$10 Plant That Feeds Your Family for Years (Plant Once, Eat Forever!)

Alright, this is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com. Today we have another exciting episode for you. Today here I'm in Loxahatchee, Florida, which is like basically right outside West Palm Beach. And today we're going to visit the Jack and the Beanstalk Nursery here in Loxahatchee. You can check them on social media, Jack Beanstalk Nursery. They got fruit trees, citrus, tropical veggies and herbs and medicinal plants. So this is basically a fully edible nursery. This nursery is on two acres. In this spot they have another offsite of one and a half acres, so three and a half acres total. And this is one of the most impressive nurseries I've seen here in South Florida for those of you guys who want to grow your own food like me. So let's head inside and let me show you around. Alright guys, so a lot of nurseries I've visited here in South Florida focus on just fruit trees. While I love eating fruit, and fruit is great, you definitely want to check out my buddy Paul Nissan at Fruitful Trees to his YouTube channel. And he focuses on teaching you guys about all the fruit trees that grow great here in South Florida. Of course my channel is called Growing Your Greens. You know, while fruit is amazing, the issue with fruit trees I have for small spaces is specifically, you know, you plant a fruit tree in a space, you have a small residential property lot, and that tree grows year round. And it makes you fruit once a year, maybe twice. Some fruit trees can make fruit twice a year. Meanwhile, if you plant some of the perennial greens or herbs or have a vegetable bed, right, that area of your garden, of your property, is producing food day after day, all year long for you. So it's something that you can eat out of your garden every day of the year. And the other thing I'll tell you guys is that, well, you know, fruit shifts relatively well. Greens do not shift well, and they expire very quickly, right. How often have you gotten like a bin of baby greens from Costco or the supermarket, and they're already kind of going mushy and going bad. That's why growing greens is the best investment you can make in your garden. And I encourage all you guys that are in South Florida to grow the perennial greens that can grow year round. And actually that's what drew me to this nursery because they focus on growing the very perennial greens that are going to be as easy to grow as a fruit tree, you know, but then you can eat the leaves every single day of the year. So let's head around the nursery and show you guys some of my favorites. Alright guys, so here at the Jack and the Beanstalk Nursery, they have not only the perennial vegetables, but also, depending on the season, they'll have the right annual vegetables that you guys can grow as well. I always encourage you guys to put your money towards perennial vegetables that you can plant once and eat forever. So be sure to ask them. I'll be, you know, denoting that when I make, you know, this part of the episode. I'll be going over my favorite perennials, but then I will also add in some annuals that they're actually selling. And some of the annuals may keep their roots alive underground. Some of them may go to seed and then reseed on their own and then grow year after year for you. One of the things I like about the nursery here is you can see these signs. Basically everything is tagged with a sign. And this, I think, is very important, especially if you're new into growing food. You can just wander around the nursery, look at the sign, you can instantly see the price. And you can also read a little bit about this plant. This is a broad leaf plantain. And you can actually eat these greens. This is also kind of like more medicinal herbal. Funny thing, the plantain is where they get the psyllium husk from. Most people don't really know that. And of course, this one is more of a, I would say, annual. But then it'll go to seed, drop seeds, and then regrow. And sometimes the plant will stay alive, you know, multiple years, depending on where you're at. But yeah, the leaves tend to be a little more fibrous. So you always want to harvest the younger tender leaves if you want to eat them. There's a cool variety called buckhorn plantain that has a little bit less fiber, you know, that I grew many years ago. And here's another one. This is a perennial green that I definitely recommend everybody pick up when they're here. These are really good examples of this plant here. The Okinawan spinach. And this is like a $10 plant. Look at this, guys. These are huge, really nice, established plants. You could already do cuttings off this yourself. That's how all these are propagated. This is known as the gynura bicolor. On the backside, you guys can see the leaves are actually purple. And they have really nice flavor. These typically don't like the sun too much. And in the sun, they lose their purpleness. So if you plant it in the shade, like underneath a, you know, a fruit tree as a ground cover, it'd love it. And then its cousin is the longevity spinach or gynura pokebens. These plants are also $10. And once again, you just buy this plant once, plant it underneath a fruit tree. This one likes full sun, actually. And it'll just vine out and create a big area where this is just covering the ground and providing you guys all these edible leaves to eat. Now this is an edible perennial vegetable tree. This is known as the chaya. And this is a special chaya. This is like maybe the second time I've seen it at a nursery. First time I think I'm showing it online for you guys. This is a variegated leaf chaya. So the chaya is poisonous. It contains cyanogenic glycosides. So it must be boiled before you eat it. Very important. They also have a standard green chaya as well. But yeah, this one's very beautiful, ornamental, as well as edible. Of course, everybody in South Florida, in my opinion, should have this tree. This is known