I thought I would republish this episode from last winter on December 22, 2016 because with the 2018 Garden Goals Challenge and I’ve been running at the gym, and I think I’m gonna sign up for the Missoula 1/2 marathon this summer I thought it would be a good interview to replay. Plus I love Denny’s vermiculture advice!

I’m super excited because I am going back to interview my friend from Podcaster’s Paradise in episode #1 that he had to record back then, I was listening earlier but it’s pretty fun, and still full of golden seeds… one thing I was gonna tell listeners if you want to go back and listen to it I think you have to go to my website and download it, it’s not available on iTunes anymore….

dizruns.com

I'm super excited because I am going back to interview my friend from Podcaster's Paradise in episode #1 that he had to record back then, I was listening earlier but it's pretty fun, and still full of golden seeds... one thing I was gonna tell listeners if you want to go back and listen to it I think you have to go to my website and download it, it's not available on iTunes anymore....

dizruns.com

Today, anyway I am here to talk with Denny Krahe from central Florida, who is a runner, and his emails inspire me, one of the few still in my inbox, and regularly, even though I get to run enough, and I recently found out a lot of listeners are in Florida! He has so many golden seeds to share with everyone.

Millennial Rockstar

Are you a millennial?

I think technically, I'm in the gray area, if you will, my birthday is in 1982. idk, maybe I'm trying to pick the best of both worlds. if idk re 3-4 .... blend of most positive aspects of you a and gen x... I always love millennials and millennial another one of those rockstar your... ... oh well if... I think millennials are rocking this world, I love millennials, I know they get a bad rap and the ones

If yu paint with a borad enough brush over things... you'll find good, If you looking for the good in millennials … you there's plenty of that. If you're looking for good you'll find people

That's me, I always find the good in people, I'm like the eternal optimist!

Tell us a little about yourself.

In Central Florida, live in basically Lakeland

between Tampa and Orlando

I grew up in Northern Michigan...

right in my neck of the woods

familiar with winters,

moved down here for college

on the gardening side, it’s been an adjustment, because I'm used to 4 seasons, I'm not used to... literally I’m picking tomatoes, the 18th of December...

obviously growing up in Northern literally you don't do that, and so Michigan 

when to plant things is an adjustment, cold weather...

four season landscaping

down here... things are quite a bit different

On the non-gardening side

I like to run, that's my outlet, and that, that’s what my podcast is all about is all about, overall being healthy, fitness and activity and nutrition... food wise

nothing tastes better then something you pick within the hour, ultimate for fresh food and healthy living…

Isn't your degree in nutrition? Do yo knowing to talk a little about growing your own food and eating...

my degree in athletic training… injury prevention/recovery.

definitely talk about nutrition

continuing education... mostly ex

recertification stuff

exclusively been nutrition based, food is medicine type of thing...

yeah,

it’s I don’t want to paint industrial ag, big ag with a completely bad sense

there is something to be said about growing your own, that pride that you have! Also, you pick it when it's fresh, you can control what’s on it, can control what pesticides... 

want or not the chemicals or sprays

are bad for us or not, they might not be bad, but I don’t think they can be good

I’d rather know, I like to have that ownership, and know what's going on...

Im of the belief that it doesn’t et much healthier when you grow it and whether pick it and your there throughout the whole process

even if it’s in the mind… healthier and throughout...

probably preaching to the choir to this audience

something special about sweat equity on your dinner plate worth every ounce of time and effort 

Let's take a little thing from John's better.... as an expert, what's one thing that you think maybe show that ordinary listener or we would maybe know as someone who's been studying healthier living... something we might be surprised about...

Food Cravings = Missing Nutrients

One thing that I really believe in, it's been a little bit, but not years... been rattling around in my brain for a little bit ... the idea that .... when we get hungry signals... it's not so much ordinary that we need calories... we’re craving a vitamin or nutrient

carolers body says you need something...

when you get a pang

craving salty... potato chips which isn't the best... you go towards your craving

the idea is we’re eating more processed food ... get a signal that we're hungry we're looking for a mineral and nutrient... Then we eat something that is less then nutrient packed and nutrient dense.... the reason you're hungry again in 30-45 minutes an hour, is your body is going through that food and it's your body is saying your still missing s your still hungry...

that nutrient is missing...

