Charlotte Green – Craig and Eric Ritche

00:00:07	Introduction
00:00:42	When Craig and Eric Ritchie got into gardening
00:03:18	Affliation with Charlotte Green
00:06:39	Where Eric and Craig Ritchie garden
00:10:36	Herbs being grown in the garden spaces
00:12:40	Crop rotation
00:13:22	Different ways to garden
00:18:28	maintanence of weeds
00:20:10	Animal and insect prevention
00:23:27	Different types of crops being grown
00:25:20	Pollunating in the garden
00:27:07	Soil health
00:29:43	Tilling the soil
00:32:31	Soil health continued
00:35:50	Usage of mulch
00:41:02	Tips and tricks for gardening
00:44:14	Heirloom seeds
00:46:36	Quality of garden-raised vegetables vs big farms
00:51:16	Tips for new gardeners
00:55:77	The decline of gardening
00:57:18	conclusion

Johnathan Glover 00:00:14
Hi, my name is Jonathan Glover and I am here with Craig Ritchie and Eric Ritchie and I like to thank you for taking the time out of your day for this interview. It’s November 12th, 2024 and we are at McGill Rose Garden and do you mind if I get you guys’ age?

Craig Ritchie
I am thirty-two years old.

Johnathan Glover
And can I get yours?

Eric Ritchie
Sixty-seven.

Johnathan Glover
Sixty-seven. And can I ask, when did you guys get into gardening?

Eric Ritchie
I studied horticulture at NC State and hoped to go into the Peace Corps to do farming. I ended up in Charlotte that calls(?) the Peace Corps. I had been selected for the Peace Corps. I was going to do irrigation lines and I was picked to go into Afghanistan. And you got to think this was about 40 years ago. That’s when the whole Middle East blew up so they would not put people in there into the Peace Corps. So during that time I had met my, now my wife, and we decided to get married and I changed my whole career base so we ended up in Charlotte coming here. So I started my own landscape business and garden maintenance and I have always worked in horti-therapy and that’s working with mentally and physically, handicapped, blind, things of that nature. So I kind of had a very diverse career in horticulture.

Craig Ritchie 00:02:10
And for me growing up I guess it started out as helping out my dad as just a job but then over the years I gradually just fell in love with it and started to see how plants work, how they react, how they are in the fall versus how they are in the spring. It just really interests me watching them grow and raising plants from seed cuttings, all sorts of stuff. So deep down I’m a nature boy I always will enjoy being in the garden and being outside. So you can thank my dad for getting me into it but then I have taken it off on my own and my own directions and what not. So following in my dad’s footsteps, you could say that.

Eric Ritchie
And one good thing too about Charlotte, the growth of Charlotte when I came here. You put the same plants in, every house had the same plants, every house looked, the gardens looked alike. Now there is so much diversity and it is so good. See people planting for wildlife and for just different stuff. I think that’s great. It keeps you active, your mind active. So what’s going to be next around the corner?

Johnathan Glover 00:03:17
So how long have you guys been in, I would say cahoots with Charlotte Green?

Eric Ritchie
I have been on the board since day one. I think they are around thirty-three years-old organization. I was on the board for thirty-three, I am still on the board for thirty-three. (laughs) That’s a long board commitment but I really enjoy Charlotte Green. I believe in their mission. And they were one of the first community gardens in Charlotte. It was something new. Once again the diversity that’s coming into the city. I have been helping Miss RushShull, Cissy Shull since then.

Craig Ritchie 00:04:17
Same thing for me, I have been tagging along. I used to go on rides with Cissy. I was about five years old, delivering plants all around the community. It’s been a whole life commitment for me. I love the organization, I hope it keeps going strong.

Johnathan Glover 00:04:27
So like, he said he is an executive board member. Are you also an executive board member?

Craig Ritchie
Of Charlotte Green? Yes I am.

Johnathan Glover 00:04:39
Do you by chance know like, are you are a garden lead or anything of that nature? Or are you just around helping around?

Craig Ritchie 00:04:45
She looks for more, I guess you would call it expert advice. We don’t consider ourselves experts but sometimes she has a question she can’t answer. We are kind of, I don’t know what the word would be.

Eric Ritchie
Consultants

Craig Ritchie
Consultants. But you will find us here and there at different gardens. That’s what we do.

Eric Ritchie 00:05:07
My job as a board member in Charlotte Green, is I’m in charge of outreach for Charlotte Green. That’s my goal. Not plant selection or anything like that. The gardeners are now doing all that. But in the beginning, they had to be exposed to some of this. So I helped with that. But then I went into outreach with Charlotte Green.

Craig Ritchie
One more thing we did start up. We started a garden club within Charlotte Green. So Charlotte Green has a lot of members, of gardeners. But there were some that wanted to learn a little more. So we started a monthly class and we would start seeds in the greenhouse. All different weird stuff that they didn’t heard of. We do classes on perennials, classes on pollinator plants. All sorts of stuff over the years. Unfortunately, just like a lot of things, COVID put an end to that. We are hoping to get something started again. But it really expanded their outlook on what else is out there. They are used to growing their vegetables, their flowers at their house. But they didn’t know certain plants and that was really cool for them. So hoping to get that started again. That was one of my goals for the year.

Johnathan Glover 00:06:27
Oh no, we are fine. So do you by chance have your own gardens or are you strictly just in the community garden scene?

