This Lady Gives Away FREE Vegetables that thrive in Florida

Alright, this is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com. Today we have another exciting episode for you. Today I'm in Sanibel Island right across the bridge from Cape Coral and Fort Myers area and why I'm here today is because the lady here, name is Frances, she is one amazing lady who basically out of the kindness of her heart helps other people in the area grow their own food. You know, she originally lived in Maryland and since she was a child she learned from her grandfather how to grow food and then, you know, when she moved to Florida about five years ago, she's like, yeah, I'm a good gardener, I've grown everything in Maryland and then she came here and guess what? She failed miserably because here in Florida is a lot different climate than Maryland. There's a lot more different bugs and pests and diseases that can get you. So you know, that really humored her and then she had to figure out how to grow properly here. And that's what I want to show you guys today for those of you guys that have never been able to grow something successfully, we're going to show you guys the exact steps how to do it. And if you guys live on this island or in the local area, you know, she does give classes here on island to different organizations to teach people how to grow and be successful because she had that problem herself when she moved here. So anyways, this is the front of her house and when I came up here, I'm like, hmm, am I at the right place? Because I'm like, there's nothing grown out here that's edible and I'm like, nope, didn't have the right, I had the right place. And then what I want to do first is go around back to show you guys her garden in the back. All right guys, so this is basically her side yard and her backyard. There's really not anything growing. She does have all the, you know, native landscaping plants that are all around and she has some amazing sea grapes that are growing successfully. But what she found is when she tried to grow things out here, it would get eaten, right? And her worst pest is the iguana. So she would plant many things and basically iguanas would just eat it. Now, why would iguanas do this and they wouldn't mess with the sea grape? Because when she plants these vegetables that are grown here in South Florida, it's like, you know, go into a buffet for the iguanas everywhere they could iguanas to get sea grapes. But when can they get sweet potato leaves to eat, right? And then if you guys look, this is a sweet potato she planted to see what would happen and sure enough, the iguanas come and just basically eat all the leaves and they even trim and eat the young tender growth, right? And I don't blame them. You know, I encourage you guys to grow sweet potatoes, not just for the tubers or the roots. I grow them specifically in Vegas for the leafy greens that are edible, that love even a hundred plus degrees. So it's not the problem that these can't grow here because these can grow here. The issue that she has growing outside are the pests. So she continually strives to grow things outside to see if it's going to get eaten by the pests such as the iguana. And what she's found is that basically if it doesn't need pollination, she'll try to grow it indoors that you'll see in a second. But otherwise she's going to go plants outdoors because we need the natural pollinators to pollinate fruit. So typically she has a lot of fruit out here. Bananas doesn't look like it's getting eaten. The cactus doesn't seem like it's getting eaten. And the guavas, you know, don't seem like they're getting eaten either by the iguanas. And actually they are, you know, quite productive. So the secret to her growing and being successful in South Florida here is to grow inside. Check it out. She has like an instant hothouse here with basically the screened in area. Many houses in Florida have a screened in backyard so the mosquitoes don't get you. Of course you also have the pool in there. But even despite having a pool, she has lots of plants in containers. And that's another point why I really want to come here and go out of my way to show you guys because I know a lot of you guys maybe only have a patio, maybe have a condo and you don't have acreage to plant tons of food. And basically her message is that you can grow food anywhere. And she does that in maybe like over a hundred different little pots that she grows lots of food in. And I'm going to show you guys, you know, how she grows the food, some of the things she grows. That's very simple. And how she even will give away free plants to locals so that they could be successful too. All right guys. So in our screened in patio area, and I'm glad for this because there's basically like no mosquitoes in here, although the screen is actually not super tight weave. So maybe the no-seams can get in here. But while the no-seams can get in here, the screen, because it is a not super tight weave also, you know, did not get blown over by the hurricane when the hurricane come because the air could run through the screen if it's too solid, you know, it'll basically tear the screen out. And the other thing that's very interesting, not that it really matters for the video, but basically there's water like 12 feet up here, this whole bottom