Steve Rodrigue

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Steve Rodrigue is the owner and founder of Maine Raised Gardens, a full service vegetable garden company. He previously worked at Johnny's Selected Seeds. Thanks for coming in today.

Steve Rodrigue:

Thank you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I love this topic. I think more and more people are doing gardening in the state of Maine. I think it's coming back again. We always did it. Yes, it's coming back again. And the idea of raised gardens kind of creates a little bit more ease of use, I think.

Steve Rodrigue:

Yeah, I started off the idea of just doing raised beds the first year. This coming year I will be offering in ground gardens as well. I realize that raised gardens aren't for everybody, so I want to. I want to target everybody.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You grew up here in Augusta?

Steve Rodrigue:

Yes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And you have kind of an interesting. You have kind of an interesting background. Not everybody goes into horticulture.

Steve Rodrigue:

No, I. Let's see, where do I start? I think first off, I'd say what kind of got me into. I was first interested in trees. I thought I'd go to school for forestry and I can recall as a young child working with my dad and my grandfather doing firewood and both of them teaching me the different trees just from looking at the bark and sometimes even the smell. Then from there I remember One time actually being sick with the. With a flu. And after a few days of laying in bed, I finally was up, and my mother brought me to Longfellows Greenhouses, which I later did an internship during college. I just remember being around the plants and feeling really, really happy and healthy and uplifted. And then later on, I worked for the city of Augusta, planting trees and gardens around the city. And I worked with a man named Larry, who had actually gone to school for landscape design. And that's when I finally realized that it wasn't just a hobby. I could actually go to school for this. And here I am now.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It's interesting. I didn't realize that you could actually tell different trees by what they smelled like.

Steve Rodrigue:

Yeah, some have distinctive smells, specifically cherry. You can smell the wood, and it has a slight smell of cherry. I even say that red oak kind of smells like ketchup, which I don't know if everybody agrees with me on

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

that, but it sounds like this is the kind of thing that people know about, but it's not necessarily common knowledge,

Steve Rodrigue:

right? Yeah, I would say that for sure. I wouldn't say there's not a lot of people that have wood stoves in Maine. I mean, there are a lot, but at the same time, there's a lot of people that don't rely on wood stoves. I remember we had a wood stove ever since, my whole life, actually.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So that's how you became involved with the smelling of the wood. Is it when things actually burn that you can smell this? Or is it when they're being cut?

Steve Rodrigue:

Or it's. It's when you're stacking it, when you're splitting it, when you're cutting it. All the above.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I'm interested also in this idea that you were not feeling well and your mom brought you to a place that had plants, and somehow it kind of energized you. Is this something that you've noticed throughout your life that.

Steve Rodrigue:

Yeah, I think. I mean, seeing green plants is uplifting, I think, to anybody, whether they realize it or not. So,

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

main raised gardens. You've been doing this for the past year, and the pamphlet that I have says that this is perfect for restaurants, inns, bed and breakfast, cafes, schools, assisted living and elderly care, community gardens, business parks, and anyone who needs just a little help. Do you find that people are responsive to this business?

Steve Rodrigue:

Yeah, the first year, actually, most of my business was in the residential sector, so had a lot of. A lot of homeowners that actually wanted gardens at their house. Some just for themselves, some for their whole family, some for the kids. So, yeah, And I think in reality, I think it's a great fit for anybody because we all have to eat right.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So are more and more people asking you to do gardens for them for the eating or for just the enjoyment of the gardening itself?

Steve Rodrigue:

I would say it's, it's both, I guess. I mean, the end result is going to be eating right because I'm just doing just edible gardens. I'm trying to differentiate from a regular landscape company that does ornamentals. That's where I first started. And then I started working at Johnny's, got more into edibles and vegetables and whatnot. So now that's what I'm just targeting, that's trying to be very specific.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Tell me about your time at Johnny's.

