- [Male Announcer] Growing a Greener World is made possible in part by: - [Female Announcer]: so you can roam the Earth with a lighter footprint.

- [Male Announcer] And the following: [gentle instrumental music] - [voice-over] I'm Joe Lamp'l.

When I created Growing a Greener World, I had one goal.

To tell stories of everyday people.

Innovators, entrepreneurs, forward-thinking leaders who are all, in ways both big and small, dedicated to organic gardening and farming, lightening our footprint, conserving vital resources, protecting natural habitats, making a tangible difference for us all.

They're real, they're passionate, they're all around us.

They're the game changers who are literally growing a greener world and inspiring the rest of us to do the same.

Growing a Greener World.

It's more than a movement, it's our mission.

You know over the years, we've had a lot of exciting times on set at "Growing a Greener World."

But I'm pretty sure today is gonna take the cake on great days.

Now many of us have grown up watching Paul James and his show, "Gardening By the Yard" on HGTV.

And over those 13 years, we've come to know Paul pretty well.

We've watched him go through two different gardens, we've watched his kids grow up, and we've learned a lot through his knowledge and his humor.

And he's kinda like that gardener next door everybody wishes they had as a neighbor that they could just talk to over the fence.

Well over that time, Paul and I have become friends, and I've always thought how cool it would be for Paul to come to my garden to see it and just talk gardening.

So you know what?

Today is that day.

Paul is right here and I haven't let him in the garden yet because I want him to see it for the first time as you see it and we take this in together.

Does that sound good for you?

- I'm so excited.

Permission to come aboard?

- [Joe] Permission granted.

- All right.

- Please come on in.

- This is an exciting moment for me.

- For me, its very exciting!

So this is it, Paul.

As you can tell, there's quite a few tomato plants in here.

- Quite a few.

- And I love those.

Now, let's just address the elephant in the room.

First of all, I love my Sungold tomatoes, but look at my Sungold tomato.

This one in particular, it fruited its little heart out and now, look, no foliage.

And yet the interesting thing I find here is that you look at the other three plants in here and they're relatively healthy.

- Yes, very healthy.

- And this one, this one, what do ya think?

- You know, it's weird to me.

Tomatoes have for decades been America's number one backyard crop.

- Right.

- But, for me anyway, tomatoes are exceedingly difficult to grow.

- Yes!

- Because there's so many pathogens, most of them soil-born, there are critters, and for me, the squirrels love them.

- Yeah.

- So, I still try every year, but it's like the definition of insanity kind of thing.

'Cause who doesn't love a homegrown tomato, right?

- Right.

- This, I have no idea.

- Yeah.

- I mean it's just a bizarre, it looks like a pathogen.

- Yeah.

- And it looks like it's well into the-- - Right.

- The plant itself.

- Yeah.

- But I've never seen anything like it.

At least you've got fruit.

- Well, it's short-lived, but I have fruit, but the good news is I have another plant, another Sungold in the ground in a different bed and it looks beautiful.

So maybe that soil doesn't have the pathogen in it.

- But I'll tell ya a trick, what I have learned.

I don't grow them in the ground anymore.

I grow them in big containers.

- Okay.

- Because then I know I'm not dealing with those soil-born pathogens.

- Eliminate that.

- So yeah, takes of that.

Also, I don't have as many issues with blossom-end rot.

I can maintain good soil moisture.

I mulch them with rotten straw.

- Right.

- And so I've had a lot more success since I switched to growing in containers.

Now, for you, what 40, 50 containers, that might be a bit of a challenge, but it's one solution for the backyard gardener.

[light guitar music] - Solutions for backyard gardeners.

That's what Paul James, known to generations of fans as "The Gardener Guy," has been doling out for decades.

Recognizable for both his trademark bushy mustache and his ever-present sense of humor, Paul was responsible for the first gardening show on HGTV.

Over the course of 13 years, he inspired millions to take up gardening, and even inspired me to launch "Growing a Greener World."

So having him take a walk through my own yard where I could pick his brain one-on-one was a chance this fan just couldn't pass up.

Okay, now do you grow squash?

- Hmm well, okay there's... [Joe laughs] Why are we picking the problem plants?

