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Alright! This is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com. Today we have another exciting episode for
you, I’m so excited for this one! Once again, I’m traveling, and I’m here outside Austin,
Texas, actually in Manner, Texas. And this is for a very important reason. I’m here
visiting a plant nursery and a little farm here and herb emporium, like something I’ve
never been to before, so I’m so excited to be here and share with you guys. Where
I’m at today is I’m actually at Garden of the Ancient and it’s described as an
herb emporium and nursery. They got many herbs here, if you know what I mean, but none of
those illegal ones, only the legal ones. But they also have ones that are smoke-able herbs,
so I’m interested in learning about different herbs, medicinal herbs, and all kinds of stuff,
and the main reason why I’m here today is to pick up some plants from my girlfriend.
I’m going to try to get her started with a little garden so I need some little small
plants; we’re going to put in a container garden for. I’ll have another episode on
that one for when I do it. So anyways, the sun is going down, so let’s go ahead and
check out this nursery inside. All right, so this is the main nursery area, as you guys
see, it goes up to the herb emporium that maybe I’ll do a shot on in a minute. But
you know, I’m here for the plants. I mean you could buy the dried herbs in the shop,
which is really cool, you know, all for all kinds of different herbs, medicinal, edible,
and culinary herbs. I think they’re all great. But more than just taking herbs in
their dried form, it’s much more powerful to get them in their full living form and
so what we’re looking at here is a little walkway where they have all the different
plants they have available for sale. And here at the nursery, they actually have many of
the same plants that they’re selling here in the ground, because this is their mother
stock. One of the cool things that I really like about this nursery that’s not happening
for the most part in the whole nursery industry—when you go to a plant nursery to buy a plant,
80 percent of the plants of the plants you’re buying at that plant nursery, they didn’t
actually grow themselves. They’re getting smaller and smaller that main growers that
then sell to the nursery, and then nursery these days are now resellers. Which I think,
you know, nurseries should grow their own stuff, number one they could make more profit,
number two they could grow a wider variety because when it’s in a supplied chain, they’re
not growing diversity, and saving the seeds, like they’re doing here, growing year after
year, and they know which plants will do well in this area. So I mean, you guys live anywhere
in Austin, even Houston, you know, central Texas, I’d recommend coming out here, getting
some of your plants, because they’re definitely going to be good ones. So they grow the overwhelming
majority of the plants that they’re selling here—they actually grew here. And you can
see some of the mother plants that they took the cuttings or they go the seeds from. They
also save the seeds here. So anyways, let’s go ahead and highlight just a few of the plants
that I really like that are here. The sun’s going down so I’m running out of time, but
I’m going to show you guys and pack in as many as I can in a short amount of time. So
one of the main reasons why I’m here today is because I really love the herbs. There’s
all kinds of herbs, there’s medicinal herbs, which I had videos on, different medicinal.
And there’s also herbs that are quite edible and other useful herbs that they grow, you
know they focus on edibles, herbs, and useful plants at this nursery. And of course, if
you’re looking for culinary a herb, which is what most people usually think about, and
of course they’ve got those, they’ve got rosemary and basil and all the standard herbs.
Rue. You know, they’re propagating in one of the green houses here. But they also have
some more unique and interesting and more unknown ones that I’ve actually never seen
in the ground. I’ve seen them in the dried, powder form in herb shops. And they’re offering
some of those today too, so, let’s go ahead and share with you guys some of the herbs.
And they do a lot of research here, which is something I really like a lot about different
unique varieties of plants that literally—you’re going to be hard pressed anywhere else here
in Austin. So my favorite kind of herbs, or I would call simply a vegetable that they’re
propagating and offering here are moringa trees. And these guys are huge! I mean, this
is a smaller one gallon pot they’re offering for just 10 dollars. And always when picking
the plant you’re going to buy, I always encourage you guys to get the smallest pot
size with the largest plant. And let me tell you, you know, some of these one gallon plants,
man, pushing like three four feet. Amazing deal for 10 bucks. Now the moringa is a very
cool plant. You can actually eat the drumsticks—no, these are not chicken legs. These are the
pods that actually come out of the moringa. After it goes to flower you could eat those
or use in Indian cuisine. But more importantly than just the pods, I want you guys to be
eating the leafy greens. After all, my channel is called growing your greens for a reason.
