Welcome to the Nobody Knowz podcast with Callie Zamzow. Join us for conversations with local changemakers and hear the stories that don't always get told. It'll be honest, messy and beautiful. Touching and humorous. Slow down for a glass and pull up a chair. This is the Nobody Knowz podcast. Welcome to Nobody Knowz. I'm your host, Callie Zamzow. Today we're going to be talking all about gardens.

So for those of you who are, you know, excited to hear about all things gardening, that is what this episode is going to be about. I wanted to share, and it seemed to have a lot of memories as a kid lately. I don't know why. That's just why I'm only starting these shows. But this is what made me think of, of what I wanted to say this morning was I, I as a kid.

Yard work was not enjoyable. Now, I realize I this might be blasphemy for the whole Zamzow family. My whole family knows. Just by the way, they're... They still tease me to this day. But as a kid, yard work was just pure work, and I... And I was reflecting back on why I was so hesitant to go out in the yard and do yard work.

And I think it was because I didn't get to do any of the fun stuff, like, I... I wasn't a part of the planting. I wasn't a part of the choosing of what we were going to be planting. It just... And we had an enormous yard. We lived on an acre, and right, right in the heart of Boise.

So unusual to have a whole acre. But it was. And, you know, Mom and Dad plant it. We had an enormous garden. We had a little mini orchard with all these fruit trees. And as a kid, my job was just... It was all the cleanup stuff. It was all the, like, the weeds and the, you know, the mowing, and Dad got to do the cool part of trimming the trees, but we'd have to pull the limbs and get them on the burn pile.

And so I, I definitely balked as a kid and did not enjoy gardening all that much. Obviously, that's changed quite a bit now. I'm now in control of my own destiny and I get to plant my own plants. And so things are very different and, and I love it now. And in fact, it's... It's my way of, I think, settling into myself, and it's my calm and it's... It's a really wonderful gift to have a garden and to have a yard and, and to be able to do these things.

So on that note, I want to introduce a friend of mine, Megan Heryet. She is the executive director of the Boise Urban Garden School—BUGS for short. I just love that catchy name. It's so perfect. Megan leads the team that runs BUGS, and she's dedicated to teaching kids how to grow their own food, how to connect with nature, how to get their hands dirty.

And I have... I've definitely... We've spoken before and we've spent time together before, and I really love it when I get to have a friend in the studio, because I just feel like, it's just fun. It's a great thing. So welcome, Megan. Thank you for having me. When I saw this invitation come through my email, I was also very excited because I had actually been thinking about you.

And I thought, what is Callie up to? And then it was just right there in my email box. I love that. Oh gosh, I think about you all the time, particularly because what you... Your job is huge. That's... So sometimes when I think about my job being overwhelming, I think about you and I think, well, you're different. We have different, different jobs.

But I think about how much work you do just on a regular day and, and really how great it is that you are doing what you're doing for the community. You just... You're making a difference. And it's really cool. It is big. And I think anybody who works in nonprofit understands, like, you are so many hats in the day to day.

But I tell everybody, and everybody who has met me has heard this, like, I definitely think I have the best job in the city of Boise. There is no doubt that anybody... Like, nobody has a better job than me. It's truly the best one. That's awesome. We should all feel that way about our own jobs. So before we get going too far, in case people haven't, you know, heard us talk before, will you just introduce yourself a little bit? Like, what... A little bit of your background and, and then talk to us a little bit about Boise Urban Garden School.

Yeah. So it's funny hearing you talk about this experience of gardening growing up. I am born and raised in Las Vegas. There is no gardening in Las Vegas you guys, we have a little bit of lawns. And when I was growing... Like a teenager, there was a big move with the water district to get rid of lawns. So most people don't even have that anymore.

You have, yeah... Agaves and some mesquite trees. And that's kind of, like, what we have there. But I got a job at Star Nursery, which is a nursery in Las Vegas, when I was in high school. And it literally changed my life. I went in there and all of a sudden was like, this is satisfying all the stuff that I didn't know that I was looking for.

And I have funny memories, like my parents had built a house, and I remember we had moved in, like, the first week of November, and it was right after Halloween, and I had saved these pumpkin seeds from making my jack-o'-lantern, and I was trying to plant these pumpkin seeds in basically, like, concrete, like cast-offs. And you know, nothing happened.