Craig Ritchie
Yeah. Well, I stay really busy on the side. I’m part time here at the garden. We are non-profits. So we don’t have a lot of funding. This garden needs more time here. But I can only work here as much as I can get paid honestly. So I do a lot of work on the side. I stay very busy in other people’s gardens. So it almost feels like those are my gardens here and there. I’ve just lost space at home to have vegetable garden. Vegetable garden is one of my favorite styles. But I just don’t have enough time anymore. My dad has a little more time than me so he can elaborate.

Eric Ritchie 00:07:13
Yeah, I have a sixty by seventy foot vegetable garden in my backyard. Which is pretty big for suburban vegetable gardens. And it’s full. I keep it full year round. Growing stuff. And I also work. I still have some of my clients that I work with in their gardens. And it’s kind of what’s kind of unique about what I do and Craig. The gardens that we work in are pretty affluent people. They have the formality and stuff of that nature for their gardens and their properties. But it’s nice to go home and grow broccoli and tomatoes and things like that nature versus the formal topiaries and the planters and urns. So I have a very diverse footing in the different gardening aspects.

Johnathan Glover 00:08:18
So could you tell us exactly who these people are or the community gardens that you are helping out?

Eric Ritchie
The community gardens are all through Charlotte Green.

Johnathan Glover
All through Charlotte Green?

Eric Ritchie
Yes, they’re all Charlotte Green. I basically work with the Wilmore Garden. You might know those.

Johnathan Glover
Yeah, she told me about Wilmore. She drove us around actually, and showed us the different types of gardens that Charlotte Green has.

Eric Ritchie
And I actually have a garden with my other son because he knows nothing about gardening. And I have a small vegetable garden at Wilmore. And what I try to do there is grow stuff different than what the other gardeners grow so they can learn that you don’t have to just grow the certain things over and over and over. You can branch out. Like I probably put in one-hundred and fifty Garlic bulbs. And then I grow garlic. They didn’t know where garlic came from. I’m trying to expose them and also benefit from growing the plants myself. And then I give a lot of it away. But I just want to expose them. Mostly with herbs. I’m a very adamant person with herbs. And a lot of the inner city people that we work with really do not use herbs. It’s really, they’re just, and it’s not that they are scared of them. It’s just that they’re never been exposed to them. And twenty-five years ago you couldn’t find herbs in a grocery store. Well in a grocery store but at a garden center. Now they’re on the market. But there’s no need to buy an herb if you don’t know what to do with it. (laughs) So I’m trying to showcase the herb garden at Wilmore. Just tell them what it can be used for. And they’re using it. They’re taking baby steps toward it. So that’s one of my goals. It’s the herb garden. And the herbs.

Johnathan Glover 00:10:34
So what type of different herbs are y’all growing in like these places?

Eric Ritchie
Well the culinary. We don’t get into medicinal. We do, over there we do a bay tree which is very interesting. That’s one of the odd ones. We do lemongrass, basil, rosemary, society garlic.

Eric Ritchie 00:11:01
Horseradish.

Craig Ritchie
You can go both ways as vegetable and herb.

Eric Ritchie
Sicilian oregano.

Craig Ritchie
Some winter savory. But we’re landlocked so you could keep going on.

Eric Ritchie
We’re landlocked. We would love to have a bigger herb garden to show them. And one thing too about herbs. A lot of people in the inner city, like I said, they’ve really not been exposed to it. You can put lemon balm in a tea and it’s just like buying a lemon. Just one little pinch of lemon balm is the same as a lemon. That saves you money and it’s healthier. And there’s some that you can replace sugar by stevia. So it’s an economic but it’s a healthier too. So that’s one thing I’m trying to get across. And it’s kind of hard. People, they pick the herbs and then they get them home and think, uh oh, what is this? Is this oregano or is this rosemary? Should I put it on my chicken or not? You know what I mean? So that’s going to be an ongoing. And it’s just at Wilmore. The other gardens don’t really have a specific herb garden.

Johnathan Glover 00:12:29
And then with it being limited on space, do you guys have to practice like crop cultivation not crop cultivation, but crop rotation and stuff like that?

Eric Ritchie
We do. We don’t stand over the gardeners. You know, saying you need to do this, you need to do that. Most of the time we’re learning that. But then a lot of the new gardeners that come on, they want to put every vegetable that God ever created into that bed. And it’s not good. It’s not healthy. It doesn’t produce. So we try to give advice without losing their creativity. And they’re, they’re, I guess so(?)You know.

Johnathan Glover 00:13:17
So is there a reason why you can’t plant all of them in the same place? All the vegetables in one area?

Eric Ritchie
Well, Craig you can do that.

Craig Ritchie 00:13:24
Well, for example, some people want to grow corn and corn is, it’s pollinated through the air. You got to have a lot of plants for all the plants to get pollinated. And so you’ll see some gardens with six or seven corn plants. And when you ride by a corn field, you see thousands and thousands of corn plants. So if you’re going to do corn, you really just need to do like a whole, at least two or three strips of it to be truly successful and get good ears of corn. But sometimes it’s just, someone will get excited and want to plant like a winter squash that’s vining. It will take over the whole bed or like watermelon. So they’ll plant like a watermelon and then they’ll plant a tomato plant. And it’s like a mosaic of vegetables. (laughs) And then it looks pretty when you plant it. It looks pretty for the first month or two. And then all of a sudden midsummer comes and you’re in a jungle (laughs) and nothing’s getting light. Things are climbing on each other. And so there’s, there’s no right or wrong way to do stuff. But to me, that is the wrong way is just the, I would call it the mosaic, a little bit of everything in a small space. It can be done right. But if you don’t know what you’re planting and you’re kind of experimenting, you will pay the price. And hopefully it’ll be a learning where nobody’s perfect. We’ve all learned from our mistakes and that’s, that is a mistake. Don’t put watermelon in the middle of the middle of your eight by ten garden and then try to fill it with other things. So it’s not going to work.

