What are your hobbies in retirement? Here is one of mine.
Today I talk about gardening as a retirement hobby. Please help me learn how to farm!!
My name is Howard and my goal is to bring KZhead viewers interesting and factual information about the process of getting to retirement and living a successful retirement, through my channel, Otter's Retirement Corner. I have a degree in Finance, with an MBA from the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, along with an extensive career in financial services, credit and risk management, within the Banking industry. I have extensively studied retirement topics such as: Social Security, Medicare, investing, economics and portfolio withdrawal strategies, to name a few. My own journey getting to retirement and now living within retirement has allowed me to gain an important perspective on those topics. Note: I am not a financial planner, a tax accountant or an investment advisor and none of the material covered in my videos is intended as personal advice. My videos are for entertainment purposes.
You can email me at: retirementtalk43@gmail.com
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My hobbies are building model kits (planes, trains, automobiles), and bringing them to club meetings or shows. I do a lot of research on history, (world, American, aviation). I enjoy riding my bicycles and go on multi-days tours and I also enjoy the bike maintenance which includes building up my own bikes and wheel building. Taking long walks is another of my favorite things to do, it is great for the mind, body and soul. Plus it makes me appreciate how nice of a town I live in.
Wow. Impressive. Model railroading (HO scale) was my father’s passion and he had his layout published in a magazine. He built the buildings from scratch - not a kit. Of the course the most fun was getting together with fellow railroad modelers for various shows.
Love Otter……nice garden and backyard too. Enjoyed the outdoor video. I’m not a green thumb at all, fortunately our neighbor is a great gardener. My retirement hobbies are around outdoor activities like cycling, kayaking , paddle boarding,fishing and taking care of our cabin in the mountains……
Thanks for your comments.
Woodworking projects are my retirement hobby activities. I primarily use recycled wood for my projects or trees that have been removed. Thank you for sharing and asking. Everyone stay safe, happy and healthy. From Henrico County Virginia
norm: Thanks for watching. I am horrible at anything like woodworking. No skills whatsoever.
My hobbies are ..DIY Cars and Jeep care/repair. My yard and perennial plants (annuals are nice, however, for some reason, I'm huge into perennials: cactus, iris, daisy, etc. AND creating Landscape enhancements. Since I'm only 9 months into semi-retirement (at 63).. have not started a hobby that I was into 28 years ago: " ART " , I was doing pastel portraiture back then, now I'm thinking about water color and multi-media abstract.
Mike: Art must be soothing. I simply don't have that skill set.
Interesting to see something besides analytical Howard 😂 I’m a retired farmer so gardening has never really done much for me. Just looking I would say that your plants could possibly be a little short on nitrogen. The leaves look a little on the yellow side to me but that could just be the camera too. Too much water will make the leaves yellow as well. Food for thought 🤪 I prefer riding my e-bike or repairing vintage toys and trains. Hobbies are extremely important for retired folks.
Failure: Yeah, I figured nitrogen would be a problem because we are in a draught and I have to hand water. Rain water brings in those natural nitrogen stores. I do vegan, organic farming so I am limited to what I can add to the soil.
@@RetirementTalk43 I figured that was the case. Maybe you could find some organic poop, besides your own, that’s not recommended 😂 Good luck 👍🏼
@@FailureatRetirement Hey, it worked in the movie, "The Martian" but, my wife would rather I not do that.
@@RetirementTalk43 lol, you’re both right
That's wonderful you got so many volunteer plants!! I luv your covered swimming pool. Ingenous! You may want to get a few ducks and a tiny makeshift pond to give them. Their manure would be very handy and they are wonderful pets if you raise them from birth, very tame
Tom: Pet ducks are Otter? Very dangerous.
Great video. My personal hobby is learning foreign languages. Now that I am retired you would think I have more time for it. However, my wife's hobby is gardening and that takes precedence!!! I spend a couple hours a day getting coffee grounds, tea bags, and banana peels for her compost bins and worms. If you have not tried, the worm tea and worm compost truly seem to make a difference. Even an uninterested amateur like me can see the difference in the plants. She did an experiment with planting the same stuff in her compost versus compost and fertilizer from the hardware store (don't want to say the name). The plants in the worm compost went nuts while the store-bought compost /soil barely sprouted. Our yard is a jungle (Florida). I recommend growing loofahs (yup they are a plant) and everglades tomatoes. They are insanely delicious. And you can grow them year-round as understand it. She produces way more than we can eat.
