Matt The Garden Guy

Today I'm talking with Matt at Matt The Garden Guy. You can follow on Facebook as well.

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00:00

You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters.  I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Matt at Matt  the Garden Guy in Wisconsin. Good morning, Matt. How are you? Hey, good. How you been? I'm good.  Is the weather any improved in Wisconsin today?  I mean, it's been raining like crazy. Fortunately, all that rain that hit Milwaukee and that flooding missed me, but

00:28

We've been getting rain like crazy every day and you know the bugs are destroying everything but I think the rain is holding off now. I woke up this morning and the sun was actually out and I was like, oh hello! Nice of you to stop in! It's not here yet, it's still cloudy and 70, I'm just still waiting for it to rain again but yeah we need the sun badly. Yeah, my husband dumped out the uh...

00:56

the rain gauge last night and he came in and he said, we got six and a half inches of rain from Saturday until yesterday. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah. It's been terrible. I don't want to engage. Sorry. My range actually broke, so I got to try to fix it. So I'm like getting no nothing coming in, but yeah, you don't have any empirical data to work with.

01:22

I know. I'm kind of like, need to know how much rain I got, but it's a lot. That's all I got to say. Yeah. Last summer we had a terrible, horrible, no good growing season.  this year it started out pretty good, but with all the rain  and it's been so hot that we haven't been able to keep on.  Our garden is slowly giving up the ghost. And I'm like,  second year in a row, next year better.

01:50

We kind of, we kind of started out the same way.  um,  we, we, planted everything, but then we got some weird cold weather and then some really hot weather.  like, I planted a bunch of beets and carrots and all of that and it came up, but then didn't do anything.  but then like it started to, sorry, reseeded and then it started exploding. like I try to get.

02:18

I tried to do at least three harvests a year. So I started early as possible and, know, cover it up with frost blankets or things like that. And this year we're only going to get probably two. So, but that's okay. Um, my husband planted over 250 tomato plants. Whoa. And we thought we were going to be rolling in, in tomatoes by now, but because of all the rain and because it's so hot, we're starting to get the blight already.

02:47

And once that happens, we're screwed.  so,  and so, um, yeah, our hopes for raking in some money on tomato sales this year are now  kind of down the tubes too. And I'm like,  are you sure we're in the right gardening thing? You know, it's funny you say tomatoes. So like my wife looked at me, I think earlier, I know we were at our friend's house over the weekend and she's like, yeah, we don't have a lot of tomatoes. said, um,

03:13

We cut down our crop by half.  So last year we had 10 plants. only got, well, we got six this year. She's like, Oh, that makes sense. Because like  our, our like, I don't know, my, my, my dream or whatever last couple of years is really,  you know, know, canning my stuff and then going downstairs and getting it. like that's been consuming all of our.

03:37

tomatoes and all that. But I also want to sell stuff too, but we're not able to do that because we just don't have enough plants outside right now. yeah, it was funny when you say that, you you guys have that many and I'm like, yeah, we had the same conversation, but it was the opposite.  We didn't plant as many as we normally do. And then my wife is like, well, how can we not have any tomatoes? Well, because I cut it in half almost because you asked me to.  It's really hard gardening with your spouse.

04:07

And I use the term gardening loosely because I'm not the gardener.  husband. But I help him. I help him plan and I help him  with, you know, he'll say, I'm thinking about getting this variety. I look it up and find out what's required. And I tell him, and then we make a decision  together. he's the, he's the boots on the ground guy and I'm the logistical planning part. So she does all of our harvesting.

04:36

because so I'm,  I'm colorblind. So for me, it's hard to really tell when those tomatoes are really ready to pull.  I just, I just gave up. she does all the harvesting, but she lets, you know, the planning, the planting, the,  know,  I've been trying to take on the role of helping like store the stuff or do something with it. Cause a lot of times she was just cutting them up and freezing it. like, we got to look at other ways, but yeah, I like how

05:05

I like how  spouses and that do get involved. For the most part, my wife likes gardening, but she can care less. She just wants to reap the benefits of the garden, I guess I would say.  It's like I told my husband when we bought this place five years ago. I said, I am not going to be the one out there on my hands and knees with gardening gloves on doing the stuff. That's not my jam.  And he said, that's fine. And I said, but I will cook or help preserve anything you bring in. And he was like, deal.

