Podcast

Transcript

Joshua Miller  00:00

Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of the 5-in-20 podcast. I'm your host, Joshua Miller, and we have another five questions to discuss in 20-something minutes. Today's esteemed guest is an award-winning author, international speaker, and landscape architect. That's right. So, who better have one as a subject matter expert for school gardens? So if you have a green thumb, your program does, or you're aspiring thinking about it, you tried and failed, maybe stick around, you might get some tips.

Matthew, welcome. And thank you for joining in on this episode with us today. And I like to start the episode off with a little icebreaker, which is: what is your guilty pleasure snack or food? I'm intrigued because you're not from the United States. So let's know what it is.

Matthieu Mehuys  01:00

I love that question. I have. It's been a while since I've eaten it. But one of my favorite dishes, especially when I was a student is like pasta with green pesto. And chicken. I love that.

Joshua Miller  01:21

Speaking my language, that is a regular item that we have in our household. Nothing like fresh pesto either.

Matthieu Mehuys  01:29

Yes, exactly. It's fresh from the garden. Right?

Joshua Miller  01:32

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. All right. Well, Matthew, so you're a landscape architect, which, you know, in itself is very intriguing. So let's start off with a quick intro of what got you started. And ultimately your why, which is, just in general landscape can positively impact our environment when done right. Yeah,

Matthieu Mehuys  01:55

I love that question. Thank you. And first of all, Josh, thank you very much for having me on your show. I'm a real fan of your work. And I think what you're doing in your business is really going to, or is impacting our planet on a great way. So congratulations for that. And to answer your question. So, for me, we have to go a bit back in history. For me, it actually all started when I was quite young. And it's the I grew up on a family farm. My father is a farmer, my brother is a farmer. And on that farm, when I grew up at a very, very early age, I was so fascinated about how it is possible. How crazy it is that if you have a little seed, and you put it in the soil that it can grow into a plant in something magnificent, maybe even a tree. And I think this must have been around the age of three, four or five years old when I started to realize that and how magical that that is. And from that magic, I said, like I want to become a gardener. I want to grow my own food at the age of five years old. So we grew up on a farm. We didn't really have a vegetable garden because my father is mainly in like bigger cash crops like grains and things like that, and cattle. So I said like, I'm gonna start a vegetable garden. And I had one of my earliest successes was with radishes, and to everybody who's listening if you want to start growing your own food. Radishes is like the easiest, simplest crop that you can grow. It grows super fast, and it has very little maintenance. So I started for some odd reason I started off with that plant, and I had some early success. I was able to harvest my own radishes at a very early age. And I thought, wow, this is amazing. And I thought I had everything figured out like I'm gonna be growing tomatoes, lettuces everything. So I bought a bunch of seeds. I just sowed the whole garden and thinking like, Okay, this is amazing. I seed the whole garden. I'm going to come back here a couple of weeks later, and it will be full of all kinds of vegetables and everything.

Matthieu Mehuys  04:01

Now, I guess Josh, you know what, what happened next? After holiday with my cousins being away from the farm for a couple of weeks, I came back to my garden and it was like, oh my god, I was devastated. It was completely overgrown with weeds. And I was like I was I still remember that. I was like, why? And and in fact, the the question you asked like the why? Why I'm in this industry why I'm doing all of this started there. I started to like, how does nature work? Why do we Why does nature produce weeds? And from that moment, until today, I started to study like, obviously I had the normal I grew up as a normal kid. But then when once I was 18 I said okay, I'm going to want to continue in this industry and I started to study Landscape Architecture did a bachelor's in Belgium. I went for a master's in Germany and worked in a couple of companies in Germany. And I was like, doing the nine to five job. It was like, from the outside world, it looked perfect, right, I had studied, I had a good degree, I was earning a decent amount of money. But then I was in this nine to five job. And it was I'm very happy that I did it. Because I learned a lot from the Germans, the German way of, of doing things in architecture. And landscape architecture is really like, they're, they're the top of the top. So I learned a lot in that period. But I was like, feeling that this is not what I really want to do. So I kind of went into a crisis, I was depressed. At the time, my girlfriend broke up with me. And I said, like, what is all of this? And I said, Okay, I'm just gonna go out into the world. And I always was connected to sustainability ecology, sustainable farming, how can we use nature to our advantage? So I went out into the world and did the world travel, I visited lots of eco resorts, farms that will do, we're doing it on a regenerative, organic way, and continue to learn. And from that, I started my own business, I started to design equal results for other people, I help one on one clients to get their dream garden realized.

