Supper Club × Coding Burnout and Gardening with Anselm Hannemann

Welcome to Syntax, the podcast with the tastiest web development treats out There, today, we've got an awesome episode for you, with Onselm Hahnemann. Did I get it? Yeah. Maybe a little over pronounced.

We're sponsored today by 3 awesome companies. Hasura gives you a real time GraphQL QL API when you point it at any of your existing data. Strapi, they are a JavaScript based CMS.

They also work with TypeScript Now that's in beta. We'll talk about that partway through the episode. And seed prod, they are a no code website builder for word Press, which is pretty sweet. We got a no code episode coming up. No next week for you, so stay tuned for that. We'll talk about all these companies partway through the episode. So I saw this video, I don't know, 6 months ago or something like that on burnout, in in in web development and how he started doing a bunch of gardening, Which also piqued my interest. I'm really into that.

And it's just like a really cool it's one of those honeypot documentaries, which Scott also had 1 done on him. They're they're fantastic. I really like them, and I thought, like, this is really cool. I'd love to have him on the podcast just to talk about, Burnout and and how you deal with it. And and also just, like, I I also wanna talk about, growing things as well. Or whatever else Yeah. Gardening as well. Yeah. Whatever else pops up. So, welcome. Thank you so much for coming on. Yeah. Hello.

Thanks for having me. Oh, absolutely.

Do you wanna give us a, I don't know, a couple minute rundown of who you are, what your background is, and then sorta like what happened to lead you to growing things in the ground, as well as becoming a developer.

Yeah. Sure.

So I'm Anselm. I'm from near Munich, Germany.

So I'm, I think, 9 to 10 hours ahead of you,

Time wise. Oh, why? So it's pretty late for you right now. It is. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for, for coming on so late.

Bit history.

I started web development when I was 14, so back in 2003 also, started doing things with Photoshop and, those pixel table stuff.

Yes. That were wild times.

But it was fun, and I was, still in school. So I just tried to make my own website.

And Somehow I get stuck on it and started my own business during school.

And, after school, I went on the civil service. And after the civil service, I had so many clients already that I decided not not to study anything, but just to go on my own business.

And went on for, I think, it is 15 years now in history. Yeah.

So it's 15 years of being a freelancer in web development, mostly front end development.

I Have done a couple of career moves.

I said I started with front end development, then Yeah. Got full stack, then that was pretty lame back then.

So I decided, well, what about publishing? And I went into print publishing, then, it was the times where print publishing was going Little bit difficult, so they decided to do these digital publishing stuff, called e papers, called, apps, Interactive magazines and I, yeah, combined both things by coding all the HTML five stuff, into these apps.

And it it was really, really interesting because it was mixing 2 industries.

Yeah. And, afterwards, I realized, well, okay. So publishing is nice, but, I I have the feeling that it's nothing new there.

And it was the same time when we had, when CSS 3 and HTML 5 arrived.

So when the web days. Awesome again. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And there were so many things to do, and you could really code great websites now.

And web standards, attracted me. So it it was these these times where, Yeah. Everything was really new to all the people, and I got to events and conferences and gave talks about stuff.

And it was all about networking, so this was a great time.

And, I worked for Couple of clients, big, small, medium size.

And I think it was 5 years ago when I realized, well, something is not not great and not like 15 years ago, for example. Mhmm.

I had struggle I I have struggled before, And I had a burnout, a small burnout, I think, 3 months or so, after one of the jobs for a publisher.

It was working all the weekends.

Like, 25 hours, then Monday off, Which is not great because it's Monday and everyone else works.

And it was for one and a half years, All the weeks, and it was a great job, but still so exhausting that I fell into a burnout.

I realized only later that I was sitting in front of my computer, and I I couldn't do anything.

I was just sitting there reading emails, but even reading the emails, it was like reading and forgetting about it. So, gladly, I realized myself.

And I just took the chance and took some time off, did different stuff. And it was better again afterwards.

But it was the first sign that something is wrong and that I shouldn't Continue doing it like before, so I started doing more fun stuff, on the weekends, more sports.

Yeah.

Not working all the day, all the time in front of computer and, doing multitasking all the time.

And I think, it it was fine then for a few years again, but, I realized later on, Like, 5 years ago that I don't wanna do this until I'm retiring.

So, I Realized, well, something has to change. And, I considered, well, what can I do else? What is Different to sitting in front of a computer.

And somehow, gardening attracted me. Yeah.

I I was always gardening, as a side business or I I mean, not even.

Like, for myself, a little bit.

And, it it was always feeling great. So I I realized, well, why not doing that in a little bit of a bigger style? This was when the idea came up of Making a market garden where other people can profit from what I grow. So, It was planning, I think, 1 or 2 years because I don't own any land, so I had to search something in nearby. And it's not that easy, and you have to make some sort of a business plan. I mean, I I just wanted to do that as a 50% job or so.