as the moringa tree or the tree of life. All the leaves are edible. They're rich in BITCs or ithocyanates. Basically, it's anti-cancer and helps with phase two liver detoxification. I mean, you say like the proteins, you know, it's more nutritious than, you know, carrots and vitamin C and all these crazy statistics. But you know, it just grows really fast and easy. And when you're harvesting them, you know, I have a video link down below where I juice the older mature leaves. But if you're eating them, I recommend you guys come and just pick these little baby leaves for like your salads. It's the best way to eat them. They're nice and tender, not quite as hot and spicy. In addition, the flowers are edible on this as well. Also the young drumsticks, when they're green and just emerging, they're quite delicious. And if you want to sacrifice the plant, I've even eaten, you know, baby moringa roots, which is basically known as the horseradish root. It's nice and spicy, kind of like a radish. So yeah, this is a very useful tree. They got other kind of herbaceous plants, like the mujeen tea plant. Here's a chicory plant, used in herbal medicine normally, but you could just grow the chicory for its leaves. They're like, it's in a lettuce family, a little bit more bitter. But you know, I grow the chicory year-round in Vegas. And it really loves the heat, actually. So I'm glad that she has found the same thing here in South Florida and is offering that to people as well. She has other, you know, herbs and whatnot, valerian root, I'm really not going to get into these. I really want to focus on the greens. Oh, so this one's a really fun one. She doesn't have a tag for it, but this is known as the rangia, or the mushroom plant. So these leaves actually taste like mushrooms. And you don't see this plant too often. Alright, it's always fun when I'm like, wandering at a nursery and just finding new plants that I'm aware of, but they have here and they're selling here. And I wasn't expecting to see this on this side of the country, because you know, being from the west coast, this is more common. This is epazote. And epazote is annual, typically I wouldn't recommend buying it because they basically sprout from seed, they can be, basically grow once and all the seeds drop everywhere, it's basically like a weed. To me, this one tastes kind of like, a little like gasoline, it has a really fragrant flavor, but the benefit from Latin America, where it is grown traditionally, is they say you cook it with beans and then it's supposed to take away the flatulence. Alright guys, so now I want to show you guys another basically aisle of greens, perennial greens you could eat, including herbs, they got different kinds of the Tulsi basil, basil from India, African blue basil. They got the Peruvian mint, known as huacate. So I have videos on this a long time ago, I grew this in California, so it's fun to see that it will grow here. Actually the owner, who is a doctor in her country, who started the nursery, she's from Peru, so it's kind of fun to see the huacate. And this one also has a very unique flavor that I like, it doesn't taste like any other leafy green. It's kind of like minty, basil-y, but sweet, like all at the same time. And that's what I really love when you come to a nursery like this, you're going to get to experience new plants that now you can create a relationship with. You can buy one, take it home and grow it, let it go to seed. Huacate in my California NorCal garden basically just drops the seeds and it comes back every single year now. And once you get some of these established, so this would be more of an annual, that will perennialize, you'll have a relationship with all the plants and all the different flavors and more importantly all the beneficial plant compounds, and it's the flavors in the plants that basically give us the protection from the plants, and they make these compounds so that they can handle the stress of living in the environment, living wherever they are in the world. Alright guys, another one of my favorites is the katuk plant, or star gooseberry. It also makes a fruit that you can eat when they're young and immature. But the katuk has nice edible leaves that tastes like, it has a nice nutty flavor. My friend says it tastes like peanut butter, I don't know if I'd go that far, but these are one of the most pleasant leafy greens you could grow as like a hedge, a shrub in your yard, and I'd highly encourage you guys to pick one of these up before you leave. And I'm wondering if they have the variegated katuk, which is another kind, just the leaves are a little bit different looking, but the plant tastes the same. And they have this other one, a cotton plant, definitely not looking like it's a good time of year for the cotton, but yeah, you could even grow your own cotton balls, which is crazy. Alright guys, another tree they have right now that's kind of more annualish is the roselle or sorrel, or Jamaican hibiscus. This is known to make those little buds that are used to make the tea, used in place of cranberries because they have a nice sour flavor. But what many people don't know is that you could just pick the little baby leaves, even the larger leaves, and all these leaves are edible, you could just add them to a salad and they have a nice lemony flavor, which is good. Now to me, because I've tried to grow these in Vegas multiple years, the best time it grew was when I put it in the shade, so this is an extreme dry climate and hot, whereas as you can see, even in pots, they're already pushing like 5 feet tall, these are some incredible deals. A 1 gallon for $10, but I want to show you guys the one that is actually even more heat resistant and even more perennial than the standard roselle. And this is the cranberry hibiscus, originally from Africa. This one is red, so it's not only more decorative, it has basically a very similar flavor when you eat this one, the one you can't really taste a big