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Alright, this is John Kohler with GrowingYourGreens.com. Today I have another exciting episode for
you. I'm glad to be sharing this with you. I'm actually on a field trip; I'm here in
a business park in front of a warehouse building, and what we're going to do today is were going
to go into this place right here. It's actually called 'Urban Hydro Greens, your local hydroponic
farm.' So what they're doing here inside this warehouse building is growing the most nutrient
dense food in all of Las Vegas. They're growing little microgreens, and if they can grow microgreens
in a warehouse, you can surely do it in your home, but just think about the application
of microgreens. They can grow microgreens in skyscrapers! I mean, wherever there's some
light, you can grow some microgreens, and today we're going to show you exactly how
they do it here and actually share with you guys how you can grow it at home as well.
So, let's head in to Urban Hydro Greens and show you guys how they're growin'. So, now
we're inside the Urban Hydro Greens and we're going to check out their warehouse, which
is where they're growing all the microgreens. I mean, this is a production facility. They
produce a thousand trays a month. That's a lot of microgreens out to the local Las Vegas
area, farmers markets, you know, they go to the fresh 52 farmers markets. They also sell
directly to some restaurants in town. So, they grow a lot of nutrient dense food here
in this warehouse and we're going to check it out in a second. So, now is the moment
you guys have been waiting for, let's check out this warehouse and see how they're growing
inside. If they can do it in a warehouse, you can do it in your own kitchen. Alright,
so now this is the warehouse and as you can see they just have a whole bunch of lights,
and I might be blinded form the camera for a second but they have a light cycle of 19
hours on and, you know, 5 hours off, so these guys get a lot of light so that they can grow
really fast. As you can see, there's just racks and racks and racks of different microgreens
growing. Now, this warehouse is only about 1000 square feet, so this is like the perfect
size to keep the temperature ideal without even using air conditioning here in Las Vegas.
They have a cooler they use in the summer time to keep it cool and in the wintertime
it's pretty much an unheated warehouse except for small amounts of heat put out by the lights.
Let's talk about the lighting for a second. They're actually using the full spectrum of
lights. This is the 6500K lights, or T8 in standard fixtures. So, you know you don't
have to get any special kind of lights. Just go down to your local home depot and get some
standards shop lights and, you know, get some really good lights there and save some money
instead of trying to buy some expensive lights that, you know, may grow a little bit better
and faster but, you know, its definitely good to save some money too. So, any old light
will work. As you can see they just got the 4 foot lights and they just got the wooden
shelves made out of 2x4's and plywood here, which are available at any home depot or Lowes,
so you could literally build a setup like this anywhere you live, and they're just deep
enough to have these flats and one section here, and each 8 foot section of light can
hold about 8 flats, and this will produce a lot of microgreens. Right here we're looking
at some beautiful amaranth microgreens. So, yes, you can grow that in you garden to eat,
but when growing the microgreens one of the cool things is, when you grow 'em in the microgreen
seed, they're even more nutritious than eating the regular vegetables. Now, you know that
I always promote you guys eat your greens, after all my channel is growyourgreens, but
how about growing some microgreens? These guys can be four times, minimum four times,
more nutritious, but up to 40 times more nutritious than the big ones. That being said, you eat
a lot more to get even a sufficient amount of calories in you, but they are great to
spice up your salad, add to soups and add to other recipes in your kitchen to ramp up
the nutrition in them. Next, I want to show you guys how they're growing here. This is
the secondary stage where they're actually growing them to fruition, or to microsproutition,
and it actually only takes 10-14 days, and this is the second half. The first half is
actually when they're sprouting the seeds, and let's show you the area where they're
sprouting the seeds in compete darkness. Alright, so now we're going to look at stage number
one for how these microgreens turn in to microgreens. Before they're microgreens they're actually
sprouts, and I know what you guys might be thinking, 'hey, John aren't sprouts good for
us?' Well, that's as long as they're safe to eat, there have been recently recalls with
sprouts, and I don't know exactly why that happens, but it's probably because the seed
stock is infested, but here with the microgreens you're not going to have the same problems
with the microgreens grown hydroponically, because a lot of the challenges with sprouts
is that you're eating the roots, the seeds, and all, and in the microgreens you're actually
clipping the tops off, so there's no bacteria in the roots. So, the first stage is right
over here. You can see we have al these flats like you just saw, but the flats are now covered.