Matthieu Mehuys  06:24

 And we do that in a certain way that is in harmony with nature. Because for me, that's what we do with our company called Paulownia. Does that we bring together aesthetics and sustainability in one garden project. And more recently, I also started to teach people in a master class how they can actually become a master gardener themselves. Because I had a question from a client saying, like, okay, we, we designed the garden, and she said, like, I really love what you do. But I have another part of my garden that I want to do. But I don't want to landscape architect anymore, I want to do it myself. So then I started to realize there's a whole group of people that don't need landscape architects that don't even want them. And I was like, but they want to learn how to do it themselves. They are really ambitious, they really have some spare time and the evenings and weekends, and they want to make their hands dirty, but they have no clue how to do it, how to start. So from that ID from that initial client, I started to build a master class. And it's been going on since about half year, one year, and it's super amazing, because the knowledge that I gathered over, well, it started when I was a kid, but over the especially in the last 10 years, I can bring that out to to these people in this class. And, and they learned so much in such a such a short time.

Joshua Miller  07:53

And you know, you're a professional, obviously, and you had to start at the bottom. Right. So you got that first garden that failed. Well I'm glad to have to you succeed at that. And, you know, kept going at it. So, speaking of starting at the bottom, though, right? Every plant every vegetable and everything that's growing up the ground starts with soil, right? So let's talk about healthy soil. What is it? How do we achieve it? You know, how do we how do schools start to tackle it?

08:20

That's a great, great question. Because Josh, you touched himself on something that is the essence of any garden success, it all starts with the soil, the health of the soil, and effect, I can tell you that a healthy soil. Now I'm gonna say differently, one teaspoon of a healthy soil can have more micro organisms than there are people on the whole planet. So it's a complex system of how exactly it's crazy, right? So there's a complex system of organisms that work together to create a healthy system. And they are essential because what is micro organisms do is they take minerals, they take digested plant, material, compost, all of these things, they kind of did digested in their own way. And then in that turn, it makes it available for the plants to take that up in the roots. And I'm going to tell you something even more crazy, is that the roots in the soil of the plants are like an inverted stomach. Because research has shown that in our own stomach in our gut health, which is now in the scene of health, and wellness, gut health is a big topic. And it's exactly these micro organisms that we can find in the soil are very similar to our own gut. So what's happening in the soil has a direct impact on our own personal health. So this just gives like it's it's complex to explain it but in a nutshell, it shows that the health of the soil is directly linked to the health of us human beings. because if you have a healthy soil, it will produce healthy crops, it can be like vegetables, but even meat. Because if a cow can graze on a on a pristine landscape, it will also absorb all of these healthy minerals and microorganisms. And if you eat that type of meat, and you'll be way healthier. So it all starts with the soil. And it is actually not that difficult to create a healthy soil. It's really about stopping this oftentimes stopping doing certain things, such as using chemicals in your garden, or other quick fixes.

Matthieu Mehuys  10:43

And then there's other techniques such as well, what I teach in my master class is that there's a way you can do mulching. If people are not familiar with mulching, it's a way that you covered the soil. So that all these microbial organisms that I just explained that they are protected, because as it turns out, the soil is like the skin of our planet. And if the skin of our planet is open, it's not good. You can imagine even on your own skin, when it's open like that, it's it just gets infected, there's other diseases, there's all things happening. So you have to keep your soil covered as much as possible. This is like one of the principles of regenerative gardening, sustainable gardening. So when you start to apply all of these methods, what also happens is your plants are healthier, they grow better, you can actually suppress weeds, or you keep them down as much as you can. And it becomes like a system that is way more in harmony with nature. So that's in a nutshell, why healthy soil soil is usually important for the success of a gardener.

Joshua Miller  11:57

Wow. So you know, point blank, simple, healthy soil equals healthier food. Right. And, you know, I did not know about the whole surface of the soil being exposed to environmental that's not healthy for it. So it's completely new to me. I mean, I feel like most gardens I walk into there is exposed soil everywhere.

12:18

Exactly that's a common thing like in often times, it's part of the other generation, I would say they like to have things tidy, which means you have a plant, and then there's like nude soil in between. That looks pretty too. Yeah, I don't know why we got to that point that we find that pretty, but just go and look in nature. And find me one place in nature that looks like that. It's nowhere. It's very rare to see a bear soil, you might after a wildfire, you might have it after a landslide. That's the only exceptions when it happens. And you know what, I will tell you something else related to this, if I may, that will explain why weeds come. Are you curious to know about this?

