Alright, this is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com.
Today we've have another Growing Your Greens in a Minute episode.
So this is my short format videos, so hopefully I'll talk really fast or this'll be pretty
short for you guys.
But anyway, what we're going to do this episode is actually share with you guys my top five
tips for gardening when it's over 100 degrees out and how you could survive and how your
plants could thrive at the same time.
Our needs are kind of similar to our plant’s needs.
In this episode we're going to share with you guys how I survive and am able to garden
in the desert in excess of 100 degree weather.
So today was, I think one of the first days where it's over 100 degrees and probably for
the next week it's going to be well over a hundred degrees and I'm surviving as are my
plants and just cause it's over a hundred does that mean you should sit and be a couch
potato inside like I kind of was a lot of the day.
Absolutely not, one of the things I try to do when I wake up in the morning is look in
the mirror, shave if I need to, also ask myself a question: John, what can you do for your
garden today?
Anything in life I want you guys to grow and put your attention on because if you don't
put attention on your garden or other things that are important to you in your life, like
your wife or your husband, right, they're not going to be happy and they may go the
way of the west.
So send that text message to your wife or your husband that you love them, you miss
them and that you wish you were with them.
This is especially important in long distance relationships.
But we're not talking about relationships today, we're talking about gardening in the
heat.
So let's get down to it.
Way number one to garden in the heat is dress appropriately.
So you know a lot of times I'll just like take off my shirt and have my shirt off in
the garden.
This is important to stay cool and if you're a lady, yeah, take off your shirt if you're
in the private.
If you're not in the private well, put a bikini on.
But other than that you want to dress appropriately.
So like I might wear shorts, I might wear pants, just with my top off that also allows
me to get sun which in turn makes Vitamin D for me which is very important for our health.
The other thing I do is wear a hat.
This is quite important.
So I got a thing, let me tell you guys, I got a thing like I'm kind of lazy like I'll
buy a hat and like I don't really care if it's still got a tag on there, where is this,
this has still got the tag on there and I don't, I'm kind of lazy, I'm just like I don't
care if there's a tag on it and then I guess people see it and like John why you got still
tag on it.
I mean, I don't care man, the hat's working, and it’s functional, tag or not.
Anyways, yes this is a ladies hat.
Hi this is Juanita Kohler from growingyourgreens.com.
No, but seriously I just wear this ladies hat actually because it has a nice long brim
on it actually, look at that.
This is like a really long brim, this is a large hat, look at that.
So this actually keeps more sun off me, so that I stay cooler.
Now this is my wide-brim hat and then I also have a nicer one that's a little bit thicker,
Smith and Hawking that I like a lot too.
Kind of look like Huckleberry Finn or something.
But yeah, this also keeps the sun off of my face and keeps me a little bit cooler.
Just like we want to stay cool in the sun, sometimes your plants might want to stay cool
in the sun also.
So some recent transplants, I cover them up in the daytime to give them some sun protection.
Now this is not needed for every plant, this depends on the plant how young it is, how
much you're watering it, and the variety of the plants itself.
I'm not planting lettuce in the 100 degree weather, not good.
But few crops that do well in the heat, eggplants love the heat, no sun protection, if you're
sun protecting them you're lame, same with basil.
Now the tomatoes and peppers they may benefit from some sun protection if you're not on
a good watering cycle and nutrient program in your garden.
Alright, let's move on to number two.
Is to, it's important for us and the plants, stay hydrated right.
When it's a hundred degrees out right, I'm just not watering for fifteen minutes once
a day right.
I water that bed right there one minute four times a day and if my computer control, watering
controller would allow me to I'd probably water six times a day for like 45 seconds,
which I'm working on upgrading.
This is important to stay cool, much like for us we need to stay hydrated, our plants
need to be hydrated.
We cool down by perspiration and our plants cool down by what's called transpiration.
So we drink water and we sweat, it keeps us cool.
Dogs don't sweat and our plants transpire.
So what this means is that when they're hot, they're going to pull up some of that cold
water coming out of the ground out of the pipes that's in the ground.
They're going to pull it up through their bodies, it's going to keep them, or they don't
have bodies, their vascular system it's going to go through their vascular system and then
it's going to basically evaporate out the leaves, so they're constantly pulling up water
to keep themselves cool so they don't fry either, because nobody wants to fry, not even
a frog in a frying pan.
