Okay, I think we can get started. So welcome everyone. My name's Dan Sarowitz. I'm a professor of science and society at Arizona State University and also the editor of issues in science and technology magazine issues to the partnership between ASU and the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. And during the COVID crisis, we have been publishing a series of provocative and interesting perspectives on what's going on, trying to illustrate angles on the crisis and our experience of it that are perhaps less familiar and common. And a few weeks ago, we published a wonderful piece by Merlin Tuttle, today's speaker. I think it was called a viral witch hunt with a question mark. And today's webinar is called our bats really to blame for the COVID-19 pandemic. Just a little bit of background here. Most generally issues in science and technology hosts a series of online and when we can personal events to really expand conversations about science, technology, society and public policy and try to build a community of engaged people who are interested in those issues and interested in engaging and learning from one another. So this is one in an ongoing series of those sorts of events, but also particular to our focus on COVID these days, our understandable focus on COVID these days. And these events focus not just on hearing from an expert with an interesting perspective, but also in getting your involvement in discussions. And so Merlin will talk for a half hour or a little less and then we're gonna open it up for question and answer. And so please either during or immediately after his presentation, if you have questions for Merlin, use the Q and A function, not the chat function, use the Q and A function to communicate those questions to us and hopefully we'll get to a fair number of them. There's a big audience today. We may not get to all of your questions, but we'll do our best. One other process point, we like to use Chatham House rules here. So what that means is this is open to, we don't consider this any sort of a closed meeting. It's open to the public, but we do ask that if anyone, if there's any media out there and you're going to quote from either Merlin or from me or any of the other participants then you please get permission before you do direct attribution. But other than that, we're totally open here. So let me just introduce you very briefly to Merlin Tuttle. I have to say, if one thinks about a perfect name for a baseball player, one might come up with Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays. And if one had to come up with a perfect name for a bat conservationist and ecologist, it might be Merlin Tuttle. And he's been in this game for a long time, a very heartfelt and scientifically driven commitment to protecting a crucial component of global ecosystems, which is bats. And he's written for issues in science and technology in the past. He's really devoted his lifetime to advocating on behalf of bats. And he's going to talk to us today about bats and COVID and shed some light where there's been perhaps a little more heat than is necessary.  Thank you very much, Dan. I really appreciate this wonderful opportunity to share my views and defensive bats with hundreds of other people. It's my first time speaking to so many without being able to see any. But before we get into the first question, are bats really to blame for COVID-19 pandemic? I'd like to introduce just a little bit of the background information that we're up against when we defend bats.  And you find that you've got to face this kind of pre-trial publicity time. Bats are the number one carriers of disease. National public radio bats are arguably among the most dangerous animals in the world. Wall Street Journal. Where will the next pandemic come from? Likely from bats. I don't think many of you would want to defend any entity that just had that kind of publicity. Yet we need to ask where did these headlines come from? What is the scientific grounding for such assertions? So the basis for these claims, Anthony Adol in 2017 reported more viruses for species in bats than other animals. The implication was that they were far more dangerous than other animals. And this made media headlines worldwide. The study, however, compared just four of 26 orders of mammals and examined almost as many bats as all of their mammals combined. Now, less than 99% of viruses are yet to be discovered. So we can find new species of virus anywhere we look, even on our own bodies. Meaning that wherever we put the most effort looking, we'll find the most viruses. That would seem to me to prejudice the case against bats if they are far more examined looking for viruses than other animals are. More recently, Melinda and Striker reported viral risk to be equal when all words were included. Remember the first study just included just included four of 26 orders of mammals. The new study includes all orders of mammals as well as all orders of birds and finds that there are no, there is no single order that is more likely to transmit risky viruses than the others. This study is so far as I can tell is far more thorough and yet it has raised almost no media coverage. The sensational coverage was about bats being more dangerous than anybody else. In the case of bats, we seem to find a situation where they're guilty until proven innocent. So are bats really to blame for COVID-19? The closest relative to the virus that causes COVID-19 is Ratge 13 found in horseshoe bats. 96% of SARS-CoV-2, the source of COVID-19, they're 96% similar to the Ratge one from horseshoe bats. And that's what's gained media attention headlines is this similarity and for most people that cinched the case. This virus that's in bats is 96% similar to the one that's causing COVID-19. However, maybe we should stop just a moment and consider that we're 98% genomically similar to chimpanzees and yet I don't know anyone who has trouble distinguishing a human from a chimpanzee. But most of the media have left out in talking about the results of this paper, they have failed to note that their key elements of the spike protein required to invade human cells that are not found in the bat relative virus. That means that it's highly unlikely to jump from bats to humans. And that's according to Zanging Homes 2020. So how did SARS-CoV-2 become viral? Well, there are several ways that it could have happened but the two most commonly credited hypotheses among virologists are these. Could have involved in intermediate host species such as a pangolin or any of many other animals. We've hardly scratched the surface when it comes to examining wild creatures for viruses. Right now pangolins seem to have the closest match to a virus that can invade human cells and is similar to the bat one. But it may be found that there are other animals that are far more likely to transmit the virus to humans. But I don't know of hardly anyone who believes that the virus went directly from bats to people. After the other hypothesis is that it may have entered humans up to 50 or more years ago and evolved in humans from a non-threatening virus to a highly threatening one without aid of an intermediate host. Now, you may be wondering who am I to be speaking about virology? I'm not a virologist. I have no training virology. I'm a bat researcher. But I have spent more than 60 years studying bats worldwide, hundreds of species on every continent where they're found often surrounded by millions of them at a time. I crawled into the craziest places looking for them, trained them for research and photography. And never once have I contracted one of these so-called emerging diseases that were so fearful of these days. Yes, like veterinarians and other bat biologists, I have been vaccinated against rabies because we all handle animals with which we're unfamiliar and are occasionally bitten. But for a person who simply doesn't handle bats, the odds of being contracting a disease from one are so remotest to be virtually incalculable. This picture was taken on a recent trip leading a group of volunteer scientists in Thailand. We're in a Buddhist shrine area in a cave. We are obviously not taking this very seriously as far as being afraid of getting a deadly disease from bats. It makes us smile a bit when we see our virologist colleagues dressed up like this every time they enter a bat cave. In my whole career of leading probably more than a thousand people into bat caves in workshops and other activities, not one of these people, not one bat researcher in the history of bat research is contracted one of these supposedly deadly, well, they are deadly, but one of these so-called emerging diseases that have been widely attributed to bats. Now let's take a look at the real world of bats. All four of these bats could be found at a single location in Latin America. There are more than 1400 species of bats worldwide and they're incredibly sophisticated. Even the smallest bats have social systems strikingly similar to those of higher primates. They form long-term relationships, they share information, they help others in need and they even adopt orphans. And there's a great deal that we can learn from bats. Instead of spending so much money trying to figure out ways to fear, reasons to fear bats, perhaps this time we pay a little more attention to how it is that bats almost never contract things like arthritis or cancer, how they're so resistant to other diseases. There's so much we could learn from them if only we'd quit fearing them so much. Now let's take a look at their values. Oaxaca, Mexico, July, 2017. These bats are pollinating the agave from which all tequila and most, all, I've forgotten the other, all tequila and most miscolors made. Without bats like this to pollinate these flowers, we could lose these industries. They're worth billions of dollars a year in Mexico. And if we go to Southeast Asia, a recent report showed that durian sell for $18 million a year and they can't be produced even in an orchard without bats to pollinate the flowers. And yet this dawn bat shown here is one of the species that's first killed when people fear bats and go destroying them in caves out of fear. This epaulet bat is one