difference, they're both kind of like lemony, kind of hibiscus greens. But this one easily handles full sun in Las Vegas and grows without a problem, plus this is more perennial where I would just keep growing more longer than the standard roselle. Another spinach they have here, and when I use the word spinach, don't think like the spinach you would buy in an American grocery store, that's totally unrelated to any of the spinach I have mentioned in this episode. Basically when it says spinach in this context, generally they just mean a leafy green you could eat, an edible leaf. So this is a Lego spinach, or the African spinach, I'm not familiar with this, but this is a nice beautiful plant as you can see, and these are nice established plants already pushing 4 feet plus tall for just $10, and nice and healthy at the same time. I encourage you guys to buy a diversity and then find out and plant them all, see which ones do better for you in your context, in your situation, your microclimate, how you water, how you take care of your plants, you'll learn some plants are more resilient, some plants are going to thrive, some plants are not, and then just focus on the ones that do really good. But you're only going to know by buying many different plants and trying them all. Alright guys, I wanted to share with you guys a few more greens, now these are kind of more annual style greens, you plant them, they'll go to seed, drop seeds, seeds can reemerge or you can collect them and then regrow them. This is known as the Egyptian spinach, and it says it has a nice nutty mild flavor and a slimy texture when cooked, and I like to eat this raw, but this is again a very nutritious leafy green, you could eat it, it also makes little okra-like pods and when they're young you could eat them raw, but it says Egyptian spinach is high in dietary fiber, low in calories, contains vitamin A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B9, C, E, and K, as well as calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, and antioxidants. The greens that I've been sharing with you guys today are way more nutritious than buying some lettuce spring mix at Costco, and these are some of the easiest things to grow here that really bugs won't even mess with, and it's just so insane that more people don't grow some of their own greens. Egyptian spinach I grow every single year in Las Vegas, it easily loves the heat, and the funny thing about the Egyptian spinach is that I first learned about it at a trade show, they're basically selling this as basically dried and then powdered up in a little, as a green powder, and they had the comparison of nutrition in the green powder versus like kale, and the Egyptian spinach was more nutritious than kale, and I'm like, thought to myself when I saw that that one day from this company in Japan selling this stuff, I'm like, man, why do I have to buy this stuff as a green powder, can't I just grow it, and it was fun the day that I started growing it and eating it myself, and now you guys can too. Alright, so another one they don't have a tag for is the Jules of Aupere, this is once again another kind of more annual, it makes little nice flowers that are edible, and then they basically will make these little seed pods, actually they just look like this, these are little seed pods, and then they kind of get this color, like the dark color, and then they basically come off, and then they basically, when they're ripe, they blow up, not quite ripe yet, and they'll have like tons of little hundreds of seeds, so like, if you grow this in your nursery, this plant will basically drop the seeds in the one next to it, and then next year they'll have like all these little Jules of Aupere coming up, but once again, these have nice little edible leaves that you could eat, really taste like, like really neutral, really nice, delicious flavor, and it's like if you just went around your garden and picked a leaf of this, a leaf of that, a leaf of the Malabar, you know, a leaf of the Cranberry Hibiscus, a leaf of the Bailey that I'll show you in a minute, you could have a nice salad, right, of everything you grew at your house, every single day of the year. Alright guys, I want to share with you guys two more plants here, I mean I keep trying to get out of this row, and it's like this is the main row with all the cool greens. Shiso Spinach is another one I'm growing in Puerto Rico, I had a plant in Las Vegas that really doesn't like the dry heat, and then I took it to Puerto Rico, and then it basically just, it like, it did great, you know, so it'll probably do great here, as you guys can see, this plant is looking great. This is known as Brazilian Spinach, this is a perennial, evergreen herb, that would be a great ground cover, like once again, under fruit trees, maybe like a little bit more shady than sunny, but this looks amazing, actually, I do like that these leaves are nice and large. And then moving next door, this is more of a annual crop, this is known as the tooth ache plant, they're calling it the eyeball plant, which is interesting because I've never heard it called that before, but if you look at little flowers, they look like little, like eyeballs, so I'm going to look in at you, and normally the flowers are eaten for, like if you have a tooth ache, because it'll have a numbing effect in your mouth, but what many people don't know is that you could also just pick the leaves, right, so I like to pick like young, tender, small, baby leaves, maybe like this size, and then you could add these to salads too, another amazing salad green, when you eat the leaves, you get a very mild, like tingling effect, so like I wouldn't make a salad out of this, but adding this to a salad would add some nice texture, and a nice flavor explosion when you bit into one of the tooth ache plant leaves. Alright guys, so now I want to tell you a story of how I found this nursery, right, so I was like looking for places that grow perennial