I mean, greens are the source of protein, amino acids, vitamins, and minerals. This
literally fuels the planet, the greens, and the chlorophyll, and the photosynthesis that’s
occurring inside them. Mmm. Moringa is known as one of the most nutritious green leafy
vegetables on the entire planet, and you could get them here. So here’s another plant you
actually don’t see too often. I mean, I’ve seen them before in my travels, but this is
an amazing specimen. What we have here is a curry plant. Look at that, that guy’s
nice and bushy. My girlfriend got to try some of this at the farmer’s market today and
she loved this stuff. You know, before there are curry powders with all the different mixtures,
they just have the curry plant. And literally you could use this instead of curry and for
unique flavors in your dishes. So besides just eating your greens, you know, a lot of
them can be used for added flavors. You know I believe you guys should get out of adding
things like salt and all these artificial flavor agents. And everything’s artificial
these days, packaged and processed foods. But before there’s all these packaged processed
foods and flavor additives that aren’t even food, you know, we had plants! And I want
you guys to get back to growing some unique plants with unique and different flavors.
And they’re offering a ton of them here. So I was really relieved actually to find
this plant growing at this nursery because this is one that I’ve been growing for many
years now and the name always escapes me. So now I have a video about so I can remember.
I originally bought this plant in vista California at the local farmers market down there. An
Asian lady sold it to me and it was labeled leaf ginseng, and even to this day it’s
still labeled leaf ginseng, but the name of this plant is actually called the Talinum
Paniculatum… yeah, I’m not… Latin. So, but English name, Jewels of Opar. It says,
in traditional Chinese medicine, it’s known as tu-ren-shen and is used to tone digestion,
moisten the lungs. It is rich in iron, good for anemia. Also useful for treating headaches,
pneumonia, diarrhea, and the roots are useful for impediments. Yeah, hear that guys? The
juice from the leaves is used to treat ulcers, increase appetite, and you can eat the young
leaves in your salad too. Very easy to grow and care for, does well in hot, dry areas
with full sun and self seeds readily. So yes, this one does not like the frost in an unheated
greenhouse in California. It grows year round for me. And it’s now going to flower in
seed stage. I love picking the little baby leaves, just like this, I mean, they are so
delicious and so mild. Mmm. Just eat those in a salad, all day long. All right, so besides
that main entry breeze way that goes to the herb emporium, they have several different
hoop houses on site, which they have additional inventory in as well as do some of the propagation
of the plants that you’re seeing here. Now we are here in the fall time, and they’re
getting ready for the frost. That is imminent soon, so a good time to come here would be
in the spring when everything starts to bloom and they’re all ready to set and offer plants.
You know, once again, for people, so they could get them in their garden. That being
said, I encourage you guys to visit this place any time of year, because you’re going to
get to see what is actually growing at that point, at that time of year. In your local
area. Here in Austin Texas area, you could grow year round, man, and don’t think, oh
it’s the winter time, I can’t garden! No, there’s always something you could grow,
and if you come here, you’re going to definitely learn that. Anyways what I want to do next
is taking in some of these hoop houses and share with you guys some of the cool stuff
growing inside. So in every one of these different hoop houses they have all different kinds
of plants. I feel right at home here. They’re propagating many different varieties up top
there. And here’s the new variety they just started growing that I’ve been growing for
a couple of years now. It’s one of my favorites known as the longevity greens, AKA Gynura
Procumbens. You know, in the Philippines they call it Ashitaba, but to me, Ashitaba is a
different plant from Japan. Very healing, and you know, I was talking to one of the
guys here and it said that this plant heals the modern diets problems. I commented in
my opinion, you know, the cure for the modern diet which is you know, processed foods and
junk foods, is not a Gynura Procumbens, which I believe everyone should eat, and I eat it
mainly in the summer time as my main summer leafy greens vegetable. The solution is truly
just eating nature’s foods and getting out of the processed foods. So I’m glad for
you guys here in Austin and central Texas, you guys have a resource like the nursery
here that provides all these rare, unique, and exotic plants. Man, I’m looking at bananas
and they’ve got cardamine and they’ve got ginger. They’ve got all these cool rare
things that can be quite hard to find. Not everything is fully labeled or marked easily,
so if you’re coming here and you’re looking for something, you want to ask some of the
helpful staff here and they’ll be able to share with you guys where in this whole place
they have. Because they’ve got plants all over the place, man! I think I’d probably
love to work here. So what we’re looking at now is just one of the many aquaponic systems
they have growing here. I mean, these are just mainly made out of the standard IBC totes.
