what we're making here is a self wicking tub out of a protein mineral tub that
the ranchers have their excess mineral in after they get through with them they
don't need them they'll sell them to you for anywhere from $2 to $5, the Amish they
get $20 a piece but anyway and you drill one hole five inches up. Where did I drill my
hole at? There.One inch one hole five inches up then you take seven of
these cans that you get at a nursing home or the cafeteria at the school and you
put one hole right up here close to the top on the sides I'd rather not put it
in the top I'd rather put it on the side then you put seven of these cans around
the outside edge you put your pipe but you cut it in an angle the bottom in
there it's the water can pour out faster you put it close to that hole and that's
going to be your fill tube. We really don't want to put, after we get them to
growing we really don't water water from the top
we want that top to stay kind of dry we want those plants to learn to go down
there to get their water down at the bottom. Remember you've got your water
and your food and your air right there for it the only thing these plants like
is a sunshine and the good Lord give them that from above. Okay then we take
this ground cover this is a three by four it doesn't have to be a bit much
over about three but three and a half but anyway we put this down in this tub
and we punch this down in the middle of this tub and we put this fill this full
of potting soil right down in the bottom that's our wick that's gonna suck our
water is to be standing in water it'll suck that water up to our plant then
we'll just push this on down on the inside here finish fill it with potting
soil, now let me stress don't use dirt out of the garden it's heavy soil will
not work it needs to be a loose potting soil. We'll get with those bags over and
show you here in a minute how loose it is, but anyway the other stuff with
potting soil we have a couple of fertilizers that we put in here pre
plant like Sustain its a 464, it's organic. We
put a half a cup of that in here and we put 1/4 of cup sea mineral which is
nothing but evaporated salt water that we use for the sea mineral, its got 90
something different trace minerals and by the way I have samples of that over
there that everybody gets take one home don't feel bad about it and then also
have a we have a nature source which is a liquid fertilizer I've got some little
bottles of you can take one of them home you use it one teaspoon per gallon and
I'll have your recipe over to take with you but anyway we fill this full of
potting soil and plant your lettuce your tomatoes squash cucumbers and by the way
if you forget some of this you can go on YouTube and type in Gardening with Leon
and we'll show you how to do this again okay now if you don't wanna go pick up
those cans we have another way of doing this, this is a little more expensive,
same deal, you've got your whole five inches up, only hole in the can is the
one five inch hole. So we took some of this 6-inch French drain line and
I'll stop here and tell you a little bit now if you want if you don't want to buy
this this is about a dollar and a half a piece each one of these you have to buy
a hundred feet to get it now if you'd rather use four inch just drill your
hole three inches up you just won't hold as much water you'll have still out the
same program you just have to water a little more
often, with this six inch and a five inch hole you can get by in the wintertime
going two weeks without water in the summertime you get by for about nearly a
week. If you have a six inch you get ten days out of it, unless you have a big
plant in here, but anyway put two of these in the bottom face them towards
the hole here's your pipe cut off an angle
you sit if they're close to your hole right there then you take this here
here's a little 3X3 right here we've used that's gonna be a
3X4 let me get it three before like at all debate just got the wrong one in
the wrong can didn't not now instead of being the wick going to be in the center
now the wick is on each side let me get this in there and I'll show you what I'm
talking about. David knows how to do this a lot better than I do so I should be
letting him teach this. Anyway we're gonna put soil on both sides here and
here still keeping it out of our water capacity and then we'll just go ahead
and fill it up with with potting soil. We get up here about three inches from the
top we open up one these little packages of fertilizer and scattered in here and
then go ahead and put more potting soil to get up to the top and there you go
you can plant your tomatoes your squash two tomatoes, one squash, about three
cucumber vines or you put about ten lettuce, ten spinach, here some lettuce in
it and by the way to to grow more crops of lettuce what you do you start your
lettuce seed in these little pots like this see and then you can take them out
and transplant them into here and it just takes three weeks from this stage
up to that stage they're just three weeks another way when you pull that
crop out you can have another crop growing stick it right back in there
and that a way over three weeks you're pulling off another crop of lettuce.
