Craig Allen is the co-founder of Home Jungle; a revolutionary houseplant nutrient system created by a small team of botanists and plant chemists. Together, Craig and his team design sustainable nutrients that are proudly made in the US and designed for the plant lover and planet lover that are simple, safe, and organic. Turns out – plants don’t just need water, so if your beloved greens are wilted, sad and droopy, listen up.
Craig reveals the health benefits from having a home full of healthy plants, the benefits of organic nutrients, the dangers of chemical fertilizers, the most common reasons houseplants suffer, get sick, or die, how often should we water our plants, and how to bring a plant back to health. If you don’t have a green thumb…you DON’T want to miss today’s episode!
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Narrator
How would you like to improve your health and keep your family safe? You're listening to the healthy home hacks podcast where we firmly believe enjoying optimal health shouldn't be a luxury. healthy home authorities and husband and wife team Ron and Lisa will help you create a home environment that will level up your health. It's time to hear from the experts. listen in on honest conversations and gain the best tips and advice. If you're ready to dive in and improve your well-being and increase your energy, you're in the right place. All right, here are your hosts, Baubiologists, authors, media darlings, vicarious vegans and avocado aficionados. Ron and Lisa Beres.
Ron Beres
One day, a wise Rabbi was journeying on the road, and he saw a man planting a carob tree. He asked, how long does it take for this tree to bear fruit? The man replied 70 years. Rather than further asked him, are you certain you will live another 70 years, the man replied. As a boy, I found a world containing full grown care of trees, just as my ancestors planted those trees for me, so I to plant them for my children.
Lisa Beres
Friends if you love indoor house plants and trees, but despise indoor toxins run don't walk over to Ron and lisa.com to get your free gift the top 10 plants to remove toxins from your indoor air. And guys, these aren't just any plants by the way. They're specific plants that remove cancer causing chemicals like benzene and formaldehyde from the air you and your loved ones breathe in daily. The shortcut is Bit.ly/freeplantlist and I'll put a link in the show notes.
Ron Beres
Speaking of the power plants, our special guest today is Craig Allen, a co-founder of Home Jungle. Born and raised in Issaquah, Washington, Craig graduated from the University of Washington and later found himself drawn to plants and gardening. Turns out he was a natural Green Thumb. In 2011. He started gardening, wholesale and retail outfits and later co-founded Bloom City with a vision to make sustainable and organic fertilizer options for growers. What the heck is Home Jungle? You asked? Well, we're going to dive into that through this show. But let's just say it's a revolutionary house plant nutrient system created by a small team of botanists and plant chemists.
Lisa Beres
That's right Ron. And together Craig and his dream team designed sustainable nutrients that are proudly made in the US of A and are designed for the plant lover and the planet lover that are simple, safe and organic. Turns out plants don't just need water Much to my surprise. So, if your beloved greens are wilted, droopy and sad, listen up friends.
Ron Beres
If you don't have a green thumb, you don't want to miss today's episode. Without further ado, welcome to the show, Craig. Yeah,
Lisa Beres
Welcome. Hi, we're so happy to have you.
Craig Allen
Yeah, happy to be here.
Lisa Beres
Yeah, we've got some droopy plants and we need your help today.
Craig Allen
Doesn't everybody? Doesn't everyone, everybody?
Lisa Beres
Oh my god. So, I heard a quote once or meme that said, don�t forget to drink water and get some sunlight because you're basically a plant with complicated feelings. Craig, I'm sure you'd agree. So, we know plants crave oxygen, and some, as I mentioned at the top even remove toxins from the indoor air. But what are some other personal health benefits from having a home full of healthy plants?
Craig Allen
Oh my gosh, what a big question. During the pandemic, we were all I guess still going on. But we know we've all been in our homes more than we have been. And you know, there's only so much cooking you can do. And so much cream you can do and so many board games you can play. Plants are a great hobby. Taking care of plants can be very meditative. Especially if you get a plant that's a little bit different, you know, the easy plants, the ferns just sit in the corner. They just look nice and sort of increase the quality of the air in your house and some of those factors. But if you have a touchy plant that takes a little bit of thought takes a little bit of practice. Those can be really nice hobby.
Ron Beres
I like how you said touchy. that's a really delicate word, touchy. That�s a difficult plant, right? Touchy, difficult, ornery.
Craig Allen
Definitely sensitive, high maintenance. Yeah, it could be any of those things.
Lisa Beres
Your diva plant so to speak.
Craig Allen
That's right.
Lisa Beres
Your diva. Yeah, and I have read many, many studies. In fact, we have a lot of articles on this that not only are they obviously really good for air and our mood, they improve our mood. But they also increase productivity, right? They did studies in workplaces where there was more greenery and they have found such a higher output from the workers and offices. And you think about it, yeah, that we feel rejuvenated when we're in nature. And then when we're in these closed environments, we don't have that greenery, it can make you feel really, like lethargic and really depressed.
Craig Allen
Yeah, I believe in just feeling at home is something that I think plants can really offer.
Lisa Beres
As a past interior designer, it's like the little secret that every interior designer knows the last finishing touch you do is you got to add some green in there. It gives the space life right and we know what gives it life.
Ron Beres
Absolutely. So, Craig, I know you and your team, you have a simple method, with a simple strategy. Maximize plant health, without relying on harsh chemical additives love it. But what exactly are the dangers of chemical fertilizers that our listeners should be aware of?
Craig Allen
So, it runs the gamut. A lot of the fertilizer that people use in their house has urea in it. And urea is a chemical byproduct of a number of different industrial processes. And that's basically like a bunch of nitrogen molecules combined. Well, when that breaks down, that can release toxic gases in the air. So especially in your house plants, they sit by the window, they got sun hitting the dirt that can increase the cycle of urea breaking apart and becoming a toxin in the air. That's like one example.
Lisa Beres
And you can't smell that, right? I mean, that's just too low of a level.
Craig Allen
No, it's actually a horrible greenhouse gas as well. So outside of the home, you know our company, we've had a campaign for many years working against using urea as a fertilizer source in open fields, because it's a toxic greenhouse gas.
Lisa Beres
I'm familiar with urea from formaldehyde, because we get into the dangers of formaldehyde, which is a carcinogen and a VOC, volatile organic compound, urea formaldehyde, but I never knew urea is actually in the fertilizer. So that's so interesting. So is it a VOC then, just the urea?
Craig Allen
It volatilizes Oh, okay, on its own, it's stable, but something has to happen to it. Oh, gotcha. Okay, so that would be like, Yeah, exactly. That would be like microbes in the soil, or the sun hitting the soil top, something has to change that model molecules let go. But, I mean, basically, we're talking about with all these chemical fertilizers, bringing industrial chemicals into the house, and then putting them on the things that other than our families and pets, we love the most in our house. So, it's something that we kind of want to take a look at.
Lisa Beres
Absolutely, yeah, talk about a hidden toxin. I mean, there's so many toxins in our home today. And that's an area because you just assume the plants healthy. It's green, it must be good. You don't think about that. So, we're going to dive into all of this today in a lot more detail. So very important topic. I know we all have plants, everybody listening has plants. So, stay tuned, and we're going to tell you how to save your little droopy plants. So, hang on. Craig, are there any benefits to using a product with organic nutrients? besides it being just nontoxic?
Craig Allen
Yes, well, loaded question. You know, organic isn't necessarily better. You'd like you could use. One thing that we as a company avoid is bringing in products input materials, like bat guano. Bat guano comes from that caves. Yeah, like a fecal matter of bats that's like, oh, fertilizer, okay. And in order to get that, the sourcing of it destroys natural ecosystems. And so organic isn't necessarily better. However, in general, organic fertilizers are these like sort of larger structures, think about a whole bunch of different nutrients that you're planning needs all packed together. So, when you add those to your soil, they have to break apart into smaller pieces so that the plant can uptake them. And that process of molecules of organics breaking down is done with microbes in the soil. So essentially, by adding organics, you're actually increasing the probiotic, increasing the biological activity in the soil. And that's a major benefit to sort of build it.
Lisa Beres
Okay, bat guano is not good.
Craig Allen
Bat guano and seabird guano are both great fertilizer sources, but they're not good sustainability sources. Well, they're destructive to poor reef development and ah, all sorts of things that are going on in those micro ecosystems.
Ron Beres
Off topic, but what would be a good one then is that cat guano?
Lisa Beres
Yeah. Can we get pigeon one? Because that would be a good way to get rid of like.
Craig Allen
Yeah, actually that's a really good point.
Lisa Beres
Let's get rid. Let's like make it full circle, right?
Craig Allen
You know, lets clean those cities up.
Ron Beres
Okay, I see Home Jungle is a three-part system, right? But most fertilizers I'm familiar with are single steps. So why is yours different Craig?
