[speaker001:] so I guess a good question to ask is do you do your own work or do you do you like to do it
[speaker002:] yeah well I um about a or just over a year ago I bought my my own house so this has been the first opportunity I've had to uh be working on my own lawn and garden and uh you know back when I was a kid you know mom would send me out to weed the garden I I'd hate it you know now I sort of take pride in uh in the yard and you know how the how the place looks and uh so I don't mind doing it so much anymore
[speaker001:] yeah yeah so do you have a do you have a garden or do you just do your landscaping now and your lawn
[speaker002:] well it's yeah it's it's primarily just uh like landscaping a little bit you know I've got some uh bushes around the foundation you know the foundation planting things like that and then there's some uh uh just some little flowerbeds and my mom grows she's an avid gardener and she starts her own stuff from seed now and uh she gets a little over zealous when she is planting these seeds in the winter time and and starting them uh she ends up with so many plants that she can't fit them all in her garden they have a huge yard and a huge house and so she brings them up here from Philadelphia and gives me all her extras
[speaker001:] well that's pretty good my my sister is very over zealous too she's got
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] some really nice flowerbeds she puts a lot of time into them this is my first year in a in a house where I thinking about doing some flowerbeds and stuff oh we I've always had crude ones at my father's but this is the first time that I really have to landscape a house his house is more like a farmhouse its not on a main road
[speaker002:] yeah uh-huh
[speaker001:] my house is on a main road and it has nothing I mean nothing but uh what I do do is now I've always done it at my father's house
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] we have my sister and I have a couple of gardens I think we figured out total um this is for vegetables about two thirds of an acre so we each have a third of an acre we do
[speaker002:] uh-huh geez that's a that's more than
[speaker001:] that's a lot
[speaker002:] that's more than than the property I have right here that you've got as a uh a garden that's amazing
[speaker001:] yeah well it's my dad's and we've had it for over he's been there for a long time so
[speaker002:] right
[speaker001:] um it just happens they built a shopping center next to it but um they put up a nice fence so we still have a lot of privacy
[speaker002:] oh geez
[speaker001:] and we grow a lot of food
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] uh I enjoy it um the gardens are kind of old you have to step down in them now that the
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] and we've tilled them so much but they're still we we my sister uses plenty of fertilizer I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing boy I wish this phone would stop screeching
[speaker002:] are you getting a lot of static on your end of the line
[speaker001:] yes I'm trying I don't know if it's my phone this is bad it's not getting any better
[speaker002:] yeah I can't even hear what you're
[speaker001:] oh okay
[speaker002:] geez it's gone
[speaker001:] I don't see I don't think my phone really does that but every time I have this phone is a little weird I mean it's been dropped on the floor a hundred times
[speaker002:] well I I don't know there was well whatever it was there was a second there I couldn't even hear what you were saying but um
[speaker001:] yeah I was beating on the phone going can you hear me so
[speaker002:] yeah I guess I was having a hard time there too I thought it sounded well guess we better stick to the subject for the benefit of the people uh uh doing this work but um
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] yeah I mean that's a uh heck of a plot you must have uh a lot of different stuff you get out of it especially up in Vermont there you should have uh some really nice soil
[speaker001:] yeah we we grow a lot of um the basic corn corn potatoes
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] she likes to really get into her pumpkins and see how many she can grow basic corn potatoes and uh acorn squash are good winter keepers
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] I mean things the way we grow are carrots and uh cabbage that sort of more less goes to waste you know we eat it we just too much she she starts her own plants she plants a lot of tomatoes
[speaker002:] um-hum uh-huh
[speaker001:] I let her do a lot of the planting and putting and I I do a lot of the uh a lot of the the back the back work and stuff but she does she helps me a lot too she puts a lot of financial she plans it all out
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] beans like to be near certain types of plants now they they find that tomatoes don't do well if you put them next to something like uh peas I don't know something
[speaker002:] oh really is because of like the cross pollination or
[speaker001:] no it's just like something like an onion and a tomato would go together but you're not supposed to put your onions near your beans I guess it's it it's just what scents it gives off they just don't like each other
[speaker002:] huh
[speaker001:] I mean she she reads all kinds of books so I wish I knew more to tell you why but
[speaker002:] what huh my mom uh put uh cantaloupes and cucumbers near each other once and they got cross pollinated by the bees
[speaker001:] they yeah
