Lucretia the Tumbler

Transcription

This is John Kohler with GrowingYourGreens.com today I have another exciting episode for you, I’m going to be doing a garden install! You might be thinking “John, if you’re doing a garden install why are you outside Orange County Farm Supply?” Well, that’s because before any garden install you have to pick up the supplies and the stuff that you’re going to be installing. So what we’re going to do today is actually I have a friend who is in a wheelchair so what we’re going to do is actually we’re going to get her set up with garden that she can harvest and plant and everything from her wheelchair and the great people here at Orange County farm supply at 18:26 Chapman here in Orange California is going to be helping me out in supplying the potting soil and the different things so that’s why I’m here we’re going to pick up the potting soil and the plants. If you live anywhere here in the Southern California area Orange County Farm Supply is a great resource to have. I mean, this is my stop to get the products I need to have a successful garden. So next what we’re going to do is we’re going to head inside Orange County Farm Supply and pick up the soil, the minerals, the trace minerals and some other good stuff to put in her garden. Oh, and don’t forget, the plants too. So Orange County Farm Supply is open every day from 6am to 5pm, Monday through Friday. They’re open 6am to 4pm on Saturday and they’re closed Sunday. So this place started by actually selling farm supplies to the farmers in the area because this whole area, Orange County was, guess what? What did they grow? Oranges! And now it’s mostly all residences and hardly any farmers left so while this place still does cater to farmers hey also sell to many homeowners and I’ve slowly seen them expand their product lines and have more and more organics and these are the things that you want including things like the trace mineral supplementation for your soil that can be very hard to find and actually I learned about a new kind that they’re actually offering here that I’m now using so I have to thank Orange County Farm Supply for staying on top of all the latest products and providing them to you guys. So let’s come inside and get some of these products to make a fabulous garden for my friend. I’m so glad that Orange County Farm Supply has a whole wide variety of actually plant starts and also the soil that you need to get a garden going. So what I need to do first before I even start picking out the plants I’ve got to get the soil. The soil to fill your raised beds or your garden with is the most important thing by far and this is where you want to spend the most money on because the health of your plants is depending on the soil that you’re planting them in so I’m really glad they actually got some really good soil mixes that we’re going to go ahead and pick and put on this cart. Now we’re going to go ahead and pick out the potting soil. The potting soil can be very wide there are all kinds of potting soil, they got here, they got potting soil there, they got potting soil here and they also have garden soil and all kinds of different mixtures so depending on what you’re going to do with the soil you’re buying is the kind you’re going to need. So we’re doing basically a raised bed but it’s going to be an elevated raised bed at wheelchair height to she can actually just reach over and harvest and plant and do everything she needs to do. So in that case for me a raised bed is more like a little container, it’s more like a pot, so that’s what I’m going to focus on today, it’s specifically picking out some potting soil instead of the garden soil which the garden soil you’d actually enrich your garden beds with but we’re only going to use potting soil because it’s going to be a self-contained growing medium for her. The basic difference is the potting soil is basically going to retain water just a little bit better by having some ingredients such as the peat moss, some coconut core, or things like the vermiculites. When picking out a potting soil one of the things you want to look for is you want to look for something that is organic, you know. I want at are found in nature in my garden, I don’t want things made out of chemicals. Many potting soils available in big box stores may contain things or chemicals you don’t want in your garden that I wouldn’t put in my garden. So what I’m looking here at Orange County Farm Supply are organic ones and actually I think all the stuff they have here I would probably have no issue putting in my garden. That being said, we’re going to pick out a specific blend of things to put in her garden that we’re going to be building for her. You might be thinking “John, what is the best potting soil to use? What’s the one brand?” Well, that’s a good question, I don’t know, I’ve seen a lot of these brands before but I haven’t personally used them, so in my opinion the safest thing to do is get one of each and mix them all. That way you get the benefits of one, the benefits from another and then you just mix them all up so that your plants can grow happily. The first one we’re going to go ahead and pick out is right here this is actually called “Eco Scraps” it says here “no chemicals, no poop, organic, 100% safe for people, pets and planet” and this is made from a variety of composted fruits and vegetables and other natural ingredients. When choosing a potting soil or a compost I’m always trying to look for thing made out of food scraps or yard clippings and plant products, not necessarily the manure based potting soils and fertilizers. I like the plant based ones because to me this is much more natural. You know, in