Craig Allen
Yeah, you know, when we first started working on this house plant project two years ago, we thought, how can we actually help people with their houseplants? And we thought, Well, what if we could put it all in one, you know, one product, that would make life easy. And it turns out after just iteration and iteration of trying to do that, it's really hard to put everything you need to build a healthy ecosystem for your plant in one product, because there are different functions occurring. You've got your soil, which people generally don't think much about, they just that's what your plan lives, and its no big deal, right? Well, it turns out that is a big deal. That is everything. Everything happens with nutrient mobility, water mobility, microbial populations, fungal populations, it's this whole on its own, it's this crazy thing. And then you have the plant nutrients, minerals that go up into the plant, those are really important. And then you also have water cycles to the plant. And so that can be executed on by foliar, feeding or spraying the leads. And so, in order to make really holistic plant care, we decided to break it up into three separate products that are used weekly on the planet to each one attacking a different function.
Ron Beres
Wow, very foliar spray I'm not as familiar as I should be. I don't have as well. Yeah. So, what exactly is that? What wasn't so common to me? I know it's not uncommon to you, but maybe our listeners don't know, either.
Craig Allen
So, I'm sure we've sprayed water on the leaves of some of our plants before like an air plant or something like that. That's called foliar spray, because you're spraying the foliage.
Lisa Beres
Yeah, I love this spray. I learned something new every time. Oh, my God, we are bad plant parents. Like, I feel like the parent guilt over here. Yeah, I do that. I follow your all the time. So no, that's awesome. But you know, going back to this regeneration of the soil, it's something you usually think about in the large-scale agriculture type system. Why is it important for houseplants?
Craig Allen
Yeah. So, you pick up a house plant from the store, or you get a cutting from a friend, and you put it in your house, or maybe it comes pot. So, in that soil, there's food, theoretically, there's some food, there's some fertilizer, there's some minerals that the plant can uptake. And so, you have that in your house for six months, or a year or five years, or however long you can keep it alive. And you got to think that's its only food source, the plant pulls pretty much everything right out of that soil. And so, if you don't take care of the soil, you're basically going to be slowly choking your plant from lack of food. And from that there is a cascade of other things that happen. Water can't move into the plant effectively. And we've all had those houseplants that just sort of sit and nothing changes for years. They're kind of in this like holding paddling pattern. Yeah, yeah. And they're a little leaf here and there. Yes, because there's nothing for the plant to do. It's sort of locked up and just waiting for better conditions.
Lisa Beres
Oh, that's so sad. I feel so bad for my plants right now. I want to cry.
Craig Allen
But what's really cool is once you address a few of the things in your soil, your plants will do crazy things you've never seen him do before.
Lisa Beres
Wow, are they going to dance and sing? Are they going to tap dance? On a side note, do you believe in talking to your plants?
Craig Allen
Everything in the world moves? vibrations in in everything. Yeah, so I think vibrations, you probably know.
Lisa Beres
But it's true. Like I noticed when I even go and prune my plants and water them. I feel energetically they're like thank you and they're just boom, they do really good. And you're like, wait, I just pulled off dead stuff. It just knows to be happy. I think you're right. We have had a couple podcasts on energy, frequency, frequency medicine. Everything in the universe is vibration. And everything vibrates at a frequency and yeah, plants are living organisms. So as caring and treating them well. They're obviously going to respond to that energy.
Ron Beres
Yeah, you're both right. Keeping plants alive can often be a struggle, and I can personally attest to it. I know a lot of guys can attest to that as well. And girls and guys, I guess everybody right? How does your system make it easier?
Craig Allen
Make keeping plants alive easier?
Ron Beres
Yeah. Outside of the fern, which is not so complicated, as we talked about before, right?
Craig Allen
Right. So, without getting too technical If you think about the way that, that we consume food, you eat food, and you don't just get energy, right? in your gut, there are microbes that break down the food. And then they trade things with different parts of your body, and you end up with energy from that. And so that's one of the main things that Home Jungle does is it actually creates this sort of, I don't want to say intestines, turns your soil into intestines, but it basically does it like turns your soil into this digestive force for the plant.
Lisa Beres
I was thinking about when you were describing it. And it's like the microbiome is the key to our health, all of our so much of our immunity lives in the gut. And its sort of like with the plant, it's really not that different. It sounds like right, like, it's exactly what I was talking at the beginning of the show about the plants that actually were proven by NASA in a study to remove toxins from the indoor air and specific toxins and specific plants. A lot of people hear about that. And they think every plant is actually specific ones, they found 50. And the way that they absorbed the toxins was actually through the soil. So, the toxins go into the soil. So, I would imagine, if you have plants that don't have healthy soil, like you're talking about, that probably would hamper that ability.
Craig Allen
Because it's actually not necessarily the plant. Is the planet paired with microbes typically?
Lisa Beres
Yeah, you're right, they need those microbes. So, the plant obviously needs the sunlight, right? This plant needs the sunlight, for food. But that's not enough is basically what you're saying. The sunlight�s part of it, but it's not just sunlight and water, we need to give it these nutrients, right?
Craig Allen
Yeah, exactly. So basically, in your plant, when the sunlight creates energy, that's creating little sugars in the plant. Well, those sugars, the stuff that's in the sugars that makes the sugars up is minerals. And those have to come from somewhere. They come from the soil, and in the soil. They're basically broken down by microbes, and then fed to them. Oh, gosh, so without microbes, the plants can't live.
Lisa Beres
Right? Could you look at your soil and it could be devoid of microbes and you wouldn't know it?
Craig Allen
You wouldn't know it yet. There are some characteristics you have like if you water your plant, and the water goes straight through to the bottom and the soil doesn't catch any of it. Okay, that's basically.
Lisa Beres
I�ve never seen that, Craig. That�s never happened to my plant.
Craig Allen
Look, I�m sitting next to a plant right here that has a problem I'm working on, right?
Lisa Beres
Oh, okay, good. Even you've got challenges. Okay, so I know everybody listening is going to want to hear my next question. And I know we've all killed a plant or two or three unwillingly in our day. So, Craig, what are some common reasons that houseplants suffer and appear sick? And what's the most common reasons that they die?
Craig Allen
Yeah, so many reasons. But it does get boiled down to like, too much like too little light, and excess or in excess of a few things. So too much like too little light. Too much food too little food. Too much water too little water. airflow could even be something sensitive plants being smashed glass and something like that.
Lisa Beres
Or up against the wall. That's not good, either. Right? If your leaves are kind of smashed against the wall.
Craig Allen
Yeah, a lot of plants that their leaves are touching. They won't grow that way. They'll send energy a different way. As an adaptive thing from evolution.
Ron Beres
Craig off topic, is it cruel to leave a plant in a particular pot, even though it could grow bigger? If you're stopping it from growing and ever you put in a new pot? He gets bigger, right? Yeah. Is that a main thing due to plants? Or is it okay?
Lisa Beres
Would you like to stay in your two-year-old shoes?
Craig Allen
It's so funny, because then you look at these beautiful practices like bone Japanese bonsai. And it's like, wow, that plant has little shoes. I will say if you transplant a plant into a larger pot, often will grow. That's actually one of the things you can do when you have a plant that you've been over watering or under watering, some factor that you've had off, if you transplant it, that's one of the great ways to kind of stimulate the plant to like check out its environment again.
Lisa Beres
Yeah, we had a snake plant. We have it still and it was teeny tiny. I think it was a little cup or something when we got it, like a fair or a farmer�s market or something. And then it outgrew its little pot. Well it�s kind of just stayed. And then I put it in this big huge pot and my brother in law came over. He's like, wow, you got a new plant. I'm like, No, that's that same plant. It just exploded like it was so happy in this big pot. Plants are so resilient. And I just think it's amazing to watch what they do with rosemary and it was like out on our deck and it obviously wanted the light like it literally started growing like through the banister and like around the corner to get more light, like the whole shape of the plant genes. I think it's really fascinating how they adapt to their environment like that.
Craig Allen
Yeah, so when you transplant your snake plant, did it consume a lot more water or was it? You know, minimal amounts?
Lisa Beres
Not that much more. I mean, I feel like I water it the same amount. Now, I don't know. I guess maybe that. I mean, I only water my plants once a week. And they seem to be fine with that. But I kind of do the test, right? If you pour the water in and it sucks the water really fast, you need a little more, right? You don't want to and then you also don't want water floating. Right? I found it was once a week. That's pretty much what I do. But I have to be honest, I haven't done the food. I probably have not put adding topsoil and things like I just don't really know enough about that. So, I'm excited. I'm excited. I know everybody listening is too because a lot of us are just basic, like, oh, throw the water in there, the plants dead. But this is really interesting how they need that food and that. I mean, should you be adding more topsoil every so often?
