Kamis, 13 April 2017

what cuisine is miami known for


alright! this is john kohler with growingyourgreens.com! today we have another exciting episode for you. i’m still on my vacation here in miami,florida, and having a wonderful time. the weather is beautiful today. it’s actuallysupposed to rain but it’s actually kind of sunny. so i’m really happy for that.and the place i’m at today is a business here in miami known as ready to grow gardens.and their tagline is ‘grow your own food’. and that is actually my message also. andi’m glad that they’re promoting this message here in south florida to people, but moreimportantly, their primary business is involved with installing gardens. whether that’sa raised bed garden, whether that’s a permaculture style garden, whether that’s just ediblelandscaping around your yard, so that you

guys could grow food. i know a lot of youguys watch me and a lot of you guys are still scared of gardening and growing your own food.and let me tell you guys it’s really not that hard man. you get some soil, you geta raised bed, fill it up, get some good soil, get some plants, plant it in and the stuffwill grow. specially here in south florida. but for those of you guys that don’t wantto do this, that’s where ready to grow gardens come in. i know a lot of you guys have a lotmore money than time. i’m kind of in the later have a lot more time than money. butif you guys are like rich and stuff and want to just garden, want to come in and just beeating out of your garden and not have to hassle with it, then ready to grow gardensis the place you want to call.

i mean, let me tell you, this morning beforei actually came here my first stop was a local farmers market. and i won’t mention thefarmers market name. but they have a big price guide. and i mean, the prices here in southflorida for organics are insane. let me go ahead and look up like a bunch of kale, alright.so kale, bunch of kale organic $3 and 60 cents each. and that’s for one bunch of kale.and here’s the thing, if you go to the farmer’s market and buy kale, as much as i encourageyou guys to support your local farmers market, you know, you get 6 leaves of kale for $3.60or whatever how many leaves you get. and once you eat that, the kale is poof, it’s gone,it’s put through the juicer, it’s put in salads, it’s put in your blender, it’sgone. and there is your money too, it’s

gone $3.60 . but if you put that same $3.60you know into a plant start here at their plant nursery, that kale will grow for a fullseason and depending on the kale variety, get maybe even for a full year you can harvest6 leaves off it easily every week. and that will pay you money back. so you have moneyin the bank plus you’re going to have a higher quality food. because even at the farmersmarket i was at this morning, most of the food was not local food unfortunately. itwas actually trucked in from other parts of the country, which i think is quite sad. i’mreally all for local organic food and it doesn’t get more organic or local than your back yard. so yeah, if you got money, stop buying stuffat the farmers market, start growing it yourself

and get ready to grow gardens put in the gardenfor you. now i know most of you guys watching this video are not in that category. so whati’m going to do today is actually show you guys how they install some of their raisedbed gardens. and share with you guys the materials they are using, show you guys the soil mixture,and more importantly share with you guys the plants that they’re using. so if you wantto do it yourself, you can. so they focus on is doing the whole installationfor you. they don’t necessarily sell any of the components to do that except the plants.and they have a by appointment only plant nursery, that’s the main reason why i wantedto come here to share with you guys some of the unique and rare varieties of plants thatreally grow well here in south florida. if

you go to like a big box store or home depotand you just get any old plants there, they may not do well. but they have, you know,selected and tested and sell and offer the plants that will grow good here because thoseare the ones that they’ve been planting in the gardens now for the last 5 years successfullyrunning this business. so i’m glad that they’re open by appointment or, you know,right now they’re open saturdays only but call to check ahead to make sure they’reopen on saturdays. i came here on a saturday, they are open for a few hours every saturdaybecause the nursery business is not their main business. the main business is actuallyinstalling gardens for you guys. but i’m glad once again, they are a resource for organicplant starts here in south florida, because

they can be really hard to find. so actually the next thing i want to do isi want to spin the camera around and show you guys their little demonstration garden,show you guys what you could have here in south florida in just a small amount of space.and then we’re going to go ahead again and get into actually how they put one of thesetogether. so what we’re looking at now is their demonstrationgarden at ready to grow gardens, and you guys could see behind me basically they have anarea up front with like four raised bed gardens from actually reclaimed wood, which is reallycool. it’s actually a reclaimed hardwood that’s probably going to last longer thanyour house is going to last. and then behind