Like the two little shoots came up and that was it. But I had, like, an instinct for that. And I also remember taking... I didn't know anything about, like, how, you know, eggs had to be fertilized... Like snatching an egg out of the fridge and trying to hatch it out in our little playhouse, you know, and I raise birds now, and so I really had, like, an instinct for that.

But I didn't know where... Like, I didn't know how to, like, execute that or anything. But I got that job at Star Nursery. I was just a cashier, a teenager, and it did... It changed my life. And so I got really into plant identification and plant problems and solving things for people, and in a way that definitely nobody else was doing at the front end at that time.

And so I ended up going to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. I studied horticulture there. And now it's just been a huge part of my life ever since. What BUGS does—Boise Urban Garden School—we give kids those hands-on garden, culinary, and nutrition education that I really wish that I had had growing up.

I didn't even know I needed it, but... So we have a three-quarter-acre garden over at Columbia Park that's off Five Mile Road. We have a full commercial kitchen at the park. So we have—especially in the summertime—we have culinary camps. And then in the wintertime we do friends and family and kids cooking classes so that people know what to do with those vegetables...

After you have grown them. And I'm having a lot more feelings about the culinary programming over the last couple of years. I think it's... The demand has really risen, and I'm seeing how people feel like cooking at home is too expensive, and I think we're really teaching that that's not the case, even if you aren't growing your own stuff.

We have a preschool over at BUGS. We also do field trips... We love to have—if you have any teachers listening—please come to a field trip at BUGS. Your kids will have a great experience. We also do school outreach lessons, especially second grade is a real sweet spot for us. We are doing some piloting of school garden programs because those have fallen off a little bit at some schools.

And... Oh, is that everything? I don't know, you guys do so much. You do so much. Yeah, but we're... Giving hands-on outdoor experiences. And I think that's really the crux of what we are trying to accomplish. The BUGS... I think if all you did was have the cool area with, with all the garden and you have an apiary there, if that's all that you did, it would be awesome.

And I think it would be an amazing experience for kids. But the adding of the culinary kitchen adds a whole different level. And if you ever get a chance to go in, go in and check it out because it is a full-blown legit kitchen, stainless steel everywhere... Like it's the greatest thing. It's so fun. And the food that you're making is phenomenal.

Like you're not... You're not teaching them how to, I don't know, boil carrots or whatever. You're doing... You're, like, actually taking these things and you're using sophisticated recipes and you're helping kids create things that actually taste really good and not boring at all. Yeah, we... I invite donors to come and have lunch with us. It's so good that, like, I will have anybody over any day of the week and you will...

I think they will have a great lunch with us. We just had a kid—this was maybe two weeks ago. We usually do, like, kind of an Asian-themed day—and he was saying that the chow mein that they made was the best thing he'd ever had in his entire life. And in the back of my head, I'm thinking about my kids, like, asking to go to Panda Express all the time.

And I'm like, now this kid knows, like, you don't have to ask your mom to go to Panda. Like, you can make your own chow mein at home and you know it's going to be great. It's totally life changing for these kids. And I'm sure some of these adults too. Yeah, and we do friends and family—especially in the wintertime...

Like I was saying, friends and family cooking classes. And I think when parents come with their kids, especially if they're a little bit younger, but it's good for older kids too, and they see their kids using, like, a real knife, real fire, you know, like really getting in there and doing the tasks themselves, I think it gives the parents the confidence to be like, oh my gosh...

Yeah, like my kids can totally do this. I don't have to just do frozen stuff all the time or Lunchables or whatever, you know, you like to give your kids. I think it gives the parents the confidence that their kids can do it as well. Yeah. So shifting gears just a little bit, and I apologize that I don't... I honestly don't know the answer to this, even though we've known each other a while.

How is BUGS funded? How... What... How, how does that work? Yeah. So we operate in partnership with the City of Boise. So that's how we have that space at Comba Park. And that's actually a pretty good story too. But Trudy Comba, who owned that property and donated it to the city, she had a preschool there that had burned down, and she really wanted an education component for whatever ended up happening at that park.

So when the park was starting to get developed, the city came to BUGS, which was a 501(c)(3), totally independent and was at the Wright Congregational Church at the time, and wanted BUGS to bring the programming into the City of Boise and this site. So we have a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and that pays for kind of all of the extras that BUGS does.

