alright, this is john kohler with growngyourgreens.comhere with another exciting episode. and where i am today in the world is saltlake city, utah here, i’m here downtown salt lake city. i was actually driving by this community gardenright here actually. and i was like, man, that place looks familiar. and actually for those of you guys that arelong term viewers, you guys will know, that actually i was at this community garden, idon’t know how many years ago… maybe it was like… 2000 and…
i don’t know. but maybe it was a long time ago and i rememberthe sculptures and stuff. and i actually visited this. so, for those of you guys that have been watchingme since then, and remember seeing this episode- hey, thumbs up to you guys! that’s great! i want to thank you guys, all my viewers foryour guys support and all this kind of stuff. anyways, todays episode i thought, you know,i just love coming back to community gardens i’ve been to to kinda see how things aregrowing…
seeing what’s up. i’ll post a link down below to that originalvideo i made back here many years ago. i can’t remember how many years ago now. but it seemed like it was pretty new at thetime, you know, because i don’t get to salt lake city much. anyways, what i thought i’d do with thisepisode is actually share with you guys what’s growing on, or not growing on actually atthis point. pretty much salt lake city had their firstfrost already, maybe a light frost. and you know, the farmers markets here havealready ended here for the season.
they’re getting into the winter marketshere. and so, pretty much it’s the end of theseason. so i’m going to show you guys actually inthe garden...umm… the community garden here, what grew the best! so if you live in salt lake city, these aremaybe some of the things you’ll want to grow for next season that’ll do really well,perform well. and even perform after the traditional summergrowing season ends. in addition, at the tail end of this videowhat i thought i’d do, because i know a lot of you guys are in this same predicamentnow, where it’s the end of your season.
you want to know- “john, what do i do withmy raised beds?†so i’m going to share with you guys my opinionson maybe what people should do in the community garden to get their beds ready for next year,or keep, to basically overwinter their beds, if they’re not going to be growing. so anyways, let’s go ahead and head intothe community garden and check it out. so this is the wasatch community garden. it’s the peoples portable garden, establishedin 2009. it would be interesting see when i was actuallyhere, i think it was close to that time actually. and you know, i’m glad that this is an opencommunity garden.
many places that i go to in the country like,i go to a community garden and check it out, the gates are locked man, you can’t getin unless you know somebody that’s you know, farming on the inside, or somebody happensto be there. so i’m glad that this is open for people. but at the same time i hope that people wouldrespect other peoples gardens. opg- other peoples gardens! and not like, pick stuff! and see they have signs… “please respect the garden†you know,and “don’t take anything from the gardenâ€,
“the garden is closed from dusk till dawnâ€,“keep this area organic and pest freeâ€. so those are some of the rules. in addition, they’ve got this little producecrate here, strapped to the fence, which i think is a nice idea. and inside what am i finding? i’m finding some tomatoes. errr, could be riper. these could be good for fired tomatoes orsomething. i dunno, if you’re starving maybe it’sbe good.
i think that’s great you know, to have aarea to donate people… or donate food to people, in the area that may need it! and, coz there’s always extra abundancein the garden. especially when you’re planting, you know,so much. so anyways, let’s head into this communitygarden and show you guys what’s growing on today. so what you guys are looking at behind mehere, is one of the many community garden plots here. i think they’re maybe 4 foot, by i don't’know, maybe looks like 16, 20 feet wide.
so you would rent these out i guess for theseason. and everybody has something a little bit differentgrowing in each one. and this is probable pretty much, at thistime, near the end of the season… umm… one of the beds looks like the tomatoes havekind of gone the way of the west. some of them are, you know, messed up. and over on this side we’ve got squash thatis probably pretty much no longer making it. some of them actually have powdery mildew. and a lot of plants and debris in here arebrown and probably need to be pulled out and then composted, right?
