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Welcome back to The Beat Victoria. We are

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here for day three where we're going to

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be talking about safety when it comes to

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buying products and what you think about when

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you're getting something for your garden because there's

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so much out there, especially nowadays, you

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could find 300 versions of the same product and it's

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hard to say which one you want to choose.

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So food safety, scientist mind, like what are you

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thinking about when you're going out and selecting products

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for your garden? Well, you know you're going to

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be eating that food. Well,

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this is a learning curve for me as a first

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time gardener. And just finding

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those things in my garden from

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construction of my home and the neighbors.

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And I wanted to find things that

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you just, you find things that

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are on discount, you find them on the internet,

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you find things that come directly to your door.

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So I wanted to go to a reputable source

1:01

and I did my research and this is actually,

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I think this is what led me to following

1:05

you guys later on is

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your birdie bed, which is the side of

1:11

my house because I had many of the

1:13

neighbors have tomatoes, things right up to the

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side of the home. And

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I didn't feel comfortable having a garden 20

1:20

feet in my backyard, let

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alone planting items that my family was going

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to consume next to my home. And that's

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where your birdie beds came in. You

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could do some research, but trust companies

1:34

like the Epic gardener in your

1:36

shop to know that number one

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is a food grade. Number

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two is we live in a

1:44

hot climate or even if you live in a

1:46

cold climate and the decomposition of the paints and

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the surfaces on these items as well, is

1:51

it going to leach into your food? And

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many times you're like, oh, well

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that one is, you know, X amount more, but think

1:59

about it. the quality of what you're going

2:01

to be growing in there. Is it

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going, and then you're like, let's say you're not growing edible

2:06

plants in there, but is it going

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to leach into the other items in

2:10

your garden, which you would be very,

2:13

very surprised how many would ask the

2:15

question. I recently, I just

2:17

had somebody out, I was sold, this is

2:19

what I wanted. And then I asked them

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what type of plastic it is. And

2:24

they had questions and couldn't answer. This

2:26

was the source, is the manufacturer. So

2:28

ask questions. Gotcha. Yeah.

2:34

Sorry, go ahead. No, but purchase items from

2:36

a reputable source. People have done their research.

2:39

And then also be careful in those big

2:41

stores where you are buying your plants and your seeds that

2:43

are in the plastic, it just falls

2:45

apart as soon as you take the plant out. And

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it's just, it's basically disintegrating

2:51

in your hands. Exactly. What is

2:53

that sending

2:56

off to your plants? Yeah, there's a

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couple of things there for sure. I wanted to touch on.

3:01

The first was you mentioned you didn't feel comfortable growing

3:03

up right next to your house. Now for me,

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what comes to mind when I think of that

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is my house, for example, is old.

3:10

It's over a hundred years old or

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it's near, or yeah, so a hundred years old.

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So in that time process, almost

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without a doubt, somebody used lead

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paint. Like it's probably impossible

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to say that they didn't. I'm just

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going to assume, like I have lead test kit actually

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been meaning to do, but part of

3:27

me doesn't want to cause I'm scared, but I wouldn't

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do it right next to my house because I

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know it's not a good reason. Because of

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course, like if you're repainting a house, like it's going

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to drip, it's going to break down. That's going to

3:37

be right up on the boundaries. Is there something else

3:40

that you think about when you're thinking near house garden?

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It's not even lead paint. Also think of

3:45

the asbestos. Think about the glues. Think about,

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when the EPA came about in the age

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of your home, and even if you have

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a modern home, my home is 11 years

3:55

old, you have all the plastics that

3:57

are now in manufacturing. wood

4:00

so you don't get termites and

4:03

so forth. Yeah, there's a lot. Garden

4:06

beds made of wood and people are just like,

4:08

oh, it's a treated wood. It's not going to

4:10

fall apart. Well, I prefer replacing my

4:12

bed in five years because there's not a chemical

4:14

in it to keep it, you know,

4:17

formaldehyde to keep it, you know, around

4:19

for 50 years. Yeah.

4:22

And then the other thing about the birdies

4:24

beds, you know, not to go too deep

4:26

on our own product, but it is something

4:28

that it's family made company. They use like

4:31

green solar power. They get their source. Their

4:34

steel is like they're manufacturing in

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Australia. They have supply chains, regulations.

