Ep. 254 How We Became Horticulturists: Real Stories & Career Paths in Plant Science | #GoodGrowing

Chris: 00:05

Welcome to the Good Growing podcast. I am Chris Enroth, horticulture educator with University of Illinois Extension coming at you from Macomb , Illinois, and we have got a great show for you today. How is a horticulturalist made? Well, that's what we were gonna talk about today. We we were chatting about, well, you know, how can we tie this into maybe the horticultural profession.

Chris: 00:30

The horticulture, it's kinda got its ups and downs lately. So if people are more maybe more interested in this job, we're gonna chat about how we became who we are today to horticulturists. So, obviously, I'm not doing this by myself. I am joined as always every single week by horticulture educator Ken Johnson in Jacksonville. Hey, Ken.

Ken: 00:50

Hello, Chris. I was gonna say something real. I won't.

Chris: 00:57

It's some something witty.

Emily: 01:01

Nope. Just that, Ken. Just

Ken: 01:03

Probably probably inappropriate stuff. Mhmm.

Chris: 01:08

It's fine. Yep. Nope. That's good. That's good.

Chris: 01:11

Think it in our heads right now. That's good. So to keep us in line, Ken, we had better bring on, of course, horticulture educator, Emily Swihart in Milan, Illinois. Emily, welcome.

Emily: 01:24

Hi, guys. Thanks for having me. And I don't wanna be the one that's in charge of keeping this in line. Don't put that on me. This

Chris: 01:30

is a runaway freight train right now, so here we go.

Emily: 01:33

No. I'm excited to we talk. We're we're very friendly. I think people have picked up on that. And we know each other as colleagues, as, you know, as friends, as parents, but I'm excited to learn more about kind of how you guys got here.

Emily: 01:50

Our document is called villain origin stories.

Chris: 01:52

I don't know

Emily: 01:53

if that's gonna, you know, be true. I'm not sure we're villains. But

Ken: 01:59

We never hear our origin stories.

Chris: 02:01

So It's true.

Emily: 02:05

Yet to be determined.

Chris: 02:07

Well, I know. Do you I don't think we'll know that until we are we're done with the our career maybe. So but so let's let's let's dive into this topic because we have we're we are three different people. And I guarantee everyone listening and watching, we are not artificial intelligence. We are we are living, breathing humans.

Chris: 02:30

And so we're I I think we'll we'll see. I'm not sure because we haven't shared these with each other yet. You can get a horticulturist, like, at least three different ways. We'll we'll find out. So, yeah, I guess do you want me to start?

Chris: 02:48

Ken, do you wanna start? Emily, do you wanna start? Who's who is going to lead us into whatever we're about to do? I'm not good at this. They're listening.

Chris: 03:03

They did the whole finger on the nose thing. Not fast enough for that. Okay.

Emily: 03:10

You go you go, Chris. But let's start, like let's break it up. Let's talk about just, like, how we even, like, gained an interest or, like, found our interest in horticulture. But you know, it builds over time. I imagine you had the same experience.

Emily: 03:25

We didn't just wake up one day. Like, what kind of life experiences helped to helped grow this passion?

Chris: 03:33

Sure. So great way to kick it off. Thank you, Emily. I I will say and this is something that, you know, my my mother, when she would introduce me to people, she would say, this is my son, Chris. He likes to dig holes because that's what I did as a child.

Chris: 03:52

We didn't have we had just antenna TV. We lived out in the country. And so for us, that meant we got NBC. We got CBS. ABC was fuzzy, and then PBS came in sometimes, not all the time.

Chris: 04:10

So that those were that was my entertainment other than movies, VHSs, stuff. So I I grew up on kind of a I think it's legally defined as a ranchette. We had horses. We had dairy cattle. We had a lot of lawn.

Chris: 04:28

We had timber. We had all this stuff. So I spent all my time outside as a kid, and my favorite thing was, my mother was correct, was digging holes. I would just go around. I just dig holes.

Chris: 04:39

She didn't care where they were dug so long as they weren't, like, in the middle of the yard. So I would just go around digging holes. There was a creek. I would spend my days after school at the creek. So I was outdoors a lot, and never did I ever think that I was going to end up having a career, like, where I would be working to try to understand the outdoors.

Chris: 05:00

I was outside a lot. So that's that's kind of my foundational part. But I I guess I will say, like, maybe it was really kicked off by as a child, I remember my my parents put in a garden. They really struggled that first year, and but they wound up growing strawberries. And I had I remember eating my first fresh grown strawberry, and I thought it was the best thing I've ever had before.

Chris: 05:28

And I was like, you can just pick this off a plan, eat it. Sure enough, you can. So I I I've I've been kind of hooked on fresh fruit growing ever since, and, yeah, just kinda snowballed into that from there. But once I was in junior high, high school, I had no interest in the outdoors or plants. I just I just wanna hang out with my friends.

Emily: 05:56

Really? How did so how did that get brought back around? Because you went into college, and I want you to stop at college. But, like, how did that come back around when you decided to go study a formal education in horticulture?

Chris: 06:11

I well, that I really didn't know what I wanted to do. So I was like, I remember being a senior in high school and kind of just in this, like, I have no idea what it what's gonna happen next. I don't know what I wanna do. And I maybe if I back up more in, like, seventh grade, I wrote a career paper on landscape architecture. I just kinda picked it out of the blue, and I did a lot of research.

Chris: 06:39

And so my senior year, I started looking at schools that did landscape architecture. I actually visited Iowa State University. I think you know about that place, Emily. I was so impressed, but they wouldn't accept me.

Emily: 06:52

Didn't go there.

Chris: 06:53

I didn't go there. They didn't want me. I applied to a lot of places that didn't want me. I didn't have the best grades in high school. So I was a theater kid, a band band kid.

Chris: 07:04

I wasn't really interested in math and any of that stuff. So I didn't try very hard in those subjects. So, yeah, that that's kind of where it started, and and then I wound up enrolling down at Carbondale in the criminal justice department. So yeah. Oh, yeah.

Chris: 07:22

That's where I'll leave it for now. Yeah.

Emily: 07:25

Well, thanks for sharing. That's interesting. That's we've known each other for a long time. I didn't didn't know all all that about you. So interesting.

Emily: 07:34

Mister Johnson Ken, how did you get here? What was what was little Ken Johnson young Ken Johnson?

Chris: 07:44

With a full beard still.

Emily: 07:45

With a full beard. Still wearing plaid and a full face of hair.

Ken: 07:50

Yes. Yep. So I guess so we kinda I well, if we're gonna go where we grew up. We grew up so it's like the road I lived on. There's some houses and everything else.

