Pinellas County's Best Kept Secret: Extension Services and the Master Gardener Volunteer

(00:04)

Welcome to Planting Pinellas, the podcast that digs deep into the heart of gardening in Pinellas County. Presented by Master Gardener volunteers of the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. I'm Charlotte Vaughan. I'm Alan Shapiro. Whether you're a local looking to connect with your community or a visitor curious about your area's culture, conservation, and all things green, this is the place for you. Join us as we explore the people, places, projects, and of course plants.

that make Pinellas a thriving hub of sustainability, innovation, and natural beauty. From gardening tips to environmental initiatives, we've got the roots of Pinellas covered. So grab your gardening gloves and let's get started.

Alan (01:12)

is very exciting and I'm real excited about this whole podcast and to be able to have something that's going to be focused on Pinellas County. Even though there will be some general information, we're really trying to focus on how planting and gardening in Pinellas is different.

Charlotte (01:29)

Right, for sure. And we started talking about this back in the fall. You and I both are new to the Master Gardener program in Pinellas County. And we both just wrapped up our classes in December. We both passed, yay. That was fun. So I had approached Teresa, who we have here as a guest with us today. She's our extension agent.

Alan (01:46)

Yes.

Theresa (01:54)

Thank you for having me on your very first episode. I'm excited for you guys and appreciative.

Charlotte (02:00)

So I just want to ask you, Alan, why did you even sign up for the Master Gardeners? What was your kind of backstory on that?

Alan (02:08)

Well, my backstory is my first love is botany. It always has been.

Charlotte (02:13)

I think we all share that.

Theresa (02:15)

do.

Alan (02:15)

And plants. I was, back when I was in college, I was a forestry major. And the foresters look at trees in a very different way than I think a lot of people do. They see just how many board feet can be in a tree as opposed to looking at it in a different way. And then there's other people in the field that are looking at the wildlife and being very excited by that. And I was into plants and into botany. I was like, people are like,

Theresa (02:39)

Imagine that.

Alan (02:40)

the tree itself.

And so that's what really brought it in. And then after finally retiring from my job, I decided that I really wanted to get back into my first love, which was botany. So for you, Charlotte, what...

Charlotte (02:55)

That's awesome.

So my grandfather was actually a botany professor in Jacksonville. Oh, wow. And I want to say like the 50s or 60s. And so my mom says that the green thumb completely skipped her and concentrated in me. So I started just kind of dabbling in gardening because my dad would cut the grass and maybe shear the shrubs or something. But that was about the extent of what anybody in our family was doing. And I was like, I want to play with this. And so I can remember.

like prepping a bed in our backyard. I can remember transplanting a really huge shrub, like a big old boxwood. And it just like, it grew this confidence. even just from a little kid going out in the garden with my grandfather. And that was just a core memory for me. And he would teach me all about the plants just as we walked along. And so it was just like such a natural connection with nature that...

I've never gotten away from. so, you like you said, kind of having some career shifts and some time available to reinvest in something that is more of a passion project that got me excited about the Master Gardener program and, just kind of getting involved in the local community and then just, I love to learn. So that's an amazing part of this program is just learning together.

Alan (04:16)

It is,

it is. you know, I mean, even though with my background, it's been many years in my background going through the Master Gardener program, you know, with Teresa was absolutely wonderful. And the learning and being surrounded by other plant enthusiasts wonderful, you know, because honestly, you know, my family, I love them to death,

Charlotte (04:32)

Just call us nerds.

Theresa (04:39)

Yeah

Alan (04:40)

Yeah, you you talk about this and they look at you like, really, really? Okay. So yeah, this was really, really wonderful. And then again, you know, when you approached me with this idea, this podcast, you know, I jumped on it. And again, specifically because of where we live in Pinellas County, it's just, it's a unique county in comparison to other places in Florida.

Charlotte (05:03)

really is.

Alan (05:04)

And I know we're going to get into that, especially with Theresa in this first episode. And we're certainly going to get into it in many episodes later on. And to focus on that a little bit, I think is going to really help other people in Pinellas County with gardening. And I guess the other thing that, you know, for me, that's always been difficult in gardening in Florida is just gardening in Florida. Yeah. And specifically vegetable gardening.

