Alright! This is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com. Today I've got another exciting episode for
you, we're here in Gardena California, that's down in Los Angeles and we're here for a very
special reason. We're at one of my favorite nurseries in all of Southern California.
It's actually called the Centrose Nursery and we're here today for one very important
reason because this is one of the only places that I've ever found that sells full size,
mature both green and purple tree collards, tree collards are my number one recommended
vegetable that you guys plant in your yard and I'm glad they've been growing and propagating
these for many years now. So what we're going to do actually is we're going to go into Centrose,
share with you guys the tree collards, more about the tree collards, plus another few
unique crops that they're offering here. Alright so now we're going to look at one
of the unique plants that they're selling here, actually a vegetable crop that's also
known as a perennial edible vegetable much like the tree collards, literally here in
Southern California if you don't get a frost, you guys plant these guys once and you'll
basically have them forever. What this is here, it's right here check it out. This is
the cholesterol lowering plant. It says "This amazing plant has lowered the cholesterol
of hundreds of customers. Simply eat three raw leaves a day."
What we're looking at here are these guys and this is called the gynura, and I believe
this is a a gynura procumbens and I'm actually growing this at home, they sell the plants
here. This is easily propagated by cuttings. Now besides the standard green variety they
also have the, a purple variety and the leaf actually shape is a little bit different these
are a little bit more jagged edged leaves, but check it out these are purple in the bottom.
I would recommend you guys actually grow both these varieties because one maybe more hearty
than the other and the health benefits of these guys may be similar or maybe even a
little bit different. I want to always encourage you guys to eat
a diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables, the solution in my opinion to having high
cholesterol is not maybe necessarily eating leaves from a cholesterol lowering plant but
to change your diet so that you don't have high cholesterol in the first place. No plant
food in the whole world will, does ever contain cholesterol, you can only get cholesterol
through animal products, through meats, chicken, fish, eggs, dairy products, yogurt, cheeses,
ice creams, all those things have cholesterol and it gives us access cholesterol when eating
in too high of quantity. Our bodies can make our own cholesterol provided
your eating a very good balanced diet. So we don't need to be eating any extra. But
just in case if you do you may want to grow some of these guys which may help your cholesterol
but definitely if it was me I would make some dietary changes and eat more plants.
One of the things about the Centrose Nursery here is out on the sign actually it says headquarters
for vegetables and they definitely have lots of vegetable plants that they're offering
here. What I think is really neat is it's a place where urban gardeners and growers
that want to grow at home can come for a whole bunch of different varieties and selections
of vegetables. I think it's far too common in this day and age that places that sell
plant starts have very limited scope of varieties they offer because they're depending on the
distribution chain to give them plants to sell. I like Centrose here because actually
they propagate and start some of their plants to have the things like the tree collards
that can be very rare. Here we're in their section of a whole bunch
of different vegetable starts. We're looking at arugula and lettuces and oreganos and basils
and cilantro, all kinds of stuff here. While these are really cool, most of these guys
will go through life cycle. What does that mean? It means you're going to plant this
guy, it's going to grow, you'll be able to harvest off it, it'll actually go to flower,
set seed and then poof, it's done. Then you got to start it over, you got to plant a new
plant. A much better way to grow food in my opinion is a perennial edible vegetable like
the tree collards. So actually let's take a look at those next.
So these are the perennial tree collards, these are probably my favorite vegetable in
the whole world, if I had to just pick one because they are literally maintenance free
for the most part. You plant them once, they keep growing and growing, you could keep eating
and eating. This is how nature works and this is how I think we should be all growing vegetables.
The plants that literally continue to grow and provide you food each and every day. This
is especially good for people that want to be able to grow their own food but not have
to tend to their garden all the time. Literally you could take one of these small guys here,
just in little four inch containers right, plant this in a large, half a wine barrel
or big nursery pot and have this guy grow ten plus feet tall, every single day it grows
new leaves, you can harvest the leaves make delicious salads, make delicious green smoothies,
make delicious vegetable juices out of them and really enjoy them.
Now one of the cool things is they have two different varieties here, they have both a
green tree collard variety and a purple tree collard variety. I've been growing the purple
for much longer than I have the green and they both have their pros and cons. The greens
tend to get very tall, up the single trunk. So this is very easy to stake, train and control
so it could a nice large tree. On the flip side the leaves on the greens
tend to be larger and tend to taste a little bit more stronger. So if you like a nice strong
collard leaf the green one is your baby. Now if you like things a little bit sweeter like
I do the purple one's your baby. The leaves can also get quite big but they're generally
sweeter and both these are sweeter in the winter time when it's colder out.
Now I have grown these in a mild climate like zone 9 and 9a, they last year round no problem.