There's actually 2 flats. The top of the flat is actually providing the darkness for the
bottom. It's also keeping the humidity in the proper range for the sprouts that are
now starting to germinate. So, these sprouts are seeded on the growing medium, and then
they're watered, and then as you see they're starting to sprouts already. Now, what happens
then is these are covered because that's what in nature, plants need to be covered, they
need to be in the dark, to sprout properly, and so they cover these guys, and what they
do after they've got the medium seeded, they water it, and not too much water, because
if it gets mold, if it gets too wet it wants to be just moist, not sopping wet, no standing
water, then they plant it and then they're going to basically mist it and spray it like
twice a day, maybe 2 sprays on the tray and 2 sprays on the top. Now, they're spraying
the top actually to keep the moisture level proper, because, you know, you don't want
these seeds drying out because they're not going to produce. Once again, this place is
producing like 1000 trays a month, and each tray on average produces about 4 ounces of
the microgreens. So, that's definitely a lot of microgreens. 250 pounds are coming out
of this small 1000 square foot warehouse, so if they're doing it here in large volumes
you can easily grow just a few trays in your home to supplement the green you're eating
at home, to have some of the best greens you can eat. So, next we're going to set these
guys back down, and what they do to keep track of all these cause they have so many different
flats growing, they have a piece of tape on here. So, they have the abbreviation on here
and the date it was started. So, RG stands for red giant and that's red giant mushroom
and that was started on the seventh. Today it is currently the 11th so this is going
to be in here for maybe a coupe more days before maybe they are ready to take out and
put into lighting, so then they will start growing more and start to green up and start
producing chlorophyll. I guess next I want to take a look more at the different varieties
of microgreens that they're growing here. So, you guys saw how the seeds sprout. Once
they're sprouted, they get to go in the light, under the light, so they can start to green
up, and once again these guys take about 10-14 days on average, and you know, some things
take a lot longer, but on average that's how long they take. I want to show you guys the
variety of the microgreens that you can grow. There's so many different kinds. As a matter
of fact, here, they're in production on 24 different kinds of different microgreens throughout
the year. At this time, though, they have 15 different varieties, so I'm going to actually
share with you some of those. Here's some microgreen boc choi, maybe I'll even try a
little bit and show you guys how they taste. Now, I love boc choi. Boc choi is one of my
favorite Asian greens. Wow, and you'll notice when eating the microgreens, the flavor is
much more intense than any boc choi that you will have ever tasted, and that's one of the
things they work on here is to, you know, get the maximum taste sensation in your mouth,
but also when there's more taste sensation, guess what? There's also more nutrition in
it for you. So, I mean, a lot of the chefs that buy from the Urban Hydro Greens here,
they want the best flavor and with the microgreen you're going to get eh best flavor, so those
boc choi microgreens were really good. Next, we're going to go to the next tray here. This
is the broccoli, and the broccoli microgreens are probably one of the most nutrient microgreens
you're growing here. If you're only going to grow one microgreen, I suggest you guys
grow broccoli. It grows very fast, it grows really full, and also there's a lot of research
on the broccoli sprouts, and if it's in the sprouts, guess what? It's in the microgreens
and it probably in higher concentrations. These organo-sulfur compounds that they have
shown to be helpful in fighting things like cancer. So, you know, why wait until you get
cancer to start growing broccoli sprouts? Why don't you eat it now and disease-proof
yourself? So, besides broccoli, they have whole bunch growing, they have something like
this stuff right here. They have the blue curly kale. So, here's some kale microgreens
here. Literally what you're going to see that most of the cruciferous vegetables, you know,
the broccoli, the kale, the cauliflower, korabi, those guys actually do really well in the
microgreens climate or situation because they're generally fast growers. Over here we've got
another good microgreen. This is actually the beets, and I want to show you guys actually
the cool colors of the beets. So, check out these cool pink red, it's almost like a fluorescent
color if you're seeing this in person. I don't know if you can see that on your camera, but
I want to encourage you guys to always eat your foods of color. Every different color
are going to be different vital chemicals in there for you that are going to, you know,
be nutritious for you and feed all the trillions of cells in your body. Over here we've got
another cool one. This is actually the mustard greens. You can kind of see they got the purple
tops on there. Here we've got some broccoli, and I want to show you guys the comparison
in broccoli. So, they're using 2 primary growing mediums here. They got these guys here which
is the sterile grow pads, and you can see the roots here basically growing through he
grow pads to the bottom, and you can see how much water is actually in here, and check
it out, there's no pooling water. You want it moist, but you don't want too much water.