nature, in a forest it’s mostly leaves decaying and breaking down, it’s the new soil down below and yes occasionally you have the animal walking by and leaving or doing their business and that’ll compost down too but nowhere in nature is there such a volume of animal manures in nature. Now I’ll maybe get some mixture with some animal manure in there because it can provide some nutrition but I’m going to go mostly with the plant based manure. Animal manures may also contain things like antibiotics or other things that the animals ate that they’re now excreting that’s going to basically end up in your garden and when you put it in your vegetable garden hen you’re going to eat the vegetables derived from that. So that’s just kind of gross to me. So let’s get some of these EcoScraps to start us off with. So the first one we’re going to get is about one cubic foot, we’re going to go ahead and put it on the cart and now we have to get a couple more bags to fill up this raised bed. The next potting soil we’re going to get is this stir fry here actually, it’s called Dr. Earth and if there’s probably any one potting soil that I like the best here it’s actually this stuff, it’s actually the Dr. Earth this is called the Pot of Gold premium potting soil. It’s organic, 100% natural, hand crafted, blend contains aloe vera and yucca extracts, pro-moisture hydrate and it also has a beneficial micro including the beneficial bacteria that I like so much. Another thing I always encourage you guy to do before purchasing any potting soil or any soil on a bag, you want to turn the bad over and read the ingredients and you’re going to check out what’s in here so that you know what’s in there and if these ingredients are alright with you. In this potting soil we have forest hummus, fir bark, peat moss hummus, earthworm castings, Kepl meal, oatmeal, alfalfa meal, soy meal, sea weed extract, aloe vera, yucca extract oyster shell and dolomite, limes, ecto and endo microbe raising and beneficial microbes. Alright that sound definitely good to me and this is one a half cubic feet so pretty soon we’ll be filling up that whole raised bed container for her. So the next thing we’re going to get is another potting soil and its right here this is actually called the Malibu Compost and this is actually a bio dynamic compost so the bio dynamic compost is probably in my opinion even better than the organic compost, takes it to the next level. Now this one is based on cow manure, so yeah I’m adding manure based source but aside from that it has a lot of other goo ingredients in here including coconut core compost, deer and cow manure, wood chips, straw, concentrates of yarrow, chamomile, valerian, stingy needle, dandy lion, oak bark, fir bark, pearlite, worm castings, soy meal, fish meal, fishbone meal, “langbeinite”, alfalfa meal, crab meal, green sand, neem seed meal, volcanic ash and kelp meal. So that definitely seems like a good mixture to me and the other thing when buying the Malibu Compost, this is a bio dynamic compost. So what does that mean? It says here this is only produced by a dairy farm that is certified bio dynamic so that means they don’t use any antibiotics, they don’t use any of these harmful things that are going to end up in the cow poop like you would get at a local big box store, you know, they’re selling cow manure for like a dollar. Well this stuff isn’t a dollar either but this is definitely good quality stuff this is going to make up just one of the bags I’m using the rest is for the most par going to be plant based compost The next potting soil we’re going to get is this right here this is actually called the “Dr. Earth Home Grown Premium Soil” is organic and 100% natural hand crafted blend enriched with bat guano. And this is basically… this one is designed for growing pot herbs if you know what I mean. Now my friend wants to grow some herbs so this is designed for pot herbs this would be an excellent mix. This is once again another Dr. Earth’s product. So this Dr. Earth’s product is pretty much similar to the other Dr. Earth’s product but this has been specifically formulated for herbs and medicinal herbs hat you might want to grow at home so let’s go ahead and get one of these. The last soil mix that I’m actually going to be picking up today is actually not a soil mix, it’s actually a general purpose professional growing medium because it does not actually contain soil so if you’re growing thins like hydroponically inside, this is the number one mix that they sell here actually. I was not aware about [it] because it is for professional s and it’s not on the home gardening side because once again they cater to farms and individuals so the “Promix BX” is basically the peat moss, there’s pearlite and the vermiculite with a built in micro raise up and from the feedback they’ve gotten here they got excellent growing results from people that are growing in soil and not growing in soil. Now, personally what I’m going to do is I’m going to add some compost to this mixture because this is soil-less mixture, it doesn’t have any soil in there and I want to have some soil in there and I want definitely some soil to be in my mixes but we’re going to try this stuff. Now the cool thing about this is this is actually 3.8 cubic feet so this is over twice the size of those wimpy bags I got but the other thing is, it says in small letters “compressed”. No why this is important is because when this is uncompressed it’s going to probably turn into a roughly 6 to 7 cubic feet of material so that’s definitely going to save you money. I guess let’s go ahead and take one of these with me to try out. The last nutrient that I’m going to add to the