Garden Chat With Enoch Graham

 Recently, I got to chat with Enoch Graham. For those of you that don't know, Enoch has a YouTube channel called The Urban Gardener and a Facebook group called Let's Get Growing. I'll post links at the end of the post. Make sure to subscribe to Enoch's channel and ask to join his group. Both are awesome.

Q: What do you specialize in, as far as gardening?
A: I grow fruits and vegetables in small urban spaces. I am using containers and elevated raised beds as well as in-ground spaces along my city alleyways. Using all sorts of organic methods to grow as much of my own food as I can. There are so many ways to take advantage of just a little amount of space, and it is my mission to learn and teach as many methods as I can to help encourage others to start a garden and grow food for themselves.

Q: When did you first get interested in growing?
A: I have always had an interest in growing things, as a kid I followed in my mothers love for plants and grew many of my own. I grew a lot of houseplants throughout my life, but it wasn’t until 10 years ago that I was gifted a cucumber seedling and grew that plant out on my apartment balcony at the time. I had never thought, because of my small space living, that I could grow my own food. So I continued to grow more and more each season since, and today I share my gardening adventures with many viewers on my YouTube channel “the Urban Gardener.” That cucumber started a passion for gardening that continues to grow to this day.

Q: Do you have a personal favorite to grow?
A: I enjoy the process of growing new to me varieties of plants, but if I were to choose one, it would be peppers. Every variety of pepper plant presents it’s own set of challenges for success, and there are so many varieties. There are delicious sweets to brain melting super-hots with an array of pod shapes and sizes. I usually grow about 20 different varieties each season in 5-gallon wicking containers around our gardens. My favorite variety of pepper is a super sweet variety called Doux des Landes, it has a large long deep red pod that looks like a big cayenne with a nicely ribbed top. If you didn’t know, you would probably think that it was a hot pepper, as it does disguise itself well. These peppers are sweet as candy and super delicious. They usually don’t make it to the kitchen as I snack on them right in the garden.


Q: On average, how many plants do you grow at once?
A: Too many to count, lol. I really do try to grow as much food as I can, and grow hundreds of plants throughout the season. I do mostly keep to growing the things that I enjoy eating, trying new varieties of those things. I also try to grow something new each season as well to expand my tastes and growing knowledge, this year I am trying okra. I saw some plants last season and knew I had to grow those beautiful flowers as well as give the plant a taste test.

Q: Tell me about your mentor. Who are they and why?
A: I don’t have any personal mentors in gardening or otherwise, but I do have a lot of big influences. When I first began growing my own food I learned from a lot of YouTube gardeners, as it was a great place to get the basic knowledge I needed to grow my own garden. Like Ray Browning, I learned a lot about gardening from him but mostly that the rules are pretty loose and that experimenting with growing is a great way to learn. He was also a big influence on me starting my own YouTube channel years later. One of the greatest things about my channel is that I have had the chance to meet some of my biggest influences in gardening. Even gaining friendships with some, like John Kohler from “Growing Your Greens” who I watched for years and since have done many videos with.

Q: Tell me what inspired you to start vlogging on YouTube?
A: I was watching Ray on his channel “Praxxus 55712” many years ago and he bought a new camera and was giving away his old cameras through a contest. I entered to win the cameras, but at the time I hadn’t even thought about starting a channel with them. I don’t even know what I would have done with them really, but in the long run I didn’t win them. It did however plant a seed in my brain that after having many people compliment my gardens and the way I used the spaces, I began to think about sharing some of what I had learned over the last several years. So I began to think about Ray, and how he was just this regular guy showing people how to garden. Even though I had never envisioned myself doing that sort of thing I thought I should give it a shot. It really changed my life, the people I have met in the gardening community are the greatest and the support I get from them is amazing!

Q: How many varieties of seeds are in your personal collection right now?
A: I have a lot of seeds in my collection, definitely in the hundreds. With many added each season. I also love to grow out several varieties of plants in the garden to save the seeds from too. It took a little while to gain the skills to grow most things from seed, but it is a great feeling to grow and harvest from plants that you have grown from seed. Especially from seed you saved from last season!

Q: What is the rarest seed in your collection?
A: The rarest seeds I have are probably some pepper crosses that I have been gifted by some talented pepper growers. For the most part I tend to stick with a collection of seeds that I am growing consistently, but I do like trying some new things when they come my way. Like some luffa gourd seeds a friend sent me last season that I am trying to get a successful plant from.

Q: What is the name of your Facebook group and your YouTube channel?
A: Let's Get Growing! A Gardening Group on Facebook. Click here to join.
On, YouTube, The Urban Gardener. Click here to view and subscribe.
Click here to follow on Instagram.

