Gardening

Hello everyone and welcome to EnglishPod.

My name is Marco.

My name is Catherine and today we're going outside for our lesson.

That's right.

Today we are gardening.

We are going to set up our own garden.

Okay, that means growing plants and maybe even food.

So let's take a listen to this dialogue and we'll be back in a moment to talk more about

it.

I've decided to grow my own garden.

What?

You don't know the first thing about gardening.

On the contrary, I've been reading a lot of books about the subject.

Oh yeah?

Tell me then, smarty pants.

How will you go about setting up your garden?

Well, first I need to buy some things such as fertilizer, seeds and tools.

What type of tools?

You know, the basics.

A rake, shovel, spade and a hoe.

Right.

Well it seems like you have all your bases covered.

What's next?

I'll till the soil and then sow the seeds.

I'll then add some fertilizer and voila, gardening all done.

Well, good luck with your garden, especially considering we're in the dry season and it

won't rain for the next three months.

All right, we're back.

So a lot of vocab related to gardening.

We mentioned a lot of tools and we're going to explain a lot of those now on Language

Takeaway.

Okay, so gardening has some very special tools, like you said, Marco.

The first one is one that I am not, well, it's actually not a tool, it's a part of gardening,

something that we use to help the plants grow and I really don't like it because it smells

bad.

Exactly.

It smells kind of bad and it has a very strong smell and that is called fertilizer.

Fertilizer.

So basically, fertilizer is something that you use in your garden to help the plants

grow better.

Right, I think it has a lot of vitamins and minerals that the plant needs to grow better,

faster, stronger.

Exactly, fertilizer.

Okay, good.

Well, now we're going to mention four tools that we use in gardening, basic tools.

The first one being a rake.

A rake.

Rake.

Rake.

So a rake is actually something that's very common in most houses, especially houses with

a yard or a garden.

It's not just a gardening tool, but it is something that has a long handle and we use

it to clear the ground of rocks or leaves.

Right, so just imagine it's kind of like a big brush for your garden.

It is.

It collects things, right?

Right, it's like a big brush that's pulling things out of the ground or away from the

ground, especially in the fall, like October or November when all the leaves fall off.

Like October or November when all the leaves fall off the trees and you have to take them

off the grass, you use a rake to pull them.

So you use a rake to pull them and you also call the action of using a rake, you say,

you rake the garden.

To rake, that's right.

To rake the leaves.

I hate raking the leaves.

Alright, and now the other tool that we have is very common, not only in gardening, but

for construction work, for many things.

You have a shovel.

Shovel.

So a shovel is basically a big metal spoon.

And you use it to make a hole in the ground.

Exactly.

So, as we say, we use it a lot in gardening to make holes for maybe the plants, but also

in construction, if you want to make a hole in the ground, things like this, you use a

shovel.

And now a smaller version of the shovel that you use only with your hand, this is called

a spade.

A spade.

Now this is very small, like you said, and it's actually special because of its shape.

A spade has a point.

A shovel is round and a spade has a point.

And what's interesting, Marco, is it's actually very common somewhere else.

In cards.

That's right, in cards.

So cards have different shapes.

One is a heart, one is a diamond.

One of them is a spade.

So the one that's pointy, that's called a spade, and it's used for digging kind of precision

holes.

Right, exactly.

So you don't want to use a big shovel if you want to make maybe a small hole in the ground,

you would use a spade.

And now our last tool has kind of a funny spelling.

It's H-O-E, and it's pronounced hoe.

Hoe.

So again, this is a tool with a very long handle, and you use it to maybe make the ground

softer or to turn up the ground.

So when you're first starting to plant a garden, the ground is very hard, very tough, right?

And this is a really important tool for that period because you can basically turn up the

ground.

You're not digging anything, but you're mixing up the dirt a little bit to make it softer.

Okay, very good.

So that's when you use this tool.

It's kind of a dirt or a soil mixer.

You can also pull out those nasty weeds with a hoe.

Okay, good.

So four key tools that we've just taken a look at now.

But now let's move on to two verbs that are basically very important when you're talking

about gardening and all this.

As you mentioned, you talked about mixing the soil.

And in the next line, we see that it says, I'll till the soil.

To till.

Okay, so basically this is a way of turning up that soil, but you're doing it kind of

in lines, right?

So you're mixing up the soil and making it soft.

You're preparing the soil for planting.

And so you till the soil.

Soil of course, in this case, is that dirt.

It's earth.

Right, it's earth.

So to till is to prepare it for planting.

Till the soil, that's right.

To till the soil, okay.

And what do we do after the soil has been tilled?

Well then we sow the seeds.

Okay, so seeds are baby plants basically.

And we sow the seeds.

When we sow the seeds, we're putting the seeds into the ground.

So that's basically planting the seeds.

You can say we plant the seeds or we sow the seeds.

And the opposite of sowing?

The opposite of sowing is reaping.

R-E-A-P, to reap.

So we actually have a phrase in English.

This is very, very famous, very common.

We say, you reap what you sow.

You reap what you sow, that's right.

So you basically collect what you planted and that's kind of what you do in life.

So we say if you haven't planted anything good, you're not going to reap anything good.

Exactly.

It's a very popular phrase.

All right, so we've covered a lot of vocab here.

Why don't we go back, listen to the dialogue again, and we'll be back with Fluency Builder.

I've decided to grow my own garden.

What?

You don't know the first thing about gardening.

On the contrary, I've been reading a lot of books about the subject.

Oh yeah?

Tell me then, smarty pants.

How will you go about setting up your garden?

Well, first I need to buy some things such as fertilizer, seeds, and tools.

What type of tools?