already good potting soil mix is something that most potting soils do not have and in the nice large ratio that I like and it’s this stuff right here and it’s called the granulated natural trace minerals or actually rock dust, this is actually in granular I prefer the one that’s more in a fine powder such as this and they actually have three different varieties here they got the Azomite, the Agrowinn Minerals and they have the Maximize Microbes and Minerals by John and Bob’s. Now you might be thinking “John which one of these should I get?” Well, if you’re rich buy one of all of them because each one of these are actually ground up rocks from different sources and each one will have their own spectrum of the trace minerals and that’s what we’re looking for, we want the wide spectrum of different minerals to add to the soil so that they’re available for the plant. In today’s modern agriculture they usually add three minerals N, P and K (Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium) and you know there’s like 90+ minerals you could be adding to your soil. Now when these are in your soil your plant has access to them and then it can actually pull them up and your plants are going to be healthier, they are going to grow larger they’re going to yield more and more importantly they’re going to taste better and for me specifically the reason why I use the minerals, number one reason, is because I want to grow the most nutritious foods on the planet that money can buy and conventional agriculture and even most organic farming they might only add three minerals back in and what about all the other 90 we need for optimal health? That’s why I’m going to get some of the trace minerals today and the one I’m going to get I believe is this guy right here, this is the “John and Bob’s Maximize” I found out about this in my last trip here to Orange County Farm Supply and this not only has the minerals but it also has the microbes which are important to have a healthy garden because the secret is all in the soil. So I guess that’ll do it for my mixture that I’m going to fill the beds with. Next: let’s pick out some plants! So one of the cool think I like about Orange County Farm Supply besides offering you guys the supplies hat I’m loaded up on here and the plant starts, which they have a whole bunch of, they also have a little demonstration garden, now this is definitely important especially if you’re new in a garden, you never grew before, they’ll give you some examples of what you could do in your yard and I’ve shown this guys before here and you can see these are just little container garden and look at some of these amazing collard greens and kale going off and furthermore over here actually hey got a nice large garden that I’ve shown before; I have another video that I’ll actually put the link down below. They actually have a vertical wall garden made out of a pallet, so a recycled pallet, they also do sell these pallet gardens you guys and they have a whole bunch of little beds here, raised beds on pallets that you can actually start growing food [on], I mean you can actually grow a garden like this and you can supply your family with food every day of the year, especially here in Southern California. They got things like onions in there, they got zucchinis planted up there, they even a little compost bin here so you can make your own compost at home, they got a whole thing of corn here, a raised bed made with corn, simple made out of a 2 x 12 lumber sitting on some concrete blocks so even if you’re over a parking lot… you don’t need a yard to do this, you just need some space to do this, to build a bed like this so you can start growing food. Here’s that amazing container garden here that I showed you guys before, the pallet garden that’s vertical; you can see it’s growing some strawberries; they are now fruiting and making some fruit there. They’ve got some nice herbs, including some sage in here as well, this one actually has some oregano growing, more strawberries… Oh yeah, check it out man, even a ripe one on here! I’m going to go ahead and… wow, nothing better than some Orange County grown strawberries. In this raised bed here they a whole bunch of basil so this will meet your basil needs, whether you want to make pesto or, you know, other things with basil. Herbs are definitely one of the easiest things to grow especially if you’re a new gardener so actually that’s what we’re going to do next we’re going to pick some out some herbs for my friend to grow in her newly established table top raised bed garden. So the goal for my raised bed waist height garden for my friend is basically to grow things that she’ll be able to use. So the thing that I think everybody should be doing growing are some leafy green vegetables so we’re definitely going to have probably half the bed as leafy greens that she could actually go outside and pick one leaf off the leafy green, of each plant, and make a salad out of it. In addition, on the other side we’re probably going to grow herbs that are probably pretty much grow year round here in southern California depending on the herb we’re going to get so this is going to be a long lasting garden. So that way half the garden is going to be a perennial and continue to grow and the other half is and annual were she’ll have to actually re-plant it every year. So first we’re going to go ahead and pick out some common herbs for her, that she can enjoy from her garden fresh. So I just got about a whole flat here of herbs to plant out for my friend. We have things like chives, basil, dill, got some parsley, cilantro bunching onions reek oregano, got a cool one Mexican oregano, some colorful sage and