of several small fruit bats of Africa that are now being targeted for eradication out of needless fear of Ebola. These little guys can account for up to 95% of the first seeds that drop on cleared land that needs restoration when it's abandoned by farmers. They're absolutely crucial to restoration of forests. And free-tail bats are key controllers of pests worldwide. Just one of these little guys here in Texas can, in a single night, fly thousands of feet above ground to intercept migrating, foreign air and armyworm moths and can eat enough of them to prevent them from laying 20,000 or more eggs enough to force a farmer to spray multiple acres of pesticides at a cost of $74 an acre. If people only had any idea of what these bats are doing for us, they'd be lined up to protect them. But unfortunately, most of what they hear is that the bats might give them some terrible disease. Now I wanna share with you my first experience of getting such bats protected and what it meant for people. This is Kaohsiung Prawn in Thailand. These bats weren't always here. 40 years ago, while visiting Thailand, I convinced the monks that owned this cave that if they'd just protect it, that their once great bat colony could be restored and at great economic benefit. They protected the cave. And today, guano production sells for fertilizer at more than $200,000 a year and not just the adults to collect it. It's amazing. Whole families go in and scoop up this guano. If bats are so deadly dangerous, I'd like to know why they're not dying in droves. But suffice it to say that these bats are really valuable, not just for fertilizer production, but as they became spectacular, they started attracting the attention of scientists and entomologists conservatively estimated that this one colony is saving Thai rice growers $300,000 US annually. And of course, such a spectacle also attracted tourists. And the locals have been very quick to take advantage of the tourists selling them various goods. Instead of warning people that these bats could someday prove dangerous, perhaps it's time to spend more money and attention on documenting how valuable it can be in terms of helping people to protect bats like this. These bats don't just generate a lot of revenue, they also are supporting the whole nearby school. These students gain tremendously from proceeds from bat guano mining. And as an acknowledgement of that, the school principal, teachers and the children themselves one day a week wear bat t-shirts to school. And now I wanna close with my, one of my all time favorite stories that happened right here in my hometown in Austin, Texas. In the early 1980s, when large numbers of bats begin to take up residence in newly created crevices in our downtown Congress Avenue Bridge, public health officials warned that they were mostly rabid and dangerous. People panic, this poster pretty well illustrates the mood at the time. They started signing petitions to have the bats eradicated, but to make a long story short, I came and convinced them that the bats might just turn out to be safe and invaluable. And so decades later, here's what we found. This one colony of bats has become one of the most internationally famous tourist destinations in the whole state of Texas. Millions of people have stood on this bridge and watched these bats close up, never one of them contracting a disease from a bat. Not only that, but the bats are eating up to 10 tons of insect pests each night and bringing in millions of tourist dollars each summer. Austin is now proudly the world's center for educating people about the benefits of living in harmony with bats. They do indeed make safe and invaluable neighbors. Thank you. Thank you. Ready for questions. Thanks, Marlon. So while you're all thinking of and submitting questions, we've already gotten quite a few. Let me start with one, if I may, take the moderator's prerogative here. And that is so it's easy. And some of our questions seem to focus on this as well, to look to the media to blame for blame on why these attitudes about bats keep getting propagated. But I guess I'm wondering the media presumably gets its stories from scientific articles and science and scientists. Are scientists just not stepping up to correct these stories or do scientists, are they not simply involved in the media reporting? In other words, why aren't there science journalists talking more to scientists to share your perspective? Where's the scientific community in this story? There are scientists speaking up for bats, but unfortunately they're not as popular with media headline generators as those who's come up with very scary hypotheses. Scary speculation sells big time in media headlines and readership and also sells bigger grants. Talking about the benefits of bats just doesn't hold a candle to the popularity of scaring people about bats. It grabs attention. So let me maybe put this a little overly provocatively. Do you feel like some in the scientific community are not acting responsibly in their interest in getting media attention here? Or is it mostly a problem of the journalists not doing their research? It's not solely a problem of the journalists. Certainly they love scary headlines, but the scientists oftentimes knowingly play right into that. There have been recent nationally televised interviews with so-called virus hunters, who have warned that unseen flying overhead at night, bats can defecate on us, bring us deadly diseases. There's not a single instance worldwide in all history in which we can document that a bat ever defecate on somebody to give them a terrible disease. In fact, if that were possible, I should have been dead a million times over. Well, we know about Merlin, right? All right, so let me begin to look at some of the questions and field some of the questions from our audience. A number of these, as I said, are about media, but I wanna start with the one about intermediate hosts. So you showed the picture of the Pangolin and suggested there might be other intermediate hosts, but to what extent is the kind of bat intermediate host human chain of causation subject to the same kinds of distortions as the bat to human chain of causation? And is the problem of intermediate host, is that a genuine problem that we need to think about how to manage? This is a big problem. Throughout this whole COVID discussion, I see countless times reference to bats as the source for SARS, MERS, Ebola, all kinds of deadly diseases. And yet none of the ones I just mentioned has ever been isolated from a bat. In fact, there's no proof that a bat has ever transmitted one of these diseases directly to a human. What we know is that SARS went through an intermediate host, the Civic Cat. MERS went through camels. In fact, camels are such good reservoirs from MERS that they never needed bats in the first place. And there's no evidence that COVID came directly from bats either. But in talking about them, those that want us to fear bats just don't seem to want to own up to the fact that the diseases are coming through intermediate hosts. And it's those intermediate hosts that we need to be concerned about. In fact, in a recent paper by homes that all in nature, they concluded, and I quote directly, critically the surveillance of animal coronaviruses should include animals other than bats as the role of intermediate host is likely of major importance. So what good does it do to scare us about bats when it's actually camels or civets or pangolins or some other animal that is giving us the disease? It might be as simple as somebody not eating an endangered pangolin to have prevented COVID. So are there wildlife management? This is a question from Amanda Savage. Are there wildlife management approaches that might be effective in reducing the bat to intermediate host transmission? Well, I pretty much agree with homes at all that this virus hunting is kind of a misdirected waste of funding. What we ought to be doing is looking for trying to detect as quickly as possible when new viruses pop up and be ready to isolate them. But wasting money on trying to identify and catalog all the world's countless viruses, they point out that if we were to succeed, even if we were able to catalog all the world's viruses and try to ascribe danger levels to them, our data would be completely out of date by the time we got our list made because of the rapid rate of RNA virus at evolution. And so it makes no sense to spend billions of dollars chasing down viruses. The marriage between bats and viruses is the perfect storm when it comes to promoting big grants. People fear bats kind of naturally. It's like when we go to the airport, we fear flying, but we don't fear driving to the airport. But far more people are killed driving to the airport than they are in airplanes. But since we don't know much about bats and we don't know much about viruses, you know, I should point out in defense of viruses that most viruses are undoubtedly either benign or beneficial. Some of them may be essential to our very survival. Yet we only hear about the few that kill us. But if we marry bats and viruses and say these are really deadly, dangerous things, nobody knows any better or not very many do. And so we get rapt attention.  You'd know better. But if I tell you you got to do something to protect yourself against bats, bats have been portrayed recently as though they were on a par with flying cobras as far as being dangerous.  