InFocus featuring Ed Sourdiffe

From the 22 News Plus Studio, this is 22 News In Focus with Patrick Barry. Hello, everyone, and welcome to this edition of In Focus. I'm your host, Patrick, excuse me, Patrick Barry. And if you're a regular watcher of this show or of my previous role on Mass Appeal, you probably know that if there's a plant out there, I'm gonna kill it. But during my time on Mass Appeal, I got to know my next guest. He is Ed Sordoff, he is a master gardener. Ed, thank you very much for joining me. I appreciate you coming in. I always had fun during our Mass Appeal segments because I really am, I'm the plant killer. I'm a brown thumb. I'm not proud of it by any stretch. And you always gave me such hope, such hope with plants. So I would try different things at home and fail miserably, and periodically I would send Ed texts about, hey, what do you think of this? I'll send him a picture or whatever and he'd escort that to the trash bin. Or no, it's still got some life, try this, no matter what your response was. So I'm glad you're joining me on this show because I don't think I'm alone. I think a lot of people like plants and flowers and trees and bushes. But again, I don't think I'm alone that we just don't know the right way to maintain them, care for them, make them prosper. So which is why you're here today. We'll talk about, hopefully over the next half hour, we're gonna talk a lot about plants. But what I wanna get into first is you're a master gardener. Yes. You sound so excited. I know. Yes, what does it mean to be a master gardener and what does it take to become a master gardener? A master gardener, there's local groups. There's Massachusetts master gardeners and then there's Western master gardeners. So there are two separate groups. There's a class that comes out every year that we train the new people. You go through, before you get to that class, you go through interviews, decide if you're good for this, if you should get into it. It's mostly about educating the public. And so you should have a good personality. You should be somebody who likes to teach people. I do know that that's not always the case with some master gardeners. I have to imagine gardening by its nature is kind of a solo sort of event. You don't garden in groups. You're kind of out there by yourself, tending to your rhododendrons or your peonies or your tomato plants. You're not inviting your friends and family over. So I can say I'm sort of a solo gardener. It is, it is. Although there is a community of gardeners, just because you're one gardener does not mean that you're not part of a community. When I traveled Europe when I was younger, there's so many doors that opened for me. When you start talking about gardening, I met at the Vatican, I happened to meet a family. I did not meet the Pope, but I did meet somebody very up high in the banking business from England. And that family invited me back to their estate when we got back. So is that how you fell in love with gardening, through childhood experiences? No, I got into gardening for the simple reason we didn't have cable TV back then, I believe. I was trying to figure out why. Well, you were born in the mid 1900s. Yes, yes, yes. And the cattle kept me busy, but I had other things to do. I really did not like, as a young child, winter. I just, it was- You don't like it as an old child. Yeah, I know, I feel the same way. I didn't like the sterility of it. There's no, you know, the fragrance of mown grass, soil. The birds have gone, everybody looks dead, but they're just hibernating, the trees and everything. So my grandmother had some houseplants and stuff, and so I kind of gravitated towards that. And I started collecting plants, just to green up my room and stuff, and the first artificial lights and stuff I had. I had an east-facing room window, which wasn't the best, but it worked. And so after that, it got me into tropicals. And then I kind of always, always wanted to have, so I guess instead of moving away, have a refuge from the winter, and so almost basically be surrounded by plants so you wouldn't really notice. Like a greenhouse, or? Yeah, so actually now I do a conservatory. I actually finally do have a very large conservatory added to the cabin. So I do have 24-foot tall palm trees and different things like that. Yeah, it's rather nice. So it's nice to be in there in the winter when you're hearing this sleet on the roof and the rain, and it's all white outside, but you have the orange trees blossoming and stuff. So I did get that, and that's from that original hatred of winter, I suppose. You know, you've glossed over your feelings about winter and depression, and not depression, but just like, ah, it's winter, right? Well, there is seasonal effect disorder, which is a whole big thing. But I have to imagine gardening helps a lot of people get through that, you know, that winter, which, you know, it's just, it's brown, it's white, you know, there's nothing blooming. If you have a garden in your home, or, you know, some grow lights, it kind of boosts your spirit a little bit. Oh, it's true, and the seed catalog companies know this. The moment that Christmas is over, yeah, and when Christmas is over, all of a sudden you're inundated, and your mailbox is full, and full, and full, and the more they know, one will tell the other. So you get a ton of these things, and it actually, it's good. It's