You may be able to find these on craigslist. Depending on where you live, they may run
between 100 to 200 dollars. They may basically cut off the top and they’ve got the fish
in the bottom. And they pump the water up into some of these plants up top. One of the
cool things I’ve learned about here is that they’re growing the dragon fruit and actually
they started from seed. Underneath the aquaponics, it’s growing faster and more vigorous than
the plants in pots or even the ones in the ground. So you know, while I’m a big fan
of growing things in the pots and in the ground as nature would, I always like to embrace
new technologies when some plants will like certain conditions better or worse, right?
So you gotta mash the plant with the growing style. So in general, for aquaponic systems,
let it seem to do fairly well under aquaponics, and now I know that the dragon fruits will
as well. Another thing growing up here is actually, or right here, is actually known
as the water spinach. And this is really cool, how they get some of the plants starts that
they grow. Some of the actual mother plants. They actually just go to the market. So the
water spinach was actually gotten from a local agent store. They just got the water spinach
and they sell the vegetables, right? But you could bring them home and root them and plant
them out and grow your own water spinach and now they could sell you plants here. And once
again, that’s how the dragon fruit was started. So I always want to encourage you guys to
utilize your resources—local stores that sell vegetative matter, you may always be
able to take a cutting, or start some living plant tissue. So what we’re looking at in
this hoop house here, really cool. It reminds me of being back in Las Vegas! They have all
kinds of different cactus in here. And before you think, John! Why are you making a video
on cactus?! I just want you guys to know that all cactuses are edible! Yes, you can eat
them! If you go to a local Mexican market, they often sell Nopal cactus pads, or the
leaves of the cactus, and they’re eaten much like a vegetable. Now, all the cactuses
are edible, although I wouldn’t necessarily recommend eating the spines, and there are
some varieties that are more edible than others. In addition, one of my favorite fruits in
the world is the cactus fruit. Cactus is a drought tolerant plant, it needs very little
water. It’s an amazing succulent, and with the coming years with less water and drought,
you might want to start growing some cactus to eat, not only for the vegetable pads, but
also for the delicious fruit. So what we’re looking at now, in another hoop house here,
is yet another aquaponic system. I think they have a total of 4 different aquaponic systems
here that they’re growing. And one of the cool things that I’ve learned about here
today is the main way they use the aquaponic system here. Not to grow plants out full term,
but how they use it is for the plant propagation. I mean, after all, they are a nursery here,
and they are in the business of propagating and selling plants to you guys. And once again,
like I said, they propagate 99% of the plants they’re selling here. You know, they did
it themselves. And one of their secrets, and I’m sharing it with you guys, is the aquaponics.
So one of the things they like to do in the spring time is they take cuttings of bails,
pop it in the aquaponic system, come back in just a week or two, and they’ve actually
rooted them up, and they could transplant them out and then put them up and sell them
to the customers that come in. so they take all the different kinds of cuttings, put them
in the aquaponics, and it works great for that specific instance. I think just because
of that I might have to start an aquaponic setup at my house. So now we’re outside
in the garden and this garden is where they actually do a lot of the plant propagation,
or growing the mother plants that they will get the seeds from or take cuttings from,
to keep them going to they can have inventory to offer to the public. You know, one of the
cool things I’ve learned about today, I’ve always heard about tulsi, or the holy basil.