of her house flooded. And then actually she thought she's going to be good and be smart. She actually took all the plants outside, put them inside, but the whole bottom level flooded. Anyways, this is really the secret to her growing. She grows it in a screened in porch. In addition, she's found the plants that grow really well. You guys can see a variety of plants, right? She goes to places like Echo, which I have videos on link down below to that. I want you guys to learn about Echo. If you live here in the Fort Myers area, they're probably one of the best resources because they have proven what grows here successfully. And I don't want you guys going and neither would she going to Lowe's or Home Depot or Walmart and buying your plants that likely were not grown in Florida, grown somewhere else or even another part of Florida and then shipped into South Florida. And you know, the weather here is a lot different than other parts of Florida. And then guess what? You're going to fail. You're going to get frustrated. And then you're going to stop gardening. And that actually almost happened to her. But then what she found out is that she started doing YouTube university. Actually she found some of my videos and learn the proper plants to grow here. And then she was successful. So here we have a whole selection of different plants, including the Bailey, which I like a lot. She has actually supposedly a male papaya that fruits, which is impressive. She's got this one that grows really well. This is the one I'd recommend you grow if you don't grow anything else. She's got basically the longevity spinach here. I think she got two kinds because you've got like more of the purple stem type and more of the light stem type. So they each work a bit differently over here. She basically did all these Okinawan spinaches. And based on my experience, this one likes a bit more shade than the longevity that you can see is really thriving here and just in one pot. And then she planted all these cuttings in this pot. And at the same time, she didn't see that she had purslane growing. You guys can see how the purslane has really outcompeted the Okinawan spinach. So you know, another thing that you could grow easily is a purslane here in South Florida. She also asked me about these. These are some of my favorite plants, the Bailey. And I'm like thinking, all right, what she's like, why does it only grow leaves at the top and not get really bushy? My opinion that is because the plans are just too stressed out and I would say likely not getting enough water. And I would say repot these into like a long container and kind of lay the plant down. It should do much, much better. She also things like olives and rosemary and Cuban oregano and mulberries, bay leaves. But I really want to show you guys this plant next. So this plant here is Moringa. And for some farmers that I visited here in Florida, Moringa is like a no brainer. Nothing messes with it. They basically grow it without any issue. But here, once you grew it outside, the iguanas really climbed up it and basically chopped it in half with their mouth, ate all the greenery. It basically lost its life. But then it basically resprouted as you brought it inside and now it grows successfully. So once again, man, those iguanas or pests you may have, if you try to exclude them just like this, you can be successful. So what I recommended for her growing outside is you can make a PVC box and then line it with like, you know, bird netting just like the iguanas can't get through this mesh. They cannot get through even some, you know, thin bird netting because they can't really bite easily through plastic and they're just going to go somewhere else where it's easier grubbing. All right. So over here she has a tower garden and she's growing lots of different crops in her tower garden, including the standard hibiscus that makes the little pods of the flowers that people normally eat. She has different kinds of holy basil, the Tulsi, standard basil. She's got the Siso spinach that's really doing well as well as the dinosaur kale and a few other things I'm not going to mention because I'm getting super rained on. The other thing I want to mention is that she does this stuff called electro culture that I want to share with you guys real quick. All right, guys. One of the things she does that's really cool is she does what's called electro culture. I can't even mention how many times people have asked me, John, what are your thoughts on electro culture? And I'm going to share with you guys my thoughts as well as, you know, her experiences with electro culture. What is electro culture? It's simply basically using some copper wire. This is used the eight AWG, so that's like the thickness, and she buys it in the 50 foot roll. This is available at a hardware store, electrical store like Home Depot or Lowe's. And then what she does with this wire is she just finds like a local stick, hopefully locally, maybe a bamboo that fell over or just like a piece of driftwood. She has all different kinds. This is a driftwood here. Here's like a little bamboo stake she took. And simply all she did was she took this wire and then wound it fairly tightly around the stick and making sure that the bottom of the copper goes into the ground. Now it is said, and I don't want