Yeah, you know and I'm sure we'll touch on some episodes in that

Charlotte (05:32)

It just all dials up being in Pinellas, Florida, not just Florida in general, but here it's such a different animal. So as far as the Master Gardener program, I did want to throw in that the applications for the upcoming year are currently open and just a little bit about what that involves. And you don't have to have any experience. You don't have to be a botanist or a forestry.

Theresa (05:56)

Not at all, nope.

Charlotte (05:58)

Yeah, so it's really you come and you learn, you get involved. There are some commitments that you're making by joining into that program where you're committing to the first year, you have to do 75 hours of volunteer time. But that's things like this. Like this podcast right now is part of our volunteer time. And I know you've gotten involved at the help desk at the Extension office in Largo. And I've gotten involved with some of the community outreach events and the

Landscape Solutions program. So there's so many opportunities just to get involved and to connect with people in the community. so that first year, 75 hours, following years, it's just 35 hours to maintain your status, and then a flat 10 hours a year of continuing education. opportunities, like I had all my hours in January.

Alan (06:43)

There's plenty of opportunities for that.

There are webinars every month that are on some interesting topics that are just really wonderful. with those webinars, which is nice, is that there are Master Gardeners and other extension agents from around the state. So it's kind of an interesting, you know, get into a little broader community from that perspective.

Charlotte (07:06)

And even the class itself, there was so much information presented and the resources that we got to. But I mean, it ran from what August through December, so.

Theresa (07:11)

Lots and lots of information,

August through December a little longer than usual thanks to a couple of hurricanes.

Charlotte (07:22)

We had an unusual experience, but we did. It was a good one though, was still good. I I can't compare it to anything else.

Theresa (07:30)

But

I can, it was really good.

Charlotte (07:35)

So as far as IFAS, and it's specifically IFAS with an F, the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, there's a little history that we kind of learned going into this program that dates all the way back to 1862. And that's a long time ago.

Alan (07:55)

It is.

Charlotte (07:56)

And as it continued through, we get up to the Smith-Lever Act 1914 established the Cooperative Extension and that included Pinellas County from day one, right, Teresa?

Theresa (08:07)

Yes, that included every county that existed and this is a nationwide act. However, some counties came along a little later, a little sooner than that exact date. But the University of Florida was on that very early. I don't know the exact year in which we had a building in Pinellas County. We'd have to check with the county historians, but I know that it was early on.

Charlotte (08:32)

Yeah, and as it just continued to go through 1964, we had the University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.

So. But now we have that combination of what was the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, School of Forestry, Florida Agricultural Experiment Station, All of these things just kind of roll together into the cooperative extension. So.

Theresa (08:46)

gotta be special, you know? Yeah.

Charlotte (09:06)

bringing that down to Pinellas County, the Master Gardener Program, and how that started in 1972 and as of 1979 in Florida. So it was started in Washington State.

Theresa (09:20)

It was started in Washington, by an extension agent like myself, who just realized he had too much work to do and too many people to answer all the questions. And so he thought, couldn't I train a group of volunteers to help me? So he did. And that was where the Master Gardener program was born from was from there. And then in 1979, Florida started it with two counties. And I believe the first year in Pinellas County was 1982. So it took us a couple of years and let a couple other counties try it out.

 

and then it caught on and now it's in 58 of 67 counties and really growing, I would say, because I talk to other coordinators all the time and the numbers that they're giving me back of volunteers are typically getting larger and larger. So that's great news, yeah.

Charlotte (10:04)

And there's a couple of counties that they kind of cross boundaries and have maybe like a combined extension service, but not very many,

Theresa (10:11)

There are, there's a few, especially our smaller rural counties where they just don't have the population numbers. They do sometimes combine extension offices or programs depending on funding and population. That's cool. We don't have that problem here with, you know, just shy of a million folks in Pinellas.

Charlotte (10:30)

Yeah.