And still, you need to plan something. And, gladly, I found my brother, In a job change as well, and we agreed to do this together.

So this was pretty interesting because he was not living here. No. He does.

Yeah. And we just started it off, and it was great. It's completely different to Programming to coding. And I don't know. Since I'm doing this, I I have more fun coding again. And it's it's just great because it motivates me. It it calms me down.

You can just forget about everything in In life and politics in yeah.

You're just with the nature, with Earth, and you're connecting with that and coming down. And it's It's just rewarding to get the crops and see what you've done and achieved. So this feels great. And today Yeah.

I'm serving like 100 people food.

Wow. It's actually only seasonal vegetables, but, Even that is great.

Yeah. And it's most I I I think Today, I'm doing 60, 80% gardening and only 20% coding programming anymore. Yeah.

It feels great Still because I can focus more on my own things in programming.

Yeah. Yeah. And you feel so much more refreshed. I know me me, personally, I have I I I don't do necessarily a ton of gardening. We have a a few boxes, and, you know, we we grow some things. But For me, like, landscaping is the same way where, if I if I could spend all all weekend landscaping, my Mondays always feel that much better because You're getting away from screens. You're you're you're getting to interact with the the the real world to get your hands dirty and stuff. It feels very,

Therapeutic. Exactly. Yeah. Awesome. Well, that that is kind of an unreal story. And I love to hear Of people that actually, like, went for it because you hear a lot of people, oh, I'd love one day. I'd love to to garden or to do woodworking. And I I see it in some of my own friends where they are trying to squeeze in a hobby in the evening because their Their work is is starting to burn them out. And honestly, I think that I think regardless of what you're doing, it's so important to have Hobbies or some sort of other thing to put your time and energies into. And, that's one thing I get all the time on specifically on Instagram, on Twitter a People always ask me because I'm I I do all kinds of stuff. I put a hitch on my trailer on our car last week, and I do a lot of electronic Stuff, and I'm propagating hundreds of hydrangeas in in the garden right now, and I did a huge sprinkler. Like, I'm I'm always into something,

And I love Doug, you're on sprinkler lines like that. I think that's an outrageous project.

Yeah. We we could talk irrigation in a bit, but, that That kind of stuff is very fulfilling to me, and it's my very aggressive take at not trying not to get burned out on this type of thing because, Like you, I've been at it for 15 years, and I often get people ask me, what's your time worth, bud? Like, why are you Why are you installing your own trailer hitch on your your van? Why don't you just bring it to it? Or why don't you pay somebody to paint your house? Or, Like, why are you doing that? And I'm like, because I don't wanna burn out, and this stuff really interests me. And the the The day I start calculating what my hour is worth after I'm clocked off for the day Because, oh, well, instead of installing a trailer hitch on our van, I could crank out another course and make this much more money. Mhmm. That that's a downward spiral, And I'm Totally. Often scared at the amount of people that ask me that because it's like, you should be doing this stuff Full cook all the time. Otherwise, you're gonna,

you're gonna burn out real quick. Yeah. It's so so important that people also trust Themselves, they just should do what they think they should do.

So many people have awesome ideas, but they they don't follow-up on it. And they they are too anxious to really try it. But Yeah. Often I mean I mean, even with gardening, which is a lot of work and I mean, you can't not or you need that some time to to care about the garden, but still you can do it as a side business or just with a few hours a week. It's it's totally possible. And If it's not the right thing, then just stop and change and think about it again. So yeah.

Yeah. I think that what's the most important is just Having time away. You know, having spending that time whether it's with your your family, your friends, whatever, anytime away from Screens is is is important, and I have such a huge trouble with that. You know? I I'll I'll sit down and, like, have My Nintendo Switch out and then my iPad with a hockey game on it and then my phone, and I'm just, like, surrounding myself with Screens. And my wife is a a psychologist, and she'll often be like, listen.

Your screen usage has gotten to the point where it's a problem. Like, you need to unplug. You need to go do something else and you need to likes because you you it makes you anxious. It makes you depressed. It makes you overloaded, burnt out, all those things. And, yeah, it's it's yeah.

Just endlessly important to get away. Yeah. And as Wes already said, it's a spiral.

So you start sitting too much in front of a screen, and then you Look into the screen and into the other one, and you check up your smartphone at night. And Yeah. It's just yeah. If you can't escape, it's a problem.