to get into any debates about this. People say it's BS. People say it works. You basically put this in the ground and supposedly it attracts like the energy of the moon, the sun or the atmosphere. And then it basically sends it down into the ground. And then, you know, the plants grow better, you know. So like when I kind of assess things, if this is good or not to do, I mean, if you're tight on money, then I would say probably not, probably good not to waste your money on extra copper if your money is super tight for you guys. But if you have some extra money and think, oh, this could help and I want to get every possible advantage that I could do, then I would say try it because like what's the worst thing that could happen by using some driftwood and then putting some copper and then like literally just stick it in the ground. I mean, the only thing is your time and the money you're spending on the copper wire. But she claims based on her testing, because, you know, you guys could test this for yourselves, do electroculture in one, don't do electroculture in the other with the same exact plant start or the same cuttings or the same seeds that you grow up. And she will claim that, you know, the growth in the ones that she did, the electroculture was 20 to 30 percent more. And then the other thing she'll claim is that, you know, based on her experience and her trying these testing side by side, she also saw less pest damage from the ones, you know, using the electroculture. Now why would this happen? Well, the fact of the matter is when a plant is healthier, it is more resistant to the stressors, whether that's environmental stress such as the heat, the dry, the humidity or even pest pressures such as bugs. So actually, I would honestly, guys, once again, recommend it because I don't think it could really hurt and it could only be beneficial. But do your own testing. All right, guys, so I'm getting like almost pelted by the rain, but I really want to show you guys this area of her enclosed back patio. And this is the area that, you know, in my opinion and also probably in hers is the most important, right? This is where she will take cuttings of her plants such as the Malabar spinach, this is the longevity spinach, this is the Okinawan spinach, this is the Siso spinach, you know, she also starts things from seeds like the Malabar, she does, you know, new seedlings and cuttings off things like kale. And then even with the electroculture and then she will grow them in little pots. And then when she goes and gives free local classes, right, she would just gift these to people so that they could grow these specific plants, right? She just does not choose these plants haphazardly, right? She's seen that these plants time and time again in this climate, even if they're like ignored a little bit, you can't ignore them too much, you know, they will grow and give you food. And of course, after all, my channel is called Growing Your Greens, right? And she has recognized that the greens are the easiest thing to grow. And I would agree with her because why? Because as soon as the green, the leafy greens make the leaves, you could pick them off and eat them. If you're trying to grow a tomato or a pepper, right, the plant needs to make all the leaves, it needs to make the flowers, the flowers need to get pollinated in some cases, and then the fruit needs to form. And all during that time, the plant is susceptible to bugs and disease. But the minute you get leaves on one of these plants, right, you pick them off and eat them. And I don't know about you guys, but at the store here in South Florida, it has one of the most expensive prices in the continental United States for like especially organic greens from Whole Foods or other places because they just seem, everything just seems to cost more here in Florida, maybe except for the gas, because out west, we pay a lot more for gas. But nonetheless, you know, and then the other thing is a lot of the greens may be shipped in from far away, and then the greens also don't travel or ship well. They go, they expire very quickly compared to like a fruit, you know, that doesn't tend to expire as fast because the greens are more tender and more susceptible to like rotting, which normally happens with things like spring mix and spinach mix. But if you guys are growing your own Malabar spinach, you know, you don't harvest this until you're going to eat it. So that's super amazing that she has several racks over here to basically grow these plants, not for her use, but to like literally share them with others because that's super important to her. Alright guys, so now we're on the landing of her stairs from the top part of the house to the pool and whatnot. And even on this landing, right, she has pots planted to grow things like passion fruit vine, like the papayas here with the electroculture, and even things like the turmeric that does take the cold season off, like the winter's off, it kind of goes dormant. And she's got the regular turmeric as well as the more medicinal style black turmeric. And over here, this is more of the Malabar spinach that she just grows up a little trellis. And then one of my favorite ones that I would recommend you guys grow and hopefully should be passing out really soon is the katuk. This is one amazing plant. The