Can I just ask one more question about the intermediate transmission question? So do you think it is possible that bats were the origins of some of these diseases or is even that, and then they made it to humans via intermediate hosts and mutation or is even that causal chain not well demonstrated? Bats are already fairly modern 50 million years ago. We don't even have a real good notion of how they really are because they don't fossilize that well, but they've been around for a very long time. And it stands to reason that a group of mammals that's been around for a very long time is going to have microorganisms relaying, microorganisms in them that are related to those in other animals. This whole notion that bats are more dangerous than other animals is just not substantiated in real life. I contend that bats have one of the finest track records on our planet of living safely with people. So your story basically is that this whole thing is an incredible instance of looking where the street light is shining and finding whatever is there and calling that the keys to the problem. You got it exactly. Okay. So let me let me dig in here with a couple. Here's a bat biology question. It's about bat immune systems from Liz Farrell. Is there evidence that habitat degradation negatively affects bats immune systems and ability to cope with viruses? It may, but I have seen no evidence in my lifetime that bats are becoming more dangerous as sources of disease. When I was last at Couch on Fron K for example, virus hunting virologists had just been there and had discovered a new species of coronavirus. Now there are countless coronaviruses that aren't harmless but they wrote a report speculating that this one could be deadly and it was urgently important to look into that. These kinds of speculations are really not warranted. I asked right after that, I talked to the head monk who had been there for at least 40 years and I asked him, do you ever see strange diseases in these people that gather the guano? And he just laughed and said, some of my oldest parishioners are guano miners and he sent me to talk to a 96 year old man who is still in perfect health and his 80 some year old wife who had spent nearly every day of their lives extracting guano from caves. Yeah, I just wanna comment perhaps editorially that this is a really interesting instance of how science often doesn't look at the individual story because that's just considered an anecdote and not data but instead they're happy to do enormously complicated statistical analyses of genomic data but not necessarily see the trees that make up the forest. Let me ask another science question here. This is from my colleague, Benedict Calan. She says, I heard from a virologist that bats have a less active immune system, something having to do with its mitochondria and their rapid metabolism which allows viruses to intermingle more in bats than I guess in other species. Is that true? Bats seem to be more resistant to being having ill effects from viral attack just like their seldom afflicted with arthritis or cancer but that doesn't mean that they're more dangerous. In fact, I recall a paper done on Strucklard flying foxes which found that they were so resistant that when they were artificially infected with Ebola in the lab, they did contract it detectably but they were so resistant that they shed so few viruses that the authors of the paper suspected that they might not be capable of infecting another animal. Fascinating, fascinating. Now, you've really, I think, stimulated a fairly common theme in a number of questions here and that theme is, what can I do? People wanna know now, where are the opportunities? This is coming from both scientists and non-scientists, I see, where are the opportunities for citizens and scientists to make a difference on behalf of bats. And here's a very interesting specific example. This is from Hannah Curtis, a wildlife rehabilitator, as you probably know, this in some states are prohibited from rehabilitating bats. I see that means injured bats who were discovered injured until further notice due to COVID. So what can, what are the avenues that people have to make a difference here? Well, the first thing we gotta help share the word is that there was a recent study done in China. I reviewed it the other day, it hasn't been published yet, but I found it quite interesting. They interviewed well-educated Chinese is their attitudes about bats and they tested on them, what kinds of edification they could provide that would make a difference in their attitudes to wanting to save bats? And to their surprise, it wasn't telling them about the importance of bats and how essential they are and all the good things they do for us. That wasn't the most powerful argument for saving bats. The most powerful argument for saving bats was simply reassuring them that bats weren't out there about to give them some deadly disease. So in other words, the best tactic seems to be the one that really contradicts the notion that they're dangerous as opposed to appealing to their ecological value or broader value. Yes, I found that to be true lifelong. I have often found that people were far more ready to protect bats when they got over their fear than when you told them about the value of bats. Fear is a strong motivator and we can document that millions of bats at a time have been incinerated in their caves by people who simply feared disease from them. These free-tailed bats that are so valuable, they form the largest aggregations of any warm-blooded animal, live in caves, up to 10 or 20 million can live in a cave and they can all be destroyed in minutes by just one human who is inappropriately afraid. Have you found, what about the openness of some of the larger environmental, international environmental groups that often take on as a cause celebrate a variety of species like whales or harp seals or something like that. Have they been willing to take on bats? One of the problems that was identified in the study I just reviewed was that even among bat researchers and people who dealt with bats that there was a strong tendency to accept these claims of deadly dangers without really questioning because they don't know that much about viruses. Most people studying bats haven't been doing it for a terribly long time. I started studying bats back before we even knew you could contract rabies and we didn't protect ourselves from anything. And yet none of us ever got sick. And that's not to say that I would be careless about the issue of rabies. What I would say though, and this is key, share, if you wanna save bats, share this notion. Bats do not transmit, there's no risk of any kind of disease. Let's just say there's virtually zero risk of any disease being transmitted to us by bat for anyone who simply doesn't handle bats. If you leave them alone, don't try to handle them. There's virtually zero risk. Now here's a really interesting question about thinking about how we might motivate, economically motivate conservation of bats and it speaks to the moment of panic I had when you talked about the tequila industry and I'm thinking about where could margaritas disappear if bats are not conserved. But the interesting conservation question, this is from Adriana Rodarte is, is the tequila and mescal industry, are they being proactive in helping to protect bats? Increasingly, it's taken years to get the point across, but in recent years, they have had some problems where they had disease attacks on their agaves that alerted them to the fact that they need to maintain more genetic diversity. And right now, Rodrigo Medellin in Mexico, one of the few colleagues who has really stood up in defense of bats on this disease issue, he is spraying the word among the tequila industry and doing a great job of it. And similarly in terms of getting economics incentives and actors motivated, what about ecotourism trade? So here's a question, I'm working on large African mammals for my PhD and ecotourism has helped a lot in conservation of animals like elephants. What are the opportunities for ecotourism as a strategy for helping to protect bats? Those are great opportunities. The more people friendly to bats come to enjoy seeing emergencies out of a cave entrance as the fewer vandals can go and threaten them with disaster. I've been to the park in Zambia where eight million Struckler flying foxes congregate once a year. That is a totally unforgettable site that can't be forgotten. Seeing eight million three-foot wingspan bats take off at night. And these kinds of places are just wonderful opportunities. The bats at Congress Avenue Bridge are incredibly spectacular and people come from all over the world to enjoy them. That's the one that lost them. Yeah, and the tourism brings in probably tens of millions of dollars each year just from bat watching. So it seems like on some level there's an organizational problem here. There needs to be more awareness. I mean, you said this really in your talk that the opportunities scientific but also economic and ecological that bats offer are so enormous. And yet somehow they have not attracted the kind of advocacy that you'd think that they should given their virtues. Well, back when I first resigned in my full-time research position to devote my time exclusively to conservation of bats I don't know of anybody who didn't think I was stark raving mad. In those days it was rabies. Everybody thought that most bats are rabid and they're extremely dangerous. Nobody not even conservationists wanted bats around. But we had to before we could make any progress we had to show people how rare it was to get rabies from bat. Rabies from bats, if somebody wants to scare you they can tell you that nearly 100% of human rabies cases in America come from bats. That's true, but that's 100% of one or two a year out of 300 million. Now I can think of a whole lot worse things to worry about. In fact, I used to point out that perfectly healthy dogs kill more than 40 Americans annually. But how hypocritical it would be if we were to try to rid our neighborhoods of dogs when our own spouses kill us off at the rate of 1,000 a year. I mean, if we're brave enough to own dogs and get married. Let's see, so we have another question on this captive bat problem. Apparently a Texas wildlife agency is directed that captive bats and rehabilitation not be released until further notice. I wonder if, I think this question is getting at has the formal research been done? So you have great stories that are very convincing I think to anyone listening to you but sometimes a published peer reviewed article can pack more of a wallop. What sort of research would show that captive bats if released are not likely to spread diseases acquired in captivity? That's a virtually impossibility. In the first place, nobody would allow that kind of research. You'd have to infect the bats with something, use a statistically significant sample size and