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That is hasura.infoforward/free trial. You can use the code at tryhasura, and you'll get 3 months of the Hasura cloud standard tier for free. Now only the first 100 people can get that code. So, I know there's more than 100 people listening to this right now. So if you if you're interested in this, in by all means, head on over to hasura.infosforward/free trial, or Put the link in the show notes. Use the coupon code, try Hasura. And if you like Hasura, let him know you heard about it on SITEX too just to just to let him know. Okay? So So thanks so much for HESARA for sponsoring. Do do you have any rules for like, do you have any rules around that type of thing? Like, are you do you still want to

Check your phone or, like, do you just still want to sneak in a little bit more coating? Or is it just like are you at a point now where you're like, I'll I'll go and check it out when I'm interested, but, like, I'm not sure where you're at with that.

Yeah. So It changed a lot in the past.

I had a lot of rules. I tried, switching off the phone completely during day, During birthday, then check it 2 times a day.

At latest, I think, 3 or 4 hours before going to bed, etcetera, etcetera. And it worked fine, but it was really restrictive, and it didn't feel great.

Yeah. But it worked out to to get away from that, I don't know, Twitter, Instagram addictiveness.

And I think nowadays, I'm I can do whatever I want again.

So I still don't have Twitter on my phone, for example. I I don't have the feeling that I need it anymore.

But, I can check everything at every time, except I have one rule in my house.

Wi Fi is shut down at 11 PM.

Oh, wow. Interesting.

Wow. Wow.

That's kinda cool. Yeah. It it is great because We we started in bedroom eliminating the phones, and it was always difficult to achieve it and really do it. And Then we decided, well, let's just put on airplane mode, and it's so easy to circumvent that. It's so easy. Yeah. So I Tried that, and it's the best choice ever. And all the neighbors that are using my Wi Fi, at first, they were like, wow. This is early. Well, no. But This is not great.

An initiator.

Well, let's try that. It's it's actually a great idea.

That's hilarious.

You know, we we did, like, no TV in the bedroom, and I was thinking we're not gonna have a TV in our bedroom ever. Right? But We do both end up having your phones on the, like, wireless magnetic stands right next to the bed, and then we have, like, little Google displays are there for, like, I guess it's really, it's it's not really no TV, is it? These things are all basically little attention attention grabbers or or, you know,

Mind sinks. That's I I love all of that. That's, And, I mean, it it took us half a year or so to get used to that. And now it's feeling great, but The half year, it wasn't, well, mixed feelings.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting.

How do you know if you are starting to get burned out? Like, I often I think people wonder, like, am I I burned out, or am I is it just hard, or am I disinterested in this pack? Like, what is that what did that look like?

Yeah. So I when I had my 1st burnout, I didn't realize early enough.

So this was difficult. And even I just I think 1, 2, 3 years later, when I had similar experiences, I I wasn't sure what the problem was.

Only later, I realized What the real problem is that's causing a burnout. And it's usually a combination of, Happiness at work with the job you're doing and your personal Life around it. So if both is bad or non existing or worse than before than you're used to, Then it's going into the direction where it's always a spiral downwards.

And it depends on the spiral where you're at.

If you're on the top, you won't notice. But if you're like in 1 third or at the half, it's There should be signs like, this is stressing me out. While if you really think about it, it's not That hard or it it's not that much of work. But you still are totally stressed out on the tasks.

So that's some first sign.

And also, if you're if you ask your friends, and they need to be good friends. They need to be honest to you. And if they if you are ask them, well, Am I happy? How am I talking to you? Am I a negative person? And they say, well, You were happier before or something like that.

Then it's the 2nd sign, and then it's really time to do something.

Because, when you go into that burnout stage, other people will realize it. They will notice that you're always annoyed or in a bad mood or something like that.

And they usually don't tell you in in, like, In advance or when they realize it. But if you ask them, many people do. So that's a good

idea to ask them. Yeah. Do I know you you wrote for Smashing Mag for, what, like, 7 years or something like that. I just checked. Like, you have over a 100 articles on Smashing Mag.

So, like, if I were to have a list of the, 10 most dialed in up to date people, you would probably be on that list.

And, like, do you not feel or do you care anymore about how quickly this type of thing, Kinda goes by. Like, do you is there I we talk about FOMO, fear of missing out, and then there's also JOMO, the joy of missing out.

Do you worry about that, or is your are your skills at a point now where you're just like, I could learn that if I need to? Well so I I think at some point when

SPAs and all the frameworks got out of hand and every week a new one came out, but On the other hand, nothing changed in reality.

I just variables and names. Yeah. Yeah.

No. I mean, it was every week a new framework, but then it's still view and react, so why bother? And I think that's when I decided, well, I'm still up to date when I know all the basics and all the small details. They change over time. They change in 3 months. That's not a problem. If you want to learn it, if you need it for a job, you can learn it very quickly. So that's not a problem.

And, I mean, I've been doing sorts of a newsletter.