Eric Ritchie 00:14:44
And also, like on corn, I mean, you can take up a lot of room in these little small gardens at Wilmore and all the gardens. You know, you get maybe about three or four ears off this one stalk. Well, that ain’t worth it. It’s better to put tomatoes where you could get twenty-five, thirty tomatoes constantly. You know, you need to think economically how it grows, you know? And so we try to do that. A lot of the gardeners also plant okra. They take up a lot of the space in the garden with okra. And okra is inexpensive. It is nice to grow your own, but when you want all this other, you want cucumbers and you want tomatoes and you want peppers, well give up your okra and do that.

Craig Ritchie 00:15:44
Another thing, like okra, big tomato plants, corn, a lot of people don’t think about the sunlight. Like Wilmore, a lot of the Charlotte Green gardens get a lot of light. But if you’re starving for light a little bit and you got to be very strategic on where you plant the taller vegetables because in the afternoon they may get no sun or the morning they got no sun because you got six or seven foot plants in the middle. So that’s something you really got to think about ahead of time before everything is six or seven feet tall. You don’t want to starve the light of your tomatoes, starve the light of something. You get it.

Johnathan Glover 00:16:15
Yeah I get what you are saying.

Eric Ritchie 00:16:21
Another thing too, when you was in about a watermelon, well that vine will take over a whole area. Well you got to get in there and harvest. And you know, you step on the vine enough it’s going to die. It’s going to break it. So you got to think of pathways, how to get into the, even their small spots. You got to have it in and out without damaging plants.

Johnathan Glover 00:16:46
So like with the watermelons and other plant that grow vines, would that be like a similar problem to like how weeds are in a sense?

Craig Ritchie 00:17:00
Yeah, a little bit. But it’s coming from one plant versus thousands of plants. It is a little easier to manage than weeds but can be just as aggressive if not more aggressive. But luckily it’s what you planted. That’s the real difference is you planted a watermelon and that’s what it is. It may be a problem (laughs) but it’s not a problem like ten-thousand nutsedge coming up in your garden. So it’s easy to manage but it’s very aggressive especially when the height of the summer watermelon, pumpkins, cucumbers, they are aggressive. (laughs) And some will vine, they all vine but some of them really like to climb as well. So that can be a big problem. If you turn your back on your garden for one week in the middle of the summer you got to miss pretty quick. And then say like watermelon and everything I keep talking bad about watermelon. I love watermelon. But at the end of the season if you’re lucky you may get in your little garden you may get one or two watermelons, maybe three at the most. And then you think about it, you took out the whole garden, you watered everything, you weeded it and you got three watermelons. And you go to the grocery store and you can buy. (laughs) At the end of the year you could probably just buy two and be just as happy. But there’s never had a wrong way to do it. So that’s all I got to say on that matter.

Johnathan Glover 00:18:13
So you told me that, of course, you got to tend to the garden when it comes to both vines and weeds. How would you go about actually doing that process? Like are you using your hands or are you using machinery or tools to do this?

Craig Ritchie 00:18:33
You want to say it?

Eric Ritchie 00:18:46
Hands and tools, hand tools, no chemicals, we try to stay away from the chemicals completely. And mostly hand tools, just good, hard labor. That’s the best way.

Craig Ritchie 00:18:53
Hand tools and just hand, hands are the best tools. But it depends on what you got in your garden. There’s been some very bad weeds that have come to our area. There’s some bad stuff that’s getting worse and worse. They drop seed if you touch them wrong. Some of them you try to pull them and they immediately snap. Some of them create little bulbs. And when you try to pull them up they multiply. So there’s some mean stuff out there. (laughs)That’s when you got to kind of use tools and really dig them out. That’s the best way to do it. But then you imagine like you’re in a big crowded garden like you said walking on stuff. In the middle of the summer it can turn into Mission: Impossible. You’re trying not to step on anything and then trying to weed. So all of that’s preventable by good planning at the beginning of the year.

Johnathan Glover 00:19:30
So always do it at the beginning?

Craig Ritchie 00:19:36
Oh yeah, plant out your garden where you can have access to kind of a blueprint where you know you can walk through areas and be able to actually work in the garden versus stepping into a jungle. So you have ways to navigate through the garden no matter how big or small it is. That is key. Very good.

Johnathan Glover 00:20:05
So with that, you said with the different weeds and vines and stuff growing throughout the garden. That may be a problem with about the animals and the insects, how do you all combat that?

Eric Ritchie 00:20:21
One thing I’m going back to Wilmore because that’s where I’m more involved. We have a very large rat problem. And I mean these are, they’re field rats and there’s really no way to control them. There’s a creek behind the Wilmore garden and that’s where they live. And what’s so bad about them and I don’t think the gardeners are scared of them even though they’re quite, they’re not a little cute mouse. These are rats. If you have the most beautiful tomato, I mean you’re getting ready to pick it next week. He will come up and just take one or two bites out of them and then it goes to mush. And that is one of the biggest problems. We have no deer problem because it’s pretty urban. All of them are in an urban setting. Snakes I haven’t heard of any.