We love our Loquat tree. Easy grower and great tasting fruit.
dennis: I've heard of loquat but can't say I have ever seen one.
@@RetirementTalk43 They are also called Japanese Plum. People use them as ornamental evergreen shrubs and trees. The fruit looks like big yellow grapes and tastes like a cross between an apricot and cherry. Just pick them early, because birds & squirrels love them.
We have about 3/4 of an acre of block which is mainly covered in gardens. We have to have our vegies and a fair few of our fruit trees under cover/protection otherwise the critters eat everything. I've been organic gardening to greater or lesser degrees for quite a while now and we produce quite a bit of stuff at various times of the year. I have to prepare a large bed soon as the yearly Garlic crop is due to go in now. My hobbies seem to be whatever I feel like doing on any given day. I'm also thinking about my next camping/4wd trip which will need to be soon before the weather turns. Seems I do a lot more cooking these days now that I have more time on my hands. As soon as we get some rain I will be able to do some campfire type cooking down the back again which will be nice.
oldbloke: I love cooking but I hate the cleanup so, I don't cook very much. I'll cook my lunches for the week all at once. I typically have salad for dinner.
@@RetirementTalk43 Yeah we often do the same. We find that slow cookers are great and much easier to clean than an oven etc. We're doing a Lamb Roast in one today and we often do stews/soups etc as well which are fairly easy and a one pot sort of dealy. Big batches of Fried Rice or Noodle creations are also great. My wife will make a big pot of Soup, usually Pea and Ham, which we freeze and I take it for the first night's meal when I go camping with mates. Some fresh Bread rolls and hot soup around the campfire is great and is usually demanded by my camping mates.
Looks great! Love the trees! What about an olive tree? We love to grow scallions because we use them in everything! Mashed potatoes, potato salad, eggs! Good job!
Thanks, Marcy. We are out of room for more trees. My wife got her choices on the trees.
My hobbies are photography, amateur radio, bicycling, walking, reading, and electronic experimentation (can’t keep an engineer away from tinkering).
Sounds like you have a well rounded set of hobbies.
Mr Howard, Otter wants a larger yard so if you make your garden any larger he just might start digging some real big holes . 🤣Whenever I plant vegetables I always fortify the soil with bone meal and peat. By the look of your soil it looks like you're in Central or SW Florida so that should help. For myself, the homestead is in Michigan and just a part timer in Florida. Every time I plant anything edible in Michigan its consumed by the Deer or the Bunnies. My retirement hobby turned into a sideline fun business, I am a Gold and Silver Coin dealer. And yes, my wife and I like to cook and that's how are German Shorthair insists on home cooked meals.
MtoF: We're vegan and organic so limited as to what we can add to the soil. Our soil is very sandy. As for animals eating our crops, well, they have to eat too. If they want it that badly, they probably need it more than I do.
Michigan here also. Raised beds I have, deer have t bothered them yet. *Yet. 😂
I love your garden and fruit trees!
Thank you, tree.
Florida gardening is a challenge ! Your garden plot looks large and nice. Good luck with the banana pup.. have six very old banana trees.. ignore them and yield lots of small bananas on alternate years. It is great to eat off your own land! Star fruit is a good choice!
Thanks, Lisa. Star fruits were delicious and the tree is only about 3 feet tall.
My hobbies are my garden, food, sime flowers. We camp & travel un winter montbs. I make homemade cards & love to bake, read, walk. Hubby golfs, akways working around the property & loves to camp. He does sime woodworking, akways repurposing something.
Kellie: You guys sound very busy.
Horse Racing and Wagering ! Going to the Race track and wagering on the horses ! Nice solar panels on the roof.
Thanks, Scott.
I heard carrots grow great with 50% sand as their soil/dirt combo. I forgot if the remaining is compost or what so check that out. It should be cheaper, we have sand on the side of our roads left by the county so we'll grab some next time and try it. You MUST grow potatoes, you just cut out the eyes and toss back in and eat the remaining 50% of the potato. It duplicates itself so they eventually are free. Go to the local food bank and ask if they have any old organic veges they'd otherwise toss out. They may hook you up monthly to pick that up for more compost. Old Orchards were a fantastic resource for is, or current ones which let you pick old fruit off the ground for your compost.