And the thing I’ve learned about today is there are different varieties of holy basil!
And the variety that I like the most is this variety. And I’m not sure what variety of
the holy basil it is, haha. Mmm, really good flavor. Nice and strong. And holy basil is
probably one of the most medicinal basils and it’s the one I believe you guys should
be growing. You want to be growing this one. I also heard this one has a high cannabinoids
content. And yes, cannabinoids is what’s in another popular “herb” as well. But
yeah, this one tastes amazing, and I think I’m kind of addicted to holy basil now!
So one of the plants that they specialize at the nursery here is what you guys see behind
me. And it’s the horseradish. The horseradish looks like it is growing amazing here. I mean
they got all this horseradish growing and it’ some of the easiest crops you could
be growing. I mean, one of my favorite things to eat back in the day that I don’t eat
anymore was, like, a horsey sauce, like a horseradish sauce. Mm! So delicious. But they
told me the easiest way to propagate the horseradish is to literally go buy some horseradish from
your local grocery store, where you could buy it. As long as its fresh horseradish and
not super dried out and shriveled and old, right, no longer viable. You could take that,
just chop it up into pieces, and put it in some dirt, water it. And it’s going to come
up, like horseradish, I mean. The stuff could actually spread out, and horseradish is in
the same family as the brassica family of plants. And you know, you could also, besides
eating the roots, you could actually just eat the leaves and small bites of the leaves.
Mmm. Spice up your salad! So another thing I recommend you guys to grow if you have acreage,
they have like 2 acres here at this nursery. They grow some fruit trees, and as you guys
could see, this is a beautiful persimmon tree, and this American persimmon that needs to
basically get soft before you eat them. I love the persimmon, it’s definitely one
of my favorite fruits, and it looks like, to me, this has, just another month or so
before you could start eating these guys. Fruit trees are far easier to take care of
and manage than herbs or vegetable plants because literally once you get them established
properly in the ground, you know, they almost take care of themselves depending on the variety
of the tree gets. So if you want to be able to grow your own food with the least amount
of effort, get a fruit tree! They rock. So I don’t have much more time here, the sun’s
pretty much down. I got a few more minutes of light. And they have a lot of different
edibles here. I can’t possibly cover it all in this short video, so I’m going to
have to recommend you guys come out to the place here if you live anywhere in the area.
Definitely cool. And you want to come earlier in the day so you have some time to walk around
and learn about all the cool plants. Both the edibles and the medicinal, that they’re
offering here. One of the last ones I’ll be able to share with you guys today before
the sun goes down is this one here. It’s actually called the wild dagga. And this one
is actually used to smoke, actually, in replacement of you know, some of those other HERBS…
or one of the most popular herbs that you smoke. I mean, the flowers, wow! Don’t recommend
it, man, it tastes highly medicinal. I mean, that’s probably something that happens when
you smoke them. But I guess the guy from Cheech & Chong, when he was in jail and couldn’t
get some cannabis; he was smoking the wild dagga, because it says it’s going to kind
of mellow you out and relax you and all this kind of stuff. And interestingly enough in
African language, the dagga means “weed”! Haha! So figure that one out. So I guess with
this last medicinal herb, I wanted to kind of transition and show you guys really quick,
the store they have on sight. I mean, I’ve been to a lot of herb stores before, you know,
and this is one herb store that blows every other one that I’ve ever been to out of
the water. They have more herbs than I’ve ever seen in one place. I mean, if there’s
an herb available, let me tell you, it’s probably at this store. So I’m walking in
on my way to the herb store and I just wanted to show you guys this because it’s an excellent
example of what you guys could do. I mean, they’re into a lot of different green technologies
here. You know, they sheep mulch, and they spread leaves and wood chips on the ground
to increase the soil microbiology and increase the organic matter and reuse materials that
would otherwise go to the landfill. The thing that they’re doing here, like really hardcore,
is that every building has multiple IBC totes next to it to catch all the rainwater off
of roots. So many of the plants that they’re growing here are grown with rainwater, which
in my opinion, is some of the best water you could be growing your plants with, because
I mean, after all, rainwater is what nature waters plants with. Not tap water out of your
spigot that has been treated with chlorine and chloramines and all kinds of other chemical
contaminants, right? Rainwater is one of the best things you could do, and the rain is
free, although in some localities, it may be illegal to collect your rainwater, which
I think is B.S.! But anyways, here it looks like it’s completely legal, and once again,
these IBC totes available on Craigslist, you know, store like 300 gallons, approximately.
