This Is a Gardening Show (2026) s01e02 Episode Script

[mellow music playing]
I think we have to get back to basics
with our food
and where it's gonna come from
in the future.
Honestly, I think some people think
there's cheeseburger trees.
[music fades out]
[whispering] Oh my God,
that would be so good.
"Uh, yes.
Can I get a tree with no cheese?"
[laughing]
Um…
I think the future has to be agrarian.
People have the potential in them
to really find beauty and happiness
in all this,
'cause I certainly have.
I wish I could fake cry.
[fake sob]
Call out the instigators ♪
Because there's something in the air ♪
We've got to get together
Sooner or later ♪
Because the revolution's here ♪
And you know it's right ♪
We have got to get it together now ♪
[song fades out]
[mellow music playing]
The tomato.
Or pre-ketchup, as I call it.
Kind of a gateway drug to the garden.
Enticing, beautiful.
Easy to grow,
but are they?
It's a very complex,
wonderful fruit or vegetable.
Walk this way.
I don't know what the I'm doing.
Hi. What's your name?
-Ariah.
-Ariah. I really like your name.
My name is Zach,
which means "Doug" in Greek.
-Uh, how old are you, Dallas?
-Six.
You're six?
Guess how old I am.
Nine.
[laughing]
You think I look nine?
Oh man. I like you, Dallas.
Do you like tomatoes?
This will be a good interview.
Do you like tomatoes?
How often do you eat tomatoes?
About every single day.
-Do you say "to-may-to" or "to-mah-to"?
-"To-mah-to."
[chuckles exaggeratedly]
-Fancy.
-Yes.
Let's talk about the things
you can make with tomatoes.
Fake blood.
Ketchup.
Pizza sauce.
Make your… Make your teeth red.
You can make your teeth red with tomatoes.
You certainly can.
Squirt it in people's eyes.
What? [laughs]
Yeah, that's another thing
you can do with tomatoes.
-I'm missing lunch.
-What is that supposed to mean?
You'd rather be at lunch right now
instead of talking to me?
I want to eat my lunch.
You think I could have a little bit of it?
[mellow music playing]
Your face changes, right?
It's kind of hard to talk about tomatoes,
isn't it?
You know who Justin Bieber is?
You know who Harry Styles is?
Are they creepy people?
[laughing]
I thought this was an interview,
but I think it is just a staring contest.
[tense, dramatic music playing]
[music ends]
-I'm bored.
-[Zach] What else do you wanna talk about?
Bugs.
Bugs?
Okay. Hmm.
[thunder rumbling]
[man] Oh, got it.
Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!
-Oh, hi.
-Hi.
-What's your name?
-Sebastian.
Hey, Sebastian. I'm Zach.
Nice to meet you. Yeah, have a seat.
-Oh my God, it's cold.
-Yes, it is.
Let's talk real quick, okay?
Do you like tomatoes?
-No.
-Okay, good. Segment's over.
You don't like tomatoes either?!
-[wind howling]
-[crew laughing]
What vegetables do you like?
-Apples and oranges.
-Okay, those are fruits.
-[man] We gotta go.
-We gotta go. Okay.
How many pounds of tomatoes
do the average American eat a year?
Say, "22 to 24."
Twenty-two.
[man] Twenty-two. Yeah, 22.
-Fruit or vegetable, a tomato?
-Fruit!
That's right. Are they…
Are they green or red, tomatoes?
Red!
Trick question! They can be green!
God, this umbrella is breaking.
What else, Sebastian?
I don't know.
-Are you cold?
-Yes!
-[man] Here you go.
-Wow, Sebastian, great.
[thunderclap]
-[Sebastian] Holy crap! This weather's…
-[man] Sorry.
…crazy.
[upbeat, funky music playing]
[music ends]
[sighs] I don't wanna blooperize this.
-No bloops.
-[crew member] Why not?
Because my whole career is a blooper reel.
Okay, today we are gonna go visit
Royann and Sylvain.
And…
[splutters]
Sometimes they're a little too know-it-all
and tried to tell the host
what he fudged up.
They're tomato growers
at Stellar Raven Ecological Farm.
[mellow music playing]
Hi.
Good afternoon.
Is it okay if I trespass?
Totally.
How are you? I'm Zach.
Good afternoon, Zach.
-Welcome to Stellar Raven Farm.
-[Zach] Thanks for having us.
What a beautiful garden! [sighs]
[buzzing]
[Zach] This is a lot of work, though.