good to sit in front of the fireplace with these, and you can plan the future. And you're looking through these magazines that have things in full bloom, kind of gets your mind into the spring and summer mode. Yes, it does. And then when you do get seeds and stuff, I'm a big advocate of growing your own things at home from seeds. And it doesn't have to be expensive. I always talk about shop lights, basically, are the cheapest thing. And you get- Like those four-foot fluorescent tube lights? Yes, yes, without the ballast. You don't need a cold ballast, which you would have for like a garage to start up. So it's the cheapest of all the shop lights. You can just put a cool white and a warm white bulb together. You suspend them four inches over your flats of soil. It's always using potting soil if you're doing any kind of house plant or starting seeds. And then as the seedlings come up, it also helps to have a heat mat that usually really helps your germination. You leave these shop lights on for 16 hours a day. It sounds like a lot, but- Just gonna say that. But it's fluorescent, so it's not that expensive. I know they have LED, of course, but I've had my fluorescent lights, the same bulbs and everything for, I don't know, 15 years, 20 or something. And you really get the same results. It looks like the plants came out of a greenhouse. And it's great because some things like geraniums and different plants, even maybe violas, you would start much earlier in the year. So you can start things in February. And you can put your lights on a timer. It's not like you gotta go down, flick a switch, flick a button, 16 hours. Yeah, they're on a timer that really it's, which timers cost like $4 or anything. Yeah, so you have that. You do have to be careful though, because if you start going down there, puttering, say in your basement or wherever these lights are, the lights are stimulating for you. And you'll notice that you'll be wide awake. So like at midnight, you're just getting going. And so it's like, you don't wanna do that. But it is, if you do have something like, we talked about seasonal effect disorder, that will actually help you with that. Because number one, you have, there's life starting here. It's greenery, you smell the soil, and then you do have all that light. So it does really help. We are up on our first commercial break. We've got plenty more to talk about when it comes to gardening with Master Gardener, Ed Sortef. Stay with us, we're back in a minute. This is 22 News In Focus with Patrick Berry. Welcome back everyone to this edition of In Focus. I'm your host, Patrick Berry. Sitting across the desk from me today is Master Gardener, Ed Sortef. Ed, thank you for joining me. I appreciate it. We're talking about gardening and your love of gardens, and Ed and I met during my time as host of Mass Appeal. Do you, you commented about traveling abroad to Europe, and do Europeans have a greater appreciation for gardens, you think, than the US? Because the few times I've been able to travel abroad, they do. In my mind, I feel like Europeans, because Europe's the only other place I've been to, they just appreciate gardening and beautiful blooms more so, I think, than the United States. Well, they have a longer history, hundreds and hundreds of years. They've been exposed to it. So, but yeah, they, I mean, I've been recently watching more of the British gardening shows. You live an exciting life, don't you? I know, I've been recently doing this. I know it's sad, but that's my life. But, so I found this new, well, he's not new, he's old. It's Monty Don, and he has a Gardener's World. Is he like the Julia Childs of gardening? Yeah, they really know this guy out there. They love him, and he's really pretty good. And I just, I really like the shows because unlike the American shows, where everything is absolutely perfect. I mean, you turn on Martha Stewart, where everything's perfect. There's not a, nothing has ever nibbled a leaf. There's no ground anywhere. There's, it just, it's overdone. It's manicured. The- It's produced. Yeah. It's for television. But they produce this, the Gardener's World. I mean, like Martha Stewart's show is, it's like reality TV isn't reality TV. It's produced. Yeah, and I, but when you turn on the British shows, they show that they're doing the right thing. Yeah, and that they're healthy plants. You can tell that everything looks great, but there will be that thing that the bug ate. There will be whatever's a little bit off or something. And I think that actually makes it more approachable for people. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, it's like over here, if you, if you didn't know gardening and you just saw Martha Stewart's way of doing it and the way her gardens look, or the reality of the situation, you'd think you were a miserable failure and you wouldn't want to do it. But when you see these other shows, you're like, oh, it's, it's approachable. I can do this thing. You know, it's funny. I feel like an abject failure when it comes to gardening, whenever I'm in your presence, you know? I mean. I think that's a persona you actually like, that I can't garden. No, no, it's not a persona. I've got a track record and a table in my house of brown things that were once alive. I have to come over because. I chalk it up to they can't handle the high pressure, high stress of living in my house. They can't handle