take a real risk on having something bad happen. But the truth is that it's an extremely remote likelihood. Bats are not dying off from the COVID relatives in Southeast Asia where they occur. And we know that they have not succumbed to coronaviruses anywhere in the world in noticeable numbers. And so we have very little reason to fear communicating from humans to bats. I think we're under greater danger with what's not happening, all the research and good things, conservation activities that are now on hold because we got to be worried about infecting bats when in fact there is no evidence that that is likely to happen. But it's something that can't be tested scientifically without being called into court for immoral behavior. Yeah, I have a question about this maybe beyond your considerable expertise here with just a historical perspective. So in many of these communities in say tropical countries that end up going after bats, burning them out of cages and out of caves and things, is that kind of, is that a new phenomenon or are there long cultural practices aimed at destroying bats or is that something that they've learned from the media in the last, in recent decades? Well, there's long been a tendency for people to fear the unknown and bats are certainly part of the unknown. But even in Kenya, when I was there many years ago, I was rather amused by the fact that two tribes live in adjacent to each other. One of them held bats in high esteem that if a bat came into your hut, you should do everything possible to make it feel welcome because this would help your cattle herd grow and you'd be rich. And the next tribe over viewed bats as horrible things that brought bad luck. But showing the impact of modern media education, it was shown in this recent survey done in China that although bats have long been held in high esteem in China, almond symbols of good luck and happiness. Since this COVID outbreak has been blamed on bats, there is mass killing of bats and attitudes that dramatically reversed widely across China. It's not because one day they found they weren't as valuable as they thought they were. It's because one day they thought they found that they were really, really dangerous when they hadn't believed they were before. That's really interesting. Now, one questioner wants to know, are there any public health concerns related to bats that we ought to know about? There are public health concerns, there are mortality concerns related to everything. The most dangerous thing we do every day is getting our car and drive to work. And the most dangerous animal we're going to meet is another human. We can get more viruses, more diseases. In fact, I've had a number of deadly diseases encephalitis, two kinds of malaria at once and I got all those from being around people, not bats. Everything we do has some risk to it, but as long as we just leave bats alone and don't try to handle them, I mean, look at our record in Austin, millions of people have come here to enjoy watching those emergencies and the bats are flying by within like two meters of these people.  And I can assure you that if that was true, there'd be a lot of dead people in Austin because the kayakers gather under where the bats come out and it virtually rains when they first come out. They are blessed with bats. So this really does seem like above all, bats are in need of a PR campaign, a global PR campaign. And many of the early questions asked today had to do with what can be done to get the media more focused on getting the story right here. So what do you think? Here's what I see as a base problem. Time after time after time, I see articles, even the ones that are well-intended to help bats, they start out with a scary headline about despite all the many diseases bats carry, they're extremely valuable and should be protected, they're essential, don't ever kill them.  And most readers just get the first thing that they're dangerous. And that's all they take home as a message. Yeah, well, as an editor, I can tell you why that is because all editors care about is how many people read their articles. That's right, absolutely. So maybe we need to kill all the editors. Or at least, well, never mind, I won't go any farther than that. And don't take that one too seriously either, Merlin. Okay, so I think we're, we've still got some questions, but they're all on the same general theme. And I think just to summarize, there was really a lot of, I think, energy in your audience here, Merlin. I'm sure you experienced this for going out and actually doing something now. So do you have any final parting words of advice for our audience, if there's maybe one or two things, simple things that they could do on behalf of bats, what would they be? Show your faith in bats by putting up a bat house in your backyard. All right, tell us about bat houses. Quickly. Well, I'm the one that first introduced them to America. There are now hundreds of thousands of bats living in backyard bat houses all across the U.S. and Canada. And, you know, attracting bats to your yard can be really beneficial. I'm asked by those sometimes who want to scare people about bats, well, what do you do if you find a bat in your yard? And I say, celebrate. There are a lot of people that go to great expense to attract bats to their yards. And, you know, you can have fewer pest insects, less need for spraying pesticides. In fact, a study done in Wisconsin recently showed that two of the most abundant bats in the state, the ones that live in bat houses most frequently, loved to feed on mosquitoes, catch large numbers throughout the whole season. And in that study, they found them consuming, I think it was like 15 species of mosquitoes, including several that are major transmitters of West Nile. Well, so if I want to learn how to build a bat house, I assume I could just get onto Google and I'll find some instructions. Well, you can, most people probably when it comes down to it would rather buy one than build one, although there are plenty, and I'm always happy to provide information for people that want to build them. But we also have a resource on my website that will help anybody that wants to purchase one or even build one to know what bats are really looking for and how to be successful. I know I have to ask as a matter of transparency, Merlin, you don't stand to make a profit from people building bat houses, do you? I don't sell bat houses and I don't get a commission for sale of bat houses. All right, well, as with your written work, your presence is even more inspiring. The, again, the outpouring of desire from your many hundreds of listeners here today to know what they can do to help tells something about how compelling your story is. Your action that we can all take for those of us with backyards to build bat houses, to install bat houses is a wonderfully concrete step to take. And I wanna thank you for working with issues in science and technology, for helping us get a really clear strong message of how to use science on behalf of a very positive action here. And if you'd like to make any final statement, I welcome that, otherwise we'll wrap up. Well, I'm very appreciative for your help in spreading the message, The Truth About Bats. All right, well, to everyone in the audience, thanks for joining us today. We will have more such events in the future and we look forward to seeing you then. Merlin Tuttle, thank you for sharing your lifetime of expertise and commitment to this marvelous animal with us. And we can now go forth with at least one less source of fear in our life. And let me add one final word. If you wanna know more about bats, my website at merlintuttle.com.org has thousands of pictures of bats doing virtually everything that a bat can do has resources. It'll tell you how to choose a good bat house, how to do almost anything you want to know about when it comes to bats. All right, a wonderful place to end and take care of everyone, stay safe. But you don't have to worry about staying safe from bats because bats are safe.


Hey, what's up, everybody? Ricky Karruth here. It's going to be a super short video. I just want to touch base with you today, talk about how confusing this market really is, give you three or four tips at the listing appointment that you can use to get and retain more listings, which is exactly what you need to be doing. You need to be stacking listings to the moon. And I'm going to give you some tips today that will help you stack that inventory. But right off the bat, it's crazy because of the confusion out here, we've got Realtor.com telling us that 48.3% more houses are on the market this year than last year. Housing affordability, you know, house payments are doubled since 2020. That's crazy, right? But then look here, we have this happening. This is happening across markets all over the country, right? We've got a real estate agent here in Atlanta that listed two houses. He showed them 88 times. He had 12 offers and he said he didn't even have his sign in the ground. This is insanity. There's so much data that points both directions here. And I think it comes from what I've been talking about with more pent up demand than we've ever experienced in our lives. There's so many 33 year olds right now that turned 33 this year. And it's going to continue for years and years and years. Meanwhile, sellers aren't putting their houses on the market. There were down 30% new listings. They're, you know, they're trapped into their homes with their current really low rate. You've got builders that are also down in certain areas, right? This is all, it's all national and then local. So, you know, take it all with a grain of salt. Your local market is really going to tell you what's really happening. Dig in to your local data. But the fact remains, we've got an unprecedented amount of low inventory. And I believe we have an unprecedented amount of pent up demand. And I think so many buyers because of affordability and because those payments have doubled in the last three years that so many buyers are sitting on the sideline just chomping at the bits, just waiting for mortgage rates to come back down so they can go out there and buy a house. So, we'll see how all this plays out. It could go so many different directions.  