People think when your hungry, what your going for is calories... what I think and I have noticed this in my own life, not rigorous studies but I have noticed

the more nutrient dense food I’m eating which tends to be fresh and local and things of that nature...

the less hungry I am, because my body’s getting the nutrients and minerals all the stuff that comes from the ground... the 

stuff I'm growing or I'm getting from the local guy down the road

organic produce 6 months of the year...

those are the times Im not hungry... I think it's because my body's not craving nutrients... 

if Im on the road

fall off the healthy fresh organic kind of bandwagon...

This is the greatest thing for me... I just go John lee Dumas' newest book, the Self-Mastery Journal ... I'm deciding what's my goal gonna be? should it be a food thing or exercise piece? What should it be... and I'm living... I was telling the organifi guy one day... I don't have time to mix it... I even scooped it out on Sunday last week. that's how busy you are as a teacher... I have kids in my room at 7:30 in the morning and it's pretty much non-stop till 6pm...

Last summer I did the Food Babe's Sugar Craving detox and it worked so good! I am thinking how can I put that back in my life... but that might be hard if I live out of a cooler some days? Maybe I just have to put my mind to it ...

This is a great thing for me to hear... I'm back to those cravings its perfect for me... 

Variety improves success

Variety as always important... if you’re always eating the same couple of things, you're not getting the variety of nutrients... try to add…some variety as well will help!

Cool i like that! Do you want to tell us? Did you grow a garden?! I know youre super busy. Don't you even have a book coming out?!

I'm working on a book. The entrepreneur's curse! Always doing something. I have bene busy! The podcast is up over 350 episodes now!

And coaching runners…! Doing that! Doing the garden and working on the book!

Always working on different things and going 6 directions and be a good husband and present dad ~ going around in circles...

garden is going well…

IDK where we were the first time. struggle for me has been soil quality

live in a subdivision...when our house was built it’s a lot of fill sand, so certainly not quality soil... this is the battle I've been fighting for 3-4 years working to improve the soil quality ... without just dumping a bunch of fertilizer, and things like that on it, obviously that's not improving the quality, maybe a shot for your plants, but not helping your soil...

I was composting for a bit, that was going all right! 

[caption id="attachment_15160" align="aligncenter" width="170"] Planet Natural Vermiculture composting worms[/caption]

VERMICULTURE

• recycle food scraps
• improve soil

and in the last year and half or so.... I've gotten into the vermiculture where you're using worms to compost for you! And that's been going really good!

I have a bucket, like a tote! A 30 gallon tote something like that...IDK maybe 18 gallon...! You know the thing you get a Home Depot and pack your blankets in over the summer time ...

I just put my food scraps and bunch of worms in that thing and they do a their work! It's cool to recycle the food scraps that way and improve the soil

• add worm castings
• more mulch
• improve cover crops

every 3 months or so I put some fresh worm castings on to the soil and add more mulch, improve with cover crops, picking tomatoes yesterday.

It's a small garden... you know growing up we had a huge garden so this is more of a flower bed

• got 4 tomato plants
• basil
• Kale
• Florida winter crops in here in the next couple of weeks...

10 feet by 12 feet

couple of fresh bits of produce

now that the soil quality

tomatoes taste good! That's half the battle. It's exciting to watch that improve and see the produce!

So you put the worms in a canvas bag? A tote?

No like a plastic tote, bucket that you store stuff in?!

Oh, yea, I know...

Home Depot

I'm going crazy at school not collecting the compost, I keep trying to fiure out what to do because it's like throwing all this money away...

Did you say you change it every 3 months?

