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Cultivating Abundance and Gratitude in the Garden with Brian from Redleaf Ranch, Ep 304

What do a theater kid, a Venus flytrap, and a million TikTok followers have in common? Abundance… and my new plant friend Brian from Redleaf Ranch! Brian is the viral TikTok gardener you've probably come across if you spend any time in plant social media. He's the guy who makes you say “abundance!” out loud, and he’s here to talk about his approach to abundance and gratitude, plus how he used gardening as a tool for personal growth and community building.

In this episode, we learn:

[01:42] Meet Brian from Redleaf Ranch!
[02:47] How long has Brian been a theater kid and a plant person?
[04:09] Why carnivorous plants have super tall flowers
[05:06] Growing abundance: winter squash, potatoes, and food that preserves well
[06:20] How Redleaf Ranch began
[09:01] The “vision” moment that made Brian feel at home in the soil
[11:24] Redleaf Ranch + Redleaf Exotics
[14:48] Prep your garden for fall and extend your growing season with Espoma Organic's premium gardening products!
[16:23] Learn 75 plant facts with the book Plants with Superpowers by David Domoney
[17:55] Your garden failures become your success!
[21:21] What Kevin from Epic Gardening taught us
[22:53] Plant blindness to plant awakening
[25:43] How “abundance!” became Brian’s signature catchphrase
[29:24] Why abundance is a mindset, not just volume
[31:34] How to find abundance during dark times
[34:58] What is his mindfulness practice?
[36:29] Why hand watering the garden is Brian’s meditation
[37:49] Content creation vs. market farming
[42:28] Strategic content creation with seasonal boundaries
[42:49] What’s next for Redleaf?
[44:17] Nature's rule: plants live/thrive in community
[45:46] Where to find Brian and his book “Gardening for Abundance” and connect with Redleaf Ranch

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What Abundance Really Means in the Garden

Abundance is a mindset. It’s not about having a million tomatoes. It’s a lifestyle! This philosophy appeared to Brian when he was in the process of shifting away from a mentality of “lack,” especially coming from a challenging background of freelance creative work in NYC. He’d been studying Abraham Hicks when he started gardening during the pandemic.

You can look at a garden full of what might seem like dead plants and still find an abundance of lessons to learn. An abundance of compost material, an abundance of opportunities to try again. It comes down to how you choose to look at what’s right in front of you.

Gardens as Mirrors for Self-Care

Gardens literally reflect back at us the ways we need to be taking care of ourselves, the environment, communities, or our planet.

For Brian, one of the biggest lessons has been learning to relinquish control. Because at some point, your garden is going to get wild, and there's only so much you can manage and maintain. His wellness practice is also deeply integrated with his gardening. Even though he has a big garden that could easily be set up with irrigation, he chooses to hand water everything.

Seasons of Rest and Renewal

The biggest culture shock of moving to the countryside wasn’t the lack of city conveniences or being surrounded by fewer people. It was learning what to do with all that time, all that quietness, solitude, and trying not to feel guilty about not constantly doing something.

In fact, he’s learned to set boundaries now, where, from November 15th, he’s clocking out and “hibernating.” He doesn't talk to anyone for three months. So this seasonal rhythm is what allows him to show up fully during the growing season for his garden, content creation, and community events.

Cultivating Community

Brian’s now thinking about the future of Redleaf Ranch. His vision is focused on creating physical spaces where people can disconnect from the chaos of the world and then reconnect with themselves and nature.

He and his partner host these incredible open houses twice a year, where people come from all over to tour the gardens and greenhouses. His mom busts out the grill and starts cooking for everyone. It's become this hub of love and abundance, and they're using it to plant seeds so other people can cultivate that abundance wherever they are.

Wisdom for Every Gardener

1. Get comfortable with failure – You are going to inevitably kill some plants. Plants are going to die. But if they die, you can just throw them in the compost, and they become part of the life you feed back into your garden.

2. Start where you are, but actually start – Too many people get paralyzed by analysis paralysis, where they research and study so much before even trying that they never actually begin. The garden will teach you what you need to know as you go.

3. Find your own abundance practice – Maybe it's saying “abundance” when you harvest those two bean pods. Maybe it's simply appreciating whatever growth is happening, however small.

The Ripple Effect of Garden Abundance

When I think about our conversation, especially in light of where we are in the growing season, I'm reminded that abundance shows up in so many forms. Maybe your tomatoes got hit with hornworms this year. Maybe your garden fell short of what you pictured. That doesn’t mean it was wasted. There’s abundance in the failures, in the compost, in the act of showing up to care for it, and in the way it connects you to something larger.

As we move from summer into fall, I encourage you to look for abundance where you are. Brian’s book Gardening for Abundance is a wonderful guide, but your own garden is the best teacher. Be thankful for what grew, what didn’t, and everything you discovered along the way.

Mentioned in our conversation:

Thank you to our episode sponsors:

Espoma Organic

Have the tastiest and most abundant garden when you use organic gardening products! Espoma Organic is dedicated to making safe indoor and outdoor gardening products for people, pets, and the planet. They have an amazing variety of high-quality, organic potting mixes, garden soil, fertilizers, and pest control products that are organic and eco-friendly. To top it all off, they have a huge sustainability commitment with a 100% solar-powered plant, zero waste manufacturing, and eco-friendly packaging.

Visit espoma.com to find your local Espoma dealer or check my Amazon storefront.

Quarto: Plants with Superpowers by David Domoney

Plants don't just gift us a wonderful hobby, they also have extraordinary capabilities! Plants with Superpowers by David Dominey features 75 different plants that each have unique abilities like snowdrops that can produce their own antifreeze, venus flytraps that have a memory and can count, and the prehistoric ginkgo tree and how it can survive an atomic bomb. David is a popular gardener in the UK and he's been a great enthusiast for the positive power of plants for a while. After considerable research into myths, legends, and scientific papers, David illustrates how the natural world has truly gifted plants with superpowers—care tips included!

Pick up Plants with Superpowers at your local bookstore, bookshop.org, Barnes and Noble, quarto.com, or amazon.com.

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