vegetables here in South Florida, and I'm like, asked Gemini Pro, which is what I use, like what nursery sell the belay or the salad tree in South Florida, and they came up with a bunch, and I've been to most of them, but then this one popped up, right, and why did I want to come here, if they sell belay, because I wanted to come to nursery and show the guys where you could buy my favorite plant that you guys definitely have to grow if you live here, it's so sad that most people don't grow this plant, most people are not aware about this plant, but it's like my favorite edible green you could grow year round here in South Florida, I have them growing year round in Puerto Rico, they're just doing amazing, they do the best, where like it's a slope, and then basically all the water runs down the slope, where it's getting the most water, because in Puerto Rico I'm not on any irrigation, those things are getting huge, they dump over and then there's all these multiple up shoots, there's so many greens to eat, and likewise, it's another one of my favorite plants because I grow this also in Las Vegas, we were over 100 degrees, right, for over 100 days last summer, no problem for the belay, right, this is a very resilient plant to the heat or the tropics, but not the cold, so if it gets below like 40, this plant is checking out, it is not gonna hang out any longer, right, so but for those guys that are in that sweet spot, right, in Vegas I grow it in the summer and then basically they end up going to Puerto Rico for a life long vacation in the tropics. Nonetheless, these are actually very healthy, nice established one-gallon rooted cuttings that are literally ready to explode, some of the nurseries that sell belay that I visited, even this trip, will sell you nice small little cuttings for actually more money than this, because I know I picked up a few of them myself, these are nice established plants with many different up shoots already growing, this one has four up shoots and basically all these leaves are edible, this is called the salad tree, because this basically will grow lettuce, you know, lettuce like leafy greens in your front yard that have a very neutral mild flavor that taste amazing, I'm seeing about two different varieties here, they have the standard South Seas variety and that's like this is a standardized more standard kind of leaf shape, then they also have the Chief Kuboos that have this more decorative leaf as well, now the cool thing I found here was that they also have a more rare variegated leaf and I've seen a few of these getting some variegation like some light variegation, so I'm wondering if they're going to actually just grow out or the plants are stressed out at this point, but if you look at this one, you can see it's even getting some kind of white in there, right, so that's really cool too, so I haven't seen the white green variegation on the salad trees before, and there's one more shot on salad trees I want to make because she also walked us around the property while most of the trees on the property are in pots, she has a few things in the ground, so I want to show you guys actually a belay she has off in the shade in the corner in the ground and this one's like the most amazing belay I've ever seen in my life. Alright guys, so I'm here walking and this is like the off limits area, this is like the propagation area, and I'm going to tell you guys, this nursery is legit, they're starting their plants from cuttings, from seeds, from scratch, a lot of nurseries these days, they basically just buy things from somewhere else and then resell it, here this is like a legit nursery where they're actually growing things from scratch, letting it size up, sizing plants up into bigger pots and then charging more as the plants get larger, so once again, another nursery I want you guys to support, a nursery that actually does the work to get you guys some of the best plants in the area. Alright guys, so now I'm going to show you guys the coolest belay I've ever seen in my life, so hopefully I'm able to get some cuttings of this. So this belay is kind of like off in the shade, in the corner, maybe next to some Mexican sunflowers that maybe were in a pot that are kind of overgrown and this area seems to get like kind of waterlogged, a lot of the irrigation stuff is here, it's at the corner where the fence is, and there's like a chaya tree there that kind of like tipped over a little bit, but this is the belay, and this is a fun belay because not only is this belay like a more red variety, you guys can see the red leaves coming out, this is also a red plus variegated variety, so look at how beautiful these leaves are guys, and these are edible leaves, you might think oh don't eat the purple leaves, they're poisonous, actually you guys want to eat purple leaves whenever you guys can and they're on edible plants such as this because they're even more nutritious than the green belay leaves, and like look at this, this is, look at this upright, this is beautiful, oh my gosh, like just the variegation, the deep red coloring, this is one of the most beautiful belays that I've ever seen in my life, hopefully I'll be able to get it cutting today, and more importantly hopefully she makes this available for other people out there that want the prettiest belay that I've ever seen. Alright guys, so I covered all the greens which is probably one of the most important things you guys should buy, the next category of food I want you guys to grow on your property are the root, the roots, right, roots are very nutritious, some of them can be a dominant hit and are a dominant calorie source for many cultures around the world actually. So think about it, if a hurricane comes, tears up all your fruit trees, you have no fruit trees left, right, what's still in the ground? All the roots are still in the ground, so this way you're going to be more resilient should a hurricane hit, you're always going to have tuberous crops in