Alright!
This is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com, today we have another exciting episode for
you, and here we are still in winter, and it’s actually late February, and I’m going
to start planting out my summer crops.
So local big box stores and local nurseries are now selling peppers and tomatoes and other
summer crops, cucumbers, zucchinis, all this kind of stuff.
And likely where you live, most places will start selling the summer crops early also.
But, the problem is we’re not past our last official frost date which means although the
weather’s been nice, it’s 75 degrees here and most of you guys are actually in the Blizzard
of America 2015, freezing.
The days have been in the 70s, sometimes the 60s, the nights have been in the 50s and also
high 40s.
And so long as it’s above freezing and the weather’s starting to warm up, you can get
away with planting some of the summer crops.
So the first things I’m going to plant out because I want to be able to have these guys
first, are the zucchini squash and some sunburst squash, and also some cucumbers.
My two top picks for cucumbers in the desert are Armenian cucumbers, top pick, followed
by lemon cucumbers which do fairly well also.
And because we still might get a cold front, I’m going to show you guys how to protect
your plants a few degrees, and how to keep them ultra-warm so that you can get them into
the ground early, and more importantly, if you do choose to plant them early, I’ll
recommend how I specifically recommend you guys doing that because although it’s not
freezing, the weather’s not exactly like summer time weather yet, it’s still rather
cool, and there’s not as much sun, and this will affect your growth.
You always want to choose the sunniest spot to plant your garden, and in the winter time
we just get a little bit less sun than in the summer time.
So that could be in issue as well.
In the case actually I’ve got to prepare a bed, get it ready for planting, then I’ll
actually have you join me and show you guys how I’m going to plant my plants and more
importantly how I’m going to protect them to plant my summer crops early.
Alright so before I could actually plant out my summer crops, I’ve got to make sure my
irrigation system is properly installed since, because there is no standoffs in here, it
continues to sink down.
So what I made is a jig, so thanks to Brian Nichols, if you’re watching out there Brian
my former boss who was really into making jigs, and so I made a jig basically to measure
the depth of the Aquajet to make sure the holes as they come out are approximately three
to four inches, probably right around like four inches max, and that’s where I really
need them to be so that the water could actually [inaudible] up, and my plants will actually
get water.
Because if you guys remember if you guys are long-term viewers, I did get this bed installed,
plant things out, and I lost more than half my plants the original time that we had the
Aquajet installed, and then I did kind of correct that, and then now after the season,
it sunk down again, so now I’m having to pull it up and pack soil underneath so hopefully
it won’t sink down.
Be sure to stay tuned and subscribe to my channel if you’re not already for an upcoming
episode on the Aquajet and my opinions about it right at this time.
All right so I’m going to get back to adjusting my Aquajet, [inaudible] like adjusting your
stuff, your junk [laughter].
When it’s kind of like off, well I don’t know this is more important than adjusting
my junk.
So I’ve got to get this done, then I’ve got to get the stuff planted out, and I’m
going to share with you guys how I’m going to keep them warm even if it still gets cold
out.
Alright so as you guys can see, I’m just mixing up my handy dandy soil mix here to
basically top off my bed, I’ve got the Aquajet all leveled out, and the soil sinks down every
season in my beds because it is so light and fluffy and earthworms are in there and doing
their job and things are breaking down, all the microbes that I have in there.
And the one thing I do not do is I do not till, so don’t ever take your shovel and
fork it in and “Oh I’ve got to turn over my soil because that’s what they do.”
That’s bullshit man, if people are teaching that, walk away, they’re teaching you wrong
in my opinion.
It’s super-critical to my style of gardening, and there is plenty of other styles, you don’t
have to follow my stuff, but if you want the results that I get, you want to do what I
do right?
And that’s what I teach.
I mean I visited so many other gardens across the valley here last summer, and none of them
for the most part overall could compare to mine.
My pepper plants were taller than other pepper plants I’ve seen, and why?
Because I take the time to build up the soil, I do not till because when you till, when
you take a fork, a shovel, and dig it in and flip it over, you’re basically oxidizing
the nutrition so now you’re lowering nutrients in the soil, so now you have to bring in more
fertilizer right?
I don’t want to do that.
In addition you’re disturbing the microbes, the earthworms, all the different creatures
in the food soil web that makes the food bioavailable for your plants being the organic matter and
more importantly in my opinion, the trace minerals that I’ve been adding.
So in the soil mixture what I’ve added are a few things, I added my own homemade compost,
I added the Wormgold Plus worm castings, I added the rock dust, I added the John and
Bob’s host of three organic products in here, let’s see what else did I add, I added
also some Doctor Earth’s potting soil, you know that’s some of the best bag soil money
can buy, and I just want to put the best stuff in my garden, I don’t want to screw around
with things, local bagged soil products that are full of wood chips, like the Doctor Earth
stuff man, primo stuff, you can check it out and try to find it at your local nursery,
request if they don’t have it, I think also True Value you can get it through them because
they don’t have distribution in large big box stores.
But yeah, that’s pretty much what’s in here, I got some Biochar in here, definitely
some good stuff, I got some zeolite in here, I got some humic acid, I got all kinds of
good stuff in here, so anyways what I’m going to do now is we’re going to go ahead
and fill up this bucket here, and now I’m just going to go ahead and go in and top off
my bed, and then I’ll get ready to plant.
So I got all the soil in there and what I like to do is take my jig and take the back
side, and basically what I’m doing is I’m going along the bed to make the soil all level
all the way down.
Now this is an optional step, I’m kind of anal like that, and I really think this just
really makes the garden look nicer.
Now this is completely aesthetic, well mostly.