Inflation seems to be coming down. There's a huge report May 10th in just a few days that you need to be paying attention to. That's really going to tell us a lot about what's happening with inflation. And then the June report is also going to be equally important. We need to pay attention to this as real estate agents because it's really going to tell us where mortgage rates are going and if we're going to see a flood of buyers into the market, if mortgage rates, you know, ease down, we're going to see that flood of buyers. So anyway, listen, this too shall pass. We got to go out there and build our business no matter what's going on in the economy, in the market. I've always said closings happen every day for the rest of your life regardless of market conditions. I stand by that. It has held true and we're continuing to close deals every month. We're working hard to help our clients, you know, buy and sell. And you know, it's, we're in between spring and summer.  So let's talk about listings, listing appointments. I'm not going to dig into the entire listing presentation, the entire listing appointment. You know, I'll just tell you that I show up. I let them show me the house. I'm paying attention to how much pride they have in this property. I'm connecting with them as they're showing me the house. And at the end, I'm asking them why they are selling this house. 80% of how I price a property goes into why they're selling. This isn't a commercial property where it's cold hard numbers. There's a lot of emotion that goes into this, right? And I got to figure out what that emotion is so that I can properly price the property to hit their goals, not my goals, their goals. I'm trying to help them, you know, reach their goals. So 10% or 20% of it, for me, is cops, right? Most of it's going to be motivation, why they are selling. But outside of that, here's a couple of tips that can really help you get these listings and retain these listings, OK? What's the worst thing that you hate as a listing agent, right? It's when one of your listings expires, goes off the market, and then your client there gets bombarded by phone calls from other agents. So let's eliminate that. Let's eliminate that right now. So the first thing we're going to do is, is when we do the listing, after we've established price and all that, we're going to tell them, listen, you know, when I do a listing, you can cancel it anytime for any reason. You want to call me tomorrow, next week, next month, anytime. You have a change of heart. You want to go a different direction. Whatever the reason is, it doesn't matter to me. You want to take it off the market? That's fine. You let me know. Cancelled, right then and there. And I write this in the listing agreement. And at the same time, I'm telling them, hey, you can cancel anytime, but I'm going to continue trying to sell this property until it either sells or you tell me to stop trying to sell it, which gives me the authority to keep that listing forever. I've had listings for two, three, four years that I've sold, and then sold three more because of it, and then referrals from those deals. And it's spiderwebs and snowballs and so many deals, versus if I would have went the traditional route, listed it for six months, let it expire off the market. Guess what then? I lose that client to probably another agent. Maybe the client is loyal to me. Maybe they're not. Maybe another agent comes in there and gets that client, and now that agent gets all that future business. I don't want that. And if I'm calling my seller every two weeks to update them on listing activity, feedback, the market, comps, whatever happening, and I'm building that relationship every two weeks if I'm not talking to them sooner because I'm calling them to talk about showing the property or whatever, if I'm building that relationship and I'm continuing to develop that relationship, and they're OK with it not being shown or not getting sold or no offers or feedback saying the price is too high and they're still OK with it being out there, great. That's fine with me. It doesn't matter to me. If they're happy, I'm happy. I tell them up front, like, you know, if you're going to price it right here, it's a good chance it's going to sit there. Is that what you want to do? Great, let's go. Like, you just want to put it out there and see what happens. I'm all about it. You're not in a big hurry to sell this property. You only want to sell it if you can get their certain price. Let's go. I'm happy with that. Let's sign the paperwork. I'll get by and take some pictures. We'll get it on the market and get this thing rolling. It's not a big deal to me. That person isn't that motivated. But guess what? I'll give you a story that's happening right now. I listed one last year. It was worth $750, listed it for $1.2. That's right, $750, $1.2. We've slowly got the seller to reduce it a little bit here and there. $50,000 here, $10,000 there, $100,000 here. And we had an offer for $8.25. So the markets increased since we listed it from $750 to $8.25. We had an offer for $8.25. They turned it down. But guess what? It's priced right now at $8.99. So the market's at $8.25, and we're at $8.99, and we're getting closer, and we will sell that property. It's like my dad always said, get them on paper and work them from there. I've had a lot of clients overpriced their property, called me two weeks later and say, let's get it down where it needs to be to sell it. I've decided I do really want to sell it, and let's get it done. It's all about just helping them do what they want to do.  I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is, is don't turn down the listing because a seller wants too much. Because what you'll see is that listing pop up on the market under another agent's name, and then see it go under contract in two weeks, and you think, I should have taken that listing. So anyway, don't let them expire. Keep them on the market. Now, what does this do? A lot of things. It doesn't allow other agents to call your expired clients. And it also allows you to build inventory. If you're keeping all your listings and you're stacking that inventory, then you can end up with 30, 40 listings after a year. So that's the name of the game, stacking inventory. Prices are going up right now. So if you overpriced it today, then it's the right price tomorrow. There's a lot of things that can happen here. If you don't want to take an overpriced listing, please call me. I will gladly take it. I will gladly sell it, pay your referral fee, and then do all the future business with that client from that point forward. That's just how it is. The second thing is, is commission. If you know you're up against a couple other agents, I've used this trick several times. They'll ask me how much my commission is, and I'll just say lower than anybody else's. Look them right in the eye and say, lower than anybody else's. And they look at me weird.  And they're like, what do you mean? I said, well, normally I charge 6%, but if you find somebody lower, let me know. Now, I'm not saying that I'll go lower, but I kind of insinuate that, but I'm just saying, let me know. If you know somebody that'll go lower, let me know. And it's interesting because now all the power's in your hands. What happens is, instead of seeing that listing pop up with another agent's name on it at a little bit lower commission, they're gonna call you, the seller is gonna call you before they sign that listing agreement. And now you got all the power in your hands to say, oh, he'll charge five, then you can make a decision. Do I wanna go 4.9? You see, you don't have to go 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5, 5, 5.5. That's what real estate agents do. Fives, fives, fives. You can go 4.99. And the seller's like, done, done. I'll do that right now. You know how many millions of dollars I made off of 4.9? I can't even tell you how many of these things I took at 4.9 and got the job done and then did so much business with those clients afterwards. Ridiculous. So, yeah, I mean, there's your three tips right there. Overpriced listings, don't be scared of them, right? Just set the expectations with the seller so that they understand what's gonna happen.  You know, if somebody's gonna do lower, let me know. I'll take a look at it and see what I can do, right? I'm gonna work harder. I'm gonna be the, I'm gonna work the hardest. I can tell you that right now. So, you know, let me know and I'm glad to work hard for you, right? And the third thing is, is don't let these listings expire. You can take these listings, put them on MLS for a couple of years. What do we do with the listing agreement? You can put to be determined. You can put it on there for two years. The seller doesn't care because you're writing it in the listing agreement. This is the verb as I used and I still use. Seller may back out and cancel this contract at any time for any reason. And listing agent has the right to sell this property. I'm sorry, market this property until it either sells or the seller tells them to remove it from the market. Really clear, black and white right there. And the seller feels fine because they don't feel locked in. They're like, sure. I'll just tell you when I don't wanna sell it anymore or whatever the case may be. One out of a hundred will say, I want it to expire in three months. Like, okay, whatever. I put it on there for three months. Let it expire, you know, okay, fine. But anyway, that's neither here nor there. I hope you guys got a lot out of this video. Let me know if you need anything whatsoever. I'm here to help you through whatever it is in this crazy, confusing market. I love you. We'll talk to you soon. See ya.