Craig Ritchie 00:21:17
And it’s fenced in. Fencing in is very key to slow down the damage that’s done. But the number one damager in a garden is the deer. Number two is probably the rabbit. Number three could be a lot of things but rats are one of them. And voles and then obviously bad bugs like the mites and white flies, all sorts of stuff can go wrong. You can’t control them but you can at least slow down the animal population. You know why they’re there. They’re trying to eat too. It’s not, you can’t blame them. You put a lot of work into a garden and you have a rat or rabbit come in to destroy everything one day. It hurts. (laughs)

Eric Ritchie 00:22:02
Now the moles I do plant in my garden at Wilmore, castor bean plants. They get about ten feet and they give off a root that this moles do not want to do, be around it. But that helps. But when you have that big of a spot at some of the Charlotte Green gardens, you really can’t control them, the animals coming in

Craig Ritchie 00:22:34
And if you have a rat problem and you see snakes leave your snakes alone, that’s why they’re there. So if you’re scared of snakes, don’t, just let them be. Let them do what they’re doing. They’re there for a reason. And they’re going to keep the mice and rat population down and as well as keep out other bad snakes. It’s always a fear in people’s gardens like copperheads in our area. If you have a big black snake, a rat snake, any kind of snake that’s nonvenomous, they will control their territory and they will keep your garden a lot safer and your rodent population down immensely. So do not kill or remove your snakes.

Johnathan Glover 00:23:04
So at the Mary Nash location, I saw that there’s a whole bunch of different types of crops. One that stuck out to me was the fig tree. Do you guys like, grow any other type of plants like trees, bushes?

Eric Ritchie 00:23:36
No, but we should be. The figs are the only fruit trees that, at the Nash garden. I guess I should correct myself for when I say Wilmore, that’s Nash garden. It used to be called Wilmore.

Johnathan Glover 00:23:54
I think iI was confused on that.

Eric Ritchie 00:23:54
Yeah, I’m sorry that’s my fault. I haven’t got used to this change after thirty years. But that’s really only the fruit trees and we should be planting more. We don’t own that land where those fig trees are. What you saw fenced in is it. So we really can’t branch out. And we don’t own the property. So you know if you put an apple tree in it, it may take fifteen years to produce. Who knows what’s going to happen? Charlotte’s just growing and growing. You don’t know if that garden’s even going to be there. Fig trees are good. That was done by a boy scout. At the time that that area had not started blossoming into real estate. No construction. That’s how we got the figs.

Craig Ritchie 00:24:27
Another good thing about figs versus apple trees, these trees, all that is, they produce very quickly. So if you plant an apple tree, it’s kind of an investment. You got to wait many years until you start really getting some apples off it. But fig trees, you can have a young tree that’s three or four feet tall and you’re getting a lot of figs off it. So they grow rapidly. They’re drought tolerant. So if you want to grow fruit in this area, it’s probably the easiest fruit to grow. You can just rely on them every year. That’s it. Plant your figs.

Johnathan Glover 00:25:20
So with the gardens being not too big, but a little bit of medium size. Like how do you guys deal with the pollinate? Like how do you pollinate your garden spaces?

Eric Ritchie 00:25:30
Well, we encourage all the gardeners to plant flowers in their area. Use one area of their garden to put summer annuals or perennials that bloom consistently during the summer for the pollination. Some do, some don’t. It would be great if they all did it, it would just make a big, big difference. But that’s what we encourage to do. And it works. I’m really into organic gardening and you’ve got to have those pollinators. A lot of the vegetables also pollinate to the flowers themselves. That’s good.

Craig Ritchie 00:26:19
When you think about it, you’re relying on the pollinators to pollinate the vegetables. They’re attracting pollinators on their own. You can’t always think that the tomatoes need so much help. The cucumbers, all that need so much help from the bees because they are attracting their own pollinators. But it always helps to have more diversity to bring in all different types of pollinators and bring more of them to your garden. Do some more plantings around the garden, like you said, with perennials and annuals and other things to attract them. But they are there anyways. You can’t forget that the vegetables do bring in their own pollinators.

Johnathan Glover 00:26:57
Right. So with soil fertilizer compost and mulch, are you guys using these things? Are you guys making these things for yourselves or how are you getting these?

Eric Ritchie
Well, being a non-profit, everything costs money. We try to buy it when we have the funds to do it. We did put compost in the Nash garden this year. Some of the gardeners have put in eggshells and things of that nature to build it up. But no, we do not have the best soil there. It needs to be re-done. But being a non-profit, when you have that many gardeners, if Mary Nash garden gets compost, then the south side gardeners want compost. (laughs) And then it goes down the line. Everybody wants it. It’s one or all. And it can get expensive. We have to raise money for this program. It gets expensive. So we do the best we can. Cissy gives some fertilizer, but we are not known to do a lot of heavy fertilization.

Craig Ritchie 00:28:31
If you build great soil, you really don’t need a lot of fertilizer for anything. If you build a good, healthy soil, naturally, you don’t need all the synthetic fertilizers. The food will be a lot better, probably a lot healthier as well. It probably will taste better. So definitely go the organic route. One of my favorites to help keep weeds out, build the soil, bring in worms, is just leaf compost. Bring in leaves that can be from your yard, be from the pathway, wherever. Just blow them and leave them in your beds. Over the off season, all the critters will help break it down and help build the soil. Turns it back into living soil versus what you do the opposite with fertilizer, like 10-10-10. That’s not exactly the natural way of doing things. I’m not saying it doesn’t work, but the natural way of doing things is natural decomposition of organic material. It’s been going on a lot, millions of years. That’s to me the best way, if you want high quality, healthy produce, and keep the weeds out.

Eric Ritchie 00:29:38
One thing I keep suggesting is that every time, we till the garden twice a year, early spring and early fall, and I have mentioned many times that we shouldn’t be tilling as much as we are. That kills the worms, it just cuts them up. But we’re still doing it. Some of those gardeners are up in years now. They can’t turn all that dirt over with a shovel. So we use tillers. I hate to see that.