Truckee: We have plenty of compost. We just have the live seed problem within that compost. Our soil is very sandy. Maybe that's why the carrots are doing so well.
That was extremely interesting, I love plants and gardening, but currently live in town, so my plants consist of a couple...lol However, my main hobby/interest and what I would love to continue doing in retirement is oil painting, I've taken oil painting classes at the local community college for about ten years now, and I know this will give me many happy hours in retirement!..Love your trees!
Thanks for watching and your comments, Lora.
I liked your back yard. I planted a lot of things on my 3 acres in North Carolina. I have finally achieved success in growing lettuce year round and having salad every day for lunch and supper. In 95 degree weather, I start seeds indoors in sand under cheap led lights. After 1 week, I transplant seedlings into 10cup peat moss/ 1cup garden soil (screened)/ 1Tbsn wood ash (from my burning pile) mixture. After several more weeks, I transplant seedling outdoors. I use poles and ropes and bricks to support shade cloth (or plastic sheets in freezing weather) to form tent like covers over my raised beds. I water often, except in winter.
I tried starting seeds inside with peat/soil mixture. They sprouted quickly but everything died very quickly too. So now everything starts right in the ground. We need to plant lettuce because we eat a lot of it. Hard to find room for everything though. Will probably try in the fall.
Maybe grow some things in containers 🤷? Do you ever put mulch around your plants? Sometimes it helps keep moisture in the ground. Your carrots looked like they're thriving. I just planted seeds for the first time, not holding my breath.
@@kellie6149 I had mulch around all the trees but Otter loved to eat it so, had to stop that.
Mr. Howard, you are fabulous!
@@FWM50 Awwwwww, shucks.
I’m a soon to be retiree… My main hobby is sports card collecting.. modern, vintage and pre-war… I need to find more hobbies once I’m retired.. I’m looking at joining a book club, flying drones, and tutoring younger people in software engineering… which is my career.. pass it on I guess...
lee: What to buy a Bob Uecker rookie card?
I had a garden but the deer here ate everything for years I gave up ! I have one peach tree left out of two and they do produce fruit but the squirrels knock the not yet ripe fruit off the trees and the deer finish the job.........Hey It ain't easy being me.........I feel like the Rodney Dangerfield.
Take my wife….please!
No hobbies right now. most likly why i am bored to death 2 years into retirement. I don't have room for a garden. I do love doing my yard work each week.
If you are in reasonable shape, you can take up refereeing for high school and middle school sports. They all need it. Most sports are relatively easy to learn and you are older so the screaming parents should be easy to ignore.
My main hobby is riding my road bike, mtn bike, tandem and fat bike during the winter months. Other hobby is flying rc gliders when I get time. I'd like to get back into flying full size sailplanes or maybe take up paragliding. We don't grow much but I do enjoy cutting the grass like Forrest Gump. Take care
Paragliding!! There you go.
I keep tropical fish and box turtles. I like riding my trike, singing, and video games. My wife is the chef and gardener.
I wish someone would cook for me.
@@RetirementTalk43It's really nice. The one thing I make is hummus.
@@dancurran8977 I LOVE hummus. Always comes out too watery when we make it though. I have to keep working on that.
Hobbies. Forestry,gardening,studying finance (Howard),agronomy,volunteer,family. Bananas grow on banana plants (not a tree). If you have tomatoes and onions then you must have peppers for salsa..plants need soil water nutrients. But also climate or zone adaptation. If you are in California and your trash tomato seeds were grown in California they should be well adapted. If I bought a California grown tomato and planted that seed in Iowa it might not work. Nothing like the satisfaction of plucking your own stuff in the back yard (or foraging in the woods) and eating/enjoying it. That feeling of some self sufficiency.
Thanks for the correction on the banana plant.
Since retirement I do containers gardening, works best for me. Tomatoes, herbs, walking onions, potatoes, keeps me busy, the side of my house is all perennials daisies and others so I can cut and bring in house
Year-round or, seasonal?