Steve Rodrigue:

So I worked there for nearly six years as a vegetable research technician. So my job was to, I was responsible for about a half a dozen crops and I would solicit from different companies, seed varieties, working with different breeding companies throughout the world, get the seeds back, design the trials, do the evaluations, and then ultimately pick and choose what went into our 200 plus page catalog.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So you would actually. So when you say design the trials, you mean plant the seeds and see what happens or.

Steve Rodrigue:

Yeah, we had, we had a farm crew that would, would see them in the greenhouse and I was there to monitor germination and then we would have them planted out in the field. And then I would monitor them throughout the season, make sure that they were getting the care that they needed. And then I would look at it, you know, wide range of criteria for those crops.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So what are the types of criteria that you use to determine whether they would be a good fit for the catalog?

Steve Rodrigue:

Yeah, so it's, it really differs from crop to crop, but some of the specifics. We would look for disease, we would look for how long something would hold in the field. So there's a, there's a couple ideas of what we would look at flavor. That was a, that was really big. We would do taste trials. So sometimes my carrot trial, carrots or one of my crops, there might be 70, 70 plus varieties. And I'd have to go through and taste test. So.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Wow, that's. So trying to determine out of 70 types of carrots, which one was the tastiest. That's quite something.

Steve Rodrigue:

Yes, it was, it wasn't. We didn't, I didn't have to taste all 75 because there were some that you would, you would select out. They. They weren't uniform enough or they had bolted and gone to seed before they even produced a root. So there was, there were some eliminating factors in the beginning which made it a little bit easier. But yes, definitely, definitely a tricky, tricky thing.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So where did you get these seeds from?

Steve Rodrigue:

These are from companies throughout the world. Yeah, all over the world. So different breeding companies.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And do they contact Johnny's and say, hey, we have these seeds, or do you somehow find out about them?

Steve Rodrigue:

There were some of that. And also Johnny's has been around for. They just had their 40 year anniversary just a couple few years ago. And so they had worked with a lot of these companies over those 40 years. So they had developed relations with them.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What have you found to be your favorite edibles?

Steve Rodrigue:

Let's see here. Yeah, that's tricky. I think one crop that I think is very interesting is chicory. That's the world of radicchio. Belgian endive, escarole. It's a crop that nobody, I shouldn't say nobody, but a lot of people don't know about. It's not very popular in the U.S. i think. I think it's. It's getting there. I remember when I was applying to Johnny's, I was reading a book on root cellaring, and one of the crops in there was Belgian endive. How you have to, you grow the chicory outside, dig the roots up in the fall, and then you actually plant them inside through the winter, and then you force them into the chi gons. And I thought, wow, that's really neat. I'd like to grow that someday. Never knew if I'd really get around to it. Then I got the job at Johnny's about a month later, and that was one of my crops. And that same year, I was growing Belgian endive under the counters in the dark. So you have to, you have to grow it in the dark because you want to exclude the sunlight.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Why isn't that a popular food here in the United States?

Steve Rodrigue:

I think mostly because it's a bitter green. And that's kind of not really something that most Americans like is bitterness, although they don't realize it, but they do because they like coffee and they like IPA beers. Right? So.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I have noticed that more and more people are aware of things like dandelion roots and dandelion leaves and other types of bitters. There are more people, it seems to be. This is more of a thing.

Steve Rodrigue:

Yeah, I think things are becoming more popular. What's the next best thing? I mean, years ago, Brussels sprouts and cabbage, where that was what, you know, peasants ate and now that's. You see that that's like the number one thing sometimes and in restaurants. So I think it's. We're getting kind of bored with some of our, our regular things that we've eaten over the years. And now it's. Yeah. What's the next. What's the next newest thing?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Does that same sort of. Does that same sort of idea occur in horticulture where there's. People get a little bored of the plants that they're growing and they think, oh, I want to try something different?

Steve Rodrigue:

Yeah, they're. Each year there's new, you know, new varieties coming out, both in the ornamental and in the edible industry, if you will. It's. Yeah, it's just, let's get. Let's get rid of the old stuff and let's come in with the new stuff.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So what are some of the things that are on the horizon right now?

