This is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com. Today I have another exciting episode for
anyone here in suburbia. Once again I know that’s where many of you guys live and this
is the episode you wanna be watching especially if you don’t have any green thumbs like
you think I do and I really might but in any case you know we’re gonna show you a way
that you can grow some food even if you don’t have green thumbs. You know the gardener here
at this house that’s now growing food would not be growing a garden if it wasn’t for
the specific system that he’s using to grow in because literally it takes virtually no
brains to set it up. And they have excellent custom support to get you growing in it even
without any prior experience or prior knowledge. I mean it’s a whole self contained kit that
you need to barely buy two things I think at a local hardware store a Lowes or Home
Depot. But the whole kit itself contains comes in a box with everything you need including
the seeds so that you can start growing. I mean in today’s atmosphere you know everybody’s
concerned about what they’re eating even organic foods you could spray certain things
on it and it could still be called organic you know whether that’s good or bad you
just don’t know what they’re spraying but when you grow your own food yourself you
have control you have more power and you have more freedom to choose what you’re gonna
eat and especially what you’re gonna grow. There’s so many different varieties of you
know different vegetables and herbs that are just not sold in the grocery store but you
could definitely grow at home. So what we’re gonna do now is actually go into the backyard
and show the the specific garden that allows pretty much anybody without any experience
to start growing. Now we’re gonna head to actually the side
yard which is where they’re actually growing their food but before we do I wanna stop for
a second and talk about the soil here in South Florida. You know here in South Florida I
mean this is the beach it’s like this is like literally sand I mean I would not grow
anything in this stuff. And that’s probably the reason why they haven’t gardened here
before because many places in the country may have poor soils whether it’s sand or
whether it’s clay. It’s just not conducive for growing while you may be able to grow
palm trees and some shrubs and what not you know vegetable gardening in the sand is not
a good thing. So the reason why I like what they’re using here is because you know they
take all the guess work out. They include the soil media you will use to grow your plants
in. So next let’s take a look at the garden that they’re using today.
So know we’re gonna head into the backyard and we’re just in a standard side yard here
and in the side yard they have maybe like two feet of space to use before they get to
the fence and the neighbors house. Normally this is not really a lot of real estate to
grow anything you might be able to trellis like some you know squash vines or cucumbers
up or maybe grow a trellis with like some tomatoes or some chayote squash or something
that vines up maybe some sweet potatoes but normally this space is not able to be used
in a large way to grow any volume of food so most people just you know don’t use the
space in the side yard so they tend to go in the backyard. But one of the reasons why
I like the system here is because we’re gonna go and check out it’s right through
there is because this really makes the best use of the space to grow vertically. Now what
we’re looking at here is a mighty fine backyard farm. That’s a vertical farm and it’s
also a hydroponic farm so this takes all the guess work out of what nutrients you’re
gonna add because it’s all included. And as you can see it’s just really simple.
It’s just the kit that’s available comes with 5 containers this is set up with actually
4 and each one holds 4 plants. So it’s 4 8 12 16. And I knew I went to grade school
for something. And you could add another one would come in the kit and that would be 20
plants in this plus you get to also add a root box. So the root box is not included
in the kit. What they’re using here is the standard like Styrofoam beer cooler to like
have your beer in you know if that cooler gets old or maybe if you stop drinking beer,
this is a good a good use to it to use it to grow your vegetables. So they’re actually
growing some kale in here but normally they would maybe plant some beets, some rutabaga
or maybe even some carrots in here. And how this system works very simply is they have
over here let me go ahead and show you guys that. They have a water storage vessel. And
this vessel is simply a garbage can. It’s like a big commercial industrialized garbage
can I would always recommend you guys to get a good storage vessel whenever possible. It
reminds of some like Star Trek episode with Chekov saying something about vessels I forget.
But anyways, you could use this you could use a 55 gallon drum or whatever big storage
container and all they simply do is they add in water and then they add in the nutrient
solution that’s provided in the measuring cup that is also provided and you have to
fill this up. And I talked to the homeowner here he says he has to fill this up like maybe
every 7 to 10 days so he can easily go on a vacation and nobody has to water his plants
and this is all on a timer. The pump comes on and it automatically waters so that you
don’t have to. You know watering your plants is probably one of the biggest reasons why
plants don’t make it either they’re over watered or under watered. In this system it’s
all dialed in so that you do not have to remember to water your plants. Plus they included the
nutrient solution so you don’t have to worry about fertilizing or doing anything because
it’s all in a package and it’s all done for you. So once you’ve got this set up
the pump in there got in on the timer the water just flows through the irrigation pump
and then just basically flows down the top into the pots and then it drains down with
the gravity and then it goes to the root box and then any additional water just drains
out the bottom. And you know it waters all of the plants. So they have a variety of things
growing here in South Florida right now at this time. They’ve got things like the chives,
some cilantro, some mint, chocolate mint actually. Mhmm smells really good I love my chocolate.
