t do any fancy testing, but I knew that the soil in our backyard was full of toxins like lead and so forth. What we did was build a little raised bed. It’s modest, but it was a place to start.

Containers or raised beds. There are so many options. Our scale raised beds, we’re transitioning away from that. It doesn’t make sense, but it is a great option for so many people, especially if you’re in a backyard setting. It’s going to be more aesthetic. It’s going to be easier to manage and maintain. There are a lot of reasons why people would think raised Beds are a pro.

For us, they’re more of a con just because of our gardening style. We’re more market gardeners, so it’s more like these permanent raised beds without structures, which makes it easier for us when we’re flipping beds, managing beds, or cultivating them. Our purposes are a little bit different than the backyard home gardener.

Did you ever think years ago that you would be encouraging, inspiring, and educating about gardening?

Yes and no. I’m a wild dreamer. When I have something in my head, there’s no stopping me. I would say when I was in college taking that Plant Science class, no, I had no idea where it would go, but then at some point when I had my first daughter, I felt like a veil had been lifted. I had this huge reality check of, like, “I’m an unhealthy person. There are these toxins and chemicals and things I’m unaware of. I had this life that I had to take care of and that was reliant on me.”

That, to me, was when the switch flipped. I was like, “It’s not just about me now. e I have to do better for her.” At that point, I knew I would change my lifestyle for the better. I wanted to encourage as many people and open up their eyes because, for me, it was unawareness. I did not realize the problem and the harm to what I was doing.

I’m one of those people who, once I become aware of this, have to take action. It was like, “How can I do this in an encouraging way that doesn’t overwhelm people, that doesn’t judge people or condemn them?” It’s like, “This is where I started and where I was.” Having no money and working a job outside of the farm, this is what was manageable for me.” It was cloth diapering my kid. That was something I could do to make me feel better about what I was doing.

We’re so disconnected from nature that we don’t know how to be stewards of the earth anymore.

At that point, I do think I realized, “This is my mission now,” to encourage people to grow food, to grow flowers, to cultivate joy, and to live a life that’s in harmony. I feel like we’re so disconnected from nature. We don’t know how to be stewards of the earth anymore. In an inspiring and encouraging way, I feel called to pull people back to the garden and back to how I feel like we were originally supposed to live.

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Coming up, Jill discusses ways to keep the soil healthy in garden beds. She also offers tips and tricks for maintaining an organic garden.

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Jill’s Gardening Approach

I have a question for you. You mentioned no-till or something like that. Is that the same as not weeding or is it just not turning over the earth? Talk to us a little bit about your gardening approach.

We do a no-till approach. It means we have no tractors or infrastructure. When you’re tilling, you have to go beyond the first three inches of soil to be considered disturbing the native soil and all of those healthy microbiomes that are in there. We don’t do anything like that because it decreases the value of your soil and fertility, but weeding and even broad forking.

When we amend our beds, essentially, we’re top-dressing them. We’re adding our organic compost. We’re adding our amendments based on what our soil is deficient in. For some of our flowers, we added AZOMITE, which are trace minerals. We added a feather meal, which is the slow-release nitrogen. We also added a mix of N, P, and K. We’ll do that, and then we take our broad fork and work it in the soil.

It is loosening up our soil and getting it ready for planting. It disturbs those first few inches, allowing those nutrients to seep into the soil, and we’ll water it well. Also, cultivating. We cultivate on a weekly basis. That is not disturbing anything. You are going to have to manage your weeds or you can get overwhelmed. We’re a certified naturally-grown farm. We can’t do anything. We can’t spray anything, which is great, but we have to be very diligent in cultivating to make sure that we’re managing weed pressure, especially because we have some invasive native grasses like Bermuda and that’s hard.

Every single Wednesday is our cultivation day and we’re cultivating all of our beds. Some of that looks like cultivating by hand. We use a lot of stirrup poses with long-handled weeding tools to make it easier on our backs. I think cultivating is something that puts yourself on a schedule. I have a daily chore chart. On Tuesdays, I’m pruning and trellising. On Wednesdays, I’m cultivating. On Fridays, I’m starting seeds and transplanting.

Each day, I’ve got a chore that needs to be done on a weekly basis, which makes it super manageable versus me not weeding for a month and then spending all day in 90-degree heat. That’s not a good use of my time, but if I spend 10 to 20 minutes every Wednesday doing it, it’s much more manageable for me to keep up with.

