The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #216 - Farmer Lee Jones

TRANSCRIPT

Melanie Avalon: Hi, Friends, welcome back to the show. I am so incredibly excited about the conversation I am about to have, so I am not making this up. I have done a lot of episodes on this show, and one of my favorite episodes I have ever done of all time, one of the best conversations I've ever had of all time was when I had Farmer Lee Jones on this show. It was a while ago now, but this man is one of the most motivating, inspiring people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. And he's doing so many incredible things in the world of regenerative agriculture, which I am personally obsessed with, so passionate about, and I know so many of you guys are as well, and he's the author. This book is like a workout, picking it up. It is beautiful. It's The Chef's Garden: A Modern Guide to Common and Unusual Vegetables--with Recipes. Friends, reading this book was mind blowing. I learned so much about produce and vegetables and fruits and herbs and things. I think this should be required reading for everybody, honestly. So, I knew I had to have Farmer Lee Jones back for a listener Q&A episode. And I got so many incredible questions from you guys, so I'm just so excited to dive in. So, Farmer Lee Jones, thank you so much for being here. 

Farmer Lee Jones: It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Melanie Avalon: To start things off, actually, I have something kind of sad and something kind of happy before the listener Q&A. The sad thing is, shortly after we aired our last episode, something burned down for you. Is everything okay? What happened with that? 

Farmer Lee Jones: We reclaimed a farm that we had lost 40 years ago and the opportunity came about to buy it back. We had driven by it every day for 40 years. And we started a farm market in a beautiful old 100-year-old barn and had some really cool agricultural equipment in there, some one of a kind. We opened it up and we had our first season in the Farm Market in the barn. We closed December 18th and went back to the barn first week in January and did a total sterilization and clean down and sort of put it to bed for the winter. On January 14th, at 02:30 in the morning, we got that phone call that you never want to get and it was burning to the ground and it was a hundred percent loss. Fortunately, nobody was hurt. My brother's son and his wife live on property and he works for the fire department. He had to leave the farm, go to the fire department with a fire truck and the crew, and they did an amazing job at containing the fire to keep it from getting out of control. But the entire barn and all the contents were destroyed. But it's just one of those things, we all tragedies in life, and you get up and keep going. 

Melanie Avalon: I know reading your story in the book, you've gone through a lot [chuckles] of stuff in life with that. 

Farmer Lee Jones: Yeah. We all do. We all do.

Melanie Avalon: How is it now? 

Farmer Lee Jones: We pulled an old farm stand out for another tour of duty. Pulled that out in front of where that building was. And we started back in the spring with that old farm stand and the customers and folks that were supporting us could see as the building rose up out of the ashes. And we build a new farm market there. And we're open today, we open Thursday, Friday, and Saturday every week. 

Melanie Avalon: Awesome. Well, beautiful ending, then renewal-- a story of renewal. The other happy thing I want to ask, you went to Disney? What did you do there? I love Disney. I'm like, "I get really excited." [laughs] 

Farmer Lee Jones: Oh, we do, too. The Flavor Lab is a place where they have a whole culinary team, food and beverage, and everything that goes out into the parks anywhere has to go pass through the litmus test at the Flavor Lab, the quality, the pricing, the recipe, everything, and it's tested. So, this was National Inspiration Month at Disney, and so they invited me and Chef Jamie Simpson, who did all of the recipes in the book, to come in and to talk about regenerative agriculture. And Jamie actually paired, he looked at a single ingredient and all the diversity in a vegetable. He used turnip in this particular situation, but he had 90 photos from a photo shoot that took us about three weeks. But he looked at it from banquet, beverage, and fine dining, and then showed applications of a single ingredient in all three of those categories. And he did that with 90 different things. But then he did a demo on using a single ingredient. Plant based is here to stay. It's not going away. And I think that it was really an opportunity for us to, as a small part of the amazing culinary team at Disney to challenge them and to inspire them to look at vegetables in a really different way. I think that we're kind of hoping, culinarians maybe are hoping that category of plant-based vegetarianism is going to go away, and it's not, it's going to expand. And so, it was an opportunity for us to share with them some ideas to really open up and look at vegetables in a whole different way.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, my goodness. That's amazing. That's so cool. Yeah. I love when I used to go there going to their Land Pavilion-- the living with the Land Pavilion, where they grow a lot of the stuff there for the parks, which is so cool. Also, before the listener Q&A, can you just tell listeners, so many of them have probably heard the first episode that I did with you or familiar, but just a little bit about your farm and your practices. And I know the produce that you grow has 300 to 600 times nutrition as conventional USDA recommendations is that--

Farmer Lee Jones: And that's not across the board. This is a learning curve for us. We're focused on regenerative agriculture, where we're rebuilding the soil and the environment naturally rather than chemically. It's our personal belief that God designed a system far superior to anything that we can fake out chemically or synthetically. For us, it's about trying to work in harmony with nature rather than trying to outsmart it. We're a small family farm in Huron, Ohio. We're 2.9 miles inland from Lake Erie. Lake Erie is the shallowest of all the Great Lakes, consequently it's the warmest. And there's an amazing microclimate all along the ridge of Lake Erie. The soil is all old lake bottom about 11,000 years ago, some of the richest sandy loam in the world. And at one point, and we believe it was in about 1930, the largest concentration of vegetable growers of any county in the world was right here in Erie County. 

And of course, the demise of those small family farms, along with the demise of small family-owned grocery stores, happened and occurred as roads and refrigeration developed. And what's ironic is that what we're seeking today is regional distribution, more of a local process. And we had it right in our grasp and it slipped away. And so now here we are some 90 years later trying to pull that back in. And so, it's exciting and it's hopeful. Yes, we are seeing significant increases in the nutrient density, nitrate oxide levels. We haven't mastered that across the board, but in some cases, we're seeing numbers as high as 150 to 300 times higher than the USDA average. Now, that being said, I'll say that the USDA average is way too low. So, we're not done yet. We want to keep pushing this envelope. Very exciting stuff.

Melanie Avalon: And actually, that's a good segue because we got a lot of questions about the soil from [laughs] listeners. Michelle, who works with you, not the same Michelle, different Michelle. She says, "I always assume that the vegetables I grow are more nutritious than what I buy at the store. I grow organic and use organic fertilizer. Is there a way to test the soil?" 