I’m gonna go ahead and try some. Especially good if you’re going on a date and you’ve
got bad breath, chew on some chocolate mint she’ll love you for it. Keep on going down
here and they’ve got the root box. Now another cool thing that’s optional you don’t have
to do is they put a pipe EMT electrical conduit here between them. Normally they could just
put the irrigation tubing which they supply and this is white colored irrigation tubing.
So especially here in South Florida where it gets so hot it’s not gonna absorb the
heat like the black irrigation pipe would. They got EMT tubing and they just hanged additional
plants in between to even better maximize the space and this is not included in the
kit but you could get these planters anywhere fill it up with the soil mixture and you could
use that same super nutrition from the water reservoir to feed your own plants in addition
to the system that they send you. So it looks like they’ve got some amazing tomatoes here
and check this out this thing is just loaded up with some little cherry tomatoes here.
And let me see if I could vouch for the quality of these tomatoes. Wow that’s super sweet.
And besides just the tomatoes they’re growing a lot of herbs and I think herbs are an excellent
thing to grow here in South Florida because they’re generally more resistant to the
weather. They’ve got some sage, some basil, some thyme. You’ve got the money honey I’ve
got the thyme. And they’ve got some rosemary here but even in this system you could grow
things like tomatoes and peppers and leafy greens so at the bottom of course I showed
the kale earlier but they also have bell peppers growing. So these are some standard sized
bells right here. And these plants are growing amazingly in this hydroponic system. Continuing
on down over here check out this one plant man this thing is loaded up. I mean this crazy.
One plant holy moly peppers all these long huge peppers growing in this system so I can
definitely say by looking at this system and seeing how its set up it definitely works.
I mean there’s even more peppers on here. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12, man like a dozen
of this one pepper plant in one spot in this growing system. Imagine if you had each one
20 plants times 10. Man that’s a lot of peppers, especially when they’re hot ones.
You might be limited in growing in South Florida just because of the sheer weather. The weather
gets so hot in the summer time and normally in the winter time in South Florida that’s
when they grow their tomatoes and peppers and normal crops and in the summer time a
lot of gardens just give up growing because they think it’s too hot but they have another
solution that they make spear minting with and I like that so let’s go back to another
part of the yard and show you want they’re using.
So this is one of the ways they’re attempting to combat the sun and this just experimental
there have been some studies done at different universities regarding this stuff and what
this stuff is actually called is aluminate. You might be familiar with a black shade cloth.
Now a black shade cloth comes in like different percentages it might let 50% of the light
through 75% of the light through or 30% of the light through and this aluminate will
also let a percentage of the light through as well. So this one here let’s through
I believe about 50% of the light but more importantly because this is aluminum fabric
it actually reflects the heat and the heat is actually in my opinion it what’s more
detrimental to the plants than the actual light because in high heat situations for
example the tomatoes aren’t gonna flower and set fruits. So pretty much you’re at
a standstill until the temperatures drop down. So that’s why they’re covering this garden
with the aluminate to see how it’s gonna work in the hot summer months coming up real
soon. And we’re just gonna go ahead and try to throw this up. So you guys can see
a little bit of it and here’s the garden and in this garden they’re growing actually
a lot of the leafy greens. Now you know I want you to be aware that the leafy greens
are one of the most important food crops you can grow. I mean my channel is called “Growing
Your Greens” cause I want you guys to grow your greens and eat them. What many people
don’t realize is that greens and leafy vegetables are probably one of the highest grade food
crops with pesticides I mean look at even down here in South Florida growing under natural
situations, you know they’re getting bugs. But holes in your leaves are good things because
these are not sprayed with toxins. I’d rather have the holes in my leaves and eat it than
this sprayed with toxins that could actually be harmful to myself and if I was a lady to
my unborn baby. One of the cool things is you know the greens also are high in folade
or folic acid which you know and I think I have read that some people that are pregnant
may be deficient in so my eating more greens you could avoid taking a supplement and by
growing your own greens you could also avoid those pesticides in the foods. But it looks
here like they’re doing really good. They’ve got some spinach growing really nice. This
whole thing is pretty much all leafy greens. They’ve got even things like zucchinis.
Man check out this zucchini down here growing. You can see here I mean this is growing really
good. There’s nothing better than a nice large zucchini to spiralize up for your dinner.