So things like the apiary, the greenhouses... Sometimes, you know, like this summer we didn't have quite enough money for culinary supplies, so that kind of thing. And then the City of Boise really kind of keeps the lights on. They're paying our operations expenses. They're making sure the grass gets cut. They're doing the operations and covering those kinds of costs.

And so when people pay for our camps and things like that, that's what that really is paying for. Okay. All right. That makes sense. I have been... I visited obviously a couple of different times, and it's fun to watch the kids in action, and I loved it. We've talked about this before, but I want to just tell our new listeners about the experience that these kids have.

They're... They're not just running around in the garden with people, with adults yelling at them, telling them not to step on stuff. Like it's not like that at all. It is their garden as much as it is any of the adults' garden, and they are out there pulling weeds. They are out there planting. They are out there tending.

They're learning as they go... The apiary... They get to put on bee suits, they get to go through... I mean, so this is not an experience where, you know, like I think about, like, my education when I was an elementary school student, anytime that there was a garden, you know, we would learn about it... We would stand on the edge.

But there was a lot of, like, stay out of it, kids, because you're just going to mess it up, and you're... This is the exact opposite... The exact opposite, which is so lovely. Awesome. It's... It's such a cool thing. So can you kind of talk about that a little bit? Yeah. And it's a challenge. We have a full-time urban ag specialist who plans the garden, and she has an idea of what she wants it to look like.

And it's really hard to let kids in there when they're tromping all over things. I especially think with our preschoolers, because they have their own garden beds and they get to pick the things that go in there, I think that sense of ownership is really cool. But yeah, we are definitely putting kids to work. And I tell volunteers that all the time...

Like, did they warn you that we're going to put you to work? Like, yes, you have to pull weeds. Yes, you have to harvest stuff. This was a kind of funny harvesting thing that happened. We had a 50-foot row of garbanzo beans. And these kids... They harvest all these garbanzo beans, and then they had to pull the, like, the little outside shell off.

And then they got, like, maybe two cups, and you should've seen their faces. They were like, what? All of this work and that's all we got? But I think that was a really great experience for them where it's like, we don't waste anything here. We are not wasting anything at BUGS. And if you are going to eat it, you know, don't take it... Don't waste it.

You know, I think for them it was, like, a really, really valuable... Yeah. That's... That... I mean, I would have loved to have that experience. Do you have, like, a memorable experience with a student or something that has happened at BUGS that you want to share with us? I have lots of fun stuff, but there is something—and I've talked about this before—but it happened really, really early in my employment there.

And it always stuck with me, like a little, like, image burned in my brain. So we have... For summer camps we have an indoor culinary camp that has kind of older kids. And then outside, we have younger kids and they're doing the garden camp, and we come together at lunchtime to eat together. So all the adults, all the little kids, and all the older kids. And I have an image of this girl who was probably about 11 or 12 at the time, holding the hand of a preschooler and helping her get her lunch.

And I just remember thinking, like... I mean, maybe she has a younger sibling, but like, wow. Like, she really gets to be connected to this little girl. They get to be in service to each other, and it just, like, really hit me, like that connection that they were having. And it's always been burned in my mind. And we actually changed some of our value words a few years ago...

And we put connection in there because of, like, experiences like that, that that is really... Like, really, really valuable for everybody. Yeah. I went to one of your... It was a fundraising dinner, I think. And you had some of the BUGS kids talking and speaking to the group. And that was one of the biggest things that I got out of it, was the connections that they made, the friendships, and, and learning together.

It's very, very cool. Yeah. If you're in a kitchen together and you've got... And actually it's really fun. We say if somebody calls and you're on the phone, you can hear in the background, "I've got a knife, I've got a knife," or "Hot pan, hot pan." You have to learn to work together. And yeah, people over the course of the week really make strong bonds.

Do you think they're... Like, I've realized it's gardening. I can do all sorts... And that, of course, with gardening because I grew up around it. But do you think that there are particular things that are learned that are not necessarily garden stuff, that are learned while these kids are doing your camps and that sort of thing?

I will tell you one that I think has come up for me recently is patience. I have really seen it, I think in the garden... The school garden pilots especially too, because you... That's one where they really get to see it seed to... Then we have, like, a little salad party at the end, and you cannot rush it.

And sometimes the weather's not very good, and we're doing season extensions, and they're like, where's those radishes? I really want to put that radish in my salad. You know, it's like, well, we got to wait two more weeks. You know, it just didn't quite make it this time. So I think patience is really in there, and in the world of, you know...