Ken: 08:05

There's cornfields around us. So, kind of a a rural area, in the Chicago area. So as a kid, I remember going out and, like, collecting insects and stuff. I had an insect collection, and I think we talked about the tree pests, you know, the tent caterpillar in the spring, just collecting bucketfuls of those, and stuff. So and we always had a, you know, garden flower gardens and stuff and vegetable garden, and and we had compost bin and all.

Ken: 08:33

So, I mean, kind of exposed to that stuff, for a good chunk of my life. I know I was in boy scouts. I did the gardening merit badge, so I had to, you know, had a garden and took care of it all by myself one summer. Remember, grew spinach, picked the spinach, you know, washed it off, and boiled it and was eating it, and there's a spider crawled out of it. So I don't I know why I remember that, but that's maybe that's my villain origin story right there.

Ken: 09:01

But but I like spiders. Spiders don't bother me. I mean, I would you know, we had yeah. I mean, we just had, you know, typical I I I would say typical landscape. You know, we had, an area off the side of our house.

Ken: 09:14

So we the house we grew up in had a lot of bunch of, like, mature 100 year old oak trees and stuff. So in areas we had quite a bit of shade. So we like hostas and and stuff like that. I remember I had crocus here and there just randomly in the yard. I think the previous owners planted it.

Ken: 09:33

So and then so so we just had usually had some house plants. All the house plants had names. So still named house plants. Like, we had an asparagus fern fern named Fred. So anytime we get an asparagus fern, we call it Fred.

Ken: 09:50

So yeah. And then, I guess, know, like, kinda like Chris or, like, probably like a lot of other people, you kinda grow out of that, so to speak, as you go like the insect stuff. So, like, when I was in high school, I wanted to both my parents are teachers. My dad was a biology teacher. Mom was a grade school teacher, did math and stuff.

Ken: 10:10

So when I was getting ready to go to college, I was looking at doing ed I was gonna be an education major. I really wanted to do history, but everybody, like, told me, well, you know, history teachers are a dime a dozen. Go so I I was just gonna be a biology teacher. So I'd you know, get your degree in something else. And if you really wanna do history, you can minor in that and, you know, get a job teaching something else and then become history teacher if you really want to.

Ken: 10:33

So I started off college as a biology education major.

Chris: 10:40

Well, that's that's interesting, Ken. So alright. But you you had education in mind, and here you are, horticulture educator. Yes. Yep.

Chris: 10:53

Well, Emily, let's learn about the beginnings of of you.

Emily: 10:59

Oh, dear. I don't think I have it feels like you guys, like, discovered your, kind of, you know, passion, and it was more of a path. I feel like mine was, like, given. Like, I didn't have another option. It's just always been just this, like, weird part of me.

Emily: 11:19

So we I was born in town. Lived in a city for the first five years of my life. And then when we were five or when I was five, my parents relocated us into a conventional farm, out in the country. And it, like, I think that's when everything just, like, came alive for me and, like, being this, like, outdoorsy, like, rugged, just, like, mess of a kid. We moved to the farm, and one of my first, like, earliest, like, fondest memories of, like, farm life and just being, like, a feral country child, which is I think everybody just should be that.

Emily: 11:57

I I wish it for everybody because it was the most glorious way to be, which was, we we there's a creek that goes across the lane that we we of our new house. And our first trip out there, it flooded, and we all got, like, stuck on the wrong side of the creek. And so we didn't have anything. It was just muddy. Like, it was springtime.

Emily: 12:20

And my siblings and I went and just, like, tore through the mud. And we were just, like, out in the mud. Probably my mother was probably beside herself just like, what is wrong with these children? What did we do? But, like, kind of that freedom to just explore and, like, not be, like, stopped from, you know, being, you know, a country kid was like, the the I think the origin of me just, like, liking nature, just being just being curious about it, not afraid of it, being kinda wanting to be in contact with nature, like, just all the time.

Emily: 12:57

Really, you know, like honing in on that that the good feeling I get from it. As I aged, my mom and dad had a garden. We had, you know, trees growing in the yard. We one day, we had we had both ornamental beds and our our vegetable production beds, and my dad was planting peach trees far earlier than people thought we could plant peach trees. You know, I remember that you have your strawberry story, Chris.

Emily: 13:25

Like, mine was just peach juice just running down my face every summer. It's just really yeah. It's a very fond memory. But earlier, I think, than that even one summer because my mom was a teacher also. My dad, you know, farmed and and so primarily, we were home in the summer.

Emily: 13:45

They, like, left. I don't know where they went, but they were gone. And they came home, and I had dug up the entire, like, hosta bed, and I was just reorganizing it. Like, it's like a compulsion to like, it was fine the way it was, but I just somehow needed to dig it and reorganize it. And they let me.

Emily: 14:04

Like like, there was no, like, criticism. They were, like, totally encouraging. They're like, whatever. Like, go for it. Like, do your thing.

Emily: 14:12

Probably did have a conversation about me behind my back and why I chose to do that, which is normal, but they were encouraging. So always always wanted to do like, just be in the dirt and be in, you know, amongst plants and be growing and experimenting and and playing. And then as I advanced, you know, towards college, a family friend was a landscape architect. And I Chris, I'm curious that you, like, wrote a paper about it because I did not know what that was. Like, I it was I knew Greg was his this gentleman's name, just the most lovely gentleman.

Emily: 14:48

Gave me an internship. I worked with him. Mostly, like, growing plants and kinda doing that stuff, and it was I think it was in passing where someone was like, you should study landscape architecture. I'm like, okay. And, like, that was all.

Emily: 15:00

That was my career planning. And it was great. It worked out. But how

Chris: 15:06

You're like, okay. Sounds sounds like there'll be plenty of jobs and very lucrative. Right?

Emily: 15:11

In rural Iowa, probably a lot of opportunity. And I college did go with a double major in mind for landscape architecture and horticulture. So somehow that got roped in. The horticulture plants part got roped in, which ended up being my undergraduate degree. But it was just yeah.

Emily: 15:34

I I don't think I could have avoided it if I tried. So

Chris: 15:38

Well, let's tie into that later because there's yeah, there's definitely something when it comes to landscape architecture that's missing, I feel, at least. So let's tie into that here in just a second. Yeah.

Emily: 15:54

Oh. We're in college now many years ago.

Chris: 15:58

I still am, technically, I think. We work for them now. Yeah. But, yeah,

Ken: 16:04

they they pay us. We don't pay them.

Chris: 16:05

That's right. Now we beat college. That's how you do it.

Emily: 16:11

Sure. Feels like we're winning most days. Okay. Yeah. Alright, Ken.