that actually they just have row crops. sothey, once again, they focus on the raised bed gardens but if you want to put a row cropgarden in, hey be my guest. basically what they’re doing is they’re basically buildingor mounting up beds in the existing ground to really build the raised bed without site.so that’s all that is. now if you are new into gardening, i always encourage you guysnot to bite off more than you chew proverbably, which basically means start out small. sobuild a small raised bed like this so that you can manage and take care of it. and atready to grow gardens, you know, if you don’t want to take care of it that’s alright becausethey do the maintenance for you. so literally all you have to do is walk out the back yard,front yard, wherever you put your garden,

and harvest the food whenever to want to eat.so yeah i really like that they take care of the whole gamut for you guys. anyways, let me go ahead and show you guyshow they set up one of these raised bed gardens and what they have planted this time of theyear. so what you’re looking at now is a fourfoot by ten foot raised bed garden. this is a pretty good size to start out with in myopinion. you know, you could do a 4 by 4, 4 by 8, 4 by 10, 4 by 12, you know. gets kindof larger. 4 by 10 is a really good size. in this one, they have it basically plantedout in leafy greens with some herbs. they have over 2 dozen different plants in hereright now. most of which are kale, collard

and other brassica family plants. and youguys could see this is lush and abundant. you know, in this bed how it’s actuallysitting right now, i could easily , you know, harvest 6 leaves off this plant. you know,one day harvest 6 leaves off that plant, the next day and every day i go around to differentplants and harvest 6 leaves or i could harvest 1 leaf off 6 plants to have 6 leaves. thatwould probably be a better way to do it to let the plants continue to grow longer. andliterally, you know, as you guys could see, having a garden really pays you money by havinghigher quality food and a never ending source of leafy green vegetables. and the leafy greenvegetables, i want to remind you guys, are one of the most nutritious foods on the entireplanet. i mean, my channel is called growing

your greens. and that’s because i want everybodyto grow their greens and include the greens, the leafy green vegetables, in you guys’diet each and every day. they are very important. my goal is to get two pounds of leafy greensin me. that’s not always possible, but normally i get in about 1 pound, specially when i’mtraveling it’s challenging unless i come to a nice garden like this that has a lotof extra greens for me to eat. but, you know, the leafy greens have the least amount ofcalories and are loaded with phytochemicals, phytonutrients, vitamins and minerals, andspecially in the cruciferous family of plants like the ones we’re looking at here areanti-disease. so they’re disease protective. they can protect you against different diseaseswhereas, you know, processed foods, junk foods

and animal foods in excess, you know, willcause disease. and the problem with america today is too much fast food, not enough vegetables.and i don’t care if you still want to eat fast food, but make most of your diet freshfruits and fresh vegetables and a really small portion of your diet, you know, junk food,processed food, animal foods in excess, right. so yeah, so easily you could see how reallyit’s going to pay you money to grow your own food. next, i want to show you guys actually howthey have this bed set up and what they’re growing in and actually how they’re doingit in case you guys want to do it yourself. so now i’m going to show you guys how theyset up one of these raised beds. luckily on

this trip, this bed is about half plantedout. so they haven’t actually topped it off and finished it. so it’s not like afinished growing raised bed. it’s still kind of in transition. so i could show youguys this. so basically what they got is basically 4 pieces of wood they screwed together andput some corner brackets in to make a box. this is very simple, you could go down tohome depot, lowe’s, local lumbar store, get them to pre-cut the wood for you and makesure you get some, you know, hard wood that’s not going to rot out in the sun like the standardconstruction lumbar. but that’s alright, even if you don’t have a lot of money, youcould use standard construction lumbar. i would just encourage you guys to treat itwith some kind of natural wood treatment such

as the eco wood product that i recommend,and have videos on in the past that i’ve used to preserve it so it won’t rot outas quickly. everything will rot out, it’s just some things last longer than others.so yeah, build the box. and then you’re going to fill it with the soil mix. so theyhave nice really rich black soil mixture here that is their proprietary recipe. and thenthey just fill this bed up. it’s actually well draining, also holds some good moistureto keep the plants watered properly. and then you basically put it in irrigation system.and what they use here is they use the drip irrigation predominantly with some sprinklershere to just get some extra coverage as needed. lately because it is raining so much theyhave actually been able to turn these off.

