Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Alright! This is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com. Today I have another exciting episode for
you, and what I'm going to talk about today is something near and dear to my hear. We're
going to talk about brix testing. So, in a recent episode, I don't know, a dozen episodes
back or so now, I did an episode on brix testing watermelon that I purchased at a local supermarket
and actually at a local farmers market. The point was to show that a lot of the produce,
even at your local farmers market, may not be that good quality, and I had some comments
that said, 'John, why don't you test your own produce?' Well, I've been testing my own
produce for years now and actually I posted a clip going back like 4 years to like brix
testing my brix, 'cause that's what you normally brix test, but in todays episode I happen
to have a whole lot of fresh produce here and I'll be specifically testing one of the
crops that I'm currently growing, and I actually bought 2 different kinds of peppers to show
you guys, you know, store bought versus fresh picked, home grown and the difference that
the soil and proper harvest time can make. So, that's what this videos all about. Now,
the reason that I'm passionate about brix testing is because our system, as it's set
up today is a monetary system, and our monetary system pays farmers on weight. So, you know,
per box of organic peppers you get paid $20 or $30 or whatever it is wholesale, and then
for retail it's like $4/lb, $5/lb, depending on where you live, and all they're concerned
about, the farmer and their monetary system, is making the moola and making the dollars,
so they want to produce the heaviest crop they can to fill up the boxes as fast as they
can, so that they can sell more boxes so they can basically get more weight out there and
make more money. For the most part, most industrial farmers and even, you know, local farmers,
small scale farmers selling at farmers markets, are not super concerned about the produce
quality, and, you know, as a home gardener, this is where you can really shine. This is
where I encourage you guys to take it to the next level, and that's what I teach, the gardening
practices that I use, that I teach, including building your soil, using the beneficial fungi,
the beneficial microbes, the compost, thermal and fungal based composts, the rock dusts,
the sea salt to get the trace minerals back into the soil, will all build the brix and
basically the much better tasting product, more nutritious tasting product and more importantly
a product that's going to be able to store longer throughout the year. So, with that,
let's go ahead and start testing some of this produce. We've got Wholesome Harvest Organic
Vegetables in here, and inside here we have a whole case or organic peppers, and these
are just some standard organic bell peppers. So, what we're going to do is we're going
to go ahead and take our brix tester, and how the brix tester works, for those of you
guys who didn't see the past episodes is you're going to take a little bit of the juice of
the crop, squeeze it on the little refractometer here, and then hole this up into the light
and you're going to look inside here, and I'll show you actually a picture of what I'm
looking at inside here, and as you guys can see it's like a scale from 0 to 32 and right
now it's all blue because I don't have anything on the little glass here. So, what we're going
to do is we're going to go ahead and take a pepper, and if I was like Arnold Schwarzenegger
I'd be able to crush the pepper and squeeze out the juice. I'm not superhuman like that
so what we're going to do is we're just going to go ahead and break off a piece of the pepper
here and literally, once I have a piece of the pepper, I can just squeeze off the juice
here, and all we need to do is just get a couple drops. So, now that we have a couple
drops we're just going t close out refractometer. Make sure to have a good solution, and we're
going to look at this. So, right now as I look through the refractometer, its approximately
5.5 on the brix scale, and these are organic peppers. You know, something that you might
even buy in a local whole foods or other supermarket, and so 5.5, is that good for a pepper, bad
for a pepper? I don't know. WE need a reference range. Right here we have refractive index
of prop juices, and this will tell you if something's poor or average, good or excellent.
It depends on the specific crop. So, we're going to go down to bell peppers. So, a poor
bell pepper's 4, so I'm glad these are no poor bell peppers, and average is 6. These
were 5.5, so they're just under average. A good one is 8, and an excellent one is 12.
So, this one is actually right under average. So, these are organic peppers you would buy
at your local whole foods or other supermarket for like $4/lb, and they're basically below
average. You know, to me, that's not acceptable. You know, average should be acceptable. They
shouldn't even harvest or grow any if it's going to be below average, closer to poor.