Farmer Lee Jones: I would think that, that probably is a good assumption because she's controlling what's going on the plant. There are labs that you can send through the USDA and send your product to and test it raw product, and you can test the soil to find out what mineral deficiencies you have in the soil. We actually have a lab set up here on the farm so we can do more rapid testing and to find out what's working for us and what's not. We did just send five products to third party auditing at Nestle. It's expensive, it was $700 per product, so $3,500. And what they will do is test for 500 different types of residue that could be available from a chemical that could be on the product. And I'm very pleased to say there was zero, zero indication of anything on the plant. Now, we suspected that because we know what we did and did not put on the product. But it's really nice to have that third party audit to verify that. So, my suggestion to my brother was that let's go buy some organic product from Whole Foods and send that in and do an exact same test. And he said, "Well, it's going to cost us $3,500." I'm like, "So what? Let's do it." But we have not done that yet. 

Melanie Avalon: Let me know if you do. Yeah, because I know that's one thing with organic, and actually, I have questions from listeners about that. But I think when people hear organic, they think that it means nothing. But they can use organic pesticides correct or like things that are still not natural.

Farmer Lee Jones: That's right. That are labeled for that product. And I think that there's misconceptions when we think about organic. Look, and I'm not trying to bash organic. I think that it's a step in the right direction. And it started, what, 30, 40 years ago. I think that it's time to raise the bar again. But organic is the elimination of things from the equation. It does not mean the addition of, so it means that there are certain chemicals that they're not allowed to use in their organic farming to be certified. I will say right off the bat, we are not certified organic, nor do we intend to be, nor is it a goal to be certified organic. That's not what we're after. We know what we're putting on the product, what we're not. But we think that it has to involve more than just the elimination of things from the equation. It means that there're no chemicals on it that are going to hurt you, but it does not talk about what we can do to amend the soil, to be able to improve the quality and the integrity and the nutritive values of the plant. And that's where we're really trying to push the envelope.

Melanie Avalon: I love that. I actually-- so not with farming, but I launched a supplement line, and that made me realize similarly how the label-- I love the organic label and I love the concept and I love that it's making it more accessible for people to get produce that will not have these conventional issues with them. But like you said, it's not the full story at all. And I'm learning that with trying to source supplement ingredients and realizing, "Oh, actually maybe sourcing a non-organic ingredient that I then third-party test is actually better than this organic other option." Yeah, I just feel like there's so much nuance and a lot of education needed. So, you sort of answered it, like Stephanie said, "Is organic real?" And then she said, "Also, I don't always wash my berries with a little upset emoji," so I guess she's wondering if it's bad if she doesn't wash her berries. And Sunny, also wanted to know how legit is organic. Isn't neighboring spray floating over to organic fields? So, yeah. So, you kind of touched on it, but you're still team organic or not.

Farmer Lee Jones: I wouldn't want to say anything that would suggest that organic wasn't real. I think that organic growers take it very seriously in general, and I think that it does set a standard that says that there are certain chemicals that are not approved to be used on those products. And so, I think it's legit. I don't know that it goes far enough for us. I'm not here to criticize any other farmer out there or anything else. We're a small family farm. We're continuing to educate ourselves and to learn more. And for us, our path is that certifying organic is a certification. It still comes back to measuring it and knowing that what we're doing is having a cause and effect. We have a saying that healthy soil equals healthy vegetables, healthy people, healthy environment. And that's really the crux of what we're trying to do. We're not worried about certifications and all of that. We're worried about what's the integrity of the product that we're growing. Is it clean food? Can people trust it? And will it do something to help them improve their health? 

Melanie Avalon: Organic aside, I'll reframe her question a little bit. Susan wanted to know which fruit and vegetables are absolutely essential to buy organic. But I'll reframe that to say when it comes to produce, do you find that some are more likely to accumulate potential toxins or pesticides compared to others? 

Farmer Lee Jones: Well, I think that they would be pretty evident for us, like the chemical coming over from other farms. I think they're using genetic modified products. And the idea is when they spray the product, it kills everything alive other than the genetically modified product. So, if there was drift, as they call it, onto the plant, we would know it immediately. We wouldn't need to wait until fruition and to find out that it was there. I think cruciferous is more challenging. Anything in the cruciferous line not to have the worms, but here's the thing. I don't know how old your listeners are. I'm suspecting that most of them are younger than me. But there was a show on TV back when we're kids. You got to keep in mind now, we're from a rural area and we're from a farming community. We didn't get out past Erie County much as kids, but on Sunday nights, there was a TV show. It was sponsored by Mutual of Omaha. It was called Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. It was on every Sunday night, and it would take us to parts of the world that we had never seen as kids. And it was pretty graphic. But it was really cool to see parts of the world that we'd never seen. And it would show a cougar or a lion hunting down its dinner, and it would go after a herd of gazelle. Well, which one would it go after? It would go after the weak one or the old one or a crippled one, something that was easier to catch, easier to catch prey. 

If you can get that thought process in your mind, what's really amazing is that insects operate under the same premise. And the best defense against the insects that we are tempted to put the chemical onto control is a good offense. Healthy soil, healthy vegetables, when the plant is healthy, the insect doesn't want to go to it because it's too sweet, it doesn't taste good to them. So, what they'll do is they'll go after a weakened plant, one where the plant has been planted into soil, it's out of balance, or the plant is weakened by the time it goes in, or the plant has been compromised. Insects, it's just like, "Oh, they can smell blood." You've heard that expression? Well, that smell blood is that animal is going to go after it because they can smell blood. The insect can smell or tell that there's a weakened plant and that's what they attack. So, if you can get the soil in balance and have a healthy plant in it, you can grow it so healthy that the insect doesn't want to attack the plant. 

Melanie Avalon: That's pretty mind blowing. That never really occurred to me. But yeah, I guess plants have these natural defense mechanisms and it would make sense that when they're healthier, they're stronger.

Farmer Lee Jones: Exactly.

Melanie Avalon: Wow. So, I do have pest questions, but while we're still talking about the soil, so Kimberly wants to know the role of soil nutrition and beneficial nematodes.

Farmer Lee Jones: Yeah. You know, the big corporations, they told us when we used chemical, that it would dissolve when it hit the earth's surface. It would kill the plants above the ground that we didn't want to grow. Look, the weeds compete for water and for light, for space of the plant that we're trying to grow. So, in the old days, and I'm sure if the listeners have gardens, they would maybe know what a hoe is to go through and mechanically eradicate the weeds. Then farmers would attach something similar to a hoe onto a tractor. So, you would have the rows of product growing, and then you would have a tractor, and you would drive in between the rows, and it would have small shovel like things on it, and it would eradicate the weeds. It would dig them up and pull them out of the root, and they would then lay in the sun and die. And it would be a mechanical cultivation but all of that is expense.

