So if you have a plant that's native to your conditions, you just stick it in the ground and it's pretty much good. You know, water it through the first season and you're good to go. But if you're trying to grow a plant that evolved in different conditions, then you have to tweak it. You know, so like if you're in a high rainfall area, the pH is going to be low. And if you're growing culinary herbs that are almost all from the Mediterranean where the natural pH is eight,

then you need to be dumping a bunch of lime or wood ash to get the pH up where they are getting

the nutrients out of the soil that they need. And so if you're not growing a plant that's native

to your region, you have to kind of, as a gardener, you are creating artificial conditions to make

that plant happy. Welcome back to the Beat podcast. Today we are talking with Frank Hyman. He is a jack

of all trades. I think it's fair to say. He's a tomato expert. I'm going to call you an expert. I don't know if you ever like to use the word expert or not, but you've been growing tomatoes for a long time. You've had your hands in many different tomatoes, but you also do a lot of different things. You're very interesting guy. I'm very excited to talk to you today about gardening and tomatoes. And you also do have a book that just came out, The Ripe Tomato Revolution,

and I just want to point out, excited to talk to you today about gardening and tomatoes. And you also do have a book that

just came out, The Ripe Tomato Revolution. And I just want to point out that under your name

for author here, Frank Hyman, you've also written the book, How to Forage for Mushrooms Without

Dying. So I think that's a good credential there. So anyway, welcome on, Frank. Why don't you

let us know a little bit about yourself and how you

got started in gardening? Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I'm very glad to be here and talk about

things like this. One of my catchphrases is that the only thing I like better than gardening is

talking about gardening. So I'm susceptible.

And yeah, so I did not grow up as a gardener with my family.

I had, I spent my 20s as a very successful college dropout.

And I had dropped out first, I was doing well in class.

I had, you know, A's and B's. I had a different

girlfriend every semester, which might say more about my qualities as a boyfriend. I don't know.

But so I was doing well, but, you know, you have to pick a major. And I was like the history major

for a while, psychology major for a while. And I'm like, I like these things, but I don't want to work as a historian.

I don't want to work as a psychologist.

...