leaves taste like peanut butter, as my friend says, but I would say they have a nice really nutty flavor. And actually one of the other things I learned today at the farm I was just at is once you grow, once it grows up and it's really healthy, then you basically cut it back at the bottom. And then the new shoots that form that you just pick off are like eating like asparagus because they get a lot more fatter. I thought the asparagus was like when you just break off the tips, but this is always very thin. But if you get new growth and you have established root zone, then those, you know, the stocks will be thicker and be more like asparagus. So I've yet to try that, but I trust the person that I learned that from. So and now you know, too. All right, guys. So you saw what she's growing, like a wide variety of mostly leafy greens with other experimental plants, things that fruit herbs and whatnot. But now I'm going to show you guys an amazing way she composts her food scraps using earthworms that, you know, technically don't really like this climate. It's a bit hot for earthworms, but I want to show you guys a few things, how she grows earthworms, keeps them happy in this climate, even where it is too hot, as well as how she gets is going to make some like literally black gold fertilizer for plants. Worm caches, in my estimation, are probably one of the most important, you know, fertilizing methods for your plants. And that's what she does literally in this maze compost tumbler that's not necessarily made for growing worms, but she found this works amazing for her worms. So I like this because number one, if you can tumble it and when she fills it up, she basically will tumble it and then end up with the top with the with the doors that open up and in addition, you know, they give you actually a compost harvester. So if you're making regular compost, you basically spin this around with this on the bottom and then all the compost would go in this harvest collection bin and then you could like wheel it into your garden where you want it. She doesn't use that in this way. What she actually does is that, you know, inside there it's pretty kind of moist and then all the leachate basically runs through and then drains out some of the cracks in the bottom and then she catches all the leachate and then she can pull out any worms that happen to come out in there to rescue them. And then she could use this as another source of fertilizer for garden. That being said, I would always recommend to dilute down your leachate if you do decide to use it. But for me, the most important thing is making the worm casting. So I want to show you guys the example of what happens, right? Okay, so the main thing in in this compost or her worm bin or worm tumbler at this point is the bedding material. So you got to have a good bedding material and what she likes to use is the coconut coir blocks. This stuff's very cheap and expensive and then you soak this in water and then it blows up and expands into several times its size. And that's what we have over here. This is the coconut coir that has been expanded and you can see the color, it kind of looks like coffee grounds and this is what it looks like before. And then she adds all this dry stuff into the, her, her compost dumpling worm bin, right? And then aside from the bedding material that the worms love to stay in because this will provide them the right amount of moisture. This won't hold too much moisture, won't hold too little so that your worms will be happy and thrive. And then what she does is that she has food scraps, sometimes she'll get it from local markets, farmers markets, she'll bring it here and then she'll basically put it inside and then feed her worms and then tumble it around to kind of mix it all up so that you don't have a ton of food scraps in the top that then tends to attract lots of bugs, right? And then after the process is done, you can see how she's transformed the coconut coir right here. Then it transforms into this black gold, which just has a coconut coir base, but then it has all the biology from the worm poop as well as all the food scraps that now turned into nutrients for all the plants she's going in pots. And of course, this is also a much more sustainable way to deal with food scraps than to basically put it in the trash can and it goes to the landfill and creates things like methane gas, which is not good. This way she reuses the food scraps and turns it in nutrients so she could have a more lush garden. But I don't want to end there because another thing that's very important that, you know, when she showed me this, I was like, wow, that makes a lot of sense. Why? Why didn't I never see nobody do this before? That's what I'm going to show you guys in a minute. You know, I've been to places like Phoenix where people have worm towers like this. And what some people do is they basically in Phoenix, they put it under, you know, shade of a tree and then they buy ice blocks and we'll put ice blocks in there. But then the ice melts, add some liquid, but also Phoenix is quite dry. So that adds also humidity, but also keeps the worms cold in the right temperature here in South Florida. The issue isn't, well, it's the number one, the hot, but not necessarily humidity because the humidity might be just right