But yeah, that's how they keep themselves cool but the benefit of the transpiration
which I learned from Leslie Doyle, long time gardener in the Las Vegas desert, is that
when they're pulling up the water they're also pulling up nutrients so this will also
allow them to grow faster and if you shade out your plants, put too much shade on them
they're not going to get as much sun they're not going to photosynthesize as much and they're
not going to want to transpire as much which means they may get fat and lazy.
But yeah, so I want you guys to get out every single day and stay hydrated.
Upon wakening in the morning I'll drink 24 to 32 ounces of liquids to stay hydrated because
I'm dehydrating in the desert here every day.
Now if I wasn't in the desert maybe I'd drink about half of that right when I wake up and
then later when I'm hungry I would drink your, or eat something for breakfast.
But it's important to stay hydrated especially throughout your workday.
So oftentimes during the work day I'll take breaks and have more coconut water or some
fresh made juices to stay hydrated.
So you and your plants need to stay hydrated, it's definitely very important.
Number three way to garden in the heat in excess of 100 degrees like it was today, and
one of my tips is garden early and garden late, right.
Those are the top tips like get up early with the sunrise.
I think the sunrises around 5 am, I could be out here 5 am to like 10, 11 am, and it's
actually just in the 70s, it's really beautiful, nice weather and likewise like we're here
at 7:30 at night and it gets cooler in the evening, still not as nice as the morning
time, but it's not like it's 100 degrees out.
It's going to be like high 80s which is comfortable, right.
So garden in the morning, garden at night and this especially important if you guys
are getting up there in age, getting more mature, people tend to be more sensitive to
the heat.
So always be careful when gardening in the heat, not that I recommend going out and gardening
in 100 degree weather.
So garden early, garden late, those are the best two times of day.
No matter what keep your plants watered.
Get an automatic irrigation system for your plants so you don't have to water them in
the middle of the day and whatever you do when you're watering, if you are watering
in the middle of the day don't water the freaking leaves because you're plants are basically,
you're going to burn your plants.
The water's going to evaporate and it's going to burn the leaves, don't do it.
So tip number four if you want to garden in the heat, in excess of 100 degrees is be smart
about it.
What I like to do when I'm gardening during those times is work in the shade.
I have this nice shade structure overhang where I can work in my greenhouses and do
something in my greenhouses so I could still be productive and work with my plants and
keep my food production going.
Even in the middle of the summer I could in a shade of one of my greenhouses with my overhang
or I can work in one of my parts of my yard, my yard gets shade at different times of the
day, so the later afternoon my compost alley gets shades and the earlier in the day this
side of the yard gets some shade.
So I'll also work in the shade because it can be significantly cooler in the shade than
not in the shade.
So that's just yet another tip.
So now we're down to actually the last tip, tip number five.
Tip to garden in the heat of the day is to take breaks and cool down on your breaks.
So if I'm working in the middle of the day, which I'm not necessarily recommending to
you guys, but I don't really mind working in the middle of the day and I've acclimated
to this.
So it's not like I've just, I'm going to work in the middle of 100 degree weather like of
over years of living in the dessert in hot climates, I've been working outside and if
you're not used to doing this, it's just like hardening off your plants.
When you bring your plants out and they've been growing inside you can't just like put
them outside and leave them out 24 hours man, they're going to freaking shrivel up.
Right, if you're, to harden off your plants if you're growing inside you're going to take
out your plants that you've been growing inside under artificial lighting outside in the full
sun in warmer weather for like an hour an each day or maybe even a half hour and then
take them inside and every day you bring them out, extend the time a minute, five minutes,
ten minutes, an hour.
Leave them out for progressively longer amount of time.
This way your plants will acclimate to the weather and then finally you can plant them
out in full sun like I've been doing.
But that being said we also need to acclimate to our environment, whatever that is.
So if you've never worked out in the hot sun, work out there for two minutes, I know you
guys could handle two minutes maybe a minute and then going to take like a ten minute break
and cool down.
So nowadays what I like to do is I'll work a good, even in 100 degree weather I'll work
maybe a good fifteen, twenty minutes also as much as I can in the shade, sometimes I
just got to do something that's not in the shade and then I got my hat on.
Then I'll work fifteen, twenty minutes I'll get a nice sweat and once I start getting
a nice waterfall, I'm like alright John, you're a little bit overheated, time to go inside
and take a break.
Then I'll go inside and make a nice cold smoothie, a fruit and vegetable smoothie or maybe I'll
make maybe a cold juice or another thing I like to do is make frozen, a hundred percent
frozen fruit sorbets through one of my juicers where I just feed in like bananas and it just
mushes all the bananas up into a banana like ice cream which that's one of the best things
to cool me down.