Matthieu Mehuys  13:08

I'll give your listeners a short lesson. So how this is like, it all makes sense to when I was a kid, right? I was in my garden, like completely turned around the soil, put in some seeds and thought like now I'm going to have all my vegetables. But what happens in and this is how nature works. It's also part of my upcoming award winning book 12 universal laws of nature, how to get the most potential out of your land. And there I talk a lot about that. Nature is very powerful at regenerating itself. So what happens if we destroy the surface of the Earth, it becomes open, it's it's nude. Now nature will do everything in its capacity to restore itself. And as it turns out, the first plants that come to start the regeneration process, which is completely governed by nature, are plants that we call weeds, which are in fact they're not weeds, they're just trying to restore the health of the planet. So this is mind blowing right now, everybody's like weeds are bad and everything, but it's just nature's way of restoring itself. And what happens if like weeds are annuals, which usually are after one or two years they die. Now if if you take a field and leave it like have everything gone, like the bare soil, first thing comes the weeds the weeds grow, they take over the whole surface what happened in my in my small little garden as a kid.

Matthieu Mehuys  14:42

Now if you would continue to do nothing, this weeds would grow and one or two years, they get pretty tall, but then they would fall down on the surface and create this mulch layer and start to protect the soil. Now once this layer of new plant material starts to digest on that soil. A next generation of plants come which are annuals. So these are sorry, which are your annual perennials. And these are also plants that we have in our garden they live several years, now, the perennials will start to grow. Also grasses start to get integrated. Now, again, couple of years, probably around five years, if you don't do anything, the grass will keep growing, it will fall down. Now this mulch layer creates a new environment for the next generation of plants, which are shrubs. So if you don't do anything, 5-6-7 years down the line, you will start seeing shrubs popping up, because the plants that preceded them has have created that environment. Now what happens next is overgrown with Bush with like shrubs. Now the shrubs, they live around 15 to 20 years, at a certain point, they add a lot of leaves to the ground, they increase the carbon content in the soil, they make everything more healthy. And after 15 to 20 years, they also finished their job of regenerating the soil. And guess what comes next. The bigger trees, right, the pioneer bigger trees start to grow. And it goes and it just continues until you have like highly in the highest. This is called the succession of how plants grow in nature. And eventually you'll end up with a high diverse forest with for example, oak trees that live several hundreds of years. So this is one of the laws of nature, how it actually works.

Matthieu Mehuys  16:40

Now knowing this, you can use that as a gardener and tap into that knowledge and use it to your advantage. So, um, so yeah, that's, that's a really good question. Now. When you know that weeds come when the soil is bare, you don't want weeds, weeds are a pain in the ass. Nobody likes excuse me, pardon my French. So I was gonna ask you. So what do you do is if you plant new things in your garden, or if you do annuals for, for like salads, or all these kinds of plants that you want to grow in your vegetable garden, you plant you plant them or you see them and all of the soil that is there, you mulch it, because in nature, it will also happen eventually that the weeds would mulch the soil. So you're now actually doing that process of mulching. And in that way, the weeds, they won't come up as much because you're already restoring the soil together with them. And then this process you keep doing. Now even if you want to a garden with like vegetable garden is obviously higher and maintenance. And because it's only annuals, you kind of always competing with weeds, but already by using mulch will, drastically decrease. But what's more interesting is when you focus in your garden on growing perennials, and shrubs, like berries, all kinds of edible plants that are not annual, you can create a beautiful abundant garden that is full of edible plants where you go and pick things. If you apply this this systems and obviously it's it's more complex to explain than just like this podcast, there's more knowledge and specifics of how to do it and how to install it. But tapping into how nature works, and how it is has always worked and millions and millions and millions of years. It's gonna it's going to save your back, actually.

Joshua Miller  18:44

I mean, just a little bit of, of knowledge that you're sharing right now. I mean, I don't have a green thumb myself. Definitely admit that. And it's amazing. You know, I always think about how amazing the body is, right? And what it does to restore itself and you just really broke it down and really good terms easy to understand terms of how the environment is with that with, regards to something as simple as soil plants I had no idea. But you did briefly touch on a topic of food gardens are a lot of work. So what can schools do to do more smarter garden gardening right so that it's a little bit easier reduce maintenance, you know, maybe there's, you know, some tools of the trade that they can throw into the program and make lives easier.