Craig Allen
No, typically, that's not really necessary. If you had nice organic nutrients in reasonable smaller quantities, and you have some soil microbiology that's working out well then you don't need to change it. You don't need to keep adding soil. No, no, if you're going to transplant sure you have to add a little soil or whether the media is you know, hardships or whatever the media is for what you're transplanting.
Ron Beres
Off topic. I love the nickname for that plant. Mother in law's Tongue.
Craig Allen
Yeah, Snake plant. Yeah. It's actually a succulent snake plant, which is a succulent, okay, it's probably doesn't need much water.
Lisa Beres
Yeah, they're hardy. They're really a hardy plant. And I named mine, Terri, because my mother in law, Ron's mom is Terri. I call it my Terri plant. It's got the sharp little she's listening, so Terri. Yeah, the sharp pointy tongue.
Ron Beres
She does. Well, chemical fertilizers you know they're short sighted. They feed plants for one season. But kill off soil microbiology, pollute rivers, lakes and oceans, your organic and naturally sourced ingredients. They make Home Jungle completely safe around kids, pets, even edible plants, which is all great news. But can you tell us how Home Jungle manages to work for all house plants? I mean, I feel like usually you need a specific type of plant fertilizer when you go to the store. So, what makes yours different?
Craig Allen
Yeah, you know, an air plant. They don't have roots; you can see they're just sitting up on a shelf. But they do have some needs. And in nature, they do get minerals and microbes from their surroundings. Maybe a squirrel will suffocate on them or something, you know, and they'll get this sword, we had no idea we had no idea. There'll be like a breeze with black dust that lands on them or something or a little bug crawls and leaves a little residue. And so there are the common plants that live in soil that are very easily applicable to the Home Jungle series, you may shake some microbes inorganic minerals on the soil, you water with the liquid pump once a week, and then you follow your spread, which is that leaf spray that we talked about also once a week, but for plants like orchids, or air plants, some of these plants that are a little bit different cacti, maybe you use the Home Jungle series slightly differently. So, for example, for air plants, you can mix the liquid nutrients into a jug and then soak the air plant in the job or 10 minutes, something like that. And then you pull that out, shake it off, put it on the shelf, and then your airplane will get the nutrients in.
Lisa Beres
And for people listening who don't know what air plants are someone gifted us one and I was like, this is the coolest little plant in the world. It's just a little plant. And they gave it to us in a really pretty crystal holder, and it just you pull it up, you can hold it, it's not rooted, and it doesn't need soil like you said, and I guess every so often you're supposed to dunk it in the water, right? Take a bowl of water and like drench it, but that's only what like once a month or something crazy. It needs very, very, very little water. And you don't water it every day. Or every week. Is that right?
Craig Allen
It�s crazy when you look at them. And it's like, how is that thing?
Lisa Beres
I literally didn't know about these air plants until a couple years ago. They're so great. Good housewarming gift, especially for people who don't have a green thumb. That's awesome. Okay, so I never thought of feeding my plants food, let alone leaves. So how does that work, Craig?
Craig Allen
Ah, so what we just talked about a second ago with air plants. There are all these natural forces, moving minerals around in the air that we don't think about animals desiccating dust, rock dust, dirt being blown off of hillsides, a lot of it ends up on the leaves of plants in nature. And plants actually have this really cool rotation to absorb through their leaves to these little cells on leaves on the tops and bottoms.
Lisa Beres
Stomata. Is it the stomata?
Craig Allen
It�s the stomata.
Ron Beres
Brainiacs here.
Craig Allen
And so, canopy mist plays off of that. Canopy mist is made of a few different kelp extracts, and a few minerals. And the goal of it is to put some liquid on the leaf, spray some liquid on the leaves a very fine mist, and then have that increase the circulation of the plant, the more circulation, the more mineral trading in the roots can occur with microbes, which is back to that microbe story that we were talking about probiotics and soil. And then that moves minerals back up into the plants and can help grow leaves. So, it sorts of completes the cycle.
Lisa Beres
Does every plant need to be misted fully or whatever does every plant need that or some plants it's not going to do that?
Craig Allen
If you have a very sensitive plant that you just know as sensitive, even to have the same plant can one can be very sensitive and the other one can be just kind of our party. They really are a little individual. They are totally but even like my cacti that I keep in my house, we foliar feed those fully feed our orchids.
Lisa Beres
Roses, like could you do that with flowers, too? Oh, yeah, totally. Yeah. Flowers. No. So we're talking about florals and greenery. Right when we're talking about the system does it work on all colorful flowers?
Craig Allen
Yeah. So, spring flowers is kind of unnecessary. Like the actual flower itself. It because the flower doesn't have the same cells as a leaf does. But stems, leaves a cactus. You can just spray the whole outside of the cactus air plants on your off-watering times. You can give them a mist. The sequence we're talking about is your system a once a week system in the summer, spring and summer once a week. And as you know in the fall and winter, plants consume less sun this the hormones are changing the plants so Oh, yeah, just like us.
Lisa Beres
Oh my god. That's crazy.
Craig Allen
They get moody.
Lisa Beres
They get moody. Yeah.
Ron Beres
Craig, I have a test question. I heard this story before but what would you do? You purchased a cactus let's say you purchase from random source, this large cactus it's in your house. And all of a sudden it starts to shake and vibrate violently. What would you do?
Lisa Beres
I think that's an urban myth.
Ron Beres
Craig's the expert Lisa.
Craig Allen
Is this some kind of a horror movie?
Lisa Beres
Tarantulas lay their eggs inside the cactus.
Craig Allen
Oh, is that a thing?
Lisa Beres
I grew up in Arizona. You know this. These were our kind of stories that we shared at slumber parties. No, but I heard that story. There was a lady and she bought this cactus in her house and it started violently shaking exploded and all these little�
Ron Beres
Before that though, she called 911. And they go get out of the house get out of the house because it's going to explode about as little or whatever, spiders, right?
Craig Allen
It�s terrifying. That's legitimately terrifying.
Lisa Beres
Someone needs to make a horror movie on that.
Ron Beres
You weren't expecting that. That's okay. So, getting back to traditional plants that are not infected by tarantula. How does this system work for edible plants? So, for example, is it safe to use for herbs? vegetables that we consume?
Craig Allen
You know what's crazy? Yeah, this is an interesting question. I was thinking about getting one of those, you know, those arrow gardens that you grow lettuces in in the house?
Lisa Beres
Yeah, we have one. Oh, you're talking about the ones that go on the wall?
Craig Allen
No, it's like sits on a table. And it's got like plugs and a little light on?
Lisa Beres
Yeah, we have that Click and Grow.
Craig Allen
Yeah. Okay. So, I was thinking about getting one. And then I looked, because of my background, I looked at the ingredients on the fertilizer bottle. And it's like super toxic, really chemicals that are in the Miracle Grow.
Lisa Beres
Miracle Gro. Wow, okay, we're dropping names.
Craig Allen
Yeah, but bleep. And that's the source of nutrition for the error words that I would make with that type of error system. And that's just I decided against doing in fact.
Lisa Beres
What�s the code word that we would see on the label of a toxic fertilizer?
Craig Allen
A lot of them say, proposition 65. Warning cancer causing real on the fertilizer. Oh my god. Yeah. You have like nitrates and chemical salts and all kinds of crazy words that don't make sense to you.
Lisa Beres
And you don't want to be eating that. I mean, yeah, exactly. spending a lot of money on organic produce, and living you know, trying to do your best there. You don't want to turn around and grow your veggies in chemical fertilizer, right? It only makes sense, right?
Craig Allen
So, the Home Jungle system is we designed it to be actually kid, pet person. safe. Not just marketing fluff actually safe. You wouldn't want to eat this stuff and concentrate because it wouldn't taste good, but it wouldn't actually hurt you.
Lisa Beres
Oh, wow. Even if your dog accidentally got into it?
Craig Allen
I mean, your dog would have a bellyache but you wouldn't need to call poison control.
Ron Beres
What�s the price point of your system? I'm curious off topic.
Craig Allen
So, the Home Jungle trio takes care of five house plans for six months. It should retail about 39.99 I believe.
Lisa Beres
That's great. That's great. And then obviously you say house plants, but outdoor plants, too?
Craig Allen
Outdoor plants, too, yeah. Bloom City, our company is two sides it�s the Home Jungle side and Bloom City, the garden side. Bloom, City has larger sizes for gardens and stuff outdoors. So that's a great, great way to do organic gardening.
Lisa Beres
Nice more and more people, you know, Monsanto and all the crazy glyphosate that has been infiltrated into our food supply. And now they just came out with the big announcement, right, they can no longer sell roundup with glyphosate to the retail consumer.