So, they plant the crops now, they wait 10 days, the weeds are starting to come up, they have to drive through and eradicate the weeds. And then they wait two or three weeks and then they have to do it again. So, every time it's a cost. You got to keep in mind American farmers, as it relates to our income produce food cheaper than any other country in the world. And what I'm trying to say here is that the amount of money that we need to spend to purchase our groceries every week is a lower percentage than in any other country in the world. There are some countries that are working literally around the clock just to feed themselves. They don't have extra money to be able to buy nice homes or cars or second homes, or send children to school. 100% of their work is just to feed themselves. So, as it relates to our income, America produces food cheaper than any other country in the world. But we also have the highest healthcare in the world, and there's a correlation there. So, they convinced us that you know-- so the farmers are doing this very, very efficiently. The model is set up on produce as many tons per acre as you can and do it as inexpensively as you can and you might stay in business. 

So, the chemical companies who are making a ton of money go to the universities and say, "We'd like to give you a grant to do research to help the farmers. And by the way, that research needs to include our chemicals." So now, the farmer can genetically modify the corn or the wheat or the beans. And when they plant it, they spray it so it happens in the same function. So, the tractor is only having to go through the field one time. So, they've reduced cost because now they're not having to mechanically cultivate because the chemical killed everything, all the other plants other than the genetically modified corn, wheat or beans, reducing cost. But it doesn't precipitate when it hits the Earth's surface. It continues down into the soil. There's more life below the Earth's surface than there is above and it's killing the biology in the soil. So even when they do put-- then fertilizer on the plants to get them to produce higher yields and more tons per acre, the biology isn't able to break the food down into a form that the plant can pick it up. Maybe you've heard or read about or seen on television all the algal bloom problems in the Great Lakes because now this fertilizer is there it's not breaking down into a form that the plant can pick it up. And then when we get heavy rains, it washes off into the creeks and then into the rivers and then into the lakes.

In the western basin of Lake Erie, which is the shallowest part of Lake Erie, there are times in the summer when the algal bloom is so bad that they have to shut the drinking water off. What happens, the biology is alive in a lake and so it breaks the fertilizer down and it's feeding the algae or algal bloom and it's growing. So, it's working as it's supposed to, because the biology is alive in a lake, but it's not alive in the soil. So, I don't remember even where we started on this question. But the point is that killing the biology is really unhealthy. And this is the whole premise of regenerative agriculture. It used to be that we thought that we needed those rows nice and clean in between without any plants. We're actually planting cover crops in between the rows of what we're consuming, and it's harvesting the energy from the sun, it's going down through the roots, it's feeding the biology. The plants that we're growing to consume are picking that energy back up, and it's showing up in nutrient, nutrient density, nitrate oxides, increasing those numbers significantly. 

Melanie Avalon: I was just looking because I know I had a question about cover crops. If people do so, -- like David says, "Where do you start if you do have poor soil, but you want to have a thriving garden?" So, what should people know? 

Farmer Lee Jones: Regardless of what size your garden is, even if it's really small, think of the garden like a relationship. You don't walk away from a relationship and then walk back in two years later and say, "Hi honey, I'm home." That doesn't work very well. Think about putting something back into the soil. And if I can use this example, we've all said or heard a parent say, or heard somebody say, maybe even jokingly or tongue in cheek, "Oh, I need some vitamin D, I'm going to go out and get some sunshine." We didn't maybe really understand it, or maybe we thought it might be true. But if we can get our mind around the fact that our body is a receptacle for the energy from the sun, and we can build our vitamin D through the sunshine, if you can get your mind around that, it's a pretty easy step to then think.

What we're doing is just like if you go and have blood work drawn at the hospital, it gives you a printout of all the minerals in your body, calcium, high in calcium, low in iron, all the different levels, and you find out what's going on within your blood system. The same exact tests are occurring in the soil. We do those same tests right here on the farm and find out what the imbalances are. And what's really cool is that different types of plants will harvest different types of energy from the sun. So, clover, alfalfa, buckwheat, rye, oats, Sudan grass. We have a 15 species planting that we're planting. 50% of our acreage is committed to harvesting the sun's energy. It's even going beyond that now because the acreage that we're growing the plants to consume in, even in between those rows, we're planting cover crops.

So different types of plants, based on the deficiencies we find in the soil from the soil test then we're planting different types of plants that will harvest that energy to get the balance. So, in your home garden, pulling it back to the garden, put a cover crop in. In general, let's say that it's summer right now. It's this time of year. You already have your spring crops in. You're harvesting your lettuce and your radishes from the first planting that will tolerate the cool weather that you planted back in March and April. Now you have your tomatoes and your peppers and your melons, and your eggplant in for the midseason that are more tropical and need more heat. But you still have a third of it left, right now what I would do in a third of it would be to put buckwheat in. And as your spring crops finish up and the third that you had the radishes and the onions and the spinach, and the lettuce in, as those finish up, I would pull those out and I would get it planted immediately to another cover crop like rye, a winter rye or a summer rye. A summer rye would be great. This seed is very inexpensive, particularly at a small amount of garden space. You could go to Johnny's Selected Seeds, we have no connection to them. You could go there and you can buy those cover crops. You can go to your, I'm sure, your local landscaping or gardening place, and buy these cover crops in very small amounts. And plant always keep that ground planted in something, harvesting the energy. 

Even when you're planting, you can plant cover crops in between the rows of the tomatoes and the peppers and the eggplant. The idea is that we don't want to-- In the old days, we did what we called ploughing, where you would take basically shovels and turn the ground over, and you're disrupting the biology, want to leave that ground and not destroy the biology that's working. So, in this case, for the garden, I would get cover crops planted in there, and I would keep cover crops coming all the time. That would be my absolute best recommendation. 

Melanie Avalon: Okay. Some questions about that, one, is there some chart somewhere that shows all the cover crops? 