It's called the web development reading list, which is, what I mostly wrote for smashing back, like these update posts, that I I mean, they summarize Per month or every week, what is happening in web development? And I I was really good From the beginning when I started this project at, summarizing everything, so I never had, that fear of missing out myself.

And I was always happy to read, and I'm super interested in that stuff. So I I love to read 4 hours a week. That that's not a problem.

But at the same time, I still was really bad at, dealing with my time and capacity to learn, which led to my burnout. So, while I Helped other people to avoid a burnout and, to to tackle the problem of fear of missing out.

I still didn't Manage for myself 100%.

So that's definitely something to note.

But on the other hand, I I was always happy to read, and I decided, well, other people are struggling with that. So I wanna share that. What I know, what I felt important this week, this month, I wanna share that with others. And I think it's The main reason why people love the newsletter and why Vitaly from Smashing Mac asked me to publish it on their side as well.

And it was always great feedback on it. So I think, the the demand for summaries is there. It's still there.

It helped a lot of people.

And nowadays, it helps myself as well because I have less time these days because I'm a gardener mostly now. Yeah. So I need to focus well, I I have some time to read now. I collect the links. I summarize and and I realized, well, what changed since the last month, really? And It's it's crazy because I'm learning so much from my own writing now.

It's interesting.

So it's, it's funny that, You know, we're talking a little bit about summary here. And I think oftentimes, you know, people feel like they need to have a deep understanding of all of these things. But in reality, it's more or less Need to have an understanding and awareness of what is even there and at a high level what these things are. So that way, when you need to pick something up, You can then do the deep dive. And maybe you don't need to do the deep dive before you need to, and maybe that's a little preemptive. And so just having a summary is is more than enough to Get a lay of the land in terms of, like, what's out there and what what do I need to have on my radar, and maybe that's all you need. Right? I mean, even,

myself, I'm I'm googling on my own site Yeah. Just to find the links that I shared didn't have passed. Because I know,

I have a good library there, and I I can always look up something when I need it. Oh, that's great. Let's talk about one of our sponsors today, Strapi. They are a JavaScript based CMS that's easy to integrate with your favorite JavaScript frameworks. Strapi is awesome. I've used it, quite a bit myself. It's it's really cool because you just go ahead and define all your content types and spin that sucker up, point it at a database, and out the other end, you get a full, like, gooey for actually editing all of your content, and then you also get, like a full blown either a REST API or a GraphQL API. They have a huge marketplace full of all kinds of integrations. So if you wanna, Like, okay. Well, like, I have a Svelte or a Next. Js or, like, literally, it will work with anything, website. But I also with this email sender or I wanna do, do ecommerce with it. You name it. They you can integrate it with it because it's just a JavaScript based CMS and, you know, JavaScript.

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That will give you they've got Some really, really good docs. So thank you, Strapi, for sponsoring. If you build anything with it, tweet us at syntax f m. We'd love to see what you built. Can we talk about your, your garden for a a bit then? Sure. Yeah. So, I'm just on the, on the website now trying to convert the German into English here.

What what's your is it called shovel and fork translated to English? Exactly. Yeah.

That's great. So what type of stuff do you grow?

A lot.

So actually vegetables, couple of fruits as well, but, mostly vegetables, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, salads, a lot of types of various salads.

I've I think we have around 40 varieties or so on our garden. So, we our our main focus for the gardening project is also we wanna grow things that you can't buy in the normal store. Because Okay.

If we grow the same, we're, yeah, we're nothing else than the stores ahead. And, the stores are cheaper, so why go to us? So we decided, well, we go the hard way and we search for, varieties that aren't that common.

And we tell the people, well, there's more than what you can find in the store.

And this is what people also like. Yeah. That's neat. I have a question for you about plant food.

What do you what do you feed your plants? Like, do you do you use anything like,

fertilizer?

Yeah. Like, what kind of fertilizer? Because that's an amateur here.

We were told you gotta you have to, you know, regularly use plant food, but I've always just used, like, a seasonal one time, like, soil treatment. So I'm wondering, What do you recommend for plant food? So,

I'm giving workshops on that topic, which Oh, nice. 3 pieces. To hear that.

So I'm I'm trying to, give a summary here.

Yeah. Yeah. That's a that's 3 days Swedish flight on to Germany.

Yeah.

Well, 3 days, yeah, we can do an English workshop. I'm I'm pretty sure. Yeah.

If you come over, I'm promising,

you get a workshop in English. Alright. My wife speaks German, so I'll just bring her as a Even better. Translator. Cool.

The most common answer that, I wanna give is mixed menu.

Mhmm. Like, you can.

Best would be your own menu. Like, not the bought one, but, you do it yourself, and you mix up everything you can get.