Craig Ritchie 00:30:13
Another thing about tillers is the worms, all the microorganisms, they come up to the surface and they burn off. They’re not used to living up on the surface, they’re used to living underground. Another thing, what was I going to say? It stirs up all the weed seeds. If you have all these weed seeds there just sitting in your garden, you may not think they’re there, but they’re there. You stir them up, they’re going to be happy, ready to go again. You’re creating a perfect habitat for new weeds to come into the surface. Keep that in mind when you’re using a tiller. I’m not opposed to tilling, you don’t have to do it as much as people think.

Johnathan Glover 00:30:50
So it seems like tilling causes probably a little bit more problems than the…?

Craig Ritchie
It can, yeah. I understand massive, like food production in big fields, farms. They got to break up the clay(?), because they may have been in a massive drought and hundreds of acres away and they got to break up and no one can do that. So that’s understandable. But in a small garden you should easily be able to manage just tilling it, turning it over with a shovel. But if you really build great soil, you don’t really even have to break out the soil, just put it in and the plant will thrive. Even if the top seems pretty firm, the underneath should be quite soft and livable for most of your plants. But it’s not a negative thing, it’s a great way to start a garden. But to me, you should start the garden with the tiller, get it going, like the first time you ever have a garden. Till it up, add as much compost and stuff, maybe till it one more time the next year, but after that it should be good to go. You shouldn’t have to till every single season, or multiple times a season. So that’s just my opinion on it. Many opinions would… You’ll still get a good garden with the tiller, it’s just, you don’t have to do it as much as people think you do.

Eric Ritchie 00:32:03
And I like I said once, some of the gardeners are getting up in years and they just can’t foresee going out there and doing that. And when you’ve got a tiller that could do it in ten minutes, and it could take hours to turn it over. But that’s organic gardening, if that’s the stuff.

Johnathan Glover 00:32:28
Right. So, is there other ways to build a rich soil other than the decomposition of matter through, worms and other animals?

Craig Ritchie
That’s honestly the best way. It’s just organic material. If you’re gonna build rich soil, that’s… It could be wood chips, it could be lots of bark, rotten wood, anything that’s decaying and breaking down. So I wouldn’t say you could build great soil without all those organic materials. A lot of people use double hammered hardwood mulch and they let it break down, it breaks down fast, and then it goes back into the soil. So it has a lot of the nutrients that the tree had in the first place. As well as the leaves, when a tree has roots, it goes deep down into the ground, it creates, it picks up all the minerals down deep into the earth and brings them up into the leaves. So the leaves still contain all those minerals that were taken from deep down underground, feeds all the plants. So it’s just a natural way, I don’t see another way you could create really good soil with maybe a man-made material. You can aerate, but nutrition-wise it’s not gonna help. So you can aerate with a rock and maybe people use perlite, but that’s more in potting soil, gravel, sand, those could be additional. I can’t think of anything man-made that would really get your soil in great shape.I may be wrong.

Eric Ritchie 00:33:57
So if you own an individual plant, if you have an individual tomato plant, you can always, like if you’re cutting back your, I’m saying horseradish, you could use some of the leaves of horseradish and put up around an individual plant. And that, it doesn’t do as good as what Craig’s saying, but it’s a start. And that will rot and that one little, you know, twelve by twelve area will at least have a little bit more nutrients. Or if you know, once again, bag your leaves and take your leaves and hand put them out around each individual plant. And I believe in it, but it’s still not gonna get down deep. It’s just gonna be on the surface and have to rot. It’s almost like a mulch, but it does decay.

Craig Ritchie 00:34:54
The best way to describe the organic building of your soil and a lot of people have probably heard of it, just kind of think of it like lasagna, it’s layers and layers. And over time it’s breaking down, the next time you add a new layer and add a new layer and that’s how the earth was formed. Layers and layers of breaking down of organics that have created great soil and bad soil as well. We have a lot of clay here and clay can be alright because it holds a lot of water. It just needs to be amended with, like I said, the natural materials, especially because in the middle of a drought and you have really sandy soil, your stuff’s going to be drying out a lot faster than you would with some clay mixed in. Clay is not the number one enemy around here, a lot of people think it is, but you can make some very good soil by amending clay.

Johnathan Glover 00:35:46
So with the mulch, I know mulch can be used for many different aspects as far as aesthetic reasons and preventative reasons as far as weeds. But can that cause problems as far as watering your plants because they can kind of block the hydration part of your plants. So how do you work around that?

Craig Ritchie
You just can’t get too thick on it. And you also have to think about which mulch versus the other because some mulches, they kind of web together, they want to clump and really, and say it gets really wet, it rains, and then we go into a drought. Some of the heavier mulches that really clump together kind of turn into a brick. And small little vegetables, not going to be able to handle that. It’s more the trees that can sustain and get oxygen down in the soil. As well as the water, you can water some plants and the mulch is really thick. That water may not be getting through. And the opposite effect, if you think a plant is dry, it’s probably really wet underneath certain mulches. So each mulch is a little different. They have benefits and some negatives to them. It’s all about just not overdoing the mulch, not too thick and not putting it right on the stem. Same thing with the tree. You don’t really want to build up the, trying to think of what they’re called, the volcanoes. (laughs) You see trees that people plant on like the sidewalk or in the yard and they got mulch piled up all up on the trunk. Trees do not like that. They like it – they don’t like things right up on their stem. I really can’t think of a plant that enjoys heavy mulch clustered right around the stem. It’s just not the natural way. So just don’t overdo the depth of the mulch and maybe think about which one’s heavier or lighter. So you have to think about your own situation on that. If you get tons of rain, you may not need to build mulches enough, as much. So yeah, that’s a bit, my main tip, don’t pile it right around the stem. That is key.