the ground ready for you guys to eat, you know, should need hit, and they have plenty of different tuberous root crops you can grow here in the tropics, and I'm going to share with you guys I think most of them in this part of the episode. So starting over here we got the turmeric, turmeric is used obviously in Indian cuisine, it is said why a lot of Indian people are super healthy because it's the curcuminoids in the turmeric, of course the ginger, probably even more anti-inflammatory than the turmeric, another great vegetable to grow. Moving on, we have the sweet potatoes right here, sweet potatoes, all the leaves are edible as greens, also of course it makes the sweet potato roots that you guys can eat, they are delicious, I only recommend pressure cooking them, boiling or steaming, I do not recommend putting them in the oven and baking them, you will create carcinogens, alright. Another one I don't see too often but I have seen before is the African potato mint. While it is in the mint family, it does actually make a potato-like tuber that can get up to four pounds and is grown in dry land areas, so that's kind of fun, of course the most important one for you guys to get down here in South Florida that's like really a no-brainer is the cassava or yucca, I think this is the standard cassava or yucca, but if you come here you definitely want to get this one, it's the yellow cassava yucca, it's actually yellow instead of white on the inside, it's more sweet and less fibrous, so I'm so glad they have that because you don't find that everywhere, alright guys another root you have to pick up, this one hails from Peru and grows excellent here, says you can harvest it every six months, here in South Florida, this is one I grow in Northern California and this year I'm trying to regrow it again in Las Vegas, a little bit different method because when I tried to grow it before in Vegas, I really didn't like the extreme heat but this year I'm kind of protecting it more and giving it more water, nonetheless this is the yucca, this is probably my favorite tuberous crop that I personally grow and I encourage you guys also to grow, if you come here, pick up this plant, you will not regret it, you can harvest this tuber and eat it raw, no cooking is required, I like to basically dig it up and kind of let it hang out a little bit, maybe a week or so and then it actually gets a bit sweeter, it's rich in inulin, which is prebiotic fibers and has a very nice kind of like very mildly sweet flavor is what I would call it, I've heard it called earth apple and here they're actually describing it as a pear of the earth, because it's like that, it's like that sweet, it has like a similar texture, kind of grainy, no starch, no cooking required and more people definitely need to know about this amazing crop, it has like a crown, so you harvest the kind of the tubers offshoots, which are like grown off the crown, you save the crown, replant the crown for next year, but yeah, oh and then also you could use the leaves for tea as well, but yeah the yacon are my favorites and I'm so glad to see them have it available for you guys here in South Florida. Alright guys, so after the greens, the roots, next I want you guys to focus on the berries, the berries are the most nutrient dense fruits you guys can buy here at the nursery, because they pack in like colorful plant compounds such as anthocyanins, which is what makes blueberries, elderberries blue and so here they have a really nice selection of different berries including the goji berry, the blackberry jam fruit, pomegranate technically is a berry, they have basically blueberries, actually blueberries here, American beauty berries, Jamaican cherries, one of my favorite berries here, Jamaican cherries, they have a really amazing flavor, my store raspberry is the only raspberry that will grow here in the tropics and then they have standard blackberries, lilacoy, passion fruits, peanut butter fruit, elderberry tree, more passion fruit, and some javadacaba, which are kind of like more like grape berries, because they grow in the trunk, they also have mulberries, so if you buy only one berry, what would I buy? I mean I would buy two, I would get the my store raspberry because those will grow really good here, and then I would get a mulberry tree, I personally grow the Pakistani mulberry in California, they're nice long fruits and they taste amazing, you know you have a short window to eat them, they're not really easily chewable, but they have many different other kinds of mulberries you may want to experiment with as well, mulberries are an amazing fruit because they're one of the first fruits to come on after the new year. Alright, more berries, so over here we got the black surname cherries, so I'm so glad they have the black one, that's more nutritious, so if I was going to get one, I'd get the black one, they also come in like red and whatnot, this is a cherry, the Rio Grande, acerola cherry, the potomba, the grumichama or Brazilian cherry, the nance cherry, as well as muscadine grapes, which I love, and this one is really cool, the Barbados gooseberry, you can see this plant is very decorative, but in addition, besides being decorative, all these leaves are edible as vegetables as well, so that's really fun, you can not only get the fruits off this plant, but the leaves kind of have a similar texture and consistency to like the longevity spinach, and can be eaten, so yeah, this is a dual use plant, definitely would recommend it, and it is so beautiful, this is the first time I've seen the variegated Barbados gooseberry. Alright guys, so I want you to focus on the plants you buy at this nursery in that order, because they're more rare, you know, these just normal fruit trees are more commonly available at other places, but hey, if you're here, pick a couple of fruit trees up as well, what I really like about this nursery, because I've visited so many, is they have actually a ton of different