for the worms, but then it gets way too hot and basically they don't make it. So here in South Florida, what she does, and I want to open this for you guys up on the camera so you guys can see what's happening when we open this up, check it out. We open this instantly and we see all these worms like this is one of the most impressive worm bins because the worms are literally at the top and you guys can see they're all in there. And how she keeps us clean is once again, super intelligent. She's not adding moisture to do that. She literally takes like a, oh wow, look at all the worms on here on the plastic. That looks a little bit more moist and it's cooler, right on here. She basically takes this water bottle full of water. She freezes it until it's cold and then she puts it in here, right? If it's too cold, right? The worms won't go to it. They're not going to, they're going to be like too cold. I'm going to freeze. I'm not going there, but then they're going to find, Hey, if I get like an inch from it or two inches from it and I don't, I don't know what they're saying cause I can't understand how the worms think, but if I go a couple inches from it, the cold is radiating out of the bottle and then goes maybe a couple inches and then it cools down the soil in that area. So then the worms, guess what? They also go to the top where it's cool for them because they don't like it when it's too hot. And guess what? The other thing she does is be, she basically buries the food scraps here on the top as well. So they have food and they have the temperature they need to thrive. And this looks like it's working super excellent. So I really love that. So once she fills it up, she'll basically close it up and then easily with this rotating handle. Wow. This is a very easy crank guys. It does not take a lot of muscle strength. Let's see if I can do it like one finger in here, maybe one thumb. I can spin this with one thumb, a little bit harder to do it with one thumb, but usually if I just do it with a hand, it's just super easy to crank. Wow. Getting really easy and then you basically just fill it and then you spin it out once and then of course you will leave it, leave the opening at the top. So then the next time you're ready to feed and always those ice blocks that you may need to, you know, you know, freeze quite often is at the top so that you can access it. So he has an amazing and genius system using a compost tumbler used normally to make compost. But in South Florida, this thing is amazing to make worm castings. And in my opinion, those are much more valuable than just compost. I'll put a link down below to this tumbler because she actually bought it on Amazon. All right guys, since we were just talking about the the worm bin, the rotating worm bin that she uses to create the worm castings, once she's done with the bin, she basically just empties the whole thing and then she puts it in one of these big totes that look like maybe go in the back of a truck or something kind of go. And then you could actually lock it, but she never locks it. She and she put it all in here. Right. And the issue is there's a lot of worms in the mixture that she just doesn't want to leave in here. I mean, although it is in the, in the garage area and it stays, you know, a bit more moderate, it doesn't get too cold and get too hot. Right. She doesn't want to keep the worms in here because she wants them actually in the bin, you know, where they do the most work and basically she doesn't feed this. This is just basically all her finished compost that she doesn't have to sift out or do anything because she came up with an ingenious way to have the worms separate themselves out. So if we open this up, you guys could see what's in there. Well, what's in here is basically all these half a coconut shells that just grow here locally. And she found that when she put like mango seeds in the worm bin, the worms would kind of go in and eat the outer part of the mango mango shell. And then they kind of get in, eat the seed, they kind of hide in there. So she found out that maybe they like a little bit more moisture. So what she does is she puts this in here with a coconut meat. You guys can see some of the rotten coconut meat in here, but basically the worms like it more moist and it stays moisture in this little cup thing, the coconut shell. And then the worms are like, well, it literally eat the coconut meat because that's kind of like feeds them. And then what she does is she'll go in and she has a bunch of these kind of like almost all all over. So basically one of the worms is going to find one shell, one's going to find another one, and they're going to end up in the shell. And then what she does is she takes the shell and then she dumps it out into here. And then you guys can see when I dump that out instantly, there's tons of little worms in there. So another thing I've seen this done with is like you bury an avocado, right? But avocados don't have quite a nice strong shell that's not going to easily break down. So if you had like a bad avocado, you could have an avocado in here and those shells would take, you know, not, you know, they would break down. But the worms would eat the flesh because that's like, you know, giving the worms Viagra or something. So yeah, then she dumps all this out and