You know, the basics.

A rake, shovel, spade, and a hoe.

Right.

Well, it seems like you have all your bases covered.

What's next?

I'll till the soil and then sow the seeds.

I'll then add some fertilizer and voila, gardening all done.

Well, good luck with your garden, especially considering we're in the dry season and it

won't rain for the next three months.

All right, we're back and we have four phrases for you on Fluency Builder and we're going

to take a look at those now.

Fluency Builder.

This first phrase is useful in any conversation, I think, especially if you're trying to impress

somebody.

So basically, one person in this dialogue says, you know what, you don't know the first

thing about gardening.

That means you don't know anything about gardening.

And what does he say in response?

On the contrary.

On the contrary.

So the contrary means the opposite.

So basically this means the opposite is true.

Right.

You're basically saying, I disagree.

What you are saying is false.

It's actually the opposite.

So maybe I have a feeling, Marco, that it's going to rain tomorrow.

Actually, on the contrary, I saw in the news that it's going to be very sunny tomorrow.

Oh, well, that's good news.

So that's a way of maybe politely disagreeing with someone or saying to someone that, well,

you're wrong.

It's actually the opposite of what you're saying.

Okay.

Moving on to our second phrase, it's actually a colloquial way of kind of making fun of

someone when you say, all right, then, smarty pants.

Okay, smarty pants.

Don't think about this too much.

We're not talking about pants, actually.

But this is a way of saying, okay, if you're so smart, then tell me that.

It's sarcasm.

It's sarcasm.

Exactly.

So this person says, oh, actually, I know a lot about gardening.

And the other person says, oh, really, smarty pants.

So you can actually describe a person in this way.

Maybe a person that thinks they know a lot or sometimes what you say, a Mr. Know-it-all.

You also say, it's a smarty pants.

Right.

A person that thinks they know a lot or everything even.

Right.

Mr. Know-it-all or a smarty pants.

All right.

And our third phrase is interesting because we have a setup here.

When the person says, how will you go about setting up your garden?

Right.

Okay.

So to go about doing something.

There's two important parts of this.

So Marco, the first part is how you go about.

This means how you do.

Right.

So you can say, how will you do this?

What's your approach?

What's your approach?

So how will you go about plus and then the verb in ing.

So how will you go about setting up your garden?

How will you start or what is your approach to creating your garden?

So maybe Marco, you want to write a book and I can ask you, well, how will you go about

starting your book?

Right.

Or if I'm writing a book, you can say, how will you go about investigating for your book?

So what is the approach you're going to take?

How will you do it?

How do you plan on, how do you plan on doing something?

Exactly.

And our final phrase here is a very commonly used for all sorts of situations.

Basically if a person is prepared, you say, well, you have all your bases covered.

Okay.

This is a great phrase.

It comes right from sports.

Very common in English to have sports phrases.

This comes from the sport baseball.

Right.

So in baseball, the field is a diamond.

There are four corners or four bases and the runners have to go from one base to the other

one, two, three, four, and then they get a point.

But in this case we're saying the other team, they have their bases covered.

That means they're protecting their bases.

And in speech we say, if you have your bases covered, like you said, Marco, you're very

well prepared.

Right.

So you're, you're ready, you're prepared.

You have really planned out and thought of what you're going to do.

So you have all your bases covered.

So Marco, for example, you just told me that it's going to be sunny tomorrow, but I think

it still might rain.

So to have all my bases covered, I'm going to bring an umbrella anyway.

Just in case.

Just in case.

Or maybe you have a presentation at work and you've prepared your PowerPoint presentation.

You have your, your drawings, your copies, you have everything ready.

You have all your bases covered for that meeting.

That's right.

Okay.

So why don't we go back and listen to our dialogue for the last time and we'll be back

to talk a little bit more.

I've decided to grow my own garden.

What?

You don't know the first thing about gardening.

On the contrary, I've been reading a lot of books about the subject.

Oh yeah?

Tell me then, smarty pants.

How will you go about setting up your garden?

Well, first I need to buy some things such as fertilizer, seeds and tools.

What type of tools?

You know, the basics.

A rake, shovel, spade and a hoe.

Right.

Well it seems like you have all your bases covered.

What's next?

I'll till the soil and then sow the seeds.

I'll then add some fertilizer and voila, gardening all done.

Well good luck with your garden, especially considering we're in the dry season and it

won't rain for the next three months.

All right, we're back.

So gardening is actually a very popular thing in many countries.

I know many people as well who prefer to have their own personal garden to grow their own

vegetables which they say taste a lot different from the ones you buy at the supermarket.

They do.

I think personally that home grown vegetables, so vegetables that you grow yourself, tend

to taste a lot better than the ones you get in the grocery store.

They also look different.

They're not as pretty, but that's because they have less chemicals.

I think it's a very popular thing and well not only gardening your own vegetables but

some people just enjoy it as a hobby to have some plants and different types of things

in their backyard.

Yeah, many people say it's very relaxing.

You get to go outside, you're in the sunshine, it's a very calming activity.

It seems like it's very relaxing.

A little bit boring at times.

Basically you're waiting for your plants to grow, but I imagine that once they do, you've

accomplished it, it must be great to see that you've actually brought life.

I'm sure.

Like 20 minutes every day is not so bad.

Yeah.

It's actually a very interesting hobby and we want to know if in your country, in your

town, do you have enough space for a garden?

Do you like gardening or maybe growing your own food?

I think that's a very interesting topic.

Yeah, let us know what you think.

Do you do this?

Yeah, I do.

Our website is EnglishPod.com.

We hope to see you there.

All right.

Bye.

Have a nice time.