Too much water will cause too much mold, and guess what? If your plants don't have enough
water, they're not going to be living too much longer, and these guys were started one
the 31st and these guys were started, broccoli, on the 4th, but instead of using sterile grow
pads, they're using a coconut core medium, and you can see the difference in how much
fuller at his is and how much more vibrant these guys are in actually less time in growth.
Now, the reason why they use 2 different growing mediums is that they like to do a lot of experimentation
here and find out which id going to grow the best under different situations. The reason
for the sterile growing pads is that it makes harvesting a lot easier. With the coconut
core, you've got to get the core off the microgreens when you're going to sell it, but if you growing
at home, it may be really good to use the coconut core, which is going to grow a lot
more vibrant, plus the coconut more is more of a renewable resource. Once you're done
using it for your microgreens once, you want to take it out and put it in your garden.
You do not want to be reusing your growing mediums. Unfortunately on the sterile growing
pads, you're going to have to basically toss these out. They're not really recyclable.
The next thing I want to talk about it the temperature. You can see we got a thermometer
here, and a humidity meter here, and it's very important to have the right temperature
for you babies that are growing. If you don't have the right temperature, they're either
going to stop growth, like at 90 degrees, if they don't like the hot weather too much
they pretty much stop growth and not too much happens, or if it's too cold, they're not
going to be growing well. The optimal rate is probably between, like, I don't know, 70-80
degrees would probably be a really nice range that your microgreens are going to have to
be growing the best, and guess what? Most of you guys are going to be keeping your house
between 70 and 80 in the winter time, so that's a perfect temperature to be growing your microgreens
in the same climate, or the same temperature, that you guys like. Now, the humidity, mainly,
most humidity's will be fine. The main thing is with high humitidies it may cause mold
growth, because, you know, it's too wet. So, you don't really have to control your humidity,
but you want to pay attention to it and if you're in a high humidify area, you might
want to add a few fans to get some air circulation because air circulation will actually lower
insistences of mold growth, but guess what? If there's too much water, there's going to
be mold grow no matte how many fans you put on it. The next thing I want to show you,
they have a lot of timers set up here. They just got a lot of these appliance timers.
These are the same appliance timers that you'll use like if you're on vacation during Christmas,
to flip your Christmas tree light on and off. I mean, these are available for like $5-10,
and they have the cycle, 19 hours on and 5 hours off. So, it's really simple, they have
all these plugged into the strip here, all the identical setting, and all these lights
come on and come off every single day, because the plants need the light to photosynthesize
to create the nutrition in the plant. Now, one of the next things I want to talk to you
guys about is very important, is actually, you know, when to harvest your microgreens,
because you know, what happens is, how these microgreens are able to grow is because the
seeds, the seeds are packets, they're little packets of nutrition, and they have enough
nutrition in itself to prolong and grow the seed for a certain amount of time. After that
time, you get nutrient degradation and also plant degradation because now the plants are
mature enough that they want o send their roots out and nutrition with the roots, and
in the hydro plants here, you know, without any nutrition, it's just literally in water
and the seeds basically, so the plants aren't able to uptake any nutrients. So, I'm going
to show you guys what happens if you let your microgreens go on and grow too long without
harvesting them. So, here's some radish that has been planted and started on the 23rd,
so these are about 3 weeks old, and as you can see, these are not looking too healthy.
