Alright this is John Kohler with, GrowingYourGreens.com today we have another exciting episode for ya.
Comin atcha from my back yard garden.
Things are growing really great here in the winter time, you know don’t get discouraged
when things grow a little bit slow in the winter time.
Just be aware there is less light and actually less temperature.
Which means the soil microbes and the plants are not working at full steam ahead like the
springtime when it’s warmer out and things start happening a lot faster.
In any case then, this is an update episode as you guys can see behind me, you got like
6 raised beds, all the way down they are 4 foot circular.
This one has dinosaur kale and different kinds of kale and coloured greens.
This one’s got some dandelions, next one’s got parsley and cilantro, the other one has
mostly parsley and cilantro.
This guy has a pak choi, vitamin green,
This guy has lettuce, argula, celery and some brussel sprout/kale mixture.
Anyways, the reason for this episode is because all these beds except for 1, were intentionally
planted by me personally, so guess which one was not intentionally planted by me?
Do,do,do, I don’t have to give you guys much time, because you guys probably already
know.
The dandelions, they grow like weeds, in fact they are a weed, they may be inhabiting your
front lawn, your back lawn, if you still have one.
If you have one I encourage you guys to pull out the lawn and plant some weed, I mean weeds.
Dandelion or other edible foods, that you guys can eat.
So, let me go ahead and take you back to the dandelions and share with you guys a story
of how the dandelions got there and then more importantly what I’m going to do with them
and what you should do with your dandelions.
So now, as you guys can see we’re looking at my dandelion bed and it’s right
here, you are probably thinking ‘’ John, that looks pretty messed up my man’.
Well, these dandelions have seen their better days, they’ve got some kind of disease,
I don’t know exactly what kind of disease, maybe rust or something, they don’t look
too good.
I mean you can still eat these guys, but you know, I mean, if I got other greens in my
garden that look way better than this.
I’m not gonna waste my time with dandelion.
Now, the reason why this bed looks like this is because in the summer time, actually, I
grew eggplants here and I actually had a dandelion or chickory plant right next to this bed and
it blew all the seeds and they all basically came up in this bed.
You know, I freely let the dandelions grow and I cultivate them actually in pots and
whatnot, so that I can eat the delicious greens, they are very good for you.
They are known as a blood purifier, good for cleaning your liver and kidneys and all this
kind of stuff.
I encourage you guys to regularly eat some dandelion greens.
So, these guys all came up, in the summer my eggplants grew tall, the dandelions filled
the ground to act as a layer of living mulch, instead of me putting mulch on there and it
grew more food.
So they have been growing for over half a year now.
What I got to do now, because I am in the middle of replanting, I got almost all the
beds on this side are replanted except for this one, and so now, the dandelions bed’s
number is up and I’m gonna be ripping it all out.
So the top growth, you know, to me, they’re kind of like, messed up and I’m not really
gonna eat them.
I could maybe harvest some of the, you know, the centre leaves that are in actually pretty
good shape.
(John takes a bite)
Tastes alright, they are kind of bitter, but what I’m gonna do instead is actually, I’m
gonna harvest something maybe even more valuable than leaves themselves.
Dandelion root, the dandelion root has been used in herbal medicine for thousands of years,
I’m gonna show you guys how I’m gonna harvest the root.
Now the best times to harvest your dandelion roots are probably after a year or two of
the dandelion being under the ground so it’s actually nice, large and big, these guys have
not been underneath that long, so they’re gonna be a lot smaller, but that’s alright.
If you notice, I’m putting my gloves on here, that’s because I don’t want to get
my hands all muddy and dirty, plus it helps to insulate me from the cold.
One of the cool things about growing in the winter is that there’s less bugs because
there’s frost and one of the bad things is that the soil is damn cold.
I hate sticking my hands in cold soil, one of my pet peeves, I think I’ve got to move
somewhere warmer!
Now, let’s go ahead and carefully move some of this soil back.
We want to basically, try and dig out the whole dandelion taproot.
Let’s see how successful we are, we get underneath there, Just going to wiggle it
back and forth, dig my finger around the root to free the dirt.
Free the dirt man!
Alright, shaking it up!
(John pulls out the root)
Alright,there if you guys can see, we have dandelion roots, these are quite small around
2-3 inches.
I kind of broke them off but that’s alright because I want the main “meat” that’s
right at the top.
I think I’m gonna go ahead and harvest a bunch more then come back atcha and show what
I’m gonna do with them to get the nutrition out of those dandelion roots and into me.
So, now I’m inside and I’ve got all half dozen of my dandelion roots washed and ready
to go, one of the things you guys could do with your dandelion roots are chop them up
and dehydrate them and make a healthy coffee alternative out of them, because the dandelion
roots kind of have that bitter overtone, you know they use it in coffee substitutes, I’d
like to use it in a different way, so what I’m gonna do today is I’m gonna be juicing
it.