This is carrots, that's lettuce. Okay now let's drop down to these
strawberries. This is some folding containers that fold up that the produce
comes in and see this folds down like into this right here and there see if I
can. We have these for sale for two dollars apiece
whether short or tall the same price I'm gonna show you how to make a say if we
can't up out of these now so what we do we drill two holes in this in this box
that's a four inch hole, 4.25 inch hole, I'm sorry four and a quarter
inch hole. Then we take two of these little four inch pots this is going to
be our wick to go down in our water we're going to push these right down in
there now we take this little one and we line it with plastic takes about a two
by 24 inch by 36 inch, just lay it in
there, fill it full of water, just set this tray on top of that, fill those two
little pots full of potting soil and then come out and up here and fill this
full and this is what you have we potted these about a month ago you can see
these strawberries here it's already there's one got a bloom on it we had
some of those tubs I think's got red berries on them but what this is you get
aeration through these cracks you've got your self-wicking water it
water's 24 hours a day seven days a week you don't have to worry about whether
it's too dry or too wet, it's gonna take care of itself.
You've got your fertilize in the bottom you've got your water down there and
then you have your air coming through the sides if you notice I put a
newspaper on top of this this is where we do them individually you just put
that newspaper on there to kind of keep your berries clean when it comes out and
put those runners that puts the berries out. Of course out of compost into your
soil you know for next year you stir it up and go again. What we do you know as
we get older we can't get down on the ground you know and work down there
where you know it's hard to get down and raise something there as you as you get
a little older I'm not there yet but I'm going to be but anyway so you know you
can use a table or you can use this styrafoam box something like that we're going
to put a roll of these down through the greenhouse and set these on here like
this doubled up and just take them right here like into this we're even gonna do
tomatoes like that this year. We're gonna put two tomato plants two tomato plants
two tomato plants all the way down 100 foot house and tie these up on strings
to pick the tomatoes off of. So, we're just trying to show you some easy
way of gardening that grass can't get to you from, if you garden in the ground
grass and weeds can just grow to you so fast so this is just a simplified way of
growing your garden as you get older you don't have to get on the ground don't
have to fight the grass. We teach these seminars that are place in Kingston
every Sunday starting the last Sunday of February every Sunday
through the fourth of July. And just called in making appointment we go at
10:30 I think it is to 11. 11, 2 & 5 I believe it is and anyway we teach three
classes of Sunday so you can come and see how this we start in February
because that's when we will put out our first crop of tomatoes is the last week
of February and you can come and see how we do that in the ground and in the
containers and you know pansies you can grow pansies in their tubs the same way
or in these boxes doesn't make any difference this will last you about a
week of water in the winter time in the summertime it'll last you about 3 days
or 4 days but it's a lot better than growing just in the ground or in a pot
with no water holding capacity. Okay, any questions?
Oh ,you fill this up with soil right in here. David come get me out come get me a
sack of potting soil let's fill this up.
Cut you a little pipe 1/2 this long, set here in the corner yes and just then you
just put a funnel in here and pour it in here and let me tell you while he's
filling this with soil so you can kind of see what he's doing.
Let me get you a little fertilizer. Here show you. See here we poke it down
to them two little pots that's why it's sitting down and up bottom you
understand what I'm saying we're gonna put that upper that should be cut off
about that high go ahead and fill it full David
todo now this is enough that I have in this little sack that I'll give you a
sample of this is the sea mineral and this is the sustain this is enough for
one of these tubs or one of these boxes okay we're gonna show you what you do we
come up about halfway full come on a little more Davey just that's good hang
on just a momento, just a momento. That's good limit okay all right we're
gonna scatter this in here like this is a pre plant all right now we're gonna go
ahead and fill it up with soil so we can kind of see how we do it yeah and
strawberries I put six plants in there I was going to come back and set a couple
of pots right here a little one gallon pots out here and set two more
strawberries in it but I didn't ever do it I mean it's just that's going to be
filled up time he gets through anyway this spring. You can put you a little
piece of newspaper or something over this and keep ever going out that hole
put one down at the other end, that's good David, and that's way to look like just
like it right there I'm gonna leave the ends loose a bit can kind of see but
that show you look better? Water it in, get it wet, now you got to get it wet
put water on to get it saturated first and then start putting your water in
here till it runs out the side of the box and you know it's full and you're
good there for a week for ten days.