So tell us about the Pinellas office. Like who is the head person of the Pinellas extension?

Theresa (10:40)

Yeah, so our extension director is JP Gellerman. JP has been around a long time and he's a very, very open and very diverse background in extension. So he has been a 4-H agent. He has worked with the Sea Grant program, which does marine education. He has even taken the Master Gardener training in a previous county that he worked in. And now his program area is community development. So he really works a lot with municipalities and with the county.

on growth related environmental type of things. One of his pet projects would be green industries and integrated vegetation management. Just trying to help cities make better choices in the environment. So that's something he's really passionate about. And he oversees a bunch of us agents in three different locations. So Pinellas County has our main office, is at the, co-located in the same building where the Florida Botanical Gardens.

lives in Largo and we also have Brooker Creek Preserve in Turpann Springs up at the north end of the county and Weedon Island Preserve at south end of the county in St. Petersburg and we have agents and staff at all three locations. We also have a 4-H building which is where we're recording in today that is the Chester Oaks 4-H community garden and 4-H youth facility.

So he has to keep all of us in check and support us and help us with all the things that we need. He's great

Alan (12:02)

So it sounds like it's not just Master Garden. And that's what I think is important that we wanted to get out of, you know, from you and to hear what the extension agents and extension service does. It's much more diverse.

Theresa (12:06)

It's not just Master Gardeners.

Yes, at Brooker Creek Preserve, we'll start there at the north end of the county, we have our agent, Lara Milligan, who does natural resource education. So she's teaching people all kinds of things about wildlife, about the plants and ecosystems. At our Weedon Island Preserve location, we have our Sea Grant agent, Katie, and she teaches people about marine education and

The rest of the agents are all housed at the main office. So that's where my office is. We have a commercial horticulture agent who specializes in educating the professionals in the horticulture field. That's Steve Robinson. We have Cindy Hetz, who is our family and consumer sciences agent. She's in charge of financial...

nutrition, just home, what things that we used to call home economics back in the day, but it's more like consumer education. And we also have Emily, who is our brand new 4-H agent, who is youth education. And I hope I am not forgetting anybody. But we do have a lot of other staff.

Charlotte (13:15)

And there's other programs too because you have the Tampa Bay water is not necessarily at the extension office but you've got the Florida friendly landscaping outreach.

Theresa (13:25)

We do, we're really lucky in Pinellas.

A lot of times in some counties, there's one horticulture agent like myself and they do it all. They do master gardener education, they do Florida friendly education, they do commercial, agriculture, you name it. But we are lucky that we have two Florida friendly landscaping staff in our office that specifically do Florida friendly outreach. By the way, you know, as you guys know as master gardeners, there's no way to separate the Florida friendly education from.

the horticulture education that we do as master gardeners, as agents. It's part and parcel of the message because that's sort of the core of sustainable landscaping here in Florida.

Charlotte (14:02)

That's going to be a big core of what this podcast is about, talking about the Florida-friendly initiatives and making it work in Pinellas, making the gardening work for not just ourselves, but for the environment around us.

Theresa (14:15)

and making it as easy as possible for everyone to adopt those practices, yeah.

Charlotte (14:19)

Yeah, that's awesome. So, Teresa, tell us a little bit about yourself. Like, how did you get here? How did you get into this? What's your background? All right.

Theresa (14:29)

Well, I didn't have to go far to get here because I was actually born in Pinellas County. But how did I get here to horticulture and botany? I was like you guys. I was a botany nerd. My grandmother, same thing, skipped a generation. My grandmother was my plant inspiration. My mother was not into it. It was not her thing at all, although she was an educator. So I got a little something from each of them. But it was the same. I learned it from my grandma, fell in love with plants, just following her around in her garden, trying to figure out what she was doing or just helping her out.

Then I went on after high school and I went to the University of Central Florida and I got a degree in, they didn't have a specific botany degree at the time, but it was a biology degree with an emphasis in botany. And I did that and part way through that, a good friend of mine went to the University of Florida to pursue landscape architecture. And at the time, I had no idea what that was.