In any case, just for reference, let's go ahead and check another kind of pepper that
I also like to purchase that in my opinion has always been of much higher quality than
just the field grown organics in most cases. Alright, so the next peppers I got, they're
right in the fridge. Let's check out what we got here. So, what we've got here is we
got these Winset Farms Hothouse Grown and these are a product of Canada. I think the
other ones are a product of Mexico. So, I tend to think stuff from Canada is better
than stuff from Mexico. So, let's go ahead and open these guys up and grab out a nice
red pepper. So, here's a little red pepper. So, another reason why the brix scale may
be different is if you're like testing Fuji apples, one Fuji apple versus another, the
brix is going to be different than testing a Fuji apple versus a granny smith. So, the
same difference can arise in peppers and we want to keep that in mind. So, anyways let's
go ahead and take a piece of this pepper off and squeeze some of this juice on my refractometer.
Alright, this one's not quite as juicy so I'm going to need a helping hand. So, to do
this we're going to use a standard garlic press. This is my favorite garlic press I
found. It's actually form Ikea. That's another cool store. We'll put that piece of pepper
in the garlic press and were just going to basically press down on the garlic press and
it's going to squeeze a couple drops of juice off. That's all we need. There we go. Now
we're just going to close out refractometer here. Got a nice sample. Hold this up to the
light and what do we got? Check it out, we got a little bit over 10. So 10.25 is what
we're looking at and besides just the number we're also looking at the demarcation line
and if it's like fuzzy, which we'll put up a picture of real quick for you guys, we actually
want it to be fuzzy. That shows there's more dissolved solids and the foods probably more
nutritious because it's not all about the number only. So, this was about 10.25. So,
let's take a look on our chart what this is. So, on our chart, 10.25 for bell peppers is
actually good is 8, excellent is 12, this is 10.25. So, that'd between good and excellent.
Probably right around in the middle. So, actually this is a quite good pepper. So, so far what
did you learn? If you buy peppers in the store, get the hothouse ones form Canada, eh? They're
a lot better. So, now we're in the backyard garden and for the grand finale what I'm going
to do is actually I'm going to test my own home grown peppers. So, what you're looking
at here is just a small raised bed. It's maybe like 8 inches tall, 4 foot diameter. We have
probably over a dozen different pepper plants planted probably at least a foot apart or
11.5 inches apart or so. Really tightly. Most of them are all trellised up. I've had to
actually steak 'em up because they're getting too tall and they fall over and they break
because all the weight of the fruit. You can see here's some actually sweet cherry peppers.
Still waiting for those guys to ripen up, and we got some here. These are actually called
the Carmen sweet pepper. These are actually the bonnie plants and we're going to harvest
one of these guy to day. So, let's go ahead and pick this guy off the plant here, and
here we go. Little Carmen sweet pepper. We're going to go ahead once again and take our
refractometer and break this guy off. This guy's nice and juicy. Let's see if I can squeeze
some juice on it. Kind of tough. I can squeeze one drop. Let's see if I can get some more.
Alright, let's go ahead and use the garlic press. That wasn't working too well and the
garlic press shouldn't be an issue for getting some juice off. Alright, there we go. Alright
go some nice juice on there. Close that guy up. Let's look it up and see what we got.
Holy geez. Check it out man, we're kicking some ***. I wish you guys could see in here.
On this pepper here, we're like right under 14, so I'm going to say like 13.8 and it's
actually a fair bit cloudy. So, 13.8 on the brix scale. So, let's check out what a 13.8
is for peppers. On the bell peppers, and excellent is 12, so this is totally proof that my peppers
here are kicking some ***. These carmens, definitely some sweet peppers, but besides
just the variety you're growing, which is very important, is to build healthy soil so
that you can have the highest brix quality. You know, if you're going to use things like
NPK whether it's from even organic or, you know, chemically factory made sources, you
know, you're probably going to score lower in brix because the plant is not getting everything
it needs. So, you guys just saw that my crops that I'm growing are much higher quality than
the stuff you could buy at the store organic. Organic, hydroponic, shipped in wherever it's
from, you know, home grown is always the best if you do it properly. The next thing I want
to share with you guys actually is how to build your soil, because, I mean, this bed
was just started this past season. This is the first full growing season I've had with
this raised bed. So, literally, I filled it up with good soil, planted it with my plant
starts, which are actually from home depot, and as you can see, I'm now breaking the brix
numbers, and I'm not no soil scientist, I didn't go to school for soil. I didn't do
none of that stuff. I just do good things to build my soil and nature happens. Of course
if I even want to dial this in further I could get specific soil testing from some of the
labs that do brix testing and even dial this in further and maybe get higher numbers, but
I'm happy without paying all the extra money to get my soil tested by just doing some standard
good soil practices or what I call good soil practices. You're going to get higher brix
numbers than your neighbor and be able to grow higher quality crops that are going to
number one taste better, number two yield better, number 3 store better, and most importantly
be more pest and disease resistant because a healthier pant makes better offspring or
healthier babies that are healthier fruits or leaves or vegetables or whatever the crop
is. So, next I'm going to share with you guys my practices to build our soil so that you
can increase your brix numbers and have some of the best tasting produce on the planet.