I guess I’m trying to fill in some of the dirt so it’s all level so that the, you
know once again I’m fitting the most amount of soil in here.
But I think it also looks very nice too and after this I’ll probably get ready to plant,
then of course I’ll water them all in, and maybe even sweep this off a little bit, and
we’ll have a nice bed ready to plant out in.
So now I’m ready to get planting, and we’re going to plant these guys, the Armenian cucumbers,
these did amazing for me last year, I had I don’t know, three foot long Armenian cucumbers.
These are the solid green color, but I really love the striped Armenian actually, those
were more tasty, even better than these guys.
So anyways, we’re going to go ahead and plant these guys out, but you know, right
now it’s not past the official last frost date, what that means is, there’s a certain
date that whomever, geologists or weatherologist people figure out is your last frost date
based on statistical records, when you will no longer have a freezing day.
Until that time, you’re taking a chance, it may or may not freeze.
Now with climate change and things getting warmer, I’ve noticed I can plant out a little
bit earlier and earlier every year, which actually I love on that respect.
On other respects I don’t think the earth getting warmer is necessarily too good, but
we’re not going to talk about that topic today.
But nonetheless, if you live in a place where it snows, I don’t necessarily recommend
planting [inaudible] Armenian cucumbers on a warm day because you might get a snow and
poof, they’re gone.
That being said, this little invention here is my insurance.
If you go to Las Vegas and you’re a big gambler, you’re gambling right?
People gamble here all the time.
I actually don’t gamble, my gambling is planting my plants out early in Las Vegas.
But I get insurance, because when you gamble you can also sometimes get insurance on blackjack.
Well this is my insurance that my plants are going to make it, it’s called the Grow it
Now plant protector.
And not only is this insuring my plants are going to make it, this insures that they’ll
actually grow better and faster than without them.
And so what I’m going to do is I’m actually going to do a test, and I’m going to use
this on basically every other set of plants to see the growth difference, and I’ll give
you guys an update later on.
Now these were invented by a poor guy that lives in Idaho, right now it’s still snowing
in Idaho.
But with these plant protectors by Grow it Now, he’s able to start his garden three
weeks earlier than everybody else.
Now no, he doesn’t start tomatoes and his summer crops three weeks earlier, he starts
brassicas, broccoli and cauliflower and kale and Brussel sprouts earlier, because those
are frost tolerant, but the problem is, although they are frost tolerant they get a cold day
and the soil’s really cold, the plants aren’t going to grow, and that’s the killer thing
if you’re trying to plant early, it’s not necessarily the weather, the temperature
that can kill your plants, it’s the soil temperature.
If it’s hovering around 50 degrees your plants aren’t going to lose their life,
but let me tell you your plants aren’t going to grow that much either because the temperature’s
not warm enough as well as, we don’t get as much sunlight.
I’m happy to say the days are getting longer now, and it is a bit warmer, but the thing
is, especially with summer crops, they like warm soil temperatures not only for the plants
themselves but more importantly for the biologic activity in the soil, this is critical for
you guys to know, and this is why, I mean literally if we put this guy in the soil right
here, this acts like a little greenhouse, I mean I walked in my greenhouse today, I
unzipped it, and [inaudible], got a face full of hot air which I love, I love it nice and
warm.
But basically, this is a sun accumulator for the heat on the soil which warms up the soil,
which will ensure your seeds if you’re planting from seeds start faster, it will also warm
up the soil so that the soil biologics, the whole food soil web that I talked about earlier,
all the different fungi, bacteria can start working.
Have you guys ever seen ants in the winter time?
Well a lot of them go to hibernate, but if it’s not too cold you’ll see them in the
winter, and they’re just like doop, doop, doop, doop, they’re like slow motion man,
if you see them in the summer they’re like [inaudible], and that’s because the weather’s
colder, when things are colder, reactions and things don’t happen as fast, especially
with the biology.
That’s why we put things in the fridge, so that they don’t mold and spoil and all
this stuff.
But same thing happens to your soil.
So we want to ramp this up by getting the soil warmer, and the Grow it Now plant protector
is my number one way to do that.
It’s going to insure my plants are not only going to be protected from the cold weather
if we have a cold spell of a few degrees, but more importantly, warm up that soil.
So I’m going to go ahead and get planting, and we’ll show you guys what I got after.
Alright so as you guys can see, I got them all planted out.
Basically I put a lemon cucumber and an Armenian cucumber in the protector, and we can actually
close these guys up or leave them open depending if you want maximum heat or just a little
heat.
And so I planted one here, left one open there, and then every other, and I also planted every
other two, I planted a zucchini.
So my goal with this is that after the last frost date has passed I’m going to go ahead
and take all these guys off, stick in trellises, and hopefully let the cucumbers vine up the
trellis, and by that time the zucchini should be big, half the leaves will go into the wall
and bounce back and then hang over, and I’ll have tons of zucchinis to eat.
So that’s the plan, let’s see if it all actually works out, I’m glad that the Plant
it Now protectors are allowing me to plant earlier, and it’s going to be definitely
interesting to see if these plants do better than those plants, and maybe if it even frosts,
I’m not protecting those guys, so those guys are just going to have to deal with it.
Well, that’s pretty much it for this episode, so if you’re interested in the Grow it Now
plant protectors, you want to check them out at growitnow.com, be sure to check the link
down below in the description for a money savings off coupon.
These are the plant protectors I use in my garden that’s allowing me to grow earlier,
which is allowing me to eat earlier out of my garden than all the other fools in Las
Vegas.
So hopefully you guys get these and be able to eat out of your garden sooner rather than
later this season.
Once again my name is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com, we’ll see you next time, and until them
remember keep on growing.
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