and they have a basically a header pipe here.and for me personally, i would recommend instead of using the small drip tubing stuff likethey’re using here, i would just recommend using the larger half inch or five eighthinch drip tubing, and either stick emitters in there yourself or get the ones with theemitters built in. i find that these clog less, are a lot more durable and that’swhat i personally use myself. so after you get the irrigation in, what you’regoing to do is go ahead and you’re ready to plant your plants. so i recommend and encourageyou guys, if you guys are new growers, to always start from transplants if possibleand try to get the largest size transplants you can. because the larger the transplant,generally the healthier it is and the higher

your probability of success. that being said,the carrots they have planted here they’ve started by seed and there’s many crops thatcan easily be started by seed. carrots is definitely one of them. so they just spreadthe seeds out and then guess what? the rain comes, the sun’s out every day and the stuffgrows. you don’t need to tell the plants to grow man, grow baby grow. they’ll growon their own because that’s what they’re programmed by nature and designed to do naturally.so literally as long as we have a good setup in place and created a good foundation ofour garden like you have to create a good foundation for your home before they builda home, you are going to be successful. so that’s what they really focus on here, settingup people with good foundations. so that you

could get off and growing you know, withoutany work. so the next thing i want to do is actuallyreally go ahead and talk to you guys about this wood here. because that’s what’sactually quite interesting to me. they’re actually using a reclaimed wood. this is probablythe first time, a rare time, that i’ve actually seen people use reclaimed woods to build raisedbeds, and actually they are very durable, reclaimed wood at that. so now i am in their little workshop areawhere they actually build the raised beds here on site. and i want to share with youguys actually the special wood that they’re using which is reclaimed hardwood. this stuffis actually known as greenheart. and when

i saw this originally i thought this was likesomething like some kind of ipe wood, brazilian hardwood that actually i use for a deck thati made, that are actually quite expensive to use for raised beds, but a good wood nonetheless.but this is actually reclaimed, so instead of chopping down forests and taking new wood,this is wood that would have literally just been thrown away. so this greenheart wood,what this was originally from, it was pilings from docks. so it’s like they had thesebig pilings or big fittings that go into the ocean and then support the dock and then theyhave to replace them every so many years. and this is like the inside of the wood afterit’s been, you know, milled and what not. and they get it here to use in raised beds.now this is stuff that’s been under the

ocean man, water, you know, contact each andevery day and hasn’t broken down. so this is a, and actually it’s quite dense forit’s size, it’s actually a really heavy wood, not like one of those you know, pinesor douglas firs that you go, and that’s definitely a good sign that it’s going to,you know, be more resistant against decay and also pests and what not. so i’m gladthey’re using that. as you guys could see here behind me theyhave basically a warehouse of stacks and stacks of just different size raised beds. whetheryou’re going to get a one high or two high, and the different sizes, you know, 4 by 8,4 by 10, 4 by 12. they come in all different sizes here and they actually will make onesto fit your specific, you know, dimensions

in your back yard. and of course, when youbuild them yourself, make the size that is most appropriate for you. now everybody alwaysasks me john what height should i make my raised bed? so you know, i recommend generallyi like about 12 inches. if you make it taller you’re kinda wasting your time unless youwant to grow something like gobo root that gets really tall, you know. you could getaway with something like 8 inches but i really like to go with the 12 inch mark. i just findthat a lot better. but yeah, 8 inches will work as well. the last comment i have for them here is thatthey have a big pile of all the end cuts and what not that they haven’t used. now there’sa lot of nice wood here left. so i really

hope that they use some of these small cutsand just make little small 1 foot by 1 foot boxes or, you know, little planters for peopleto, you know, enhance people’s gardens. and they could maybe make put bottoms on themand sell them as little herb gardens here. so even if somebody has like a balcony orpatio, they could have a little garden, you know, made out of this scrap wood that youknow looks like it has been collecting for a little bit. next thing i want to do in this episode isactually take you guys around their regular demonstration garden where they actually areplanting extra plant starts that they actually don’t sell and actually don’t install. so you guys could see how they grow. and

i could share with you guys some of the bestcrops to grow here in the winter time in south florida. so now i want to share with you guys justsome of the plants and edible vegetables that are thriving right now here in the wintertime in south florida. now i want to explain to you guys that there are basically two kindsof vegetables you guys could grow here in south florida, unlike most parts of the country,due to the mild climate you guys have. so you could grow the standard annual vegetables.and these are the vegetables that if you go down to the supermarket, most people are familiarwith. things like the kale, the collard greens, you know, lettuce, and celery and carrotsand beets and turnips and radishes, arugula,

all these kind of things are standard annualvegetables. and those are the ones you guys are all familiar with. now the class thati personally recommend the most you guys grow are not the annual vegetables but the perennialvegetables. the food that you guys probably have no familiarity with unless you’re fromsome of the countries which they originate, which are from tropical countries, you know,that don’t get cold weather spells and frost and all this kind of stuff. and because ofthe mild climate here, you know, you’re able to grow some of the perennial vegetables.so that’s what i think you guys should take advantage of. so this time of the year they’re focusingon annuals and in the summer time when it’s

