So I'm here at a very busy Unity Gardens.

Every time I'm here, it's always a little bit quiet.

But you have a group that's working here right now.

And first of all, just so people understand all the sound that's going on, what is actually happening here?

Absolutely.

So we have many, many volunteers, over 3800 volunteers a year today were wonderful.

Lucky enough to have the South Bend Community School Corp interns.

They work year round sometimes.

The school, the colleges where they work are closed for spring break.

So they come in and do seeding and planting and, we did bulbs the other day.

I'm kind of jealous of how dirty their hands are right now.

It's like my favorite thing to touch.

The earth just feels so nice.

That combats depression.

Did you know that?

I mean, I've no doubts about it.

Grounding yourself.

Exactly.

It feels so good.

I know, I know, you're struggling to stay grounded with awards that you're getting right now.

Tell me about USA today.

What happened there before we get into what's going on.

Right.

I, received a call USA today had celebrated in 2021.

Best of earth kind.

We won a contest, a nationwide contest for what we do at Unity Gardens.

They wanted to revisit that, for Women’s History Month.

And so they called up and they wanted to do an interview.

And it was really exciting because this is a way that the entire nation can understand what Unity Gardens is all about.

Yeah.

That's, you know, I know you don't do this for awards, but that is it's always nice to get that kind of recognition just to kind of boost the mission, right?

And boost the message of the mission.

And you never know, somebody across the country might see that and think, I should do that here too, right?

Like that's exactly what I'm hoping.

I take one for the team, so to speak, because it has very little, especially these days, to do with me.

Yeah, but what it does have to do with what the power of community and what we can do if we come up with our own local solutions to local problems.

What if we're kind and share with one another, like free food and gardens?

Is the perfect way to teach that.

But really, that mission is so much more like we don't have to, in our hearts, focus on a scarcity model.

We can literally live as if there's abundance and share with one another.

Well, you know, I work on a lot of projects involving food, and there is an abundance, actually, you know, and that's the one thing that it seems it's more like about getting it to people and the logistics of it and being in the right neighborhoods the way you are to make sure people get it.

So, so there is an abundance of food.

So we should think about it like that because there is enough, as long as we actually just, you know, are able to connect people to it.

So and the karma of sharing in general just expands beyond food.

What if we used reuse clothing or shared what we no longer needed at homes?

The end is never in sight now.

Yeah, we just need to organize good atmosphere.

Absolutely.

It's hard to organize good because often it's in pockets doing its own thing.

But when we can get people together, we can be surprised.

Surprises.

That's exactly what's happened here.

I know that's a part of like some of the things you're doing, like the growing summit that's coming up on Saturday, March 14th.

Tell me about that.

That's about organizing some people, getting them together right, exactly.

This happened, for the first year in 2010 at Keller Park Church, where a group of different people throughout the community with expertise about growing or gardening or environmental things or nutrition, came and each took a class.

So we've had between 20 and 30 classes every year on one, what used to be a weekend, but now it's one day Saturday.

The Central County Public Library has been kind enough to always host that since then, and Lippert Components has sponsored it so that it's free for everyone.

It's great.

How do you get.

Because teaching people is one thing, right?

I think every time I see you, I'm like, I really want to start this spring.

I really want to grow.

Like the idea of growing as just you know, what's in it.

You know, in a world where food is constantly attacked with things, it's like, you know, and every year I don't do it.

How do you get people from the knowledge to the execution?

Because it is tough, right?

So that's that's part of it.

If you focus on one area, it gets a lot easier for instance, if you have seeds, cool weather seeds and throw them into the ground for some good to grow, you know, but we also can expand our success ratio.

If you will, by using fresh seeds or warm water, by, watering underneath with seedlings.

So using a fan to keep them strong.

There's a zillion little tricks.

And this isn't just about what happens in the garden.

It's what happens underneath the garden with soil and composting or, you know, beneficial insects.

And then it's also herbs and herbal medicine.

What happens inside us in that whole cycle, and then even environmental things like, natives.

And why do we need natives in a vegetable garden?

Yeah, you can learn all these things and more.