- Well, because you're here.

- Well, I love squash.

I absolutely love squash, but squash vine borers are a huge problem in my area.

- Tell me about it.

- And they are really nasty and you can go out of town for a few days, come back and you see the wilt and the effects of the little larva in there doing its thing.

- Yep.

- One good organic control that I've found is a tennis racket.

- [laughs] For the moth!

- Yeah, if you'll get out there and backhand or forehand works.

That does a number on them pretty quickly.

Beyond that, you slice the vine, you inject a little Bt.

- Bt.

- But it's a struggle and when I hear people, and squash bugs, that's a whole other-- - That's a whole other ballgame.

- But when I hear people talk about the struggles that they have with particular vegetables year after year after year, my advice generally is grow something else.

- [laughs] Yeah.

- If you're gonna constantly wage war against bugs and pathogens, you're taking the fun out of gardening.

- Yeah, you are.

- And you don't wanna have to spray.

- Yeah.

- So go to the farmer's market for your squash.

- And buy what you need.

- And plant something else that you can have good success with.

Those are nice.

[rooster crows] I love cukes.

The Armenian cucumbers I love to grow, - Oh yeah!

- And my favorite now are the little Persian cucumbers.

- Right, yeah yeah, the little guys.

- [Paul] Yeah yeah yeah, they're just delightful.

- [Joe] I haven't tried them yet.

- [Paul] They're wonderful.

- All right, something else to add to my list.

- Beans?

- Yeah beans, and then I've added Cosmos in here to attract some of the pollinators, and it looks like I'm attracting more Japanese beetles than anything else, but my pest control method of choice is just a cup of soapy water in the morning or hand-picking and knocking them off.

The problem is if I come out with that beverage in the morning, like the coffee, and the soapy water in the other, I gotta make sure I knock it into the right cup, 'cause it's happened the wrong way.

How are the beans?

[rooster crows] - [Paul] Great!

What is that, Kentucky Wonder?

- Yeah, it is.

I want one, I haven't tried them yet.

- Mm, good crunch.

- Paul, I wanna ask you about your pest control methods.

- 'Kay.

- [Joe] Do you have pest issues, and if so, what do you do or how do you deal with that issue?

- Forty years worth of gardening organically.

Well, the biggest mistake people make is they see one Mexican bean beetle and they bust out a broad-spectrum pesticide.

- Yes.

- And they spray everything.

[Joe exclaiming] So they kill the pests, but they also kill all the beneficials.

- Indeed.

- And nature throws us this weird curve because the reproductive rate of pests is typically much higher than it is of beneficials.

- Yes.

- So it takes a long time for those beneficials to get back in the garden.

- Right.

- When you overreact like that, you're upsetting the balance that was there.

- Yeah.

- So my advice is tolerate a little bit, inspect the plants regularly, and yes, you're likely to see some damage.

Okay deal with that, but just that.

- Yes.

- So whether it's Bt for caterpillars, or it's, if things got really out of hand and you might need something like Neem, fine.

But just don't go spraying everything in sight.

- Exactly, because I always like to tell people even pests have sort of a preferred palate of what they like to eat.

It's not like going through a buffet and collecting something, everything on the line.

- Right, right.

- You pick what you like, right?

So there's need to go spray everything else.

- No.

- Nor should we.

- No, not at all.

In fact, plants can succumb to say, up to 40% foliage damage and still produce.

- Yeah.

You know, Paul, disease always seems to be one of those challenges that gardeners face.

And I'm a big proponent of providing that light and that air circulation.

And yet some plants are more susceptible to it than others, and cucumbers are certainly one of those examples.

And then as you mentioned, tomatoes, one of the most challenging things you can grow.

But what are some of the methods that you use for disease control as an organic gardener?

- For years we've relied on copper-based fungicides, sulfur-based fungicides, but I've come across one in recent years that I think is fabulous.

- Okay.

- It's called Serenade, and it is a Bacillus subtilis.

- A biological control.

- Yeah, so just like we have Bt, Bacillus thuringiensis, well this is Bs, and if anybody knows about Bs, it's me.

[Joe laughs] But it's a wonderful product, covers a broad range of fungal diseases, so I think it's fantastic.