4:38

There's rules that they have to play

4:41

by to make their products in those

4:43

countries and then to bring them over

4:45

to here. Whereas other places, maybe manufacturing

4:47

practices aren't as strict. Maybe there

4:49

aren't as many regulations and you don't actually know like

4:52

what is going into that paint, what is going into

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that metal. And it's kind of like

4:56

a weird thing. Like it's almost

4:58

like a boogeyman that you can't see, but it's a

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real thing. Like it's something that is something

5:03

that's very popular right now. In particular, I

5:05

think more people are aware of

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all the different levels of contamination that can

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happen. And like you said, it's not

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just lead. It could be like you're treated woods. It

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could be like your PFASs and like

5:15

plastics that are breaking down. And so for

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me, it's actually something I think about a

5:20

lot. So when I use a wooden bed,

5:22

for example, I just put in

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a new cedar bed. It's naturally more

5:26

rot resistant, but then to compound that

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I didn't want to use varnish. I didn't want

5:30

to use any polyurethanes. So that's going to break

5:32

down all that plastic is going to just end

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up in my soil where I'm literally growing my

5:36

food. So I did the method where

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I burned it using fire to create like a

5:41

charcoal surface, which helps it become like

5:43

less vulnerable water. So there's ways around all

5:45

of these things that have now been created

5:47

to make our lives a little bit easier.

5:50

And one of the things in particular that

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I'm trying to avoid is like,

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I'll never do a landscape plastic because I know it's

5:56

going to break down. It's not going to last forever.

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It's going to shred it. into microplastics and

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it's also going to leach into your soil.

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So there's a lot of like shortcuts in life

6:06

that seem really appealing on paper. And then

6:08

five years later, you're going to highly regret

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it. You're not going to have a good

6:12

time when you have to deal with those

6:14

problems. And I think the repurability of who

6:16

you're buying from the trust and just thinking

6:18

even a little bit about the

6:20

materials you're choosing because you're

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eating it, like this is what's going into

6:24

your body. It's like your, your source

6:27

of calories, you're building blocks for life. And you

6:29

don't want to be eating something that's contaminated. So

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I think it's definitely something I

6:33

think about. And I think it's also something a lot more

6:36

people are thinking about these days. And

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just having that second thought of just also

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like looking at your surroundings too, I would,

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I, I, I, I could

6:45

go on for birdie beds forever, but is,

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you know, I mentioned how I didn't feel comfortable

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there, but the plants that I

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actually have in my birdie beds and

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I have a retaining wall that also

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has a tree, same, same trees. The

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one in my birdie beds is significantly

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healthier and is no, and

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they both have the same kind of soil,

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but one's in a concrete retaining wall that

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has a plastic liner that I didn't really

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get to choose with treated fence and

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it's here. So it's also the outcome

7:14

of the produce that you get from

7:16

having it in something that is,

7:19

you know, food grade, it's been

7:21

tested from a reputable source. Yeah.

7:24

The, and another thing you

7:26

mentioned earlier, like for example, let's

7:29

say we are cleaning our gardening

7:31

products and our shears and re-sharpening

7:35

them and all that sort of stuff, like

7:37

what do you do in terms of trying

7:40

to keep, because there's of course, there's all sorts of

7:42

crazy things you could use to clean rust. But

7:45

personally, I just use vinegar and

7:47

just let that do the work. Is

7:49

there something else that you think about when you're thinking about

7:51

like the actual tools that you're using in the garden? Oh,

7:54

absolutely. And I do have something incredible

7:57

for us, but I will tell you

7:59

offline. because I don't wanna, so

8:02

number one, make sure that it is

8:05

what I use for tools and think about

8:07

your lawnmower, think

8:10

about your those, and

8:12

I don't know that this is your game,

8:14

this is your lane of the shears that

8:16

cut off, the branches, the

8:19

electric ones and that. Oh

8:21

yeah, yeah, yeah. Not a chainsaw, but you know what I'm

8:23

talking about. So what, so you're doing

8:25

all this for your garden and you're growing

8:27

it organically and you have your worm castings,

8:30

but then you're putting chemicals in the equipment

8:32

that you're then cutting everything in

8:34

your garden with. So what

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I always recommend is look

8:38

at an NSF certified

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lubricant or silicone

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and H1. So

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H1 is for, so they have different

8:48

letters and numbers that correspond with their

8:51

uses. H1 is the

8:53

minimum, it's for incidental food contact.