and that’s just pretty much what’s happeninghere for most plants. but there’s some plants that are the stars. so i want you guys to always pick out thestars in your garden. you know, basically the plants that performwell over the entire season. and focus a good percentage of what you grow,you know, the stars. the ones that produce reliably for ya. and that’s what i’m going to do in thisepisode is point out some of the stars here in salt lake city and the plants that didsome of the best. which actually are not a big surprise to me,some of the ones that do the best for be aswell,
and they’ll probably do good for you togrow also. alright, so where i’ve taken you guys firstis plot number 21! so if your name’s joey, you’re featuredon my video man! so this is joey’s plot. i like that they have a little sign on everyplot, who it’s rented by. this is joey’s plot and actually on thisside of the garden he’s planted some crops that have done really well over the season. so basil. no surprise to me that the basil has donequite well here.
now this has gone to full flower and seed. so when that happens you know that the productiongoes down, so it would be good to, you know... ahh… clip it back. clip all the flowers at this point becauseit’s probably going to frost any day now. it’s probably not worthwhile to do that. but you could at least get another harvestof all the leaves and, you know, the little flowers off it. and just the plain leaves. and so that would be good to preserve.
one of the best ways to preserve your basilin the winter is, you know, freeze it in ice cubes! coz, basil especially when you dry it losessome of the aromatics. not too good. but if you freeze it in ice cubes… alsoyou can basically cure it in salt so, like, harvest your basil, get a big bowl, and linethe bottom with some salt, and then put some leaves of basil on there. like a whole layer of leaves of basil. and line it with more salt and then keep layeringthe basil and the salt on top of each other
and fill the whole bowl. that’s another way to, you know, ensureyou guys can have some basil through the winter when you’re not growing it. of course you could also take cuttings ofyour basil and grow them inside in the winter. but yeah, basil really did well here in thegarden in salt lake. another one next door that doesn’t surpriseme either. the rosemary. rosemary is another herb that does reallywell here. and you know, there’s a few other herbsthat maybe i’m not going to show you in
this episode that did really well. like, let’s see, the mints look like theydid pretty well and some of the sages that i saw round did pretty well also. and i always want to encourage you guys togrow herbs. they’re not only nutrition. you know, power-packed nutrition for you guyswith high anti-oxidants, but they make you food taste good without the salt. another vegetable behind, i don’t know ifyou guys can see that back there, done pretty good.
i think maybe he’s the only guy that grewokra in this whole garden that i saw. the okra man, it’s still performing! i mean like, some of the stuff he should haveharvested and used the pods. but right now he could use some of the seeds. and there’s even new, small, little babyokras starting to grow. once again like the basil you want to tryand keep all your okra pods clipped of so that it keeps producing. you know, the new pods for you guys to eat. yeah and this looks like it did pretty well,and it’s still growing.
the other thing that’s pretty much apparent,you know, walking and checking out this community garden to me (and this is just my opinionbecause i don’t really know what's going on here) is that, and this happens a lot ingardening you know, people get really excited about the spring and they plant a communitygarden plot, they’re really into it, they keep coming back and all this stuff. and then near the end of the season, like,the interest fizzles out. and i want you guys to keep your interesthigh the full season long. especially if your garden isn’t right inyour backyard like i is… like mine is… you know.
i mean, it can get hard. we all get busy in life, you know, but…and especially during the hot summer you might not want to go to the community garden. but if you plant the right things, like someof the things that i’m talking about in this episode, you could have food from yourcommunity garden. so i mean, i know you guys go to the grocerystore regularly. so especially at a community garden plot that’slike, not near you. go to your community garden plot to shop first,right! it’s apparent to me that by walking around,i’m seeing a lot of unharvested food.
and if somebody’s not harvesting the foodat the community garden, that means they’re buying it at the grocery store. and i’d much rather have you guys eat thefood out of your community garden plot. or your plot, or your garden in your backyardor your front yard, wherever you have it, instead of the grocery store. coz this will allow you to buy less food! to save more money! to have a higher quality food! to have food that tastes better!
to have food that’s more nutritious! right so, yeah, i don’t know how to motivatepeople to go to their community garden plots more that just that. and hope that people retain the interest more,right? so anyways, let’s go ahead and take a lookat a few more vegetables that have grown really well this season. so i was walking past this bed on the wayto some vegetables and i just had to stop for you guys because here’s some more herbs,right? and these herbs are also growing really wellhere and includes oregano.