Emily: 16:17

You take us because you went quite a ways away throughout your college college career. Like, how talk about it.

Ken: 16:25

So are we talking undergrad, are we going through grad school?

Emily: 16:28

Yes.

Ken: 16:29

And everything in between? Everything.

Emily: 16:32

Everything. Wanna know it all.

Chris: 16:33

That's everything. Your first class, Ken?

Ken: 16:35

Everything post high school. It was IC one zero one. So I went to Illinois College.

Chris: 16:43

Illinois chemistry?

Ken: 16:44

In Illinois College in Jacksonville. That was, your intro to college class.

Chris: 16:47

Oh, okay. Okay.

Ken: 16:49

We had to rage Frankenstein over the summer and write a report. So there you go. Not relevant at all to what we're talking about today.

Emily: 16:58

Gonna leave

Chris: 16:58

that in anyway. I know.

Emily: 17:01

That's a fun little fact. Mhmm. Alright.

Ken: 17:04

Alright. See, I so I went to Illinois College in Jacksonville on and, again, totally unrelated, but when I would mention to people I was going to Illinois College because it's a small school, like a thousand students. People say, oh, where is that? Say Jacksonville, and they'd always ask Jacksonville, Florida. I don't know why why you would

Chris: 17:20

pay Jackson Illinois College in Jacksonville, Florida,

Ken: 17:23

but here we are. So, yeah, so I Illinois College side, you know, I played football and, you was track and and stuff while here or while there. And so I yeah. Like I said, I was a biology major with education. I eventually dropped the education.

Ken: 17:40

There's just too much, I guess, many rules, put it nicely, too many rules and other things that go along with being a teacher that I didn't wanna deal with. So I just stuck with the biology part, I figured, you know, if I really wanted to be a teacher, I could go back and and get that certification later, if need be. So I because after my sophomore year or in my sophomore year, switched to just straight biology. I really didn't know what I was gonna do with it, but that's I was a biology major. And then my junior year, my adviser, offered an entomology class.

Ken: 18:11

This is the first year they'd had it, and I don't know, before I had gotten there. So I took that class, and I guess that, I guess, rekindled the interest, in insects. So I thought maybe I'd go down this path. I start I did that, and I, you know, started looking at, you know, going the entomology route. After graduation, I worked at Disney World as the entomology intern, at the land greenhouses in Epcot.

Ken: 18:38

And I say, besides, you know, you know, senior year, you know, people are applying for jobs, getting jobs. Like, I should probably start doing that because I'm gonna graduate soon. So and I found this internship with Disney. I'm like, well, I mean, I figured I'd apply for it. They're never gonna hire me.

Ken: 18:54

I've had one entomology class. Like, I don't really have any experience in entomology. And I remember as part of the internship, you had to give tours at the greenhouses, and I hate I hated public speaking. Like, you know what? I'm gonna apply for this so I can say I applied for a job.

Ken: 19:08

I'm never gonna get it, so I don't have to worry about doing all these tours. And lo and behold, they interviewed me. I got the job. I'm still not really sure why they hired me. Must have been the only person that applied.

Ken: 19:21

I don't know. But after I graduated, I, you know, I went down to to Orlando. This was a six month internship, so I was at Disney. You know, I was rearing, parasitoid wasps for vegetable leaf miner. That was part of the job, so we'd rear.

Ken: 19:37

We grow, green bean plants in the greenhouse. We bring those in, into cages that have the vegetable leaf miner fly in there. They lay their eggs. We pull them out, let them develop, put them in a cage with parasitoid wasps in there. They lay their eggs.

Ken: 19:51

They'd hatch. We'd sex those out, and they would release those in the greenhouses and then some other places in the parks. That was a lot of it. We reared predatory mites. So, again, we would, rear bran mites on oats and stuff like that, and then introduce the predatory mites onto that, and they would consume those.

Ken: 20:11

And then we would get predatory mites that we would release in the greenhouses. That would help release other we'd buy beneficial insects, predatory insects, parasitoids, and release those in the greenhouses as well. So it was a good chunk of the job. And we would do, the hour long tours of all the greenhouses, at the land. So that got that got me over my fear of public speaking, and now I don't mind it at all, that's half my job.

Ken: 20:37

So it's a good thing I I took that job because I don't I don't think I'd be here if I wouldn't have, you know, had to do those those tours and stuff. So it was a six month internship. They asked me to stay on, if I'd be interested in staying on for a second, because the manager left, they needed somebody to spray the greenhouses. So that second six months, I would go in and spray. They do spray, the greenhouses.

Ken: 21:00

That's pretty low toxicity stuff, but I would go in it. What time did I come in at? It was, like, two, 03:00 in the morning. It would spray, and we'd open up all the turn on all the fans. I was usually the only person there.

Ken: 21:12

Turn on all the fans and stuff to vent it out. Because if you've never been, there's a boat ride that goes through. There's a, like, kind of a boat ride that goes to the greenhouse. So you'd have to get all that emptied out, get the reentry interval okay before people started showing up. So So the living with the land.

Ken: 21:28

Right? Living living with the land.

Chris: 21:30

Right? My favorite.

Ken: 21:32

And it's basically behind the scenes tour is the tour we would do. Mhmm. And so, yeah, so I would do that two or three days a week depending on how bad pests were. And so so that was the the second six months. Then after that, you know, I'd so that's that's where I met my wife.

Ken: 21:51

She was an intern, down there. So she got a she was an education major. She got a teaching job in Tennessee. I didn't have a job, I followed her up there. Worked at various places, and that kinda gave me the the kick in the pants I needed to actually start applying for grad school because I couldn't really find a a decent job.

Ken: 22:11

So then I got into you know, my dad had retired. He was, you know, helping me look and stuff, and he found, a national needs fellowship at University of Florida looking at pest management, things like that. And it was the the plant medicine program at University of Florida, so I applied. Again, I don't know how I got in, but somehow they did because I had one entomology class. I had no, you know, ag classes, any kind of experience like that.

Ken: 22:39

So yeah. So I got into grad school at University of Florida. I think I mentioned, you know, plant medicine program. So that is the idea behind that is, like, you're a doctor for plants. So it'd be like a equivalent to a vet or a human doctor.

Ken: 22:51

So I did classes in entomology, plant pathology, weed science, soil science, kind of the whole gamut. A little bit of everything. I did that. And I, you know, gravitate more towards the entomology, so the electives. Extra classes, took more entomology classes and stuff.