8:57

Oh, I see. Yeah, so when

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you're looking at the can,

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if it's not NSF registered,

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that's number one. Number

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two, they should have some

9:08

type of letter designation with the NSF

9:10

symbol on it as well. You

9:13

wanna make sure that these are, and think

9:15

about in food production too, we

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keep these chemicals, these chemicals can

9:20

be kept in a separate container

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and not with the other chemicals

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that aren't NSF registered H1 that

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have to be kept off the floor. Why

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should your garden be any different? Yeah,

9:31

that's a great point. One

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of the other things, for example, that I

9:36

have been doing to keep my garden

9:38

soil safe for me in particular is

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I've been just avoiding cardboard. I

9:44

don't wanna, I don't have any hard facts to

9:46

give you guys today and studies off the top of my

9:48

head, but I've read a lot about it in the past.

9:50

You don't know how that paper

9:52

was recycled, what that paper

9:54

originally was, what it was used for, what

9:57

kind of binders and glues go into. There's of

9:59

course, cardboard. that's very clean and honestly,

10:01

probably totally fine. But there's

10:04

just too much of a chance for something

10:06

random to get into my garden, even just like

10:08

a pesticide, like in terms of like even

10:11

less directly safety-wise, but I've

10:14

had compost from the municipal source that's

10:16

had like herbicide in it. I

10:18

spread it and then nothing can grow. Like, so there's things

10:20

that you could do to your garden that

10:22

aren't just going to affect the safety of your

10:24

food, but they also might stunt it for years

10:27

and also make it so you don't want to eat that food.

10:30

So it is something that you definitely, it's

10:33

worth thinking about. It's worth, like,

10:35

of course there's always going to be budgetary

10:37

limits, but I highly encourage everyone

10:39

to think about it at least a little bit

10:41

and try not to make too

10:43

much of a commitment that might be too hard to

10:45

undo later on because you want it to

10:48

save a little bit of money, which I totally understand, but

10:50

it's just- I have a fun fact about cardboard.

10:52

Many US cardboard manufacturers

10:55

are moving over to

10:58

H1 food grade lubricants on their

11:00

production line in manufacturing because

11:02

what they're finding is they don't really know

11:04

where the, unless of course you're making a

11:06

pizza box and you know it's going to

11:08

go to food. Some of

11:11

them don't know where their cardboard eventually is

11:13

going to end up in. So

11:15

a lot of them- I never even thought about all the

11:17

cardboard food. So

11:19

now there's a movement for many

11:22

cardboard manufacturers and one of the

11:24

largest of moving over are production

11:26

line maintenance lubricants and

11:30

oils, repair oils, over to food grade

11:32

products. And so it's interesting. So they're

11:35

kind of a city of that as

11:37

well. However, you don't know where your

11:39

cardboard is coming from normally and you

11:42

forgot to mention the glues and binders

11:44

and dyes and things that

11:46

are also used because most cardboard is

11:48

just not plain cardboard. There's some kind

11:50

of printing that may seem organic

11:52

because it looks like a paper bag. That

11:56

also has to decompose inside of your garden.

11:59

I see it. Yeah. So there's definitely a

12:01

lot to think about there. So the

12:03

basics for you guys is do

12:06

a little bit of research, ask questions. If you're curious,

12:09

you'll generally find the answers or maybe you won't find

12:11

an answer and that's the answer you need to

12:14

not need something. And

12:16

you know, trust goes a long way. So

12:18

if company has been

12:20

around a while, like it'll help a bit, but

12:22

just think about it. Don't make any decisions

12:25

that might hurt you later on just

12:27

to save you a little bit of money upfront, even though

12:29

it's very tempting. I get it. It's tempting for me every

12:31

day, but you still have to think

12:33

about it and a little bit of pain might

12:35

end up paying you off in the long run big

12:37

time. So on the next one, I think we're going to

12:39

switch it up a little bit and let's get

12:42

into like something a little bit more fun

12:44

that we can maybe drink, maybe a little bit of

12:46

garden cocktails. You apparently have been

12:49

making shrubs and shrubs are something that I've been

12:51

wanting to do for a long time. And I

12:53

can't wait to talk about all

12:55

that in the next episode. So see you on the next

12:57

one. And I'm very much looking forward to it. One

13:01

of the best ways to learn about

13:04

gardening is visually, which is why I

13:06

highly encourage you to check out and

13:08

subscribe to our YouTube channels. We have

13:11

the Epic Gardening channel, our main channel

13:13

focusing on gardening guides, Epic Homesteading, which

13:15

is my exploration of how

13:17

to live a sustainable life in a

13:19

standard suburban home. Then Jacques on our

13:21

team has his channel Jacques in the Garden.

13:24

We also have the Beat Podcast channel,

13:26

which features a long form video

13:28

version of our guest episodes here on

13:30

the Beat Podcast. So check them out,

13:32

go subscribe and your gardens will thank you.