Summer Bonus Episode: Gardens Everywhere!

What do potholes, abandoned train tunnels, ball gowns, and the depths of the ocean have in common? In this bonus episode, Mangesh explores some of the most interesting and unusual places people have grown vegetable gardens! That's right—no matter the space, planting the garden of your dreams is always possible!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey there, I'm Mangasicul're a co host of Part Time Genius,
one of the founders of Mental philoss and this is
Humans Growing Stuff, a collaboration from My Heart Radio and
your friends at Miracle Grow. Our goal is to make
this the most human show about plants you'll ever listen to,
and along the way, we'll share inspiring stories, tips and

(00:25):
tricks to nurture your plant addiction, and just enough science
to make you sound like an expert. We are on
summer break right now, but because Molly and I cannot
stop our plant addictions, we are bringing you some mini
episodes to brighten up your feed and grow your plant curiosity.
Throughout the summer, we'll be dropping incredible stories from growers,
advice from experts, and we'll even have some fun conversations

(00:48):
around fascinating plant facts. So for this bonus episode, we
are sharing some of the most interesting and unusual places
people have grown vegetable gardens, proving no matter where you are,
you've got enough room for a garden, from tiny houses
to difficult soil. We love hearing about the clever ways

(01:10):
people have grown plants and seemingly ungrowable spaces, just personally
I feel like it gives me even more motivation and
no excuse for not keeping my plants alive and completely
ordinary circumstances. So today we are sharing four unexpected places
you can grow plants. Number one potholes. So we all

(01:35):
know no one likes a pothole. But in Toronto, residents
in the Summerhill area had been complaining about a giant
pothole to city officials for like months, and when the
complaints fell on deaf ears, they decided to take these
matters into their own hands by launching a highly unusual protest.
All these fed up locals planted protest tomatoes inside the

(01:57):
road hazard to make a community garden of sorts, and
as the tomatoes grew and found their way onto social
media as things do, all these embarrassed city officials quickly
addressed the issue and fixed up the pothole. Now, as
for the tomato plants, they also got a happy ending
because they were transferred to a local community garden where
they're living out their lives above ground. Two make use

(02:22):
of an abandoned train tunnel. So in New South Wales, Australia,
Dr Noel Arnold has found a unique place to grow
exotic mushrooms, and he uses an abandoned railway tunnel. He
doesn't just produce a few mushrooms for home cooking, though.
Dr Arnold actually manages to produce over one point five
tons of mushrooms every week, every week, and apparently the

(02:45):
tunnel's damp conditions create an unusually controlled environment for both
temperature and humidity. Because mushrooms don't need light for photosynthesis,
they are also not bothered by this lack of sunshine,
So today Dr Arnold grows everything from shitaki and chestnut
mushrooms to fluorescent pink and blue oyster mushrooms at his
least sun exotic mushroom farm. The mushrooms are sold to

(03:07):
restaurants across the country, but if you want to sample
the wears in person, Dr Arnold gives tours of his
mushroom farm twice a year, three on a ball gown.
In two thousand twelve, Stevie Famulari launched a line of
dresses known as Garden Parties, and her dresses use this

(03:28):
felt like fabric that holds seeds and retains moisture in
a unique way, such that the dresses actually grow flower
and reseed themselves. It's literally like wearing your garden around,
and they are renewable. As she told Syracuse dot Com,
one of the opera gowns she designed has already died
once and grown back. Instead of floral prints, each dress

(03:49):
has over five thousand living blossoms, including poppies, violets, and
baby sprouts. But the idea for the fashion line comes
from an unusual place. Famulari actually came up with the
idea when she first saw these landscape engineers studying geo
textile erosion. They were spring down the road and trying
to make seeds grow on a vertical surface without falling off.

(04:10):
So after years of experimenting with that technology, she came
up with this fabric that creates its own ecosystem. Of course,
the dresses aren't just appealing to hobbyist gardeners. They've made
waves in the fashion world too, and as one stylist noted,
Familarity's opera gown is beautiful, but it's her stylish long
coat that could actually work as a replacement for for

(04:32):
in years to come. Plus, it supposedly smells like spring
for under the sea, the ocean is home to a
lot of vegetation like seaweed and kelp, But do you
ever think about basil growing there. Nemo's Garden off the
coast of Noi and northwestern Italy is using underwater pods
to grow vegetables and herbs in the ocean. So this

(04:54):
all started in two thousand twelve when Sergio Gamberini, who's
a scuba diving professional and trade chemical engineer, was hanging
out with some local farmers whose crops were suffering. It
was all disastrous because of the cold weather, and so
on a lark, he wondered if he could grow plants
underwater where they wouldn't be subject to the same weather
conditions or even things like pests. So after building this

(05:17):
little plastic biosphere and watching basil plants sprout underwater in
less than forty eight hours, Gambrini knew he was onto something.
Today he has six greenhouses underwater where he maintains a
farm of over seven hundred plants, including strawberries, lettuce, tomato, zucchini, peas,
mint time and even alo vera. And for me, I

(05:39):
just loved the idea that when I go blueberry picking
with my kids, it will be underwater from now on.
That's it for today's bonus episode. Check back here again
for more bonus episodes this summer, and don't forget no
matter what season it is or where you're at in
your gardening journey, there's some incredible resources for you on

(06:00):
the Miracle Grow website. Humans Growing Stuff is a collaboration
from I Heart Radio and your friends at Miracle Grow.
Our show was written and produced by Molly Sosha and
need Mongy Chat. This episode was edited and engineered by
Matt Stillo.