- Well, I'm definitely gonna be checking that out.

The other thing that I find very important is to create that barrier at the soil level.

- Right.

- And use a good mulch.

- And you are using what is hands down my favorite, good old leaf mold.

- It's the best, right?

- There's nothing better.

- Well then if you like that, you would appreciate my stash of leaf mulch.

- I'd love to see your stash.

[both laughing] - Let's go see it.

My pride and joy, my leaf corral.

- Yeah, this is sexy to me.

[Joe laughs] So we have a rule at my house.

- Yeah?

- No leaf ever leaves the property.

- Love that.

- Every kind of leaf, thick leathery Magnolia leaves, Oak leaves, Sweetgum, and Sweetgum balls as well.

- Oh wow.

- So I have a gizmo that shreds them.

Then I pile them up, I let them rot a little bit, and then use them as top dressing everywhere, not just in the vegetable garden, ornamental beds, everywhere.

- So maybe grind them down in the fall and use them in the spring?

- Exactly.

- Well, I try to do that too, and I do a pretty good job, but sometimes it's the whole leaves, it may take another season before I can use them, but better to have them.

- This is how nature fertilizes itself, right?

- Exactly, another lesson from Mother Nature for sure.

[light acoustic guitar] - Well my love of gardening goes all the way back to my childhood.

My maternal grandparents had a hundred acre farm in Arkansas.

Dirt poor, no indoor plumbing, no air conditioning.

And they eked out a meager living by what they were able to produce on the farm.

The soil was pretty good and there was one horse that provided all the power they needed to plow and harvest and all that.

So I spent several summers there and that's, I mean, forgive me, but those are my roots in the world of gardening.

My dad always had a big suburban backyard garden.

So, I was always around it.

The thought of actually doing a television show never occurred to me 'til much later in life.

My wife and I bought our first home in 1979 and I immediately set out to dig up a fresh vegetable garden.

So I owned a publishing company for like 15 years.

And there was a guy that worked for me who was a writer and helped with sales, and his wife was an anchor for the CBS affiliate in Tulsa.

So, through him, she was aware of my passion for gardening.

And she called me one day and said, "Would you be interested "in doing a package?"

And I said, "What's a package?"

I had no idea what that meant.

And it meant a little two and a half minute segment on the news.

So I started doing it locally, never scripted, and then they asked for one for the noon show.

Then they asked for one for the five, and it snowballed.

And then I read an article about Scripps Howard launching this gardening channel and I thought, "Well, wait a minute, if it plays well locally, "then why wouldn't it play well nationally?"

So I called them.

And I said, "Would you be interested in talking to me?"

And they said, "Well, if you'll fly out on your nickel, "yeah, we'll give you a meeting."

So I flew out, we had the meeting, it was great.

There were six employees at the time.

And I figured it was gonna be one of those "Don't call us, we'll call you" meetings.

And I'm sitting right there and they said, "We'll take 26 episodes."

So, I'm flying back home.

I have no idea what I'm going to do next.

I mean, I've never done anything more than two and a half minutes and I certainly hadn't been involved as a producer in the show and all that.

So, I started making phone calls.

I mean I had to do a half hour show, 26 of them!

[fast rock music] Ya know to this day I have so many unforgettable memories of doing the show.

It was a blast.

I was always a crew guy, and so one of the most gratifying things for me was having an opportunity to work with such professional people who work so hard and such long hours.

Talent gets to go inside in the air conditioning between shots.

They're out there all day long busting their chops, and you establish friendships with these people.

I mean they watched my kids grow up.

They became dear friends, and I'm still in touch with some of them to this day.

- [Joe] For 13 seasons, Paul was a staple of the network, and then one day, the show was suddenly over.

- The show came to an end.

It was a combination of changes at the corporate level, changes in the direction of the network.

And they decided that gardening simply wasn't maybe as sexy a topic as the home fixer upper shows and things like that.

And so it came to an end.

It was a fairly abrupt end.

I actually thought I was gonna last a little longer.

To this day I don't understand why there aren't more gardening shows on television.

It's still an industry where collectively people spend like $40 billion a year.

And there was a point in time where networks all wanted to skew younger, okay?

Well, I'm not getting any younger.

