It's a big myth that damping off is caused by unsterile soil. Damping off is really caused by

lack of air circulation. And some people will say, well, you know, I've got a fan running. That's good.

But what I do see, and I wanted to get an example here, is you know how people will start seeds in cups, you know, or three-inch pots or anything.

But you'll find that from the top of the pot down to the, we call it freeboard on a ship where the soil levels maybe an inch or a half inch down, that's a dead zone.

Unless you bring that soil up a little bit, you're going to have a dead zone.

Perfect conditions for that damping off to happen.

Welcome back to the Beat Podcast.

Today we are talking about probably all things gardening.

I think we're going to talk about composting, growing extra large vegetables,

seed starting, and probably everything in between. Because we have Marian Owen on today.

She's a gardener up in Alaska. You've been teaching about gardening for a long time, and you have

a lot of cool tricks that you've learned. But actually, I'll let you introduce yourself. Where are you?

Where are you gardening? And like, what,, I guess what style of gardener would you

consider yourself if that, if that even is something you could state? I'm Marion Owen and I actually

live on Codiac Island, which there's a little quiz here. It's the second largest island in the

United States. So number one is Hawaii. I was going to guess that one. But we're,

we're just due north of Hawaii and we're officially a temperate rainforest. But right now it's

about 22 degrees. And I'm trying to grow as much as I can yearround, but it doesn't always work. I'm a raised-bed

gardener. It's the best thing we can do here. And if you were to look outside in my garden,

I've got about six raised beds, about four by ten, and they're covered, they've got PVC hoops in there and I've got them covered with plastic, but there is stuff growing in there. So I'm excited.

Oh, so do you keep stuff growing your round up there? Because you're, what zone would you be considered there?

It's a good question. I often say the ozone because, you know, between you and me, I don't really, I don't really ascribe to zones anymore. It's such a moving target. I'd say maybe a three-ish. I do have some things growing. For example, spinach is my favorite winter green.

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