This reminds me of a woman I heard about years ago who gave advice about cleaning your house. I think she was called the FlyLady because she would talk to people whose closets were overflowing, and she would say, “Just do ten minutes. Literally, set your timer and do ten minutes because if you do ten minutes at a time, it’s a lot less overwhelming.” I’m hearing you say something akin to that when it comes to gardening. Do it in such a way that you are maintaining and not getting overwhelmed with weeds and chores.

That was something I learned the hard way. Even when I worked a job outside of the farm and I farmed part-time, I’d get home from work and it was ten minutes before I even came in the house. I would park the car, go straight out to the garden, and do this for ten minutes before I ever walked in the house and said hello to the kids and my husband. It was a way I could stay on top of it. Even when I don’t, especially at our scale, it gets so overwhelming so quickly.

Some of these things, when it comes to pruning and trellising, you have that window or you’ve missed it. If I’m not trellising appropriately, my cucumber plant snaps over and dies. I’ve got to start that from seed again. That’s cost me something. If my sucker’s gotten too big and created another main leader that now I can’t prune it, then I have to trellis differently. That’s going to start messing with the airflow that I had planned out. For me, it is all strategic, and the fact that we’re trying to grow as much food as possible for our family means we’ve got to be diligent with these daily chores that we’re doing.

Speaking of strategy, do your kids lend a hand with all this stuff?

Yes. My four-year-old works with us every day. She’s the best farmhand ever. She gets up with us every single day and works with us. Also, my eight-year-old goes to a nature school, which is great. She’s got a garden at school. She has to take care of chickens and everything like that. She’s very accustomed to that and when they get home, they do have to help us and during the summertime, they work for us. They get money put on a debit card that goes into an account for them.

Whether that’s them helping me harvest flowers to earn income or they have to help harvest cucumbers and ferment them. It is a family effort. We also don’t do TV or electronics, so they’re outside with me. What else would they be doing? They’re playing, but it’s not like they have the alternative of just coming inside and watching television. Our kids are very involved. They’ve always been very involved, but it doesn’t seem like work to them. It’s pretty natural that this is what we do day in and day out.

How do you think that’s helping them grow, Jill?

One, they’re just so aware. I want my kids to be intelligent, but I don’t want to raise the smartest kid or the kid that gets all As. I want to raise a child that is aware of the impact that their lives have. You get to make a decision that is either for the betterment of the earth or not. We talk about that a lot. We raise animals and it’s hard, but if we don’t raise animals, do we know where we’re sourcing our animals from? Do we feel good about that?

For me, that’s something I’m proud of because when my kids think about growing food, they don’t ever think about, “We need to go to Walmart to buy groceries.” They say, “Mom, can I go out into the tunnel and get some cucumbers for a snack?” They’re very aware that if you want food, you grow it yourself. When we’re eating lamb, they ask, “Did we raise this lamb or what farm did it come from?”

The fact that my kids are of that age and they’re asking that question, there’s the connection anyways versus we have kids come over and they’re eating chicken and they’re like, “Did this come from a cow?” We’re like, “Where is the disconnect here,” but there is. There’s such a massive disconnect. My kids may not grow up to be farmers, they may not take over the farm, and that’s fine. I believe that my kids will grow up being aware that you grow your own food, live a life that benefits nature, works in harmony with nature, not against it, and that this is how we do and accomplish that.

This is something that we’re always working toward at the Weston A. Price Foundation is raising awareness. Education is one of our mainstays. I think how lovely that your kids have this, but I also think how many of us still need it? That’s why we’re having you on, Jill. Let’s circle back. We were talking about equipment, the kind of hose, and things that you use. What else is needed? Talk to me about cages and trellising a little bit.

I believe that you don’t need a lot to be successful. It all goes back to how you’re choosing to grow. We don’t grow in any cages, on cattle panels, or anything like that. We do more of a string trellis option and that’s for a few reasons. I was farming by myself for years before my husband was able to come home. For me, I needed a system and equipment that I could implement myself. If I had to put up a cattle panel trellis and I had to drive seven-foot long T-posts and then I had to carry a panel by myself, that was not a chore or a task that I could do by myself so I had to figure out what can I implement myself.