So I didn't fit that, and then there was a point where they were like, "Well we need to attract more male viewers."

And I'm like, "Well how do I do that, use more power tools?"

How do you do that?

At some point I did sort of reach a point where I thought, "Maybe I've said all there is to say."

- [Joe] So, The Gardening Guy started spending more time doing other things, but a few years ago, once his three kids had grown up and moved out, he and his wife, Carrie, downsized to a smaller house with a much smaller yard that Paul couldn't even bring himself to do anything with, but those seeds of Paul's gardening passion were still viable.

They had just gone dormant for a little while.

- I spent a year trying to figure out what to do and one night Carrie says, "Why don't you go back to your roots?"

And I said, "Well what does that mean?"

And she said, "Why not a vegetable garden?"

So, I took the space, expanded it, and created this really nice raised-bed garden.

And I grow primarily what I like.

I can't imagine life without potatoes.

It's my favorite food in the whole world.

So I had 65 hills of potatoes this year.

I've harvested some.

I've got more to harvest when I get home.

Garlic, onions, squash, tomatoes, okra, lots of herbs, peanuts, how 'bout that?

I'm not a Georgia boy, but I grow peanuts.

All kinds of stuff, blueberries.

There's just so much, and during the spring season we're growing lots and lots of greens.

We love salads so I'll have 150 heads of lettuce out there at any point in time.

Lots of collard greens, mustard greens, spinach.

I grow so much stuff.

And I have reached a point in life where I pretty much just grow what I know we're going to eat.

It's a radical departure from what I had before because it's much smaller.

We left the big house.

But it's kinda nice in the sense that, as you well know, when you have an acreage, you can spend a solid eight hour day working.

Then you turn around at the end of the day and go, "Well what did I get done?"

- Yeah.

- Because it's just, it's so overwhelming.

- Yeah.

- So now I've got probably a third acre, I don't really know.

But if I spend eight hours, and these days I only, six is pretty much my limit.

Then I can turn around and I can see the results of my labor.

- Nice.

- And so that's really cool.

But it's a mix, I mean I'm a conifer geek so I have a lot of conifers, some rare and unusual stuff.

And a lot of vegetables.

I grow a lot of vegetables still.

- [Joe] No surprise.

- Yeah, I mean it's just, it's so awesome.

I mean, you know my love of potatoes.

- [Joe] Yeah.

- So to me, to go out at four in the afternoon and dig up a couple of hills of taters and go inside and steam them and drench them with butter and chives and you get that earthy-- - Yeah.

- Store-bought potatoes, they're usually, been in storage for a long time and they don't have that earthy essence.

- Yeah.

- And so to me that's, it's still hugely gratifying.

- Yeah.

- All these years and I still, there's just incredible joy of seeing this-- - Yeah.

- I was just talking to my wife before we started this piece and I said, "Are the beans germinating?"

[Joe laughs] "Have you seen any okra come up?"

[Joe laughs] 'Cause she watered for me yesterday.

Yeah, that's so miraculous.

- [Joe] Yeah, it is.

Paul, you're an organic gardener, right?

- All my life, yes.

- So tell me why that is.

- My background's in Chemistry, and I'll never forget one time I was in my lab and at one end of the hall, this was at the university.

At one end of the hall there were guys developing pesticides that they knew, by virtue of the molecular structure, they knew that they were potential carcinogens.

It was pretty clear.

But at the other end were some biochemists who were developing cures for cancer.

And it was like, this doesn't really make any sense.

You know it just, it's nature's way and I've taken so many walks and hikes and you observe how nature does, how nature works.

And so I replicate in the garden.

Also when you have dogs and, later in life, had kids.

- Yeah.

- You know, you don't want them hanging around in a chemical dumping ground.

- Right.

- But first and foremost, I suppose I do it because I know it works.

- Yeah, yeah, you don't need all those extra things, do you?

- No.

Joe, I don't know if you'd planned on talking about turf today, but your lawn looks remarkably like mine.

- I don't know if I'll take that as a compliment or not.

I think what you're telling me is I have a low-maintenance lawn like yours, maybe?

- Yes, yes.

- Well, I don't water it.