Ken: 23:09

And then and, I was looking at more regulatory ag, so working with USDA or doing, like, port inspections, something. That's really kind of the route I wanted to go. While I was there, so it would have been my third year, was that 2011, I got contacted, by a group that does that did the farmer to farmer program, which is through USAID. So they would send people to different countries. In my case, I went to Senegal, and Africa to teach farmers about, IPM, integrated pest management, for striga, which is a parasitic weed and millet.

Ken: 23:48

So I went over there for ten days, went to several different villages, and and talked to them about how to manage this pest this this this, plant. And I didn't know anything about it before I went over, so I had to, know, scramble and and find resources and stuff. And, you know, there was a they had a a local interpreter going around because they French and Wolf were the languages they spoke, and I don't speak either of those. So, you know, I would I would found a pamphlet that some group in, I think it was Germany, had with no writing. It was just pictures.

Ken: 24:19

So I I didn't ask them. I just used it. I probably should have asked, but, handed that out to people, and and talked about, you know, how how you're managing this, and how it can be better managed and stuff. So that kinda I guess that kinda planted the seed maybe a little bit for extension. I still wasn't really thinking about it.

Ken: 24:39

Yeah. And then I I graduated. Was looking for jobs. You know, couldn't find a job. Couldn't find a job.

Ken: 24:45

Eventually tried to eventually broadened my scope from just kinda regulatory ag to looking at more extension stuff. Saw jobs in Illinois, because I was looking we were looking to leave Florida. You know, Florida's cool for the insects and stuff, but the weather, I'm not a big fan of, personally. And so and we wanted to get back closer to family. My wife's from Tennessee, so somewhere Midwest ish we're looking at.

Ken: 25:12

And if so I eventually found a position I have now. And, again, I don't know why they hired me, but they did. And here we are almost 12 later.

Emily: 25:25

I had forgotten you had gone to Senegal. I'm glad you mentioned that because I think that's really cool. Like, shows you're like, just I love, like, the global connections that horticulture does do. Like, to me and I I know you had to cram for it. But, you know, as we start talking about careers, we talk about, you know, kinda like what the options are.

Emily: 25:45

Like, to me, I think that sometimes I think I have to stay in the Midwest because that's where my, like, base knowledge is. But it translates like, it kinda opens doors and and can you can connect with people around the world through different avenues of horticulture, entomology, biology, you know, like sciences, like, these kinda, like, natural sciences. I think that's I'm glad you mentioned that, though. I don't have a cool story quite like that.

Ken: 26:14

Yeah. It was just some random email. Like, I thought it was spam first, and I I'm glad I actually looked into it because and I wish I could have done I'd been asked I've been asked a couple times after I started this job if I'd be interested in things, but was always, you know, we need somebody next month or or something like, oh, I gotta I can't drop everything now and go. And then, unfortunately, with the ending of USAID, I'm not sure how much that stuff Yeah. Is done anymore.

Ken: 26:42

I I wish I could have done it again, and maybe someday it'll come back. I'll be able to. But

Chris: 26:49

Well and, Ken, did you, stop introducing yourself as a a doctor of plant medicine after people kept asking you what plants to take to make them feel better?

Ken: 27:00

Yeah. As soon as people find out, I was, yes, plant medicine. I'm like and, yeah, I I don't know how many people I have disappointed over the years telling them. It's not that kind

Chris: 27:09

I am one of those people. I think the first time I met Ken, I said, I heard you're a doctor of plant medicine. So, you know, you're telling people what to take for headaches and stuff? He's like, no. No.

Chris: 27:20

No. It's not what I do.

Ken: 27:22

So I don't I don't advertise the doctor part. Yeah. Keep those expectations low.

Emily: 27:31

See, I've joked about getting my doctor just to make my family call me doctor. So I get moved ahead on the envelope.

Ken: 27:38

Yes. There's there's a few people I would insist on it, but for the most part, I don't really care.

Chris: 27:44

Well, thank you, doctor Johnson. I appreciate that. Emily, so you had a track laid before you. You went on that track. Mhmm.

Chris: 27:57

So tell us more now that you're in college.

Emily: 28:00

Yeah. So I did have a plan. I like plans. I'm sure that's a surprise to nobody. Had the plan to go and do landscape architecture, double major, landscape architecture and horticulture.

Emily: 28:13

And I know that sounds super nerdy, and it is. Like, I really love school. I I was I was there for it. So, did start that way. So my first semester with that as the plan, found pretty quickly that the landscape architecture program at Iowa State, that's where I went, to Iowa State, was not a great fit for me.

Emily: 28:36

And this is nothing against the program. I have good friends from the program. I have good professors, you know, friends in the you know, who are our professors and leaders in the program as well as, you know, friends who went through it and are wildly successful and impressive. It's not the program. It was me.

Emily: 28:54

Just kinda learning how to be a young adult, you know, time management. The program is more artistic. I am not. Looking back in hindsight, it's interesting. Like, I had this plan, and it I already mentioned it wasn't, like, overly thought through.

Emily: 29:10

It just was. And I always say it also has engineering, and they kind of I think what appealed to me about landscape architecture was the, like, problem solving, the, like, like, the architecture side of it, not the design side of it. And so I say all that to say, like, I came to the decision that I was going to step away from landscape architecture and go into more of the sciences. And then I I really found a lovely home in the horticulture department in the Ag College at Iowa State. And so I I got my degree in, horticulture with an undergraduate in agronomy.

Emily: 29:52

Being kind of a farm girl, it was seemed like the thing to do. I didn't have intentions of being an agronomist. The soil sciences was part of the agronomy college, and so was taking classes over there naturally. Got to do an internship through the agronomy college on soybean genetics and breeding for different oil contents for food. So that was how I spent one of my semesters, which doesn't, like, fully translate into the work I'm doing now, but I really loved having that background of, like, breeding and plant development and genetic selection.

Emily: 30:33

Like, it was it it it does come up from time to time in our work, but just one of those, like, periods of my life where I was like, that was a really fun thing to learn. Now we move on. But so graduated from Iowa State. By the time I was a senior, I had kind of come to regret not continuing as a landscape architect. I I wanted to get my graduate degree somewhere and in something, because I didn't wanna start working.

Emily: 31:03

I just wanted to keep going to school. I really like going to school. So that was how I did it and decided then to go to pursue landscape architecture. I had come, I think, more around to understanding, like, the possibilities with the profession. So applied to Kansas State because I was told you're not supposed to go to grad school at the same place you do your undergrad, which still confuses me.

Emily: 31:32

And I I don't know. Perhaps I should have been more of a questioning young adult, but I went to Kansas State because that was a really good program. And very similar, Chris, you can maybe speak to this too, but, like, I found Iowa State was a land grant college, like, kind of contained in a campus. I found that in Kansas State as well. Like, everything's kinda contained as a campus.