Yeah, you know, Amazon Prime in your house in two minutes or DoorDash or whatever you're doing. I think that's a great one. There's also something a little magical about gardening. I think it... I think it gets people thinking about how the world works. And so I think it gives them a lot of curiosity, and it sparks curiosity, and hopefully they go out and start exploring other things and other topics because they see just kind of how... Yeah, I don't want to overuse the word, but like, a seed to a plant...

That's... Yeah. How does that happen? And I think it's really sparking a lot of curiosity, too. I have a poem that's by my sink, and one of the lines has to do with the fact that there's a whole orchard inside of an apple. And I think about that, like, oh, it's so true. It's... And I think that's fascinating when you get... When you really let yourself think about the things that we're able to grow.

And yeah, I think for... Especially for a kid, like, wow, it's mesmerizing. Like, how did I put this one little seed in and now it turned into this whole other thing? It's amazing. Yeah. It is... It is... Just outside. And our early childhood education specialist and the little kids had picked seeds just from the seed packets... The pictures.

And they had some bells of Ireland, and they're coming up now, and the kids are like, whoa, we didn't really know that's what it looked like from the picture to the actual real thing. And I don't know, I just... I think it's all really cool. It's fun. I imagine that wonder and surprise just constantly... It's got to be... It's got to keep you youthful.

I hope so. I should probably come spend some time over there. It's beautiful to walk through. And this is a beautiful time of year right now with the sunflowers are overhead and the bees are buzzing and... Yeah, it's just... Everything smells so good. It's a really nice time. So do you think that gardening education... Do you think it impacts more than just, like, learning about gardening?

Do you think that... I mean, even if... Even if people—let's say that these kids spend a couple of summers with you and then they go about their way and they never become gardeners—do you think that in that period of time it impacts them? And if so, in what ways do you think? I think around the food a lot.

Like I was talking about... Not wasting, really appreciating all the work that goes into growing food. I think it's really easy... Like I use carrots, for example. A bag... Carrots is a dollar at the grocery store. But when you see what it takes to even, like, dig a carrot out and not break it and everything, I think you have a great appreciation.

So I think there's a real appreciation for the work that goes into growing food. I think appreciation for preparing food... I think those are really great. And then again, like I was saying before, like that sparking that curiosity, I think that really does stick with kids, even if, you know, gardening isn't the thing that they want to do. I think it really does push them to be curious about other things too, and maybe find something that they're really interested in.

I love that answer. I was just thinking about the carrots and thinking that carrots... The carrots you get at the store look very different than the ones you grow in the garden. How many times have you grown a carrot and the soil was a little rocky, and you get, like, a really funky, weird-looking one? You're like, I don't even know what to do with that.

It's my favorite. And they're kind of, like, almost human-looking sometimes. They're just... Yeah, it's pretty funny. We had a really huge one that we put googly eyes on...

Oh, just for fun. Just to be silly. But, yeah, carrots are great. Okay, so can we shift gears just a little bit? Sure. I, I... I've known you now for a little while, but I haven’t asked you this question.

I, I think I can surmise a little bit of it, but, what is your leadership style like? Oh, gosh. I don't know if I have, like, a really coherent leadership, like, philosophy or anything. I think it's very situational, which doesn't always work for everybody. Let me see. There's pitfalls to every leadership style is, I guess, what I'm trying to say, but I've learned with the staff that I have now is I have so many different personalities, and to really be able to get them motivated and to be working towards our mission, I have to treat everybody a little bit differently.

So that's what's working for me, is treating each person as an individual, making sure that I know what parts of our mission are important to them, you know? And sometimes it's really, like, operational stuff, like following up with an email. So those things too. But I would say it's, like, a kind of situational leadership style. It's kind of how I would describe it.

It's interesting that you say that. I... That I came to that at some point in my leadership time as well, that, oh, wait, I can't approach this person in the same way I approach this person because they literally process data differently. They need... Some people, you know... Let's brainstorm right now. It's so much fun. Other people are like, I need time.

And if you run over people, it doesn't work. You can't push your personality style on other people. You have to... As a leader, you have to be malleable. And it's been an interesting process for me to kind of learn how to do that. And, but gosh, what a gift it is to lean into other people's styles.