05:35

So we kind of jumped into the middle of this. Tell me how you got into gardening. Wow, man. Well, I started gardening probably about when I was 13, maybe 12, I don't know. So way back then, grandma lived with us and she'd always garden and I like, I want to try this. you know, I started doing that and then...

06:01

When I lived with my parents, I always had a small garden outside and then it just…

06:11

It just evolved to where it is now. So I I started at a young age.  And I have  two daughters  and I try to instill that into them too. Like right now, my daughter,  my oldest daughter, she's eight,  goes on nine in January, but  she grabbed some beans and she sprouted them and she's like, I want to plant these in the garden.

06:39

But yeah,  I started, you know, early teenager and just always had a garden and then,  um, just expanded and expanded to where is right now. It's taken up about half of my backyard right now.  um, you know, we, we always had people, you know, ask me, how do you garden or what do you do with everything?  um, you know, that's really what made me start Matt, the garden guy as well. Like,

07:09

We had some, we had some friends come over and they're like, Oh, I want to have a garden. How do I do this? Blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, well, let me, let me, let me help you out. And it just evolved from there.  That's how a lot of things evolve with the people I talked to on the podcast. They basically it's this, it's the thing from the robots movie. think it was seeing or Raleigh maybe  it's  seeing need villainy. Yeah. Yeah.

07:34

Yeah, that's what I get a lot of with the people I talk to and it's fantastic. I love that people are so  generous and willing to give of their time and their knowledge.  It's really great because  the world is kind of a topsy-turvy place right now. So it's great that I get to talk to people who are so positive.  I also really like gardening too because to be honest, I am not a fan of what

08:05

the world is doing with our food.  And, you know, where I live, can't have, I can't have livestock. I'd have to move to have livestock. And  I would love to have livestock, but I'm not moving. My house is already halfway paid off. I don't owe that much on it. So I'm not moving. So I'm sticking with, you know, fruits and vegetables  and we grow a lot. So,  you know, the biggest thing, again, my driving factor too around

08:33

This is,  you know, teaching people how to grow the food that they eat so that they don't have to consume food full of chemicals. that, that, that's a, that might be a touchy subject for some people, but that's what I stand by. you know, there's other ways  to handle it. Now it's a lot of work, but, but yeah, that's just, that's another reason why we have a very large garden because we want to

09:02

consume the food that we're growing and we know what's in it end of the day. Yes, the only ingredient in a tomato should be a tomato.  Exactly. Like we don't need to learn the other plastic or whatever junk they put on top of it to preserve it. Right. Yep. Absolutely.  And, as for livestock, um, my husband  said to me this morning, as I'm drinking my coffee and waking up, he's already had a

09:32

cups into him. says, remember I mentioned that I might want to look into getting meat chickens and like, yes. And he said, I've been doing some research and I was like, uh-huh. And he said, it'll cost us between two and $5 per chick. It takes eight weeks for them to be ready for butcher. And I was like, okay. And he's telling me all the things that he found out. And I said, here's my only issue.

10:02

And he said,  I said,  are we going to actually be able to sell the butcher's? Because  once you get through, my friend calls it tic-tac-titioning, know, the book work, the numbers, the math on the cost. said, we're probably looking at $20 a bird at least.  I said, do you think people will pay that? And he was like, well, if they want really good help.