There's only 3 of us eating here

worms a little while to work through the food waste, there's a little art to it...push all of the stuff to one side, then put 

worms kind of migrate... then you can kind of scoop out the casting they created

kind of keep that process going and recycling it...

the more food waste the more you get... you just throw it on

mix it in

Cover Crop Season

if it's cover crop season... sprinkle it throughout the garden

slow, just like anything

you can throw fertilizer on and get that instant kick

takes a little bit to get there, I think it's the the right decision

nice to be able to stick the shovel in and see it's all black dirt, it used to be 

1st quarter of inch…

Without a doubt dirt, coming up with compost and that healthy dirt, is essential and hard to get buy...

I'm thinking we have 17 kids... who eat in my room but only once a day, if we just recycled the breakfast part... we started the garden club in November, it's winter, but before you know it it's gonna be open... They have all these bins down there adn there's a guy from the food corps who has a heated green house. I'm so excited we're talking today. I think the worms is a great idea! I had Cathy Nesbit

You were telling me about vermiculture...

I got my ordered my worms from a guy in Pennsylvania, clearly they don’t have to be hyper local, you just have to protect them in winter time, which for me is easy the 2 dys of the year, I just throw a blanket over in it, I almost have more trouble in the summer time, when it’s so hot

so you need to keep them insulated

Any climate zone as long as you keep em moist and cool and warm in the winter your good!

I'll be like I got us a class pet! I got us 100 worms! I just made that up... what size do they come in?

I think I got 500

it sounds like a lot

they’re not big

if you put your two hands together, it would be a heaping handful in your hands...

it’s not ridiculous quantities... they work fast... 

steady stream of food products... it sounds like you have a steady stream!

The kids are like let's get a rbbit... I'm not good with a pet, I can't keep it in the cage... then I'll want to let it go and then it's trouble!

worms are pretty self sustaining

great for the classroom

junk mail, you can throw some paper products in there... 

throwing, scrap paper! We have lots of that! 

The kids go through some paper too! I ahve bins and bins of triangles.. I think I have papers from 2007 at Head Start I kid you not. They'll be like Jackie finally cleaned up her clutter! 

Cool solving two problems at once!

I also love the small garden part... we had like the smallest garden we've had in a long time this eyar and my granddaughter... I tough about making my garden challenge this eyar... I alwasys said if I started over I would build a small bed like 3x4 bed that's hip high and a larger bed that's 8x10 that I can sit on the edge and weed and harvest and maybe a raspberry patch or something small. Just like a little garden...

I was thinking that might be good for the 2017 garden challenge... maybe I'll try to do that and mike can do the big all out garden mini-farm I'll be in charge of our food that we are gonna eat and he'll grow for market....

What else is growing besides tomatoes?

That’s what’s growing ... there’s 2 summer seasons ... I plant the fall, end of year .... beginning of end of sept .... to harvest between now and the middle of January... when we will get a frost or two . Sometime in the next month, the tomatoes will be running their course because it will be too cold... probably in the next week or I should have done a week ago, the kale... brocolli that are kind of cold season .... the kale does better when the heat starts to show back up end of feb, beginning of March. so get a couple of months of fresh kale for smoothies, sauted or whatever.

If I get the second round of tomatoes back into the ground by Valentine's Day so that they're ready to go by the first part of May because by the middle of May it's just too hot and rainy and the bugs are too crazy things start to rot, you get some root rot because of rain ... do some carrots, every once in a while, some basil and some mint .... experimenting with different thing ... I grew sunflowers this year for the first time, put those up, it was almost like a buffer on the back of the screen porch....nice to have something to look at .... when the heads blew up on those and you had the big yellow background! 

I have some blueberries, I haven't figured those out yet? I need to get a better variety. I think the variety I have isn’t situated for the no freeze, no cold time, ...Just like gardening everywhere everything constant experiment .... take some notes and make sure you make you can find those notes the next year so you don't make the same mistake a second time, which I 'm not good I'm doing.

Im always...... by Valentine' s day, I have to plant my tomatoes then it's usually the second or third of March I'm planting them and then there's a couple of weeks before it's too hot in the summer time .... carrots, green beans and kale and broccoli, tomatoes have been the best crops for me so far most successful so far...

half way...