They're kind of getting yellowish, you know, leaves, and they're kind of tuning a lighter
green color, and that's because these plants are so mature after 3 weeks that they're wanting
to pull up nutrients, you know from the ground, if they're in the ground, but they're not
able to because they're only getting the water. So, at this point for the commercial purposes,
this tray is going to be composted, it's out of here; it's not a viable product to sell.
So, you want to be sure to harvest tour microgreens and the right stage. Let's take a look next
door. These radishes, believe it or not, are the same radishes, and I want to show you
guys the difference in color. Look at the difference in color. These are nice and green;
the nutrients are still being pulled up from the seed and not from the roots. These are
also getting their second set of leaves here, so you want to harvest your microgreens before
your second set of leaves for the most nutrition. One of the interesting things about microgreens
is that, you know, they contain more nutrients in the plants themselves. So, take for example
broccoli. One ounce of microgreens is said to have the equivalent of nutrition in 1.5
pounds of the broccoli florets. So, you know, I want to encourage you guys to eat the most
nutrition dense foods as possible and by growing your own microgreens or by buying at a place
like Urban Hydro Greens, you'll be assured some of the most nutrient-dense foods on the
planet, because after all, I hope you're eating for the nutrients, and not just eh calories,
because if, you know, most people eat empty calories, or what I consider junk food. Things
like McDonalds and packaged foods. If you look on the nutrition label, it'll be very
high in calories, but also on the nutrition like the vitamins, the mineral, and the vital
chemicals, they're all zero or next to zero. It's these guys, it's very low calories but
the most nutrition, and I think that's what we need in our society is to be eating nutrient
dense foods instead of calorie dense foods. It'll be a lot healthier and also, you know,
a proper weight. So, you guys might be wondering, you know, 'is it really easy to grow these
microgreens?' I mean, it sounds really good, and think you guys should grow them literally
in your house and you know, it's really easy to get set up and start growing these things.
So, the next thing we're going to cover is actually how you guys grow it at home. The
first step, really important is the lighting. It's really important you get the proper lighting,
and guess what? This lighting is not expensive, people. This is a 'lights of America' shop
light, from Wal-Mart, it's about $12, and you can see here it's got 2 4-foot florescent
tubes, and if you're asking, 'John, what kind of tubes do I get?' Well, guess what? I got
'em right here so you guys could see. This is the 'Sylvania Daylight 6500K, 2700 lumens,
32 watts, 7000 hours, 75 CRI,' and 6500K 34 inch 32 watts. So, these are the light you're
going to want to get, and you can get these a local Lowes or home depot store. You know,
you buy em in this pack here, and you'll save a little money than buying buy the singles.
So, that's the lighting. So, the lighting is one of the things you're going to need.