Steve Rodrigue:

I mean, really, there's. In the breeding industry. Well, in the seed industry, the breeding aspect is huge. There's. That's. There's companies that have, you know, multimillion dollar breeding departments that are just working towards coming out with new varieties. Some of that is to combat disease issues that these varieties are seeing. There's also cold hardiness. That's something people are looking at. There's. Yeah, there's a whole slew of reasons why these breeding companies are coming out with new varieties.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

When you study horticulture and you got your degree at the University of Maine, what are the types of courses that you go through in order to get that degree?

Steve Rodrigue:

Yeah, there's a lot of plant classes. I took a lot of woody id, Herbaceous id. Those were some of my favorite, favorite classes. There's soil science, and then I was in a design concentration. So a lot of design classes where I was actually hand. Hand drawing, doing residential designs.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So when you say design, you mean designing what a landscape might look like?

Steve Rodrigue:

Yes, exactly.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So this has come in handy then as you've moved into your own company.

Steve Rodrigue:

Yeah, I think it's kind of combining all of my interests into one. I really like building. I like hands on. I love food. I want to grow my own food. Kind of been working on that over the past few years. Long ways to go still. But yeah, so it's combining all of my. It's running designs, combining construction, hands on food all into one.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So if I was a residential customer and contacted you, is that something that you start the process in the spring and start having conversations about what that might look like and then you actually get into the sowing of the seeds in, I don't know, may. Something like that.

Steve Rodrigue:

Ideally, we'd have the conversation in the winter. I think a lot of people start to feel. Think about gardening kind of as towards the tail end of winter, as spring's approaching. So in reality, we can talk about it anytime, but ideally it would be in the winter.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So tell me what that process looks like. Somebody finds out about Maine raised gardens and says, yeah, I want to do this, and they get in touch with you, and where do you go from there?

Steve Rodrigue:

So I set up a consultation. I do free consultations, and then I meet with a customer. I see, look at where their ideas are or where they want the gardens and really try to nail down their goals and expectations. What do they want to do? Do they want to grow all their own food? Do they want to be able to serve salads to their guests that come to their house all summer long? Really narrow that down so then I can give them exactly what they're looking for.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And what do people tend to want you to grow for them? Is it more like, I want to have some tomatoes and basil so I can have pesto, or.

Steve Rodrigue:

It really depends on the customer. I get all. All kinds of things. I mean, I get. I get some of that. Sometimes customers, they say, I don't know, I don't care, just plant, plant, whatever. Yeah. So it really, really varies. I've talked to some restaurant owners that are maybe just interested in growing some herbs for, like, garnishes for their cocktails in their restaurant, that it could be as simple as that, or it could be as more. It could be a lot more elaborate than that, too.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So if somebody says, all right, Steve, I'm going to have you come to my house, and I'm going to let you do whatever you want. What do you suggest as far as the types of foods that you would plant?

Steve Rodrigue:

Well, first, it depends on how big the garden is going to be. Do they want one bed? Do they want three beds? Do they want, you know, fixed beds? It really depends. I would try to really narrow down at least what they like to eat. I would ask them, what do you really like and what do you really not like? At least if I. A lot of people know what they don't want. They might not always necessarily know what they do want, though.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So somebody said, okay, so I don't want onions, let's say, but I do like broccoli and cauliflower. Are you able to balance out different things so that they're not just getting Broccoli and cauliflower.

Steve Rodrigue:

Yeah. And there's also different techniques, too, such as, like, succession plantings. So instead of planting a whole bed of broccoli, I can. I can plant a row of it and then plant a row of it a week later. And so then they're getting harvested multiple times throughout the season to stagger it out.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Do you also try to grow plants together that seem to be symbiotic?

Steve Rodrigue:

Yeah, that's a whole other world. It's, It's. It's an interesting idea. I haven't, I haven't done that yet. I need to look into that more. There are things where you don't plant all the same crops together, and that's for pest and disease issues.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

But what about some of the soil issues? Because some plants, I would think, would offer different nutrients back into the soil than others.