10:32

chicken, then yes.  My did that. She grew chickens and she was trying to sell them. And it's just in our area, nobody's going to spend 20 bucks at chicken. Yeah.  No. So, you know, that whole chicken conversation to my buddy, he lived outside of town and he's got about an acre and he's like, well, I'm going to, I'm thinking about growing some chickens. said, well, can I do it with you? So maybe there's a

11:01

future of chicken growing, not in my house, but on my buddy's lot.  going in together. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we're purely doing it just,  I'm not in it. I'm not in this to sell things. I'm just in it to, put stuff in my body that I'm consuming or what I'm, you know, that I'm growing. Yes. Yes, absolutely. And we would keep some of the chickens for our freezers clearly, but

11:28

But he's talking about getting at least a hundred chicks. And I'm like, um, we don't have room for eight, for a hundred  chickens in our freezers right now.  And also,  I mean,  there are people in our area who probably would pay that kind of money for a chicken that was raised ethically and fed  on good things and is going to be good for them to eat. But  I am very hesitant to spend the money to not make it back.

11:58

And so, and so, um, I think that could go ahead. Sorry. So for anybody local who's listening local to me, um, email me or message me or whatever, and let me know if you would be interested in that price point, because then I might have some, some data to give back to the husband on this idea. I think ultimately that's what we need is data because like, you know, you probably could, somebody might buy one, you know, here or there, but you need people that are going to buy them, you know,

12:28

every couple weeks.  yeah. Maybe you're right. Maybe the market is out there and we're just kind of shooting from the hip. No, this ain't gonna work, but maybe it will work. Yeah, gotta collect some data. Well, I've been hearing an awful lot about people buying chicken at the grocery stores and the chicken is gross. Like,  it's stringy and it looks weird and it doesn't look like chicken is supposed to look and then it doesn't taste right. And  if that's true,

12:56

And I don't even know what chicken is going for right now at the grocery store. But  if that's true, they might be willing to pay a little more for chicken that's actually chicken. Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. Yeah. Good idea.  But anyway, you're not doing livestock. No, but I'll follow along and listen to you. If you ever get that route, let me know because I am interested in understanding more about livestock. I can't do it here, but my buddy wants to do it. So.

13:23

Yeah. And the thing is it's not hard to do, but it's an investment just like anything is. Yeah. And I don't want to throw good money after bad. that the right phrase? It is. I'm okay with it. Yeah. So, but anyway, so do you teach gardening? What do mean teach gardening? Like, one-on-one or what do you mean teach gardening? I know, I know you have the YouTube channel and you have videos there.

13:53

So, so my, the math, the gardening guy, the whole purpose of math, the garden guy is to help people grow the food that they eat. And that's my mission.  Um, and the only way to do that is yes, to teach people.  I have, I have YouTube. know, I have Facebook, Instagram and do a little bit on tick tock, but not a lot.  Um, I do have a website, Matthew garden guy.  And  my, my, my hope is to build that out where I have courses.  Um, so.

14:23

Like some courses  that I'm actively working on  is,  you know, preserving  and putting it more towards around like canning.  I know canning, some people are scared to do it or just don't know what to do. And that's how I was a couple of years ago. So, you know, I'm just going to take my knowledge and put it into some  courses  and post them on my website.

14:48

Another thing that I do a lot in the wintertime. So obviously I'm in Wisconsin. I think you're in Minnesota, right? Yes. Okay. So we get the cold. So  how do you grow all year long?  That's my, that's my, that's my plan right now. So,  um, I did that last year. I grew stuff downstairs.  Um, the thing that I grew a lot was bok choy  and some greens like that. So,  so teaching people, um, one of my, one of my,

15:18

you know, past this year,  winter time  is going to be, you know, creating some courses on how to do indoor gardening. So  I think  all of my videos  are geared around teaching people,  you know, how do you do things? And I focus on one specific area in all of my videos.  so, and it kind of goes in like,

15:44

spurts of what I'm actively doing. So right now, again, there's a lot of canning going on. I'm showing people in, you know, quick videos on how to can, but the goal is to have these on my website and have things in like a blog format where you can read it  and then you can watch the same video that's attached to the content that you're reading.  So that's kind of the structure that I'm doing when I'm creating these videos and stuff like that.

16:13

So  that's fabulous. love it.  Um, you,  the thing with growing stuff inside, we, we start our seedlings inside every year at the end of February because  most things that we're going to put in the garden require eight to 10 weeks before we can put them outside anyway. They're not ready for transplant.  But, uh,  the thing that we've learned is that, um, radishes don't need bugs to produce radishes. They don't need to be pollinated. Nope.