Johnathan Glover 00:37:50
So what would you guys recommend for the best mulch? Because I know the hardwood, it kind of takes time for it to break down and stuff like that. And then you got like regular leaves, grass clippings and stuff like that along with inorganic forms of mulch. And then you got things such as like sheets and stuff to like prevent things such as that. So what would you recommend?

Craig Ritchie
My favorite mulch overall is just pine bark mulch or pine soil conditioner. Soil conditioners aged, fine pine bark. To me, that may be one of the best. I mean the hammered hardwood mulch is great. It can be a good thing that it breaks down slow and it can be a bad thing because you want it to break down and build your soil. But also you don’t want to put mulch down that all of a sudden it’s gone because it broke down too fast. There’s a balance between one or the other. But my favorite is just pine bark because it lets air in, it lets the plants be able to breathe. It doesn’t have that, like I said, the mat and the brick you can create in the middle of the summer if you have really heavy mulch. And then the grass clippings are great. The only danger on that is most yards are not full grass. Some yards have a lot of weeds in them and so you may be planting a lot of weeds in your garden as well. Or potentially bringing in some bugs that you may not like that may have been picked up by the mower in your yard. So that, to me grass clippings are good. I think it’s a little bit better to age them a little bit. But nothing wrong with that. It’s just still going back to those leaves. It’s hard to beat. It just leaves off a tree. They’re light. It’s natural and water gets through and holds moisture. It breaks down and feeds everything in the soil and adds all the minerals. Leaves they’ree my number one recommendation. Do you have any more?

Eric Ritchie 00:39:46
Well what I do in the summer with my tomato plants and peppers is I put about three layers of newspaper around them. And then that keeps it. It’s just temporary. It lasts about two or three months. But then the paper does rot which once again adds compost to the soil. But that newspaper keeps the weeds out. And sometimes I put small mulch on top of it and sometimes I don’t. But the newspaper holds in moisture. It doesn’t look good if you’re trying to do a beautiful aesthetic herb, I mean a vegetable garden. But that really works. And it’s cheap.

Craig Ritchie 00:40:31
It’s a different way of recycling your newspaper. Those of you who put it right in the recycle bin. Maybe think about putting it in your garden. Give it a try.

Eric Ritchie
And even tear up strips. Sometimes if you find a newspaper you can just rip it up and don’t put it out front where it looks like you’ve been littered. But you can hide it in your garden and just rot.

Johnathan Glover 00:40:54
So what different types of tips and tricks have you guys learned over the years as far as producing high-quality vegetables and other different types of herbs?

Eric Ritchie
I’ll do the herbs. You can do the other.

Craig Ritchie
I’ll do the two tips.

Eric Ritchie 00:41:16
We buy from a reputable dealer. So many people, they will sell lemon balm and it’s really lime balm or I can buy French sorrel and it’s a regular garden sorrel. You go to, first of all with herbs, go to a reputable dealer. And if you can go to one that you can actually purchase on site or use a good mail order. Because I’ve ordered mints. I grow about eighty different varieties of mints at my home. And I’ve seen, they don’t know the difference. And I paid for Moroccan mint and I got peppermint. So you have to be careful where you both purchase your herbs. And Craig, can you tell you…

Craig Ritchie 00:42:12
One thing I see a lot is back to the cucumbers. If you want really fine vegetables like a cucumber, some of the squash, but I’ll just talk about cucumbers. Growing them vertically is the best to have the highest quality best looking fruit, produce from a cucumber plant. And then it takes up a lot less space. Cucumbers want to vine all over the ground and root in and go different ways. If you cn grow them up vertically, the cucumbers will hang and they’ll be able to grow down and they’ll be symmetrical. They’ll be kind of like what you want to buy in the grocery store. Which I’ve eaten some weird looking vegetables that don’t bother me, but some people are very finicky about how their vegetable looks. If it’s curled, if it’s yellow on the bottom or it’s got dirt on it. So think about growing vertical on something like that. Another thing, if you want to grow and just feel proud of what you’re doing, saving your own seed is a wonderful journey to go down. Saves a lot of money. You can learn a lot. You’ll get like say the heirloom tomatoes. You’ll get the same tomatoes every year off the same plants. These are generations of seeds that are coming off plants that lived in your area. They’re used to it. They’re not seeds that may have been grown in Washington state with a different environment. They’ve adapted through the mother plant. You’re more likely to have better plants as a result of saving seed that was grown in that garden prior versus buying a pack of seeds. It’s really fun to see stuff grow from seed, whether you started in a pot or directly in the ground. I do think that the whole cucumber family does best seed directly into the ground versus putting a plant in. Maybe that’s just me again. But I love doing directly into the ground. I think you get stronger plants as a result.

Eric Ritchie 00:44:04
Another thing, I think you should, if you can, it costs a little bit more money, but it is worth it. If you have to buy seeds for vegetables, buy the heirloom, they’ve got so much more flavor. They’re more disease resistant. Once again, you’ve got to make sure that that heirloom had grown in this area, not Washington state. It makes a really big difference in taste and grow healthy plants. Some of the packages I’ve seen in the big box stores, there’s no way that they could be good for you. They taste just like nothing. I’m not picking on big box stores, I guess I am. I try to stay with the heirloom. If you have to, there’s some good, reputable mail order for seeds. Make sure that that mail order is heirloom.

