The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast

Episode: 1KHO 575: My Life Changed When I Started Growing My Own Food
Guest: Bailey Van Tassel (Kitchen Garden Living)
Host: Jenny Urch
Date: September 17, 2025

Main Theme

This episode explores the transformative power of gardening and time spent outdoors, not only for adults but for children and families. Through the experiences of guest Bailey Van Tassel, author of "Kitchen Garden Living," listeners are invited to consider the personal, generational, and even spiritual benefits of growing food and reconnecting with nature.

Bailey shares her journey from a city-dwelling, career-driven individual to a passionate gardener, author, and mother striving for a life rooted in nature’s rhythms. The conversation blends practical gardening advice with deeper reflections on fulfillment, confidence, resilience, and the ways nature shapes family values across generations.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Bailey’s Unexpected Homecoming to Gardening

• Bailey’s Background: Raised in a rural, "down-home" family, Bailey initially rejected country life, desiring cosmopolitan success (03:03).
• City Experience: After years in event planning and world travel, Bailey felt an “underwhelming connectedness to nature” (05:24).
• Motherhood as Catalyst: Having her first son motivated her to create an environment rich in seasonal and natural experiences, leading her to gardening (03:03–05:24).
  • Quote: “It was really having my first son that unlocked something in me where I was like, I need simple. I need nature.” (04:31)

Longing for Nature—Even if You Didn’t Grow Up With It

• Biological Response: Humans have a biological and psychological longing for nature ("homesick for a place that... you’ve never experienced”) (06:13).
• Real Research: Referenced studies highlighting the benefits of green space and gardening for mental health; e.g., doctors prescribing 20 minutes of gardening per day in England (06:13).
  • Quote: “Serotonin is actually released in our brain [when we garden] … there is vibrationally, scientifically in nature, things that are happening, and it impacts our body in the most beautiful way.” (06:34)

Parenting, Independence, and the Value of Exposure

• Bailey’s Upbringing: Parents embraced her independence but exposed her to practical, nature-rooted skills (09:51).
• Roots Matter: Even initially reluctant kids can later draw on early experiences in nature (12:09).
  • Quote (on reluctant young Bailey): “They couldn’t pay to get you muddy as a child, so… [now] I’m dragging mud in their house.” (11:55)

The Lifelong Value of Learning by Doing

• Gardening = Play for Adults: Gardening fosters continual learning, risk-taking, and freedom to fail safely—a form of play and self-discovery for grown-ups (14:05).
  • Memorable Story: Helping a woman in her 50s plant seeds for the first time, Bailey watched her transform from nervous to giddy with the joy of new growth (14:05–16:26).
• Building Confidence: Gardening allows for trial, error, and eventual mastery, instilling confidence that ripples into other life areas (16:45).
  • Quote: “You are definitely gonna fail when you’re gardening, but what you’re going to get from it is so beautiful.” (16:56)

Failure, Perspective, and Finding Beauty in Messiness

• Not All Gardens Succeed: Both host Jenny and Bailey share stories of “horrendous” gardens that bear little fruit (18:59–23:03).
  • Jenny: “Our garden is horrendous… This is the sixth time we’ve tried the Sunflower House. The sixth time it hasn’t worked.” (19:00)
• Silver Linings: Even failed gardens teem with life—pollinators, flowers, “just enoughness”—and mirror the sometimes-messy but worthwhile aspects of parenting and living (23:03–27:17).
  • Bailey: “In some eyes, [my garden] was a total failure. In others... we got a great bounty.” (24:22)
  • Jenny: “It actually can maybe look horrendous and there can still be a lot of beautiful life there.” (23:24)

Practical Gardening Advice & Encouragement

• Start Small: Bailey recommends everyone start—even skeptically—with just one pot. “Your life changed when you started growing food.” (12:09)
• Specific Techniques:
  • Pollinator Borders & Trap Crops: Using flowers to attract beneficial insects and keep pests away (35:26).
    • (Example: “Trap plants” like nasturtium lure aphids away from kale)
  • Companion Planting: Arranging plants for mutual benefit, inspired by patterns in wild nature (37:56).
  • Poker Planting Method: Bailey’s preferred system for organizing and prioritizing crops (40:31).