some English thyme. So now all we have to do is get the vegetables. My friend is going to be a new gardener and I want to really diversify with a lot of different varieties of things so that she can try and see which ones she’s really liking because everyone is going to have different taste buds and if I say “Oh I like the red Russian kale” and she might not like them so we’re going to get a whole bunch of different things and I know she did want some cucumbers. So first we’re going to go ahead and get some red Russian kale. This is an excellent kale to grow in the summertime because it does handle the summer heat fairly well. In addition we’re going to get some of these guys down here, the arugula, and some of these plants here they look amazing, they’re in wonderful health and arugula are great salad greens to eat plus when they go to flower you can also eat the flowers, they’re really delicious. Now I know one of the things she wanted to get was some cucumbers and the problem we’re going to have with the cucumbers is that they’re really tall and viney and we can’t trellis things up you know because she won’t be able to reach them if they’re too high. So what we’re going to do today instead is something really smart, we’re going to get these guys, this guys are actually called “bush cucumbers” so these grow more like a little bush than a nice large vine that can get unwilling specially in a small space so we’re going to be sure to pick up some of these bush cucumbers for her. So, I can be challenging to grow leafy greens in the summertime frankly if it’s too hot they’re not going to do too well so their selection is fairly limited but we’re going to try to get as wide of a selection for her as possible. Another that they have right now is these guys here and these are some cabbage and we’re just going to go ahead and get some cabbage so we can plant all the different kinds of leafy greens for here. Now, well cabbage you think that they make that nice little tight head like that iceberg lettuce head you can simply also pick the leaves of each cabbage plant and eat them in a salad, so she can literally take one of each of these leaves and put them in a bowl and start eating out of her garden instead of the grocery store. Oh another thing they have that’s really cool right now is we’re going to go ahead and get her a radish. Now, you know it’s kind of silly for most people to buy radish plant like this but, you know, we don’t have the time to germinate the seeds which I recommend you do specially on the radishes because not only will she have the radishes but she’s also going to eat the radish greens and many people don’t know that. So another leafy green we’re going to get is this guy right here the spinach blooms, they’re long standing so this is a good variety for the summertime. Now, I personally find that spinach doesn’t yield a whole lot of “leafage” for the plant, I’d rather get something else but I think we’re going to go ahead and put this in the mix because she does need to eat her greens. So the last thing we’re going to get is some lettuce, so we’re getting a nice mixture here and I like this mixture this are gourmet salad blend mix so this has a whole bunch of different kinds of lettuce and they’re including some maybe red romaine, some standard romaine and some curly leaf lettuce that’s red. I always encourage you guys to buy foods and plants that are not just green but also red because they have different phytochemicals and phytonutrients in them. I guess I just buy this last little six pack here I think we’re done all good with our vegetables. The next thing we’re going to get besides the soil and the plants is some way to water for her. Now she’s in an apartment complex and I don’t know if they have a hose available and I don’t know this kind of stuff but we want to be able to give her a way that she can water her plants because besides sunlight the number one [thing] plants need is water but we also want to make sure she does not overwater her plants. So because we don’t know if she has a hose setup and if she did have a hose setup I’d recommend a waterer like this. We want to duplicate nature you know, we don’t want to spray some of those sprayers here like these guys, all you guys have these you guys blast your car clean with it, I mean these are great for blasting your car clean and for hosing off your sidewalk but they’re not good for little plants especially if you put them on that jet stream, not good, that’s going to really disrupt the soil and probably disrupt your plants too. So we’re going to get one of these guys and we want to duplicate the rain. Actually this is a really nice handy one, nice size with a little trigger here to water the plants and this duplicates the rain with all these little fine small holes and this is what I like to use when I water my plants, something that duplicates the rain, that you can literally take a shower under [laugh]. But we don’t know if she has a hose hook up so what we’re going to do for her actually is we’re just going to get her a way to duplicate the rain without a hose hookup and that’s just very simple right here, this is a very simple watering can, it happens to be plastic and it’s a nice blue pastel color, perfect for a girl and if you look at the little nozzle right here it has a lot of little small holes so this will duplicate the rain instead of just dumping bottles of water or things with water on there she’ll be able to now simulate the rain and water her plants. I’m just about done loading up the jeep; this is how I get my exercise moving gardening products instead of going to the gym, don’t waste your money on gym memberships, just start