Like the green stuff, the plant stuff, the some from horse shit or something like that. And you just mix as much variety as you can, And then leave it for 1 year so that it's pretty ready.

And then you give it to your soil, and the soil will Really love it.

So that's the best you can do. And when you say your own your own manure, do you do you literally mean your own Manure, or do you mean to make it yourself?

If you use your own, you need to be a little bit careful. And it should be really, At minimum 1 year that is laying there.

So, actually, one could. We don't because we also sell the food, etcetera. And it's just yeah. Yeah. It's comforting. It's a little weird. I know a lot of people who do it, and, I don't know.

Wow. 1 one could, but, I'm not up for it. Yeah. I have so much other material. I don't need it. For the amateur, if you're walking into

a store to to purchase food, Just, like, straight up, is there anything that's even worth worth your time there, or is it, like, is it all is it all garbage? I I know, probably different from the garbage. But Europe to Canada to US as well. I'm sure, but maybe content. I I have no clue how US stores

Yeah.

So, I mean, I'm I'm only producing food or vegetables in summer right now, Or meaning from April to November.

So in winter, I need to go to the shops and buy something.

And it totally depends on what I buy.

Like, there's good stuff in the shops as well.

It just depends on what I buy and what is worth it.

Of course, lot of things, they they taste better in my from my own garden. But, yeah.

Since I have everything in summer from my own garden, I I don't mind buying something in winter.

Yeah. But, our clients, they really They they're they had a mind shift because since they are our customers, they say, well, I don't wanna go to the grocery door anymore and buy vegetables there. It it's it it doesn't taste good there.

And, I think What is, like, the best feedback we could get? We lost, I think, 3 or 4 customers already.

And the reason was, Well, I wanna try growing my own food now in my own garden. Nice. Yeah. So this is really nice because, We motivated them to do this, and I I'm happy that they that we lost these customers.

Sounds weird, but, yeah, that's Part of our goal that people, realize how good food can be and how awesome it can be to to Grow your own. This is making me wanna do my we have a huge garden up at our cottage,

and, I have a couple times tried to Try to keep on top of it, but the irrigation was always a issue for us. So I have put in sprinklers last summer, so maybe this summer is the The time to go forward with that. Do do you have irrigation as well? Like, is this is this land that you is near where you live, or do you have to travel to it?

So I'm living I think it's 8 kilometers.

Well, however

Yeah. And are you That's that's all you need to keep in meters. Canada. Yeah. I don't. We don't. But I, yeah, I I I can kinda figure it out. Yeah. We don't bend to people who use miles. I don't know. 3 miles or so.

Yeah. Something like that. Yeah.

Something something around there. Yeah.

So it's 10 minutes by car.

My brother lives there. He has, like, 30 meters away.

Oh, nice. So that's good.

However, we have some sort of irrigation. It's not a permanent, setup.

It's actually, I I think it's, petrol based, pump that we, put into our, very small river nearby.

And I think we Yeah. We used it last year 3 times or so. So we're here, we have a lot of rain. We usually don't have a problem with dryness.

And we also have great soil where we have the garden. So Oh, nice. That's, one of the real advantages.

Yeah.

I would say we have the best soil in our area here, Like, 50 kilometers or so.

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And so give it a try. What you're gonna wanna do is head on over to seed prod, seedprod.comforward/ syntax, and you'll get 50% off their regular price. There's also a free tier if you wanna go ahead and give their free tier a try. You can get that started and just see what they have to offer. You can also just select the link in the show notes here if you don't wanna type all that out, and let them know that you heard about them from Syntax by in that link and checking it out. So thanks so much for SeedProd for sponsoring. What about weeds? How do you I I know there's, like, a couple approaches to weeds. What do you have do you have a have a lot of weeds? Yeah.

I I don't know any garden, especially in the beginning that It doesn't have weeds. It just depends how you deal with it. And, I I think we I I should explain that we just started Last year on the area where we are now gardening, so it was grassland for, I don't know, 50 years or so.

And it was poorly managed, grassland.

So cows and sheeps were standing there for the whole year, And this is not great. So we had a lot of weeds and unwanted plants there.

But, now in the 2nd year, we manage quite Fine.

We have a lot of tools for that, and the tools are really, really helpful.

So gladly, There's a scene, in the market gardening industry, which is itself pretty new.

But, this scene, they they just try out new tools, and it's amazing what people invent there.

So it's mostly mechanical, but it's so useful that, weeding got so easy for us.

It's not a problem anymore. These days, we we manage to keep the the whole garden clean in, I think, One day of 1 person, one day a week. Yeah. Oh, that sounds good. Which is great for, I think, we we have 2,000 square meters, whatever that is in your,

Let me let me convert that. That's something we use in Canada.