19:30

Yeah, take what they can definitely do is go like, go big in the mulching system. Like you have to obviously select certain materials for mulching. Like on our family farm we now came across. We grow beans for like kidney beans. And the straw material from that bean is like the perfect mulching material because it has a good balance between carbon and nitrogen. Now we're getting a bit into the technical terms. But it's just a perfect mulch material because it covers the soil. It did, it did. Sorry, the digests, it decomposes, and it improves the soil. So using that as a great one, and then what I would invest in as a school as well as to look into a kind of food, forest or foods, perennial food system, where you're focusing more on berries and other perennial plants. And yeah, that does require a bit more of a design approach to do it optimally. Because if you just throw in a bunch of plants, it's not going to work. You do need some thought around it, because I explained you in a nutshell how nature works. But there's way more complex symbiosis between plants. So if you put them together in a certain way, it it becomes very efficient.

Matthieu Mehuys  20:55

And then more recently, I think, what can also help to reduce the work? But obviously, why do we want to reduce the work in the garden? Why can working in the garden as with the children not be something fun, and healthy, so I don't necessarily see we, we can optimize it, obviously. But I think it's a great activity to do with children. And and in fact, it's proven that just by the mere fact of working with their hands in the soil, their own health will improve drastically, because what I said about the, the soil microorganisms, and our own gut health, it's proven that if you put your hands into the soil, our skin can actually absorb these microorganisms. And it improves your personal gut health and your brain health. So that's another way of saying like, it's really good to work in the garden, it's going to definitely improve your health directly, even without eating from your own garden. So what so Right, exactly, definitely. So to answer your question, I think there's some interesting new developments in in more technology related systems like indoor growing or vertical farming. And there's a couple of very, I know, a lady who builds or helps even schools to set up vertical towers, which is, in essence, a hydroponic system, it's very easy to set up, it's very easy to maintain, and it can give produce throughout the year. Like even if there is a small room in winter, if it's freezing outside, if you have a small room, you put the towers, you put an extra lamp, and you can grow food in winter, even.

Joshua Miller  22:40

Yeah, I think those are definitely gaining popularity in the United States. And you know, I'm absolutely an advocate for that, if it's going outside and getting into the mulching and all that and getting the commitment from students and other school leaders to keep up with it. I think that's a good solution. So, to end things off here, let's just discuss how can people connect with you get to learn more about what you're doing? possibly get involved with your master class? Where can people go?

23:12

Yes, thank you for asking that. And you know, what I will do? Well, if people are interested about having their garden designed by me, they can go and look on my website www.paulownia-la.com. Thank you, we'll put that in the show notes, they can see a couple of references. And if people feel like I want to take things in my own hand, and I want to go for it and learn it myself. What I want to offer to your audience is that I will give them a free 30 minute coaching call where I will explain them how they can actually start their own journey. As a gardener. I'll talk a bit more about details and what they need to do to get into that. So I'll put, I'll share with you a Calendly link here. And then people can jump on a call with me and from there, they will learn how to create their own garden. So I'm happy to do that. If people want to learn more directly about the master class, they can go to the website www.gardenofyourdreams.com Isn't that amazing that I got to get that URL. It was still available and we didn't have to pay a lot for it. So gardenofyourdreams.com and then there is like a few snippet videos of other teachings that might interest them like some free content. There's one really cool one about that goji berries. Have you heard about goji berries?

Joshua Miller  24:39

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, those have been gaining popularity here as well.

Matthieu Mehuys  24:42

Yeah, show them how you can grow them and it's fairly simple and the health benefits of goji berries. It's incredible.

Joshua Miller  24:50

I gotta start incorporating more of that into my diet then for sure I'm trying to eat healthier these days. Amazingly, all So Well, thank you again, Matthieu, for coming on and everyone, feel free to reach out to him. If you have any questions, whether it's school garden or a community garden, he wrote his master's thesis on that. So don't hesitate to reach out to him and ask any questions or take advantage of that 30 minute call. I mean, what more can you ask for from someone that is doing projects all over the world, including in the United States? So, everyone, you're all remarkable academic food ambassadors. Thank you for listening. Matthieu, thank you for everything you're doing. You are an ambassador as well because you are helping contribute to the success of remarkable academic foods across the nation. So everyone until next time, I'm your host, Joshua Miller, and our guest, Matthieu, thank you again for joining us. I am signing off.

Matthieu Mehuys  25:45

Thank you, Josh.