400. Take the “Long Cut” not the short cut | Allison McClendon | Alabama

Connect with Allison on Instagram @Long Cut Garden

Links mentioned

Patti Armbrister Composting course 

Jesse Frost No-Till Growers Podcast

Nothing Much HappensPodcast for falling asleep

Favorite Books

The No-Till Organic Vegetable Farm: How to Start and Run a Profitable Market Garden That Builds Health in Soil, Crops, and Communities

Daniel Mays 

Lean Farm: How to Minimize Waste, Increase Efficiency, and Maximize Value and Profits with Less Work

Ben Hartman

The Living Soil Handbook: The No-Till Grower's Guide to Ecological Market Gardening

Jesse Frost

Jackie mentions Nicole Master's

For the Love of Soil: Strategies to Regenerate Our Food Production Systems

INTRO

Hey, Green Future Growers. Welcome to Season 3 I'm your host, JackieMarie Beyer. If you're new to the show, I hope you'll subscribe on iTunes for free or follow on your favorite podcast app and let's get growing. Hey everyone this is JackieMarie Beyer, your host here to help inspire you on your journey to create, grow, and enjoy a green, organic oasis. So let's get growing!

Not really. I, I have been enjoying listening to episodes of your podcast and just kind of getting familiar with, you know, what you do and how you conduct your interviews. And it just sounds, you know, pretty much like I expected it. So I don't know.

2m 27s

JackieMarie Beyer

So tell me, is there like a guest that, well, who's the first guest that stands out in your head?

2m 34s

Alison McClendon

Daniel Mays. I was like, holy Kerry. You know, May's on there

2m 38s

JackieMarie Beyer

Is it. He is amazing.

2m 40s

Alison McClendon

He is amazing. And you know, I I'm just a green horn and all of this, but I am super curious and super inspired by the people that I follow. Who do, who put all this stuff into action in a, in a way that seems to be really just smart. So when I, when I got, sorry, I'm, I'm just having a little brain fart here. I got

3m 19s

JackieMarie Beyer

Keep going. I'm going to mute my mic.

3m 22s

Alison McClendon

I got a lot of different books by people who I admired their work and Daniel Mays. I really love the way his book is laid out to just provide concrete information. You know, it breaks down the money part. It really just tells you start to finish. I mean, so many of the books do, but his, I guess just resonated with me just right.

3m 55s

JackieMarie Beyer

I can not agree with you wholeheartedly. And the thing I love, the way he breaks down the money, he gives you the schedule. I mean, I literally read that book twice, like once and then right in a row, right after that, I have red lines under any of it under all sorts of paragraphs, because it just, it does, it lays it up. You plant this at this time, you plant this at this time, you put these things together, you, you know, these props fit next to each other and he's, and he's got the whole note tilt system down, which is show nice. And the market gardener. And then at the back, you know, he gives you ideas. I'm like what you can charge for things. And at first I was thrown off and I was like, oh my gosh, who is going to pay $7 for eggs? Let me tell you those eggs are $7 in the grocery store.

4m 38s

JackieMarie Beyer

I'm at my mom's in New York right now. And I could not believe the price. And these aren't even like special eggs, special, you know, they say they're organic or they're cage free or whatever, but it's like, they're not like from the farm they're in the grocery store. I was like, oh my goodness. I cannot believe. I mean, you know, we are in, you know, still the throws of the pandemic, whatever, you know? So it's like, what, November 19th, 2021, if listeners are listening to this later. But yeah, but that, but all the, I mean, it's just the mate. Yeah. I loved his book. I got show much information out of his book, so cool.

5m 20s

JackieMarie Beyer

Well, I'm so glad to hear that. And then he was like one of the beginning episodes. So you, do you remember back from, because I haven't really like I'm having like this computer problem or I, I like can't even, I, I almost, it's like a magnet, you know, like when two opposing magnets with my computer, I just got so much, I'm going to it last year. So I haven't put an episode out in a while. I kind of took some time off, but I'm right about to get back into it yesterday. I got to see my GFF, my garden friend forever. I leaned control. We went into New York city to, we went to the drew Barrymore show or on Wednesday was so fun. And we walked around the city and just we're we're so like-minded like, everything was perfect. She's like, let's go find a bookstore.