too hot to grow the annuals, they focus onthe perennials. so i’m kind of sad i’m not here to share with you guys the perennials.that being said, any time of the year, you could grow perennials. you don’t just haveto focus on them in the summer time when the annuals won’t grow. i would actually justpersonally grow the perennials all year long as the majority of my garden, or as landscapeplants, and then have a raised bed with the annuals. so i want to first in this little clip here,go over just some of the perennial vegetables they have growing, and i hope in future visitsthey massively expand the amount of perennial vegetables, you know, they’re growing hereto demonstrate and explain and let people

try the new taste sensations and varieties.i mean, they are much easier to propagate because they are often done by cuttings insteadof starting from seed, and you know they grow really easily. and it’s sad that most farmersgardeners and people into this, you know, grow your own space, don’t focus on perennialsas much as i would like them to. so yeah let’s go ahead and share with you guys some perennialvegetables that i recommend you guys grow here. so the first two perennial vegetables i encourageyou guys to grow is one right here. this is known as okinawan spinach. this has been poppingup in pretty much every one of my permaculture style farm videos that i have actually goneto this trip. and that’s because it grows

really well. i mean, i don’t know if youguys could see but this is a nice area. they probably planted one plant here and it basicallyjust spread out and took over. so this is a great ground cover. if you have the space,you want to just grow a lot of food, i don’t know if i’d recommend putting this in araised bed because it would probably take over the raised bed over time. but you’llhave, you know, copious amounts of food. and i really love these leaves because not onlyare they green on the front side but they’re purple on the back side, like some peoplei’ve met. but yeah these are very nutritious and have a really mild flavor. definitelynot as strong as kale to me. and they are really nutritious for you as well.

another one they got growing right behindme right there is the comfrey. this one will also grow really well. that’s more of amedicinal, not necessarily a food. so i do encourage you guys to have, you know, herbsas well. and over on this side they actually have the lemongrass. so besides focusing onthe leafy greens, i want to encourage you guys like if you get one raised bed, do leafygreens. if you get a second raised bed then do the perennial herbs that are going to growyear round. because literally you could plant them once and you will have herbs that youwill not have to go out and buy little small packets for $2 , you know, at the grocerystore each and every time you need it, if you just have an herb garden outside. andmany herbs will grow fine in this climate

year round. so next let’s go ahead and share with youguys actually a new herb that i learned about actually this very trip, which is quite cool. so the new herb i learned about this tripactually right here right now, a little bit earlier, is this guy. now i don’t know ifyou guys could see this, it’s like the light green color, it just kind of goes along alittle border here. this would make an excellent ground cover also when you step on it or wheni just sat down right here, it really emits a nice fragrance. and this is a mint. so thisjust known as the florida water mint. so that means it likes, you know, moist places. ithas been raining a lot. but there is little

small mint leaves. they also make these littledelicate flowers that are actually quite edible. you could eat those. and the florida watermint is actually excellent to use in smoothies and juices and other culinary creations likesoups and salads and all this stuff. it’s a really nice small leaf. mmmm, really nicemint punch, little bit stronger than many mints but i really like it a lot. so don’tuse a ton. but as you guys could see it grows prolifically. and these are the kind of gardencrops i want you guys to grow, ones that grow prolifically without you having to do anything.i mean, literally you could probably plant this somewhere in your yard and it’s probablyjust going to take over the little space, you know, maybe put it near like the downspout on your gutter system or something right.

it’s going to love that and you will foreverhave mint, you’ll never have to buy mint again in the grocery store. you get rippedoff or go to the farmers market and buy mint. i think it’s just insane when some peoplebuy certain herbs when you could, they’re so easy to grow. and mint, this mint particularly,is a no brainer. because i mean it’s native here to florida. and actually maybe i’lleven try to get some cuttings or a clump to take back with me to grow it myself, becausei actually like it a lot. alright, so actually i think they are prettyshy on perennial vegetables this time of the year in the garden. there’s one more thati want to show you guys. but on their price list they do have a number of other perennialvegetables such as the chia, such as the bele