Craig Ritchie 00:45:10
Another thing on the heirloom, I’m not opposed to hybrids and stuff, but some people think they know what a tomato is supposed to taste like. They’ve only bought it from the grocery store and that’s like (laughs), then you eat a really good heirloom tomato. There’s good ones and then there’s fantastic tomatoes that you can basically cut with a butter knife. They melt in your mouth. You cannot beat the true flavor of a tomato that’s been around a long time. As they keep breeding and making hybrids, flavor is not as big of a selling point for them. They want bigger production, more perfect fruit, better for shipping. There’s so many different aspects that go into the breeding of hybrids that heirlooms, they are what they are. You know what you are getting out of them in the flavor, nutrition, those are number one. You may not get quite as many produce, but what you get is going to be wonderful. So it all balances out.

Johnathan Glover 00:46:05
So it seems like with gardening, it’s better to, of course, grow your own vegetables mainly based off of the nutrition you get and the flavor you get. So with that being said, like, you mentioned how the bigger farmers basically don’t really farm for the taste. They farm for more production in size and shelf life.

Eric Ritchie
And shelf life

Craig Ritchie
Yeah, that’s big.

Johnathan Glover
How long does the actual gardens, how long does the produce from the gardens, how long do they typically last?

Craig Ritchie
Heirloom vegetables will last a lot shorter shelf life, which to me makes me feel better. It goes back to the McDonald’s fries story about fries that have been around for six months and they look the same. To me, that (laughs) shouldn’t make you feel very good about what you’re eating. But if you have a tomato or something that you grew and it’s starting to rot really fast, that’s naturally how it would happen. And then when you may buy it at the grocery store, it could last weeks and weeks. So it’s just through what they’ve been doing to breed and another thing with production, the size. When you think about production, it’s not only how many they’re getting, but how much weight they can put on each plant because a lot of them are getting it – they’re getting paid by weight. So if they make something bigger and heavier, they’ll make more money off it. And I’m not blaming them for that. They’re breeding less for production. But then there’s a lot of positives. They are breeding to eliminate a lot of the viruses and diseases that happen. So there are a lot of positives in the mass production. But then there’s a lot of, if you have space in your backyard, give them both a try, see what you like. And you may have a differing opinion, but I think you would always love the more heirloom side, the older stuff that’s been around for a long time versus some of the newer things on the market.

Eric Ritchie 00:48:12
And the biggest thing too, if we don’t keep the heirloom plants growing, especially the vegetables, we’re going to lose them. We’ve already lost a lot of the things that, you know, one hundred years ago that were popular and good and stuff. They’re no longer available unless somebody’s got those seeds up on their, you know, they’ve kept and keep storing them, they plant every year. But people aren’t doing that. And your generation, and who is your generation? A lot of people don’t garden anymore. And so they said, “We’re losing them, and they’re not going to come back.” You know, that’s what’s so sad they’re not going to come back. And I think that’s a shame.

Craig Ritchie 00:49:07
One more thing, there’s a, I’ve always read it, there’s, we only eat a very limited number of the edible plants that are available in the world. And some people think it’s more government wants to keep it more simple, but there’s a lot of plants out there that are not in production. Since they’re not in production, they’re losing land space and little by little we’re losing a lot of the plants that are edible for us. And when you think about it down the line, if things went wrong and corn stopped growing one day or tomatoes stopped growing one day, we don’t have the backup plan. So you’ve got to have the full range of diversity just in case. And for the greater good of the planet itself and humanity, so there’s a good book, I can’t think of the name of it, but I think the guy’s name is Joseph Simcox. He did a really good book on all the edible plants in the world that are not spoken about and no one talks about them. We’re just so used to what we see in the grocery store and that’s just scratching the surface of what is out there and what can be produced even on a large scale. So that’s fascinating to me and we’re only scratching the surface of what we can eat for nutrition and feed people all around the world. So just wanted to mention that.

Johnathan Glover 00:50:28
So as I conducted these interviews, I’ve seen many different gardens and in different forms of fashion as far as garden beds and things like that. My grandfather used to, he’s passed now, but he had his own little garden in his backyard. I didn’t really know much about it back then because I was growing up as a kid and not really understanding what he was doing. So what, and now that I’ve learned all of these different things, I’ve actually went up to start my own garden in my backyard when I moved back home to Atlanta because I have a pretty big substantial place to grow. So, I want to know what do you guys have to say to those that want to get into gardening or just even those who want to garden in not their own space but in a community garden space. How would they go about that?

Eric Ritchie 00:51:25
Well, I would.

Craig Ritchie
There comes the train. We were warning about the train. You want to get started on it?

Johnathan Glover
Yeah.

Eric Ritchie
Is this vegetable garden, perennial gardening or…

Johnathan Glover
Any type of garden?

Eric Ritchie
You can answer that.

Craig Ritchie
Well, I’d say if you want to get into gardening, you’ve never done it before. Flat out, never done it. Start very small and build a little bit of confidence. You can be drained of all your confidence if you try to do something too big. You can’t manage it and then can’t take care of it. So start small, build from there, build some confidence and get some knowledge. Everybody makes mistakes and that’s the best way to learn. So start small and if you want to just get inspired, just any type of gardening. So many people are indoors now with their jobs and I feel like there’s a lot less people who just want to be outside. Just with office workers just constantly inside. Just go out to a garden, go out to a park and try to get inspired just being outside in the sun. Touching leaves, smelling flowers that get you inspired. If you’re completely not into it, that could be one way of getting into it. Just get a little bit of inspiration being outside.