Good morning. My name is Megan Humphrey. I am the executive director of Hands and we're a non-profit in Burlington, Vermont and our mission is to get food to Seniors who are 50 years and older and we do some other programming as well besides this great Hands in the Dirt series with Charlie Nardosi. We also provide Meal and gift bag delivery on Christmas Day. We do nutrition education workshop with chef Robin Burnett and the Heineberg senior center and we provide a support buddies program also in partnership with Heineberg and some other folks and we want to especially thank AARP Vermont and Hannaford for their financial support and We desperately need this workshop today Charlie since there's snow outside and it's very cold. So thank you very much for being here Well, thank you Megan, and it's always a pleasure to be here and I'm just get this all set up so that we can be ready to go here There we go. So hopefully everyone can see me. Okay, and What I wanted to chat about today with everyone who is watching live or watching on the recording that we're doing of this Is talk about indoor herb growing and I'm not sure Megan mentioned I don't remember but we're gonna be doing this every month right through the growing season. So we're gonna start Of course indoors in February March with things like indoor growing But then once the weather gets better, hopefully we'll be able to be outside a little bit With the video and I'll be doing some presentations and things of that nature So hopefully it'll be something where we can garden together. How about that? Starting things indoors this time of year moving them out to the garden and then as problems come up and situations and issues come up We can deal with them here once a month on this program. So Thanks for coming and thanks for your interest in gardening and hopefully it makes your day a little brighter And it's always one of the things I like about it. So indoor gardening Indoor herb gardening in particular. It's a great way to really bring a little bit of the taste the sense The flavors of your garden inside and this time of year We're talking minute to end of February is actually a nice time to kind of start some we call windows Still herbs, even though I'll talk more about the lighting and how sometimes that's not the best way to grow them But we'll call them that for now Because of the days are getting longer as you've noticed you're getting some more sunshine And actually the day lengths now are equal to probably around, you know, October So it's not that bad and with those longer day lengths You might even notice your houseplants for example if you have some houseplants They're starting to put out some new growth So starting some herbs either from seed or transplants out is a great way to kind of get them going getting a jump on the season And I'll talk more about seeds and transplants and all that kind of stuff in a little bit And the idea is to grow either culinary and or scented herbs So culinary herbs like this rosemary, which is right here. You can kind of see it This is one I brought in last fall Nice fragrance grape for roasting potatoes and using in lots of different dishes or something like this plant This is a mint plant and it's another one I brought in from last year and this one is good You know what I do in the winter that is walk by this plant. I do this. I do a little scratch and sniff Just to give myself a little sense of just being out in the garden again So you can grow herbs for various reasons whether you're going to cook with them or whether you just want to have the sensory pleasure of smelling them It's really a nice thing to do But when you're doing indoor herb gardening and especially if you're doing it all through the winter not just starting in February March But starting way back in November There's certain things you need to keep in mind and I want to cover those today so that you have an idea of what to do Now and then also how to do it next fall and winter when you're moving into those dark days again And the things you need to keep in mind are which herbs are the best ones to grow in a sunny window How much light you need which of course is a really important thing The containers that you're going to use for them the potting so you can use for them And then any accessories and special care things and that's kind of one of the things I'm going to go over Here so first of all if you're new to indoor herb garden You have never tried to grow herbs inside before in the winter There are certain herbs that are easier to grow than others and easier is really more about they grow faster and they can Tolerate lower light levels So ideally if you're trying to grow herbs indoors in the winter you want a sunny window a sunny South-facing window like a bay window or a sunroom something like that That's going to give you the widest range the most number of options of herbs that you can grow successfully The other option of course is to have grow lights and that is something that many people have because they start their own seeds So if you have grow lights, it's easy because most herbs will do well underneath the nice grow lights setup Especially if you have those full spectrum grow light tubes at the T5 compact fluorescent tubes They'll really or LED lights for that matter They really will provide so much light that you can grow everything including basil indoors in the winter But I'm really kind of thinking that most people are not going to have a grow light setup that's going to be readily accessible So let's talk about growing them in a window. So if you have a sunny window that's south-facing window You can get away with some herbs that are Or if you have an Easter west-facing window you can get away with some herbs that don't necessarily need as much light to grow And thrive one of them is chives I'm sorry. They think little backwards, but you know what this is Chives are really easy to grow. They germinate fast and they grow in kind of partial sun another thing That'll grow really well that way is parsley Flat leaves or curly leaf parsley. They don't need as much light as some of the other plants that other herbs that are out there And of course this mint that I'm growing here, too It'll get a little leggy, but that doesn't matter because you can always cut mint back. That's a really nice thing about mint So if you have a window that maybe doesn't get it Maybe isn't south-facing to maybe east or west-facing doesn't or if it's south-facing it gets like part of the day And you want to try indoor herbs those are the three I would recommend try to try to get starting with those If you have a little more light so you have a south-facing window or really bright room You can start going more towards the Mediterranean herbs and those will be things like the rosemary that I showed you just a minute ago Or sage this poor looking little sage plant. It's still alive. I'm proud of it that way Time oregano those Mediterranean herbs if you think about the Mediterranean, it's very bright even in the winter It may be cool, but it's very bright So that's why these herbs need a lot of sun and I know people have tried to overwinter rosemary This is a rosemary one here. I'm talking about that. I did bring in from outside Actually was growing in the pot and I just moved it inside And it's done. Well, it's still alive. It's got some new growth on it I pinch it every once in a while and I'm cooking things And the key with these Mediterranean herbs to get them to overwinter indoors is to have bright light a lot of light That's and we're blessed with having a beautiful south-facing Room you're kind of in part of our dining room here where we have windows on the east to west and the south side So it's very bright and that's why it's done so well when it doesn't survive It's usually a number of different things. There's happening the first thing would be that not having enough light on it Another thing is that you overwater it you want to water it when it gets really dry But Mediterranean herbs like it on the dry side. I like a really well-drained soil So wait till it kind of gets really dry then water it thoroughly so it comes out the drainage holes And also some of the rosemary plants are susceptible to mildew diseases So put it in a place where there's good air circulation don't crowd it in with other plants But give it its own little space so it has good air circulation around it So those Mediterranean herbs are good if you have more sun now if you want to grow things like cilantro and basil indoors You can try to put them into a sunny window, but they're going to get kind of leggy I would suggest putting them under grow lights until This is the caveat until we get more into March and April when the days are really getting longer Then you can certainly start basil and cilantro in a window now cilantro You're probably thinking well, what's the big deal with cilantro the thing that happens with cilantro is that it'll bolt really quickly If it's not if it's under stress and not getting enough light means it's under stress a basil Of course, you know, it just needs a lot of light a lot of sunshine on it Now there certainly are a whole host of other herbs that you could try to do a lemon bombs And some people even grow beebom indoors and all these other types of herbs that you can grow inside Um as a culinary herb or a fragrance herb But I wanted to stick with these right now because these are probably the simplest and the most widely available ones to do so first thing is to assess your situation what's going on Um select the right herbs for then you want to decide how you're going to start your herbs Ideally it would be great if we could all just go to a garden center and get a plant like this This little parsley here is just really cute It's have been snipping at it for weeks if not months and it keeps growing and everyone is happy so garden centers are really doing more and more of that they are really starting to Introduce and have herb plants in so I know the rosemary plants lavender plants for example But even some of these culinary herbs they're they're getting better about carrying them into the winter So that would be my first step. I would especially this time of year since we are already at the end of February Um, you might want to start with a transplant That'll give you almost the immediate satisfaction because you can if it's a healthy plant like this parsley You could be starting to clip it, you know within a week or two of purchasing it The other option of course is to grow things from seed and there is Really a lot of