Emily: 32:01

Rural site in Manhattan. Like, the the program appealed to me as well as, like, the feel of Manhattan. And so went to Kansas, which was a three year program, pretty intense. Really enjoyed it. I had met my now husband when I was at Iowa State, and so knew I was heading back to Iowa at some point.

Emily: 32:30

And, gosh. What let's see. Finished up my schooling back in Iowa. Moved back after my first semester or last semester. Excuse me.

Emily: 32:40

Stayed in Kansas for three years. Went back, finished, you know, in Iowa, then got a job. I was made to get a job, and that was the end of the fun. No. I'm just kidding.

Chris: 32:51

Forced.

Emily: 32:56

But, like, it's just interesting. And I appreciate, like, doing kind of this, like, recap where it's like it Ken, like you say, I don't know why I was hired. Like, I just kind of stumbled through things. And I and it's in part because I had really good people around me, like, pushing me along the way. A lot in part because I had a lot of good people pushing me along the way.

Emily: 33:21

And I I did work pretty hard at school. You know, that's not to be discounted, but mostly it was dumb luck. I admit that, which got me here. Very thankful for it. So Well But I met you at Kansas State, Chris.

Chris: 33:38

I know. I met somebody named Emily Hoffman. Yes? Uh-huh. At the university.

Chris: 33:45

Yeah. That's good pull. Yeah. The memories still work sometimes. Yeah.

Chris: 33:50

Mhmm.

Emily: 33:51

Yes. Yeah. We were classmates. We like like, true classmates. Like, we there was only six six and then seven of us in our class, and so we spent a lot of time together.

Chris: 34:04

Yes. We did. Yes. Mhmm. Oh, I I just wanted to add.

Chris: 34:10

You you mentioned kind of the accidental, like, finding a job, a career, a profession. Like, that is so true. So if anyone's, like, listening, watching, you're looking for a, like, a career you're current trying to get started, like, it's a lot of it it is a lot of roadblocks, and there's a lot of yeah. I'll just even looking back at myself, like, a lot of just people, family, friends, just helping you out, like, point you in a direction. Say try this, try that.

Chris: 34:41

Don't give up. So if if that's you or if you are that for someone else, yeah, like, that that's an important part, I think, especially in the young professional's life.

Emily: 34:49

Yeah. Well and not being afraid to take, like, that like, a make a phone call, ask some questions, take a new job. Like, being curious, you know, about what it would mean for you and your life and, the application of your skills and talents. Think we, at least in my world and maybe even our generation, we're on the tail end of where people could have stayed in jobs for a really long time, and that's just not the culture now. There's opportunities.

Emily: 35:25

It's it's more normal to, like, move jobs. And I like that. It helps you evolve as a person. Like, so stay curious and stay, like, questioning. Ask people.

Ken: 35:35

Mhmm.

Emily: 35:36

You know, what what do they do? How do they get there? How do I do that? What does that mean for me? But, Chris, we can't move on to that yet.

Emily: 35:44

We need to hear about you as a college student.

Chris: 35:48

I there's a lot that has been redacted from my college professional life.

Ken: 35:54

Do you remember

Chris: 35:55

the college? Anyway, so, yeah, as I kinda left off, I started out down at SAU Carbondale in the criminal justice department, and my goal was to be some type of officer. I really wanted to go into federal law, FBI, or something. And as I was sitting in my second semester criminology class, I just couldn't do it. It was I just got I left class every day being very depressed.

Chris: 36:30

It's a tough subject. And so I figured I am going to need to make a change. And so I would like to work with plants. And so I kind of went back to that original inkling I had in seventh grade about landscape architecture. And then, you know, looking at Iowa State at their landscape architecture department, not being accepted, and then, you know, going down to Carbondale, which was a great thing.

Chris: 36:57

Carbondale is a great school. The and then I went and I chatted with the adviser for the plant and soil science department at Carbondale, and she said, give it a try. You We don't have landscape architecture, but we do have landscape horticulture, which is just it's another word for landscape design. So I went into that, and I loved it. The people were great.

Chris: 37:23

The instructors, I know, were were pretty renowned throughout Illinois. Doctor Brad Taylor. I mean, if you grow wine or or fruit crops, like, you're probably talking with doctor Taylor even to this day. Doctor Alan Walters, another great vegetable crops professor. So Doctor Priest, he wrote the book on plant propagation.

Chris: 37:47

But then, of course, I had Doctor Karen Midden, she was a landscape architect, and I spent most of my time with her in her classes. So did that. I worked at a golf course in the summers, and but I got an internship my last year there at Missouri Botanical Garden, and that opened my eye to a whole new world. And I said I became more determined at that point after being in Saint Louis for a whole summer, learning the ins and outs of horticulture, but also the other side, landscape architecture side, you know, urban planning, design, all that. I wanted to go into landscape architecture.

Chris: 38:25

So applied to Kansas State University, got the got in, accepted there, met Emily, went through that three year program. And I I I got an internship then at it was an engineering firm, and I spent the entire summer I was there in front of a computer. And I will say I was pretty miserable. That was my first indoor job, actually. And I was like, I don't think I can do a desk job.

Chris: 38:57

So but, anyway, I I'm like, alright. I'm about three years into this. I gotta finish it. So graduated. And, Emily, we we finished up right at the height of a a little thing called the Great Recession.

Chris: 39:12

Yeah. So it was a struggle. Ken, you probably did too. Right? Like, you're we're probably trying to get into the job market all around the same time.

Ken: 39:21

2012 is when I graduated.

Chris: 39:23

Yeah. We're 2010 for me.

Emily: 39:24

2010?

Chris: 39:25

Yeah. Yeah. So it it was rough for a while. And so I I remember going to interviews and competing as an entry level person with people that had ten years experience willing to take entry level pay. And I just sent application after application, interview after interview, really not getting anywhere.

Chris: 39:49

So I applied for a job as a landscape laborer at a local company in, Manhattan, Kansas. So I was the as they would say on the crew, I was the most educated person with a shovel in their hand. But you know what? If you've probably picked up a theme, I was pretty happy. I really I love the job.

Chris: 40:12

One of my favorite jobs I've had being as a part of that crew, just creating things, building things, and I learned a lot. You hear a lot about what people say about the landscape architect when you're on the crew installing the plan. You learn some important lessons. After that, though, I I was still applying for jobs. You know, we I work all day, and then, you know, I would then get cleaned up, drive to, like, Saint Louis or Kansas City or somewhere trying to find, you know, interviews and stuff.