Craig Allen
It's so good. Yeah, another one that people don't know about. fertilizer touches our lives in weird ways we don't think about it, it's kind of everywhere it's in, almost all of the foods we eat are fertilized by house plants or gardens, whether you buy the fertilizer or not, when you buy the house plant has the fertilizer in it. And there's this one toxin that's just been put into everything for years and yours called EDTA. And it's his thing that helps make or describe it to you right now. But it's a key leading agent that basically, once it's in the pot or in your garden, you water, it just goes deeper in the soil profile, maybe ends up in the sink or something like that ends up in the rivers, it ends up in the ocean, it does not break down is this crazy thing that I think we're going to look at it in 20 years, and we'd be like, how did we use that chemical right, for so long.
Lisa Beres
It's like PFAS, right? Chlorinated chemicals from nonstick cookware and stained, stained, and water resistant. Those are called forever chemicals. For anyone listening who wants to go back to I think it's Episode 33, where we talked to the Environmental Working Group scientists, Tasha about PFAS and how it gets into our waterway. And actually, that's our biggest source of exposure, everyone's really worried about the cookware, which is a source. But when you think about how much we're getting it through our drinking water, and it doesn't break down and every single person tested, it was found in their blood. So not only do we have it in our bodies, it's in breast milk, it's being passed down generations, and it's a forever chemical, it takes forever to degrade basically, in the environment. So that's another one of those that in years, people are going to go because there's so many bizarre health implications associated with that chemical too. And I think we have such a problem with chemical system to begin with that chemicals are not really tested, they rely on the manufacturers to provide the safety data, and for a lot of these chemicals, so they're approved, and it's really up to the manufacturers to provide safety. And for you as the consumer, if you're not aware, and you don't know what to look for, and you don't know these chemical names, and you don't know how to read labels, you're going to be getting these exposures to these types of chemicals. And you might think to yourself, you know, whatever, it's just one well think about the generations ahead and think about the planet and think about the ocean life and the wildlife. And everybody gets affected by these. So a good rule of thumb that I always tell readers is look for those poison caution warning signs on products, look for third party certifications to be sure that something is organic, if it says organic, and look for proof versus just someone telling you their product safe because you really don't know. So, I went on a little tangent there. But I it's one of my big passions is really educating people to be empowered, because nowadays you have to you have to be your own investigator.
Craig Allen
And you really do. In fact, what was it heard a couple months ago, California found an organic pesticide was actually full of Roundup? Oh, really? Yeah, in Oregon, the same thing. And so, these people were selling it as an organic, because it was really effective. And it was like, Oh, I want to use that.
Lisa Beres
Right. And then also like with the GMOs and all that people get very Oh, it's bright red tomato, and it's big and plump, it must be healthy, when in fact, like your natural produce isn't perfect. It's got dents and bangs and bruises and the Miracle Gro that we talked about earlier. I don't know a whole lot about that. But I know you said it's toxic. And in general, like, if something's really overgrowing maybe you got to look at like, what's creating that is that natural is that natural for the plant, like even cows, even livestock that gets injected with things to make them bigger. I mean, that's not good for us that might be good for the farmer and his bottom line, but it's not good for you to be eating something that had a lot of antibiotics injected into it or whatever. growth hormones perhaps. Anyway, a little tangent there. But I know we've kind of talked about the watering. So just to recap, as a rule of thumb, everybody listening, we want to water about once a week and with the Home Jungle system, we would be doing that once a week with a three part right?
Craig Allen
That's right, yeah. Just kind of one of the best ways to tell if you need to water your husband, like lift it up. Does it feel like does it feel heavy? You can probe with your finger in the soil does it? Is there any water still, there's water? Because houseplants grow more slowly than outer plants typically. Wait a few days. Yeah. No need to overwater.
Lisa Beres
Yeah, don't grow and then Is that true, you can take a stick and stick it in there and then pull up the stick and sort of gauge the water level.
Craig Allen
Oh, that's smart. Yeah, I've done that.
Lisa Beres
Chopstick. Save your chopsticks, because you can tell sometimes if you don't know if there's water in the bottom, right?
Ron Beres
Craig is one of our final questions, can you leave our listeners a few steps when dealing with a sick plant to bring it back to health?
Craig Allen
Yeah, so one thing that I always like to do, and this is kind of fun, and it doesn't work with cacti very well. But I like to tip the plant over, you know, sort of, like, get this done between your fingers, tip the plant over, and just gently get the pot off, take a look at the roots, take a look at it. If the roots look kind of dead, then you know you have a little bit of work to do. You know, if the roots look vibrant and white, then maybe the plant just needs a little bit of food, for example, or different watering frequency. So that's something that I always do just to kind of get a gauge of what I'm working with. But the most important things.
Lisa Beres
It doesn't harm the plant at all.
Ron Beres
Does it get in shock for getting pulled from the pot? I heard like oh, it's in shock, quickly put it in soil because they're not used to that.
Craig Allen
We don't want to like shake the soil off, you want to gently keep the soil. And then it's also good because you can keep tabs on whether the plant is viewing over the course of a few weeks by checking it once every week or something like that you can't do with a big plant either. With the planet healing, you'll start to see new white root tips form. And so that can be kind of exciting as well. But what I think the most important thing to do when you have a houseplant that's sick is to assess whether it needs water or doesn't need water. And then adjust your watering frequency to give it water just when it runs out.
Lisa Beres
Yeah, okay. Kind of like your gas tank. I don't know, that's a bad example of what you�re not supposed to do. You're actually not supposed to get all the way to empty. Okay, so that's a good rule of thumb. Let it like saturate all the water before you water it again.
Craig Allen
Yeah, actually saturate the pot so that it's really wet. Sometimes on a really dry pot, you have to water it like five or six times, yeah, and same session and then catch the water and then re put it in so you can actually get water in the dry soil.
Lisa Beres
Okay, that's really good. I have a question. What about we get asked this a lot. What about mold on plants, which is very common in the home? I think when people are over watering, they'll get mold? And then also best Do you believe in dusting your plants? Because I know dust can accumulate on the leaves?
Craig Allen
Yeah, and mold on the soil surface. So, you're talking about mold on the soil. So typically, that's from Overwatch. Yeah, but it's also from, like a lack of good bacteria. So, imagine you've got this situation where there's plenty of good bacteria, a few bad actors, the bad actors can't get enough food because there's so many good bacteria. And then something changes. Maybe you don't feed your plant for a year, and there's no food and so then the good bacteria start to die off. And the bad bacteria are like Oh, no.
Lisa Beres
It is just like our gut, like probiotics in our gut.
Craig Allen
So, a great way to get rid of that is to change your watering frequency, but also outcompete the back edge, start adding the living soil sheet here, start adding probiotics to your soil.
Lisa Beres
I'm going to do that. I'm going to take better care of my plants.
Craig Allen
Your second question there was Oh, dust.
Lisa Beres
I mean, do you advise dusting plants?
Craig Allen
If it�s bad, you can dust for sure, but I think you know if it's bad. That's it. Like even just using the like a foliar spray of just water leaf spray just water your leaves will actually kind of absorb some of the dust.
Lisa Beres
Okay, I was going to say yeah, cuz they are a little at least the ones we talked about their little mini air purifiers. So, they, they do such a good job. They're a little self-sustaining system. When you think about it, they're probably just giving them those few things. And you guys the motto of this show is don't kill the love Fern. Don't just remember the love Fern from How to Lose a Guy and what does it How to Lose the guy and 14 days or what was that movie? The love fern? She gets so upset because he killed it. That's funny you guys. One of my favorite movies. Friends. Remember, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is now. That's a Chinese proverb. Thank you for joining us Craig.
Craig Allen
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Lisa Beres
Thank you so much. And for more information head over to www.bloom.city that's bloom dot city to learn more about houseplants living soil plant health and so much more. And Craig where can people learn more about your Kickstarter campaign or Home Jungle?
Craig Allen
So, go to our website, Bloom. City or HomeJungle.com. And if you have a sick houseplant and you're like, how do I help this thing, shoot us an email with some photos we'll talk you through it.
Lisa Beres
Wow, is that customer service you guys or what? I have a feeling you�ll get a lot of emails.
Ron Beres
When you walk into a house, or when you walk in the house and you see dust on the plants, you're like, Oh, yeah, they don't spray.
Craig Allen
Honey, they don�t spray.
Lisa Beres
Honey. Oh my god, let's leave. These neighbors are crazy.
