Hey, it's me. Welcome to the podcast. This is inside and outside. I'm an author,

horticultural therapy practitioner and founder

of Basker, where I help people use gardening and nature for mental, emotional, physical, and

social well-being. If this is your first time here, I love nature, but I also really love sitting

inside and watching TV. So each week I merge those two worlds together, inside, the outside, or my guest and I talk about nature.

That's the outside part.

And then one of our current inside obsessions.

Before we get to this week's guest, as always, I share a reason why I love to grow.

And in no particular order, reason number eight of why I grow things,

getting offline and giving my brain a break. When I'm outside, I can't play shitty games on my phone,

I can't doomscroll, I'm just all in on what I'm doing. And I've had bouts of meditation, but I always find a way to not do it.

But with gardening, it is a meditation that feels natural, pun intended, and it just doesn't feel

forced. I'm focused on the task that I'm doing, and my brain isn't getting pulled in a million directions.

And I don't know about you, but with everything that's so heavy right now with the world,

I just don't like being alone with my thoughts sometimes.

So when I'm walking and listen to a podcast, when I'm cooking, maybe I have a show on

with gardening, I just have to sit in it and think and feel.

And it makes it a lot easier to work through those thoughts and emotions when you're surrounded by the outside.

I don't know. It feels less lonely there somehow. So that's reason number eight of why I like to grow.

It gets me off my phone. It gets me offline and gives my brain a break. One more thing before we

get to today's guest. If you're in a warmer growing zone, and if you don't know what zone you're in,

you can Google hardiness zone and plug in your zip code.

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