I'm hot, I go inside make a banana ice cream or a cold smoothie, banana berry smoothie,
banana-green smoothie with frozen bananas, drink it down, cool down, kick back half hour
then come back out for another fifteen minutes.
Okay, so yeah you're taking long breaks but you're cooling down but then you could work
longer instead of just, I'm a man, man I could work like four hours in the 100 degree + weather
heat.
Don't do that guys.
Like don't kill yourselves over gardening, it's just gardening man.
Have fun, we're supposed to be having fun.
So like I have fun, I work, I take a break and then I come back out, I work some more
then I go back in, I get hot, take a break, come out, work in the shade.
So it's easy.
You guys could totally garden in the heat, and yes number one make sure you acclimate
yourself.
Always be safe, if you're not used to gardening in the heat do the buddy system.
Have somebody that you're, you're going to be out there with so in case something happens
to you, because I don't want any of you guys to get heatstroke in just in sake to grow
some of your own food at home.
That's really counter-productive.
So be safe instead of being sorry.
So the last tip I'd like to give you, this is kind of like the bonus tip right, is another
way that allows me to survive in the heat, and also allows our plants to survive in the
heat is special compounds that they make for themselves, but not necessarily for us.
These things are called, if you want to call them plant metabolites or plant phytochemicals
or plant phytonutrients.
It's basically what the plant does when we get, it gets sun and nutrients from the ground
and water.
It basically makes nutrition in its leaves.
The pepper has a nice deep rich red color, the tomatoes are red, blueberries are purple,
all these different colors are known as antioxidants or different phytochemicals and these are
protective and this is why the plant could be out in 100 degree weather and survive because
the plant has evolved living in nature and makes these phytochemicals and phytonutrients
that protects itself from the sun.
Guess what, when we eat these plant phytonutrients and phytochemicals that gift of protection
is conferred upon us.
So I don't recommend any gardeners out there eating a white diet, with processed flours,
processed sugars, white potatoes.
All these white foods, the more white foods you eat the sooner you're going to be six
feet under and being compost instead of enjoying life.
I want you guys to eat colorful, rich foods.
So I eat an antioxidant rich diet.
I eat purple carrots, blueberries and blackberries and raspberries and all the berries are wonderful
and things like dark beets and dark bell peppers, highest in vitamin C and tomatoes with lycopene
and watermelon with lycopene.
I want you guys to eat the rainbow foods because when we eat the foods that have these rich
antioxidant colors including your greens, these have things like lutein and zeaxanthin
and other phytonutrients and phytochemicals that are protective for us and also protective
for our plants.
That's how they're able to survive in the element a lot longer than you are.
So another way that I'm able to survive and garden in the desert is because eating these
foods that give me number one sun protection from the inside out, we don't necessarily
need to use suntan lotions if you or sunblock or whatever, a lot of those are quite toxic.
No other animal on earth uses sunblock but yet they don't get burned unless they're a
hybrid white albino rabbit or something like that.
Animals eat foods high in antioxidants, we don't.
This is a big problem not only for being able to work in the garden, but also for disease
conditions based on my research.
So I want you guys to eat antioxidant rich, grow antioxidant rich, eat antioxidant rich,
we're all going to have a better time on this wonderful planet we call earth and be able
to do whatever we love to do in life like I really love to garden, hang out with my
girlfriend and travel.
So yeah, I want you guys to be successful at whatever you guys do.
If you guys enjoy the short format video, hey please give me a thumbs up to let me know.
I'll be sure to do more of these videos in the future, sharing with you guys my tidbits
of knowledge that I've learned over all these years gardening and just living a healthy
lifestyle.
Also be sure to check that subscribe button, click that subscribe button right down below
to be notified of my new and upcoming episodes that I have coming out about every three to
four days.
Be sure to check my past episodes, my past episodes are a wealth of knowledge over 1100
maybe even 1200 videos now, sharing with you guys all aspects of how you guys can grow
your own food, become independent of the man, and become healthier at the same time.
So once again, my name is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com.
We'll see you next time and until then remember, keep on growing.
Latest Episode on Growing Your Greens!
Alright, this is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com.
Today we have another exciting episode for you coming out to you from my beautiful backyard
garden on a beautiful spring day.
Summer's almost here hopefully you guys got your garden's planted out.