Cost you about 100 bucks. You get them once, you set a system up, and literally, you have
free water, some of the best water, for your garden, at all different times of the year.
I mean, by the size of it, they’ve probably got like over 10,000 gallons in rainwater
catchment, probably at any given time here. It’s insane! So just beside the nursery
here onsite, another place you’re going to want to check out. You know, I like live
plants more than dried plants, but you know, I believe herbs have a place in the human
diet and health for us! I mean, before we had all these medicines and pharmaceutical
drugs, right, what did people do before they had the *** pill to get it up, right? Well
there’s natural herbs that’ll help you get it up too, that in my opinion, are a lot
more beneficial than taking ***, and I would never subject myself to ***! But
I would definitely take some of these herbs in here to help me get it up—IF I had that
problem! Anyways, let’s go ahead and show you guys a quick tour of the herb emporium
and actually some of the other gardening items they have inside. So now we’re inside the
herb store, and besides being a store, they have a little library here with books! Lots
of different books on herbs and gardening and stuff, and some nice cozy chairs. So you
come inside, just hang out, read some gardening books and learn about all the different herbs
that they’re offering here. In addition, they also have a whole section of organic
fertilizers and pest controls for your garden. Now, you know, they mostly focus on the plants
and they got some cool things. Not really going to go over them today, but what I really
want to go over is just this wall of herbs that I’m seeing in front of me. To share
with you guys some of the cool, unique herbs that they have. So while I’m not a big fan
of smoking any herbs myself, they actually have an area here of smoking blends that have
been traditionally been used for smoking that have all different kinds for properties and
can do all kinds of stuff to you that I have no idea about. But they’ve got, like, wormwood,
mullen, Mexican dream herb!? That sounds pretty interesting. Shaman smoke, all these different
kinds of things, and you know, once again, these herbs are natural plants. Think about
it—tobacco. That’s a natural plant you would grow, right? Nothing made in a chemical
laboratory or anything like this. Just nature’s gift for us, whether you want to smoke them,
or like me, I like to eat them. So let’s check out all the crazy edible herbs they
have here on site. So here’s the amazing herb wall, check it out. Each one of these
jars has a different herb in it. I mean, there’s well over 300 different varieties of herbs,
this herb shop has more herbs than I’ve ever seen in my whole life! But, no. they
don’t have that kind of herb, sorry. So anyways, I mean, they have all kinds of culinary,
medicinal ones that are culinary AND medicinal. And what I want to do at this point is actually
just maybe share just a few of my favorite herbs with you that you guys might want to
start including in your diet for some of the health benefits. So one of the herbs that
I like to take as often as I can and I’m actually even growing this herb in my garden
is turmeric. Once again, you know, I believe you guys should be growing your herbs and
eating them fresh as possible, but of course, if you can’t grow it, because turmeric is
a tropical root crop. Definitely better to get it dried than to not have ti at all. there’s
a lot of research on turmeric that it is anti-inflammatory and anti all kinds of things as well as very
high antioxidant potential and so this is something that’s going to, in my opinion,
keep young and keep you healthy and keep you going all night long. The next area I want
to focus on for you guys is that they have here with all the herbs are some other very
powerful foods. They’re basically the algaes and the seed vegetables, and this is something
that most Americans are not aware of and not including in their diet. It’s something
that I’ve been including in my diet for probably like the last 20 years now, things
like the spirulina and the cholera, which are very high in basically pigments and once
again, more antioxidants in all kinds of different beneficial nutrients. In addition, they have
all different kinds of seaweed including the popular red algae marine seaweed which they
say is good for things like viruses and outbreaks, if you know what I mean. And they have all
kinds of different other seaweeds that are really good. Now think about it: seaweeds
are pretty much like green plants grown in the ocean, but they’re algaes. I mean, they
basically convert the sun energy through the photosynthesis to make nutrients to make the
plant. And you know, I always encourage you guys to eat at the lowest part of a food chain
as possible so the plants that you could grow—leafy greens, plants, vegetables, and fruits, lowest
on the food chain. And you know, same thing with the algaes and the seaweeds in the ocean.