Steve Rodrigue:

That's another thing I need to look into. I've. I think there's. There's definitely something to that, but I don't think it's. It shouldn't hinder somebody from trying gardening. You're gonna. You're gonna. You're gonna succeed, you're gonna fail there. It's just, you have to. You have to try. Try different things each year.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So what are some of the plants that you had a lot of success with last year for your residential customers?

Steve Rodrigue:

I'd say lettuce was a. Lettuce was a really good one. And I think it also comes down to watering, too. You, if, if you water correctly, plants will. Plants will, you know, they'll. They'll thrive. A lot of times people tend to over water or they water too frequently. And really the idea is you want to water infrequently but deeply. So then you get those roots established, you get the roots deep, and then plants will be a little bit more resilient. I would say lettuce. And another one was pumpkins. I had one customer. They grew just a few pumpkin plants in one of the beds that I installed for them, and they had produced 18 pumpkins out of that one bed. I was pretty amazed at that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So does that have anything to do with where they live, where their gardens are located?

Steve Rodrigue:

Potentially. It was in a. It was in full sun area. They had a good soil and compost mix that I brought in. Yeah, they had one of their. One of their little boys tended it every day, watering it and toes. It was. I think it get a lot. We got a lot of care.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So if you come in and you notice that somebody does not have good soil, Is that how you deal with it, is to bring in some soil yourself or bring in compost for them to use?

Steve Rodrigue:

Yeah. So I recommend, I recommend raised beds. If you're going to have, if you have really poor soil, you can amend soil that's in the ground. It just may take a little bit longer to really get that garden going and I think to get people really engaged, it's nice to have kind of a good impact the first year and make them want to the next year. But yeah, there's definitely, there's, there's ways around it. It's. You just have to kind of think outside of the box. No. No pun intended. But.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So if somebody comes along and says, I would like to have this garden in the ground here near my house, and you notice that the soil is just not going to be that great for that particular year, will you help them amend that soil and maybe suggest a raised bed?

Steve Rodrigue:

Yeah, so that's part of the consultation phase. So if somebody, if they say they want a garden in ground here, part of my job is to start digging around, seeing how that soil is, feeling it for texture, even smelling it. There's a lot of different things you can do to really see how that soil is there, there, and then it comes in, then education comes in where you may have to kind of sway the customer one way, but ultimately it is their choice in the end.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So do you notice a lot of difference between people who are trying to put gardens in on the coast versus more inland?

Steve Rodrigue:

That's a good question. I did install a few gardens down in, let's see, down in Lincolnville this year and I did one in Rockland. But most of my work this summer was actually more inland. I did a big job in Jefferson, which I was not expecting that, but that was actually. I've got some pretty neat photos on that that'll be displayed on my, on my website, along with some other works I've done. But yeah, so it's. That's what I was expecting, but it wasn't necessarily the case this year, so.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And when you're working on the coast versus inland, are there different things that you have to think about for your clients?

Steve Rodrigue:

Not too much. I'd say there's probably less frost on the coast or the frost is usually later in the season. So there's just kind of some minor, like microclimate issues that I'd have to. I shouldn't say issues, but microclimate challenges that I. Challenges and opportunities I should say that I have to be aware of.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Speaking of Challenges and opportunities. What have you noticed in your own life as you've decided what path you wanted to travel with regard to your career?

Steve Rodrigue:

I think the biggest thing has been the first year if I, when I would get maybe a little slow with work, I would pick up a little side job and then all of a sudden I'd get really busy again with my work. So that was, that was kind of tricky trying to balance that. So I think it's basically just a work life balance, which can kind of be tricky. This, this year I plan on just working for myself, having a few little side projects that I'll work on. I grow pea shoots on the side. I've done that in the past, so I think I'll do that this year. So then if I need to slow down with one thing, I can, because it'll be, it'll be my, it'll be my own thing rather than an obligation working for somebody else.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So having, I guess, a little more faith in the process with regard to your own business and your own clients.