that’s actually going to flower in massquantities. so if you don’t want them to flower, youknow, clip them back and they’ll keep growing for ya. in the middle here we have a big ball of sage. a huge ball of sage! it probably takes up a quarter of the raisedbed! kind of insane. and to me it doesn’t really look like they’reusing it a lot, right? and on the other side of the sage, you guyscan’t see, they’ve got the thyme.
you got the money honey, i got the thyme. actually, i’m growing thyme and they’regrowing thyme too. once again you know, i want to encourage youguys to grow some herbs. but also, especially if you have a small raisedbed and that’s all your gardening space, right? i would encourage you guys to use your spacewisely. as much as i would like to dedicate a smallportion to the herbs, you know in this bed it looks like it’s mostly herbs. and that’d be great if you were using itand doing something with your herbs, but it
looks to me like they’re not really usingthe herbs so much. and that makes me sad. so i dunno, make herb potpourri and put itin all the rooms of your house. hang sprigs of sage in your house to makesmell nice and stuff. put some dried sage, uh, you know, uh, andbranches of oregano in your drawers with your clothes so you’re gonna smell like a hippie! ha ha ha. but use it man! use it before you lose it!
because with the frost man, this stuff isgoing to be flattened. so the first vegetable i want to share withyou guys today is actually these guys right here. and these are beans that are still producing,despite the looming frost. you know, in this garden i’ve seen otherkinds of beans and peas growing, but some of them maybe have powdery mildew and someof them maybe look like they’re not doing so well. but this plant is a fighter. coz it’s a native, more wild, heirloom cropthat’s been growing here in north america
since before the white man came, right? these are native american runner beans. and check this out. i don’t know if you guys can see this here,i’ll try to like, bring it over. but this plant is still, basically producingflowers right now and producing little baby pods. so you know, it’s this kind of plant that,you know, may produce for a long season. of course it depends also, it likes a moremild temperature, so like, you know, errr, in 100 plus degree weather on a regular basis,it may not perform in the heat of the summer.
but once it cools down it will start performingagain. but if you live in a place that’s like mostlyin the 80’s, maybe in the 90’s, might tip into the 100’s sometimes, but it’snot consistent. then it’ll produce all season long for youguys like it has for me. and these little small baby beans can be eatenlike the snap peas that are quite delicious. and when the pods get much more mature, likemaybe some of these guys, they’re going to dry out and then you can harvest and savethe seeds. and you could eat the beans or the seeds insideor you could also share them with friends. the other cool thing about the native americanrunner beans that i found out, you know, depending
on your climate if you cut them back at theend of the season, you mulch it heavily, keep the root zone warm, right? it might just come back for you next seasonand be a perennial-style crop. so my plants have come back for many yearsand at some point usually i lose them, but you know, they are long-lasting crops. so i do like that because it makes it a lotless work for me to grow them. and if you’re looking to get this plant,i might still have seeds available, depending on when you’re seeing this. so you want to visit my website, growingyourgreens.wedc.com.
that’s the seed store that my girlfriendis taking care of all the fulfillment and stuff because i don’t have the time to dothat. so i’m glad she’s doing that because shestill doesn’t really quite have a job and kinda needs money. so, when she sells the seeds, that’s moneyshe gets to pay all here insurance and car payments and all her bills and all this kindof stuff. so, that’s for you guys support, for helpingmy girlfriend out. and also for me to be able to spread out theseeds to you guys. anyways, let’s go ahead and take a lookat a few more crops that are doing good here
in salt lake city. so the next two crops that i want you guysto grow, whether you grow here in salt lake city or most places, that pretty much do wellwherever you live, are these two guys here. number one, of course, these guys here. this is the dinosaur kale. or black kale, tuscan kale, so many differentwords for it. but basically, as you guys can see, this thingis huge! look at that! i mean, this is like a little kale tree rightthere.
and you know kale is all the rage right now. it’s one of the most nutritious of vegetables. kale is actually anti-cancerous. and it makes me sad when i come to a communitygarden and i see this much kale still hanging out on the plant. now this might be a good thing, because thisgardener might know that this kale will survive some light frost. and actually when the frosts come, the kalegets sweeter! so typically i don’t like to eat kale inthe middle of the summer.