Chris: 40:47

But then I found another job in Manhattan for the county parks department, and I became their landscape architect for for about a year. So I did that for a year. But we were trying to get back to Illinois, so I had met my wife. At that time. She was a contractor for the DOD at Fort Riley.

Chris: 41:07

And but she's also from Illinois. I've known her since we were young. And so we went back to Illinois because I saw this extension job pop up, interviewed for it. Boom. Here I am, twenty twelve, show up, Illinois, fresh faced with a mind full of landscape architecture, landscaping, horticulture.

Chris: 41:28

And I show up to my job and somebody hands me a tomato plant and wants to know what's wrong with it. And I'm like, I don't know anything about vegetables.

Emily: 41:34

So yeah. They are I think that might be every extension person's origin story.

Chris: 41:41

Like, I don't know about it.

Ken: 41:43

Yeah.

Emily: 41:43

I'm way way out of my league.

Chris: 41:45

I I shouldn't be here.

Emily: 41:48

I don't know anything about anything.

Ken: 41:49

Why did you hire me?

Chris: 41:51

You're right. Yeah.

Emily: 41:56

Oh, that's funny. Well, I so, Chris, you had mentioned, like, we we had been graduating at the beginning of that, great recession, and jobs were were sparse. And, Ken, you had said you didn't know why they hired you. That, like, that is a summary of how I got my first job, which I was at for eleven years before coming to, Extension. I was, I'm a little bit newer here than you two.

Emily: 42:21

So when my husband and I, we were getting married. I'd I'd moved back to finish. I finished my thesis, from Iowa. He was he'd graduated and had a job. So, you know, met a boy, had to move back home.

Emily: 42:36

And so I was finishing up we were I was finishing my thesis. We were getting married at the end of the semester, and I was trying to find a job. And we were remodeling our house. So it was a real low key spring for us, and I applied for this job. He he gave it to me.

Emily: 42:54

He's I he doesn't listen to this, and so that's I'll rat him out. He, like, was he's always been very supportive, but he was like, here. Like, apply for this job like I found for you. And I wasn't interested right at that moment because I had other things to finish up, like my thesis. So he I applied, and I was like, okay.

Emily: 43:15

Because so many people were looking, I thought, I'm never getting this job. But I went, and it was, just, like, such a blessing that I was hired. It was an it is an organization called Trees Forever. Volunteer coordination, was primarily what I would do. Grant administration, work with small towns primarily, throughout Iowa, just helping to support community efforts.

Emily: 43:40

And so I I I kinda share this briefly. There was a lot. You wear a lot of hats in a small nonprofit. But the work that I really, really loved was working with community members who had a deep passion for their towns and, like, knew their towns well and were connected and were, like, showing up for neighbors and doing, just, like, you know, tree planting projects, beautification projects, you know, seeking grants to help fund projects and support each other. And it eventually, I outgrew the job.

Emily: 44:15

I needed I needed to move on and and found extension through, you know, some personal contacts. And then I share that though because, like, it's similar to what we do and why I love this job so much is that we get to support community members. We get to be, you know, alongside people who are really passionate about their landscape or the environment or learning or volunteering. And it just so, like, even though I wasn't like, I reflect on a mid career probably right now, hopefully. Hope I'm not nearing the end of things.

Emily: 44:52

But we, like, it it it just it it complements extension works so nicely, and I'm very thankful for that because it it trained me in yeah. You gotta learn how to deal with the public to a degree. Everyone's quirky and everyone's passionate, and sometimes there's, you know, skills that as a young professional, you need to learn, and I was supported really well as I am with extension. But I get to be more local. That was one of the motivating factors.

Emily: 45:20

I traveled all over Iowa and just as I grew a family, needed to be more local. And and and I will simultaneously say be more invested in people long term. My previous job was hit or miss. You know, it it was shorter shorter bouts of of FaceTime with people. Now I get to, like, know people's families and know you know, get to see them have successes, and it's it's really lovely.

Emily: 45:48

So that's where I landed in extension. And I'm not going anywhere. Please.

Chris: 45:57

Can't get rid of you.

Emily: 45:58

Can't. Please don't. No. Okay. So that's how we all got here.

Emily: 46:04

But, you said you wanted to do, like, port authority, like, inspections. Chris, you had wanted to do, like, and I cannot see you in a suit. So I'm pleased that that didn't work out. I don't I don't see I

Chris: 46:21

don't like suits. I don't even know what I was thinking. Yeah.

Emily: 46:23

Yeah. I know. But cover. Yes. But landscape architects, like, you when we were in in school, you you were more gosh, I don't even know how to describe it, like, landscape architect y.

Emily: 46:41

Like, it it it fit I think it fit you better. I think even as I was going through it, I thought, I don't know that this is going like, I'm going to pursue licensure or I'm going to pursue you know, it it was going to help me get into more of a natural resource horticulture field. Like, that was becoming evident to me. I was impressed with your I don't know. When you were in school, I was like, oh, that guy knows what he's doing.

Emily: 47:07

Look at his paper.

Chris: 47:09

I really faked it good, I guess. You did well. I did well. You did well. But that I think the thing that you came with a lot of our fellow classmates came with was you, me, Mike, is that we had a horticulture background.

Emily: 47:28

Yeah.

Chris: 47:29

Landscape architecture does not emphasize as much plant culture.

Emily: 47:36

Yeah.

Chris: 47:36

It's it's more design, like, based. May logically so. Yeah. But you're designing with living things, plants, and you kinda have to know about them. And so we came at

Emily: 47:50

that Systems.

Chris: 47:51

Yes.

Emily: 47:52

You're like ecological systems. Like, you're as a landscape architect, oftentimes, you're doing larger scale projects. Like, you're doing community planning or site design where there's a lot of earthwork being done or yeah. It's it's larger scale than what, like, landscape design typically is. And so or, like, wetland mitigation or, you know, like, you're doing ecological projects.

Emily: 48:18

And so when you don't have an understanding of the sciences of plant, you know, growth, plant responses, it it made it challenging.

Chris: 48:33

Yeah. When when I was a laborer, we would get a plan, and we would we would say, like, oh, this was done by a landscape architect, someone who doesn't really have a concept of what they're putting in the ground. So sorry, landscape architects. I'll defend you when needed, but I will also throw you under the bus if I have to.

Emily: 48:54

And well, and it's not I have I have worked with and know some, and I'm friends with, like, some brilliant landscape architects who are, like, ecologists. You know? Like, we had some professors who were ecologists. They were landscape architects, but they, you know, they were also there for the natural resources, conservation, you know, side of things. Training, though, I and and as a as a a broad brush, we're painting a broad brush with it in that.

