hey everyone welcome back to digging deeper this week i want to have a quick look inside
with you at the nursery here at fqt farm it's a really interesting time of the year
because we're growing plants that are just going inside our greenhouses and anyway i'll show you
so you know first of all the nursery here at fqt farm is quite high tech to be frank and
the reason is we're growing year round here so there's you know there's there's heating costs
that are in the you know january and february that having a greenhouse structure like this mitigates
it but if we're not just talking about that we're talking about growing there's certain plants here
that perhaps some growers don't know much about and that they should and ginger is one of them
the ginger is one crop that market gardeners should learn how to grow
because it's a really unique crop first of all you know no not a lot of growers grow it
and then most importantly you can make a lot of money per square foot by growing ginger chefs
really love fresh ginger but people at market when they discover it there's a lot of health
properties around ginger it creates a lot of buzz when you come at the market with that fresh
that fresh ginger and for me like you know after all these years of growing all the you know the
most popular crops tomatoes eggplants all the heat loving crops that are in their greenhouses
when ginger came around that was about for me it was about six seven years ago i started to see
it farmers markets some growers were sharing tips and tricks about how to do it i really
did a deep dive and went and learned how to do it effectively and the results have been really
really more than i thought it would it currently rate ranks number two in our most profitable crop
at the farm number one being heirloom tomatoes the main difference between ginger that we grow and
the ginger that you'll find at the supermarket is that it's fresh and it has a lot more taste
flavor and it's organically grown locally grown so there's a lot of people that are in health uh
that diets and that are really into what the qualities that ginger can add to either teas
or into certain recipes so there's a demand for it for for me like the interesting thing about ginger
beside how it looks and how it feels is that it's certainly one crop that i never thought we could
be self-sufficient with in a climate like ours here in northern quebec i really really thought
ginger was grown in the south only and you know just to be able to grow it up here and to grow it
uh economically commercially viably i think that's really cool what's really cool about ginger also
is that it's something new to grow and for me as somebody that's been doing it all these years
it's like introducing a new plant understanding the parameters of how to do it successfully
how to plant it you know in the greenhouse the depth the watering how to fertilize it correctly
uh and just it's kind of one of these plants that's kind of once it's well started it just
kind of goes on its own and it just stays there for all these months without a lot of maintenance
and i think that's pretty cool there's some crops that like the tomatoes here
they're super lucrative but they're very high maintenance
and the ginger the beauty of it is that once it's well established well started boom it's just going
to grow and then you'll be harvesting you know really really nice bumper crops so it's one crop
that i like for that and it's definitely cool it's definitely a cool crop to grow
these are greenhouse tomatoes indeterminate plants you see we grow them on two heads and
they're grafted they're really nice looking the spacing when growing tomatoes inside the
nursery is important making sure that they have enough light for them to grow and expand these
are really really nice in another video we'll talk about graphing why it's important but it really is
and it makes a big big difference these are leaks how we grow the leaks we start them in open trays
and i want to show you the peppers the peppers are really nice also
so this is a really nice transplant bell pepper has the right size it's about 18 inch high you see
the color it's really nice doesn't have any aphids which is a big thing we have tricks for that
but it's definitely nice and katrin the woman that runs the nursery is not in this episode of digging
deeper but she should be because she's really awesome and and it really shows when somebody
has the green thumb you can see it in the nursery because it's a lot it's you know growing in
the nursery is about paying attention it's about giving love it's about exactly knowing what you're
doing but it there's there's something that's more kind of like intuitive about growing these
young stevens and catkin she's the she's the woman that i co-authored uh the winter farming book with
the magazines in french she now runs fqt farm the training school here uh you know i've been
working with her for four years now she's amazing she's she's in charge of the nursery this year
so again fqt is is a special place because we're growing year-round in northern climate
and and this greenhouse is definitely more high-tech than the one that i have at my farm
with the rolling benches with the night curtains with the fans the whole the size of the structure
it's also a solar building because it's connected to the washing station but this is a feature
that i think is really cool it has the hardening off area connected to the greenhouse and so when
we're ready to harden off the plants before they go into the fields there's an important part of
making sure that they won't have any shocks when they're transplanted you can just take
them from the bench and roll them out directly outside to an area that's not heated check it out
so we have beautiful leeks here we have
all of our transplanted spinach that are gonna be in the fields really really early
really nice broccolis coming up so they're looking really good that's amazing
then we have other crops that will be planted in our caterpillar tunnels really really early beats
transplanted beets you see how both buildings connect but there's different temperatures
in the in the nursery the hardening off area and again this might be a high-tech structure but the
concepts can be applied to a much smaller building that's what we do at my own farm at lagrelianet so
that's about it for this week a little tour of the nursery what's going on and an amazing crop
that you should be learning about ginger check it out so that's it for this week's episode
there'd be a lot more to share ginger is one of these crops that if you can master how to
do it well you can really profit from it and if you want to learn more about how to grow ginger
you really should be checking out the master class the online course that i teach
the whole crop itinerary is there with all the other crops that we grow here at the farm
it's really a complete program and i designed it so that you can st you know have a better learning
curve a smaller learning curve learning how to grow these crop hey don't forget to subscribe
to the channel again again again it's our incentive to keep on uh doing these i hope
you guys are doing well i hope things are growing and i will see you next week jm out
you