Like what a gift to us that... To people who choose to lead, to... And try to understand that. It changes your whole view on life. It's amazing. Yeah, I think so. And I... I was reflecting fairly recently. I had a job in my 20s at a... Kind of a hardware store, kind of like a small Home Depot, and I was put into leadership way too early, and I was trying to be, like, very authoritarian and like, we have the highest standards and we have to do it this way every day.

And I failed very quickly. And it was because, yeah, I was choosing a style that probably wasn't natural for me, probably not authentic to me, but also not authentic for people who want to work in a plant nursery either. So mostly I have evolved since that experience. Yeah, I did... Just funny... I did the same thing.

I... I've... I've talked about this on a different podcast, but I... I was taught how to lead from men and, and men, like, dominant men. And I kind of took that style on. I think I still laugh about... I know people who still know me from back in the day who laugh so hard about how different I am now than I was then, and how just much more authentic I am.

And thank goodness I have way less stress, because I can just be myself. And I don't have to try to be something that I'm not. And, and being aggressive was not... That's not my strong suit. I think I'm really lucky. My husband has been in leadership for a long time, and we do not have the same style. But I did get to see him...

He is the kind of person who can really, like, very, like, servant leader... Like, can really foster people to go on to the next level. And it was really cool to see him do that over the years. And I think that gave me a different perspective to kind of operate from as well. I hope young leaders are listening to this.

I would have loved to have had some of this information. There'd be some a-ha moments for sure. If you could wave a magic wand, what would you grow or expand with BUGS in the next, let's say, five years? Yeah, I have a... I think we have some big dreams over there. We have people who have been with BUGS for a long time and would really love to be able to do that.

The City of Boise has a property over off a road called Spalding Ranch. I don't know if you guys have heard about it, but it's a 20-acre park, and the vision there is really kind of like an agriculture space in the middle of the Bench. And so I think what I currently am sort of envisioning is I would love to take the agriculture gardening component over to Spalding Ranch and make it a longer commitment.

And this is kind of how BUGS operated in the beginning. It was kind of like an all-summer thing where the kids would come with their teachers. They were mostly kids from the Foothills School and start from seed. They would do all the maintenance, all the watering, and then they would have a, like, a farm stand as well.

And so it was a little bit of a different program. And I really think there is room for that, especially with some teens that we don't really get to reach too often, and maybe even a partnership with Capital High School, which is close by, is to have a more, like, agriculture-intensive experience over there. I’d really love that. And then have the site at Comba Park—because the culinary component has had such high demand—really focus on culinary there and make it a kind of, like, a world-class culinary experience.

So you would still have the garden and doing that seed-to-table experience. But yeah, really focusing on culinary at Comba, and then having a, like, more intensive agriculture seed-to, you know, farm-stand experience over at Spalding. There's new leadership coming in at the city parks department. I don't know if they share that vision. I will have to work on that.

But I think that would be a really wonderful way to expand BUGS programming. Well that's a lovely segue into thanking our sponsor. So I'm going to take a moment to do that. This episode is brought to you by Zamzows, your local source for everything garden, lawn and pet. Whether you're growing your own food or teaching the next generation where it comes from, Zamzows is here to support the journey.

Visit zamzows.com or stop by one of our 12 Treasure Valley locations. Nobody knows like Zamzows. Thank you for those wonderful questions that we just had. We're going to shift a little bit into a new segment. Okay. I think we invented the segment just for you. Oh my gosh, I feel so lucky. We're calling it Secret Garden. Yes.

So this is where you and I just chat about garden stuff. Okay. So I've got a few questions here. You game for this? Sure. Yeah. Let's... Let's go. All right. Sounds good. So first things first. What... What are you currently planting or planning for your own garden, or... Tell me about your own... Yeah. What's your current situation?

And guess what? We both get to be honest, because I have a... I know what you're going to say, and I have a similar answer, so... Okay, this is so embarrassing. I... And I... Let me just say, just very briefly, we lived in Oregon for four years and we had a half acre there, and I had the most beautiful garden, and I had 40 blueberry plants, and I was raising my chickens, and I was doing different themes and colors and seasonality. Here in Boise...

We live in East Boise. I have no backyard because of where we live, and I have just a lawn out front. So the unfortunate answer is that between the deer and the hill and our location, I have nowhere to have a garden, Callie.

And it's so embarrassing as a person with, you know, 26 years of horticulture experience. Okay.