And so I visited her at UF and I fell in love with landscape architecture, got a master's in landscape architecture, did that for a short bit, found out that the corporate world was not my favorite, and I missed the plants. And you think, well, landscape architects work with plants, but it really isn't as much as I hoped it would have been. It was a lot of...

details and just background stuff that I didn't find as exciting for me personally. And so when this job came up at the Pinellas County Extension Office, I was looking through and I read the job description and I was like, did they write this for me? Was this for me? It's all about plants and I get to share with other people and I still get to bring some of that design knowledge. Check, check, I'm in. And so I applied and I've been here since 2010. 15 years this month actually. That's awesome.

Charlotte (16:01)

Awesome. Yeah. years already.

Alan (16:05)

Yeah,

and I think it's the educational piece. I hear what you're saying, you and I think about my background again in going forestry and the way foresters think, but my view is very different and I really wanted to educate people. And so that's what it sounds like, but you know, was your passion.

Theresa (16:23)

Yeah,

it was the plants themselves. It wasn't the construction side of things.

Alan (16:27)

and how to help people in general. And I know that that's what, as Master Gardener trainees, and volunteers, that's what it's really all about. Sharing the knowledge and sharing the knowledge with others.

Theresa (16:37)

So it's all about just sharing that knowledge with you. Guys, I

figured out a really easy way to do this. You have to hear this. Like, that's the core, right? Yeah.

Charlotte (16:46)

Yeah, and that's kind of the principle of the Master Gardener Volunteer Program is that that knowledge trickles down from the University of Florida research departments through you to us, to the community, all of the outreach that we do, whether it's in person at the library lecture series, different libraries around the county have different series, or whether it's something like this podcast. And honestly, podcasting is...such a resource in our time right now. just a little bit of like digging into what some of the demographics are of podcasting. such a huge percentage of people are listening to podcasts. And young people that not so much doing radio or television or newspapers, they're getting their information from podcasting. So...

I felt like that was a great opportunity for us to come into this setting and use this resource to share that information on a very accessible scale. And so I think that's...

Theresa (17:47)

Yeah, because a lot of people are busy. They have kids, they're working. Right. They can't always be there at a class no matter when you do it. And this is perfect because then we can share this knowledge and folks can listen in whenever they have time.

Charlotte (17:59)

Let's be honest. I'd rather be in my garden than in a classroom and I can listen to a podcast while I'm gone.

Alan (18:05)

Exactly exactly and I think that's really important in what we're doing and I think the other thing that's really important too because we're associated with the Master Gardener program and with I this yeah say it right yeah yeah for University of Florida we're also educating on scientific knowledge and and and I think that's an important piece of this too and not just our podcast but just in general

Theresa (18:26)

Yes, absolutely.

Alan (18:32)

that the information we provide to the public and what you provide as an extension agent is researched and makes some sense. Not making it up. And you know, not just doing a Google and Google search and finding something off the cuff. It's really, you know, has vetted information. And a lot of it's from University of Florida. mean, a lot of what we look at and it'll be in the show notes.

Theresa (18:42)

We're not making it up. We won't make it up.

Alan (19:02)

to the IFAS site so that people can look at that and can look at how deep that is in terms of the scientific knowledge that's being disseminated.

Charlotte (19:12)

And the shared knowledge across some of the other areas because we have some similarities with places like Texas or Louisiana or even... Rico. Right, Puerto Rico, Georgia, the Carolinas, that we are all kind of networked through the Extension program nationwide and even into Canada and where else does it go?

Theresa (19:33)

You know, I don't really know beyond that. Those are the only places that I've heard are really extension and Master Gardner related. OK, but certainly we can coordinate with other universities even if they don't have a specific extension program. Sure. But I think that's that's the key there is that we're the conduit of information from the university to everybody because we can't all go to Gainesville. We can't all be in class all day long. Like we got to things to do here in Pinellas County. Yes. And the other thing that's really important

is that as Master Gardeners, even as extension agents, people are gonna come to us with questions that we don't know the answer to because nobody can know everything. And so it's really nice because we have a huge network of specialists and experts all over the state. And so when someone comes to me with a question that I can't answer or Master Gardeners can't answer, we know who to ask. And then we get that answer back to them. And that's a really nice, you know you could come to us with any wild and crazy question and we will point you in the right direction if we can't answer it.