Eric Ritchie 00:52:49
And there’s definitely good websites, but use this area’s website, not something in New York or something. But there’s a lot of good websites right here. And one thing that’s happening in Charlotte, so many people are moving here from New York, LA, Chicago. They’ve never gardened and they’re itching to do it. But they can’t get advice, they say,I think they could if they studied it. But there are people who really want to get into this. But they’re in these apartments and stuff, there needs to be more and more community gardens. The schools need to be offered more. That’s what makes me mad is the elementary schools are not putting them in. Community gardens everywhere. Churches to be doing it. Non-profits even on the side, to be doing it. You know, just to provide food and knowledge.. You don’t see that much. It does take money to do. That’s the big key. Not a lot, but it’s money. If you don’t have that money, and I’m not talking about the gardeners, let’s say a church wants to do a big community garden, it does take money. The wood, the compost, toget it started. And then to manage it.

Craig Ritchie 00:54:24
That’s key is management because we’ve seen it quite a few times at church gardens. So the elementary school garden, a lot of different public, not public gardens, school gardens, they start too big, like I said, to start small and gain some confidence. See what you can manage. But some of them start so big and then they’ll plant and then no one takes care of it. And it immediately makes the kids look bad, (laughs) makes the teachers look bad. Makes everybody kind of look a little lazy. They did all this, they took all their pictures and then no one takes care of it. So you’re not going to learn much from that. So even if it’s a little ten by ten garden, you can teach a lot of kids a lot in a little ten by ten garden.

Eric Ritchie 00:55:06
At least expose them. Now with the handicapped it’s been very interesting. Because their parents have told them not to get dirty. Do not get your hands dirty. So that’s one of the hardest things we hear probably with so many disabilities. My mama told me not to get dirty. But we want them to dig in the dirt. We want them to plant. And we’ve got to get over that structure. And a lot of parents do that with their kids that are not disabled. “Don’t you get dirty at school.” And they see dirt. My mama would get me if I come home dirty. And that’s ridiculous.

Craig Ritchie 00:56:00
And what happens with that is it goes on to the next generation and the next generation. So little by little you’re creating generations of people who are scared of dirt itself, which is really scary to think about.

Johnathan Glover
Yeah I would say that started with my generation.

Craig Ritchie
People are scared of dirt. Which I get it I guess. Once you educate yourself and you know what dirt is made out of. It’s very natural. It’s a lot more natural than a lot of the stuff we’re exposed to every single day. Like we’re not scared of our cell phones. But we’re scared of the dirt that’s been here for billions of years. I think about that a lot. Very important to educate yourself on the natural world. There’s a lot out there. And we’re all living on this planet. People forget about it. We’re all together on this planet. We take that for granted some days and don’t think about it. How important it is. And it’s where we all live. (laughs) So get to know it and treat it right.

Johnathan Glover 00:56:55
So this has been a great interview. I want to thank you guys for taking your time out and allowing me to interview you guys. And just get information on gardening in general. Is there anything else you guys would like to say? Before I end it.

Craig Ritchie
I just hope this inspires some people to give it a try. And maybe tell others. I inspire others to do the same thing. So the more people are educated on gardening and just the natural world. It’s going to be a better place for sure.

Eric Ritchie
And even if we don’t have the land on these balconies, there should be container gardening. I don’t care if they grow vegetables or petunias. You know, at least do something toward nature.

Craig Ritchie 00:57:40
Or some house plants.

Eric Ritchie
Some house plants. Just something. Just keep it going.

Craig Ritchie
It sounds crazy, but they’re also pretty good company. You hear about the people who talk to their plants. I don’t talk to my plants. Say you’re living in an apartment. It’s got nothing but just white walls painted. And it’s boring as can be. And the second you start putting some plants in there. It creates a more homely environment. It’s just a feeling that plants give off. You’re not completely alone. Especially if you’re lonely. It sounds crazy as can be. But if you’re in a room full of plants, you don’t feel – you can be by yourself, but you feel like you’re a part of something else. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true.

Johnathan Glover
No, it makes sense.

Craig Ritchie
So those of you like I said in an apartment. Or not a living thing in sight. Think about it. Even if it’s a little pot in your windowsill. Just start with one. See where it goes.

Eric Ritchie
And the biggest thing is, “Oh, what if it dies?” Well it dies. You learned a lesson. You got to water it. But you know they’re using it so much. And with so many elderly people living longer. In the rest homes and the retirement communities. It means a lot to people. There’s a lot of lonely people out there.

Craig Ritchie 00:59:04
And it just gives people something to do. If you’re struggling with something in your life. Just another hobby. There’s plenty of hobbies you can do. But this could be one you could give a try. And keep your mind off some of the bad things you could be involved with. Or some of the sad things in your life. It’s very therapeutic. Just being out in the dirt. Digging. Working. You feel accomplished. You feel like you have, like I said, you feel accomplished. You feel like you did your part. And you did all you could. And a lot of times with vegetables and stuff, you get rewarded for it. So it goes well beyond growing your own food. It goes into your full mental state. So gardening is very key on that.

Eric Ritchie
And I’ll tell you, doing this blind project. It’s opened up a whole new world. And to them. Me, you don’t think about being blind. Seeing plants and stuff. They love to feel them. They love to smell them. And they become their friends. You know, they’re not scared of them. If they touch them too hard and the leaf breaks, the world didn’t come to an end. And I have learned a lot. From just our starting of this program. So it was across the board. Children, elderly, disabled. Everybody needs them. My thought. It’s my thought. Oh god that was hot.

Johnathan Glover 01:00:03
You’re good.