This is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com.
I'm grateful we have a break in the weather.
It's been raining for like the last 2 days straight and I haven't been able to get out
to do a show for you guys, but I'm back today, and we're going to talk about an important
subject that both you and I ad our plants are made of, and that's calcium.
Calcium is a real important nutriment.
It's like the backbone to our plants and literally it is the backbone to us.
Calcium is the most abundant mineral in the body.
You know, our bones, our teeth, you know, we need calcium to be strong.
Many people in our society or many companies would want you to think, 'hey, drink milk
for calcium!'
Do we need to get calcium from our milk?
You know what, let me tell you something.
The bok choy right here in front of you that I grew has 4 times as much calcium as milk.
4 times!
So there's 4 times as much calcium than the milk by calorie.
So, do you want to eat something that has 4 times the amount of calcium or 1 time?
So, bok choy has way more calcium than the milk.
Alright, so now I'm standing here in front of my broccoli, and did you know that broccoli
has 2 times the amount of calcium by calorie as milk does?
So, that's 2 times the amount of calcium, twice as much, in broccoli.
So, this is broccoli that is going to flower.
You know, the heads usually are tighter then they start to open up and start to flower,
but, you know, these are edible.
It tastes just like broccoli and the one thing you don't know about, that most people don't
know about, is that these are the broccoli leaves.
They look like kale leaves and you can use them as such.
You can eat them raw or juice 'em or blend 'em, cook 'em up or whatever, but, you know,
they have 2 times as much calcium as milk by calorie.
So, I'm sitting here next to some of my favorite green sin the world.
These are collards.
I'm not sure, but these are probably Georgia collards.
I love Georgia collards.
They're one of my favorites.
You can use them as wraps or a variety of other things, but guess how much calcium collards
have.
Well, they have almost 3 times as much calcium as milk.
Now we're in my back yard and one of my favorite greens that's really rich in calcium: arugula.
So, this is my arugula.
It's starting to go to flower now.
Some of the ones in the front have already gone to flower now, and actually some of the
ones in the front have actually gone to seed pod, they're actually making seed pods now.
These are some arugula leaves, and this stuff is really rich in calcium.
It's probably one of the richest plant sources of calcium.
This has 6 times more calcium than milk by calorie.
So, arugula's really rich in calcium, and the other things is, you saw, you know, arugula
has 6 times, bok choy has 4 times, collards have 3 times, broccoli has 2 times, and, you
know, while these leafy greens that I mentioned have more calcium than milk, many other leafy
greens, you know plants, fruits and vegetables, also have calcium, but these are the extreme
examples that have a lot more than milk.
While we're talking about that, I want to ask, what is the calcium in the milk come
from?
Well, it comes from the cow, right?
Well, yes, the milk comes out of the cow, but the cow didn't just automatically make
the calcium.
I mean, people can't really make minerals happen.
I wish.
So, the cow got the calcium from somewhere.
So, in nature cows would naturally eat grass, for example.
So, cows eat grass, and grass has calcium.
We can also eat grass.
I don't recommend doing that unless maybe you're juicing it, but the cow is getting
the calcium from the grass, it's processing, and it gives the milk the calcium that is
from the grass.
So, we could eat the grass or other plants to get the calcium first hand instead of getting
the calcium second-hand.
That is what the show's about today.
Growing your calcium.
So, have you ever taken a calcium supplement?
I mean, that's where we're supposed to get our calcium form, right?
A supplement.
Well, maybe not.
Maybe we should be getting calcium form our foods, and, you know, as I've mentioned, all
our foods, you know, a lot the greens have calcium, and actually a lot more calcium than
milk as I've just share with you, but where does the plant get its calcium from?
Well, the plants get calcium from the soil.
So, it's very important that you soil is nutritious for the plants.
If you're just growing in, the extreme example could be, sand or clay, there's not a lot
of nutrition in that.
So, you want to be adding some calcium back into the soil so your plants will have nutrition.