Farmer Lee Jones: I'm quite sure that if you Google cover crops, there's a ton of information on cover crops. But buckwheat likes the summer. It'll also pull the honeybees in, and you can help feed the honeybees, which are so darned important too. You've got summer rye and winter rye, Sudan grass that'll get 8 to 10 feet tall. And we have actually used a backhoe and dug up just to be able to verify, but the roots will grow as deep as the plant is tall. So, if you see it 10 feet tall, it'll be 10 feet deep. I mean, we grow acres of this stuff, and it's opening it up so that the biology can get fed, and it's opening up so that the oxygen can breathe in there. And it's really amazing to see when plants are allowed to be able to work and do what nature designed them to do.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. I think I talked about this last time and I talk about how I grow, right over there I grow like cucumbers. It's hydroponics. But my mind is always blown when I take down the plant and all the roots underneath. I was like, "Whoa, who knew all of this was underneath here?" So is cover crops, I'm assuming that's different-- than how does it relate to pairing plants? So, Carla wanted to know, what are your thoughts on pairing plants? Are there more combinations than just planting basil and tomatoes together? Why does pairing work?

Farmer Lee Jones: Yeah. We have not done as much on that as we think. Of course, the Native Americans did the corn and beans and squash together, and the corn would provide a steak, and the beans and the squash could follow that up. But I think that that's different than what she's asking about. One of the things we just are going to try for this fall is marigolds and cruciferous. If you can think about things that are offensive to us and if you can think of that in the terms of a plant or an insect, the marigold has a reputation of not being one of those beautiful bouquet, aromas or fragrances. Some people flat out just say they stink. So, companion planting, where we're planting things like the broccoli or cauliflower or kales and then marigold in between, and it's offensive enough that the insects don't want to come around it. It's the same as creating our own batches of sprays that we could use. If you take intense garlic and hot pepper and dry those down and create a spray that you spray on that plant, nothing in that's going to hurt us from a human consumption standpoint, but we can spray that on and a lot of times it's offensive to the insect, and they won't go there. 

Melanie Avalon: So actually, speaking of sprays, Kimberly also wanted to know about how you handle pests, which you've been talking about in your favorite companion plants. She wants to know what your thoughts are on milk sprays. Do you use those milk sprays?

Farmer Lee Jones: We have not used them. I think it's great. Anything that's okay for us to consume and could be potentially unappealing to the insect, I think is a good thing. And play, experiment, but just make sure that it's something that is not harmful to us.

Melanie Avalon: She also wants to know about trap crops.

Farmer Lee Jones: Yeah. I think it's great, we use them. Basically, you can go online and buy those, and it'll put the hormone of an insect within the trap, and it'll attract those insects to that because they think that it could be a female that smells the hormone of the male, or the male smells the hormone of the female, and they go into the trap and they can't get out and you're capturing them.

Melanie Avalon: It's like a mousetrap. 

Farmer Lee Jones: It's like a mousetrap for insects. That's right. We also use what we call yellow sticky pads. We'll have in the greenhouses. We'll have thousands of those hanging. As many plants as there are, there's almost as many yellow sticky pads. And just like you've seen the sticky pads for a mouse, this is basically for insects. We use them in two ways. It can reduce the populations of insects that are going after the plants, but it's also a way for us to be able to measure that. And if we see and we'll count the number of insects on those pads and if it's an indication that we're seeing an increased population, then we'll be more aggressive with how we're treating that. We use some product called Reemay, which is a very thinly woven cotton material, and it's made like a sheet, and it comes in huge rolls, and you can actually put that right over the crop. And it's woven thickly enough that insects can't get through it, but it'll still allow water and light to get through. But you can put that over. You can pull it back then to harvest what you want and then pull it back over and cover it up. And we call it Reemay. Basically, it's like a giant sheet that goes over the crop and you can control the insects getting in that way.

Melanie Avalon: Whoa. Like sleeping with a mosquito net.

Farmer Lee Jones: Yeah, similar. Absolutely. Sure, that's a great example. 

Melanie Avalon: Who knew? [laughs]

Farmer Lee Jones: I like that example. 

Melanie Avalon: There're so many things. Okay, what about larger pests? So, Sharon wants to know what is the safest/organic way to deal with pests including animals. She said I had a gopher or a groundhog take out my entire 15 foot by 30-foot garden one year, even though it had a fence. This year, I almost lost my potted tomatoes to aphids. I use neem oil, but I'm not sure that we're out of the woods yet. It happens so fast.

Farmer Lee Jones: Live traps and relocate them. I've got some chickens and had a skunk with a whole litter of six baby skunks that were in getting the eggs and eating the chicken food. And I live trapped them and one by one. Well, there was a couple of times I caught two at a time and then took them to an area that's a reserve and relocated them. That's what I would do. We call them a woodchuck or a groundhog out here. I think that's the same as she's talking about with a gopher. Deer sometimes will be a pest. We don't have a lot of problem with it. I have heard of human hair. You can go to the barber shop and get the trimmings, and you can scatter those around the perimeters. And deer don't like that fragrance. And so that sometimes is-- I've heard of people using solar-powered electric fences. There's no long term. It's basically like just getting a shock. And the deer or even gopher or raccoons, like I've got some neighbors that-- the raccoons love to get into the sweet corn about a day before you're going to pick it. They seem to know when it's exactly ready to harvest. But you can put an electric fence around and like I say, it's not anything that hurts them, it just shocks them and more startles them and that'll deter them.

Melanie Avalon: Everything that you were talking about with the natural methods, does that apply to fungus and mold as well or do you have to be more aggressive with that?

Farmer Lee Jones: Fungus and mold are really based on weather that really comes from moisture. What we always like to say is try and do what you can to keep the plant's leaves and foliage dry. You want dry shoulders and moist feet and the feet are the roots. So, if you can do raised beds, that really helps. And we're finding a lot of success with using from our cover crop harvest. After the plant has gone to a dried form and we'll let the seeds from the oats or the rye fall off and recede, we can go in and we'll cut and get what we call straw. And we'll take that straw and we'll chop that. And instead of using a plastic, you put a raised bed. So, you're basically creating like a hill. So, the row is on a little bit higher or elevated area and put the plant in on the top of that and then put some straw around it and that'll prevent the weeds from coming up through, but it'll also allow the moisture to come through in the sunlight. But you really want to do what you can to keep them from sitting in water. 

One of the biggest problems I think that home gardeners have is we see the plant, we want to help it, we want to nurture it, we want to bring it along and we tend to over water, that can lead to the fungus and mold problems. You want those roots to stretch down into the moisture-- to the natural moisture. And there's times where we water daily and what we're doing is we're ending up holding those roots up towards a surface of the ground and they never go down in and they don't tap into all the minerals and they don't go down into the natural moisture. If you are going to water, water to a saturation point, water slowly, allow that water to drip through really slow. You don't want the water to go on heavy and then leave it alone and let that plant work and let it get down into the natural water that's available. You're better off to have it too dry than you are too wet. That's where your fungus and molds are going to happen. And on a rainy year it's more difficult. We would rather have a dry year than a really wet year if we had to choose.