Steve Rodrigue:

Yeah, there's no doubt in my mind that this year is going to be better than last year and the year after that is going to be even better than this year. So you just have to buckle down and go for it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What types of things are you hearing about in your industry with regard to gardening?

Steve Rodrigue:

Yeah, I think when I first started in horticulture, I think it was still more of ornamental basis. There were, there wasn't a whole lot being done with like environmentally friendly gardening companies. There's still a lot of pesticides being used. And I think, I think the movement is more towards environmentally sound use of more natives, less pesticides, all that. But I think, still think we have a lot of work to do in the landscape and gardening industry to change that. I think going forward you're going to see more of that. You see more of it in the news, people talking about it, consumers are more aware of it. So I think things will improve.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We've had several referendums down in this neck of the woods and perhaps you've also had it up where you live that have to do with residential pesticide application. And I'm a big fan of not using pesticides whenever possible, but they're still. Then you end up with pests. So how do you deal with that type of thing naturally?

Steve Rodrigue:

Yeah, there's a number of ways. Sometimes it can be just the timing of when you plant something. It can be. There's also, I really like the method of exclusion. So for instance, flea beetles, they love Brassicas, they put little holes in brassica leaves. And also cabbage moths. You can take a row fabric and you cover those crops until they're ready to harvest, and it excludes the insects. So no pesticides.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So there are tricks that are out there that you could use if you wanted to have a garden. Not using pesticides.

Steve Rodrigue:

Yeah, And I think that's the. That's one of the biggest advantages of having a small garden. You can, you can really manage it. You can take care of it. It's not, you know, it's harder on the farm, on a farm scale, but on a smaller scale, it's. It's definitely, definitely doable. Guards I've had for the past 10, 12 years. I've never used a pesticide in any of them.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So what about weeds? What about herbicides and use of chemicals for weeds?

Steve Rodrigue:

Well, I think weeds are kind of like. There's a saying, you know, a weed is just a plant that maybe you don't have a. You don't know what it is yet or you don't have a purpose for it. It's kind of like dirt and soil. Soil is in the, you know, outside, and dirt's underneath your fingernails and in the corner of your, you know, kitchen floor or something. So a lot of these wee or a lot of these plants that we call weeds are actually have a lot of uses. For instance, you mentioned the dandelion greens. You can. Can use both the greens and the root. There's. Yeah. So I think, I think we have to change kind of our viewpoint on some of these topics that have been ingrained in our minds since, you know, children or from our grandparents and whatnot. I think in a. In a small garden, there's. There's ways around that, too. There's mulching. It's. A small garden is easier to tend to. Raised beds are great because the soil is not compacted. You're never walking on it. So really easy to weed. So I think weeds are one of the. One of my things I worry about the least, actually.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Do you ever have clients ask you about things like GMOs?

Steve Rodrigue:

You know, I haven't yet, but I definitely know I will. I think, you know, first started off, know your farmer, then you know, where's our food coming from? And now it's even getting deeper than that. Where. Where do the seed. Where do our seeds come from? There's. You see that some seed companies are being more and more transparent with where the seeds are being bred, where they're. Where they're coming from. So I think, yeah, I'll definitely have that question.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

When you do plantings, do you try to avoid seeds that, you know, have genetically modified organisms?

Steve Rodrigue:

Yeah, I. That's one of my, One of my goals too, I should say. Goals. That's just what I'm going to be doing. No. Yeah, no, no GMOs. I also want to be really picky about where, where my seeds are coming from, like the companies that are breeding them. There's. So there's kind of behind the scenes with that as well.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What about compost?

Steve Rodrigue:

Mm, compost. Yeah, I've. I've used some of coast of Maine. I've used that. I've used a couple different sources. I also have a friend that does his own composting and he uses leaves and grass clippings and he's also using byproduct, seaweed from his. He actually has a mussel farm in Maine, so he's putting that in the compost as well. So I have some pretty good sources for compost.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So if somebody needed you to provide, Provide compost, you'd already have it available and.

Steve Rodrigue:

Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

To use on their beds?