gardening. Moving compost and soil and getting out at nature and sweating too. Alright so we got this loaded up pretty much we got all our soil mixture in here and I want to introduce you to the raised bed garden, the waist height raised bed garden we’re using is right here, made out of cedar wood, Canadian cedar wood that I then did finish with the Eco Wood product, it has a nice rich color here and I want to give a shout out to Susquehanna Garden Concepts. They donated this for this project so that my friend who is in a wheelchair can now start growing her own food. So, yes definitely [use] the raised bed on legs so that people don’t have to bend over. So I guess the last thing we need to do is we need to load up the plants and some other things and besides the plants we got here I also brought her one very special plant. This is one of my purple prayer tree collards, this are the very tree collards that the police came to my house to find actually and this is one of them so this is to my friend’s garden. I guess the last thing is go ahead and load up the rest of these plants. Here’s the last bit of plants we’re going to go ahead and put in the jeep and we have to make sure these aren’t going to rock and roll anywhere. I think they’re pretty stable in there. Close up the jeep and now let’s head over to my friend’s house. And now we’re here at my friend’s place and she lives in an apartment complex so, even if you live in an apartment complex and are in a wheelchair you can still grow a garden, even if you’re not in a wheelchair and not in an apartment complex, no matter wherever you are there’s always a way to grow a garden so I’m really happy that I got all the supplies from Orange County Farm Supply and next actually the big challenge is going in from the street in the apartment complex which is actually a three story apartment complex to get everything in there and then we’re just going to set it up and she can start growing some food. So I guess the next thing we’re going to do is go ahead and unload that jeep, it’ quite full. As you guys saw earlier I got the potting soil here and the raised bed here that’s going to be on the legs and all the plants and we even got her the watering can. So, I guess the next thing is we’re going to basically unload this stuff; we have a little dolly, piano dolly that we’re just going to set everything on and roll it in. [Rolling] Alright so here it is you can pretty much see everything I need pretty much to put this garden contained in the raised bed that is going to be on the legs here. I got my little Ryobi screwdriver to screw it together and we got all the organic potting soil that we picked up as well as the minerals, trace minerals and all the plants. I mean it’s literally that simple to put together, I mean this is literally all you need, anybody could do this. So I guess let’s go into the apartment complex and do the install. Now we’re rolling in to the apartment complex and as you can see they have a nice swimming pool here and just some shrubbery and non-edibles in the background but we’re going to start growing some food and literally everybody at this apartment complex or any apartment complex you guys live [in] you can easily set up a garden like this to start growing some of your own food and it is really that simple. We’re almost to where we’re going to set this up so we’ll get this unpacked and we’ll come at you and show you how easy this truly is to set up. Now, we’re all set up in the location where I’m going to set this garden up and as you can see this is everything we’re going to need, it might look like a lot of stuff but all the bagged soil is actually going to end up in this little raised bed right here. Now this raised bed is about 2 feet by 4 feet and about 1 foot deep so that’s probably 8 cubic feet of soil and we probably got a little over eight here so we might have a little bit of extra soil. Now I want to go over the raised bed kit here, pretty much all you’re going to need to do is assemble it, so it has his little legs here and we’re simply going to take the rill with some screws and screw the legs on so this is going to be at a nice height for my friend and it’s recommended that if you are growing food, for somebody in a wheelchair, you have to make sure that the raised bed is at the right height. If it’s too low then they can’t reach down to do their gardening and if it’s too tall then they can’t reach up and over into it so the best height to have for people in wheelchairs is you want to make the top of the garden about 24 inches to a maximum of about 30 inches. Luckily enough this Susquehanna Garden Concepts cedar raised bed comes in from the factory at 30 and a half inches tall. So while I could sit here and saw off some of this, this is already really close to the optimal height for people in wheelchairs. Another thing very important when designing a garden for people in wheelchairs is to have proper access so you want to usually have like three feet on any side of the garden to have it accessible so the wheelchair can get in and maneuver and they can do their gardening. The best way to do gardening in a wheelchair is roll up sideways into it and lean over, versus going in to the front of it and then working it this direction. The other thing that is very important is also having a raised bed that’s not too deep, so the standard raised bed that I recommend you guys to build normally for in the ground is 4 feet by 4 feet and that would be a little too large for someone in a wheelchair so what we’re going to do here is this is actually 4 feet which is a good dimension and then you want it no wider than 3 feet, this one actually happens to be 2, so