I feed it about twice a year with an organic fertilizer, and I cut it when it needs it.

But I am not obsessed with killing out the weeds.

In fact, I like the clover in here for all the obvious reasons.

- Yeah, yeah love clover.

- So, I've got the bees and I see the bees in here all the time.

But I feel good about knowing that this whole environment, including the lawn, is just kind of a habitat for whatever wants to come here.

- Yeah, I think of mine as a pasture, not a lawn.

And there's so much diversity.

I tolerate a good many weeds.

I mean there's certain mechanical approaches, you know I cut high.

That tends to reduce the weed population somewhat.

I use the mulching mower.

I rarely ever fertilize.

I just use the mulching mower, but the clover's my favorite thing of all and the bees, seeing them hanging out, it's just, I love it.

- You were telling me about one of your neighbors who spends a lot of money putting it back into his grass to make it look pristine, and yet he seems to really gravitate towards your lawn.

- He's got one of those picture-perfect carefully-coifed lawns, and it's Zoysia.

- Yep.

- And it looks great, but he loves my lawn.

And what I figured out was that he likes my lawn because of the clover.

'Cause the clover reminds him of his childhood when he used to hunt for four-leaf clovers and his sister would make bracelets out of the flowers.

- Yeah.

- And that got me to thinking about why a lot of people garden.

They garden to live a memory.

- Hmm, yeah.

- It's a lot of why I garden.

I'm living the memory of my grandfather's farm, my dad's backyard garden, ya know?

It's a powerful motivator.

[slow uplifting music] - So Paul you've been at gardening a very long time.

People have been following your advice for decades, literally.

- Thanks for rubbing that in.

- [laughs] And you've been giving it.

But what would you do to summarize it?

In one thing, what would you tell people if there was one way to wrap up some gardening advice from Paul James?

- Well, I'm not really known for making profound statements, but it hit me one day, and I encapsulated it this way.

The most important time you can spend in the garden is the time spent not gardening.

'Kay?

- Yeah!

- So you don't have to be working the whole time you're out there.

You don't have to be pruning.

You don't have to be doing anything but observing all there is to take in.

Do it in the morning.

Do it in the heat of the day.

Do it especially at night when things really change.

And that puts you in touch with the garden in a way that actively gardening never will.

So, yeah, those are my words of wisdom.

- I am taking that to heart.

And the challenge for me will be to actually get out there without thinking about gardening and just enjoy it.

I mean I enjoy it, but I'm a doer, but I love that advice.

- Good for you.

- Take you up on it.

- And let me tell you, this has been one of the great thrills of my career.

To be out here in your garden, in your element, and to see what you've done.

You know, you're not that much younger than me, but I'm proud of you, boy.

[both laughing] - It's a big honor for you to say that 'cause I've been following you for a long time.

And who would've known that someday you'd be in my garden, right here.

It's been fun.

- I don't wanna tell you what to do, but you should harvest a little earlier.

That's like a weapon.

- I am well aware of that.

I've been a little busy lately, if you haven't noticed.

- Okay, all right.

- All right, well I hope all of you have enjoyed watching this show as much as I've enjoyed spending time with Paul in my garden.

But if you'd like to watch the show again or check out any of the links, they're on our website.

The website address that's the same as our show name.

It's growingagreenerworld.com.

I'm Joe Lamp'l.

- And I'm Paul James, The Gardener Guy.

- And I'll see ya back here next time on more "Growing a Greener World."

- I mean it might taste okay, but you're gonna have to cook it a while.

[both laughing] - I can do that.

Let's go do that.

- Yeah, let's eat.

- Looks good.

[uplifting music] - [Male Announcer] Growing a Greener World is made possible in part by: - [Female Announcer]: so you can roam the Earth with a lighter footprint.

- [Male Announcer] And the following: [ambient electronic music] ♪ [male announcer]: Continue the garden learning from the program you just watched, Growing a Greener World.

Program host Joe Lamp'l's online gardening academy offers classes designed to teach gardeners of all levels, from the fundamentals to master skills.

Classes are on-demand any time.

Plus, opportunities to ask Joe questions about your specific garden in real time.

Courses are available online.

For more information or to enroll, go to: [funky techno jingle] ♪ ♪