different seed out there that you can grow lots of different plants as mentioned the chives Basil sage all kinds of different things the nice thing about seed is that of course it's readily available There's lots of it out there lots of varieties. Maybe you want lemon time and not regular time that kind of thing The downside of seed is well, you got to start them And this time of year it takes Sometimes two sometimes even three weeks like with parsley seed for example to get germination happening So if you quickly do the the math with the calendar, you could be well into march before you even get a seedling coming off So by the time you get something that's really going to be edible It'll be probably time to put it outside So that's just something to keep in mind when you're starting bringing things from seed This late in the season if you're starting them in the fall from seed Then you've got that whole winter to kind of nurse them along so that by this time of year you could have a full size plant So starting from transplants are starting from seed both are different options Now again kind of pointing a little bit towards the fall If you have some of these plants in your garden like chives like mint You can just take divisions of them pot them up say in september or so Let a nurse them along outside for another month or before the really cold weather comes then bring them inside And that's what I did with this this mint plant here That way you have a healthy plant in a pot ready to go You just have to be careful of course when you're bringing things inside there might be insects kind of hanging on them So you want to quarantine them away from your house plants and other plants And then kind of check them for a few weeks Then after that just let them grow now a nice thing about some of these transplants like this mint plant I'll put it a little closer here. I don't know if you can actually see in there But you probably see some of these little shoots that are coming It's a little hard to see with the lighting. Sorry about the lighting here But there are little shoots all through where my finger is here in the soil So what i'm going to do with this mint plant I didn't want to do it now Before now because I wanted to show it to you because i'm going to whack it back I'm going to cut it way back so you could cut these stems off Anywhere along the stem really you can cut it off. You can see that there's a little shoot right there coming up So you can cut it right above that that'll turn into a new stem So whenever it gets leggy like this you can actually cut it back and it'll send up shoots from the center That's the cool thing about a lot of mint Lemon balm is like that too. There's a number of plants that that send those out ebomb You know be like that too So if you wanted to make a minty for example, you could cut all of these off Dry them and then you have mint tea in fact some of these are even coming off already look at that little leaves So that's the nice thing about having a whole plant especially a perennial plant like a mint Is that it just keeps on sending up more and more shoots for you? Especially this time of year as the days are getting longer So let's talk then about Once you kind of decided which herbs and you've decided to go with seeds or with transplants depending on what you could find Let's talk about The containers that you're going to use and there's lots of different options So the the basic one that most people know about are the the plastic pots and I usually recommend like a four inch pot That has good drainage holes. You see the drainage holes there show them. There you go four inch pot Is a nice size because you can start seeds in it and they'll grow well But when the plant gets big like some of these plants like these these are four inch round pots Like these rosemary here in the sage and the parsley They'll still be fine. You can grow them right through the winter in that size pot. It works out pretty well The other option that you might want to take a look at are Cow pots these are biodegradable pots now. These are like the pea pots or cow pots They have that drainage hole too. You see it right there in the bottom And the thing about the cow pots is that you can put your plants in there And then if you're going to move them outside into the garden This is a great way to do it because you don't disturb the root system So you you put your soil in you put your seeds in or even a little transplant in there You grow it out and then come may or so when it's ready to put it into the garden You can bury the pot and all in make sure you bury this pot so that the lip here is under the soil line too Because if it's left exposed above the soil it'll wick out moisture and it'll dry out The other thing I like to do is cow pots or pea pots You know either one of those is to break them up break up the the sides of them in the bottom of them When you're transplanting them because I found that they they do break down and they do Help fertilize the plant as they break down, but they take some time to do that And in the meantime the roots get kind of constricted So by breaking it up you allow those roots to remove themselves from the pot And yet you have the pot there that is going to break down and feed your plants as you go along And then of course the other option is it's what I have here are metal pots, which is kind of the new chic thing to do The good thing about metal pots is that well They're metal You're going to have them forever once you have them They also if you have a sunny window they will heat up which is great for plants like rosemary that like the heat They have drainage holes in the bottom here. I plug this one because I have them on a tray But they do have a drainage hole in the bottom there And so they're really nice and they're more decorative So if you're starting your herbs in a kitchen or a dining room area and you want to have them Close to a window or on a table near a window This looks a little bit better than having like a plastic pot there It's kind of an aesthetic thing. It depends upon how you look at it So all these different pots have different advantages, you know The plastic pot is good for plants like parsley and mint that like more of a wet moist soil Because this one you don't have to water so much The the cow pots are good for plants that you're going to move outside You don't want to be transplanting it, you know from a ceiling to another seat to another seat Like a rosemary for example, and then these Metal pots are good for plants that like it a little bit warmer because in the sun they will heat up So you don't have to absolutely do all those types of things But it's good to know the difference in the pots and of course there's clay pots like this one That my sister in law painted for us. It's very sweet These are good for well dread plants that like well-drained. So plants like those Mediterranean herbs Because the drains the soil and wicks moisture out of it. So clay pot is good for anything like that It's why it's so good for a geranium. You might have seen So once you've got your pots then right you got all your containers then you got to put something in them and that would be Potting soil So you want to get some potting soil and you want to get Potting soil, excuse me potting soil based on How you're starting them. So if you have got little transplants from a garden center or somewhere Then you want to get regular potting soil. I would recommend an organic potting soil that has compost in it And that's really kind of the best one to use if you're starting them from seed If you're growing things from seed, you want to get something called a germinating mix Germinating mix is a little bit different in the sense that The the mix is finely milled. It's really really ground down. So it's light and fluffy It's great for small seeds like thyme and oregano and even basil seed for that matter They have very small seeds. So if you have a germinating mix, they're going to be more likely to be able to penetrate into that soil Especially when it's wet And germinate and grow faster and will drain that moisture, which is again key for any of those Mediterranean type herbs So also when you get your soil I'm gonna do a little hopefully you'll be able to see the differences here So some of the soil you get is mostly going to be with a peat moss based And peat moss of course is a material that gets mined or milled Up in bogs like in Quebec So a lot of people are kind of going away from that. I'm not sure if you can really see that very well Probably not. Well It was a good idea So the the peat moss based soil, you know, you've seen this, you know, what it looks like It's got perlite in it. It's got that white little crystals in it It's a nice one to use. It's what everyone uses But if you want to be more more environmentally responsible, you might want to try this mix. This is called quare And you can see it a little bit there. This is made from coconut husks So what they do is they in the coconut industry They found out that the coconut husk, which you normally just throw out and actually burn They found out that it makes a really good soil medium, especially for seed starting And the reason is quare is different from peat moss from the peat. The peat is what we call hydrophobic Hydrophobic sounds just like what it sounds like. It's afraid of water. It doesn't like water So you know this about peat if you've ever put it down Around your plants and then you try to water on top of dry peat moss What happens to the water? It just rushes right off. It just kind of goes away. It doesn't really soak in very easily You have to really work it into the soil Same as with your potting soil That's why I always recommend you know getting a bowl like this put your potting soil in before you're going to start seeds Put some water in and then really massage it so you get it nice and moist because if you put it in A container like this and it's dry then it's going to take a lot of energy for it to really soak into that peat So it's hydrophobic. It makes it a little harder once it's wet It tends to stay really wet which could be a good thing if you have a pot But if you