The question always comes up John will this handle the snow. Well I do know I have a friend
that had the tree collards out in like two days of snow and some cold weather and it
was alright, but would it sustain a forever permafrost or covered with snow or months
I have no idea. I would suggest if you do live in a climate
that does get quite cold to plant them in pots, have them outside in the summer and
bring them inside in the winter or minimally plant some outside and then take a few cuttings
and keep those growing in the winter so you won't lose your genetics. That's another cool
thing about these guys how these guys are propogated from cuttings because these rarely
if ever go to seed, although I have had some of mine seed on me.
I guess the next thing is let's go ahead and take a look at some of these guys that are
much more mature and older and how beautiful and how tall and how much food they actually
produce. So here's some tree collards in larger containers. As you guys can see here's a one
gallon. Now as the container size moves up you're going to pay more here at the nursery.
So the one gallons are more expensive than the four inchers and the twenty-five gallons
are more expensive than the one gallons. I always encourage you guys to buy the largest
plant in the largest container that you can afford, so because you know what that's going
to save you time, if you get the smaller plant it'll grow into that bigger plant but it's
going to take a lot longer to do so, why not get an established mature plant that's already
putting out, I like plants that put out, that are putting out for you so you could get more
leafy greens, dark leafy greens in your diet. Dark leafy greens and leafy green vegetables
are the most nutrient dense food on the planet. What is nutrient dense mean? This means that
it has the most level of nutrition including phytochemicals and phytonutrients, antioxidants,
vitamins and minerals compared to the calories. Most standard Americans are eating junk foods
which are high in calories but low in nutrition. Leafy greens are the exact opposite, most
nutrients with the least calories. So these are going to keep you slim, keep you healthy,
wealthy and strong at the same time. So my goal is to eat two pounds of leafy greens
every day and just with a few tree collard plants I could easily harvest enough to do
just that. So as you guys could see here some of the
taller plants here, this is the purple variety and this guy is pushing like three feet tall,
definitely looks really cool, nice large leaves. Here's another purple variety and one of the
things with the purple variety is that it tends to make a lot of off shoots, so it'll
tend to shoot out a lot and won't shoot out a lot and won't get a nice erect column in
addition the stalks don't get super thick, so they stay kind of thin, so you do need
to stake and support them, here's actually a little stake in this guy. You do want to
stake and tie them off really well because if they do get too tall and you're not training
them up they're actually going to break on you.
So you can see here they have all different kinds of the tree collards both the green
and the purple. Like so many different ones and all these different size containers and
you might think wow John that's pretty impressive, these guys are pushing three feet tall but
that ain't nothing, let me show you some super tall guys next.
So now I want to show you guys some of the tall tree collards, look at these guys here,
I mean the purple one's like pushing six feet and the green ones they're pushing ten feet
tall actually, harvesting ten feet tall tree collards might be a little bit challenging.
But check it out man this is like literally a wall of tree collards. If you have an established
front yard, hey pop a couple of these guy in to have leafy greens in your front yard
next to your lawn, next to the house. These guys producing some nice large leaves and
I can't even reach up there how tall these guys are. Here's one that's much more manageable,
this is six foot tall approximately purple tree collard variety and once again this purple
one is staked really well because these guys don't get really thick trunks.
Over on these guys here, the green ones, you can see the green ones actually gets a nice
thick trunk on it and it is self-supporting and self-stable. Now when these tree collards
get so tall they get top heavy. So it's very important to have the bottom weighted down
or maybe have some stakes so that it won't tip over and you want to be sure to water
your tree collards while they are heavy drinkers you don't want to make the roots like submerged
and soaked in water but you want to keep them nice and moist, they definitely like it nice
and moist and the moist you can keep it the more they're going to grow for you.
Next I want to share with you guys how you can propagate the tree collards. So if you
come to Centrose I recommend you guys buy a bunch of different plants and have established
plants and then start working on propagating them and learning how to grow more from your
existing plants. So the easiest way is with cuttings and shoot cuttings, so let me go
ahead and show you guys here's a nice large green tree collard and you can see like this
even gets kind of woody right here and as we kind of go up it actually turns from the
woodiness into more of the green and if we go up a little bit further you're going to
see little babies popping up the side or little shoots. So what you're going to want to do
is you're going to basically brake one of these shoots off, like brake it off the stem
then you're going to take that shoot and then put it in some dirt and keep it watered and
that's actually going to grow into a brand new plant.