I mean they’re just growing all kinds of different things. It is getting a little bit
hot even in here and this is near the end of the season for the lettuce but the lettuce
has been picked back a lot. And you know I don’t have to tell you guys for those of
you guys that have been growing that you know the food that you grow in your backyard tastes
far better than anything money can buy especially here in South Florida where they gotta harvest
the produce in California and then hydro cool they put it on a truck and they ship it out
here and then you finally get it and it’s like 7 days old. I mean how would you like,
the homeowner here said you know his daughter came out and picked salad and brought it right
in and they ate it for dinner. I mean that’s amazing and the reason why I like this hydroponic
vertical garden system is because it allows you to do that with virtually you know no
knowledge of how to grow. I mean that’s the homeowner here this is actually what he
did with this system and it allows him to eat fresh leafy greens and other crops out
of his garden each and every night. I guess the last thing I wanna do is actually I wanna
show you guys what they fill this with. They’re resetting right now for the new growing season.
So they’ve taken out some of the plants and as you can see here this is what they
fill this with and this is included so you don’t have to buy anything extra when you
get this kit all you gotta do is you know you gotta get the conduit to stake down through
the vertically garden and you have to get a water container like a garbage can or a
rain barrel or a 55 gallon drum to hold the water but everything else is included and
I like that including the growing medium which they’re using here. And in this growing
medium all they’re going to simply do is send you some coconut core and some peralite
here. You fill up the bottom with the peralite and then you put a layering on top of the
coconut core. Now the reason why they do this is because the coconut core will absorb and
hold the water and just like a sponge you know let it down trickle it down into the
perlite into the bottom. And the roots will just go through the coconut core and into
the perlite. So in this way you’re gonna get the most water to the nutrients to the
roots because the perlites really light and fluffy so that the plants can grow faster.
I guess the last thing that I wanna talk about is you know I said this is a complete kit
with everything you need we’re gonna share with you actually the the gardening kit because
that’s one of the biggest challenges that many people have is like watering their seedlings
and making sure they grow properly. Now I wanna go into actually what comes with
the kit. I talked about you know some of the things that you will have to buy and one of
the reasons why I like actually this vertical hydroponic growing system is because it basically
includes everything you need including the seed raft right here the special starting
mixture and the seeds you need. I mean and even the little aluminum pan that you’re
gonna float your seed raft in. So I mean they’ve really well thought out and designed this
system so that you can have the utmost level of success. I mean another thing that I really
like about this system is that they give you full and complete instructions plus instructional
videos that go step by step and if that’s not enough you could call you any time for
support and they’ll even walk you through how to set one of these up and how to get
it going cause they will hold your hand. I mean that’s what they’re doing and I mean
that’s how every company should operate. A lot of companies you’ll call the 800 number
press 1 for this 6 for that 5 for that and you’ll never get tot talking to anybody
and they’ll take a voicemail. This company you call them and probably most of the time
during business hours they’ll actually answer you and definitely take care of you. SO look
here’s the little seed raft it’s very easy to use you’re just gonna take the seed
starting make sure you put it in here and then you’re e just gonna take a little pencil
and dibble a little hole put the seed in there and put a little bit of the media on top.
And then just fill this up with water and let it float. I mean this is the very system
that professional farmers use to start hundreds of plants each season. Finally once your plants
do come up you’re then gonna just take the bottom of this here and and they have these
little holes here and you’re gonna take a standard like number two pencil like you
had to use in school to fill out that scan tron if you remember what that is I don’t
think they’ve got those anymore, and then take the eraser and just pop it through the
little hole and the little plug is gonna pop out and then that’s what is gonna go in
to your might fine vertical backyard farm. This is a complete design system I’ve had
other episodes where I show systems like this and they just sell the pots or they just sell
this or they just sell that. This is one integrated system that makes it easy for anyone without
any prior gardening knowledge so that they can grow. Just like the homeowner here. He
had no prior gardening knowledge and if it wasn’t for this system that made it so easy
he actually probably wouldn’t be growing his food today. That’s the real power of
this system if you’re a a master hydroponic grower this is probably not the system for
you you can probably piece together your stuff but if you’re one of those people that are
concerned about the quality of the food your eating especially the leafy greens. You know
you don’t wanna pay the high prices at Whole Foods anymore you’re sick of that you don’t
wanna buy conventional produce that’s been sprayed and even organic produce is it really
organic? Who knows? I think this provides a valuable solution for those who can use
it. The last thing I wanna say today is that I’ve
negotiated a special discount for Growing Your Greens viewers. If you go to if you go
to their website mightyfinegardens.com and you put in the discount code GYG that’ll
get you an additional discount off your purchase. In that way you’ll be able to grow affordably
and get some hand holding if you need it. I’ve really loved my time here in South
Florida I actually am pretty much almost late to catch my flight I’m gonna have to fly
back tonight but by the time you see this I’ll be back and coming with some more episodes
for you guys and show you guys even more ways you can start growing some food at home because
that’s my mission to you guys. I want every family in America to start growing and once
again this system will allow those people that have never grown before to start doing
it basically because of the customer support that’s provided. So once again my name is
John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com. We’ll see you next time and remember keep on growing.