Emily: 49:25

There's a there is a there's room for growth. It definitely is a shortcoming of the profession, kind of generally speaking. Will say though, in reviewing professional publications, this whole native plants movement has really kind of pushed some of them, some of these firms to get on board, to start thinking about the pollinator preservation. I'm thinking of projects like the High Line So the industry had to kinda respond. So

Chris: 50:18

It did. And and you know what? In case we've offended any landscape architects out there, we were at a conference once, and the speaker was really burning landscape architects. Yeah. I got I was like, hang on.

Chris: 50:34

Emily, you were like, hold on. And I think we had a colleague also who had a landscape architecture. She's like, hang on. Yeah. And we're, like like, throwing it right back at him.

Chris: 50:44

Like, how dare like, so yes. We definitely will defend the profession.

Emily: 50:49

Yes. Oh.

Chris: 50:50

And we can be critical sometimes.

Emily: 50:51

Yeah. We can do both. We can we can be passionate and supportive of it while being critical.

Chris: 50:58

Like Yep. Ken, you were there. I was like, Ken's in my corner if we have to throw down. Right?

Ken: 51:04

Sure.

Chris: 51:08

Used to play football. Yeah. You're there.

Emily: 51:11

But there's a big guy. He's on our

Chris: 51:12

Hold me back, Ken. Hold me back. Yeah.

Emily: 51:17

Oh, no. I do remember that. That was good. He and that that was out of the gate. That guy was like,

Chris: 51:22

any landscape architects in here? Cause I'm gonna Yep.

Emily: 51:25

I'm gonna say some things.

Ken: 51:26

There's quite a few people that raised their hands. So I think they may

Chris: 51:28

have Yes.

Ken: 51:29

Tempered some of these comments.

Chris: 51:33

Yeah. Oh, goodness.

Emily: 51:35

Okay. So just we've mentioned horticulture, entomology, landscape architecture, landscape design. Like, what if somebody loves being, like, outdoors, has a passion for working with people, Like, can we maybe just go through some other let's say we did not have this as a job option. Like, what else could we explore? Like, what would be another area or someone you worked with?

Emily: 52:03

I basically wanna just kinda start listing some different options. Because I feel like I stumbled into this, and I'm like, oh, I could've done that too. Or I could've done that too. Or I could've if I would've known that that was a thing. And I can start, for example.

Emily: 52:17

Mhmm. Arboriculture. I love trees. I love being in the woods. I love, like, climbing them.

Emily: 52:27

Another kid's story is that, like, I used to climb trees all the time in my mom and dad's yard. That one day, my brother brought his baby gun over and thought I was a raccoon because I was in the tree, like, shaking the leaves. He was gonna help out.

Chris: 52:40

Did he think you were a raccoon?

Emily: 52:42

I don't know. That's that's the story he's sticking to for thirty years. But, you know, like but nobody ever or I never picked up on that I could do just only tree work. I could be an arborist. I could do woodland management.

Emily: 53:02

I could you know, that was something that I and we need more. We, honestly, we need more arborists in our communities doing doing this type of work. So just wanted to throw that one out there. Do you guys have any?

Chris: 53:21

What else would you be doing, Ken?

Emily: 53:23

Yeah.

Chris: 53:26

Inspecting containers at this US port?

Ken: 53:32

Maybe. I don't know. They didn't hire me. I don't know what to do. And I I'm trying to think it's like some some of my colleagues do or that, you know, went to school with.

Ken: 53:43

I know some of them work for nurseries.

Emily: 53:46

Mhmm.

Ken: 53:48

You know, managing those or product development or some of them a lot of them work for several work for, like, chemical companies Mhmm. As reps. So they I think some do trialing stuff. I had quite a few work for extension in Florida. Sure.

Ken: 54:11

There's more. Trying to blank that right now. I mean, there's other options out. Like, for that degree or, I mean, you know, like, for hort. Now you got the whole, you know, public gardens and, you know, nurseries and and all that stuff.

Emily: 54:27

Mhmm. Do you have any, Chris? I I just have another one too, so I'll let you go first, though.

Chris: 54:37

I wanna be the personal horticulturist for a ridiculously wealthy person who just shares and lauds money all over the place. That would be fun. So I I did at the Botanical Garden, a lot of the horticulturists there had side jobs. One of those side jobs was managing the grounds, private grounds for one of the family members of the Bush Anheuser Busch family. And that was fun.

Chris: 55:10

So the he he got to take us along on on a couple of those jobs that was so neat. It it sounds probably not as glorious, but it's like, oh, wow. You get to be, like like, the gardener here. That's just like an old fashioned job, I think. But I I I loved it.

Chris: 55:30

Probably not gonna necessarily pay the bills. Definitely doesn't come with health insurance or anything like that. You know, I I've always thought about maybe starting a nursery, growing plants for sale. It's always been something I've toyed with. And and so that's that's in the back of my mind.

Chris: 55:48

But probably at the end of the day, you know, I'll probably just be mowing lawns, competing with high schoolers for lawn mowing.

Ken: 56:01

I won the big time lottery. I'll hire you to be my personal gardener.

Chris: 56:05

Yay. I'll hey. If you feed me in, like, good food and and drinks, I'll I'll I'll do it practically for free.

Emily: 56:15

Fresh strawberries.

Chris: 56:16

That's all it takes.

Emily: 56:21

The other one and I I'm not saying I won't do this at some point, but, like, research and and, like, plant development. Like, there's so much need, and we talk about it from time to time how we need more funding available for to do research. But, like, I you know, when I was doing the soybean research, I kinda wanna do soybeans, but just the idea of paying so close attention to plants with a particular purpose. You know, like, whether it's understanding how they work. Like, I want I'd like to do Chris, you and I have talked about this, and you always, like, rein me back in where you're like, you don't have the time, ma'am.

Emily: 57:01

But doing, like, tree yeah. Like, just some studies of, like, how they grow, how their roots develop, and, like, challenging kind of some of our conventional, you know, our assumed knowledge. Just having more research on that or, you know, developing new cultivars. I don't I I just I think there's so much to be learned still, and I would like to be part of that. But I'm tired and I'm busy right now at this stage of life.

Emily: 57:30

So

Ken: 57:32

Yeah.

Emily: 57:32

I will enjoy the work that we're doing so much, and that'll be plan future me.

Ken: 57:39

Travel the world and collect insects.

Emily: 57:41

Yeah. Okay. You lost me at the collect insects, but I'll travel the world for plants.

Ken: 57:47

Somebody from the eighteen hundreds, early nineteen hundreds just have a massive collection.

Chris: 57:52

Yes. But then the person at customs who inspects it all is gonna stop you, Ken. And you're like, I could have bad your job. That would have been me.