then she basically will put this back in, you know, her tumbler for all the worms. And then she'll just continue this process until all the worms find into where it's more moist and they got the food source. And then she'll do this process continually until at some point all the worms will be out of this. And then she may add other additional, um, you know, amendments, maybe like some extra coconut core or other things to basically make her own soil. So in this way, she'd have to keep buying soil and be a slave to the local hardware store or nursery where, you know, most of us just keep buying new soil. In this way, she's buying a coconut coir and then making her own soil, which is simply amazing. All right guys. So one of the things I forgot to tell you earlier when I was in front over here was that this rack that to me looks like you'd see at some like plant nursery, it looks like a professional rack that plant nurseries would have. I was surprised to find out that she actually bought this whole rack that has multi-step levels on Amazon. And this can be quite helpful for these guys that live in the middle of nowhere or can't get any kind of specific, um, you know, racks. I really like this rack because it allows things, you know, instead of just being like a shelf that you'd only grow things so tall, it allows you to use, you know, the, um, vertical space with some of your horizontal space so that different plants are at different levels. And to me, it looks like she needs to work a little bit harder because she's got a lot of empty space on this rack that she could be growing more food. All right guys. So one of the things I also want to share that's very important, um, is that she saves and collects her seeds of the plants she grew, but also other seeds because in case, um, S-H-T-P or S-T, I don't know, whatever, you know, you know what, the poop hits the fan and then the grocery stores slow down or shut down because there's like no trucks are coming in and there's no food and there's food storages. Not only do you need to grow things, uh, you know, for your nutrition, like a lot of the leafy greens, but also it's very important to grow, you know, uh, fat or carbohydrate rich foods such as the, uh, you know, different kinds of avocados or like the sweet potatoes, right? So it's very important for her to share, you know, store some of the genetics on case she needs to use them. She always had them available because, you know, seed sellers during the pandemic basically kind of like ran out of stock, right? And then the other thing, of course, besides just buying from seed sellers in another part of the country and those plants may or may not do well here. She's experimented with many of them and found some of the ones that work, but she also has other ones that she thought was interesting and maybe she'll try one day or just have like a backup collection just in case. And then at the time it's necessary, she may plant them and see how they did. Um, so then the other thing that's most important though is saving your own seeds because in this way you have proven winners, proven winners that you know will grow here in South Florida. This happens to be the passion fruit. She has some, uh, white guava seeds. I know she has some, uh, basil seeds. She grew like rat tail radishes with the basil here. She also collected from her neighborhood like Moringa seeds and then she also like saves her own seeds. So this is like from the everglades tomato. She's got a letting dry up. She could save those seeds. This is a Biden's Alba, which is kind of like a wild weed here. And this is what I'd recommend. Like basically saving the seeds and then throwing them out outside so you could just basically have like, um, ground cover of Biden's Alba, which is a weed, but it's perfectly edible for us. And guess what? Because it's a native here and just grows everywhere, right? Iguanas don't see like, Oh, Biden's Alba, I want to save, I want to eat all this stuff up. They're like, Oh, Biden's Alba. That's not interesting. Oh, but Malabar spinach or Moringa that doesn't grow anywhere. They're on that and they're going to eat it totally out. So I'd also encourage her to grow my wild edible foods in this area and, you know, surrounding her property that the iguanas won't eat. So then in case of emergency, she always have some food, even if you've got some of the, you know, wild greens, you've got to cook to kind of make it edible. Uh, some of them you could eat raw, of course, but you know, this is another strategy that I think people should use, you know, just in case something happens. So yeah. And then she's got these amazing little, uh, boxes that, you know, once again, got on Amazon so she buys a lot of Amazon with these little, uh, you know, um, bins that you could store your own homegrown seeds or is even perfect for, you know, the seed packets. So yeah, she has quite a seed collection and I wish I was this organized cause all my seeds are just like in packets in like a huge box. Now the other thing I learned is a new way to basically, um, germinate the ginger or even the turmeric. Right. And all she does is she just buys local turmeric that hasn't been like, you know, put through any kind of, uh, chemical treatment or process to make it stop growing or stop sprouting because some