Charlotte (20:29)

Yeah, and that's a great thing about the help desk and all of the programs that Extension offers is we don't pretend to know it all. And even the things that we know, like for myself, I don't want to feel like that I just know the answer. I want to make sure that I have the most current and up-to-date answer. And so I'll even double check myself on a question and just make sure that there's not been some new update. whether it's about an invasive species or best practices for different types of lawn chemicals or anything else that we're always finding that most effective and research-based up-to-date information through the UF and other quality sources.

Alan (21:12)

So I have a very specific question. again, it relates back to Pinellas County. Again, our uniqueness. So growing plants here in Pinellas, how is it a little bit different? I mean, I know that we can plant similar things to other counties in Florida. And even maybe even some hardiness zones in other places in the country. It's a little bit.

Theresa (21:37)

Sometimes. Sometimes. Absolutely.

Alan (21:39)

But I guess I'm trying to get to the uniqueness of what happens in Pinellas County as a coastal community. What's special?

Theresa (21:50)

What's different? What's special?

Well, the word coastal is a clue to what's here for sure, because we have winds, we have storms, we have salt water to contend with, and we also have...

salt in the air, we've got sea breezes. so depending on where you are in Pinellas County, that experience can change significantly. If you live directly on the Gulf, you're getting an influence of salt in both the air and your soil potentially when we have flooding or even really, really high tides now. But if you were to live inland closer to Hillsborough County on the east side of Pinellas County, you may never experience any of that. You may get no salt breezes. You know, and so we are a very, very small county, I think 35 miles. I would double check my numbers on that.

Charlotte (22:36)

actually the second smallest county in the state of Florida, but we have the highest population denser. More than Broward. It's like more than 50 % denser population.

Alan (22:42)

densely populated.

Theresa (22:48)

So we got people packed, packed, packed, packed in a tiny little space. And that's the next thing I was going to say about Pinellas that's really, really unique is we don't have large tracts of land for the most part. We have small, small lots. If we even have a lot, a lot of people live in condos and townhomes and mobile home communities where they don't have a lot of autonomy over the landscape. And some of these communities and landscapes are managed by other people. And so that's another unique thing about Pinellas County is that many people don't have their own landscape necessarily.

to work in and so our parks, our preserves, our community gardens become really really even more important I think perhaps than in a lot of other communities. So those are a couple of things. Then the storms, the tropical storms and even just the summer thunderstorms that we experience.

That's an intense experience for your plants. Wind and excess rain and then extreme drought. And as we all know, because of our changing world and the way that the climate has changed over the years, that we have much more extreme events. We have stronger hurricanes. We have more flooding. We have hotter temperatures in the summer. And we have longer, more extreme periods of drought between those. And so that is really, really challenging for a plant.

And I can also tell you, I mentioned I started this job in 2010, that in 2010 we were a completely different hardiness zone in Pinellas County. When I started, it's changed. It's changed twice in my time here at this job. Yeah. And so now all of Pinellas County is in USDA hardiness zone 10. The very coastal section along the West coast of Pinellas is 10B for the most part, except for the very North part. And then the inland mostly is 10A.

Charlotte (24:10)

It's changed twice.

Theresa (24:29)

And so that's different too, because that's much more akin to what we're used to thinking for very South Florida plants.

Charlotte (24:35)

me.

Alan (24:35)

Right, we're central Florida, but geographically, but in terms of plan.

Theresa (24:38)

like geographically.

Charlotte (24:41)

botanically.

Theresa (24:42)

But botanically South Florida.

Alan (24:44)

You would really think of more South Florida, so you could actually now grow more.

Charlotte (24:50)

tropical and subtropical.

Theresa (24:51)

Correct.