That’s when I started leaning towards string trellising. I use jute twine and compostable clips. I’ve got conduit that I run at the top of my high tunnels, which is great because I could get on a ladder and throw these on there myself. It was pretty easy. I attach a string trellis. It’s great because at the end of the season, I can cut it down and everything I use is compostable, so I’m not having to take off plastic clips. I’m not having to worry about plastic tomato twine.

Everything I have then goes from the garden into the compost bin and decomposes. I think a lot of the trellising is going to be dependent on what you have the resources to do. Cattle panels are also expensive. T-posts are expensive. Putting up a massive cattle panel with T-posts requires a lot of effort. To put up a string trellis, you need a T-post at one end and then just a PVC tee. You go from needing two T-posts, which I could drill, versus if I had two 16-foot cattle panels. I’m putting those every 2 or 3 feet. That’s requiring more energy out of me and more cost investment.

Those are some of the things we think about. We do a lot of rebar trellising. We’ll buy big things of rebar. We cut them to our links. We’ll use horticulture netting if we’re growing different flowers or do the juke twine and a corral method with our peppers, for instance. We’ll put rebar, take this jute twine, and corral them into where they stay in the bed. We just try to figure out, “What is something I can do by myself? What’s something that’s not going to cost and break the bank for all these different spaces, and what’s going to be the easiest to maintain?

When I’m thinking about pruning and trellising, what’s the easiest way? If I’ve got as much vertical as I can on a string trellis, it makes it very easy for me to go through, prune, and clip and trellis every single week versus a tomato cage. One, don’t buy tomato cages. They should not be allowed, but it’s going to be super hard to prune those. Your tomatoes, if they’re indeterminate, are always going to grow taller than that cage because indeterminate tomatoes are going to keep growing and growing.

What I do is I let my indeterminate tomatoes and my cucumbers climb to the top of my high tunnel where I have this pipe and then I help them. They then umbrella and climb all the way back down. It’s very efficient for me and then I can just start pruning and trellising on the other side. It depends on your space, but you can’t implement that string trellis whether you just have some raised beds in your backyard.

I’m curious. Who came up with these cage ideas, these plastic containers, and things? Was it just somebody trying to make a buck or did they think it was more efficient at the time?

I don’t know. I think my eyes became open when I started shifting into the market garden space. I’m a huge advocate for gardening, but I will say I feel like most backyard gardeners are not taught an efficient way to garden because production is not at the forefront, which is funny to me because most homesteaders are doing it for sustainability, but they’re following practices that aren’t efficient.

I’ve tried to change the narrative on this. Why can’t you be a backyard gardener adapting professional growing techniques because when you think about a market gardeners, they’re doing this for their job. They have to be super-efficient. They want to cut their labor costs and grow as much food as possible because they need that income versus a hobbyist backyard gardener. They’re not worried about these things. Once I started following and being mentored by market gardeners, I realized everything I was taught and learned as a backyard gardener did not make sense.

I started immediately changing all my systems, saying, “Cattle panel might work for you. I’m not doing it.” I don’t have the time. I don’t have the money or the energy to put up all these different cattle panels and take them down every single season because, for us, we’re growing year-round. To grow my fall crops, I’d have to take all of those cattle panels down from the summertime and put them all back up the next spring. That is so labor-intensive.

When you start evaluating this and doing your cost analysis, it’s like, “How much labor time did you spend growing those tomatoes? Could I have bought those in bulk from an organic farmer and then not had to do that?” Honestly, probably. These are all things that I’m thinking through. Also, now I think there are so many things in the garden industry that are just for new ideas and ways to make money that they’re not necessary, which is why I tell people with tools.

I’ve got my tool belt. It’s a pouch that goes onto my belt and carries my pruners, rubber bands, sharpie, and my phone. It’s non-negotiable. I have to have it. I need one cultivating tool. I have to have it. Other than that, there are not a lot of tools I’m using every single day, aside from my tool belt, my pruners, and a cultivating tool.

Taking Care Of Pest Problems

Thank you so much for shedding light on this. A lot of us know that not everything we hear is right and not everything that’s sold to us is being sold to us for our benefit. Thank you for giving us insights. I have a couple more questions before we start to wrap up, Jill. You mentioned that you don’t plant squash because the pests or insects get to them where you live. If we don’t want to use standard pesticides and so forth, how can we take care of a pest or insect problem? Any suggestions there?