Melanie Avalon: And I would imagine just talking about the struggle of the plants that might increase their xenohormetic potential because they're having to really work to thrive.

Farmer Lee Jones: That's exactly right.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. So cool. Awesome. And that was Katie's question, by the way, so she gets a shout out. Actually, I'm going to ask you a question for me, this is my question. So, when I'm growing my cucumbers, they grow these really big leaves, but it's like a huge plant and it's in my little air garden unit. And so, I read that I'm supposed to trim the leaves underneath, like trimming the plant. But I feel like when I trim the plant, I don't know, I feel like I'm killing it. [laughs] How do I know? I feel like the one I'm doing right now. I feel like I over trimmed it and it's dying. When you have a plant that's growing, there're lots of leaves and everything, are you supposed to cut off the leaves that are shaded, that are dying already? 

Farmer Lee Jones: If they're dying, I would definitely take those off. But if you think about it, anytime you cut off a plant, it's just like us getting a cut. There's potential for an infection or a disease. And so, I, particularly with cucumbers, would refrain from cutting leaves off, although we do what we call pruning on tomatoes and there's like what we call a sucker leaf. You'll have a main branch coming out, but then you'll have like a little leaf coming, trying to create another whole main branch. And you want to pinch those off? 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. How do I prune? How do I prune? I pinch.

Farmer Lee Jones: Well, pinching, but you could cut. But I mean, whatever you do. I would use plastic gloves. You don't want to transfer a disease onto the plant. I would wash my hands before I did that-- Before I did the pruning or trimming, I would make sure that your hands were clean and put some plastic gloves on. If you use a pair of scissors or a knife, I would make sure that knife was sterilized. Just like if you were going to take a splinter out of your hand, you would sterilize that needle or knife before you did that. And so, it's the same with a plant. You can introduce disease or infection into the plant through your actions. We're really cautious even when we're going through the harvest.

Melanie Avalon: Okay. Feel like I've been far too casual in my cucumber engagements, so I'm going to change my habits. They've been amazing though. They like, grow up my windows. I use the window panes as, like, a trellis and it's beautiful. It's so exciting. I don't even care if there're no cucumbers because it just looks amazing. [laughs] Okay, another question about sustainability of farming. Okay, I'll just read the question, then I'll add my little question. So, Erin says, "What is the sustainability of farming in general? What are your thoughts on no till farming and how to increase the use of sustainable farming practices." So, no till farming, is that related to what you're talking about earlier, with the hoes and everything like that? 

Farmer Lee Jones: Yes, I'm totally in support of no till farming. It's about not disrupting the biology. Get plant material in there, keep plants in that ground. You're going to minimize wind erosion, soil erosion, erosion from heavy water, and you're pulling that energy from the sun. I would highly recommend that everybody watch a documentary called Kiss the Ground. It goes back all the way to the Dust Bowl and talking about how that Dust Bowl was partially man made by not having crops there, by plowing or tilling the soil. And now you have all this open exposed soil, and then you get the heavy winds, and we lose millions of tons of our topsoil every year. Kiss the Ground suggests that if we continue on in the same pattern that we're farming today, that we have about 60 harvests left. It's really serious stuff. It's not all doom and gloom. There's hope and there's promise that we can change. And I think that it's taking hold. 

We're kind of moving away from sustainable agriculture. When you think about sustaining, I always go back that I was never strong enough as a kid, I was a little overweight to go in gym class. We had to try and do pull ups. And we had one kid that could actually do one armed pull ups. He was just that strong and do one armed with either hand. And other kids could do 20 or 30 pull ups. And I'd get on there and hang onto the bar and pull up about halfway and I couldn't do the pull up. Now, in later teen years, I remedied that. But there was a period when I just couldn't do them. And I would hang onto that bar in total embarrassment until I couldn't hang on anymore. And you could feel your fingers slowly slipping away from the bar, and then you'd finally defeat an embarrassment, let go of the bar. Sustainable agriculture means kind of to be hanging on, regenerative. I like it better in that and it takes on new meaning in that we're building the biology, we're building the soil. We're taking care of the soil. We're taking care of growing a healthy crop and we're taking care of the environment, healthy soil, healthy vegetables, healthy people, healthy environment. 

And it's really the kind of the crux of what we can do to regenerate and regrow, rebuild for the future, for our grandchildren's future. And so, I'm shying away from sustainable agriculture. That was kind of all the buzz for 10 or 15 years. And I think we're moving to maybe a broader 30,000-foot level with regenerative agriculture. Google it, Kiss the Ground was viewed by 10 million people. They just came out with Common Ground as a Series 2. They anticipate a 100 million and they believe that they're going to create enough interest and demand that they're hopeful and fearful at the same time that they're going to have enough product to be able to supply the demand that's going to happen from Common Ground. So, we're excited to see really the awareness taking place in regenerative agriculture. It's very exciting. Some great growers out there doing some really cool stuff to rebuild. It's taking hold. 

Melanie Avalon: That's amazing. I'm going to adopt that change in terminology with sustainable versus regenerative, I love that. Actually, okay, I got to double check this. I got to fact check this but I heard that all deserts and barren lands on the world are manmade. I have to double check that. But it's from human influence, even like the big deserts. But even if a sliver of that is true, it would speak to what you just said about the Dust Bowls. 

Farmer Lee Jones: I would really recommend people watch that, Kiss the Ground, it's a documentary, you can get it on Netflix. It's a little sciency, but really, I would plead with people to watch that. 

Melanie Avalon: I'll put a link to it in the show notes for sure. And a question related to this, So Erin, and again, so now we have to kind of qualify with organic, but she says, "How can we increase accessibility of organic produce and the awareness of small farms in our area? Because it's important to support small farms locally. So how can we work with increasing awareness of small farms?" 

Farmer Lee Jones: Yeah. I love the question. All the questions have been amazing. I mean, it really lends to your audience of listeners that they're savvy, they're interested, they're hungry for more knowledge about this. And I can just tell by the questions that you have a great audience of really passionate and concerned folks about not only their own health and wellness, but for the environment and for the world. So, thank you to all of you listeners out there. I think that going to the local farmers markets and supporting them, I would encourage everybody to talk to those farmers. Obviously, they've got peak hours when they're trying to do the main part of their business and it's important for them. And they're probably not going to have tons of time to stand around and chat, but going early or going later in the afternoon at the market to be able to have a conversation and just talk to them about their philosophies, about regenerative agriculture and what they think about it, and talking to them and listening. And you're going to have an understanding of whether you guys are kind of on the same page and working towards the same end and goals, and it's so important that we spend those dollars.