The next thing your going to need is you're going to need all the proper equipment. SO,
what I'm going to do next is actually give you guys a lesson on how you can get this
kit that has the seeds and everything you need to grow to start growing your own microgreens
at home. So, let's go ahead and show you guys the kit, and show you guys how to grow some
microgreens. So, now we're in the area of Urban Hydro Greens where they give classes
to teach people how to grow the microgreens. They usually do 2 classes a month, and they
have small class sizes. From 6 to 8 people, where you can learn how to grow your own microgreens
at home. If you're anywhere in the Las Vegas area. Now, you'll get a tour, and they'll
even set you up with a little grow kit, and show you guys how to use it. If you're not
able to come to Urban Hydro Greens to get your own personal class, I will share with
you guys, actually, a kit that you can buy online that comes in this box here, so you
can start growing some microgreens in your home. So, let's go ahead and open up this
box and sow you guys what this kit includes. So, this is a kit that you'll get actually
sent to you. So, the first thing when you open the kit, you're going to get some laminated
instructions. So, this first one is very valuable. One the front is 'microgreen growing kit,'
on the back; this is what's really important. This is actually, all these different pictures
here, 7 different pictures, show you day by day what your seeds should look like when
they're germinating. This is very important when you're starting so that you can know
exactly what you're doing is right or not, and if not, guess what? You guys need to make
some adjustments. The main thing is when germinating your seeds is not to put too much water, and
not to put too little water. The water needs to be just right, like goldilocks porridge.
So, the next thing you're going to get in this kit here is some printed instructions
with some definitions, materials, and 7 simple step by step instruction that will explain
to you guys how to grow the microgreens in this kit. In addition it has troubleshooting
and tips, and this is actually very important if you're not doing something right, you need
to figure out what's going on and correct that so you're microgreens can grow and feed
your body. Let's see here. There's standard trouble shooting tips that may help you and
also it shows you some uses on how you can use some of the microgreens, and at the end
of this video, I'm going to show you guys some of my uses of the microgreens the next
thing you're going to get, these guys right here, these are pH test strips. These are
actually very important component of the kit. I didn't talk about it earlier, but it's very
important that the water you're using for growing the microgreens are in the proper
pH range. If your water isn't in the proper range, your microgreens will not flourish
and grow as quickly or grow as well as you'd like them or how they're growing here. So,
the pH that they recommend for growing the microgreens is around a 6 on the pH scale.
Most standard city water is around 8, so you're going to have to adjust that down, and I'll
talk about that in a sec, but with the pH papers, you can assure yourself that you have
the right pH in the water. The next thing you're going to get is a little squirt bottle,
or a little spray bottle, and this is actually very important to mist your microgreens while
they're in the germination stage you need to give 'em just the right amount of water.
So, with this, you're going to be able to mist 'em and not provide too much water for
your microgreens. In addition, you're going to get the seeds, and normally, this kit would
come 4 different kinds of seeds, but since you guys are growingyourgreens viewers, I've
had them include an extra seed packet here. So, each of these seed packet, in this size,
will grow 2 half-size trays. In the near future, they will just give you individual packets
and each packet will seed one tray. So, this kit will see a total of 10 trays. Normally
it only seeds 9 trays. So, the seeds included with this kit are the blue curl kale, the
tot soi, and besides using these for microgreens, you can hold a few seeds back and actually
plant 'em out in your garden as well, because they will grow. Next we have the crimson Thai
mustard, and this is the mustard I showed you guys earlier. It has a nice purple color
to it. In addition, we've got the broccoli seeds, which is my favorite microgreen, the
most nutritionally dense, and finally we've got a radish blend, and this is a blend that
I encourage you guys to start with first, because radishes actually grow really fast.
Aside from that, you've got the sterile growing mediums. So, you have enough to do 10 half
trays. You're also going to get 10 growing mediums to get you're growing in. Finally
the last 2 components of the kit are the half-sixe trays. These are the trays that come with
the kit. You can also purpose trays, sterile growing mediums, and seeds as well from the
Urban Hydro Greens, and the full-size trays will be this size, but in this case we're
just doing the half-size trays, because that's the best way to start out with if you're new
at growing microgreens. So, next I want to show you guys how to set up and start growing
some of these microgreens. Alright, so now we're going to use this kit to grow some microgreens.
So, it's really easy. You're not going to need too much more than what supplied in the
kit. The number one thing, of course, to start any seed, is some standard tap water here.