Yes. We do a lot of handpicking. It’s good to keep an eye on your plants. Every single week, we’re going through. Also, there are some good OMRI-certified or organic-certified options. We’re spraying in the fall for our brassicas. We deal with caterpillars really badly. BT is certified and you can buy organic BT. It hooks up to your water hose and you’ll spray it.

What we like to do is spray out our transplants all well, and then we’ll put insect netting. We will keep everything growing under the insect netting to prevent these pests and then we’re removing that insect netting when we need to harvest. That has been very beneficial for us, but a lot of times this isn’t always true. However, in most cases, if you are having a bad pest issue, it is derived from poor soil quality.

If you nurture your soil and you make sure you’re feeding your soil, it is going to combat those pests. Once you stop using those pesticides, you’ll notice that your natural insects, those naturally beneficial insects are going to come. We have so many ladybugs. Something else we’ll do too though is we commonly plant trap crops because we are a certified farm.

Eggplant happens to be a great one that will attract all of the aphids. If I can interplant my tomatoes with eggplants and we don’t eat as much eggplant as we eat tomatoes, then I’m going to use that plant to be a sacrificial plant. I let it feed off of that until it gets so bad that I will then rip it out and I will burn it and that helps a lot.

Also, I am just thinking about what those beneficial plants you can plant with things. Basil, borage, and marigold. We do a lot of inter-planting, and a lot of our inter-planting is with the mindset of what this is going to attract and prevent it from messing with something that’s more food-producing and something that we need more of. Just be mindful of your planning. Sometimes, you don’t know the pest you’re going to deal with until it comes up, but then that’s a good opportunity to take notes.

Also, if we ever have an infestation, we just immediately pull the plant, but we grow a lot of hybrid varieties. The reason we grow hybrids is because they are bred to be pest and disease-resistant. Switching to primarily growing hybrids probably cut our pest issue by about 50%. That was huge for us because we had less input cost of BT, having to make homemade soaps and things like that.

That’s been a huge win for us because we do deal with certain pests, but for the most part, very rarely am I ripping outcrops because it’s been infested with pests and diseases. Nurture your soil, keep an eye on your plants regularly, and interplant with companion plants and other things that are going to attract beneficial insects that are going to be good.

I can’t help but see the parallel between nurturing our soil and nurturing our bodies. People are like, “I get a cold every winter. I get several this and that.” It’s like, “What if we cultivated that healthy terrain? We would be less likely to have to deal with pests.” I wanted to ask you. Is inter-planting the kind of discussed similar to companion planting? That’s one question. The second question is there are probably people around us who are gardening as well. Can’t we tap into some of those communities for tips on what pests might be coming and what will flourish where we live?

Yes, absolutely. Ask farmers and gardeners what they’re doing. The bad thing is that when you start asking for bigger-scale farms, most of them are commercial, so just be mindful. If you are reaching out to a garden community, what are their standards of growing? Are they following a practice and going to tell you something like Neem? Neem oil was considered safe for years, but it kills off a lot of your beneficial insects.

For me, I wouldn’t recommend Neem. I can’t use Neem. It’s something that was considered safe and natural, which goes against my certification. Why is that? Just make sure you’re doing your own research or maybe sourcing an organic gardener and asking them for advice. As far as interplanting and companion planting, they are different. The purpose of companion planting is finding those plants that are compatible with each other and will help each other grow. In certain cases, planting borage to deter pests from a tomato or whatever. There is more strategy involved as each of them provides something else for the other plant.

Inter-planting is more of a market-garden term where we are maximizing space. I have got a three-foot bed. I have got a trellis on the back part of the bed, which right now has snap peas on it. Eventually, it’ll be green beans. Right next to that, I’ve got celery, which is going to grow taller. It’s not ever going to interfere with my beans because my beans are just growing vertically. Aside from the celery, I have got spinach, which is going to be lower growing bushier, and then right beside that, I’ve got head lettuce that I know I’m going to be harvesting every week.