You may not think that your little bit that you would spend each week would make a difference, but I'm telling you, it really does. And you go to a grocery store and you support that or you go to a farmer's market and I would encourage people, it minimizes disappointment at a farmer's market. Don't go with a preconceived notion of what you want to buy today. I like to be able to say that it's a walk through the garden today, because what they're going to have at the farmers market is what looks really amazing today. Our chef, Jamie Simpson at The Culinary Vegetable Institute, never ever has done the same menu twice. And our team at the farm who are trying to put out and broadcast what the menus are going to because people want to know. He's always slow to come back with what the recipe is going to be or what the menu is going to because he really wants to lend it towards walking through the garden in that particular day, in that particular moment, and deciding what the menu is going to be. 

And if you can go to the farmer's market with the open mind of saying, allow the farmers market to dictate what your menu is for what you're going to serve for dinner tonight, and you have no disappointments and you're going to exceed your expectations because you're going to go and you're going to find, "Oh, my gosh. This farmer has beautiful Bush Blue Lake green beans today. I didn't even have those on my list. I didn't even think about it." Well, I can't get the Blue Lake beans because I've already got or you're looking for this and you don't find it. The squash aren't ready but the blue lakes are. And just go with it. Mother nature provides such a beautiful rhythm for us if we'll just work in harmony with nature rather than trying to push it. Eat asparagus three times a day when it's in season and when it's out of season, lust for it for 10 more months. 

Melanie Avalon: So, do you think historically, because restaurants will often have the chef special, do you think historically that came from based on what was, like you just said, "Fresh that day and meant to be used that day?"

Farmer Lee Jones: Historically, I think that it was. I think that and I hear chefs sometimes say, "Farmer, you just don't understand. This is at Ritz-Carlton and people want raspberries, and we have to put raspberries on the menu or they want strawberries." And so, we find ourselves then flying them in from another country. We don't know what sprayed on it. We don't know what the human rights issues are. We don't know how old it is. We don't know what the integrity of it is. It's out of season. We're using a lot of fuel miles to ship that. If we can really embrace what's in season today, right now, in this particular moment, and really embrace that. Those chefs are under a lot of pressure at times because folks are used to having what they want, when they want it. I think as we start and understand really, that it makes sense to work within the seasons, that it's the environment's benefit to the local region and to the farmers within that region. I think that it's really a win-win to try and embrace that philosophy. 

Melanie Avalon: I love it. What should people do? So, David wants to know how to find and again, he's saying organic. But how to find organic ingredients when there aren't farmers markets around? So, what if there's just not access to farmers markets by you? What should you do? 

Farmer Lee Jones: Yeah. Well, I would recommend first, get a garden going or maybe a community garden, or find a piece of land and get some other like-minded folks and start one. During COVID we have been-- For the last 40 years, we've been supplying high-end restaurants with quality product and the most important things to the chefs were flavor, flavor, flavor, flavor. It was all about flavor but do it naturally, do it without chemical, grow it the right way. When COVID hit, the restaurants were really in trouble. And so, we did launch a nationwide home delivery where people could go online and be able to get product, and we would ship it direct to them. So, when you don't have it in your immediate region, you got to go out a little bit further. I think that there are some grocery stores that are doing a very good job at trying to source, but I think that it's all situational.

I don't really know what else to say to that. You can go online and you can buy product. But I would want you to do the research and try and find again somebody just like if you were able to go to that local farmers market and have a conversation with the farmer, do the reading, do the due diligence to take the time to see does this farm's beliefs match up with yours? And does it make sense? Does the philosophy of regenerative agriculture seem to resonate with that company of what they're producing? And if so, maybe it's one that you want to support. Our dollars are voting. Which kinds of philosophies are we going to support in this world and which ones are we going to let fall by the wayside? 

Melanie Avalon: Are you still doing the shipping? 

Farmer Lee Jones: We are.

Melanie Avalon: Perfect. I'll put the link in the show notes. How do people do that? 

Farmer Lee Jones: Yeah, they can go to farmerjonesfarm.com. It's all one word, no spaces in between. And again, we curate based on what looks great today and harvest the product, wash it and clean it, put it in the box and send it to you wherever you happen to be, Tampa or Arizona, wherever.

Melanie Avalon: You gave the option of starting a garden. Teresa said, "I want to garden, but I'm overwhelmed thinking about soil quality, plant nutrients, safe pesticides. What is the easiest way to start?" 

Farmer Lee Jones: You got to engage, assume that you're going to make mistakes. My dad has had a saying that, "We have to continue to make mistakes at a faster rate than the competition." It's okay you're going to have some failures, it's okay. But I would find the piece of land that you're going to use. And if you're going to wait until next spring to start, then start today with cover crops and get the ground planted to cover crops summer rye, buckwheat, sudangrass. You can do a blend. You can actually get some cover crop seed from us if you can't find it someplace else or if you'd like to get it from us right at the same location of farmerjonesfarm.com. But get some cover crops in there and start harvesting the sun's energy. And then do everything small, crawl, walk, run, start the garden and do one-third of it in your spring crops that like the cool temperature. I'm assuming that we're talking about starting in the spring of next year. If you want to start right now, you could get the cover crops going. You can still plant until depending on where you are, I mean, even later, we still plant outside up until the 1st of October. It's unbelievable how much sunlight is available. Obviously, you're not going to be able to start tomatoes in October in Ohio, but spinach and lettuces and kales and things that like the cool temperatures can be planted late in the season. But always be giving back. As you're trying to take something out, be putting something back. 

Melanie Avalon: Kimberly, wants to know if you have thoughts on lunar gardening. 

Farmer Lee Jones: I think there's something to it. We have not done a lot of studying with it, but I really believe that there's more to it than we understand, and I think that it would be something really worth researching. I believe there are correlations with the lunar gardening.

Melanie Avalon: And any tips for affordability? Loreen said, "How to make gardening affordable. I put lots of money, time and energy into it." Yeah. So, any affordability tips?

Farmer Lee Jones: I think it's one of the most affordable things that we can do. It's therapy, it's exercise, it's healthy. It's way cheaper than the drugs that you end up buying if we don't do something to take care of ourself physically and spiritually and mentally. And it checks all the boxes and it is expensive, but it's even more expensive not to do this. It's such an opportunity to be able to stay healthy holistically. I would certainly agree it can be expensive, but I think that the costs of not doing it are even more expensive. 