They’re the lowest on the food chain. I mean think about it, the land animals eat
things like the grass and the herbs and the vegetables, and then we eat them, right? Well,
what did the fish eat? Well they eat things like the algaes, and the seaweeds, and then
bigger fish eat the smaller fish and all up on the chain. So eat the lowest on the food
chain for the most amounts of phytochemicals, phytonutrients, antioxidants, and vitamin
minerals. And of course, they offer almost all the different seaweeds I’ve ever seen
here. So besides all the different medicinal and edible herbs, they also have the big culinary
herb and seasoning section. And you know, just because you want to eat a more natural
diet, fruits and vegetables out of your garden and all this stuff, doesn’t mean your food
has to be boring, right? For thousands of years, people around the world have been using
different herbs and spices to make their food taste good! Now, not only do these herbs and
spices that we consider, culinary, will make your food taste good, they’ll also add beneficial
nutrients for you. You know, I’ve seen studies that show people that live in Italy, you know
that eat lots of herbs like from the mountains, are healthier than people who aren’t. And
so, you know, I want to encourage you guys to use some of the different herbs to flavor
up your dishes to make them taste good, plus get additional nutrition. So I mean, they’ve
got all kinds of different herb flavors that I’ve never seen before, like one of these
over here was like, a Japanese style herb flavoring, they got like a Cajun one, they
got a Mexican one, I mean… all these different herbs blends, you could just go through one
of these a day, and you probably wouldn’t even get to all them at the end of the year.
And of course, you’re going to learn that you like some better than others. Some of
my favorite herb blends are like the pizza seasoning blend, the taco seasoning blend,
and of course, I also like the fajita seasoning blend as well. So of course, I cannot leave
this herb emporium until after I share with you guys the tea blend area. I mean there
are so many different kinds of tea blends here. Once again, there are so many kinds
you could try them all. They’ve got a peaceful sleep tea! So if you can’t sleep at night,
you might want to try the peaceful sleep aid tea, so you could sleep just a little bit
better. I mean, herbs throughout history have been used for many different reasons. They
have a little bit different formulations that may help with certain conditions you’re
having. Another thing is I always want to encourage you guys to drink your teas before
you drink your coffee. In my opinion, teas are much better than coffee, although before
either of those, I’d rather juice some of the greens out of my garden, including some
of my herbs to get the beneficial properties out of them and into me! So I’m sad to say
my visit here at Gardens of the Ancient is over. It’s dark. I think they’re closed,
and I gotta get out of here, I gotta go eat dinner and all this kind of stuff. But before
I leave I want to recommend you guys to check out their website, gardensoftheancients.com,
and if you’re anywhere in the Austin or central Texas area, it’s definitely worth
a visit out here. You want to come, maybe earlier in the afternoon, so you could check
out all the different things growing as well as the amazing herb shop with all kinds of
cool stuff that you literally won’t find anywhere else. And the one thing I would recommend
to you guys is people who are into gardening and growing food is: you want to come out
here on one of the Saturdays, because check it out: every Saturday, they have a weekly
plant walk from 2 P.M to 4 P.M and the class fee is from 5 dollars to 20 dollars on the
sliding scale. I got here right at the end of that plant walk today, and you know, I’ve
met the guy giving the talk, which is one of the groomers here. He’s an awesome dude,
full of knowledge, full of information. I’ve learned a whole bunch of things myself from
him. So if you come out, you want to come out on a Saturday to go on this tour and then
at the end you’ll have some time to look around this place and learn about all the
cool herbs that they’re growing and offering here. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode.
Once again, my name is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com, we’ll see you next time, and until then,
keep on growing!