For you guys who don’t know, I sell juicers, so that’s the disclaimer here.
I do believe that juicing is one of the healthiest things you can do to the produce you grow,
before you eat it, because it literally extracts all the nutrients out of the produce so that
you can digest in a really easy fashion.
This is especially important if you have digestive issues, Colitis, Crohn’s or you just don’t
digest things with a lot of fibre too well, you know, removing most of the fibre through
juicing can definitely be helpful.
Even when juicing although we have the pulp coming out over on this side, you know, there’s
2 kinds of fibre in the plant foods, there’s soluble fibre, that’s the kind that dissolves
in the water, so that’s actually in the juice and insoluble fibre, the kind that does
not dissolve.
Say, for example in these carrots here, they are about 48% soluble fibre so even if we
are juicing the carrots, we are getting about half of the fibre, soluble fibre may be helpful
for many different conditions in the body, I think they say it helps lower blood pressure
and who knows what other kind of stuff it does, anyways, I’m gonna be juicing these
dandelion roots along with a whole bunch of other ingredients, mostly roots today and
I’m gonna call this my supreme root juice, if you need a juicer, you should checkout
my website, discountjuicers.com, your purchase goes to directly support me so I can continue
to make these gardening videos for you guys.
Anyways, what we will be juicing today in my supreme root juice are number 1 purple
carrots, I want to encourage you guys to grow purple, grow purple carrots, they are much
more rich in antioxidants than the standard orange ones, plus these ones, I believe they
are called the purple sun carrots have a really really good flavour, a really mono flavour
but they are really deep, rich and purple.
In addition, we are going to be using a beet another delicious root that you guys should
be including in your diet regularly.
The carrots have the anthocyanins because they are purple and there are studies that
show that anthocyanins can really help reduce inflammation in your body as well as help
you potentially keep a healthy weight, clean up your arteries, help resolve blood sugar
issues, all kinds of stuff there have been studies on this,
Of course, the beet contains betalains, another very important vital nutrient in these plant
foods available for you.
And of course we’ve got ginger to add some flavour.
Ginger is also a very beneficial medicinal food and I got part of a sweet potato that
was still in the ground and I had to cut out a part of it because it was kind of getting
rotted.
Purple sweet potato I grew in my garden also and of course besides all these roots we are
using a pineapple today.
Some of the roots may taste a bit strong, the dandelion root is a bit strong, everything
else is pretty mild, the pineapple will cut that with a delicious sweetness so this stuff
will taste amazing, so I guess without further ado let’s go ahead and get juicing.
I got to do some produce prep, so I think I’m gonna prep some of this produce, then
we will come back atcha, when I’m ready to juice.
So now, I’m all ready to juice in the omega VSJ 843 juicer.
This is the juicer I use on a regular basis, at this time, it’s my favourite juicer because
it pretty much juices everything I throw in, it can juice fruits like pineapples, apples,
oranges, cactus fruits, it can juice things like carrots, beets even things like all my
leafy greens.
If you ever wonder, “John why do you grow so much food in your garden?” it’s because
I eat a lot of it.
The majority of my diet comes from fruits and vegetables, and that’s what I encourage
you guys to increase the volume of fruits and vegetables that you guys eat, because
I know that most Americans, unfortunately, are not even meeting their minimum requirements
for fruits and vegetables a day, like 5 – 9 servings, people don’t get that, I get like
20-30 servings of fruits and vegetables a day, because that’s like pretty much mostly
what I eat, you know, I encourage you guys to eat more fruits and vegetables, especially
the ones you guys are growing yourself, you guys can choose to grow more nutritious fruits
and vegetables than the ones at the store.
You guys can’t buy these deep purple carrots, let me go ahead and cut this open for you
guys, what it looks like on the inside, this is completely impressive to me, alright look
at the carrot on the inside, this is a really deep rich purple carrot, the purple is a sign
of more anthocyanins, unfortunately, you can’t buy purple carrots this dark at the grocery
store.
No where in commercial trade that I know of, do they offer them, here’s another one man,
you know, I thought my girlfriend was sexy but these carrots are sexy!
They get me excited man, these purple carrots!
You guys should grow them too.
You just can’t buy these deep purple carrots at a grocery store, but guess what you could
choose to grow these, instead of the orange ones, which you could buy!
These carrots are much more valuable to me than the standard orange carrots because they
are much more nutritious, I mean as, wow, look at this one, it’s really deep, As time
goes on there will be new and emerging research that shows the deep rich anthocyanin pigments
in the purple carrot is going to be one of those new “super foods” and heal all things.
But guess what?
You guys could grow these free and clear in your garden super simple, super easy, carrots
are a real low maintenance crop, literally, you plant them, you come back and you are
going to be harvesting some carrots in just a few months.
But yeh, I think I am going to have to dedicate some of my space to growing some of these
purple beauties.