These are all staggered heights. They’re all going to come out at different times. It’s more of a strategy of how do I maximize my bed space? Do they benefit each other? Is there a strategy on, “This is going to attract that?” No. Most of them are spring greens. Most of them are going to come out at the same time. I’m not thinking about how they can benefit each other. I’m thinking about how can I maximize the space the best and inter-planting at different heights, depths, and timing to ensure that I’m always harvesting the most that I can out of that space.

Perceived Challenges In Gardening

I have two more questions for you. What do you say to the person who has no dirt under their fingernails and thinks gardening is way too much effort?

Yeah, it is an effort but I would tell you to do it anyway. I welcome challenges, but if they are too overwhelming, how do you make them manageable for you? However, it’s worth it. It’s like if we don’t nurture ourselves, if we don’t take care of ourselves, provide it with the food and the nutrients and the sun and the air. If we don’t do this, we’re not going to thrive.

We might not be dying, but we’re not optimal. That’s how I view the garden. At some point, what is your priority? Is it worth it to you? Do you want to live an optimal life in harmony? If so, it’s going to be challenging, it’s going to be hard, but it’s one of those things that I think we can’t afford to do, especially in the culture that we live in now.

It’s going to be harder to source these things out. Prices are going to continue to increase. We’re going to continue to question how conventional food is sprayed and the harmful toxins and chemicals in that. It’s like, “I can’t afford to not grow my own food for the sake of my family, our health, and our wellbeing. It’s a non-negotiable for me. It’s asking yourself, “What is your priority?”

This is a conversation I’m currently having with my dad. We live very different lifestyles and he’s having a lot of health issues. I’m like, “Dad, you can’t afford not to do this. Your health, the quality of your life, and longevity depend on this.” Accept those challenges. Make it as manageable for yourself as you can. Start with a few containers. Start with one raised bed. He has finally started implementing some supplements. He feels great. Now, he’s like, “I want to do this next step.”

More than likely, it takes that one positive change where they’re like, “I didn’t like this. This was hard for me and I’m seeing how gratifying it is to grow my own food. The food tastes so much better. I can walk out my back door instead of having to hop in the car and drive to town.” More than likely, if they say yes, they’ll start to shift their mindset on how they view gardening. Most people who garden, we’re all addicts. There’s something about growing your own food that is so captivating and so rewarding. My hope is that they’ll say yes and then we’ll be bitten by the bug and the rest is history.

Your comment about your dad ties into the last question I like to pose at the end of the show. If the reader could just do one thing to improve their health, Jill, what would you recommend that they do?

I would recommend that they find what they could say yes to today. You’re not going to fix everything. You can’t dream of a garden one day and the next day have it. Something I told myself very early on is what can I say yes to today? If that is planting one plant and one herb and spending fifteen minutes outside barefoot, what is it that you can do today and say yes to that thing? Also, tomorrow, ask yourself, “What is the one thing I can say yes to and I have control over today?” and do that thing.

Find what you could say yes to today. You’re not going to fix everything. You can’t dream of a garden one day and the next day have it.

Thank you for saying yes to this interview. It has been an absolute delight.

Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

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Our guest was Jill Ragan. You can visit her website TheWhisperingWillowFarm.com to learn more. You can find me at HolisticHilda.com. Now, for a review from Apple Podcasts. Rosezee78 said this. “New here. I recently discovered the Weston A. Price Foundation, and I just started at the beginning. I’m listening to these episodes as fast as I can. I wish I had found it sooner, but I’m so optimistic about the positive changes I’m making for my family.”

Rosezee78, this is great news to us. We are putting these episodes out week after week. We are also publishing a monthly journal and even holding an annual conference all with you in mind. We want to equip you to live your healthiest and best life based on wise traditions. If you want to leave us a review, go to Apple Podcasts and do the same as Rosezee78, or write us a Letter to the Editor and tell us why the show or any of our initiatives are making a difference for you. Write us at Info@WestonAPrice.org. Thank you so much for reading, my friend. Stay well and remember to keep your feet on the ground and your face to the sun.

About Jill Ragan

Jill Ragan is the owner of Whispering Willow Farm, nestled in central Arkansas. She farms full time with her husband where they grow food, flowers, and livestock. They spend their time inspiring and educating others through her book, “The Tiny But Mighty Farm” and their online social media platforms (like @whisperingwillowfrm on Instagram) to grow food, flowers and pursue a sustainable lifestyle.