that’s the perfect size for someone in a wheelchair so that they will be able to work it. In addition, I always recommend you guys grow the largest garden as possible, the more garden space you have that means the more food you can grow so that you can be eating out of your garden instead of the grocery store. I guess the last thing I want to talk about is the Susquehanna Garden Concepts, this raised bed and why I like this. Let’s go ahead and move some of these plants out of here… and that’s because of the bottom, and the bottom here is actually a recycled plastic and many raised beds especially if they’re raised off the ground like this is they may a wooden bottom and the problem with that is that water always drains down and the water would sit on the wood bottom of most raised beds such as this and rot it out so the bottom will rot out well before the sides do. This garden has been designed very well with the plastic bottom so that the bottom will not rot out and the cedar, they’re using really good cedar wood, that is decay and bug resistant plus as an added bonus I treated this with an Eco Wood treatment that actually sips into the wood to protect it and it’s a really nice color, grayish brown finish and it’s going to protect the wood without any toxins. I guess the next step is I’m going to simply just assemble this bed, fill it with some soil, plant the plants and then I’m out of here. Alright so I’m just screwing in the few screws each basically leg takes four screws. That’s 4, 8, 12, 16 screws total to put this together because it already does come pre-assembled all you have to do is put in the legs so I guess once we’re done with that we’re going to the start filling it up with some soil. Now once of the concerns you guys might have is some apartment complexes may not allow you to grow things, you know, they may want the decorative landscaping and what not and you can’t bring soil and all this kind of stuff but basically the cool thing about this raised bed is basically all you can think of is basically like a little pot. I mean, they have some potted plants over there… this is basically like one large pot, it’s on legs so that people that are in a wheelchair can access it or older people that may not want to bend down or people that don’t like bending either so this is truly and accessible garden and I don’t think they could outlaw those. Alright so we got this built and pretty much one person can move it by themselves once it’s totally assembled it’s actually fairly light and once you do fill it another cool thing about this garden is that you can move it. Something really smart might be to put casters on bottom of the legs so you can actually move it around to follow the sun. This spot we chose here is a convenient spot for my friend to have a little garden and have access to it and it does get sun about half the day so we’re going to focus in growing things that are greens and herbs, not necessarily fruiting crops although I did get some bush cucumbers which we’ll see how they do. In general, if you have lower sun then it’s better to grow the greens rather than the fruiting crops, fruiting crops being anything that makes a fruit, that is the cucumbers, the peppers and the tomatoes, things like squash or like that. So even in this indirect sunlight it should do great especially with some of the plants we’re going to plant. I guess next we’re going to go ahead and get this into position and start filling it with our soil mix. We got the bed built and now we’re just going to start filling it up with our different potting soils. You can see that I got a whole bunch of different kinds because I want to get a nice symbiosis and I know a lot of you guys might say “but John, what is the best one?” I don’t know what the best one is, I haven’t personally used this products until this time so I’m going to be mixing a little bit of each to make sure we get all the different stuff in there because the more nutrients you can add to the soil because each one of this different compost is basically based on different formulas and have different organic additives in there so that’ll allow your plants to thrive. One of the things that I might do if I didn’t get a donation of all this different items, because some of these potting soils actually can get quite expensive, I’d make my own mixture so, how would I make my own mixture? I would basically do what’s called an a Mel’s Mix this is one third compost, one third peat moss or coconut core and one third of the vermiculite. That being said, that’s what basically this potting soils are, they’re basically doing that for you in a nice easy convenient way that all you have to do is simply take some scissors, cut the bag open and dump it in. Alright, so that was the EcoScraps “no chemicals, no poop” organic and this has a nice texture here, seems like it’s a lot of unbroken down wood chips which I don’t personally like too much so we’re going to mix that in with the next product here. I’m going to check out and see what it’s actually like, this is the Malibu Compost bio dynamic “Baby Bu’s Bio Dynamic Blend” potting soil so next we’re going to go ahead and cut that one open. Alright, let’s dump this guy in. so I like this mixture a lot better here’s the difference there, this is the Bu’s Blend and here’s that other stuff, there’s a lot more texture like little pieces of wood and things that aren’t fully composted whereas this stuff is a nice really really excellent mix there. But, you know what? You guys get what you pay for, the Bu’s Blend Bio Dynamic stuff is a bit more expensive than the Eco stuff there. What I’m going to do next is actually start mixing this stuff together