The reason I stress using high totals is because their seasons are changing.
I don't know whether you realize it or not but back in our 57 years ago when I started in
business down at Kingston we had warm weather from about the 10th of April
till down to about in the early part of November. Now then it can get cold all
the way down to the latest May the 16th we've had Tomatoes freeze down below
Kingston there four years ago, May the 16th it froze and killed the tomato
plants and you know we're having some phrases now before Halloween, middle of
October. So we've shortened up or growing season. So to extend growing seasons
we use these high tunnels now that's just a little one to show you what they
looked like and everything you know everyone on our door on each end you just
do this except this little one door on one end but anyway this is clear plastic.
The problem with these high tunnels in the summertime they get hot you got to
vent them or take the plastic off and believe it or not most people are
getting where they really don't want to take the plastic off they say nah it's to
much trouble take the plastic on put a shade cloth on so we want it just like
this leave it year round so that's what we're trying to figure out a way to grow
in a house this will give you about a 7 or 8 degree temperature from outside in
other words it's warmer in here it is out there y'all believe it
it would be if I had plastic on it but anyway this place that comes up over the
top and all the way to the top on the bottom is what we usually do but now
then we've come showing you a new vent that most people haven't seen me put on
this is our we built this house today. I'll tell you we started this morning 8
o'clock and we built this house, now then I'm gonna show you this vent that we've
got over here to help (using drill to open vent)
It's not automated, its manual. You can put a automation on if you want to but
we try to keep it simple and cheap as we can. Now our plastic goes from that bar
up there over here and down and then another plastic starts right here and
goes down here. I was going to have this covered with plastic want to come up
today but I sent one of the boys out to measure and he he got a little bigger
measurement he wouldn't go in the back door that trailer so I couldn't hold up
here with plastic on it so I just bought like this. But you can vision plastic
from here down to the ground plastic them up there all the way down
the hot air when you warm air up it automatically rises and it goes right
out that vent right there to make you a place where air can come in you raise
this plastic up it's just loose, it's tied here with rope but you pull this
plastic up the cool air comes in here it warms up and it goes out there right
there just like a chimney. We've got a lot of these vents on houses down at
Noble Foundation here with Steve Upton and there a double vent that's set on the
top like that and both sides open up. I don't know why we come up with this one
but we will just keep trying to improve some way and we hope this does, it may
not, it's a little simpler to build. Steve little simpler to bill I don't know what
just good it better or as good as the other one that you have at your place or
not but this is what we're gonna put on one of your houses dinner like that to
show. In your houses this is only about seven or eight degree temperature inside
than it is out there we took Tomatoes down to 16 degrees five years ago, 16
degrees and 10 inches of snow and what we did we had our tomatoes in the ground
on February of the 25th. March the fifth it came ten inches of snow sixteen
degree weather tomato plants are only about this tall in the ground we have
them in the ground and we made a little hook up over them. Probably, Jim did you
teach that today in your class or anything about the little covers the
little row covers okay okay you're on the show but anyway
we just put that little row cover over them and that's another seven or eight
degrees so now then with one layer in this layer now you've got two layers
would be about 14 degrees above whatever it is outside, so if it's 16 degrees
outside 14 now you have to about 30 so what we did we put another cover a
little higher up over it arch up over to put plastic over now you got one, two
three, three inches is 24 added to your 16 outside now you're up to 40 and went the
way we got our tomatoes by that year so without any heat. No heaters in the house.