Steve Rodrigue:

Yep, just a call away.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What are you noticing about restaurants and the types of herbs that they want you to grow? What types of things are they asking about?

Steve Rodrigue:

Yeah, I think it's, it's. I haven't had a lot of work with restaurants yet. I've been, I've been meeting with some and talking with them. They're definitely, definitely interested. I think this year there'll be more of the. More of the commercial side than. Than last year, which was more of residential business for me. I think it'll be most of mostly things that they use on a regular basis. Probably some of. Some of the more common ones, maybe some herbs that they can't get at the grocery store from the farmer's market.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Do you think that in general people are more aware about herbs and their use for cooking?

Steve Rodrigue:

I think so. I think so. Yeah. It's. Yeah, definitely. I definitely think so.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What are some of your favorite herbs to use? And you said that you like to cook, so what do you like to cook?

Steve Rodrigue:

Favorite herbs to start with that sage. I love sage. I love rosemary. I love thyme. So I guess some of the more common ones, but those are my kind of my go to's, I would say.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And do those find your way into your cooking?

Steve Rodrigue:

Yeah, sometimes I might not pair the herbs. The correct dish. I just kind of mix them in, but it works. The end result is great.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Are you trying to Are you growing things year round? You talked about some of the lettuces that you had worked on in the past.

Steve Rodrigue:

Yeah, so I. Let's see, where do I start with that? One of my focuses actually at Johnny's was winter growing. And I was fascinated with growing through the winter in unheated passive tunnels. So there's no electricity, nothing. I would go out manually, roll up the sides, everything. And I was amazed at what you could grow late into the season. I was growing stuff into Christmas time, some things into January. And this was all with no, no heat whatsoever. So spinach, chicory, even parsley and cilantro can make it through the winter. So, yeah, there's, I think a lot of people don't realize that. A lot of people ask me, what are you going to do? What are you going to do in the winter? And there's a lot of work that can be done in the winter as well.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What about growing things inside? Do you have clients that start growing things inside that they can then put into their gardens when the spring comes?

Steve Rodrigue:

I would imagine I will have that. I haven't encountered that yet though.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Where would you like to see your business go over the next five years?

Steve Rodrigue:

Good question. Yeah, really I'd like to, I mean, I want to tap into the commercial market. I think it's gonna, it'll really take off with restaurants and bed and breakfast and inns. So I really, really want that. I want to develop an education portion of my business where we can go into schools, we can educate children, we can. If a residential customer wants us to come there and do an hour long session every month or every two weeks with them and their, their family, their kids, we can do that. So there's a lot of. So I've got a lot of ideas for the next five years. I'm trying to stay focused right now with a few ideas and a few different options and then just each year kind of coming out with new options to keep people engaged. This coming year, you'll see I'll offer mushroom logs that I actually do right at my house. There'll be oysters. There'll be this year also on site and off site composting, potentially even donations to food banks. When a garden is producing way too much and the people can't keep up with it, I can do a donation in their name to local food banks. So there's a lot of, get a lot of ideas, but trying to, trying to stay focused and not, you know, weigh myself down too much with too

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

many different options for people who are in a more urban area. Are you going to be offering rooftop gardens?

Steve Rodrigue:

Yeah. So that's something that I'm really interested in there. There's other companies in throughout the United States that are doing that. There's, I think there's a little, maybe a little bit of work in, in Maine in some places, but I don't think, I mean, look in downtown Portland, there's a lot of, there's a lot of flat roofs and I think there's a lot of potential there. So trying to people say, well, I live in a city, I can't grow a garden and I kind of want to change their mind on that, say that you can grow a garden. Just have to maybe think outside of the box a little bit.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I've been speaking with Steve Rodrigue, who is the owner and founder of Maine Raised Gardens, a full service vegetable garden company. He previously worked at Johnny's Selected Seeds. And I'm really glad that you took the time to come in and talk with me today. I encourage anybody who's interested to get in touch with you and plan their garden for the summer.

Steve Rodrigue:

Great. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.