All right. And this is not a one-upsmanship, but my last name is Zamzow and I have two tomato plants this year. That's all that I have grown. And the reason why is that I'm overhauling my garden. So a couple of years ago, I wiped out a side yard. It was way too much... Way too much earth to be trying to garden...

And weed. The weeds were the big problem. I could not keep up with the weeds. Absolutely.

And so I actually am overhauling everything. And because my daughter was graduating and, you know, there was just a bunch of things happening this summer, I was like, you know what? I'm going to spend the summer cleaning that area up and getting it ready to do raised beds. 

I'm going to do... I'm going to change it out and try to see if I can cut down the weed problem. So I've just been working on that as my project, and then growing these two tomato plants, which, by the way, are not doing very well. This weather has been so weird. We'd have a very mild, mild summer, but it's been a little strange, so I think we can forgive you. I'm okay with that. I appreciate that. Like I said, we both are forgiven. 

And look, people, we're just... We're just being honest. We're just human. And like you're saying, you know, teenagers... They take up a lot of time. I got to drive them everywhere. Exactly. I will say, for your raised bed garden... There's a woman here in town...

I think her name is Jamie. She does little tips for managing your raised bed or your kitchen garden. I'll look it up really quick, and I'll tell you before I leave, but it's really good tips for keeping it manageable. Oh, I love that. I can take any tips. Really, truly. It's a mess right now, but it's going to be great.

I bet one of these days it's going to be great. Okay, well, so share with us what your dream garden would look like. Yeah, I think this is a retirement-year kind of dream, but I love the idea... And we have one in my neighborhood, so I really always, like, look at it when I walk by... But, like, a total, like, insect-bird habitat.

Like I said, I raise birds, so I really love having them around. Like tearing out the entire lawn, making the yard look almost like a meadow. That is, like, my dream. But again, like, the weeds... That's just too much for me to have to take on right this minute. But I have... There's a book about this. I think it might even be Lawns to Meadows, about doing that.

And, yeah, creating that habitat and having, you know, bee boxes and, yeah, the bird habitat and all the different, like, things... That's... That's really the dream. Dream. And then retirement... Just be out in there with all the insects and the birds every day. Yes. And have all the time in the world. Right. All right. So tell me, what... What is it as far as, like, plant choices, for, for this area—what are some of your favorite things that... And I guess now we've both admitted that it's not happening in our gardens, but Boise Urban Garden School...

Like, what are some of the fun things to grow that people should consider growing in their own gardens? Oh gosh, I don't... Well, I don't want to force anybody to do anything. I personally love the really early bulbs, because when you are in the middle of a gloomy winter day and you go out there and those little, like, crocuses and stuff are popping up, I think that is really fun.

I just think that is wonderful. I'm trying to think, what else do we have that I think you should put in your garden? I made the staff grow dahlias this year because I have a very specific theme that I want for our fundraising event, and so you want it to look a certain way. Oh, I love that.

You... And they've been really game for it. One of our garden assistants... She grows cut flowers at home, so she was really... She was willing to do it. And so that was great. I love that. I... My grandparents had this enormous garden. Not surprised. This is on the Zamzow side. My Grandpa Berner, my Grandma Helen, and Grandpa had... He was allowed... And he was the big gardener.

He was allowed a chunk of the garden to grow veggies. But Grandma always had a... The other almost half of the garden was flowers. And that's because she wanted to cut flowers every day. And when you would go to her house and you would go in the kitchen, there were always cut flowers that she had put together and just set in the middle of the table.

And they were so beautiful. And I loved that, that she just, like, put her foot down. And she was like, I get to grow flowers. Yeah. And I think there's value in that too. Definitely value in the beauty, and again, like, the process—and you can't have everything year-round. Some things are seasonal. And Shannon, who's the woman I was talking about... She is so creative that she can use, like, seed pods.

And she was like, oh yeah, let's let the cilantro go to seed, and I'm gonna put these seed pods in an arrangement. Like, she did, and it was beautiful. I just love that creativity too. Yeah, I'd like to be better at that. That's another retirement goal. All right, so how about... Are there any tips that we could offer up to people listening that...

So let's say it's a... It's... It's... We're in September. So are there any tips, gardening tips, that would be helpful for people right now to be thinking about.

What am I doing in September? I would just be thinking about, yeah, cleanup. Getting rid of any, like, really invasive weeds or anything like that so that they're not overwintering and then taking over in the spring. You can always start your garden planning as early as you want. I think that's always fun. Get your seed catalogs now and start doing some planning.