Now, I recommend you guys let your tap water hang out overnight to maybe dissipate some
of the chlorine off, or maybe use some filtered water if you're concerned about it, although
that's not a requirement at all. Besides the water, we need to make sure the pH of the
water is proper. So, what you're going to do instead of buying some expensive pH adjuster
at a hydroponic store, you get this stuff here that you may already have in your kitchen.
It's just distilled white vinegar. You don't have to get a particular brand or anything;
it's just some white vinegar. This stuff is very acidic, so by just adding a little bit,
and here in Las Vegas we need to add about 1 teaspoon to 1 gallon of water to get the
pH to the level we want. So, once you've added a teaspoon, which we already have done, we're
going to go ahead and take the pH test strips to ensure the pH is correct. So, I'm going
to go ahead and stick that in the water. pH test strips are also really useful. You can
actually check you're pH, and there's a range where we want to be as well. Anyways, we've
got this and we're going to go ahead and match up the colors and check it out. That's just
about a 6 so this is going to work for us just fine. The next step is, now that we've
got our pH adjusted water, we're going to take our sterile growing pad right here, and
all you need to do is just soak this. So, to do that we're just going to dunk it in
the water and the very important thing is don't just pull it out and say, 'okay, John,
I got it soaked.' Look at that, that is dripping, that is soaked. We don't want it that wet,
we want it just moist. Guess what? More water creates mold, not going to be good. So, we're
just going to go ahead and wring that out. You don't want to wring it out too dry; you
just want it enough so that it's no longer dripping. SO, I think that's a pretty good
moisture. You can kind of feel the moisture in there, it's not dripping, good enough.
Lay it in your little half tray here. I mean, this is pretty simple stuff. Anybody can do
it. I'm going to go ahead and move that water aside. The next thing is we're going to need
our seeds because that's what we're growing. Go ahead and take a plastic cup. We've got
a standard clear plastic cup here. I wish I had a red solo cup, but this is not, and
we've got the seeds here. Now, if you get this size seed packet, this contains enough
for 2 half flats. If you get a smaller size Ziploc bag, then that's enough for 1 flat.
So, how will you know? If you get 10 individual packets, then you're going to put all of the
seeds in one packet into the half flat. If you get 5 of these guys, then you're only
going to use half the seeds. So, what I've done is I've put all these seeds down at the
bottom here and, you know, it's pretty even, and I'm going to take my hand and hold half
of it, about half, and I'm going to go ahead and open the top here so that only half the
seeds come out of this and we're going to dump them in the cup. Alright, so once you've
got your seeds all poured out in your cup here, this is your seed dispersement tool.
So, it's easier to pour them out of a cup than the little baggie there. So, what we're
going to do is just go around and just shake these out, and a very important thing to do,
you want an even distribution. You don't want them all bunched up. If you get your seeds
bunched up then that may cause, guess what? The big M, the mold, and we don't want the
mold. So, very important to evenly space your seeds out, and you don't want too many seeds
by the edges, too, cause that's not a good thing either. So, you want to try to get them
mostly in the center and evenly distributed throughout this whole little tray. So, just
take your time and, you know, they're going to bounce a little when they go in there,
so if you kind of go a little bit closer they're not going to bounce as much and go all over,
but remember you ay want to get your seeds distributed evenly throughout this whole little
tray. And yes, there is an art form to dispersing your seeds, and you'll get better at it over
time. I'm just going back to fill in different parts where there's not enough seeds and just
shake out a few seeds so we get a nice even dispersal. Now, if you're OCD this might take
you about a half hour, if you're not, it might take about 5 minutes. Maybe just 2 minutes.
I'm a little bit OCD, so it's taking me a but longer than normal. Don't drop your cup.
Okay, so we've got a coupe more seeds in the cup here. Going right down. Now, I'm a bad
seed spreader, man, I got a couple near the edges, so if that happens, all you're going
to do is take it and flick it like you're flicking your loved ones ear. Alright, so
we got the seeds pretty well on the little growing medium here, and the next thing is
you're going o take a little spray bottle and you want to a give your seeds some water.