the flavor gets kind of more intense and strong. and you know, i don’t like that so much. i’ll eat my summer greens, that do reallywell in the summer, that really love the heat and are more mild. but come the winter once it starts to getcold, right? the sugars… the plant puts more sugars intothe leaves to help it, to prevent itself from getting frost or freezing right? and then when you eat it, it’s more sweetand delicious. of course you can make things like kale salads.
you can mis, you know, half kale, half lettuce. you could cook up the kale. but my favorite way to use the kale is byjuicing it. blending it into a smoothie. so, a little bit of kale, some frozen bananas,some coconut water. amazing smoothie. add more bananas if the kale taste is toostrong. and of course, my other favorite way to usethe kale is to make the kale chips! you know, that can get quite expensive ifyou buy them at the store.
a two once bag at a health food store is goingto run you maybe 5 bucks! but especially if you have unlimited kaleman, you should turn them all into kale chips! and i guarantee, you’ll eat them! remember to check all my past episodes andif i remember, i’ll put a link down below to an episode i did making kale chips myself. so you guys can see how i do it. let’s see another leafy green that’s donereally well. and i want you guys to eat your leafy greensman! my goal everyday is to eat two pounds of leafygreens.
a bit more challenging when i’m traveling. but the swiss chard leaves here also lookslike something that’s done really well. and has done well in most places that i visit. so i think there’s an elton john song thatgoes “i’m still standingâ€â€¦ i don’t know the rest of the melody but… anyway, you can see the corn here, i mean,it’s still standing, but it’s all dried up, not doing so good. but right here in front of me as you can seethere’s a nice huge bunch of the green onions. and it looks like the green onions has donewell.
looks like it’s gone to flower and seed. they’ve cut some of it back. and it’s still producing, you know, lotsof green onions. now, green onions, you might not eat a lotof them. you might eat more kale. you might eat more tomatoes than kale. or green onions… but i want to encourageyou guys to just clip back a couple of sprigs of green onions everyday and include themas a flavoring agent in your dinners, right? i want you guys to eat green onions everyday.
the main reason for this is it’s an anti-cancerousplant. much like other plants in the allium familywhich includes the onion and the garlic. and actually the onion greens are actuallymore nutritious for you that the whole onion bulb that is normally bought. so i like to just take a couple of sprigsand just chop it up really fine. throw it in my salad, throw it my soup forflavoring. plus, i’m getting the anti-cancer boost. as you know to buy green onions could costyou a bunch… could cost you a dollar a bunch in the store.
and having it… if you just plant one plant,you’ll have it probably for the whole summer season. and of course, at the end of the season beforeit goes bad you clip it all back, chop it into little pieces, dehydrate it and havedehydrated onions, you know, to use in the winter when you don’t have your fresh plants. of course green onions are another reallyeasy thing to grow in your kitchen in the winter time. so the last vegetable that i want to showyou guys that did better than some of the other ones here are actually the tomatoes.
and i know that tomatoes are the number onehome vegetable crop that people love to plant. everybody always thinks- grow your own tomatoes! and i definitely agree that tomatoes thatyou home grow taste way better than the ones from the store. but even within that there are some varietiesthat will do better or worse in your area. and you’re going to have to figure thatout for yourselves. but in general, my general recommendationfor tomatoes (and it looks like the whole tree right here also) is to grow the smallercherry tomatoes, right? here are some cherry tomatoes.
i don’t know exactly what variety. but you guys can see that even in the impendingfrost, they’re still ripening up. and they’re going to be good, you know,they do have also other tomatoes… i don’t know if you can see these guys arenice and huge. and these green tomatoes will never fullyripen up properly before the frost because it’s going to take a while. but these small ones they grow faster, theyripen and they mature quicker. so you’re going to have, you know, moretomatoes over your full season. and i’m good with cherry tomatoes.
one of my favorite varieties is the blackcherie tomato. and even though some of their plants are,you know, turning… some cucumbers, are getting some diseases and stuff here… these tomatoeshere are quite doing well. another tip i want to share with you guysbefore the first frost (don’t let the first frost happen and then do this coz then it’snot going to work) but if you do this before the first frost you may be able to salvagesome of your tomatoes. so even some of the tomatoes that are stillgreen, before the first frost, you know, just harvest them with the stems and all and keepthem in, you know, like, a box. in a cool, you know, dry place.