before we anything else because I want to get all the different compost mixed together and not have it in layers o it’s evenly distributed throughout our little waist height raised bed garden here. So we got those two things mixed up in here looks pretty nice and that one product had a whole bunch of different wood particles in there that’s just composted forest waste but a lot of this to me, this is not composted enough, you know, full solid pieces of sticks and what not in there so not too happy with that stuff but that’s what you get a lot of times when you’re forced to products and I thought because mostly it’s called EcoScraps and they promote it as fruit and vegetable based scraps, not a lot of forest products that it would have more real compost in there but it wasn’t that way. Next, I have high hopes for this stuff the Dr. Earth’s Pot of Gold premium soil, let’s go ahead and open this guy up and see what it looks like. Oh wow man, this stuff is the bomb, so far this stuff I like the most. I’m going to pour this out so you guys can see it, look at the color difference between that and the stuff currently in the bed. I mean this stuff here is like brown but this stuff here is rich and black. This is stuff you want to be growing in, it’s fully composted I don’t see anything un-composted and it’s really really rich, I’m glad a whole bunch of this stuff, the Dr. Earth’s for my friend today. And now I got all this mixed in here so far the three bags filled up probably maybe two thirds of the bed, now we’re going to put the next layer in and what we’re going to add next is this stuff right here that’s actually called the John and Bob’s Maximize so this is actually the minerals and the microbes, we’re going to add those into the soil so that the plants can dance and be healthy. Now, this bag here it says it treats a 1000 square feet so this is actually just about 8 square feet but we’re going to put a nice healthy those in here to make sure all the plants growing in here have the minerals they need and also the beneficial microbes so that they can be healthy. We’re just going to sprinkle this on top then we’re going to go ahead and mix it in. So, I think it’s really important you guys get your hands in the soil and feel the soil, I think we’re far [too] insulated in this day and age from nature and actually it’s the soil that really created life on Earth, the plants come from the soil, we eat the plants… Soil is just amazing stuff. Make sure to fill your raised beds with some good soil not just maybe the dirt pre-existing at your house. Got all those minerals added in and next we’re going to go ahead with this guy, this is actually the Dr. Earth’s Home Grown premium soil. This is specifically formulated for growing pot herbs if you know what I mean. My friend is definitely going to grow some herbs, maybe medicinal but probably mostly culinary herbs so we’re going to get this mixed and we’re going to check out and see what it’s like. This is very similar to the other Sr. Earth’s premium potting mix we had but this is once again especially formulated formulation so we’re just going to mix this into our mixture here. One of the reasons I like the Dr. Earth stuff is because number one: wow, this stuff is really rich too, it’s really rich but it also has probiotics so the beneficial microbes are going to basically colonize in the root zone of your plants and then actually help your plants bring in nutrition and they will even be more resistant in times of drought; you know the microbes can reduce watering need by 20% and that can be a significant amount of water. So let’s go ahead and pour this guy out. And once again, no surprise this mixture is nice and dark, actually nice and really dark, lots of good stuff, nice and fine, no un-composted stuff in this mix. So I got this full and we’re probably… we’re so close we’re probably like 85% full but we got that much of a lip on there and I always like to fill my raised beds or containers to the brim. Not totally to the brim because if then you water the water rolls over the side ut we want to fill it up as much as possible and just leave a little bit of space so when you do water the water is going to stay inside your raised bed. Now, why do I like to fill it up to the brim? It’s like putting the toilet paper on coming off the top instead of underneath the bottom, it’s just to me the right thing to do. You know the soil is where your plant’s root are going to live so the more soil you can provide also the more nutrition that is going to be available in there for your plants so that why I like to fill things up it’s just the most optimal way to grow things in my opinion. So what we’re going to do is going to go ahead and open up this last bag of Dr. Earth’s Pot of Gold and we’re just going to put just enough in there so I can fill this up most to the top but not over the top. So I got the waist height raised bed garden filled with definitely the good stuff and now we’re ready to plant out. So besides you’re going to fill it with it’s probably very important to make the proper selection with the right plants you want to grow the right plants in the right climate at the right time of year, so luckily at Orange County Farm Supply they’re supplying the plants that are going to do well in this environment at this time plus actually they had really good prices. The 4 inch pots were like a dollar and I think that’s just a great price for those little 4 inchers. So, anyways what we’re actually going to do next is lay the plants out kind of just putting them where I think they’re going to be planted on top of the soil and then we’re probably going to go ahead and dig them in and get them all