So, just spray it a little bit, and once again, you just want it moist, you don't want to
drench them. The next thing you're going to do is just spray the inside. Just a little
bit of moisture. You don't want it sopping wet. If you put this upside down is it dripping
rain on you? Guess what? Too much water, don't do it. And next you're just going to put this
on, and once you've got this on you're going to set it in a cool place, you know, not too
hot, and obviously it doesn't need to be in the sun because it's in this darkness stage,
and you're just going to basically lift this up and check out your little babies twice
a day, and at the same time you're checking them out, you also want to give them the required
nutrients, water. So, once again you're going to take 2 sprays, 2 sprays, and you may need
to us a bit more, maybe less, but not too much. I like that they give you the spray
bottle so that can ensure you don't give them too much water. So, every 12 hours, twice
a day, spray them and just let it do it's thing and guess what? In 4 days, let me show
you guys what you're going to get. So, after 4 days it's going to look like this. You can
see there, we've got these guys growing, and, you know, they're not quite green yet but
that's alright, because these seeds are still germinating. Some barely germinated some have
already been growing and some of these actually, the tallest one's like an inch. So, after
4 days, it's going to look like this, and guess what you're going to continue to do
this. You're going to mist it in the tray and in the top and u *** back and you're going
to leave this hanging out a couple more days until it's ready to be moved on to the next
stage. So, you're going to keep it like this until 1 of 2 things, or both of these things
happens. You're going to take it off and you're going to see all the seeds that your germinated
are about an inch tall, and don't be concerned if they're all still yellow because, guess
what? They're in complete darkness. You would be yellow, too, if you were in darkness. But,
when they get under the light, they're going to have a nice tan color. Well, not actually
tan. They're going to be green! So, don't worry if they're still yellow at this stage.
How do you know when to take them out of the darkness? Well, they need to be all 1 inch
tall or if you pull up the matting a little bit, you'll see that there's good root in
there, and obviously right not there's not good roots because we pulled that up and all
the seeds are flopping all over the place. So, make sure those 2 things happen, and we'll
show you the next stage with some camera magic. So, after a total of 8 or 9 days, so in less
than 2 weeks, this is what you're going to get with this kit. You're going to get your
own microgreens to eat at home. It's going to green up because after it gets tall enough
you're going to out it under your lighting you got, and make sure you use the lighting.
If you don't use the lighting I recommended, you try to do it in the window or something,
things aren't going to grow as fast and it ay take longer, so get the proper tools to
grow the foods and eat more of it instead of waiting longer, and the lights are not
a huge investment. So, yes, these guys are going to grow up really well and really good,
and once they're at this stage you can actually just take some scissors and cut them off,
and use the microgreens, because the whole purpose on why you're growing them is to use
them, and when I say use them I mean eat hem and get them into your body. If you are eating
microgreens what you're going to find it that they're much more digestible than the hard
greens. Now, I don't know if you guys eat radish greens. I are some for dinner last
night actually, bit they're very hard tasting, like better tasting because they don't have
a strong flavor. These guys are actually a nice delectable delicious flavor and these
guys are much more nutrient packed with nutrients, even more than the baby greens that I always
encourage you guys to harvest out of your garden. Now, how else can you use these besides
making a little salad out of the microgreens? You know, you can add these to your salad.