Emily: 58:01

That would be such a full circle moment. So good.

Chris: 58:04

That would be. So there's a lot of possibilities, but all three of us wound up at extension. What they told me and what they keep telling me here is you need to have no. They kill come on. Well, hold on.

Chris: 58:19

Hold on. We're They keep telling me here, it's not HR, I promise, is they want us to be able to say what we do here in, like, twenty seconds.

Emily: 58:33

Oh, yeah. Like, our elevator speech. Yeah.

Chris: 58:36

What we do Yes.

Ken: 58:37

What we do and why it matters.

Chris: 58:39

Do you guys have an elevator pitch? Because I can't figure one out. I don't really know what I'm supposed to do here still. It's been it's been a long time too. Everything.

Ken: 58:48

What does my staff profile say?

Chris: 58:52

Elevator pitch, Ken.

Emily: 58:57

It's not polished. It but mine always comes out in some sort of version of I get the opportunity to connect with people who have a passion for their community or landscape, and I get to support them in whatever that means for them. Right? Like, my area of expertise is is trees and the natural resources and home and vegetable gardening. And but I get asked questions about all sorts of things.

Emily: 59:34

And I get to help. I get to join people on this journey and support them. And I think that that's really that's why how we build community. You know, like, locally, I where we help to build community. We connect people.

Emily: 59:49

We are connected to people. That's not a short elevator ride, but it's it's something about, at least, that's how I see my job. Maybe I'm wrong. But through plants and through natural resource conservation, management, horticulture, you know, the urban forest, whatever the subject is. We get to help support people about things that they care about, and that's pretty awesome.

Emily: 01:00:16

Again, don't take it away from me.

Chris: 01:00:24

What do you think, Chris? Make it shorter. I'm not good at this, so that's why I asked you. I I a lot of times, people need to know what extension is kind of in the in the very beginning. So I the way I describe it is it it we are an extension of, you know, a state's land grant university.

Chris: 01:00:45

We make sure that knowledge is not locked up on campus or, you know, somewhere where, you know, most people can't access it. We wanna make sure everyone has access to make informed decisions about whatever. We're horticulturists. Extension has a lot more different fields, specialist educators here. And it's been that way since, you know, Lincoln signed the Land Grant Act into being back in the eighteen sixties.

Chris: 01:01:13

So and then it was just further enhanced by additional acts in congress and and so on and so forth. So it's it is something that even to this day with all this information at our fingertips with the Internet is still needed because there's a lot of there's a big mess on the Internet. So we're just here to kinda push through the mess and get people the research based information they can use for in informed decisions.

Emily: 01:01:47

Sounds good.

Chris: 01:01:48

And within that, I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing.

Emily: 01:01:55

But I think hear. Do something. No. You're absolutely right. I think we we kinda joke internally that extension feels like it's the best kept secret.

Emily: 01:02:06

Like, so it's good to help encourage people to utilize the services. Ken, do you have, elevator speech?

Ken: 01:02:18

Ken Johnson is the horticulture educator serving Calhoun, Cass, Green Morgan,

Chris: 01:02:21

and Scott Counties. His educational efforts focus on

Ken: 01:02:24

fruit and vegetable production, pest management, and beneficial insects. Through his programming efforts, he aims to increase backyard food production to foster greater appreciation of insects. He's one of the authors of the Good Growing blog and one of the Good Growing podcast hosts. Boom.

Chris: 01:02:38

A sip of paper. You hand that to folks when they ask. Oh, well, very good. Alright. Well, that was a lot of great information about us.

Chris: 01:02:53

And and so, yeah, a little

Emily: 01:02:55

bit of a

Chris: 01:02:55

unconventional episode for the Good Growing podcast. But, you know, we figured we might as well tell folks kinda how how we came into this profession. If it's if it is an inspiration to others, we we hope it is. If you thought, oh, that's just interesting background information about our hosts, great. If you didn't care and you didn't skip it, you're not listening to me right now anyway.

Chris: 01:03:19

So we we but we do really appreciate everyone, all of our listeners and everything. So so thank you very much. Well, The Good Growing Podcast is a production of University of Illinois Extension, edited this week by is it me? Who? Me?

Chris: 01:03:37

Me, Chris Enroth. Oh, yes. And so, Emily, thank you so much for for being here today, sharing about who you are, what you do, and why it matters. It's it's been a fun fun episode today. We learned a lot about each other.

Emily: 01:03:55

Yeah. No. It's my pleasure. I I did learn a lot about you guys. We we talk regularly, and it's really nice to Weekly.

Emily: 01:04:02

Be able Yep. Weekly at minimum. No. I I appreciate the conversation. I I do think that it's fun to get to know, like, people's background stories.

Emily: 01:04:15

Like, how do you how do you become the person you are? So thanks for sharing and letting me share a little bit and appreciate it.

Chris: 01:04:23

And Ken, thanks so much for for always being there, that that football player in the corner holding me back. Kidding. Yes. So but thank you, Ken, for being the the I I don't know how to describe. You're the engine that that burns this thing.

Chris: 01:04:45

I might cut that out. Let's just No. Back Burns the the engine that burns infuse

Emily: 01:04:51

I was hoping you would say wind beneath my wings.

Chris: 01:04:53

You're the wind beneath my wings. Oh, man. It's it's late on late in the day. And Ken, thank you for being here and just being who you are as always. Thank you.

Ken: 01:05:10

Yes. Thank thank you both. I think you have I guess, well, people listening can see it's it's not always a straight path. It can be a long winding road. But eventually, you'll get to where you're meant to be.

Chris: 01:05:22

So Are we? Maybe. We don't.

Ken: 01:05:24

Maybe we're not there yet. We'll find out.

Chris: 01:05:26

Oh my gosh. Well, we're gonna have to unpack that after we're done recording.

Ken: 01:05:33

Let's do this again next week.

Chris: 01:05:36

Oh, we shall do this again next week. The horticultural hijinks will continue. Oh, summer is bearing down on us. So listeners, we're gonna get into that. Thank you for doing what you do best, and that is listening, or if you watched us on YouTube watching.

Chris: 01:05:49

And as always, keep on growing.

Ken: 01:06:00

University of Illinois Extension.

Emily: 01:06:09

What just happened?

Chris: 01:06:11

I don't know. Okay. Sorry, guys. The wheels just totally fell off there

Ken: 01:06:17

at the end.

Chris: 01:06:18

That's my fault. I did that.

Ken: 01:06:21

Starkest secrets.

Emily: 01:06:25

Mhmm.

Chris: 01:06:27

Secrets.

Ken: 01:06:30

Is it secret? Is it safe? Secrets.