(belmoschus manihot), edible hibiscus andgynura procumbens or longevity spinach that actually they don’t have available todayat the nursery, that i would also encourage you guys to purchase and grow in your gardenperennially as hedges or as ground cover. the last perennial vegetable that i’m goingto share with you guys today before i get into the annuals is this one right here. thisis one of my favorite perennial vegetables and i only wish i could grow this year roundin my climate. and you guys are so lucky that live in south florida, you guys could growit here year round easily. and this guy is known as katuk or sauropus. and basicallywhat’s eaten are the leaves. so you could just go to a leaf or a branch and take yourhand and bring it down and then you could

get a little handful of leaves. and then popthem in your mouth. to me, this has like a reminiscence of likepeanut butter. but this is a leafy green that’s actually quite delicious. so you could makesalads out of this stuff, make blended smoothies. but i don’t necessarily recommend juicingthis stuff in high concentrations. but as you guys could see, it grow in these stalksand it just grows as a hedge. and you could have endless food, you know, along the borderof your property, along the fence line, wherever you want. so i really hope they get some ofthese into their demonstration garden, and to really show the power of perennials. becausespecially in tropics, in sub-tropical climates like florida here, south florida, those arethe vegetables that you want to focus on the

most with the annuals as a smaller side component.that being said, let’s go ahead and talk about some of the annuals that grow well herein the winter in south florida. so my top pick for annual vegetables are rightbeside me here. and you guys could see, i mean, these guys are huge, these plants arehuge, these leaves are huge. this will grow you guys a lot of food. and these are collardgreens. so georgia southern collards, you know, they’re grown originally here in thesouth and they flourish in the weather here. so you know, why fight the system and tryto grow lettuces and things like that that can’t really deal with the heat and thehumidity when you could grow something like collards that grows really well. and, youknow, i’m not, i’m personally not at the

point where i’m growing a 100% of the foodthat i eat yet. you know, one day i definitely will get there, mark my words, but until then,you know, i like to grow things that are easy. so like if i lived here i’d grow collardgreens and if you want some lettuce yeah try your hand at growing some lettuce here andthere. but you know, buy some good organic local lettuce or imported lettuce you knowhydroponically, you know. and then eat both, right. so you don’t have to have only collardsand no lettuce. but grow the easy thing because you’re going to not have to pull out yourhair and you’re going to have greens year round when lettuce can be significantly moredifficult, you know, to grow. just buy it, right. and grow as much as you can of yourown stuff.

i want to go ahead and cover a few more leafygreens here that are thriving this time of the year. so the next family of plants i want to sharewith you guys today that grow really well here in the winter time in south florida arethe asian mustard greens. now yeah you could grow hot mustards or you could grow more mildmustards like they’re growing here. they got things like bok choy and tatsoi and mizunaand all these things that really grow well. i mean you guys could see these leaves arenice and huge and it’s relatively unaffected by pests. they’re all growing organic hereand it’s just doing really well, you know. so once again, focus on the easy stuff insteadof the hard stuff.

now the next crop i want to share with youguys is the crop that you guys want to grow if you guys are impatient. and, you know,wanted to eat out of your garden today instead of tomorrow. so the next crop i’m goingto share with you guys, for you guys that are, you know, really like things quick, inthe bedroom or out in your garden. and these guys are known as radishes. here’s one actuallyjust popping out of the ground. and these guys could be ready in as short as you know,15 days to 30 days. so really, you’re going to get a very quick return on your investmentof growing your own food. i do encourage you guys to, you know, grow highly colored pigmentedradishes whenever you can. you know, ones that have a nice pink color all the way throughand through because those are really rich

in anti-oxidants and the beneficial nutritionfor you guys. now i want to encourage you guys don’t forget that besides the rootsbeing eaten, which is what most people do, you could also use the greens. now the greenscan be a little bit stronger, and definitely eat the greens at their younger stage thanthe mature, you know, green stage. and i’m going to go ahead and try this radish to seehow they are here today. mmmm. look at that color on the inside. this is a really nicemild radish, not that spicy or hot. they definitely have picked some cool varieties to grow here,. alright, so no episode would be complete withoutsharing with you guys tomatoes. aside from the leafy greens, i like other fruiting cropssuch as the tomatoes here. now tomatoes in

tropical climates can be difficult becausenot all the varieties will grow really well here, you know. it’s really sad, once again,at the farmer’s market this morning, you know, they were refrigerating their tomatoes.and when you do that you lose the flavor. specially when they’re picked too early.so here it looks like, i don’t know if you guys could see this, but there’s like justa mass abundance of tomatoes on the vine here. and that’s because they have certain triedand true varieties that they know will grow well here in south florida. so those are theones i recommend you guys to grow instead of just the standard you know beefstakes thatmay not do so well here. generally for a hotter climate i like to grow smaller cherry stylevarieties that tend to do a lot better. also

if you guys look closely you’ll see herethey build all these trellises out of bamboo. so natural construction that they will actuallyinclude with your raised bed package. or of course if you’re doing it yourself you couldget some, you know, bamboo stakes and tie them together to make your own trellis, reallysimple, real easy. so the next thing i want to share with youguys, you know, besides all the cool crops they have growing is you know, one of themain components of a raised bed garden is the soil. and luckily enough there’s a soilyard next door that you could get your soil from and also, you know, they do sell theirspecific recipe that they put and fill in the raised beds here that their clients haveuber success with.