have little seeds that like it well drained it may not be a great thing because it might rot those seeds So there's some things with peat moss that aren't necessarily the best for seed starting The quare that I mentioned that coconut husk material that I have here in my hand This stuff is much better because it's hydrophilic Now hydrophilic means that it likes water If you actually look at that quare under a microscope It looks like tiny little tubes that are going down through it and the water runs through it So when you moisten quare it doesn't have that kind of soppy wet moisture to it when you're moisten the quare what ends up happening Is that it just kind of runs through it so it's it's as moist as a damp sponge It's probably the best way that To describe what it's what it's like So the quare is a really good one for the seed starting because It it stays moist enough for the seeds to gather that moisture and germinate But it doesn't sit there and get really wet. It also has some other advantages For example, it pH neutral. So that's good for most plants Where peat moss tends to be more acidic and it has what we call good cation exchange capacity That's basically what it means is just taking up nutrients So if you can look for a potting mix with quare in it, even if it has peat moss and quare It's still going to be a good thing to have or you can make your own mix, of course Using quare using I would use maybe 50 50 quare and peat moss For the drainage capacity and then you can mix in the compost and other kinds of things like that So you want to have your soil all mixed up ready to go moistened pre moisten And then of course you're going to start your seeds So if you're starting say basil seeds if you ever go to garden centers, you'll notice when you buy a little little Four inch pot of basil seed. It's got probably 20 basil plants in it. It's kind of a new thing that they do in garden centers You know used to be you'd get like little six packs, you know one plant per pack But for some plants like basil, you don't have to worry about that chives are like that too Meaning that these guys are easy to transplant and they don't mind being crowded in a little pot As long as you're going to get them out of that pot and then into the ground or into a bigger pot As soon as they get to the bigger leaf stages So you're going to spread some of those seeds in the top now if you're doing things like sage for example You probably are going to want to just do maybe three or four seeds and that's about it You don't want to crowd them time and oregano the same thing Just enough that you ensure that you're going to get a couple plants in there But for the chives and the basil as I mentioned you can put in 10 seeds or so per Each one of these pots each one of these four inch pots that you have and then Put them in the window or the bright spot. So first of all I shouldn't say window because I really don't want you to put them right up against the glass because we get those cold nights Below zero nights That's really not going to be good for any of these plants these seedlings or these transplants as they're growing So put them close to a window preferably Near a window that maybe has a little table or something of that nature And gets a lot of light a lot of bright light And keep an eye on them The other thing that's really a couple things that are really important once you have them growing and germinating to keep them Looking good and not getting too leggy and also not growing too fast Keep them in a cool room a room that stays maybe in the 60s and not up around 70 or so That's going to be a way to slow down their growth Especially if you get something like this mint that really wants to grow Putting them in a cool room a little bit nice The other thing you might want to use to enhance the germination if you're going to grow them from seed is use A seed starting map and that's what this is If I can show it to you here It is a seed heating pad or a seed starting map is what it's called got all kinds of information on there But you can see it's just basically Plugged into the wall. That's all you nearly need to use for it. I love these I use this all the time for our seed starting Because I start seed down in a basement, which is cool So I really want to get the soil nice and moist those seed starting mats or steam heating mats The way they work is that you plug them in they're waterproof So they don't have to worry about them getting shorted with the electricity And they they heat up the soil About 10 to 20 degrees above what the air temperature is So if you have a 60 degree room, you're getting up to the 70s with the soil That's the perfect germination for a lot of seeds Most seeds actually like to be up around 70 when they're going to be germinating That'll quicken the germination reduce the amount of time that You might have to worry about them rotting in the soil. So you don't have to worry about that so much And you get a plant that's going to grow faster You know, even once the plant is this size if you keep it on that heating mat You'll see that it'll grow faster because that that heat really keeps the soil warm and it does dry it out a little bit So you have to be careful that you might have to water a little bit more once your seedling is up But I really like those seed Starting mats for those reasons those heating pads for those reasons I use them all during the growing season up until the plants get big enough for me to start moving outside So we have the pots. We have the soil We have ways to get them growing when you put your pots in the window You might want to look at some kind of trade system so that you can water them and not have to worry about It's spilling out onto the table or anything else. I like this one that I got locally You can see it there. This is nice because you can see it's got a little shelf here And you put the shelf inside. It's actually a self watering system But you don't really have to use it for that if you don't want Normally you would put a capillary mat on top of this and water in the reservoir But I like it just because it has that shelf there so that I can put the the plants on top of it And when I water it drains right into the reservoir That's the nice feature to have the other nice thing about this is look at the size of it It's perfect. It's like the It could sit right on a table or close to a windowsill. It doesn't take up a lot of space So these are really nice to have you might want to look around for certain trays That'll fit the pot sizes that you have those four inch size pots that you're using to grow a lot of these herbs Once you have them up and growing Um, like I said, it really kind of depends upon what you're going to do with them at that point in time So if you're growing them just to put them back outside, you know Like this time of year like a basil for example, you can just leave them in the pot and let them grow up until we get to May or so then then transplant them If you're growing them to have them indoors on a more permanent basis, then you're probably going to want to thin things out So you have one plant like this sage per pot Or the rosemary one plant per pot is really what we're looking at for some of these perennial herbs that are kind of woody Those are probably the best thing if you grow like a cilantro and you put too many in the pot That's another stressor and what that happens with those is then they bolt really quickly And you don't get many of the leaves to make your your salsa's and other kinds of great things So once it's up and growing then you probably want to Keep it well watered but also give it some fertilizer. And so there are a variety of different Products on the market. This is a gardener supply product plant health care product. That is a nice one to use We also use an espoma organic product that works really well And I like the ones you mix in with water Because every time you water or maybe every two or three times you water you put a little fertilizer in That's going to keep them growing Now you don't really need to do a lot of fertilizing from november till Well, basically it's time of year early february Because the days are so short the days are really cloudy The plants are really not growing so much really what you're trying to do during those three four months in there Three months. Let's call it three months In there is that you just want to hold your plant. You don't want to really Try to push it forward by giving it a lot of fertility a lot of fertilizer But starting now is a good time because like I said, you're seeing a lot of house plants and other plants are starting to put on new growth That's the thing you look for when you want to know about adding more fertilizer That's when you want to start doing it on a more regular basis Maybe every other or every two or three times you water put a little fertilizer in there and let them grow So hopefully this kind of gives you an idea of some of the things you want to Approach when you're starting to do some seed starting indoors It all starts with you know finding that sunny window unless you have grow lights Like I said, unless you have those grow lights a nice sunny window Then once you have that sunny window that'll help determine which herbs you want to grow Whether it be ones that can take a little bit of shade like the the mint and the parsley and And the chives that I mentioned or ones that like a little more sun like the Mediterranean herbs of rosemary and sage Or ones that like a lot of sun like basil That's all going to be dictated by what you have as far as light levels Then using the pots and the containers and the watering All is kind of part of that and starting if you can with transplants So hopefully this gives everybody an idea about how to start some indoor herbs Whether starting them now or starting them in the winter earlier in the winter to have them And just to be able to have something that you can scratch and sniff Is just great or taste like this parsley. I'm just going to take parsley is to tell you It really is parsley. It tastes like parsley So hopefully this helps you to be able to grow these herbs indoors and do it successfully