And then we—maybe we've talked about this before—but, like, not doing a full cleanup, leaving some of your leaf litter and grass clippings, if you can, to make sure that insects, beneficial insects, have, like, some places to overwinter. I think that's always a great idea too, if you can make that work. Yeah, talk to your neighbors so they know why you're doing what...

Yeah. That's true. That's so true. So much fun. Okay, well, so, speaking of invasive weeds, will you help me with the Zamzows Tip of the Week so that we actually give an official tip of the week? And the one that I want to give is actually a question that came in from one of our listeners who has Canadian thistle all through their... And it sounded like it was their garden, but also in their yard a little bit and sometimes in some of their flowerbeds.

So they have it everywhere. And so now note that part of it is in their garden. So obliterating it with some sort of a chemical is not an option, because they're going to be... It's around edibles. So give us some... Give your thoughts on Canadian thistle. Aside from just burn the house down. I know if you saw my eyes they just about popped out of my head.

It's... When you're saying it's everywhere, you have to dig it up. And we have a lot of it at that ranch, that place I was talking about, Spalding Ranch. You have to get your spade out. You have to dig it up and put it in your recycling. Do not put that in your compost, you know... Send that away, because once you let it go to seed, like this person's experiencing, it's everywhere.

Yeah. So dig it up. Put your long sleeves on and your big gloves. That would be my advice. And don't be... If you go into the winter and you see it all die, do not be fooled because it is spreading. And then come spring you're going to have a whole bunch more of it. So you really do have to... And you have to stay on it.

You can use some chemicals, probably not in the garden side. You can use some chemicals to help, but you'd have to talk to an expert about that as far as exactly what you want to use, because obviously we don't want to harm our pollinators and that sort of thing. But if you can, you can use some chemicals to try to kill the... Get them down to the root, and the roots can go really, really deep. Can...

That's why I think that really digging it out... I do wonder if you could maybe look into using a pre-emergent, perhaps in some areas if you weren't going to... If you weren't going to overseed something. That might be an option, maybe in your lawn or something. Yeah. And there is a... If it's in your lawn, you can definitely use... There's a broadleaf killer that you can do that won't kill your lawn but will kill the thistle.

As an aside, we were talking about this before, that you can feed thistle to rabbits. Oh, did you look it... I did. I looked it up. Not only is it okay for rabbits and they're fine... The little prickly things don't... It doesn't bother them at all. It's actually good for their liver. Oh, that's great to know.

Somebody told me that, and I wasn't sure if that was true or not. Yes, it is true. And you do... You just want to make sure that you feed it to them, like, gradually and, you know, don't do too much. Don't overdo it. But it's apparently good for them. So if you've got a rabbit, maybe the thistles aren't so bad.

Yeah. So there's that. Great. Okay. Now's the time of the show where... And we ask every guest the same question. So you... We want to know something that nobody knows—either about you or about BUGS or something surprising or meaningful... Something funny. It's your choice. But what is something that nobody knows? So I work with kids, but my education background is actually in gerontology, and I studied aging, and that was a big part of my program of what I studied.

Yeah, therapeutic horticulture with seniors. I did nursing classes. I did a practicum at the Clark County Public Guardian's office learning about guardianships and then later probate. So I really love learning about the entire lifespan. So even though I work with kids now, I always have a passion for working with seniors. What a great answer. I did not see that coming.

Yeah, but I love this. Every time we're together, I learn something new about you. Megan, thank you for being a part of this conversation. This has been just lovely having you. And I hope we can have you back again. Thank you. This flew by. Yes, it definitely did. Yeah. So thank you. Before we wrap up, what is the best way for people to get ahold of you and, or, I guess, BUGS in general?

Yeah, just our website... boiseurbangardenschool.org. You can find out information about our programming, field trips—like I was talking about—anything like that. And then if you want to come to the garden, it's open all the time. So we're on Five Mile—2995 North Five Mile—between Ustick and Fairview. And you are welcome to come walk through the garden, see the flowers, smell the herbs, everything.

We love to have people come. It will lower your blood pressure up. Guaranteed. Thank you again for being here. Thanks. This has been great. If you enjoyed today's conversation, be sure to follow the podcast and please leave a review. And next time you see kids planting seeds or exploring the outdoors at school, know that something incredible is growing.

Thanks and we'll catch you next week.