so right next to ready to grow gardens isthe neighbor here, who actually makes compost. and this is predominantly from horse manureand wood chips. now while you could get this stuff, you know, i don’t necessarily recommend,this is not my favorite to use animal manures because many times you don’t exactly knowwhat you’re getting, you know. the manure is only going to be as good as what the horses,cows or pigs, sheep, chickens, goats, you know, or whatever, is eating. and in manycases they may be eating gmo food and, you know, have high antibiotics, you know, usedto help keep them disease free and well. so you know, that’s definitely iffy. so ofcourse if you want to get some and this is the best you could do, i encourage you guysto get some next door. now just be forewarned

the quality can vary depending on batch tobatch. so if you do choose to get that, i want to encourage you guys to get one that’slike nice, rich and dark and broken down as much as possible without big, you know, piecesand things in there. so the other thing if you want you could actuallyget the soil that they’re making here by using some of that stuff with a mixture ofother ingredients to make a higher quality soil mix. so let me go ahead and spin thecamera around and show you guys their soil mixing and what they’re doing here to maketheir soil. so this is their soil mixing area at readyto grow gardens, you know, when the next areas manure they have is good quality stuff, they’llget actually a batch over here. and then they’ll

mix that with, you know, plant based compostthat i really like, you know, instead. and then vermiculite and coconut coir and otheringredients. and then make a nice rich mix that actually they grow their plant startsin and fill in the raised beds. and this the very mixture they’ve used to grow some ofthe plants up front that look quite healthy to me. so, you know, they will sell this separatelyby the bag or actually they will even deliver it to you. now, you know, be forewarned, when you getpre mixed soil, it is going to be a little bit more expensive. so i, you know, i’mstill on the hunt for some really good soil in south florida. and yet i have not yet foundit.

so the last thing i want to show you guysin this episode actually a little plant nursery where you could actually buy the little plantstarts that they’ve put in their commercial installations and home owner installationsor they just grow out in their sample demonstration garden here. due to the time i’m here, their,you know, nursery is a little bit lower in stock on plants than it may normally be. soi hope they get that rectified soon and get a nice abundance nursery full of perennialvegetables. because i think that’s really where the , where you know the future lieswith growing your own food here in south florida. so the last shot i want to share with youguys today is their little plant nursery. and actually this is what got me here. onthe website they said they had a lot of different

perennial vegetables available for sale. andthen i get here and they have like a handful. i mean they have some katuks available, theyhave the okinawan spinach, they have of course things like lemon grass and holy basil, somemints, and some other herbs that probably grow year round. but they don’t have asmany perennial vegetables as i saw on the website. so if you’re coming down for thoseguys i want to encourage you guys to call first. they have actually plenty of annual vegetablesinside, and you know they have actually a whole bunch, and their price right now, i’dsay they are priced reasonably for south florida. but for me because i’m a cheapass, they’reactually a little bit more expensive and more

than what i’m used to paying. but that beingsaid, i’m from the agriculture state on the other side of the country. and buyingorganic plant starts here in south florida is actually pretty rare. so in any case, iencourage you guys to support them here, specially some of the more rare plants and the perennialplants that they’re growing. literally once you get them once you could take your owncuttings, put them in the soil and then you could have an endless supply of plants andplant starts for your friends. so investing in perennial plants is definitely worth yourmoney. so the last part of this episode today isactually i’ll go, i’ll like to go ahead and interview dylan, the owner here at readyto grow gardens, and talk to him more about

why he started this company and what keepsthem motivated to keep it going, keep all these plants in stock and get people to growtheir own food. john: so now i’m with dylan terry, founderof ready to grow gardens. and, he put all this together. so we’re going to ask himsome questions today. so dylan, the first question for you today is, you know, why didyou start this business to help people install gardens? dylan: well, i graduated college and i hadan art degree and also was taking care of a garden at college, and it was more of ahobby. and then i came and moved back home and i realized that, you know, it’s toughto get a job. i had a degree in art and i