[Sylvain] It is. With a garden this size,
if you don't like dirt
under your fingernails,
you're in the wrong business.
Okay, without sounding stupid,
what is a tomato?
I was just having
this argument with a small child
where they were trying to tell me
it was a vegetable.
It's a fruit.
Anything that has its seeds is a fruit.
So a cabbage,
if you're just eating the leaves,
that's a vegetable.
Tomato has seeds in it, most of 'em.
That is a fruit.
Okay, good. Well, it's always nice
to win an argument with a 5-year-old.
-Yeah.
-Okay, so what do we got here?
What is the baseline
for a good tomato plant soil?
[Royann] If you want
a good production of tomato,
you need to have a porous soil,
because this pot will have to fill up
with roots.
And the more roots you have,
the more tomatoes you're going to have.
If it's really clumpy, clay-like,
it can't penetrate,
and it won't go anywhere.
So, these are our seeds.
This is a two-inch pot.
[Zach] Put good soil in it.
Fill it up.
Make sure it's wet.
And then when you know that it's wet,
you take four seeds,
and you just slightly put 'em in there
and just put it
so it's slightly under the surface.
That's it.
So, why do you think
I plant so many in one pot
when my objective
is only to get one tomato per pot?
You're careless?
[chuckling]
Okay, don't… Listen.
[Sylvain] Good answer.
There's a huge amount of competition
going on here,
and it's choosing the best one
that will give you the most tomatoes.
So let's say this guy wins.
You'll just get rid of these?
-You take scissors and cut it.
-[Zach] Cut it so it can't…
And you leave the roots in there
because the tomato, they have found out,
does better
when the roots are left in there.
Oh, wow.
[mellow music playing]
So when the tomato gets
about this big on its second true leaf,
then it's ready to go into a gallon pot.
When your tomato in the gallon pot,
you know, is pretty big,
and you can see roots are coming
out the bottom,
then you would put that tomato
at the very bottom of this pot.
Bury that plant.
Just leave a little bit.
Because coming out of the plant everywhere
will be roots.
-Wait, wait, wait. Wait.
-[music ends]
Here's… Wait a sec.
Get a gallon pot.
When they get about this size,
-put it all the way down.
-Yeah.
-Don't put soil in it and then--
-No. Put it all the way down.
And then you'll get
massive root production.
Is that common?
-Yeah, yeah.
-Should I know as a gardener?
[Royann] I'm sorry.
-[Sylvain] So, this is a…
-I'm a dumbass.
We'll just use this as an example.
When the tomato is larger…
You can imagine
this is the tomato you're transplanting.
So when you put it in the ground,
you bury it as deep as you can.
And now all of this material
will produce more roots.
I feel like a moron.
So your tomato pot
will be just solid roots.
-How did that not--
-Even if you have leaves on the stem,
take the leaves off
and bury it as deep as you can.
This seems like a prank.
-It's normal.
-It's a game changer.
I can't believe that.
[phone beeps]
Sorry. It's time for my nap.
[mellow music playing]
So, if people could understand roots more,
they'd understand their garden a lot more.
-Wouldn't they?
-Oh, yes.
-Exactly.
-That's kind of the…
-That's the whole game, yeah.
-That's the game of it.
[Royann] That's right.
How often do you water these troughs here?
Just out of curiosity.
Well, when it's hot, every day, right?
And the troughs are a great way
to monitor water usage.
-Oh, yeah.
-I can see that there's water in there.
So the minute I see it dry,
you can just add some more.
-Any potted plant, this is a better bet.
-Yes.
-Here. Now your job.
-Okay.
You don't have to just look pretty.
You gotta put some in there.
Okay.
[Royann] And never water from the top.
Is that across the line
for new plants, would you say?
Or are you saying, just for tomatoes,
you don't do the top?
I would say for all…
-For all plants.
-Yeah, especially young plants.
That's all I've done my whole life
is water from the top.
Every time you water from the top,
what are you doing to the soil?
Yeah, yeah.
It's the physics of it. This is--
You're actually pushing it down
and compressing it.
Oh God. That's--
I feel very shamed.
I've learned more
in this last five minutes
about tomato growing.
This is… This is blowing my mind.
Look at this thing.
Before we go over, this is the, uh…
It's a bit ugly,
but this is the first one--
I had a growth on my ankle like this once.
I tell you, I like tomatoes.
I'll eat 'em.