the truth. Living with Patrick. So you have an opportunity. You're lucky because you have an opportunity to speak to students, even adults, not just high school and young students, but you get a chance to talk to students and adults. How do you, what do you say to them about the excitement of gardening? Like, how do you build excitement? Like, how do you, you know, if somebody like, I mean, I'm excited about gardening. I just can't do it. But like, if somebody's like, Ed, really? You're watching great gardening shows. But how do you get that excitement with somebody? I don't know if you can give the excitement to somebody because some people just won't get it. I think there's something in you. I think if you have a success with a plant and then you go on to another one and you don't have a success, but then all of a sudden you can turn it around. And then you say, wow, I was able to do that. And then you keep going, expanding your horizon. Well, I'll give you that because the way you just explained that, it didn't dawn on me. It sounds like learning an instrument, playing a sport. You know, you start out and you're awful no matter what. And then, oh, oh, I was able to get that chord or those songs down or, oh, wow, I was able to hit the ball, you know, past the pitcher, whatever it might be. Like, so success breeds success. Yes, yeah. I think anybody wants to be rewarded. And if you, like you, you don't seem to be getting rewarded by the experiences. Oh, yeah, I'm like Charlie Brown, Lucy in that football. I really think that's your persona. You just love that part of it. Because I'm sure you can do it. Because if you have one plant, I always say for every plant, there's a person. And for every person, there's a plant. Yours is certainly the aloe vera. I can't kill aloe. So a funny story, that was a story. My wife's dowry from 30 something years ago was an aloe plant. We still have that thing. I can't kill it. So you are trying? I'm not trying to, but my problem with plants is twofold. I'm either overwatering or I forget about it, right? And I think that that's, in and of itself, my problem. I don't know when to water and when to remember. So yeah, these aloe plants that I've got, they're great. Every few months, I'm like, oh God, we have those aloe plants. I better get a little splash of water. And they seem to be doing okay. If I try to grow roses or even herbs, my wife and I have this raised herb bed. It's surprisingly, it's hanging on. But there have been years past where the two of us kind of stand there and go, hmm, that's not looking good. We're not getting any chives out of this one. Wow, that's interesting because chives are so easy. They're not. Take it from me, they're not. I'd have to go see what's going on there to see what the problem is. I actually almost think there's a vibe with plants, believe it or not. I, some people, yeah, there's some people. My mother-in-law does everything wrong with her plants. She has an orchid that just keeps blooming and blooming and blooming. And it's against a window. And usually the orchid flower stalks end up behind the stained glass thing that's hiding there. You don't even know it's blooming until you pull it out and it's blooming. The thing is always soaking in water. You're not supposed to do that with an orchid plant. But this thing goes on and on for years. She had an African violet and I came over one day and I looked at it. It looked like it should have been at the Boston Flower Show, blue ribbon. Yes, it was like a foot across or more and it was just a mound of flowers. And I said, what do you do? Oh, I don't know, I water it from time to time. Maybe some, I don't know. Sing to it or talk to it? No, no, it's some people, if you can, they don't have to do anything to it. And it's like, my mother could throw a rose bush over her shoulder. The only thing she could do is roses, but it would just be the most floriferous, wonderful thing. It's just somehow there's an energy or something. I don't, I don't, you never read about that, but it seems like there's something that there's a vibe or something with some people that it just works out. Very interesting. We are up on our second commercial break. Plenty more plant talk when we come back. This is 22 News In Focus with Patrick Berry. Welcome back everyone to this edition of In Focus. I'm your host, Patrick Berry. Today, we are talking about plants and I am very fortunate because sitting across the desk from me is Ed Sordiff. He's a master gardener and I got to know each other through my time on Mass Appeals and he's been kind enough to join me here. On In Focus, if you've been watching, you know, since the start of the show, the constant joke is I can kill any plant out there. But there, when it comes to gardening, there's really two thought processes, right? There's no chemicals and chemicals and no chemicals is called organic gardening, right? And organic gardening really was around for thousands upon thousands of years until maybe the late 1800s or so, early 1900s when chemical companies realized how we can keep the pests away, we can create fertilizer to make them grow more. But organic gardening is sort of the way to go, right? Yes, it is actually. Well, I mean, that's just the way nature works. It's okay, there's no chemicals or anything. So it's the natural processes that occur in the forest, in the fields, that's organic. So if you want