thought maybe i wanted to be a graphic designer.i did some internships, realized i can’t take sitting in front of a computer for, youknow, 5 to 10 hours a day. and i really wanted to be outside. and then i got a job doinggraphic design part time and also gardening. and then realized that there is a lot of potentialand a lot of people wanting help with gardening and a lot of interest in it. and it was kindof that was about a little over 5 years ago. there were, you know, the garden table movementand local food movement was kind of just growing more and more in south florida. and so i sawan opportunity to start an organic garden company. and we’ve been doing it just over5 years, almost 6 years now. and it’s been growing little by little and helping peoplegrow food and, you know, starting out with

simple gardens, you know, for people thatare just starting out. and then if people wanted to do a bigger garden or, you know,if it’s for a restaurant or for a school sometimes we do bigger gardens. so it’sjust become very successful. john: awesome, man. yeah, so basically i meanhe needed a job. dylan: yeah john: and so he took his hobby, made it hisjob. and that’s what i encourage you guys to do. you know, i have a video with curtisstone. the video is like how to make a $100,000 on a half acre of land that you don’t own.and you know, so it’s totally possible to turn your hobby into a business, you know.this is how dylan here has done it. and there’s

many ways to do it. whether you want to installgardens for people to help them along or grow food for people. but it’s very important,you know, to really get people connected back with the food and get them out of shoppingat the grocery store and that habit. and because, you know, food comes from the earth.so dylan, i want to talk about our unique climate or the unique climate you have herein miami in south florida. because i know a lot of people here in miami might move from,you know, new york, connecticut or wherever and come down here. and then they’re tryingto like grow things and plant tomatoes in the spring time. and that doesn’t work sowell. so how can you help somebody, you know, grow food here that has never grown here inmiami because it’s almost like backasswords.

dylan: yeah, so in miami and in south floridathe seasons are backwards from what most gardening books will tell you. probably 95% of gardeningbooks that you could order or find at a library or bookstore will tell you to plant in thespring, grow things throughout the summer and then harvest in the fall, with most ofthe most popular veggies. and so here it’s all reversed. here you plant things once itstarts getting a little bit cooler, so usually that’s october november when it starts toget a little cooler here. and then you grow things through the winter and then harvestthe majority of your veggies in the spring time. and in the summer there’s differentthings you can do. you can replenish the soil, you can do soil mineralization, also there’sa wide variety of tropical fruits that grow

well. so we tend to focus on growing tropicalfruits. and there’s different tropical veggies that could also do really well. a lot of themare perennial and very low maintenance. so a lot of these we do as food forest gardenswhich are gardens that produce have a lot of fruit trees and a lot of other edible plantsgrowing around the fruit trees. and also plants that are good for the soil. plants that aregood for the wildlife and also good to incorporate. so we kind of switch what we do based on theseasons. john: awesome. yeah, so i really am into theperennial vegetables. so you want to share some of your favorite perennial vegetablesthat you like to grow here that will do good for people, you know, over the summer time?

dylan: i love okinawan spinach. that’s probablymy favorite tropical spinach. i like it more than malabar spinach, that’s another goodone. but malabar spinach doesn’t really do well in the winter here. it kind of tendsto make seeds. but okinawan spinach looks really attractive, it spreads out if you needa big plant and it can fit in with your landscape as some ornamental plant also. the under sides,the tops of the leaves are green and the undersides are really vivid like brilliant purple. andthat’s probably one of my favorites. cranberry hibiscus is another favorite of mine. it alsoisn’t as productive in the winter but in the summer it’s one of the best tropicalgreens to add to salads. there’s quite a few of them. those would might be my top two.and i’ll try to think of some others but

those are some really good ones. john: awesome, awesome. so why is it importantyou believe that people should grow their own food? dylan: well, more and more we’re learningabout problems with our food system, you know. you don’t know a lot of the time what isbeing put on to the food that you’re eating or buying from the supermarket. you don’tknow whats happening to that land or what ecosystems are displaced based on, you know,those farms being put there. and you know, on top of that, transporting food from oneside of the country to the other side of the country burns a lot of fossil fuels. and,you know, a lot of times foods are actually

brought in from the other side of the world.so, you know, the more that you can have of your diet grown as locally as possible, youknow, the better for the environment. also it’s a great way to connect to nature. youknow, it helps people get outside more. this, we’re in a time where people are spendingway too much time glued to screens, tvs, you know, ipods, computers, you know, we’rejust looking we’re just focused on technology and we’re further and further becoming moreremoved from nature and we’re trying to reverse that. we’re trying to get peopleoutside, get people eating healthy. if they are gardening they tend to really enjoy eatingwhat they’re growing. so it’s a great way to connect with nature and be outsideand you know help the environment, and you