planted. As you guys can see I got all the plants laid out in here. Now, we have 30 plants in this 2 foot x 4 foot bed so yes that’s absolutely a lot of plants. Let me go ahead and show you guys some of the plants that I actually ended up planting in here. You know, I tried to think about when I’m planting things is how it’s going to look like when it’s done because I know things like chives they’re going to stay pretty small so I can put those near the edge. Other things like cilantro and the parsley are going to get fairly tall and near the end I have the dill, the basil and the Mexican oregano that is actually going to get really tall as well and that’s basically the herb side. What you may notice is that I’m planting things rather close so I normally subscribe to the 38:49 gardening standards of planting on how close to space the different plants are planting and that is to give them enough room to grow into a full mature crop so that you can harvest them. Now, you know the technique I’m using is just a little bit different and I have done this before, it’s like this is my container garden spacing, I tend to space things a little bit closer together and you can totally get away with that especially if there’s a good soil mixture that has the nutrition that the plants need and why I’m doing this is so that we can fit a lot more plants in there and then the goal is to actually come out every day or every couple of days and harvest a little off each plant that way you’re going to keep them trimmed down. It’s kind of like if you have fruit trees and there are so many fruit trees you can grow one big fruit tree that has a massive span or you grow a lot of little ones and keep them pruned and keep them nice and small so that they’ll continue to produce for you. So that’s the goal with this garden so we’re planting things closer than recommended but you’re going to come out and clip all this stuff and eat it every day because that’s the goal of the garden so as long as you continue to clip and keep things small the root is going to develop and is actually going to grow quicker to produce the food that you can eat and that’s why we’re doing that. So back over on the other side… we have the herbs on this side and the new have the vegetables on the other half. We’ve got things like the radishes which you can eat the greens and also harvest the little radishes, these are actually French breakfast radishes, we’ve got things like the spinach, some lettuce and some arugula as well as some red Russian kale here and then also of course the tree collards in the back and for fun we’re going to go ahead and try to plant some cucumbers, we got some of the bush cucumbers so they’re not actually going to make a big vine, they’re just kind of going to grow hopefully a little nice bush and hopefully they’re going to grow really well. Now, well one of the things I did consult my friend Kenza when selecting what to plant out and we asked her what are her favorite things from all the different ones and these are her favorite things that she really likes and I definitely approve, I really like the cilantro and the parsley myself and I definitely love my leafy greens as she does and you should too. Next I’m going to go ahead and start planting these guys up and we’ll be back at you when this is all planted out. We have a successful garden, yet another viewer is actually is going to grow some food because of me and check this out we got the garden planted out, thirty little baby plants, this is perfect for somebody in a wheelchair or even older people that don’t want to bend over. I do want to thank Susquehanna Garden Concepts and Orange County Farm Supply for making this available and now allowing my friend Kenza to be able to grow some of her own food. So Kenza do you have any words you’d like to say to my viewers today? (KENZA) No, you know, I’m just so grateful for the time John put in today to come and help me grow my own food because I live in an apartment without a balcony or a patio and my neighbor has been so gracious to contribute some of her space here for me to have my own garden finally and I’m so excited to grow mineral enriched food that’s nutrient dense and I’ve been watching John for such a long time and I’ve been so inspired so it’s finally coming to fruition and it’s so cool, I’m so excited! Thank you John, thank you so much. (JOHN) Wow, I’m so glad Kenza I could get some of this stuff growing. (KENZA) I feel so fortunate, really awesome experience. (JOHN) No space, no patio, whether you’re in a wheelchair, whether you’re older, whether you’re a kid, whether you’re a man, whether you’re a woman, no matter what color you are, there’s always a way to start growing a garden today, just be persistent and make it happen. I did use a lot of different things that were furnished that the two companies Susquehanna Garden Concepts and Orange County Farm Supply and they made this available but there’s other many local resources you may be able to find. I mean just a couple of videos ago I showed how I was able to make a garden out of standard produce crates that normally get thrown away. So be resourceful, be persistent and yes you can be growing today. Hopefully you guys really enjoyed this episode learning about how to grow a garden especially for someone in a wheelchair or elderly or handicapped disabled people and you’ll be able to do it too just put your mind to it and you’ll be able to start growing your own food, mineral rich, mineral dense food better than anything else that you could be eating from the grocery store. So once again I’m John Kohler with GrowingYourGreens.com, we’ll see you next time and remember: Keep on Growing!