This is John Kohler with GrowingYourGreens.com today we’re in the front of my front yard
garden so I basically took out my lawn and put a front yard garden and today’s episode
is about greens!
So guys, you know my show is called “Growing Your Greens” and there is definitely a reason
for that because I believe greens, you know… greens are the new buzz word.
Whether you’re trying to shop for green products, the Earth is... besides blue, green
is one of the dominant colors of the Earth and we should all be growing and eating lots
of greens because they’re really good for us.
So, in today’s show we’re just going to go over some of those greens and why greens
are so good for us, so come into my front yard garden and let me show you what’s growing
on.
So, we’re sitting here in my front raised bed underneath my fig tree and as you can
see I have many different varieties of lettuce here growing.
I have green romaine, some red romaine, some curly leaf lettuce, some deer tongue lettuce.
Now, lettuce is all green and it’s definitely important to eat our greens, even the USDA
tells us to eat 3 servings of greens a week and just 3 serving a week but that also should
be included in our 5 to 9 servings of fruits and vegetables a day.
I’d probably encourage everybody to eat definitely some greens every single day and
we all know greens are really good for us even Popeye ate spinach out of the can in
the cartoons that I used to watch when I was a kid.
And even our moms told us to “Eat your greens Joey!” or Johnny, actually in my case it
was Johnny, and I didn’t often eat my greens, I just didn’t like them.
For me when I was kid being raised spinach came out of a can, not out of a field, I had
green beans that were previously frozen out of a can we would reheat.
As a child I… we ate salad sometimes but really not that much, all our greens were
mostly processed.
So I want to encourage people to grow their own greens, grow their own fresh greens, pick
them and then eat them as soon as possible.
So, right here the lettuce…
I constantly let the lettuce grow and pick a few leaves off each plant, let them continue
to grow and keep picking them.
And, you know, I have salads for days and days and days and when they go into bolt,
generally I’ll harvest the rest and then I’ll use them for juicing.
So let’s check out some other greens that I’m growing and learn why greens are so
good for us.
So now I’m standing on the sidewalk outside my front raised bed that’s facing the sidewalk.
And for those of you who think all my stuff gets stolen actually I don’t see anything
getting stolen or getting eaten by people, other than the bugs eating some of my plants.
But most people aren’t going to pick purslane and eat it and if they are they can have some.
But anyways, aside from that, let’s get back to the point of today’s show which
is greens and why they’re so beneficial.
So now we’re going to talk about some of the nutrition or nutrients contained in the
greens and why they’re so beneficial for us.
So, there’s things like vitamins, minerals, amino acids, phytonutrients, phytochemicals
and antioxidants all contained within the greens and actually, per ounce, greens have
some of the highest levels of amino acids and you may know that amino acids are the
building blocks for proteins.
So, yes, the greens do contain, by default, protein because they contain the amino acids.
After all, where does the cow that simply eats grass all day build all that muscle and
fat so that we can eat cows and get all the protein from cows.
Well, the cows are getting from the grass or from greens which are the big color on
the planet and make up all the plant matter, mostly all greens.
So, they have lots of amino acids and they’re really really definitely good for us to eat.
We’re going to talk about some of the plants on this raised bed here.
Here is the bok choy I’m growing and then also we have some purslane and some malabar
spinach basically vining up the spire.
These basically can be grown in hot or cool weather, I like to grow the bok choy usually
when it’s getting cooler, not in the middle of summer.
So it’s kind of near the end of the summer we’re going to do another planting to fall/winter
bok choy, they grow really well that time here in Northern California.
The purslane definitely rich in omega fatty acids, that’s why a lot of people grow it,
it’s commonly known as a weed, many farmers think it is a weed and they’ll pull and
just throw it out by the masses.
You can definitely juice it, cut it up, put little bits in salads it’s really good to
eat.
Malabar spinach here which is growing up this spire is kind of like a succulent vegetable,
it’s kind of like a purslane in its texture and it’s definitely really delicious.
it’s basically tropical so I can grow it here in the summertime only but I really loves
places like Florida and Hawaii where you can probably grow it and I’ve seen huge vines
and huge leaves growing year round so that’s definitely a good one if you live in South
Florida for example you should grow some malabar spinach most definitely.
And they have two varieties, right here we have the purple variety and then down here
growing, it’s not vining up as quickly, we have the green variety right here.
So, once again, green variety malabar spinach and the purple variety.
Purple has done a lot better and the purple leaves have a purple variety flower and the
seeds, they’re turning to the seeds there.
They’re definitely good.
Another thing that greens have, besides all the nutrients I mentioned, is chlorophyll
all greens contain chlorophyll.
After all chlorophyll is how the plants harness the sun’s energy.
So, let’s go to another green and we’ll talk more about chlorophyll next.
Now we’re going to talk about chlorophyll, I’m sitting next to my cruciferous bed here
so I have things like kohlrabi, kale and Georgia collards some of my favorite collards here.
And all these leaves, especially the dino kale, I mean, this is actually called black
kale or Tuscan kale sometimes and actually it’s because they’re so black or rich
in chlorophyll, it’s not really black but it’s just really dark dark green.
It has lots of chlorophyll.
So, I encourage everybody to eat green foods that are really super dark as possible for
eating and getting as much chlorophyll in you as you can.
As you know chlorophyll is what makes the plant green, it’s what enables the plant
to take the sun’s energy and convert that into energy for the plant.
So chlorophyll is very easily assimilated in our bloodstream, it helps deliver oxygen
and nutrients to our bloodstream so it’s good for an instant, natural, pick me up.