varieties, this is the mango section, and there's so many different varieties of mangoes to select from, actually the ice cream mangoes are one of my favorites, over on this side we have all different kinds of avocados, and once again, every different avocado, you know, will basically, you know, fruit at a different time of year, so get multiple avocados, you could have fruits throughout the year, same thing with the mangoes, there'll be mangoes that are earlier, mangoes that are later, so you always want to pick a couple of mangoes, like maybe one for the early season, one for the mid-season, and one for the late seasons, but yeah, lots of different mangoes, and the cool thing about this nursery is not only do they have the smaller three-gallon size, you know, if you want established trees, they have huge mangoes and huge, big, super-large, giant pots in the back, so yeah, of course they also have, this is my favorite, the jackfruit, which actually I think, I prefer jackfruit over mangoes myself, so they have a few named varieties of the jackfruit, as well as things like light cheese, longan, tamarind, papayas, even got some peaches in here, mamey, sapodillas, sapotes, guavas, pineapple guavas, thai guavas, red guavas, sugar apples, star apples, a lot of edamoyas, eggfruits, alright guys, so another row of fruit trees, and they just have lots of different cultivars of bananas over on this side, chacharoos, edible bamboo, wax apples, star fruits, rose apples, governor's plum, hog plums, jambal, june plums, loquats, that's all like javadacabas, basically they have all the tropical fruits you'd ever want to grow here in South Florida. Alright, down this row they have even more unique fruits, and even some nuts, so on this side they basically have all citrus, so I know a lot of nurseries in Florida may not sell citrus anymore due to citrus greening and whatnot, but they have really nice healthy citrus if you guys want that, over on this side they have some more interesting crops, this is known as the Incan peanut, or the Sachi Inchi nut, which is cool, I'm glad to see that they have that, that's not commonly found, they have the Indian almond, cashew trees, and then here's just more of the citrus, variegated lemon, key limes, kaffir limes used for the leaves, as well as other different kinds of tangerines and other citrus fruits that you'd all want to grow. Alright guys, so this may not look super impressive behind me, but what you guys are seeing are number one, larger fruit trees, they have fruit trees in all different sizes, for landscapers you have an HOA and they have like, oh the tree needs to be eight feet tall or whatever, they have all kinds of trees in a lot of large size, of course the larger size is going to cost you guys more money, so if you guys have a lot of money, I would say buy larger sizes whenever you can afford it, because larger trees, actually many of them in really large sizes are producing already, so you don't have to wait years before you have fruit to eat. That being said, what you're seeing in these different pods is they have a commitment to not spray any herbicides, so what you're seeing in these pods is they basically have almost a full time weeder that goes around that basically pulls the weeds up and then puts them in all these pods and all the debris below the trees, so they don't have to spray any herbicides, so that really to me is very important, because a lot of conventional nurseries may just say spray herbicide, because why? Saves them a lot of money because now they don't have to spend a lot of labor, but now they're adding chemicals to their property, which then can contaminate the trees they're selling. Alright guys, I have a special treat for you, we have Cathy, the owner of Jack and the Beanstalk Nursery that I got to share with you guys in this episode, so Cathy the first question is why did you decide to open this nursery, because I know in your country, Peru where you're from, you're actually a doctor, so now you went from being a doctor, now you're like a nursery owner, plant lady. Yeah, well the main thing that actually made me change this, like I mentioned before, first was my husband, who kind of introduced me to growing the plants and trying to eat more healthy, the reason that we opened the business is because we want to also share, as being a city girl for me, this one was a completely different perspective of seeing things, how can we use not only the medicinal plants, the fruit trees, the edibles, how can we include in our diet, we want to share how could we grow those fruit trees in your own backyards, how could you actually guys could use it and promote also the nutrition value of the plants, that's why we also include these informative pictures in every single tree so that way they could know more about it and how to maintain their trees per se. Wonderful, so did your husband get healthier by being able to eat healthier and grow his own food and now by helping you with the nursery here? Yes, pretty much, yeah, he lost, the first plant that we grew was the Moringa, because he became diabetic, so we include that one in our diet, and he lost a lot of weight after that, like about 100 pounds, in a year of course. Wow, yeah, so I mean, plant the plants that are growing here, eat them, right, and get off the junk food, right, you'll get healthy too, you could lose weight too, and keep it off, because you're not going to go back to the junk food, you're going to keep eating the healthy stuff, and when you got that stuff growing outside your door, you open the door, it's easier than going to the grocery store, just come outside, right? Absolutely, yeah. So that's great Cathy, so I really love hearing that, so then how long ago did you open this nursery and how long have you been selling the plants? So we opened the nursery in 2019, we started as a backyard nursery, you know, very small scale, things escalated out of proportion at the beginning when we were fanatic