This is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com. I have another exciting episode for you today
and today is the last day and you're getting an inside peek 'cause this is actually before
they open before it gets super crowded in here and I can't make anymore videos fro you
guys. It's we're at the 2012 national heirloom exposition and we're at today is the hall
of flowers. This is a huge giant hall and they literally have thousands of varieties
of heirloom crops in display here to show you guys what is available and what is totally
possible in growing and in this episode we're going to look around some of the cool booths
here in this hall and one of the coolest displays in this hall actually is here. This is actually
form Log calls plant and this actually shows you a lot of nonedible, once again nonedible
varieties of cucumbers or gherkins which are like the wild relative of what we know as
the cucumber today. There are a few edibles but these are mostly nonedibles but I want
to show you guys this because it just shows you in a small amount of space in a trellis,
you can grow a lot of fruit for eating or just for fun. So, let me go ahead and give
you guys a close-up on that and we'll talk more about these wild cucumbers next. Here's
just like a little container garden here. Literally, it's made out of a metal and they
put some moss in there. You can also use some coconut core to line it and they put some
of course good soil. Soil is the number one key to some healthy plants and this guys actually
called the ornamental cucumber. So, these are not edible. They may be and probably are
poisonous, but this is like little cucumber like leaves and this is just a little small
trellis, maybe about 4 feet tall, and this container here that its in, it might be like
3 feet if that by about 8 inches, you know, wide and maybe 10 inches deep. So, even in
a small space with ah nice little bamboo trellis, look at all these fruits growing and check
out these guys, man. These guys are a little wild little things that's the size of my hand
and that's the fruit there. Once again, these are ornamental, not for eating, but the next
ones are for eating and here's once again another little container, and, you know, if
you have a balcony or patio and you get some pretty good sun, you could have a little container
like this and put up a little trellis and grow some of these smaller type cucumbers,
you know. They're going to do really well in a nice simple lightweight trellis and it's
going to produce a lot of food. I mean, look at all these fruits in here. These are just
off couple plants here. These are amazing producers, and these ones are edible. So,
this is the one of my favorite varieties of the gherkins to grow. This is the west Indi
gherkin and this is actually a special variety I haven't seen before, so if you have the
seed, hey, send them to me. This is called the liso Calcutta cucumber and this special
variety the west Indi gherkin variety with slightly larger fruits and smoother skin.
So, I have grown the standard west Indi gherkin before but these guys significantly larger
than the ones I've grown and some of these, while they are quire spiky, some of them are
not, like this one right here, not too spiky, but once again growing up a trellis and wow
they look totally amazing and here's a whole bunch at the bottom. So, these ones are edible
and I have noticed when I did grow the bergherkins last year that they're a little but more resistant
to the powdery mildew and really fast growers compared to my standard cucumbers. So, I always
want to encourage you guys to grow different varieties, 'cause they may do better or worse,
plus, to me, these guys have the most amazing flavor in a cucumber. If you don't harvest
them just right, they do get bitter o you. So, you do have to be aware of that, you know.
That trait has been bred out of many of the common cucumbers that people are growing today.
So, the next on here is definitely another edible to, and I've read a lot about this
and seen it in the seed catalogs but never actually have growing them out yet. This is
actually called the Sikkim cucumber. There's little tag and this one's also edible and
this one doesn't look like it did as well as some of those other ones there, but this
one kind of almost looks like a little melon on the vine, but, yes this is a cucumber and
that's how they do look. It looks pretty cool and I have no idea how these taste. So, you
know, one of these days I'm going to have to grow these guys, but seeds are widely available
for this guys. Once again, this is just how small these boxes are, just like that and,
I mean, they got these little bamboo trellises look really good. Next over on this side,
this one's pretty wild. Man, I just love how some of these fruits look. This is a nonedible
so don't try to eat this one. This is actually called the African wild cucumber. This is
actually a nonedible and these are actually better than gourds for drying. So, these would
make an amazing artwork display or display for the wintertime. Once again, these are
just for, you know, decorative purposes. They're a little fruits, they're not even painted,
I mean, this is how they are naturally with little spines on them and check it out, all
of them in this little trellis. You can see all the little fruits there and it's even,
the plants still flowering. There's the flowers right there. Definitely really cool. When
they're immature, they're just as small little green babies, and this ones still producing
really good. We're going to go to the next one and once again this is another nonedible.
This is ornamental cucumber called a patty melon, also known as the gooseberry gourd.
Once again, nice little round nonedible fruit. Really decorative with some little spines
on them, and once again this plant's looking like it's doing pretty good and man this is
definitely a curiosity piece. People ask you what that is and if you have a community garden,
people are eating your food, hey, plant some of these guys and they'll probably stay away.