Ron Beres
All right, run. Don't walk over to www.RonandLisa.com to get your free gift, the top 10 plants to remove toxins from your indoor air. These aren't just any plants. These are specific plants that remove cancer causing chemicals like benzene and formaldehyde from the air that you and your loved ones breathe every day. And we'll have a link in the show notes. But it's at Ron and Lisa dot com forward slash podcast. Thank you for joining us today. Be sure to stay tuned until the next healthy home hacks podcast. Thanks for joining us, everybody.
Lisa Beres
Bye. Thank you everybody.
Narrator
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Narrator
How would you like to improve your health and keep your family safe? You're listening to the healthy home hacks podcast where we firmly believe enjoying optimal health shouldn't be a luxury. healthy home authorities and husband and wife team Ron and Lisa will help you create a home environment that will level up your health. It's time to hear from the experts. listen in on honest conversations and gain the best tips and advice. If you're ready to dive in and improve your well-being and increase your energy, you're in the right place. All right, here are your hosts, Baubiologists, authors, media darlings, vicarious vegans and avocado aficionados. Ron and Lisa Beres.
Ron Beres
One day, a wise Rabbi was journeying on the road, and he saw a man planting a carob tree. He asked, how long does it take for this tree to bear fruit? The man replied 70 years. Rather than further asked him, are you certain you will live another 70 years, the man replied. As a boy, I found a world containing full grown care of trees, just as my ancestors planted those trees for me, so I to plant them for my children.
Lisa Beres
Friends if you love indoor house plants and trees, but despise indoor toxins run don't walk over to Ron and lisa.com to get your free gift the top 10 plants to remove toxins from your indoor air. And guys, these aren't just any plants by the way. They're specific plants that remove cancer causing chemicals like benzene and formaldehyde from the air you and your loved ones breathe in daily. The shortcut is Bit.ly/freeplantlist and I'll put a link in the show notes.
Ron Beres
Speaking of the power plants, our special guest today is Craig Allen, a co-founder of Home Jungle. Born and raised in Issaquah, Washington, Craig graduated from the University of Washington and later found himself drawn to plants and gardening. Turns out he was a natural Green Thumb. In 2011. He started gardening, wholesale and retail outfits and later co-founded Bloom City with a vision to make sustainable and organic fertilizer options for growers. What the heck is Home Jungle? You asked? Well, we're going to dive into that through this show. But let's just say it's a revolutionary house plant nutrient system created by a small team of botanists and plant chemists.
Lisa Beres
That's right Ron. And together Craig and his dream team designed sustainable nutrients that are proudly made in the US of A and are designed for the plant lover and the planet lover that are simple, safe and organic. Turns out plants don't just need water Much to my surprise. So, if your beloved greens are wilted, droopy and sad, listen up friends.
Ron Beres
If you don't have a green thumb, you don't want to miss today's episode. Without further ado, welcome to the show, Craig. Yeah,
Lisa Beres
Welcome. Hi, we're so happy to have you.
Craig Allen
Yeah, happy to be here.
Lisa Beres
Yeah, we've got some droopy plants and we need your help today.
Craig Allen
Doesn't everybody? Doesn't everyone, everybody?
Lisa Beres
Oh my god. So, I heard a quote once or meme that said, don�t forget to drink water and get some sunlight because you're basically a plant with complicated feelings. Craig, I'm sure you'd agree. So, we know plants crave oxygen, and some, as I mentioned at the top even remove toxins from the indoor air. But what are some other personal health benefits from having a home full of healthy plants?
Craig Allen
Oh my gosh, what a big question. During the pandemic, we were all I guess still going on. But we know we've all been in our homes more than we have been. And you know, there's only so much cooking you can do. And so much cream you can do and so many board games you can play. Plants are a great hobby. Taking care of plants can be very meditative. Especially if you get a plant that's a little bit different, you know, the easy plants, the ferns just sit in the corner. They just look nice and sort of increase the quality of the air in your house and some of those factors. But if you have a touchy plant that takes a little bit of thought takes a little bit of practice. Those can be really nice hobby.
Ron Beres
I like how you said touchy. that's a really delicate word, touchy. That�s a difficult plant, right? Touchy, difficult, ornery.
Craig Allen
Definitely sensitive, high maintenance. Yeah, it could be any of those things.
Lisa Beres
Your diva plant so to speak.
Craig Allen
That's right.
Lisa Beres
Your diva. Yeah, and I have read many, many studies. In fact, we have a lot of articles on this that not only are they obviously really good for air and our mood, they improve our mood. But they also increase productivity, right? They did studies in workplaces where there was more greenery and they have found such a higher output from the workers and offices. And you think about it, yeah, that we feel rejuvenated when we're in nature. And then when we're in these closed environments, we don't have that greenery, it can make you feel really, like lethargic and really depressed.
Craig Allen
Yeah, I believe in just feeling at home is something that I think plants can really offer.
Lisa Beres
As a past interior designer, it's like the little secret that every interior designer knows the last finishing touch you do is you got to add some green in there. It gives the space life right and we know what gives it life.
Ron Beres
Absolutely. So, Craig, I know you and your team, you have a simple method, with a simple strategy. Maximize plant health, without relying on harsh chemical additives love it. But what exactly are the dangers of chemical fertilizers that our listeners should be aware of?
Craig Allen
So, it runs the gamut. A lot of the fertilizer that people use in their house has urea in it. And urea is a chemical byproduct of a number of different industrial processes. And that's basically like a bunch of nitrogen molecules combined. Well, when that breaks down, that can release toxic gases in the air. So especially in your house plants, they sit by the window, they got sun hitting the dirt that can increase the cycle of urea breaking apart and becoming a toxin in the air. That's like one example.
Lisa Beres
And you can't smell that, right? I mean, that's just too low of a level.
Craig Allen
No, it's actually a horrible greenhouse gas as well. So outside of the home, you know our company, we've had a campaign for many years working against using urea as a fertilizer source in open fields, because it's a toxic greenhouse gas.
Lisa Beres
I'm familiar with urea from formaldehyde, because we get into the dangers of formaldehyde, which is a carcinogen and a VOC, volatile organic compound, urea formaldehyde, but I never knew urea is actually in the fertilizer. So that's so interesting. So is it a VOC then, just the urea?
Craig Allen
It volatilizes Oh, okay, on its own, it's stable, but something has to happen to it. Oh, gotcha. Okay, so that would be like, Yeah, exactly. That would be like microbes in the soil, or the sun hitting the soil top, something has to change that model molecules let go. But, I mean, basically, we're talking about with all these chemical fertilizers, bringing industrial chemicals into the house, and then putting them on the things that other than our families and pets, we love the most in our house. So, it's something that we kind of want to take a look at.
Lisa Beres
Absolutely, yeah, talk about a hidden toxin. I mean, there's so many toxins in our home today. And that's an area because you just assume the plants healthy. It's green, it must be good. You don't think about that. So, we're going to dive into all of this today in a lot more detail. So very important topic. I know we all have plants, everybody listening has plants. So, stay tuned, and we're going to tell you how to save your little droopy plants. So, hang on. Craig, are there any benefits to using a product with organic nutrients? besides it being just nontoxic?
Craig Allen
Yes, well, loaded question. You know, organic isn't necessarily better. You'd like you could use. One thing that we as a company avoid is bringing in products input materials, like bat guano. Bat guano comes from that caves. Yeah, like a fecal matter of bats that's like, oh, fertilizer, okay. And in order to get that, the sourcing of it destroys natural ecosystems. And so organic isn't necessarily better. However, in general, organic fertilizers are these like sort of larger structures, think about a whole bunch of different nutrients that you're planning needs all packed together. So, when you add those to your soil, they have to break apart into smaller pieces so that the plant can uptake them. And that process of molecules of organics breaking down is done with microbes in the soil. So essentially, by adding organics, you're actually increasing the probiotic, increasing the biological activity in the soil. And that's a major benefit to sort of build it.
Lisa Beres
Okay, bat guano is not good.
Craig Allen
Bat guano and seabird guano are both great fertilizer sources, but they're not good sustainability sources. Well, they're destructive to poor reef development and ah, all sorts of things that are going on in those micro ecosystems.
Ron Beres
Off topic, but what would be a good one then is that cat guano?
Lisa Beres
Yeah. Can we get pigeon one? Because that would be a good way to get rid of like.
Craig Allen
Yeah, actually that's a really good point.
Lisa Beres
Let's get rid. Let's like make it full circle, right?
Craig Allen
You know, lets clean those cities up.
Ron Beres
Okay, I see Home Jungle is a three-part system, right? But most fertilizers I'm familiar with are single steps. So why is yours different Craig?