Seasonal here on cape cod mass
Is Otter a Lab? We had a Chocolate Lab and he is the same color, but his tale looks different. Love Big Dogs. :) We found it's too hot in Florida for a Garden in the Summer.
Otter is part Chocolate. His ears are different from a Chocolate though so there is something else in there. Maybe Pittie.
Well......I have 5 motorcycles, 1970 Mach1, a camper van and pickup to pull my bass boat, a car for trips and a little 4X4 Tracker. Gas and oil changes on me . House in the mountains to maintain and kids to soil. Hunt, fish and 4 guitars to keep in tune..........Can I borrow a few hours a day from anyone?
vince: No, I don't have any time to sell but, do you want to buy a Moto Guzzi?
@@RetirementTalk43 I am an international kinda guy I have 2 BMW's ........WHat Guzzi do you have? GRISO .......V7 ?
@@vincentdsnt 2004 Moto Guzzi California EV Touring
Hyway Patrol@@RetirementTalk43
Try peppers in container
Yeah, that failed too. I used a peat/soil mixture. They sprouted quickly but died after a few days.
I used to live in central Fl. We moved further up the coast. My dh wouldn’t put in any trees after we lost an entire forest behind our home. I purchased a fig cutting about a foot tall a few years ago. It survived my sons small racing truck and is now about 3 or 4 ft. Produces figs.
@@dtraveler3080 Figs, huh? A little too sweet for me.
Don’t look now but there’s a well respected neuroscientist at Penn that is on board with just about everything Cowboy Tim has said about aging! He went so far as to say that if he gets cancer at 75 he’s not getting chemotherapy! It appears Tim isn’t as Dopey as most critics say he is! If you listen closely to what Tim has to say- he is broaching intellectual insights he’s not quite given credit for. Tim’s main point is that we do a self- appraisal of sorts. “ How much time do we realistically have to do the things we always wanted- and will we have the same amount of energy and enthusiasm at 62 than at 72 or 75. Howard’s approach is more didactic- like the oldest boy in the family birth order. While Tim appears to have a hybrid of both the oldest child and the youngest- in the familial birth order. This could well be since Tim mentioned something about being a part of a blended family. ❤
Raymond: You know you have gone off the deep end when you start to try to make sense of things said by ST.
@@RetirementTalk43 lol
I get up about 530 every morning get cleaned up and take my dog to the dog park and walk a couple of miles or more almost every day. Exciting life. 😂
Hahahaha. Lucky dog. We live too far from the dog park so only go on the weekends.
@@RetirementTalk43 I’m only 2 miles away
Oh oh …. Central fl from where? I smile because you are doing what most every newly located Floridian does……plants a bunch of fruit trees 😂. Having fruit is nice but you will soon find that having an abundance of fruit trees will be a curse(in many ways) . Also, stick to native species , you’ll be happier in the long run . I like species that bring in butterflies and birds. Native species are rather boring at times but will tolerate Florida’s weather such as drought and cold temperatures.
mchell: Most recently, from the Phoenix area.
You need alot of mulch on all you fruit trees and be aware that spinach tree is very evasive ....
I had a lot of mulch around the trees but Otter kept eating it so we had to let that go.
Oliver Wendell Douglas!
Solar panels! DEMOCRAT !!! 😂😂 I planted a peach orchard not expecting anything to survive- since the soil where I live is salty, sandy and not ideal, but all the trees I planted are bearing fruit!
Good to hear!
@@RetirementTalk43 I am also painting the house for the 3rd time in 6 years! This time I got some color coordination advice from a professional painter. The third time should be a charm! If I have to paint the house a fourth time I’m going to scream! As for the lawn, I have given it up to the bees! It’s all crabgrass and wildflowers. I tried to get a decent lawn for 5 years but it’s hopeless and I don’t want to deal with anymore chemicals, Howard. The people I bought the house from were not diligent about lawn maintenance.
@@raymonddeflaviis2306 I get cha. I am currently trying to get some grass growing in the front.
Watching my financial advisor SS Timmy fall off the barstool when he’s whiskey drunk 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂‼️
Do you live in the desert?
Central FL
@@RetirementTalk43 Sarasota Tim didn’t stop by and see you? Damn. 😂
@@llhouser1 I wish!!