So on the purple variety I would like to do one of the stem cuttings, so what you could
do is you could just take part of them stem here and you're just basically going to cut
it off, a segment and then literally just stick the stem and make sure you get that
part facing down into the soil. Then that's actually going to root and grow out new little
shoots out the side. The final way you can actually propagate the
tree collards is by the tip cuttings. So here's a brand new stem coming up, you could see
the older, more mature leaves as we get down to the middle here we get some nice little
new baby growth and this is where all the energy is for the plant. You're going to basically
take the tip here, and you can see this is the tip here, we're going to snap it off like
right here at the top. Then we're going to take some of the big leaves off, leave a few
small ones and then once again we're going to take that little tip and just put it in
some dirt, keep it watered keep it moist, and it'll actually root and shoot up into
a brand new plant. So once you guys got these guys you guys could
make more, more importantly besides making more for yourself I always encourage you guys
to spread the genetic diversity. I think the tree collard is something that every American
should be growing in their front yard so that they could have their year round supply of
edible leafy green vegetables. So the last thing I want to say about the
perennial tree collards that they are one of my favorite most useful plants. One of
the problems that you'll have is actually you're going to have so many different leaves
you're not going to know what to do with all. So now I'm going to share with you guys how
I use some of my tree collards. Number one, really good way to use them is
to blend them up in a green smoothie. So take some water, some ripe bananas and some leafy
greens. Maybe you'll have to start out with one or two at first if you're not used to
this and blend them up pretty much because you got bananas in there you're going to taste
nothing but the sweetness of the bananas but you'll get some greens in you because the
problem with the standard American is that they don't get enough leafy greens in them.
I think the per capita consumption for things like kale and collard greens it is a half-pound
per person. You're thinking wow John that's a lot man, half pound per person, wait not
until you hear how often that is. The average person eats half a pound a kale or probably
other dark leafy greens per year. So half pound per year man, I might eat that in one
day, if you have one of these guys you'll be easily able to do that each and every day
because this guy keep making leaves. So number one green smoothie, number two fresh
vegetable juices. Nothing better than a fresh vegetable juice. I like to juice up some collard
greens with some celery, some cucumbers, and some apples for a nice, delicious green drink.
Another way you could do it is make a salad. So I love my salads, I love eating salads
nearly every night. I like to just take the greens.
What we're going to do is we're going to basically just start rolling them up into like a big
cigar and then you're just going to take a knife and go chop, chop, chop and make little
threads out of it, so you're basically making little threads of leaves. This creates more
surface area, makes it easier for these, for the leaves to chew. Plus also it's best to
harvest the smaller baby leaf for use when you're eating salads and make a nice delicious
dressing. One of my favorite dressings is you literally take some fresh orange juice,
I usually squeeze my own myself, blend it up with some raw macadamia nuts into an orange
cream dressing and pour that over your collard leaves. So delicious.
Another way I enjoy my collard leaves is using it instead of buying tortilla shells or anything
like that. You're just going to go ahead and get a nice large leaf, and check it out this
is a nice large leaf. Spread some guacamole right in the middle with some pico de gallo
and then you're going to roll it up barrito style and eat it right up. I always encourage
you guys to eat out of your garden instead of the grocery store. If you could, now use
leaves instead of buying processed tortilla shells or corn tortilla shells made with probably
GMO corn that's definitely a good thing. Another way I like to use my tree collards
is by making tree collard chips, yummy and delicious. I'll use a similar dressing that
I made for the salad, so the orange juice and the macadamia nuts blended maybe with
some other herbs and spices and we'll paste that on the leaf, put that in the dehydrator
at 105 degrees and let it dehydrate out. Then we're going to have dehydrated tree collard
chips with a nice delicious sauce. It's kind of like eating that salad but it's dried out.
Man, mmm. This is great for kids, great for when you want something crunchy and so delicious.
Yet another way you can use your tree collards is by making a tree collard sauerkraut. So
we all know you can take cabbage and make the sauerkraut, you can also make a tree collard
sauerkraut. So I recommend using like half tree collards and half standard cabbage and
mixing it up and actually it'll ferment into a nice sauerkraut. You can do 100% tree collards
also but it tends to taste a lot stronger. So I recommend like doing the 50/50 mix. These
are some of the ways that you can start using some of your tree collards in your recipes
so that you can get more greens in you and grow more of your own food easily, because
by far the tree collards are the easiest things to grow even if you have an apartment, small
space, no matter what. I think everybody should be growing some tree collards.
Alright, so if you guys want to get some of these tree collards here at Centrose Nursery
you want to come down to Gardena California where I'm basically at Rosencrantz and Avalon
Boulevard. It's 525 Rosencrantz here, but you better hurry because the owner is looking
to sell the place, so if you are actually in the market, starting a nursery, an established
nursery that's been here for many years now, you may consider buying Centrose and making
it new and fresh, bringing in vegetables to sell and continue with selling the tree collards.
I think this would be an excellent idea to have a home base for people that want to grow
their own food so that people could come here and buy all different varieties of unique
and rare and common vegetable starts. Unfortunately what happened was this is a
family owned business, a husband and wife team and the wife lost the husband, she has
been widowed now and she just cannot keep up this nursery by herself. So currently she's
looking to sell it, so you want to call Jason the broker there in the back if you're interested
in buying the nursery, otherwise you want to come down here and get some tree collards
before they go out of business so at least you'll have some of this genetic diversity
in your garden that you'll now be able to spread out to others.
Hopefully you guys enjoyed this episode, once again I want to encourage all you guys to
eat of your garden instead of the grocery store and get some of the tree collards. They
are my number favorite perennial edible vegetable I've ever found to date. Once again my name
is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com. We'll see you next time and remember keep
on growing.