to have, I mean, if you want to have something really healthy, you really don't want pesticides on it. Especially if you're growing food, like tomatoes, peppers, you know, anything edible. And they're even finding out now that even if you wash it, that's molecularly attached somehow to the surface of the vegetable. And then they say, oh, if you will then peel off the covering, but that's where a lot of the vitamins are and everything, and the fiber. Like an apple, or a pear, or a peach, or a potato even. Yes, yeah, so you're getting rid of half of the goodness. But if you go organic, which is more of a natural way, it's like when you go in your garden and you see a bug, and you go spray the bug. Now, you're spraying the bug with an insecticide. You're killing that bug, but you're also killing everybody else. It's a chain. Yeah, everybody else is in the way. The bird that's gonna eat that bug is now gonna get poisoned. Yeah, but even right there, all the other bugs that are there, insects, are gonna get killed. Now, 95% or more of all insects are good. And that little 1% or 5% you're getting rid of is a bad bug. Now, when you kill all the bugs, ironically, the bad bugs come back faster, and they're there first. The good bugs take a long time to go away. And the good bugs are the ones that keep the other guys in control, usually, and in check. So you're poisoning yourself a little bit with poison, because you have a nervous system and everything else. You're a living being. So that's not good. And then you're killing a system that's actually designed to keep itself in balance and to actually help you garden, basically. So if you didn't do that and you just let nature take its course and you did some kind of low-key, biological, safe things to do for organic life, like if you go out in the garden and you're spraying for Japanese beetles because you love your roses. Well, you're gonna have all those problems, like I said. But the easiest thing to go out is to go out at either dusk or in the morning, and you just take a can of soapy water, and you just flick the bugs into the can. The soapy water breaks the water tension on the surface, so the bugs will sink in. And they will not fly away. If you go midday or anything for the Japanese beetles on your roses, they will just fly away. But you do this, they'll just hang out. They're not going anywhere. Yeah, and they'll just fall right in, and you get rid of them. If you put one of those Japanese beetle traps out there, it has a pheromone that attracts them. So yes, you're attracting those bugs maybe away from your roses right now, but you're also attracting all the other Japanese beetles in there, and on the way in there, they're gonna eat your roses because they're McDonald's right there, so they're gonna go for that. So if you just did that simple technique once a day, you would get rid of your Japanese beetle problem, usually. So obviously, organic gardening sounds like it's the way to go. Simple, just keep the chemicals out of the site. And feed your soil with compost. And right, eliminate chemicals for feeding, use just straight compost. Yeah, and it's a nice slow release, yeah. But in the previous segment before we went to commercial break, we talked about using lights. So you can literally garden year-round here in New England. Oh yeah, yeah, you can totally do that. There's no reason not to. You can garden 100 feet underground now with all the artificial lights they have. And it's funny because the artificial light industry has gotten so much better because more people are growing things at home. So you wanna be able to grow it whenever and wherever. Yes. But you still, I guess I'm gonna change my question because you don't need a lot of space to garden. You can be in an apartment and have just like a garden box, right? Grow peppers and tomatoes and peonies or whatever you wanna grow, right? Sure, sure. I mean, they have little units that are all self-contained that have a timer, they have a hydroponic system and they have a light over it. So you can just buy that. You can do your herbal things like that. So you have your basil or whatever else you wanna grow really quickly like that. Are herbs one of the easiest things to grow or? Well, not according to you, but. Folks shouldn't use me as an example. No, no, no. Yeah, herbs are, they're pretty good, especially like thyme, oregano, all the things that you have outside like that. I mean, naturally because they're kind of more Mediterranean they can take a little bit of drought, they can take heat. So they're not as finicky, maybe it's like a tomato or a pepper. But if you think about your herbs, your thyme, your chive, your basil, your parsley, things like that, it's all edible. It's saving you money from the grocery store. Yes, and then if you do it yourself, you know it's organic. So it's helpful, yeah. And it is. Basil is probably the quickest, easiest thing to grow. I love basil. Yeah, and it's just, can you grow basil? So far, we're doing okay. So we have an aloe vera and basil. Oh, this is your first time? No, no, no. We've tried a couple of times. And it worked? Well, it's working now. Oh. But Ed, our time is up. I can't thank you enough for joining me. It has been a wonderful conversation. It's always, I always had fun chatting with you. So thanks for joining me today. Thank you for having me. This is 22 News In Focus with Patrick Berry.