version of growing things, so I said, let's share this a little bit, try to compensate the hobby, and then as we opened the nursery, we realized we didn't have enough space to really grow everything that we wanted, and so we moved from Fort Lauderdale to here, and in Loxahatchee in 2019, and from there we've been open, you know, for everybody, you know, just for customers, for, you know, house people, we're also open for other businesses now, you know, including landscapers and other nurseries too, that will also provide our trees. Wonderful, so I mean, to me it looks like you have so many varieties to basically keep in inventory, to manage, to basically keep propagating, starting seeds, do cuttings, do air layering, or whatever you do. Why are you so passionate about all the different varieties, because, you know, I've learned about a few varieties actually that I was not aware about, so it's always fun when I come to the nursery and I find new things that I didn't even know existed. Yeah, so one of the things that we wanted is to recreate what sometimes, like me as a foreign person, you know, when you are in a different country, sometimes you're craving things that you could not find across your store, so the idea behind to having so much varieties is that people could reconnect with their own roots, being, you know, the States is a very plurimulticultural country, and then you see things, oh, we grow this in India, we grow this in Asia, we grow this, you know, in Guatemala, we grow this. So that was the idea behind, you know, to also reconnect your own roots and have so much variety so everybody could actually, you know, have their own food here as well, you know, without missing, you know, their countries too. Wonderful, so being from Peru yourself, what are your favorite crops from Peru that you are now growing and even propagating and giving out to people so that they could have awareness of, you know, Peruvian crops, some of which are my favorite actually. Yes, we have some fruit trees from there and some actually vegetables too. We got the Peruvian mint, that's one of them, the black mint, which is the Peruvian mint. The Peruvian bean. Mint. Mint, oh, Peruvian mint, okay. That's the mint. So that one, we got also some peppers from my country. Some peppers? Yeah, that I brought some peppers here. And of course, then I realized a lot of fruit trees that we grow, you know, other countries, they do, you know, we got the ice cream beans, which a lot of Asian nationalities grow ice cream beans. So basically, one of the fruits that we also, we have here is called lima. I don't know if you heard about that. What is it? They call it also here Indian palestine lime. Palestinian lime. Palestinian lime, or we call it lima, which we actually enjoy the fruit as a fruit itself. So it's a special citrus. It's a special citrus, yeah. And what does it taste like? Like very sweet kaffir lime. Oh, kaffir lime. Oh, a sweet kaffir lime. Now, do you, can you eat the leaves too? Like in kaffir lime? You could also use the leaves, but we mainly use the fruit. We actually use, you know, we make juice, we just peel it and eat it, you know, that's one, I actually was able to find it here. And the lugma, I wish I could grow it here, but we have some sort of version like the rose sapote or the canistel that you could grow here. Very similar in the same family, it's just some conditions like cherimoya is very, you know, well known in South America, but here we just can only grow atemoyas. So it's kind of like here and there, you know, some substitutes that we could actually have it basically. I'm surprised you didn't talk about the yacon that we're standing right next to. I know, I'm sorry. I had that in my video because it's like one of my favorites. Yeah. I'll tell you a story. Yeah. Talking about yacon. My, my family, from the side of my dad, everybody's diabetic. Everybody's diabetic. After they moved to America. No, no, no. They still live in Peru. But anyhow, so everybody's diabetic. So my dad, when he found out that, when I was a kid, you know, they found out that this plant could actually produce inulin and help with the blood sugar. So he throw everywhere seeds and roots everywhere and then we move. And then I came back to the house. And before the entrance, it was full of sunflowers, which I didn't know it was a yacon. I couldn't even get into the door. It was overgrown. It was ever, ever mega growing. And then I found out, I called my dad, what happened? Did you plant this? Oh, I throw some yacons over there to, to have the crop. I'm like, jeez. But it's very useful. And it's really seeding. You know, it's like you're growing your own turmeric, you know, just every six months you could harvest and put it back again in there. But yeah, it's a very healthy one. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It grows great in California for me as well. So talking about other plants, what are your favorite three perennial vegetables that you sell here at the nursery and that you would, you would recommend to somebody coming in if they just want to get three, three of them? Three of them. Okay. They're easy peasy to grow. I would say siso spinach are super easy. Siso spinach. And it's very classic to the flavor of the regular, you know, spinach, the wicker. Another one that is super easy to grow is cranberry hibiscus. Cranberry hibiscus. I showed you guys that earlier. And it brings you this nice cranberry flavor into the salads and you could include it, you know, in juicing and stuff like that. The other one that is also very versatile is the butterfly pea. Oh, the butterfly pea. Actually, I didn't really cover that in the episode. So the butterfly pea, besides making the tea out of the flowers, you could actually eat the snap peas that comes up. Oh, the snap peas. Yep. And just, you know, throw in your starfruits if you want to, you know. So it's, and it has a lot of actually, besides being changing the color, it has some