I love that, I love that, and as you mentioned, start simple, right?

Not start with the simple things because, oh, if there was one thing that a beginner should want, it should start with what?

What's that one kind of vegetable.

What's that one thing that you would recommend.

So whatever you like to eat I know, but if there's one thing that I'm like, okay, I would really struggle to kill this or like, you know, like a cactus, but like, for a vegetable, right, right, right.

Like, well, I think kale is extremely easy.

Okay.

However second year.

No.

Okay.

And then read the back of the package if I had one like tip.

Yeah.

Read the instructions.

Okay.

Yeah, I've already lost it if I have to read the instructions.

Oh, no.

We got a day coming up here for, on Saint Patrick's Day.

Yes.

I could not have a better ambassador to introduce her.

Never to be called Saint Patty's Day.

Okay, we're not sausages.

It's not.

It's not a thing.

Okay?

But what's happening on Irish Day?

An Irish day?

This is a day to volunteer at Unity Gardens.

We're celebrating with community partners.

Things that make our community great.

Like Fiddler's Heard.

Yeah, Amazon and South Bend reentry Center.

Yeah.

So a number of different partners that support not only Unity Gardens for our community in one way or another.

Pierce and potatoes are the two earliest things you can grow.

So we're going to be planting those.

And you know, Irish people, we really need help with those potatoes because I don't know if you know our history but diversification.

Yeah, but that is true.

But yeah.

So no corned beef involved in this, which is good because corned beef is not a traditional Irish dish.

I don't know if anyone knew that.

That's hilarious.

I did not know that.

So I always give it a pass.

Okay.

And I'll tell you why.

Because.

So we eat like bacon and cabbage in Ireland, right?

So like, bacon is more like ham here.

Like that, that they're interesting.

But Irish immigrants, when they came to the US, ham was too expensive.

So they changed it to corned beef because that was a cheaper me.

So it's technically not an Irish dish, but it is an Irish immigrant dish, so it gets a bit of a pass because it's not totally made of like look eat your authentic.

Yeah like that.

Like and then finally we have Earth Day coming up, which is a little bit further out.

I know these are pretty close, but Earth Day is on April 18th, so what are you going to be doing?

So we'll be doing another volunteer day.

We're getting the garden ready.

April 18th is right in that time frame that we can celebrate through, cold weather plants.

We're not doing warm weather plants or really preparing the earth for everything that you need.

A garden is going to grow.

So when it comes to because again, we talk about these specific things, but obviously people can either make it or they can't or sometimes they see this.

And you know, we procrastinate a bit on helping out.

But if if people wanted to get their hands dirty and come up and help, like are there opportunities just like showing up and saying, hey, I want to volunteer, are there opportunities just or does it always have to be around these days?

Absolutely.

So we have volunteer opportunities every single day, year round.

We have volunteer manager who, helps coordinate that.

We always have things to do with the team and we're open seven days a week, year round.

Yeah, 9 to 5 or 9 to 7, just depending on weekday versus weekends.

And it's not just people who get recognized in USA today who need to stay grounded.

Like we all need to stay.

Absolutely.

We're so connected for nature.

Well, actually, and I talked to somebody about this locally who's really into this and, you know, the tree hugger analogy.

But like he's literally like, if you can put your bare feet in the grass and touch a tree, it's like the best, you know, and we're the only species on Earth that don't regularly touch the ground because we're wearing shoes or has given away our ability to feed ourselves multi-generational.

We it's amazing.

Are you, medical school really highlighted the importance of physiologically touching the Earth as a combat to depression or anxiety effects of green space.

No, I, I you know, I used to think those crazy hippies, you know, and now I'm like, no, I totally think, like, I, I know I don't look like it, you know, but I totally, it used to feel like it was a derogatory term, and now it's like, oh, they have a figured out term like, now.

So.

So congratulations on all you're doing.

Yeah, I know as you said, you know, there's a lot of people here that make this happen.

Now you're keep continue to grow every year.

So thank you to everybody here.

The 3500 volunteers and everybody else, the staff members.

So keep up the good work.

Thank you so much.