So, good soil starts with a good base. The base of what I fill my beds is this stuff
right here. It's compost, and this is compost that I'm generating myself. Wow you can feel
the heat something off. It's kind of nice in this windy day here. Compost basically
adds organic matter and nutrients back into your soil. You know, you don't know what's
in the soil or in the dirt in your backyard. Was it farmed before? Was there grass there
before? We're the nutrients all sucked out of it? You have no idea, and that's why I
like to build a raised bed so that I can control the soil or the medium that I'm actually growing
in. So, in my soil mix, my raised beds, I put a lot of compost. Actually I'm using the
mills mix based on the square foot gardening. 1/3 compost, 1/3 peat moss or coconut core,
and 1/3 vermiculite. That's the standard ix, but then I enrich it with a lot of other things.
So, let's take a look at some of the other things I'm using to build my brix, to increase
it, and make my plants some of the sweetest on earth. Alright, so besides just the compost,
I add a whole mixture of other nutrient or amendments into my soil, and these are not
just fertilizers. These are biological gents. Agents of biology that will increase or put
biology back in the soil because we want soils that are alive. In industrial farming, they
don't want anything alive in the soil because if it's alive it could be something bad like
a harmful disease or something like that. You know, in nature there's beneficial microbes,
and there's harmful microbes and in most cases, the beneficial microbes kick *** over the
bad guys, and when you just remove the beneficial microbes, the bad guy can flourish. So, we
want to being back the microbes, and if we bring back the microbes, the beneficial ones
will dominate, kick *** over the bad guys and build your soil and besides just bringing
the microbes you've got to bring in the things that are going to feed the microbes, and that's
what I'm exactly doing. So, we're not really going to get in depth in this video on how
to build your soil. We're just going to go over some of the products. Be sure to check
out some of my other videos on YouTube for making different soil mixes when I'm building
raised beds and whatnot. My basic blend is I use the Mel's Mix that I just explained
to you all, and I also add a heaping generous portion of the organic worm castings, and
this happens to be the Ergowind brand work castings. I have also favored Wriggle Worm,
which is actually what I used in that raised bed. I also like the Wormgul+ brand, but any
worm casting will do, and as much as you can afford. Definitely good stuff. The worm castings
will add not only some small levels of nutrition in a slow release fertilizer, but also it's
very active with the beneficial fungi and bacteria. They're going to get those guys
back in your soil. So, besides your worm castings I use another kind of casting and that's this
right here. It's actually called the insect frast. The insect frest is basically poop
from probably some kind of insect, probably something like beetles. I'm not exactly sure
'cause they don't disclose that, but insect frasts, it's a 2-2-2 fertilizers, so it's
also a slow release fertilizer, and in addition it also adds the biologics, the beneficial
bacteria and fungi back in your soil, so I like that a lot. Another way I add biologics
back into my soil throughout the season is using something like this stuff right here.
This is actually called The Boogie Brew Compost Tea. Compost tea is probably the most inexpensive,
cheapest and easiest way to get the beneficial biologics back in to your garden. So, I like
the Boogie Brew brand compost tea. I mean, this things has like the worm castings a whole
bunch of other good stuff in there. This could actually be fed trough the root drench or
actually foiler feeding actually. Besides those guys I like to sue this stuff right
here that's actually called the Boogie Humus and the Boogie Hummus. This is another kind
of compost. You guys saw the majority of the thermally made compost, which is (unclear).