Craig Allen
Yeah, you know, when we first started working on this house plant project two years ago, we thought, how can we actually help people with their houseplants? And we thought, Well, what if we could put it all in one, you know, one product, that would make life easy. And it turns out after just iteration and iteration of trying to do that, it's really hard to put everything you need to build a healthy ecosystem for your plant in one product, because there are different functions occurring. You've got your soil, which people generally don't think much about, they just that's what your plan lives, and its no big deal, right? Well, it turns out that is a big deal. That is everything. Everything happens with nutrient mobility, water mobility, microbial populations, fungal populations, it's this whole on its own, it's this crazy thing. And then you have the plant nutrients, minerals that go up into the plant, those are really important. And then you also have water cycles to the plant. And so that can be executed on by foliar, feeding or spraying the leads. And so, in order to make really holistic plant care, we decided to break it up into three separate products that are used weekly on the planet to each one attacking a different function.
Ron Beres
Wow, very foliar spray I'm not as familiar as I should be. I don't have as well. Yeah. So, what exactly is that? What wasn't so common to me? I know it's not uncommon to you, but maybe our listeners don't know, either.
Craig Allen
So, I'm sure we've sprayed water on the leaves of some of our plants before like an air plant or something like that. That's called foliar spray, because you're spraying the foliage.
Lisa Beres
Yeah, I love this spray. I learned something new every time. Oh, my God, we are bad plant parents. Like, I feel like the parent guilt over here. Yeah, I do that. I follow your all the time. So no, that's awesome. But you know, going back to this regeneration of the soil, it's something you usually think about in the large-scale agriculture type system. Why is it important for houseplants?
Craig Allen
Yeah. So, you pick up a house plant from the store, or you get a cutting from a friend, and you put it in your house, or maybe it comes pot. So, in that soil, there's food, theoretically, there's some food, there's some fertilizer, there's some minerals that the plant can uptake. And so, you have that in your house for six months, or a year or five years, or however long you can keep it alive. And you got to think that's its only food source, the plant pulls pretty much everything right out of that soil. And so, if you don't take care of the soil, you're basically going to be slowly choking your plant from lack of food. And from that there is a cascade of other things that happen. Water can't move into the plant effectively. And we've all had those houseplants that just sort of sit and nothing changes for years. They're kind of in this like holding paddling pattern. Yeah, yeah. And they're a little leaf here and there. Yes, because there's nothing for the plant to do. It's sort of locked up and just waiting for better conditions.
Lisa Beres
Oh, that's so sad. I feel so bad for my plants right now. I want to cry.
Craig Allen
But what's really cool is once you address a few of the things in your soil, your plants will do crazy things you've never seen him do before.
Lisa Beres
Wow, are they going to dance and sing? Are they going to tap dance? On a side note, do you believe in talking to your plants?
Craig Allen
Everything in the world moves? vibrations in in everything. Yeah, so I think vibrations, you probably know.
Lisa Beres
But it's true. Like I noticed when I even go and prune my plants and water them. I feel energetically they're like thank you and they're just boom, they do really good. And you're like, wait, I just pulled off dead stuff. It just knows to be happy. I think you're right. We have had a couple podcasts on energy, frequency, frequency medicine. Everything in the universe is vibration. And everything vibrates at a frequency and yeah, plants are living organisms. So as caring and treating them well. They're obviously going to respond to that energy.
Ron Beres
Yeah, you're both right. Keeping plants alive can often be a struggle, and I can personally attest to it. I know a lot of guys can attest to that as well. And girls and guys, I guess everybody right? How does your system make it easier?
Craig Allen
Make keeping plants alive easier?
Ron Beres
Yeah. Outside of the fern, which is not so complicated, as we talked about before, right?
Craig Allen
Right. So, without getting too technical If you think about the way that, that we consume food, you eat food, and you don't just get energy, right? in your gut, there are microbes that break down the food. And then they trade things with different parts of your body, and you end up with energy from that. And so that's one of the main things that Home Jungle does is it actually creates this sort of, I don't want to say intestines, turns your soil into intestines, but it basically does it like turns your soil into this digestive force for the plant.
Lisa Beres
I was thinking about when you were describing it. And it's like the microbiome is the key to our health, all of our so much of our immunity lives in the gut. And its sort of like with the plant, it's really not that different. It sounds like right, like, it's exactly what I was talking at the beginning of the show about the plants that actually were proven by NASA in a study to remove toxins from the indoor air and specific toxins and specific plants. A lot of people hear about that. And they think every plant is actually specific ones, they found 50. And the way that they absorbed the toxins was actually through the soil. So, the toxins go into the soil. So, I would imagine, if you have plants that don't have healthy soil, like you're talking about, that probably would hamper that ability.
Craig Allen
Because it's actually not necessarily the plant. Is the planet paired with microbes typically?
Lisa Beres
Yeah, you're right, they need those microbes. So, the plant obviously needs the sunlight, right? This plant needs the sunlight, for food. But that's not enough is basically what you're saying. The sunlight�s part of it, but it's not just sunlight and water, we need to give it these nutrients, right?
Craig Allen
Yeah, exactly. So basically, in your plant, when the sunlight creates energy, that's creating little sugars in the plant. Well, those sugars, the stuff that's in the sugars that makes the sugars up is minerals. And those have to come from somewhere. They come from the soil, and in the soil. They're basically broken down by microbes, and then fed to them. Oh, gosh, so without microbes, the plants can't live.
Lisa Beres
Right? Could you look at your soil and it could be devoid of microbes and you wouldn't know it?
Craig Allen
You wouldn't know it yet. There are some characteristics you have like if you water your plant, and the water goes straight through to the bottom and the soil doesn't catch any of it. Okay, that's basically.
Lisa Beres
I�ve never seen that, Craig. That�s never happened to my plant.
Craig Allen
Look, I�m sitting next to a plant right here that has a problem I'm working on, right?
Lisa Beres
Oh, okay, good. Even you've got challenges. Okay, so I know everybody listening is going to want to hear my next question. And I know we've all killed a plant or two or three unwillingly in our day. So, Craig, what are some common reasons that houseplants suffer and appear sick? And what's the most common reasons that they die?
Craig Allen
Yeah, so many reasons. But it does get boiled down to like, too much like too little light, and excess or in excess of a few things. So too much like too little light. Too much food too little food. Too much water too little water. airflow could even be something sensitive plants being smashed glass and something like that.
Lisa Beres
Or up against the wall. That's not good, either. Right? If your leaves are kind of smashed against the wall.
Craig Allen
Yeah, a lot of plants that their leaves are touching. They won't grow that way. They'll send energy a different way. As an adaptive thing from evolution.
Ron Beres
Craig off topic, is it cruel to leave a plant in a particular pot, even though it could grow bigger? If you're stopping it from growing and ever you put in a new pot? He gets bigger, right? Yeah. Is that a main thing due to plants? Or is it okay?
Lisa Beres
Would you like to stay in your two-year-old shoes?
Craig Allen
It's so funny, because then you look at these beautiful practices like bone Japanese bonsai. And it's like, wow, that plant has little shoes. I will say if you transplant a plant into a larger pot, often will grow. That's actually one of the things you can do when you have a plant that you've been over watering or under watering, some factor that you've had off, if you transplant it, that's one of the great ways to kind of stimulate the plant to like check out its environment again.
Lisa Beres
Yeah, we had a snake plant. We have it still and it was teeny tiny. I think it was a little cup or something when we got it, like a fair or a farmer�s market or something. And then it outgrew its little pot. Well it�s kind of just stayed. And then I put it in this big huge pot and my brother in law came over. He's like, wow, you got a new plant. I'm like, No, that's that same plant. It just exploded like it was so happy in this big pot. Plants are so resilient. And I just think it's amazing to watch what they do with rosemary and it was like out on our deck and it obviously wanted the light like it literally started growing like through the banister and like around the corner to get more light, like the whole shape of the plant genes. I think it's really fascinating how they adapt to their environment like that.
Craig Allen
Yeah, so when you transplant your snake plant, did it consume a lot more water or was it? You know, minimal amounts?
Lisa Beres
Not that much more. I mean, I feel like I water it the same amount. Now, I don't know. I guess maybe that. I mean, I only water my plants once a week. And they seem to be fine with that. But I kind of do the test, right? If you pour the water in and it sucks the water really fast, you need a little more, right? You don't want to and then you also don't want water floating. Right? I found it was once a week. That's pretty much what I do. But I have to be honest, I haven't done the food. I probably have not put adding topsoil and things like I just don't really know enough about that. So, I'm excited. I'm excited. I know everybody listening is too because a lot of us are just basic, like, oh, throw the water in there, the plants dead. But this is really interesting how they need that food and that. I mean, should you be adding more topsoil every so often?
Craig Allen
No, typically, that's not really necessary. If you had nice organic nutrients in reasonable smaller quantities, and you have some soil microbiology that's working out well then you don't need to change it. You don't need to keep adding soil. No, no, if you're going to transplant sure you have to add a little soil or whether the media is you know, hardships or whatever the media is for what you're transplanting.