Melanie Avalon: I love that. Well, I want to be respectful of your time. One other topic that so many people were asking about, so I'll just read some of the questions and maybe you can just talk about it in general is microgreens and sprouts. So, Diane said, "I've always wanted to grow my own microgreens or sprouts, although, honestly, I'm not sure what the difference is between the two." So that's my first question. Karen wants to know. She said, "She has all the materials to start sprouting microgreens and she wants to know your opinion on the health benefits?" David wants to know about the nutrient value. He says that, "There's a lot of claims out there, so he's a little bit skeptical." And then Karen said that, "She's embarking on sprouting microgreens. She would love to know about growing them, their health benefits, recipes. She has all the supplies, so she's going to be diving in." So, microgreens and sprouts people want to know. 

Farmer Lee Jones: These are my own opinions and we've verified some of this through lab work and other are hypotheses. And I don't want to step on any toes, but I know that you said you're growing your cucumbers hydroponically and you don't care whether you get any cucumbers. If you're growing them for a plant for beautification, then wonderful. Our opinion is that we cannot get as much nutrition out of a hydroponic system as grown in soil or natural environment. We have done some testing on this and we have been able to back that up. The way that we define the difference between sprouts and microgreens are that a sprout is hydroponic. It's sprouted and it's hydroponic, our microgreens and we actually, along with Charlie Trotter, believe that we're-- I will say that I'll stop short of saying we invented them, but were an early pioneer in microgreens along with Charlie Trotter, and we grow them all in soil. We always have. We know that we get better shelf life, we get a better flavor, and we've also verified that we can get higher nutrition, and we've done quite a bit of experimenting. 

It's not to badmouth anybody that's growing sprouts at home. I would think that it's a good move to do it versus not do it. So, these are just my personal opinions and what we have over time come to those conclusions that growing microgreens in soil versus growing sprouts hydroponically. If you can get the soil involved in it and allow that biology to work and allow nature to do what it does, I think that it's a better move. I don't know if I touched on all of those. Oh, from the nutrition standpoint, there's been a lot of research done and I would encourage folks to Google this too. But there's a grouping of foods called superfoods. I believe that broccoli and kale, it seems like arugula, but there's about a half a dozen different vegetables that fall into that superfoods category. So, what you grow, sprouts or microgreen, I think does make a difference. One of the things that we have found also to be healthy and increase the nutritive value is that we can stress that plant and then allow it to come back out of that. It's more difficult to stress a plant hydroponically because there's no reserve there in the soil. But again, not over watering. 

Melanie Avalon: Once you cut all the leaves off like I did.

Farmer Lee Jones: Right. Anyway, our opinion would be to do it in soil versus hydroponically and look for the superfoods.

Melanie Avalon: I didn't realize until reading your book, I thought microgreens [chuckles] were like their own species, like their own plant. I didn't realize they're anything, just smaller. I felt so silly. 

Farmer Lee Jones: It's okay. We have gone through, in some cases, dozens and dozens of different varieties to find ones that do better as a microgreen. And what we're finding in our research is that where we get the highest nutritional level is when those are about 2 to 2.5 inches, right as they're starting to develop their first, what we call true leaf, when they split and you only see the two leaves in that plant, it's the cotyledon stage. It's just like our science class in 7th grade, and we learn about the plant and the seed splitting, and you have the cotyledon stage and then the first true leaf. But even when that plant grows into its full mature stage, right at that 2, 2.5 inch, and when it's starting to shoot the first true leaf, what we call a true, T-R-U-E leaf, is right when it's at its highest nutritional level. So, growing those microgreens or sprouts harvesting them at that stage, there's definitely an advantage to that.

We're starting to hear more about not juicing. There's something in this gut health that's important with the chewing process and the saliva, and that when you get it in a juice form that you're not getting that, that gut health from the saliva and from the chewing process that happened, way beyond what I'm capable of talking intelligently about. But maybe I can trigger you to do some of your own. You know, one of the things we did is we're really focused on health and wellness here at the Chef's Garden. We brought in a doctor from the Mayo Clinic. We hired her and moved her family here to Ohio from Minnesota. And she's on staff, and she actually has a podcast. And I think she would be awesome for you guys to have on. Her name is Dr. Amy Sapola, S-A-P-O-L-A. And she's really cool. You guys would hit it off really, really well.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, awesome. No, I'll have to connect with her. 

Farmer Lee Jones: Yeah, yeah. We're really focused on that. We're trying to talk with hospitals, and it's our hope and our belief that in our lifetime, we're going to see doctors recommending foods and vegetables rather than the pharmaceuticals. It's not brand new, that's Eastern culture. Western culture is only a couple of hundred years old. So, this isn't a revolutionary new thought process. It's really going back. When you tend to think of the Western culture, it's always about treating the symptom. You get a sore throat or a strep throat, and here's the medicine that we use. It's a penicillin or a Biocilin or amoxicillin. It's something to fix the strep throat, where the way we're trying to farm and what we think that the future is that more like the Eastern culture is, let's figure out how to get the body in balance and defend against the strep throat or what other ailments in the first place. There's a whole lot more money and I would plant this seed of thought. There's a whole lot more money in getting you well than keeping you well. And there's some really, really big companies in this country and throughout the world that really would like to continue to sell us drugs to get us well. That's not where we think that regenerative anything happens, that sounds more like sustainability than regenerative. 

Melanie Avalon: Bringing it back, I like that. Well, okay, here's a good one to end on, probably. So, Kimberly wants to know what are your personal favorite or unique plants that you grow? What are your favorites? Do you not have favorites? 

Farmer Lee Jones: You know, I love them all. It seems like whatever's in season today is my favorite. But I love the Brussels sprout. It's so beautiful and exotic and tropical looking. They grow to 4 or 4.5 feet tall. And if you think about this, there're these beautiful leaves that are coming down, and of course, you've got the stalk that can-- it's probably as big a round as your wrist. And the stalk is 4 feet tall, takes 9-10 months to grow them. And you have all these beautiful leaves, and then right off of the stalk, you have the Brussels sprout that grows. So, it's a beautiful plant. But I think that part of what I want to talk about with the Brussels sprout is we all know in America that we have 40% food waste. I believe that's understated I think it's higher, which is unconscionable to think that we have 40% food waste with people in America and in every one of our own countries with folks going hungry and we have 40% food waste. 