Last one we're going to talk about is one that I have grown before and it's actually
very prolific and I highly encourage you guys to grow this in your garden next year if you're
not growing it already. These guys are super cool. These are edible and this is actually
called the Mexican sour gherkin. So, you can see this plant is very prolific, just it just
sends out lots of leaves and in addiction to the leaves it's also producing lots of
little fruits and let's see if we can find a little fruits there, and there it is right
there and if you can see there that's the size of my middle finer and the little fruit.
So, they're quite small and they look like little miniature watermelon and these are
the sour gherkins and for these guys I found for best results, you know, if you see them
on there and you meant like, 'oh, John, yea, that looks ripe,' and you pull it off and
eat it, it's going to be sour on you. These are like these are going to taste like pickles
without even you picking them, but guess what? Is it ripe if you pull something off the vine
or plant? No but when the plants gives it to you, then it's ripe. So, what you want
to do instead of pulling it off is, you want to like look down a t the base, and, you know,
near the bottom of the plant you want to go down here and see if any of these things have
dropped off. I found that once these little guys drop off the vine and are sitting on
the ground maybe for a day or two then actually they get quite sweet and they have an amazing
flavor. So, you know, if you do grow the Mexican sour gherkins, they're only sour if you pick
them off the vine. I you do let them drop and ripen they're actually tad bit sweet and
actually quite good. So, I know what you guys might be wondering, might be wondering, 'John,
I want to grow some of those things out, man, and I went to my local big box, my local hardware
store, they don't have none of these varieties. Where do you get them?' Well, there's a very
good place to buy all these varieties of these wild and edible cucumbers and the one I would
go to is called rareseeds.com. It's a baker creek seed company and they have many of the
varieties that you just saw right there and be able to grow them out and so you can try
them next year in your garden. Now we're going to show you guys a really cool booth here.
This is the booth of tortica garden designs and what they have is a way you can grow food
vertically on a wall whether you got an apartment, condo, or house, roe vena fence, you want
to start growing on, they got a really col system that I will allow you to do that. So,
let's head over there in the background and show you guys what specifically they're doing.
We're going to show you guys this booth, and as you can see, what we're looking at is gutters,
like rain gutters, galvanized rain gutters, hooked up the 1 by 6 and you can see jus section
of rain gutter with the ends on it and all they're doing there is attaching the rain
gutter the 1 by 6 and then they're just planting in it. It's very simple. Plants don't need
a lot of soil, especially things like herb and some lettuces and you can easily build
something like this, you know, put it on a 1 by 6 and then actually they just put these
little hangers there to hang it up with some nails that'll hold this up to your wall. So,
whether you want to put this to a side of a fence or to the side your house, that's
how easy it is. I mean, it's kind of heavy. You can movie it off and lift it off, but
2 nails support this whole thing. Let's take a look and see if they put any holes in the
bottom for drainage. Yes, looks like they put a few holes in the bottom for drainage,
so you will get leakage. Another thing you could do instead of putting it straight is
putting it at an angle and then have a little thing to collect any extra runoff water and
then reuse that to water again. So, definitely really smart idea. Now, I wouldn't be growing
tomatoes or bell peppers in anything like this, but for small things like lettuces and
herbs, tis is going to be a great way to grow some food in a small amount of space, and
once again, you could get the 1 by 6's at any hardware store big box hardware stores
and what you could use plastic, you know, gutters, I would highly recommend an encourage
you guys to use the galvanized, just to use the real metal stuff instead of the PVC or
the polycinvalchloride gutter which I'm not a big fan of in general. So, yes, definitely
good idea to grow more food vertically. I hope you guys enjoyed that episode learning
more about those cool wild and edible cucumbers. The gherkins some of my favorites and I hope
that there are more gherkins and edible ones in the future that I could grow. I like them
a lot more than the cucumbers because they're more of a wild food, they're smaller, they
grow more in abundance and, you know, I'm all for, especially home gardener, growing
things like cherry tomatoes, growing things like the small little mini bell peppers and
growing smaller fruits because they tend to yield more larger quantities over, you know,
longer period of time than growing like a few big beef steaks of something, but, you
know, for commercial growers and people that re farming for a living, they can't really
grow these smaller things because it take a lot more labor to pick and harvest these
things, but when you're at home doing it yourself, it's definitely the way to go because you're
also going to have more success with some of the smaller type fruits, and finally we
saw the vertical gardening in the rain gutters. That's definitely a good idea whether you're
using a smaller section of rain gutter or a big section. Definitely a great way you
can grow some more herbs and small leafy crops as well. Hopefully this is inspired you to
show you guys what is truly possible all the different varieties available, and some ways
to grow some food and some new varieties you can try at home. Once again, my name is John
Kohler with growingyourgreens.com. We'll see you next time and remember; keep on growing.