Ron Beres
Off topic. I love the nickname for that plant. Mother in law's Tongue.
Craig Allen
Yeah, Snake plant. Yeah. It's actually a succulent snake plant, which is a succulent, okay, it's probably doesn't need much water.
Lisa Beres
Yeah, they're hardy. They're really a hardy plant. And I named mine, Terri, because my mother in law, Ron's mom is Terri. I call it my Terri plant. It's got the sharp little she's listening, so Terri. Yeah, the sharp pointy tongue.
Ron Beres
She does. Well, chemical fertilizers you know they're short sighted. They feed plants for one season. But kill off soil microbiology, pollute rivers, lakes and oceans, your organic and naturally sourced ingredients. They make Home Jungle completely safe around kids, pets, even edible plants, which is all great news. But can you tell us how Home Jungle manages to work for all house plants? I mean, I feel like usually you need a specific type of plant fertilizer when you go to the store. So, what makes yours different?
Craig Allen
Yeah, you know, an air plant. They don't have roots; you can see they're just sitting up on a shelf. But they do have some needs. And in nature, they do get minerals and microbes from their surroundings. Maybe a squirrel will suffocate on them or something, you know, and they'll get this sword, we had no idea we had no idea. There'll be like a breeze with black dust that lands on them or something or a little bug crawls and leaves a little residue. And so there are the common plants that live in soil that are very easily applicable to the Home Jungle series, you may shake some microbes inorganic minerals on the soil, you water with the liquid pump once a week, and then you follow your spread, which is that leaf spray that we talked about also once a week, but for plants like orchids, or air plants, some of these plants that are a little bit different cacti, maybe you use the Home Jungle series slightly differently. So, for example, for air plants, you can mix the liquid nutrients into a jug and then soak the air plant in the job or 10 minutes, something like that. And then you pull that out, shake it off, put it on the shelf, and then your airplane will get the nutrients in.
Lisa Beres
And for people listening who don't know what air plants are someone gifted us one and I was like, this is the coolest little plant in the world. It's just a little plant. And they gave it to us in a really pretty crystal holder, and it just you pull it up, you can hold it, it's not rooted, and it doesn't need soil like you said, and I guess every so often you're supposed to dunk it in the water, right? Take a bowl of water and like drench it, but that's only what like once a month or something crazy. It needs very, very, very little water. And you don't water it every day. Or every week. Is that right?
Craig Allen
It�s crazy when you look at them. And it's like, how is that thing?
Lisa Beres
I literally didn't know about these air plants until a couple years ago. They're so great. Good housewarming gift, especially for people who don't have a green thumb. That's awesome. Okay, so I never thought of feeding my plants food, let alone leaves. So how does that work, Craig?
Craig Allen
Ah, so what we just talked about a second ago with air plants. There are all these natural forces, moving minerals around in the air that we don't think about animals desiccating dust, rock dust, dirt being blown off of hillsides, a lot of it ends up on the leaves of plants in nature. And plants actually have this really cool rotation to absorb through their leaves to these little cells on leaves on the tops and bottoms.
Lisa Beres
Stomata. Is it the stomata?
Craig Allen
It�s the stomata.
Ron Beres
Brainiacs here.
Craig Allen
And so, canopy mist plays off of that. Canopy mist is made of a few different kelp extracts, and a few minerals. And the goal of it is to put some liquid on the leaf, spray some liquid on the leaves a very fine mist, and then have that increase the circulation of the plant, the more circulation, the more mineral trading in the roots can occur with microbes, which is back to that microbe story that we were talking about probiotics and soil. And then that moves minerals back up into the plants and can help grow leaves. So, it sorts of completes the cycle.
Lisa Beres
Does every plant need to be misted fully or whatever does every plant need that or some plants it's not going to do that?
Craig Allen
If you have a very sensitive plant that you just know as sensitive, even to have the same plant can one can be very sensitive and the other one can be just kind of our party. They really are a little individual. They are totally but even like my cacti that I keep in my house, we foliar feed those fully feed our orchids.
Lisa Beres
Roses, like could you do that with flowers, too? Oh, yeah, totally. Yeah. Flowers. No. So we're talking about florals and greenery. Right when we're talking about the system does it work on all colorful flowers?
Craig Allen
Yeah. So, spring flowers is kind of unnecessary. Like the actual flower itself. It because the flower doesn't have the same cells as a leaf does. But stems, leaves a cactus. You can just spray the whole outside of the cactus air plants on your off-watering times. You can give them a mist. The sequence we're talking about is your system a once a week system in the summer, spring and summer once a week. And as you know in the fall and winter, plants consume less sun this the hormones are changing the plants so Oh, yeah, just like us.
Lisa Beres
Oh my god. That's crazy.
Craig Allen
They get moody.
Lisa Beres
They get moody. Yeah.
Ron Beres
Craig, I have a test question. I heard this story before but what would you do? You purchased a cactus let's say you purchase from random source, this large cactus it's in your house. And all of a sudden it starts to shake and vibrate violently. What would you do?
Lisa Beres
I think that's an urban myth.
Ron Beres
Craig's the expert Lisa.
Craig Allen
Is this some kind of a horror movie?
Lisa Beres
Tarantulas lay their eggs inside the cactus.
Craig Allen
Oh, is that a thing?
Lisa Beres
I grew up in Arizona. You know this. These were our kind of stories that we shared at slumber parties. No, but I heard that story. There was a lady and she bought this cactus in her house and it started violently shaking exploded and all these little�
Ron Beres
Before that though, she called 911. And they go get out of the house get out of the house because it's going to explode about as little or whatever, spiders, right?
Craig Allen
It�s terrifying. That's legitimately terrifying.
Lisa Beres
Someone needs to make a horror movie on that.
Ron Beres
You weren't expecting that. That's okay. So, getting back to traditional plants that are not infected by tarantula. How does this system work for edible plants? So, for example, is it safe to use for herbs? vegetables that we consume?
Craig Allen
You know what's crazy? Yeah, this is an interesting question. I was thinking about getting one of those, you know, those arrow gardens that you grow lettuces in in the house?
Lisa Beres
Yeah, we have one. Oh, you're talking about the ones that go on the wall?
Craig Allen
No, it's like sits on a table. And it's got like plugs and a little light on?
Lisa Beres
Yeah, we have that Click and Grow.
Craig Allen
Yeah. Okay. So, I was thinking about getting one. And then I looked, because of my background, I looked at the ingredients on the fertilizer bottle. And it's like super toxic, really chemicals that are in the Miracle Grow.
Lisa Beres
Miracle Gro. Wow, okay, we're dropping names.
Craig Allen
Yeah, but bleep. And that's the source of nutrition for the error words that I would make with that type of error system. And that's just I decided against doing in fact.
Lisa Beres
What�s the code word that we would see on the label of a toxic fertilizer?
Craig Allen
A lot of them say, proposition 65. Warning cancer causing real on the fertilizer. Oh my god. Yeah. You have like nitrates and chemical salts and all kinds of crazy words that don't make sense to you.
Lisa Beres
And you don't want to be eating that. I mean, yeah, exactly. spending a lot of money on organic produce, and living you know, trying to do your best there. You don't want to turn around and grow your veggies in chemical fertilizer, right? It only makes sense, right?
Craig Allen
So, the Home Jungle system is we designed it to be actually kid, pet person. safe. Not just marketing fluff actually safe. You wouldn't want to eat this stuff and concentrate because it wouldn't taste good, but it wouldn't actually hurt you.
Lisa Beres
Oh, wow. Even if your dog accidentally got into it?
Craig Allen
I mean, your dog would have a bellyache but you wouldn't need to call poison control.
Ron Beres
What�s the price point of your system? I'm curious off topic.
Craig Allen
So, the Home Jungle trio takes care of five house plans for six months. It should retail about 39.99 I believe.
Lisa Beres
That's great. That's great. And then obviously you say house plants, but outdoor plants, too?
Craig Allen
Outdoor plants, too, yeah. Bloom City, our company is two sides it�s the Home Jungle side and Bloom City, the garden side. Bloom, City has larger sizes for gardens and stuff outdoors. So that's a great, great way to do organic gardening.
Lisa Beres
Nice more and more people, you know, Monsanto and all the crazy glyphosate that has been infiltrated into our food supply. And now they just came out with the big announcement, right, they can no longer sell roundup with glyphosate to the retail consumer.