know it can be a social thing too. you cando a community garden or a garden with friends, and just something i started doing as a teenagerand i have you know really loved doing it, and it started out as a hobby and you knowit’s become a nice way of life and way to spend almost every day. john: that’s awesome. yeah i mean i do this,i spend half the day in my garden and i spend half the day inside on a screen. but at leasti’m outside half the day and, you know, i know you guys got to have a job for a livingand maybe you want to something like dylan’s here in your area, you know, and help peopleinstall gardens and grow food and teach people about, you know, real food. and that’s reallycool. like i’m doing online with all my

videos.so dylan, i know ready to grow gardens is here in south florida in the miami area tohelp you guys grow your own food if you’re scared to do it yourself or to you know takeit to the level that you need. so you know, they could do the full install and take careof the maintenance upkeep for you guys. but they could also just come and install it andtrain you guys a little bit so that you guys are off on growing and get you guys the rightplant starts to start or as i showed you guys they have soil that is available here andeven plant starts. now i know that you’re only open by appointment only and on certaindays. so you want to explain that to everybody that may live in the local area that wantto drop, wants to drop by?

dylan: so, right now we’re only open onsaturday, and that is from noon to 4. the reason is that during the week we are busyinstalling gardens and doing maintenance on gardens and right now we’re still a smallcompany. and eventually we may grow and have more regular hours. but right now it’s justsaturday from noon to 4. and during the summer things might be a little slower, we may changethe hours, but it just depends. during the fall we may have longer hours too becausethat’s the busiest season for us is the fall and the beginning of winter. john: awesome, awesome. so how can somebodyget a hold of you guys and learn about your schedule and contact you if they’re interestedin putting in a garden or just getting some

plants or some soil or any of the other servicesyou offer? dylan: well, my number is 786-436-7703. that’s786-436-7703. that’s a good way to start. also our website has a lot of information.so if you want to see pictures of our gardens or information about how we do our services,the website is www.ready-to-grow.com with hyphens between the words. so it’s www.ready-to-grow.com. we also have an instagram account, that’s readytogrowgardens without hyphens. and wehave a lot of photos of our gardens if you want to see photos of our gardens. we alsohave a facebook page, that’s readytogrowgardenssouthfl. so those are the best way to get in touch.and if you want to just stop by our nursery and take a look at our demonstration garden,right now our hours are every saturday from

noon to 4. john: awesome, awesome. yeah. i definitelyenjoyed my time here. i want to encourage you guys to stop by if you’re here in thearea, pick up some plants, and check out their amazing demonstration garden to get you guysmotivated about what can be grown here in south florida. i mean, it is really easy togrow anywhere wherever you guys live. but you need to learn certain practices that work.and, you know, they have determined the ones that will work here because this is wherethey grow. i know the ones that will, you know, that work in california and nevada becausethat’s where i grow, you know, predominantly. but i get to come here and see what they growand then i just get to build upon my knowledge

of what will grow and the more tolerant plants.and that’s what i really try to focus on. i did visit you guys’ website, that’show i learned about him and why i came out here today. and i want to say that they havea wealth of knowledge on their website. i mean, the thing that was most valuable tome are the plants, the edible plants that could be grown here in south florida and theseasons. so they have a lot of annual crops and, you know, more importantly to me theperennial list with links to, you know, further information about some of the plants. andthat’s a list that actually can be very difficult to find. so i’m glad that theyprovide that. so i want to encourage you guys to visit their website and check them outif you’re definitely in the area.

now if you guys enjoyed this episode, youknow, here that i made today, hey please give me a thumbs up, let me know. i’ll come downnext visit and be sure to give you guys an update on their garden and how it’s progressingand how it’s changing over time, over the seasons, when i’m able to come. also besure to check my past episodes. i have over 1100 episodes now teaching you guys all aspectsof how you guys could grow your own food at home. you know i have at least two or threedozen videos now from and me being in south florida that directly applies to the peopleliving in south florida, so information you can use. and also be sure to click that subscribebutton right down below to be notified of my new and upcoming episodes. i have new andupcoming episodes coming out about every 3

to 4 days and i still got a few more videosto make here in south florida on my vacation. so, once again this is john kohler with growingyourgreens.com. we’ll see you next time and until then remember- keep on growing. dylan: thank you

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