not in the rain, maybe like, inside your housesomewhere. you know and these guys, if they’re at acertain stage of ripeness, uh, you know, will turn, turn red for ya. not that they’re going to taste good becauseyou picked them early and they’re still ripening. they’re never going to have the full flavor,but they’ll still be edible. and of course many people still use theirgreen tomatoes for eating. i personally wouldn’t do that myself. and of course, uh, all the ripe ones, youknow, enjoy them now or…
i encourage you guys to dehydrate them andsave them for the winter. so after walking the community garden a fewtimes and sharing with you guys the vegetables that did the best, i think i pretty much coveredthem all. if you have vegetables that do really well,hey, please post them down below to let other people know so that people can try those varietiesas well. you know, i want to encourage you guys, whereveryou live, to always increase the varieties and increase the genetic diversity you grow. because this is the way we can learn and grow. you’ll plant different varieties of thisor that, or some leafy green that you’ve
never heard of from one of the seed catalogs. you know one of the good sources of seedshere is mv seeds (that’s mountain valley seeds). most of those seeds are high altitude seedsthat are going to do really well here in the short season. so yeah, that’s very important. but uh, other that that, i mean that’s prettymuch the end of this video. but before i go, i want to share with youguys, what many of you guys are already going through for this year is… at the end ofthe season, and you’ve got all the plants
kind of looking messed up, they’ve got whitepowdery mildew and they’re drying out and they’re just not looking too good. what do you do? right? what i like to do is simply this, you know,number one i’ll cut all the plants down. and actually what i’m doing these days isi’m cutting them down at the base. so i’m leaving all the root matter in thesoil. i’m not pulling up the root matter, unlessthey’re getting in the way of the crop that, you know, uh, i’m going to plant next, uh,go around in that raised bed.
why am i doing this? i’m doing this so that i can adhere moreto the no-till gardening and disturb the soil less. and also so that i can feed the microbes,the earthworms, any other creatures in the beds. so i’m just cutting off the root zone, leavingit in there. it’s going to compost in-place. and this is especially true if you live ina place, you know, where you’re not growing in the winter time.
so once you clear you space of all the topgrowth, you leave the roots under the ground. then the next thing i would do to preparefor the next growing season, or in this case the dormant growing season, is… uh, youknow… this raised bed here, most raised beds thelevel of the soil will sink down, you know, over the season. so this raised bed looks like it’s sunkdown at least 6 inches. so what i would like to do is (minimum) put3 inches of good amended compost on top of this raised bed, before doing anything else. so i’d add things like the rock dust.
add things like the worm castings. maybe some the different fertilizers, thingslike the soil humates… maybe like also, you know, uh, grass… you know, uh, just a nice rich mixture ofdifferent, you know, compost mixed with other nutrients to just basically put over the top. this way the biologic activity of the soilcan start breaking this stuff down and getting it ready for the next growing season, wheneverthat may be. and in my case, i top up my beds and i plantin it for the next growing season because i grow year-round.
and growing year-round is simply the bestthing that you guys could do. now in a place like salt lake city here, i’mlooking up in the mountains and i’m already seeing snow up there right? umm, you know, probably to grow all year roundwould be a lot more challenging. but it can be done, you know, building somekind of hoop house over this would probably keep it warm enough to grow some crops thatare frost tolerant. such as, you know, uhh, maybe some collaredgreens or some kale right? some of the kale crops are, uh, quite frosttolerant and will deal with frost. of course other things like the allium oronion family, many of them, will do well also.