Craig Allen
It's so good. Yeah, another one that people don't know about. fertilizer touches our lives in weird ways we don't think about it, it's kind of everywhere it's in, almost all of the foods we eat are fertilized by house plants or gardens, whether you buy the fertilizer or not, when you buy the house plant has the fertilizer in it. And there's this one toxin that's just been put into everything for years and yours called EDTA. And it's his thing that helps make or describe it to you right now. But it's a key leading agent that basically, once it's in the pot or in your garden, you water, it just goes deeper in the soil profile, maybe ends up in the sink or something like that ends up in the rivers, it ends up in the ocean, it does not break down is this crazy thing that I think we're going to look at it in 20 years, and we'd be like, how did we use that chemical right, for so long.
Lisa Beres
It's like PFAS, right? Chlorinated chemicals from nonstick cookware and stained, stained, and water resistant. Those are called forever chemicals. For anyone listening who wants to go back to I think it's Episode 33, where we talked to the Environmental Working Group scientists, Tasha about PFAS and how it gets into our waterway. And actually, that's our biggest source of exposure, everyone's really worried about the cookware, which is a source. But when you think about how much we're getting it through our drinking water, and it doesn't break down and every single person tested, it was found in their blood. So not only do we have it in our bodies, it's in breast milk, it's being passed down generations, and it's a forever chemical, it takes forever to degrade basically, in the environment. So that's another one of those that in years, people are going to go because there's so many bizarre health implications associated with that chemical too. And I think we have such a problem with chemical system to begin with that chemicals are not really tested, they rely on the manufacturers to provide the safety data, and for a lot of these chemicals, so they're approved, and it's really up to the manufacturers to provide safety. And for you as the consumer, if you're not aware, and you don't know what to look for, and you don't know these chemical names, and you don't know how to read labels, you're going to be getting these exposures to these types of chemicals. And you might think to yourself, you know, whatever, it's just one well think about the generations ahead and think about the planet and think about the ocean life and the wildlife. And everybody gets affected by these. So a good rule of thumb that I always tell readers is look for those poison caution warning signs on products, look for third party certifications to be sure that something is organic, if it says organic, and look for proof versus just someone telling you their product safe because you really don't know. So, I went on a little tangent there. But I it's one of my big passions is really educating people to be empowered, because nowadays you have to you have to be your own investigator.
Craig Allen
And you really do. In fact, what was it heard a couple months ago, California found an organic pesticide was actually full of Roundup? Oh, really? Yeah, in Oregon, the same thing. And so, these people were selling it as an organic, because it was really effective. And it was like, Oh, I want to use that.
Lisa Beres
Right. And then also like with the GMOs and all that people get very Oh, it's bright red tomato, and it's big and plump, it must be healthy, when in fact, like your natural produce isn't perfect. It's got dents and bangs and bruises and the Miracle Gro that we talked about earlier. I don't know a whole lot about that. But I know you said it's toxic. And in general, like, if something's really overgrowing maybe you got to look at like, what's creating that is that natural is that natural for the plant, like even cows, even livestock that gets injected with things to make them bigger. I mean, that's not good for us that might be good for the farmer and his bottom line, but it's not good for you to be eating something that had a lot of antibiotics injected into it or whatever. growth hormones perhaps. Anyway, a little tangent there. But I know we've kind of talked about the watering. So just to recap, as a rule of thumb, everybody listening, we want to water about once a week and with the Home Jungle system, we would be doing that once a week with a three part right?
Craig Allen
That's right, yeah. Just kind of one of the best ways to tell if you need to water your husband, like lift it up. Does it feel like does it feel heavy? You can probe with your finger in the soil does it? Is there any water still, there's water? Because houseplants grow more slowly than outer plants typically. Wait a few days. Yeah. No need to overwater.
Lisa Beres
Yeah, don't grow and then Is that true, you can take a stick and stick it in there and then pull up the stick and sort of gauge the water level.
Craig Allen
Oh, that's smart. Yeah, I've done that.
Lisa Beres
Chopstick. Save your chopsticks, because you can tell sometimes if you don't know if there's water in the bottom, right?
Ron Beres
Craig is one of our final questions, can you leave our listeners a few steps when dealing with a sick plant to bring it back to health?
Craig Allen
Yeah, so one thing that I always like to do, and this is kind of fun, and it doesn't work with cacti very well. But I like to tip the plant over, you know, sort of, like, get this done between your fingers, tip the plant over, and just gently get the pot off, take a look at the roots, take a look at it. If the roots look kind of dead, then you know you have a little bit of work to do. You know, if the roots look vibrant and white, then maybe the plant just needs a little bit of food, for example, or different watering frequency. So that's something that I always do just to kind of get a gauge of what I'm working with. But the most important things.
Lisa Beres
It doesn't harm the plant at all.
Ron Beres
Does it get in shock for getting pulled from the pot? I heard like oh, it's in shock, quickly put it in soil because they're not used to that.
Craig Allen
We don't want to like shake the soil off, you want to gently keep the soil. And then it's also good because you can keep tabs on whether the plant is viewing over the course of a few weeks by checking it once every week or something like that you can't do with a big plant either. With the planet healing, you'll start to see new white root tips form. And so that can be kind of exciting as well. But what I think the most important thing to do when you have a houseplant that's sick is to assess whether it needs water or doesn't need water. And then adjust your watering frequency to give it water just when it runs out.
Lisa Beres
Yeah, okay. Kind of like your gas tank. I don't know, that's a bad example of what you�re not supposed to do. You're actually not supposed to get all the way to empty. Okay, so that's a good rule of thumb. Let it like saturate all the water before you water it again.
Craig Allen
Yeah, actually saturate the pot so that it's really wet. Sometimes on a really dry pot, you have to water it like five or six times, yeah, and same session and then catch the water and then re put it in so you can actually get water in the dry soil.
Lisa Beres
Okay, that's really good. I have a question. What about we get asked this a lot. What about mold on plants, which is very common in the home? I think when people are over watering, they'll get mold? And then also best Do you believe in dusting your plants? Because I know dust can accumulate on the leaves?
Craig Allen
Yeah, and mold on the soil surface. So, you're talking about mold on the soil. So typically, that's from Overwatch. Yeah, but it's also from, like a lack of good bacteria. So, imagine you've got this situation where there's plenty of good bacteria, a few bad actors, the bad actors can't get enough food because there's so many good bacteria. And then something changes. Maybe you don't feed your plant for a year, and there's no food and so then the good bacteria start to die off. And the bad bacteria are like Oh, no.
Lisa Beres
It is just like our gut, like probiotics in our gut.
Craig Allen
So, a great way to get rid of that is to change your watering frequency, but also outcompete the back edge, start adding the living soil sheet here, start adding probiotics to your soil.
Lisa Beres
I'm going to do that. I'm going to take better care of my plants.
Craig Allen
Your second question there was Oh, dust.
Lisa Beres
I mean, do you advise dusting plants?
Craig Allen
If it�s bad, you can dust for sure, but I think you know if it's bad. That's it. Like even just using the like a foliar spray of just water leaf spray just water your leaves will actually kind of absorb some of the dust.
Lisa Beres
Okay, I was going to say yeah, cuz they are a little at least the ones we talked about their little mini air purifiers. So, they, they do such a good job. They're a little self-sustaining system. When you think about it, they're probably just giving them those few things. And you guys the motto of this show is don't kill the love Fern. Don't just remember the love Fern from How to Lose a Guy and what does it How to Lose the guy and 14 days or what was that movie? The love fern? She gets so upset because he killed it. That's funny you guys. One of my favorite movies. Friends. Remember, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is now. That's a Chinese proverb. Thank you for joining us Craig.
Craig Allen
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Lisa Beres
Thank you so much. And for more information head over to www.bloom.city that's bloom dot city to learn more about houseplants living soil plant health and so much more. And Craig where can people learn more about your Kickstarter campaign or Home Jungle?
Craig Allen
So, go to our website, Bloom. City or HomeJungle.com. And if you have a sick houseplant and you're like, how do I help this thing, shoot us an email with some photos we'll talk you through it.
Lisa Beres
Wow, is that customer service you guys or what? I have a feeling you�ll get a lot of emails.
Ron Beres
When you walk into a house, or when you walk in the house and you see dust on the plants, you're like, Oh, yeah, they don't spray.
Craig Allen
Honey, they don�t spray.
Lisa Beres
Honey. Oh my god, let's leave. These neighbors are crazy.
Ron Beres
All right, run. Don't walk over to www.RonandLisa.com to get your free gift, the top 10 plants to remove toxins from your indoor air. These aren't just any plants. These are specific plants that remove cancer causing chemicals like benzene and formaldehyde from the air that you and your loved ones breathe every day. And we'll have a link in the show notes. But it's at Ron and Lisa dot com forward slash podcast. Thank you for joining us today. Be sure to stay tuned until the next healthy home hacks podcast. Thanks for joining us, everybody.
Lisa Beres
Bye. Thank you everybody.
Narrator
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