Yeah, I was just telling someone the other day that in Puerto Rico there are zones 11 and 12 and now we're already zone 10. So we think of Puerto Rico we think very tropical and we are only one zone away from much of Puerto Rico. It's amazing. Depending on the altitude there because they actually have mountains.

Alan (25:06)

So given that, then how do you mitigate some of those?

Theresa (25:12)

issues. There's the rub, right?

Alan (25:14)

If you wanted to do some landscaping or even some vegetable gardening or whatever, how do you mitigate some of those things that are kind of different as opposed to living in Tampa, is our Hillsborough County, which is right across the bay, but...

Theresa (25:31)

So there's a lot of ways to do it, but like a short, thing for you to remember, because we'll be talking about this, I'm sure, back and forth at different times, because resiliency in the landscape is something we can't stop mentioning, given what we've been through and what we know is coming in terms of weather and storms. One thing that we can do that's sort of an easy thing to do is make sure that we're choosing plants that are both wind resistant. And if you're by the water, if you are near either the Gulf or the intercoastal, or even if you're near a lake,

or waterway that tends to overflow when we have these heavy flooding events that we're picking flood resistant plants. Now not everything in our yard has to be all wind resistant, all flood resistant. It would be difficult for you to find enough diversity in your landscape then. But the idea would be to build that core, that framework of especially larger plants, perennials that are long lived. And then if we do that, when we have losses, when we have storms,

It'll be the smaller plant material. It'll be less plant material that we have to think about replacing. That's one technique. Now when it comes to vegetable gardening, that really lends itself to one thing that I didn't mention when you said how's pinellas different. It's very, very sandy.

Of course, Florida is very sandy, so it's not entirely different. But a lot of our soils here, and especially the ones closer to the coast you get, they're not only sandy, but they tend to be very alkaline. So that means they have a really high pH. A lot of plants like a low pH. A lot of plants tend to prefer a more acidic soil and vegetable gardens in particular really like a slightly acidic soil. So when we talk about vegetable gardening in Pinellas, a lot of times what we recommend is people plant and raise beds where you can create a soil

That makes sense. might even be able to put that in a location in your landscape that is not as prone to flooding too.

Charlotte (27:17)

and even containers

that you can bring in in a wind event or a major storm.

Alan (27:22)

That would be very helpful.

Theresa (27:24)

I love a patio container on wheels, y'all. yeah. One of those self-watering containers for your veggies and your herbs. Keep it on wheels. You can roll that sucker right in the garage when the storm's coming then. Awesome. You just gotta remember to put it back outside when the storm passes.

Charlotte (27:35)

Absolutely, those are all.

So as far as extension, what would you say are some of your major goals for our community? What is your heart behind your role in this program?

Alan (27:39)

That's true.

Theresa (27:52)

Yeah, so my role, mean, my goal in this role is I would love for everyone to know more about extension. I hate it, but people always like to call extension the best kept secret. I don't want that. I want everyone to know when they have a plant question. I mean, all of extension. Yes, but me personally, I'm concerned that they know they can come to me for their plant questions. When they go out in their yard and they see something going wrong with a plant or when they're at the nursery and they're trying to figure out what to what they should plant. I want them to think of us. Yeah. Of the master gardeners of myself.

in our programs.

Alan (28:23)

And not just coming to the office. Correct. I mean, there's other ways for them to be able to get questions.

Theresa (28:30)

Yeah.

Charlotte (28:31)

Online resources, the Florida Friendly Plant Guide app is one of my favorite things.

Theresa (28:36)

super easy and fun to use. Like when you're in the nursery and you're going, don't know what to buy. You can put all kinds of filters in, but also they can call me. OK. if I'm not there because I'm recording a podcast somewhere, you know, they can leave me a voicemail and I will call them back. They can email us. They can drop in the office. And there's a number of ways that they can interact.

Alan (28:55)

Can we put the phone number in the show notes of the?

Theresa (28:58)

Yes, absolutely. We our phone number and emails in the show notes. All of the above. And then we also have Master Gardener Plant Clinic. So we have our one main office location, which is as central as we can be in this crazy county with all this traffic. It's in Largo. But we also have a monthly plant clinic, one's at Boyd Hill Preserve, which is in St. Petersburg. And there's another one actually at Folly Farms, which is a safety harbor location.