Let me let me convert it to square feet. I think 4 acres or something like that.

It's 21,000 square feet.

So, 21,000 square feet.

2 acres. Acres is kind of what we use up here.

Half an acre. Okay. That makes sense. Half an acre. Okay. Yeah. That's that's pretty big. That's and you you farm all of that?

This is where we farm the vegetables.

We have 1 hectare, what It's 10,000 square meat eaters.

Not sure.

One hectare, 2 square.

Oh, 2 and a half acres is 1 hectare.

Yeah. So 2 and a half acres we have, overall.

Okay. So that is grassland or, yeah, just nature, for all the bees and birds and Other animals.

But, we have half an acre of, vegetable farming land. Yeah. Wow. And do you have check do you have chickens? We have chickens, like, I think right now it's 9 chickens. Yeah.

So this is just for fun. I mean, they help us a little bit.

They also produce some manure and fertilizer.

Yeah. But also, they regulate, Yeah. The soil and the animals in the soil, but it's mostly for eggs for ourselves.

Yeah. My my sister has a bunch of chickens, and she gives us the eggs.

I I can't go back to the store eggs. It's funny you talk about, like, people thinking, oh, this is this tastes better. Like, my whole life, I've eaten store eggs. I mean, like, these are good. And then I got some from her. I'm like, like, the yolks are creamy and

and really golden. I don't know if the color makes a difference, but they taste great. I mean, I I think the color indicates the quality. Yeah. Okay. Problem is, well, industry understood that, and they added some Colorizer

to their Yeah. To their food. Yeah. Yeah.

So this is, not a not a 100% indicator, but, yeah, it's it's really like you say.

Once you have your own Eggs, it's it's just totally different to the best ones you can buy in the stores. Yeah.

Yeah. It's unreal. Yeah. And I mean, the garden, we farm, as 2 people with, each of us, like, 60% working in the garden. Okay. So, this is quite a challenge because it's not much of time for that big of a garden.

But, now in the 2nd year, I think we're doing fine. And, Yeah. It's it's interesting because I I really want to However, how you can do vegetable growing and farming with less time intensive work As people used to. Because when I talk to farmers here, they are all overworked, and they don't earn a lot of money.

And everyone asked, why are you doing this? You can't come from IT. Why are you going to farm now? They're getting burned out on, farming? Yes. Yes. They they really got burned out or are burned out since years, but they have no other choice. So it's it's It's not really great for many of them.

So this is pretty interesting to, To explore how can we do it differently, use other tools, other techniques, and just let nature do half of the work for you.

So, in in regards to the fertilizer, we try to minimize our usage of fertilizer, by just Letting nature do what it is good at. So for example, we till, we we have green manure.

We sow it into the beds and we till it into the beds when it's like 5 centimeters high.

And so, A a few weeks after, that is fertilizer for the next plants.

And we don't need to carry this stuff away, compost it, and then put it on the beds Again, it's just not necessary anymore.

It doesn't work with every single variety or, for example, with carrots, it's harder. But It works with a lot, and it saves so much time.

So there are ways it it just needs to be explored. Yeah.

Yeah. That's fascinating. I just love how like like, this is not like a side project. This is a business. This is a full blown business. You're running your workshops. You're selling the crops.

Looks like you have a bit of a a blog for it as well or you have updates for the crop. That's just awesome. Some.

That's that's really cool. Yeah. So in regards to a business, maybe a few words on that.

Yeah. It it is.

Like, for us, it's a business, but the problem is it's not profitable yet. Okay.

So the size of the area is Too small to to serve 2 families, money wise.

So, we need more land to to grow more vegetables, to be able to earn enough money so our 2 families can live from it. And that's actually our goal now to have that as the main income.

And we're Currently, in exchange and communicating and, Yeah. I don't know.

Preparing contract on a much bigger area.

It includes a shop as well, like a farm store.

So that would be really, really nice if it works.

Do you do you think you'll you'll reincorporate some of your tech skills Into this operation at some point, is this is that is that something you want to I gotta keep totally separate. Robot or something? Yeah. Do you wanna keep these completely separate, or eventually, is it gonna Like, well, maybe this could be easier or better with, these already established skills that I have in in these following ways.

Well so, I mean, for example, the all the business stuff is totally useful for farming as well because business is business. It doesn't matter on the industry.

Marketing, PR, creating the website for for the shop and for Oh, yeah.

That's all very useful.

So, we we write a newsletter. It's part of our success story That we communicate with our customers in a very, very interactive and deep way, it's A customer journey.

And with that, you know, I'm incorporating my knowledge from IT into the new company as well.

And I think it's also the problem that most of the farmers have that are they that don't have the knowledge.