It’s been shown to be anti-carcinogenic, it’s definitely good for detoxifying and
it can help alkalinize you which is basically combat stress.
So, eat your greens to combat stress, you have a high stress full job, eat your greens,
but actually even better than eating your greens, because most people don’t chew them
enough and greens contain cellos and we can’t as humans can’t digest cellos, we need to
juice them and liberate the nutrients and the chlorophyll and other nutrients from that
cellos.
So, that’s where juicers come in, you can just put a leaf through a juicer and it’ll
basically give you two piles, it will separate the fiber and the juice and we want to drink
the juice and you can use the fiber as great compost or feed it to your pets. Real good
stuff chlorophyll so drink some chlorophyll for me today, you’ll be green too.
So, besides greens direct antioxidant capability, greens may also reduce inflammation so if
you have arthritis you might want to eat more greens and eat a lot more of them to help.
Let’s see, we’re sitting over my herb bed right here and while all the herbs are
green for sure and they’ll give you the benefits of greens they also have some aromatics
and I’m sitting here smelling what I think is the oregano and it just smells really nice
here in this bed.
But I also do eat some of my herbs as greens.
So, some of the lighter more mild greens such as the cilantro and parsley I just basically
pick and eat a salad of just parsley with a dressing on top and it’s really delicious
or that’ll be the main component of a meal that I make, tabouleh it has lots of parsley
in it for example.
Or I’ll use the Vietnamese coriander, I’ve been using that as a salad green and it grow
literally like a weed and I have so much of it I just can’t pick it fast enough and
use it.
But all the greens are definitely good and in most cases I’ll recommend adding a few
pinches of the different herbs to a salad and not necessarily making a whole salad out
of any one.
They can be really strong and in the sense of… basils, people make basically pesto
out of basil and that’s all basil so that’s a green part of your meal right there.
So, let’s move on and check out another cool leafy green I have growing here in the
summer time.
So, here’s another green that I really love and I’m really happy this was a volunteer
I guess it didn’t know that this was my alternative solanaceae bed which means I’m
growing leafy tomatoes, pepino melons, ground cherries and cape juice berries and it just
decided to come up and I left it because it’s so beautiful and they’re actually another
delicious leafy green, this is actually called mallow and you can see the beautiful flowers
here, they’re nice purple flowers and today…
yesterday actually I plucked off the majority of the flowers and was eating the flowers
because besides making greens they make flowers which are also delicious.
They have pollen which is good and that deep rich colors in the flower have a lot of antioxidants.
So besides the flowers, the leaves also have a lot of vitamins in them.
Some of the vitamins that are in the leaves are beta carotene, vitamin K, vitamin C, folic
acid and iron.
So, folic acid or folate is very important and guess where they get that from: folate
or foliage, so foliage that’s a green.
Really good to get your folic acid and folic acid is definitely needed to basically make
use of the B12 in our bodies.
So, once again grow some mallow, it’s definitely good stuff.
Now, they would call this more of a famine food than a leafy green, it does kind of…
it has a nice mild…
I would say mild taste, some people might not like it.
It’s kind of a dry flavor so if you mix it up in a dressing or mix a couple of leaves
in with your salad.
I haven’t yet done a whole salad of mallow yet but I’ll just come around and pick off
leaves through the day and eat them.
One of the things that affects the mallow though is the rust.
So you can see some of this… they’ll get yellow spots on the leaves, but you know what?
I just pick them off and discard the leaves.
So, next let’s go to the greenhouse and see what other leafy greens I’m growing
in the greenhouse.
And keep in mind this is summertime when I focus on growing other things besides leaves.
I do have some leaves as a staple in my diet and have a couple places with leaves but in
the winter time you can come back and mostly all my raised beds will just be full of leafy
green vegetables because that’s what really grows well in the wintertime and that’s
when I’m going to get a lot of leaves and I’m sure I’m going to have another episode
on greens in the winter time.
So with all the nutrients in green foods they’re basically body’s natural healers and rebuilders
of the cells and here in my greenhouse I have a couple of greens growing.
Here’s upland cress growing, this stuff really spicy, we have some arugula here growing
in a small flat.
We have some edible garland chrysanthemum over there and then here’s another interesting
leafy green, people might think this isn’t a leafy green but I do.
The tips here, you can harvest the tips off these guys, this is actually chayote squash
vine.
I do have another episode on chayote squash and I just harvest the tips and eat them as
greens just in my salad, raw.
You can get the little seeds actually at most Mexican markets.
The fruit actually ends up sprouting and opening up and it is the seed and in tropical climate
this will make actually chayote fruits like in Hawaii or Florida but here in California
this only grows during the summer and I’ll be able to harvest the tips off it.
So, the abundance of phyto nutrients in foods help the body cells repair and rebuild themselves
because the old adage, you are what you eat, is really true and we want to be as healthy
as we can we want to remember to eat our greens like our momma said every day.
So, I want to encourage everybody to eat one serving of greens a day and you want to eat
a variety of greens so kale one day, lettuce one day, malabar spinach one day, arugula
one day, eat parsley another day; just keep mixing it up, keep getting a variety so you
get all the different nutrients in each of those leafy greens.
Leafy greens are so beneficial that places like the Hippocrates Health Institute in Florida
actually help to heal people with diseases like cancer and other things get better by
feeding them a diet rich in greens and especially the baby greens like the wheatgrass, the sprouts,
sunflower greens and just other greens and green juices are really beneficial and that’s
what they use there as well.
So, once again, this is John Kohler coming from my warm greenhouse here with GrowingYourGreens.com
and keep on eating your greens, they’re good for you.