commercial gingers and tumerics can do that. So she always gets it like at the local farmer's market or for friends and neighbors that she knows that grew it and she later just puts the turmeric in like a paper bag, right? This gives it enough moisture, but not too much moisture so that it doesn't rot. And if I open this bag up, we got to be careful with these guys. Look at this. This is like a nice, uh, turmeric that's now growing. So she basically just put the whole thing in or even cut it off right here and still eat this stuff. And this is the new growth that will basically turn into new turmeric over time and also make the leaves and in some cultures they use it for edible uses as well. So yeah, it's amazing all the amount of food she's growing here on a, in just a small space and also more importantly for the education work she does to show locals how to grow food and just to think that she thought she knew it all when she came from, from Maryland and she's going to crush it and she failed miserably. But guess what? Failure is the best way to learn how to do something right. If you failed as a child walking, right? How many people do you know that crawl? Well, I don't know anybody that crawls, everybody who knows how to walk because maybe when you're a little baby, you fell over so many times and finally you figured out how to balance and gardening is just like that. You just need to learn how to grow and you need to learn from something that did it. So when, when a baby is learning how to walk, they see their parents walk, they imitate it and then they could walk and just like that, you need to follow somebody in your area that grows successfully and then you too can be successful. All right guys, so now the pleasure of introducing you to the gardener here that is growing her food, you know, maybe a few things outside, but outside she has basically the iguana, you know, resistant plants that don't get eaten, but she's tried so many things growing outside that got eaten by iguana. successful. So Frances, I want to ask you a few questions about how you're growing here. So the first question is, you know, why do you really focus on trying to teach people about how to grow food here on a Sanibel Island in Florida? So while I'm passionate about teaching people to grow, but first of all, I think it's easy and I believe that we all need to be able to grow our own food because we really don't know what's going to happen with the food supply. We don't, we also know that it's the quality, you know, what's gone into it. You know, there's no pesticides, you know, what's in your dirt. And I just think that's really important to have the confidence to grow something and, and be able to grow food that you can eat that is plentiful and easy to grow in Florida as well. So, you know, Frances, tell me about the time that you moved here or what, around 1920 or 2019, like what was your experience like growing food here and what did you try? What worked and what didn't? Yeah, sure. So I lived in Maryland for 30 years and I was a very avid gardener. I grew up gardening with my mom and dad and grandparents teaching me how to, to garden. So I always had something in Maryland, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers. And when I moved to Florida, I set up my garden bed outside and started planting the normal things that I would plant in Maryland and also plants that I got from the local stores. Everything burnt up. It was like an epic fail. So everything that I tried didn't grow, things burnt up. And instead of getting frustrated and giving up, I started learning. I started reading and finding local gardeners and, you know, people like you and learning about how do I grow things that I can eat in Florida. I know it's possible. So I educated myself and, and started experimenting. And then, so the question is, you know, while you started growing and experimenting yourself and found out what works, why did you take that literally to the next level and want to share this with your, with your community actually for free without any charge? You know, a lot of garden teachers will try to make money off it, but you're just kind of doing it in my opinion out of the kindness of your heart to help thy fellow man. Thank you. And that is the passion. The passion is, is, is helping people, educating people. I can do it. I have the plants to be able to do that. I have taught myself the knowledge. And so for me, I see the pride too. I have people that I've done, I've taught some classes here in Sanibel and people come back to me or they see me in a restaurant and they're like, I still have that spinach plant and I'm still eating that spinach plant. And I can't tell you how much it warms my heart to know that they have accomplished something and they can feel good about themselves and they have the ability to feed themselves. And that's, that's really important to me. Wonderful. I mean, that's one of the reasons why I take time out of my day, you know, maybe driving an extra one and a half hours, you know, to visit Francis today. So thank you Francis for having me, you know, so that I could share this with you guys that, you know, people that may not live, you know, locally on the Island where she would teach her classes, but even around, you know, all of South Florida could pretty much use