Unacceptable, totally unacceptable. But you think about the plant. These leaves are providing a canopy. They're an umbrella to keep the Brussels sprout in its long season of nine to 10 months from sunburning. So, nature provides this natural umbrella to protect the Brussels sprout. And when we go in, we harvest it. But all this energy, all this water, all this love, all this nurturing has gone to grow this amazing Brussels sprout, but 60% of the plant is wasted. I would defy you or any of your listeners and we've done it before at The Culinary Vegetable Institute. If were to blindfold you and have you taste a Brussels sprout leaf and a collard green leaf, you could not tell the difference. Both in the cruciferous family, all of those leaves are wasted.

So, he's actually done some work with fermenting, those and I think that fermenting is really coming on and you're going to see more and more of fermentation happening. Chef Jamie Simpson, if you haven't heard of him, look him up and follow him on Instagram. You can follow me @farmerleejones on Instagram. But Jamie Simpson. It's @jamie_simpson. He's doing some outrageous stuff at The Culinary Vegetable Institute. I think the Brussels sprout, that's a long answer to a short question, but he's also taking in a lot of countries that are much older than us. At some point in their survival, they had to learn to use every part of animal for survival. And I think that we've taken on that approach in America, chefs to be respectful of the animal, they're going to kill the animal for its sustenance. They're going to try and use every part of the animal to respect that animal. What we want to do is take on that same approach with a plant and to respect that plant and all the energy and all the love, and all the nutrients that have gone into it. He's actually taken this Brussels sprout stalk, throw them in a fire and char them till they're blackened on the outside, you can cut that open, you scrape the innards out, puree that with Brussels sprout and then reload that back in. And you can actually have vegetable marrow. 

Melanie Avalon: Oh, marrow. Oh, cool.

Farmer Lee Jones: Yeah, like a bone marrow, only you're doing it with a vegetable. It's a cool presentation. I'm so grateful to be on with you today. I love talking vegetables and health and wellness, and I'm grateful that you took-- you know, anybody can get invited on a podcast once, but gosh, you invited me back a second time.

Melanie Avalon: No, you're amazing. No, thank you. I will tell you. I went to Trader Joe's a while ago and they had the Brussels sprout stalks, and I was like, "What is that?" Like it's so interesting to see. [laughs] It not the way we normally see it.

Farmer Lee Jones: Right. And I think those they usually cut the leaves off of them so you see the stalk and it didn't have the big, beautiful leaves.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. No. Oh, wow. So, there's even more.

Farmer Lee Jones: So, two things coming up that are pretty exciting. Eleven Madison Park, they were rated number one restaurant in the world in New York City. COVID hit, they fed I don't know how many millions of people, they kept the staff on and took on the ambition of trying to feed people in need during COVID. When they came out of COVID they launched 100% vegetarian, which was a really bold move for such an amazing restaurant. They've invited us in on July 26th and I'm going to be speaking about regenerative agriculture, people can buy tickets exclusively to this event and they're going to build the entire menu around what's in season on our farm. And I'm so excited to go into Eleven Madison Park on July 26th and talk about this. It's really, really exciting. I had the privilege of dining there one time since it's gone vegetarian and I like my protein. But I'll tell you what, I was so moved and so satiated, I never missed the protein one bit. And they maximized the flavors of the vegetables to the point where it was literally emotional to me, it was just the flavors were so beautiful. 

If you get a chance and you can put it on your bucket list out there, go to Eleven Madison Park. That's July 26th. On July 20th, Rachael Ray is flying in with her husband and Bella, the dog. This will be her fourth visit to the farm and she's bringing some very special guests. I had not heard of him, I'm embarrassed to say I don't read novels so much, Harlan Coben, he just came out August 18th as a new series called Shelter, but 134 New York Times bestseller. You know the home delivery boxes, Rachael was doing what she could to help us during that time, but she was also sending boxes out to people that she loved. And she was calling in and buying 100 boxes a week and having us ship them out around the country. And Harlan is a close personal friend of hers. Harlan's wife's 60th birthday is coming up and she told her husband the only thing she wanted was to be able to come to the farm and see where all these amazing vegetables were coming from that she had been getting from Rachael. So, they're flying out. We're going to have a big birthday party for Harlan's wife. They're going tour the farm and we're going to have a special occasion here on the farm. We opened up the Airbnb on the farm at Culinary Vegetable Institute so people can actually come and stay right on the farm and have an experience on the farm. That's pretty cool. So, we got to get you out here.

Melanie Avalon: I know. I would love to visit. Oh, my goodness. This is amazing. Thank you so much. This is absolutely incredible. I actually use Rachael Ray. She makes a really cool grocery bag that I use, an insulated bag. I use that every day when I go get my cucumbers and berries and things.

Farmer Lee Jones: She's the most amazing, generous, kind, loving, passionate person ever. She's been spending a lot of her time over in Poland. She adopted an entire orphanage of Ukrainian children that are now parentless. And she built a culinary school to help teach them a craft so that they could now have an occupation. And she's just very passionate about helping them and just very, very, very generous human being. I've learned a lot in class and style and grace and humanitarian. I don't know what the right word is. She's just a beautiful person. She's taught us a lot.

Melanie Avalon: It's because we see all these really big figures and so it's wonderful, like when they're really genuine human people behind it, so.

Farmer Lee Jones: Exactly.

Melanie Avalon: That's amazing. So, the last question that I ask every single guest on this show and it's just because I realize more and more each day how important mindset is. So, what is something that you're grateful for?

Farmer Lee Jones: I'm grateful that I have a God that I can turn all my troubles to. I am spiritual and I believe that it's very, very helpful to me to be able to pray, and that's what I'm the most grateful for.

Melanie Avalon: I love it. I'm so grateful for you, everything that you're doing. Again, here friends, here's the book. It's the most beautiful thing. This is, like, the best present too to give to people, because people usually need gifts, like this is a winner for everybody. But I'm just so grateful for everything that you're doing and you're embodying exactly what I hope for the future of farming and agriculture, which, ironically, is like the past. It's like going back to the past, [chuckles] but it's just, thank you for what you're doing and your spirit and your vibe is amazing, and it's affecting so many people. So, thank you. Hopefully, we can have you back on the show again for a third time in the future. 

Farmer Lee Jones: Thank you so much. Remember, eat your veggies.

Melanie Avalon: Yes. [laughs] All right, I'll see you next time. Bye.

Farmer Lee Jones: Appreciate it. Have a great day. Bye. 

[Transcript provided by SpeechDocs Podcast Transcription]