[speaker002:] and we ended up with these these like things on the cantaloupe vines that I mean were looked like round big huge round cucumbers
[speaker001:] oh that's really weird
[speaker002:] and and yeah I mean there these were like some mutant
[speaker001:] I will put I've put my uh cucumbers are down at one end of the garden and like like I'll make an L shape I've put cantaloupe so they've been pretty close together
[speaker002:] huh
[speaker001:] but I don't think the vines they don't really they don't have to be touching or anything like you say they cross pollinate just by bees
[speaker002:] no it's just the like the bees and insects will do it
[speaker001:] oh
[speaker002:] um either that or my mom just had some bad seed or something
[speaker001:] I know some something weird
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] this year we didn't this last season it was it was too wet up here
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] we lost a lot of oh uh root things our oh uh our squash and our potatoes and we got half our yield it was really bad because of the water
[speaker002:] oh well yeah when I uh my family used to live in Littleton Massachusetts and when we moved in there we had a uh really wet backyard and uh my mom wanted a vegetable garden so we trucked in uh I think it was seven what was it cubic seven yards cubic yards I think that's how they measure dirt but
[speaker001:] yeah yeah
[speaker002:] yeah seven yards of sand I got to shovel it all
[speaker001:] yeah I I have to do that I want to make some flowerbeds and I'm going to have a seven yard truck come in
[speaker002:] lots of fun
[speaker001:] with some topsoil
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] and I'm going to a my problem is I want to use those railroad ties to build up a planter but I don't know if the creosote in the railroad ties is going to do something
[speaker002:] sure
[speaker001:] to uh you know if I want to grow a tomato or something in there I I mean I guess it'd go for my flowers but
[speaker002:] right well it seems I've seen a lot of people use them you know for flowerbeds but I don't know what whether they'd have creosote would do anything I mean
[speaker001:] yeah I don't I don't I just don't think you I always thought I'd put a tomato plant in there or something weird but I don't think I could really eat the fruit off it without wondering
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] and I don't know if they make landscape ties that aren't treated
[speaker002:] well you can get um you can get pressurized lumber
[speaker001:] yeah but they put some kind of
[speaker002:] oh that's right there's even there's bad chemicals in those too
[speaker001:] chemicals in there too yeah well I'm not really worried about it it's mainly for flower bed so I'm not going to not going I'm just not going to put that tomato plant in there
[speaker002:] alright
[speaker001:] but I yeah I do want to have a raised bed I've never I my flower gardens have always been like on the ground
[speaker002:] right
[speaker001:] they don't it just looks so much better when it's up against the house tiered up
[speaker002:] well not that you can see it a little better and it stands out
[speaker001:] yeah this house that I have is just a three bedroom ranch and I can tell you there's nothing around it cement foundation all the way round it not a shrub not a bush there was a lilac tree and the landlord cut it down and said yep that's one thing you have to do summer keep that lilac bush cut down so it doesn't rub up against the siding and I'm looking at him like jeez people would kill to have a lilac bush
[speaker002:] oh geez yeah
[speaker001:] and he's cutting it down so that's all right flower beds are all right anything as long as it doesn't rub up against the siding
[speaker002:] rub up against the siding uh
[speaker001:] yep that's what he's worried about the trees or a bush because lilac bushes they they grow fast some people uh would really like to have them and then the people that do have them they spread and they sprout all over their their lawn
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] so they're kind of a pain but you know people who don't have them think they're great and people who do have them
[speaker002:] right
[speaker001:] curse curse
[speaker002:] right
[speaker001:] another thing I have that um is weird is these a locus tree in the backyard as a matter of fact there's three of them very badly trimmed they aren't trimmed at all
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] and I can imagine if I had to mow the lawn in the back which we said we'd do if the trees hang down so low and the locus trees have like three quarters of an inch thorns on it so
[speaker002:] yeah because it like I I think I've seen those before but I don't remember what they look like
[speaker001:] they're a pretty tree but you just when you walk up to them they're covered with thorns so we're going to get a chain saw and we're going to limb limb it extensively so it the trees up overhead
[speaker002:] so it'll give you room to get under it sure
[speaker001:] yeah because I can just see brushing up against it that it would rip your skin it's worse than a rose a rose bush
[speaker002:] yeah hm
[speaker001:] many times worse because of course it's a tree
[speaker002:] oh a chainsaw is always something very nice to have
[speaker001:] yep my uh dad used to work on them so I don't think I'll have a problem my husband will have problem borrowing one
[speaker002:] even then you got to get him to if he's going to do it you've got to twist his arm to get him to go do it
[speaker001:] well if that's not the problem it