They know little about marketing or sales or something like that. They Just want to grow food, but they don't know how to sell it. And, yeah, I I know, so I try to Incorporate that.

Apart from that, I tried to not put any robotics or something like that into my farming.

We use the computer and all sorts of Excel and custom stuff for crop planning and that kind of stuff, but,

Not for the farming itself. We we met a guy at Reactathon who works for a company, and he builds Soil density monitoring, or basically they take soil density readings from around the farm, and they're able to somehow, with magic and robots and AI, figure out, what needs to be tilled so farmers don't over till? I believe that what it was. So Yeah. Alright. That stuff. So my my brother-in-law is a a huge farmer, and he's always showing me both, like like, next level next generation tractors, which are much smaller, Like, you get more of them, but they're smaller instead of these massive diesel ones. Yeah. So that that's just always interesting to me as well. It's probably far from what you do. Like, you you don't even have a tractor, do you?

We have, like, these 2 wheel tractors.

I'm not sure if you know.

No. It's it's a small mini tractor with just 2 wheels, and you have a tiller, behind you, And we can mow as well with it. So that's pretty practical. And without it, it would be much more work. Oh, yes. Yeah.

And apart from that, we have mostly mechanical tools. Yeah.

So I I believe that, for the small farmers, it's It's not worth investing in all these big machinery. You need to be really, really big so it makes sense to buy the huge tractors.

And, I mean, there's amazing development in the large farming sector in in terms of Using the soil better, better farming practices, less pesticides, etcetera.

But it also costs a lot of money, so you need to be able to do this. And the the problem I see well, I'm too small. I I know that I can't purchase it, but there are so many in between farmers. And they think they need to buy it, but they really don't need.

And so they buy a lot of this stuff, and they are always running empty and money. And it's just Sad that they don't realize that they don't need it. Yeah. Wow. So as as in tech, I mean, not everyone needs a Huge blown up website.

If you're just a small company, it's just why? Yeah. A little company need it. So, yeah,

just depends as always. That's cool. Is I I follow another guy on YouTube called the the post apocalyptic inventor, And he is do you know who that is?

No.

I didn't notice either. Yeah. He has this YouTube channel where he is constantly he just picks stuff Out of the, the, like, not the trash, but where you go to recycle scrap metal, scrapyard.

And he just pulls stuff out and fixes it, and he's very much about having skills that are useful in society, which is and is is that, like, a German thing, or is it just the fact that 2 of you are German?

I don't know. Yeah. Okay.

Maybe it's part of a German thing.

I I I don't think entirely, but, I when I lived in this big city in Munich, I thought I'm I I can do something with my hands, but, actually, I I had no clue on life. I would say no.

And when I moved out into a village, in a small village here, 50 kilometers south, I had the opportunity to help in the forest, to help on the fields, help the farmers nearby, Driving a tractor, cutting trees, making firewood, all that kind of stuff. And it was like, My mind was completely blown away what I didn't know of in my life. And it it felt like, Well, I can do everything with a computer, but I have no clue how to survive if something crashes down in the system.

And nowadays, I it's Completely vice versa. And, I mean, I have my own vegetables, not all year round, but I know people who are and we can exchange.

I know how to drive tractor. I know how to make firewood, how to build my own bed Out of wood stuff. So I stocked up on tools as well in in my house, so I can do Many things at home.

I'm not good at metal stuff, like, gluing the metal sticks together.

Yeah. How is it called? Welding.

Sottering. Oh, welding. Sottering. Yeah. Welding. What else? Welding, soldering, and brazing are the 3 Not really bad. Yeah.

But,

gladly, the brother of my wife, is really good at that. So All good.

It's just about connections.

Totally.

And have a have a great network where you can exchange things and Share your knowledge. So that's important in gardening, in life, in IT. That's Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. That's a really good point. Awesome. Well, is there anything we didn't touch upon that is worth talking about burnout or gardening?

I don't know. It's just I I get lost in these topics because it's so it's such a huge area, and I couldn't talk for hours. Yeah. For real. Yeah. I think the most important thing, I I just said in the beginning, but wanna repeat on it, is Find your own way and follow-up on it and trust yourself to do it.

Like, not following up On any idea you have, but if you if if the idea is really stuck in your head for a couple of weeks and you realize, well, this Could be an opportunity that could work out really, like business wise, but also for my mental health, for what I wanna do. Just follow-up on it and try it out no matter what other people say about it. Because my parents, for example, they they weren't happy in the 1st place when I Told them, I'm going to change my job.

But now they are super happy years after, and they they couldn't be More supportive to me now.

So yeah. That's a really good point. Like, I that's how I got into coding. It's just poking around out of interest that I have, and I think it's important to to keep doing that in your life.