16:42

And lettuces don't and chard doesn't and spinach doesn't. And those are the kinds of things that you want in the wintertime. You want fresh greens. Correct.  And we just put seedling trays on our kitchen table and we have grow light, a  long grow light that we hang from our  light fixture above our kitchen table.  And so if we wanted to, we could grow radishes, we could grow carrots if we had a deep enough container.

17:08

We've grown lettuces  anytime during the year because they just love being inside because they're protected.  Yeah. You know, you can grow a lot of things inside.  know,  one of the things that we're talking about, you know, indoor gardening and that,  I experimented with  dwarf cherries over this last winter. Yeah. Sorry, cherry tomatoes.

17:37

You know, they're about a foot tall and they produce tomatoes. So you can, you know, even tomatoes, can grow those inside. You just might have to self pollinate them or just, you know, tap the flowers a little bit. yeah, there's a lot of things you can grow inside. Now it's just how big of an area or investment do you want to do? know, but yeah, all the greens. Yeah, no problem. Like I said, I grew bok choy inside.

18:06

in the basement or the winter time. And we were pulling bok choy and eating it in our ramen soup or, you know, stir fries all winter long. Yep. And it's such a pretty little plant. I mean, it's so nice to have a thing that's green. That's a new growing in the middle of winter. And that's really, that's my biggest focus this winter time. If I'm talking about garden is, you know, I'm going to grow the things that I know can grow, but I'm going to experiment with other things and I'm going to document it and I'm going to teach people and

18:36

You know, I'm going to throw that out on my website, you know, Matt, the garden guy dot com and put them out there. Like I have a section just for indoor gardening and all of my stuff, all of my courses, everything is free. I'm not really into this to make a buck. My whole deal is helping people grow the food that they eat. So, know, you go on my website, there'll be, you know, there'll be, there'll be the content out there. Um, you know, one thing with my website too, I don't bombard you with a bunch of ad pop-ups and all of that.

19:06

Like I know,  um, you know, kind of switching gears a little bit, no, we do a lot of things. We do a lot of cooking with our food. And one thing that always  annoyed me is when I'd go to a website and look for a recipe and I'd scroll halfway down and I'd get this pop up in my face and I couldn't read the recipe and I ended up just abandoning it and just, you know, got rid of it.  Um, we decided not to do that when we, when we made our website. So, you know, there might be a couple of things on the side, but nothing will pop up in your face to say, Hey, do this.

19:36

or, look at this ad. um, well, yeah,  the, the, um, indoor gardening, sorry, jumping back to that.  apologize. I jump around all the, all the time, but I live with one like that.  Indoor gardening.  A lot of, a lot of people are interested about it. Hey, what is this? What can we do? So  yeah, I'm really going to focus on indoor gardening, like training and teaching more people.  There's a lot of things that you used to talk about grow lights. Well,

20:06

There are specific grow lights and the height above the plants and all of that. There is a science and if people want to put time into it, will, I'm willing to put the time and effort into teaching people.  Um, the other thing that a lot of people don't know when you, when you grow inside is that you need to have a small fan that can grow across plants because  if you don't, they get leggy and they fall over and they die because they have any, any reason to support themselves.

20:35

100%. And you know, I had a, I had another issue. like when I'm growing downstairs, like my basement is colder. So it's like, you know, mid sixties. I have them growing in, you know, the those indoor greenhouses. So I got the fan, but then I also have an issue with a massive amount of humidity. So I'm dealing with humidity and all of that too. So I really got to, I don't know. I might build an area downstairs. That's kind of.