6m 1s

JackieMarie Beyer

And I was like, all right. And what is she reading? Kissed the ground. She's reading that book. She had like a two and a half hour train ride to get into the city and back. And I was like, and then she brought the real button. I'm like, oh, you're reading it. I've had no, I have the real book. And just, we had so much fun.

6m 16s

Alison McClendon

Oh, that does sound fun. I haven't done anything like that in a long time. I'm from Illinois originally and lived in Chicago for quite a while. And while I really do resonate most with being outdoors, there's a part of me that really misses the, the feeling of being in a city. And it's a, it's a, excuse me. Okay. I should learn how to mute.

6m 48s

JackieMarie Beyer

No worries at all. No, let me do the meeting cause I'll do, actually what I do is I do it afterwards, super easy to edit. I have this program garage band it's piece of cake and it's fun. And you get like audio waves. You can almost see where the sneezes, I can't even like, not only that, like a lot of times I edit while I'm driving. And like, all you have to do is like command T to, to split the file and then hit the space bar to get it going again. And then I can go back when I'm not driving or like I'll pull over on the side of the road really quick and hit the command T space bar and then, and then go, you know, and then do it later when I'm at home that night, you know, just where are all the splits?

7m 33s

JackieMarie Beyer

Wow. Was really super easy. Having the, I spent way too much time on my computer since the pandemic started. And my podcast, the other thing is this guy started transcribing my show notes and I, I almost feel like I've lost like connection with my show. So I think I'm going to go back to doing my own show notes and typing them and stuff because I feel like I used to remember things better and more and whatnot. Yeah. White background noise. I'm at my mom's. And like, I can hear like there's landscapers across the street. I think the garbage men are like coming down the block. I don't know.

8m 15s

JackieMarie Beyer

Anyway, Alison, what might listeners want to hear about you show? I'm going to introduce you and we'll go from there. I might put a little bit of the pre-shot in here and there, but I'm ready to roll. I'm

8m 28s

Alison McClendon

Ready.

8m 28s

JackieMarie Beyer

And do I say your name and McLendon

8m 32s

Alison McClendon

McLendon?

8m 32s

JackieMarie Beyer

Yes. Okay. Here we go. Welcome to the green organic garden. It is Friday, November 19th, 2021. And I have an awesome guest on the line who joined your organic corner podcast, Facebook group. And I said, will you please come on because listeners, I'm looking for backyard gardeners, just like you. If you're out there, reach out to me. I would love to hear your experiences. And I'm sorry if you emailed me and I missed it because on the plane, I'm in New York visiting my mom and I on the plane. I went through my emails and I didn't find an email from a listener that I still haven't replied to, that she wrote me in like September.

9m 11s

JackieMarie Beyer

But anyway, today, Alison is here to tell us about her gardening journey. She is also from Montana or originally I think, well, we'll find out I'm going to let her talk show welcome to the show. Alison McLendon.

9m 25s

Alison McClendon

Thank you for having me. I'm really glad to be here.

9m 29s

JackieMarie Beyer

Well, we're excited because you have an awesome Instagram channel and you're the kind of people that we really learned from like in the preset. We were talking about Daniel Mays and, and I do appreciate the, but to me, it's the backyard gardeners, just like you, that bring my show to life and, and share their experiences that we can then take and turn and put it into place in our gardens. So, I mean, unless you're striving to be a market farmer, but a lot of my listeners are just like you and me. So we're going to show told us a little bit about yourself.

10m 1s

Alison McClendon

Well, so I am actually originally from Illinois, but my family and I live in Birmingham, Alabama, and we, my husband and I have a house with a third of an acre, which is really, it feels pretty big. And it looks big when I, when I see my pictures, but it's actually not. It's, it's a manageable size. We moved here about five years ago. We, we started our gardening at our old h