So we we usually have a bunch of questions to ask about text editor and Advice you'd give? We we can do as you want. Alright. Let's let's go through them and and see what we have.

What key what computer and keyboard do you use?

It's a MacBook Air M1.

No keyboard externally.

The LG 5 k display.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

This Rode NT 1,000 microphone.

So you still got the gear. Still got the gear.

Yeah. Of course. I I Yeah. Why why selling this?

What What text editor and a theme do you use in your text editor? Text editor in terms of text editor or code editor?

Code editor.

It's Visual Studio Code, and I have no clue which theme.

A dark one.

Let me The dark one. Use green based themes for your Gardening based themes for you.

I like blue.

I I like green, brown themes from the literature.

Yeah. Brown brown and and earth tones for me are not, kind of a no go too for thieves. Yeah. It it I think it doesn't work for my eyes. I don't know. Yeah. Likewise.

I'm using dark plus.

Dark plus.

Okay. I think that that one is a standard Yeah. PS code 1. It says default

or one of the default ones.

If you have one piece of advice to beginners, what would it be? I think it's learning the basics.

So really HTML, CSS, SVG, JavaScript itself.

And then with the basics, look at the libraries and go into the details. But the basics, you will always need them.

Mostly HTML, CSS. JavaScript, you can get around with other, like, Framework knowledge, but, Yeah. HTML is so important.

And you will struggle always with CSS if you don't understand the basic principles. And if you only started with one of these, CSS in JS tools, You will never come to a point where you will be happy with the CSS.

Awesome.

And what Scott, you got one more? Yeah.

Especially because you're you're publishing, I know, you need these summaries. How do you how do you stay up to date with this stuff? Is it just looking around, googling around? What are your what are your resources for finding,

things to stay up to date? So in the past, it was nearly 100% Twitter. Nowadays, it isn't anymore. I'm not sure what changed and when it exactly changed, but I have the feeling that Twitter changed or my Twitter stream changed.

More into less links and useful article sharing into more personals talking.

So, these days, it's A little bit of Twitter.

A lot of RSS feeds.

And

I think Any particular that you you,

Enjoy. Just Not particular. I I don't even know which exactly I'm following. It's a huge list of RSS feeds I have in my reader.

Man, RSS is super underrated still Yeah. In 2022.

It it's hard to manage and keep up to date, but, for me, it's one of the most vital things to collect links.

Apart from that, hacker news, I don't know. I'm I'm just stumbling over links somewhere.

They're just fine, Jack. I read an article, and I I I really don't know how exactly it works.

It's such a complex thing. I read something on some side. I got into another side. And I I have a lot of sources, but it it varies a lot for my collection. And Yeah.

I don't think it's a useful advice for other people because it's so chaotic, and I collect everything from these variety.

So if you struggle with it, there are a lot of good summaries. I mean, there's my Newsletter, of course, but there is smashing mag. There is CSS tricks.

There is, I think web design weekly is worth mentioning. CSS CSS Weekly as a newsletter.

There is from Stefan Judas, also German guy. Really, really nice summary.

And he has also like these, today I learned section where he posts random snippets and Blain's a lot of small details, and it's so great because you learn a lot by reading a 1 minute piece every week.

He's got kind of a really nice little website here. I'm not familiar with his work, but,

really nice. Awesome. Do you have any shameless plugs for us? Or sorry. Sick pick or a shameless plug? Yeah. So the sick pick, I have something because I just bought it for vacation.

It's the boxier toilet, for my camping van, which is the last missing bit. And it's so nice because it comes into a plastic box that you can Staple and organized, and it's not even expensive.

Box your toilet.

Oh, Interesting. So that goes you have a camper van? I think it's it's

3 random guys, just manufacturing it right now, and they have a huge demand, it seems.

€150? And you can throw everything on your, on your carrots after the fact. That's great. Yeah.

What about, shameless plugs? Anything the audience should go check out Listen.

Take a look at? All my profiles and websites.

Yeah. We'll make sure we get all those linked up. No. I mean, so if you're interested in the gardening stuff, go into Instagram of my gardening profile.

It's chauffeur garble on Instagram.

And, there you can find all the posts and pictures, which is the most important Heart of a garden.

And apart from that, if you're interesting in more of my thoughts on what I shared Today, my website has a blog a writing section, and you can find a lot of

similar thoughts or deeper thoughts on that. Yeah. Cool. Awesome. Cool. Thank you so much for coming on. Really appreciate you sharing everything that, you've gone through and kind of the interesting stuff around your You're gardening. That was really cool, so I appreciate it. Yeah. Likewise.

You're welcome, and thank you for inviting me. Oh, absolutely.

Alright. Hopefully, we got that done before 11 PM.

You may, go turn your Wi Fi off now.

Alright. Thanks again. See you.

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