But yeh, anyways when you’re juicing these guys, you guys get to extract all of the liquid
nutrition out of the produce in its raw and natural state so you are going to keep the
enzymes and the most amount of fido nutrients and fido chemicals when you are juicing it
and using your vegetables in a raw state, and that’s what I am encouraging you guys
to do as much as you guys can, you know, I mean, even these carrots, I was just eating
them just yesterday, they’re quite good they have a real neutral flavour, they don’t
taste funny, they taste like a normal carrot but maybe a little more earthy without some
of the sweetness, which actually I prefer.
Anyways, without further ado, let’s go ahead and get into juicing, we’re gonna turn this
baby on, first we’re going to go ahead and dump in one of these dandelion roots and watch
this juicer tear it up.
Alright, dandelion going through the juicer man, tearing it up, not getting a whole lot
of juice out of there yet, let’s just go ahead and dump in a pineapple, so I only encourage
you guys to use a slow juicer, such as the juicer I’m using today, the slow juicer
will preserve more nutrients, than one of those high speed juicers that are commonly
available at a department store near you.
Oh, this one got clogged up, too much carrot in there.
There are many different kinds of slow juicers, I like this one because it’s the most versatile
on the market.
I think what I’m going to do is I’m going to go ahead and rotate feeding some of the
different items into the juicer and we’re going to come back atcha when we are almost
done.
So as you guys can see, I am just about done juicing all of the produce today.
Putting some more pineapple in there and finally with the carrot.
So if you guys are looking for a juicer, I would encourage you guys to visit my website,
discountjuicers.com, also check the link in the description for a link to my youtube channel
where I compare and describe all of the different juicers on the market, so you guys can get
the best one for you.
Juicing is my number one way I like to use the produce I grow, especially when I have
an over abundance that’s why I grow so much, because literally you can take 1 lb of leafy
greens and turn it into 8 oz of juice.
You can mix it with some pineapple, some oranges, some apples, whatever in the juicer, so now
you can get more of these beneficial fruits and vegetables in you.
Anyways, these juicer’s work really well, with this recipe here, let’s go ahead and
turn this off, put down that spout cap there, and I got a sieve here, I’m going to sieve
out some of the pulp.
Alright, now we got our juice here, we’re going to go ahead and pour this on up for
you guys, so this is what it looks like, look at this rich deep colour, wow that’s impressive
man.
Whoever thought dandelion juice could look so good, well, it’s mostly purple carrots
and pineapple, let’s go ahead and taste it up, wow, you don’t even taste the dandelion,
for one, number two, I taste predominantly the ginger and the pineapple, so it’s kinda
like some kind of tropical drink.
This thing is packed with antioxidants, I’m going to encourage you guys to grow and eat
rich deep coloured pigmented food, you guys know that the white foods, white flour, white
sugar, white rice, all of these processed food are not good for you, they contain very
low levels of fido nutrients and fido chemicals and high calories, These kinds of food are
making people sick, we want to stick to more whole foods, that are minimally processed,
especially processing it at home ourselves, you know, you guys can do that because you
guys are gardeners, you are growing your own foods.
So, make the choice to grow, you know, red cabbage instead of green cabbage, purple carrots
instead of the, you know, orange carrots.
The deep rich red peppers instead of the green peppers, indigo rose tomatoes, so many different,
red kale instead of green kale, you know, red chard instead of standard green chard,
you know, of course I like to grow a variety but I really have been dominating, especially
in the winter time, some of my lettuces, I am growing pretty much, the majority of the
lettuces I am growing this season are the red lettuces, because they are so much more
beneficial in fido nutrients which basically keeps ageing at bay and can help you, you
know, get rid of and heal from diseases from the research I’ve seen.
Anyways, if you guys enjoyed this episode of how I use my dandelion roots to make a
juice, be sure to give me a thumbs up, Let me know, I will be sure to do more videos
in the future on how I use some of the produce that I grow in my back yard garden.
‘cus I mean pretty much when I go to eat dinner at night I’m like Ok what do I got
in the garden, how can I incorporate that into my meal s, even if it’s not entirely
out of my garden, I always have something every day that’s coming out of my garden
that’s going into me ,so I can have the highest level of nutrition and hopefully I
can be healthier because of it, and hopefully you guys have learn something as well.
So, be sure to click that subscribe button right down below, so you don’t miss out
on any of my new and upcoming episodes that I have coming out about every 3 to 4 days.
Also, my past episodes are a wealth of knowledge over 1200 videos now on this YouTube channel.
Dedicated to teach you guys, how to grow your own food and of course a handful of videos
on how I actually use my food to get more nutrition into me, so I can be healthy.
Also, be sure to share this video with somebody who you think would like it, they can learn
how to use their dandelion roots without even tasting them.
Alright, I’m going to go ahead and finish the rest of my lunch today so once again my
name is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com, until next time remember, keep on growing.