So, you know, I like to make a nice salad out of green form your garden if you're growing
them, and then put dressing on it and then out some of these on top. You can do the same
with other cooked dishes, but the one thing you want to remember is you do not want to
cook your microgreens. These are baby plants. If you were a baby you wouldn't like to be
cooked either. They will wilt very fast and then they'll no longer look attractive and
guess what? When you're heating your food, you're lowering the nutrition in your food
as well. So, these are best eaten raw. So, besides the salads, you can also add them
to soup. So, I make uncooked soups in my vitamix by literally blending up different vegetable
juices, and you can blend up your microgreens in there as well. Another thing you can do
is called green smoothies. I highly encourage you guys to drink green smoothies, whether
they're made with the greens out of your garden or microgreens, and I have a few videos on
that. Basically what you're going to do is you're going to take some purified water and
like 4 bananas, maybe 1 or 2 frozen bananas, and a whole bunch of microgreens. You know,
I'd put maybe one half this whole tray in one smoothie, and just blend it up and drink
it on up. The microgreens will get blended up into smaller particle size and have even
better absorption out of the nutrient in here rather than just chewing them because most
people just take 2 chews and swallow. It's very important, whatever you're eating whether
microgreens or not, is to chew your food adequately into a mush because think about it, why do
we feed babies baby food? Because they don't have any teeth and they need a mush, but because
we have teeth were supposed to chew our food into a mush every mouthful before swallowing.
With that being said, these guys are very tender, and they don't need to be chewed as
much as the larger adult leaves of the same plants. So, another way I like to use microgreens
especially is in wraps. Whether you're making a collard wrap or using some nori or some
sushi, take some greens and fill it up in the wrap. I mean, use literally, and I like
to fill I up with other ingredients, and then roll it up and just eat it. This is a great
to go food, and you can just take these as your lunch, and sometimes I'll just eat these
for dinner. Another reason for the microgreens are to add flavor elements to whatever you're
eating. So, instead of using, say, mustard in a jar, you can get some mustard microgreens
and get the same mustard bite. So, what I do with the mustard greens is actually add
those to a salad dressing and get a nice mustard flavor. Imagine a honey mustard dressing made
with your own fresh microgreens, wow, that's going to be delicious. Those are just some
of the uses of microgreens, and I'm sure you can come up with a lot more, but before you
get to use your microgreens, you got to start growing them yourself. So, you want to visit
the Facebook page or Urban Hydro Greens and you can order this kit, this very kit that
I showed you. Once again, the growingyourgreens only kit, normally the kit only includes enough
for 8 half tray. The growing your greens kit is going to include the seeds you saw, enough
for 10 full half trays, and you can also order additional seeds, and, you know, the pads
from Urban Hydro Greens, but once you run out of the standard pad, what I encourage
you guys to use is this stuff right here. Some kind of coconut core, they actually are
for the wondersoild here, and you can use the coconut core rather than the sterile growing
pads. It makes harvesting a little bit more difficult You may get some coconut core you
have to weed out but once again the coconut core is more renewable because once you're
done using it one time, don't reuse this stuff, once you're done using it to grow your microgreens,
you're going to use this stuff in your garden, which will actually help hold the water in
your garden. So, you're going to mix this in with your compost and your soil mediums.
This is especially good for a container garden. So, don't waste any of these valuable nutrients
at home. Especially all the base of this stuff you can compost as well. So, I hope you guys
enjoyed this episode of Urban Hydro Greens. If you're anywhere in Las Vegas you want to
definitely come buy and take one of their classes to learn in detail and actually get
a factory tour and show guys how they're growing here. I highly recommend their classes. If
you don't want to grow your own, you can visit them at the farmers markets or give them a
call or contact them through the Facebook page to order the microgreens yourself to
get some of the highest nutrient dense foods grown anywhere in the Las Vegas valley, and
finally you want to visit their Facebook page so you can order your own microgreens growing
kit, and make sure you get the growingyourgreens special. I'll put a link down for their Facebook
page right below this video so you guys can do just that. So, after watching this video
you are fully prepared to start growing microgreen in your kitchen or in your home any time of
the year. So, not longer can you say, 'John, I can't grow, it's winter time it's freezing.'
You can grow these guys inside all year long. They love the temperature we live, and after
you grow them at eat them, you're going to feel a lot better about it as well. So, once
again, my name is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com and remember, keep on growing.