21:04

blocked off and that has some, you know, ways to get the humidity out. But yeah, there's a lot of different things for indoor gardening and people might just be, Hey, you're nuts. That's way too much work. First of all, yes, I am nuts. And second of all, it's a winter time. What else am I going to do? Yeah, exactly. The winters in the Northern tier States are long and you will go insane if you don't have something to do. A hundred percent. People are like, well, get outside. Well, sometimes you can't when it's negative 50 and

21:34

Burn your face off. Yeah. Like that week in January we had last Wednesday. was real fun.  I was going to say we actually put up a quote unquote heated greenhouse two Mays ago. Nice. And the reason I say quote unquote is because  it's not exactly heated.  we have the, I don't know what the hell  they're called. The containers that people ship liquid in, the

22:05

Oh, there's a name for them. Five gallon or 50 gallon drum  or no, they're like a they're like a cube and they're they're in. no idea. They're in a metal cage and I forget this name all the time. But anyway,  we put water in them and the sun heats them up and then they disperse the heat. All right. right.  And that did pretty well until we got below zero temps. That's the problem. Yeah. So like I have have a  I have a  house outside. So

22:34

Right. It's a, my hoop house is,  um, eight feet, eight feet wide and 14 feet long.  And it's just got plastic over it. So  it's great until the sun goes away.  The sun goes away.  It, you know,  it gets really cold in there. It's, it's the same temperature as it is outside as it is inside. Yeah. But it does, but you don't get those wind chills in there. So, you know,

23:02

You got a 12 mile an hour wind, you're not going to get that temperature inside. yeah, they're, they're. Heated stuff, right? I've always been trying to find different things to eat it. That water drum thing you're talking about might work. It does, but it doesn't work when it's, when it's a really long stretch. the other issue is, is if we have three or four days where it's not sunny.

23:31

that water doesn't stay warm. It doesn't absorb the heat from the sun.  So  we call it the heated greenhouse because it extends our growing season into December.  And  we have a place now for the baby plants to go out to sooner in the spring because it's warm enough in March instead of April.  Same thing I do with the hoop house.  I grow into it as long as I can.

23:59

And I start as early as I can. you know, if we get a couple extra weeks, perfect.  And for us, the big deal is that we can have a place to put all of our seedlings in the spring because otherwise  we would have seedlings on our kitchen table for three months. And  sometimes I actually do like to use my kitchen table for other things. Well, when you grow 200 tomato plants, that's a lot. That's crazy. That's awesome. I love it.

24:28

Yeah. And the reason he planted so many tomato plants is because last year he planted three times. And I think we maybe can 30 pints of tomato sauce out of the tomatoes we did manage to get last year. So he over planted this year. Makes sense to me. I probably would done the same thing. Yeah. And  we're starting to learn that no matter what we do,  something is going to go right and something is going to go wrong in the same season. Exactly. You just got to get over that and just expect it.

24:58

And you got to pivot and, this isn't going to work this year, you know, and, and  deal with, or,  you know, work with what you got right now. But yeah, I think that's what gardening is. just gotta, you gotta be able to adapt. A lot of people say, well, it's supposed to be a stress relief. What is just don't let it get to you. Just, you know, that's how I de-stress. I go outside and work in my garden.  Gardening is God's way of teaching you acceptance and patience.  100%.

25:27

Second thing is having kids, in my opinion. Oh, same thing. Raising kids is gardening. 100%. You're just gardening a human, that's all. Yep, yep, yep. Okay, we've got like four minutes left. Where can people find you, Matt? Yeah, mattthegardenguy.com. Matt the gardening guy, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. Don't do a lot of TikTok, but I'm out there. You know, yeah, pretty much all those platforms.

25:57

where you can get me. if people have questions, can they just like DM you or email you? Yep. DM me. You can email me. It's mattthegardenguy at outlook.com. Best thing is just to go, you go on my website, you can send me a message or just go on social media and send me a message. I encourage people to message me. I love helping people. So don't be afraid. Shoot me a message. Awesome. I love that you are such a giving heart. And again,

26:25

People on my podcast do this all the time and I'm just so  thankful that you guys come and talk to me and share your knowledge. Yeah. Happy to do that. Happy to  be on this podcast. I'm  really  interested in, you know, seeing how those chickens work out for you. So  let me know when you get something out there.  If they work out. Yeah. If we do it.  All right. As always, people can find me at a tinyhomesteadpodcast.com.

26:53

Matt, thank you for your time. hope you have a great day.  And to my listeners, thanks for listening. Keep coming back for more.