Sometimes I don't like 'em raw.
-These are delicious.
-[Royann] I know.
-It makes you want to cry.
-Gosh.
So this one is a low-acid yellow tomato.
-Look at that.
-That is a beautiful specimen.
Ooh, that's sweet.
-So it's low acid, eh?
-And it's low acid.
-Right.
-Boy, that's good.
-Anyone else want to try out there?
-Oh my God.
-Guys, please.
-Yes, here we go.
That's one of the sweetest big tomatoes,
other than a cherry, I've ever had.
[Royann] So, you have a choice
of two types of tomatoes.
One is a bush type.
The bush type is also called determinate.
[mellow music playing]
In which most of all the tomatoes
will be formed at the same time.
And these tomatoes
will probably be finished
within the next week or two,
and the plant will die.
And the other type of tomato
is the vine type.
These are indeterminate or vine tomatoes.
And it's called indeterminate
because the production starts
from the bottom to the top.
[Sylvain] You can see it very easy here.
This is ripening. Yellow, yellow.
And then you get into green and green,
and this is still flowers forming.
[Royann] This is the viney-winey.
The viney-winey is the future of tomatoes.
So explain to us the future of tomatoes.
Why is this?
Things are heating up.
And the viney-winey doesn't mind
140 degrees in the greenhouse.
And in fact, its taste improves
the hotter it gets.
The viney-winey
is something you developed.
-Exactly.
-Over how many years?
I think it's on its seventh year now.
Oh, let me just bite into it.
-You think I can?
-Stand back, people. Stand back.
Mmm! Boy, that's juicy.
[laughing]
That's better than the other ones.
[laughs] Oh, yeah.
It's a wicked tomato, eh?
This tastes like an apple.
This is unbelievable.
That was… [splutters]
Those tomatoes improved each time.
The first one you gave me, excellent.
The second one, groundbreaking.
That…
I… I may come here tonight
and steal a bunch of 'em.
-No.
-The dog sleeps in here, so just…
-That's why we have a dog.
-Shouldn't have told you that.
I'll bring my children. They'll get 'em.
They do most of my thieving.
-They do a lot of my shoplifting.
-[all laugh]
[mellow music playing]
What are you gonna do
with all these freaking tomatoes?
[Sylvain] Salsa.
Amazing.
Can I just say, off the record,
seeing you guys hold hands
through the garden,
that's… that's what does it
to humans, right?
-Like, the garden's good for us.
-[Royann] Yeah.
It can be a lifesaver.
Do you sell to grocery stores?
-Do you do all that?
-No.
-We do the farmers market.
-You do the farmers market.
When it comes to tomatoes,
the average customer wants
to buy red, round.
-They wanna buy baseballs that are red.
-Yeah.
Most of the stuff
they sell in the supermarket,
the primary consideration
for growing the tomato
is how well it travels.
-That's the American way, man.
-[Sylvain] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
"It ain't what's on the inside.
It's what's on the outside."
Yeah, exactly. It's a hard job
convincing somebody
into buying a yellow tomato
or a heirloom tomato that's all deformed.
But once you got 'em hooked,
they'll buy 'em every time.
Yeah.
Because they realize the flavors
are so phenomenally different
and better
than what you get at the supermarket.
I'm very inspired by you.
Uh, I wanna thank you guys
for letting us come out.
And those are the best tomatoes
I've ever had.
And I'm not saying that
'cause I'm on camera.
It's… They are simply
the best I've ever had.
-I know.
-[all laugh]
You don't have to be so cocky
about it, Royann.
God, are they good, though.
[mellow music playing]
[classical music playing]
[Zach] In the 18th century,
rich Europeans feared tomatoes.
-Aristocrats were dying after eating them…
-[screaming]
…dubbing tomatoes "poison apples."
But as it turned out,
the real danger was the acidic tomatoes
were absorbing lead
from their fancy pewter plates.
So they were eating lead tomatoes.
If you think this is gonna stop me
from eating pewter, you can forget it.
[music ends]
[man chuckling]
How old are you? God.
-[man] You're the idiot doing it.
-[laughs]
Yeah, but I just do it
to see if anyone laughs.
I'm not doing it
'cause I think it's funny.
[Zach and man laugh]
[mellow music playing]
Remember, the future's agrarian.
-[music ends abruptly]
-[Royann] Hey, I thought you were leaving!
I left.
Bye, you guys.
[mellow music resumes]
Okay, good?