The Garden as a Metaphor for Life & Parent-Child Connection

• Perspective Shift: Gardens, like life, rarely unfold perfectly; learning to appreciate unplanned outcomes is part of the journey (29:05).
• Parental Impact: Witnessing adults who are passionate about something—especially nature—leaves a lasting impression on children (54:35).
  • Quote: “All the best people I knew growing up were deeply in touch with nature.” (50:53)

Making Do and Finding Joy

• Making Do: Even with meager harvests, there’s satisfaction in making the most of what you have—whether that’s two cucumbers or a handful of herbs (45:38).
  • Bailey: “I had just enough for that meal... there was so much reverence in that. Like, oh my God, but I have enough.” (45:51)
• Family Fun: Bailey proposes practical and whimsical activities—floral ice cubes, foraging maps, flower pressing, and creative cooking with even tiny harvests (47:07).
• The Book’s Design: "Kitchen Garden Living" cleverly combines hands-on advice with personal stories and beautiful photography—meant to inspire beyond the practical (33:38–50:02).

Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• Returning to Her Roots:
  “I wanted to be a ballerina… travel journalist… Enough, enough horse poop on my shoes! … Then I came right back to home… from a soul place.”
  (03:03)

• Nature’s Pull:
  “There’s a word for it… this homesickness for a place that either never will be or you’ve never experienced.”
  (06:13)

• On Parenting:
  “My parents really embraced that I was not gonna be like them, but they brought me anyways... They imparted all the wisdom… and eventually that did sort of seep in to me.”
  (09:53)

• Lifelong Learning:
  “The act of being able to learn again… is such a deep one, because it is really easy to go through life and to stop learning, especially when you hit adulthood.”
  (12:09)

• Failure and Success:
  “It was a place for me where I had been working in like this hustle culture… and then all of a sudden I was like, I am just going to do what I think it makes sense. Completely self taught, completely for fun.”
  (16:45)

• Beauty in Mess:
  “I sort of avoid going out there because it’s so… disappointing to me. This is the sixth time we’ve tried... and it hasn’t worked. And yet I do go out there, and… it is teeming with life.”
  (19:00, 23:04)

• The View from a Child’s Eyes:
  Story of a boy with his mother at a coffee shop, demonstrating how the judgments we have about our failures or flaws can be redeemed by the love and fresh perspective of others, especially our children.
  (29:20)

• On Starting Now:
  “Anyone can garden. Do it. Start it right now. There’s no better time than now. No matter where you live or how big your garden is, there’s a place for you to come alive. This is soul work.”
  (32:51)

• Just-Enoughness:
  “I still had enough… I started noticing there was just enough for what we needed right then… and that just enoughness… the garden... can provide something for you.”
  (45:51)

• The Best People:
  “All the best people I knew growing up were deeply in touch with nature.”
  (50:53)

Noteworthy Practical Segments (with Timestamps)

• Pollinator Borders, Trap Crops, and Companion Planting:
  (35:26–40:31)
  Bailey explains how flowers near the edges of gardens encourage a thriving, self-sustaining ecosystem and touches on the importance of mimicking patterns from wild nature.

• Poker Planting and Garden Planning:
  (40:31)
  Bailey shares her method for prioritizing and arranging crops to maximize success and enjoyment.

• Creative Family Activities:
  (47:07)
  Suggestions range from floral ice cubes and foraging maps to kid-friendly foraging and flower-arrangement projects.

Overall Tone

Warm, encouraging, and honest, combining practical wisdom with thoughtful self-reflection. Both host and guest are candid about their failures, learning curves, and the profound, even spiritual, satisfaction that comes from engaging deeply with the natural world—mess and all.

Further Learning

• Bailey’s Book: Kitchen Garden Living: Seasonal Growing and Eating from a Beautiful, Bountiful Food Garden
• Bailey’s Community: Kitchen Garden Society
• Podcast: Garden Culture Podcast with Bailey Van Tassel

For immediate, actionable inspiration or a dose of reassurance—whether your garden (or life) looks like a wild mess or a magazine spread—this episode is a celebration of returning to nature, embracing messiness, and finding joy and meaning in the process.