collagen properties and some antioxidants in there too to help us. So I think those are very easy to, to maintain. Besides another ones, you know, we have different varieties of spinach in there too and salads and stuff like that. But yeah. Wonderful. So we talked about the perennial vegetables. Let's talk about your three favorite root crops. Okay. So that is easy to grow. Right. Definitely sweet potatoes. Very easy to grow. And we're trying to include more varieties of the sweet potatoes now. And cassavas. Cassavas, super self-maintaining. You even forgot to water. Super drought resistant. So another one that we include because we also promote food forests is the, actually the African potato mince. The African potato mince, it kind of included for nitrogen fixer. But the potatoes are edible too, you know. So that will be another easy one that you want to put it with your fruit trees. And then another one that I talked about in this episode were the, were the berry plants. So what three berry plants, whether they're berries or, you know, berry like fruit, fruiting, fruiting trees. Okay. That would be easy. Of course. Super easy to start. You're a new gardener. I would definitely recommend you mulberries. Mulberries are definitely just pick and go and let it grow and they don't need too much care when it gets established. The other one that is easy to maintain is actually the cherries. We got some cherries, like the cherry of the grande, for example, is very easy to maintain. Very hardy one. The other one that I personally like too is the raspberries, which the raspberries, even though it has the thorns, has a tremendous value for you and the antioxidants. And we finally grow it here in this section, which is very hot, you know. The mycel raspberries. Yeah, the mycel. Absolutely. And then rounding out, coming back down to the fruit trees, three easiest fruit trees to grow. I mean, I know that's hard. You have so many. But what would you recommend for people that would just grow, you know, with, even if they're not a good gardener, right? They just plant it and even forget it. Okay. For a new gardener, I probably would recommend you to grow mangoes. Mangoes. Mangoes is very easy to grow. Starfruits. Starfruits are abundant production. You're always going to have a crop, super easy to maintain. And of course, bananas. Oh, bananas. You know, bananas are super easy also to maintain. They self-propagate again and again. I think that would be the three, the easy ones to start with. Alright. Wonderful. So I guess one of the last questions I have for you is, where are you located and what are your hours for people? Okay. So we are located in West Palm Beach, but this is more like the Loxahatchee area, Canada West. So we're at 4793 Avocado Boulevard in West Palm Beach. We open seven days a week. Seven days a week from 10 to 5. Sundays, just short period from 11 to 4. But pretty much seven days a week, only closed on Christmas and New Years. Oh wow. And then, what's, what's, where do you park actually? Because I see along your property there's a lot of like no parking signs all the way around. That was being recently paused. We're working on the new inside parking lot here as we're moving plants. Right now we're using the driveways. We have three driveways that you guys could actually come in. We got three entering to the property, but as we're moving things, we're going to have a cell parking in there, you know, inside. And then finally, if somebody wants to get a hold of you and ask questions, how can they do that? Everywhere. I mean, I'm all over social media. My phone of course, 954-203-3089. You want to reach me directly or text me by email or our, through Facebook page, Instagram page or TikTok, you know. Thank you so much for having me out today and allowing me to make a video. I really, really appreciate you guys coming today. Thank you. And I hope you guys out there on YouTube planet enjoy this episode learning about the amazing plants that she has available for you guys to buy here in South Florida, especially all the greens, the roots, you know, a lot of nurseries unfortunately don't really focus on these kind of plants. And these are the ones that I want you guys to buy most so you become most resilient and also most healthy. And they're more productive year round. You're going to eat more food off your property instead of going to the grocery store and paying these high prices here in South Florida. If you guys enjoyed this episode, thumbs up. I'll come back hopefully next trip. I'm out to South Florida to visit Kathy and the amazing nursery to see what new plants I'll discover. Make sure you share this with other people that live here in South Florida area. I would call this a destination nursery. So even if I lived in Miami, like I wouldn't even hesitate to drive up here because, you know, just me finding that new red variegated belay like made my whole like month, you know. So yeah. And who knows what you're going to find. If I'm finding stuff new and I go to so many places, you guys are definitely going to find some new. So yeah. Come here. Spend some time. Hang out. Don't get here too close before closing and get here early in the day. And it's just a fun time to just walk around and be able to read all the signs and learn so much because there really are into the education here. Also, be sure to click that subscribe button right down below so you don't miss my new and upcoming episodes. I've got five to seven days. You never know where I'll show up, what you'll be learning on my channel. Make sure you click the little bell so you don't miss as many videos. And finally, be sure to check out past episodes. Past episodes are a wealth of knowledge. Over 18 episodes at this time on this channel dedicated to teaching you guys all about how to grow your own food at home. So with that, my name is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com. We'll see you next time. And until then, remember, keep on growing.