And for the last question:

Q: What has been your favorite garden to visit for your vlog?
A: Even though I enjoy sharing my own gardens with the viewers of the Urban Gardener channel, I really like to visit with other gardeners and see their growing spaces. I have been fortunate and have seen many really cool gardens, from a rooftop garden on a building in Portland to one of our “Let’s Get Growing!” FB group member’s home urban garden. My favorite garden that I have been to visit has to be L.A.’s “The Urban Homestead,” an awesome urban farm run by the Dervaes family since 1985, it is just an amazing space to be in for a lover gardens such as myself. I encourage everyone to check out our channels “features” playlists and see some of these awesome visits.

I'd like to thank Enoch for taking time out to humor me and my questions. I know that this is a busy time of the year for everyone.
So, make sure to subscribe to Enoch's YouTube channel and join his Facebook group and GET GROWING!!

Heirloom Bean Chat With Rita Milburn

 I'd like to continue on with my Q & A blog posts. I enjoy posting these. I enjoy getting to know the people that I am interviewing and I hope you guys enjoy them, as well.

Today, I'd like to talk to Rita Milburn about heirloom beans. Rita and I became Facebook friends because she was looking for Egyptian Walking Onions bulbils and I had some that I could trade. We traded. She loves the onions, they are growing really well for her. I'm still in awe over everything that she sent me. What I'm most looking forward to is planting out the bean variety that she developed called Brown-Eye Bobby. There will be more on that bean later on.

Q: What do you specialize in, as far as gardening?
A: I like anything different or unusual and odd, but I have more beans in my collection than anything. I remember my dad always trying different things . I can remember him raising garden huckleberry and peanuts! I've raised garden huckleberry and will be raising peanuts this year.

Q: When did you first get interested in growing rare and/or obscure heirloom bean varieties?
A: When I went to my first seed swap in Berea at Bill Best farm. I was hooked. Then I found some cornfield beans that was in my grandmother's old freezer when we purchased her house. Raised them and was amazed. They were saved 1980. Went the seed swap with a few of these, traded them and came home with several seeds and that's when it began.

Q: Do you have a personal favorite bean variety?
A: That's a hard question to answer! I love them all! The fact that you put that seed into the ground and it becomes a beautiful and edible plant. But I do raise Bill Best NT 1/2 runner every year. No matter what stage you pick these beans they are always (non-tough) tender. You can pick young for green beans and pick them fuller for shelly beans and still tender. Same bean, different taste. They bare good too! The more you pick the more they bloom.

Q: On average, how many types of beans do you grow in a year and how big is your garden?
A: Last year in 2021, I raised 98 different kinds of beans, but honestly that was too many! Keeping my records and diagram of my garden was a challenge. I managed it but it took a lot of work keeping it straight. I usually planted different color seed beans so when they rambled I could tell which on was which. On the average I have grew 25 kinds. I have 700 square feet and vertical is the way to go pole beans grow up!

Q: Tell me about your mentor. Who are they and why?
A: My mom and dad and my dad's parents. They raised a big garden. My dad would do the planting and together my parents would keep the garden clean. Mom would pick and can all summer. I remember my grandmother's garden and how she would sit and very carefully gather her carrots. She would pick the biggest out to thin, but they were still little! But by the end of season she would have some nice carrots! I tend my garden in the same spot she did!

Q: How many varieties of heirloom beans do you have in your personal seed collection?
A: The last time I counted it was 400 bean seeds give or take. I document all my seeds, where they come from, type and any history that is past down with them. I also mark the ones I've raised and the year , most of the time. I have tomato, peppers, flowers, herbs and a lot of other seeds.

Q: Do you sell seeds and, if so, how do people get in touch with you?
A: I only sell my seeds at seed swaps, but I'd rather trade for something I don't have. In 2020 with covid, seeds were getting hard to find and I had a lot of my Facebook friends wanting a few seeds. I would send package seeds to Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Hawaii. Sometimes they would send me seeds and sometimes I would just receive a big thank you. I'm ok with that because I like to "Sow Seeds of Kindness".

*I'd like to add that your seeds came to Washington state, too. My onions made their way to you in Florida. My garden is truly bi-coastal this year!


Q: What is the rarest bean seed in your collection right now?
A: I have a bean that I have developed that has taken me about 5 years to get it stable? It's was a cross of Hidatsa shield and another unknown bean. But it's a stringless bush bean with long full pods with a kidney shape bean. When it first crossed, the next year, Bill Best suggested I raise the beans separate from any other bean and raise it a couple of years and if it stayed the same as what I planted, I could name the bean. I named it Brown Eye Bobby in memory of my dad!


So, back to the Brown-Eye Bobby. Rita has sent me some seeds of this variety to grow and I'm super excited about it.
It's people, just like Rita, that have made the Heirloom Addicts Anonymous groups as successful as they are. I want to extend a huge thanks to her for taking the time to indulge me and my questions.

Happy Planting!