I'm also using this stuff, bacterial hummus, which is made at a low heat, and this is a
funagally dominated compost, basically made out of carbon or woodchips, and what this
guys does is this actually adds the beneficial fungi, microiza, fungi, and other fungi as
well back into the soil because it's those guys an the bacteria that basically help escort
nutrients back into the plants. So, how we're going to feed those guys are by using something
like this. We have the Spanish river carbonite, volcanic minerals plus, and this is basically
a rock dust, so whether you use this stuff here, and azomite the Gaia Greene glacier
rock dust, the argon minerals, or any other number of culture grade rock dust or even
just rock dust you could get at your local rock and stone quarry, we need to bring the
trace minerals back into the soil. This is one of my keys for success and to building
up the brix and having healthier plants. Another product line that I've actually used this
year, and this may also be a reason for my better increased brix and gardening is that
the John and Bobs products. This is actually called the John and Bobs microbes and minerals,
and I like this product because it actually not only has the minerals that're going to
feed the microbes but it also has the microbes and there's also a line of other John and
Bob's products that I also have been using in my garden. So, now if you're wondering,
you might be thinking, 'John, what if I can only add one product?' I mean, it's hard to
say what one product I would add to get the beneficial results that I did. I mean, the
results of my garden are a synergistic effect of all these products, which are only going
to build the soil and build the biology in your soil so that your plants could have the
best living and growing conditions, right? If I had t just pick a few, I would definitely
say go with the earthworm castings, probably like number one. Probably go with rock dust
minerals number 2. I'd then say probably go with the Boogie hummus number 3. The compost
tea number 4, and then definitely I'd say go with the John and Bob's products. I mean,
all these products have really been amazing for me, and I definitely recommend if you
want to get good growing results, use some of the products that I'm showing. I mean,
the way that I show is basically biologic or natural gardening how the forest does it.
You know, in the forest there's no pixies spreading 20-20-20 fertilizer, you know, but
the leaves are fine, the bugs are pooping, the earthworms are in the ground and there's
the microbes that's in the soil that have been living there for eons without human intervention.
The problem is when we get human intervention, we built houses, we tilled soil. It destroys
the fungal (unclear), it destroys the microbes and bacteria in there, and we need to use
some products like this to replace them. One of the these days, once I've got this up to
snuff, I'll basically just have to put in what I'm taking out, which is maybe some minerals
and whatnot, and some organic matter to keep my systems going to provide me food year after
year. In any case, I hope you guys enjoyed this episode learning more about the brix
in my specific garden, and some ways you can build your ricks by using some of these products.
Of course, other ways to build your brix besides just dialing in your soil is harvesting your
crops at their peak ripeness. The riper the crop is, the higher the brix is going to be.
So, the last way to increase the brix is to get the appropriate varieties of plants. Certain
varieties of plants, like I talked about earlier-... Fuji apples are sweeter than granny smith
apples and are just going to bring that higher from the get go. So, you just wan to pick
sweeter varieties of the crops if you're really looking for a higher brix number. I'm no all
about the brix. I'm about the nutrition in the crop, and brix is one way to show that
my crops are more nutritious. Another thing that I want mention also that will effect
nutrition in the crops is harvest your foods and then out them in your mouth. Don't harvest
them, put them in the fridge, let them sit there for a week because actually, after you
harvest the crops, the nutrition goes down over time. So, I want you guys to eat the
highest quality food, the most nutritious food, and guess what? You'll actually need
less of it, and you can easily do that in a small residential space to have enough salad
greens and even other crops to feed you and your family. So, I want to encourage you guys
to check out my other videos where I have detailed videos on how to grow your own food.
So, I hope you guys enjoyed this episode, learning more about brix and that I've proved
once and for all that the crops that I'm growing in my backyard are better than store bought.
I mean, any dummy can just think, 'Oh, something you grow is probably going to be better in
the store.' It's rare that I've found anything that I've ought at the store to be better
than what I'm growing. On rare occasions I find a good farmer that actually knows stuff,
that's actually growing high quality stuff, but more than likely, you know, nothing can
top the stuff you're going to grow at home. I want to encourage you guys to continue to
build your soil, if you are currently growing, and if you're not growing, start growing a
garden today so that you get benefit form the highest quality and best-tasting crops
that are coming from your backyard, maybe even your front yard. So, if you're interested
in learning more about how to grow high quality biologic organic crops, be sure to subscribe
to my videos if you're not already, be sure to check my past episodes, I have over 850
episodes that show me growing and show my travels and learning about how to grow high
quality crops, and I encourage you guys to tune into each and every episode because you're
always going to learn at least a little tidbit of knowledge that's going to help you out
to grow more food. Once again, my name is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com. We'll
see you next time, and remember; keep on growing.