Alan (29:02)

And the web link, yes.

Charlotte (29:24)

people

find out when that's coming up.

Theresa (29:26)

Well, I think we can probably put that in the show notes too. Sure. Only because they're on a schedule and I'd hate to say something that changes. we can. Definitely. 100%. So that way, if they change their schedule around, it's best to go right there.

Charlotte (29:29)

Of course.

Alan (29:33)

We can link to that.

Charlotte (29:39)

but our social media pages and other things for the county extension will tend to have those resources available as well. So great things to be able to follow along. All right, so to kind of wrap it up, I wanna ask a couple of fun questions. And this particular question was the lead in to our first day in the Master Gardener Volunteer Training Program and Teresa asked the entire class, you could be a plant.

Theresa (29:45)

And it's on our website as well. Yep. Absolutely.

Alan (30:06)

Yes, I remember that.

Charlotte (30:08)

What would you be and why?

Theresa (30:11)

Okay, they've flipped the script on me here. If I could be a plant, would, I mean this is gonna change. If you ask me in a week, you can't hold me to this. But today, right now, I would say I would be a sea grape. You guys familiar with sea grape? It's a large sort of, it's a bold plant in the landscape. It has large round leaves. When there's new growth, it's a beautiful shiny bronzy color. And I like how.

very tropical and coastal it looks. It's just very bold and in your face kind of a plant. It gets big and scraggly. But I also love that you can eat the sea grapes themselves. Now mind you, you can't collect them from like a public park. You have to have permission from where you're forging these.

Charlotte (30:55)

grow them yourself.

Theresa (30:56)

or exactly

grow them yourself, which is what I do at home. And they're tasty. They are tasty. They're really tasty. Yeah, they're super good. It's a big seed. Okay. They make a wonderful jelly. mean, they're very versatile plants. that's something that I've been really interested in is finding native plants that really do well in all of these challenging conditions we talked about here in Pinellas. But then, by the way, I can also eat.

I'm always kind of hungry. And I just think that's a lot of fun. I think it's really nice to be able to go out in your yard. And even if you're not completely supplementing your grocery budget. mean, these are only available one time a year. This isn't all the time. But it's fun. You can go out there. You can make food for other people. you can them all about them.

Charlotte (31:34)

preserve them too. So it's just that one little window.

Theresa (31:37)

Yeah, but it's also fun because then when you share that food with other people, it's another educational opportunity. So that's my dorky answer to if I were a plant, what plant would it be?

Charlotte (31:45)

I like it.

Alan (31:46)

Very cool. That's very cool.

Charlotte (31:48)

I'm so glad that you came out for our first ever episode.

Theresa (31:52)

You invited

1. I'm so glad you guys are doing this. I can't wait to hear all of them.

Charlotte (31:57)

Well, we hope we're going to be around for a long time and keep this going. Bring in lots of other guests that will share different perspectives, different knowledge that they have about our community, the things that grow here, how people and plants and places can all be in harmony with each other. so I am super excited for this journey and looking forward to.

Alan (32:19)

see where it goes.

I think we will have no issues with lots of what kind of episodes we can bring in and talk to and also bring in Master Gardeners.

Charlotte (32:30)

Right. And seeing what kind of information and questions that our listeners bring to us. And they can reach out to us through the Extension office, through the social media pages, and all of those things. And we can take some of those. Maybe we'll do an occasional just Q &A. Yeah. Even just going through some of the fun questions that came through the help desk recently. Or what's going on in our area right now? And that is something that we've talked about, making it sort of a feature in the show of

what's growing right now, what to get started, what to be harvesting, or maybe clearing out some particular phase of crops to put in something else in your vegetable beds or whatever. Just having some current and relevant information so that there's always something for everybody in every episode.

Theresa (33:19)

Definitely, I'm looking forward to it.

Alan (33:21)

Thank you all.

 

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