I mean, calcium's just one mineral.
There's so many minerals on the earth.
The question is, 'should I even be adding minerals back into my soil, John?'
Well, I have this here, and this is actually form the 74th congress senate.
This is actually a document form the santé, document 274 form the 74th congressional section.
Let's see, June 1st, 1936, by the United States government printing office.
1936, Washington D.C.
So, according to this document here, printed in 1936, it's basically about minerals and
how our soils are devoid of minerals.
I'll just read the last paragraph here, for fun.
It goes on to say that, you know, the soils are devoid of minerals, and the last paragraph
is this.
'The public can help.
It can hasten the change.'
So, they're saying, you know, we really need to act on the soils deficient minerals, and
that the public can help, and here's how.
'How?
By demanding quality in its food.
By insisting that our doctors and our health departments establish standards of nutritional
value.'
Which we know they did.
We have the USDA and the food pyramid and we have what the recommended daily allowance
is, and it says, 'the growers will quickly respond.
They can put back those minerals almost over night and by doing so they can actually make
money by bigger and better crops.
It is simpler to cure sick soils than sick people.
Which shall we choose?'
I don't know, do we have sick soils or sick people in our society today?
Well, I don't know.
There's a lot of sickness.
Healthcare was a big debate.
I'm not even going to get into that, but, you know, healthcare's huge and part of the
problem may be that there's not enough minerals in the soils.
We've been 3 major minerals back into the soils.
NPK, which is what major growers do and they a lot of herbicides, pesticides, fungicides,
and all kinds of other things just to make the crops grow, and it gives them pretty good
yields, but there has been companies I've heard, you know, some companies like, well
I won't mention any name, but some big organic companies that started to grow carrots using
rock dust, and this is just one kind of rock dust, Azomite, which adds minerals back into
the soil, and their yields actually, I won't say went through the roof, but actually significantly
increase and were actually viable so that they actually now use rock dust as a standard
practice form what I hear, because it increased their yields and made it financially viable
to put in their fields and made the crop much more than the price or the rock dust, or adding
the rock dust minerals back into the soil.
I've been a big advocate of rock dust, you know, for as long as I've been growing because
of my friend Don Weaver.
You can check out his website, remineralize.org for some information on rock dust.
I will soon also be having a show specifically on the rock dust that adds not only the calcium
but also all the other minerals and how much rock dust should you add?
Because this is literally powdered rock, it's not just rock, it's how minerals naturally
occur in the soil, you now, that the rocks were ground up and put into the soil.
A recommended application rate according to the manufacturers is like 1 pound per every
10 square feet or you might do 1 and half or 2 pounds to make it go a little but higher,
but I do a little but more than that.
So, I also have here some shell flour, and this is a calcium supplement.
So, I do recommend that you get your soils tested and if your soils don't have enough
calcium in 'em to add specifically a calcium supplement.
I was surprised because I'd been adding rock dust all these years and I still didn't have
enough calcium in my soils for optimal production and optimum soil fertility because soil fertility
is very important because the rock dust has just, you know a percentage.
1.8% of calcium, so it's really not that much.
These are, once again, trace minerals.
It's not going to do anything for you if you have really, you know, off the charts or really
abnormal low amounts of a mineral.
So, that's why I'm going to get the oyster shell calcium which is just basically ground
up oyster shells and other shells, and this is actually locally produce in Panouma, and
that's just 10 miles away.
So, it can be more sustainable because it's a locally grown product.
I'm going to add this calcium back to my soils, but I'm also goanna raise my bricks.
I did have one episode about raising bricks and I hope to have a couple more talking about
bricks, but bricks is not only the sheer content and taste of your produce, but also the mineral
content of the produce.
You can tell that by looking a bricks test.
So, hopefully you've learned more today about calcium and why your soils need calcium and
how you can grow your own calcium in your garden and maybe not need to drink as much
milk.
This is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com, with Chico.
He wants to say hi.
Say hi Chico.
Alright, so we'll see you next time.