so you guys can still be growing food in thewinter with a covering over it, some plastic on there to keep it warmer on the inside. and that’s my first recommendation is toalways keep something growing in your soil, now second-best if you’re not going to growedibles in your soil, maybe spread out some seeds to grow some cover crops over the winterif your climate allows you to do that. i know some places will just have snow onthe ground. you’re not really going to do too many covercrops with snow on the ground if it’s there consistently. the final thing i would do if you guys aren’tdoing to do those first two choices is cover
the soil at a bare minimum! so don’t leave your beds as like bare soilthat you can look at. it’s like us walking outside, you know,with no clothes on! and unless you are a naturalist or a hippie,you’re probably not going to that. we’re all going to put clothes on beforewe go outside because we don’t want to be bare, right? and, uh, our soils don’t want to be bareeither. and so i would encourage you guys to coveryour soils in the winter. like they’re doing here, like, they put,you know, just some straw here to cover the
soil. i’d probably put a much deeper layer ofstraw here. and whether you’re going to use some kindof straw, whether you’re going to use some kind of leaves, whether you’re going touse some kind of wood chips, i don’t really care. or even if you don’t have all those organicmatters, which is what i would prefer, cover it with a tarp or a piece of plastic. i mean, that’s the last resort but coverthe damn soil man! that’s very important in my opinion to,you know, keep all the biological activity.
keep all the microbes and fungi and earthwormsactive because, you know, they don’t like the bare exposed soil that, you know, exposesit to the elements especially in the winter time. um, then you’re basically going to let thatstuff decompose and protect the soil over the winter. it’s going to decompose, break down a littlebit depending on your climate and what-not. and then when you;re ready to plant out thenext growing season, you’re going to basically scratch back all the stuff that didn’t degradedown. you may be able to top off your bed with somemore compost, make sure you get some fungal
dominated compost in there. very important. if you don’t know what that is, fungal dominatedcompost, check my other videos for it. put as much of that stuff as you can in yourgarden coz it’s actually quite rare. and in my opinion, most gardens don’t haveenough fungal based compost or fungal activity to grow optimally well, from my observations. but yeah, you’re going to scratch back allthe stuff that’s left over, compost that out, and then you’re just going to go aheadand replant for your next season. so that’s how i would prepare, you know,my raised bed for the winter.
that’s what i would do. of course, you know, post your links downbelow or your ideas down below on what you guys do, you know, it would be interestingto hear. but i want to encourage you guys to coveryour soil, keep your soil protected, you know, try to disturb your soil the least amountas possible because this will raise the fertility of your soil. and overall increase the way that you’reable to grow and increase the quality of the produce, increase the quantity of the produce,and make the produce more bug and disease resistant, and build a nice healthy microbiomein your soil.
and this something that conventional farmingand even organic farmers that still use tractors are simply not doing. and this is, you know, this is how natureworks you know. so this is nothing new, this is to kinda tryto use nature to our advantage instead of try to work against it. to think that man is more intelligent thannature because we able to invent rotor tillers and we were able invent, you know, tractorsand we were able to invent all these chemical fertilizers right? that’s not the way.
and i know a lot of you guys are really intoyour tilling and all this stuff, but hey if you have a lot of beds that normally you wouldtill up, you know hey, try one or two the method that i’m recommending to you guys. and see what happens. do an experiment. you know, “i’m just going to try thatcrazy step that john says and see what worksâ€. see what happens, see if my growing is betteror worse in those beds than the ones that you tilled in. you know, i bet dollars to donuts that intime you’ll see that no-till beds will perform
better. and that’s just the feedback i’ve gottenin my own garden and the feedback i’ve gotten from so many farmers that are doing the no-tillmethod. so anyways, i’ve come to the end of my timehere at the community garden in salt lake city. if you guys have enjoyed this episode andwant me to come back here and want me to do more videos here in salt lake, hey, give mea thumbs up! i might get up here again. also be sure to click that subscribe buttonright down below.
i have new videos every three to four daysand if you subscribe you’ll get notified of new and upcoming videos. it’s really one of the best ways for youguys to, you know, stay excited about gardening! i always try and excite you guys about gardeningin some aspect but also try and teach you guys something at the same time. keep you motivated and keep you guys growingbecause it’s really important to me. and finally be sure and check my past episodes. my past episodes are a wealth of knowledgeespecially in the winter time when you can’t get out and garden.
at least you can see me, hear me, and youknow, learn from me, from all the different gardens and places i’ve visited over theyears. and i’ll still of course be gardening year-roundand i want to encourage you guys to do that also if you’re able to do that in your area. but minimum, grow some sprouts and micro-greensthat you can grow inside your home in the winter. so, once again my name is john kohler withgrowingyourgreens.com, we’’l see you next and until then remember, keep on growing.
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