these same plants that would succeed. And once again, for a lot of you guys that don't have an outside, you only have a patio, right? This is totally just done on a patio and all kinds of different containers. So Francis, tell me about what's your favorite container to use to grow the food. Something that has well-drained, well-drained water, dirt so the water can, can filter through. And everything of mine is in plants in the lanai because we have iguanas and they will eat anything that's not native that's out in my yard. So really it's, I use all different kinds of, different kinds of containers, but ones that sometimes it's landscaping containers. Sometimes I'll find an attractive container, but really it's, it's really what I can, can find and use to plant in. All right. So do you use a specific size container that you found you've been more successful with? I find that the plants need room to grow. So if they're too pot bound, then they don't do well. So I, I just, sometimes I use like the, the long narrow ones, but really for me, you need room for air, room for your water to filter through. So not really, not really a specific size. And actually if you go to your landscaping company, sometimes they'll give you the containers they'll give you. And I do that too. I go to our local SCCF and they'll give me containers there. They'll give me the flats that I can put the little potting containers in. Wonderful. So of all the different plants you grow here, you know, share with me the top easiest three that somebody could totally grow if they just basically watered it enough. I mean, you got to have some decent soil and make sure it doesn't dry out and then you will be successful like she is. So for me here is the Siso spinach, the Malabar spinach, and the longevity spinach are my three favorites because they're easy to grow. I would like to throw in basil that, that grows well. And what grows well too is what you get from your local farmers, not from the big box stores. That makes a really big difference. So wonderful. Let's talk about that. You know, why do you think supporting local farmers is really essential for a gardener's success in their area? Because those, and this is wherever you are, wherever you are in the world, wherever you are, the local farmers has, has seedlings and plants that they know are successful and they have propagated them like I do. And they save the seeds like I do. And that plant likes it where, where you buy it. If you buy a plant from a big box store, I buy plenty of stuff from them, but I don't buy plants because they aren't grown in that area. In Florida, you may see the plant say grown in Florida. That means it's spent a day in Florida. It is not grown in Florida. It's not native. It's not local to that environment. And so it's really important. I also love, we have Echo. Echo teaches people how to grow all over the world. It's a worldwide organization. We have Edison. And so I buy a lot of my plants and my seeds from them. It's the only place I buy seeds from unless I cultivate my own. But when I'm buying seeds and I'm buying local, supporting those local farmers because they need our help too. I mean, they are, I buy local honey, I buy local plants, local vegetables and produce from organic growers that I, they, I know how they've treated those plants and I can feel good about bringing them into my environment. Yeah. And as much as you've learned, you know, the crops and plants that do well here, Echo has also been doing research for many, many, many, many, many years. I'll post a link down with some of the links down below for when I originally visited Echo and then maybe years later I also visited them to show the guys some of the techniques they specifically use and the plants as well. So you've spoken to many different local organizations and literally have educated hundreds of people in the local area to share with them what grows really well. But another issue that many people have is like they think in their head is that what if I fail, I'm going to be a failure. And then I'm just not going to do it. So I might as well just not even try. So what would you tell somebody that's in like this situation right now watching, you know, that may be thinking that? I would say do it, try it. So here's what we're looking at. You're looking at a buck, a pot of dirt, you may be looking at a few seeds, you're looking at a plant that you may have spent four or five dollars on. If that plant dies, it's not a huge monetary investment. And the thing is, is we all are learning and look at it like an experiment. For me, I had so many epic failures, but they were all learning experiences. So when you fail, you learn something. I also kept a notebook. I kept a notebook on what worked, what sometimes I planted the seedlings too early and it was too hot. So then I did a little more research and I realized that they need a little more, a little more time or a different spot. So if you're afraid, just try it. It's like anything. You don't play tennis perfectly the first time you play tennis. Gardening is very similar. You need to learn and be willing to fail. Wonderful. And while you talk about the financial investment that you may end up losing, I also want you guys to think of the flip side of the financial gain you can also achieve when you grow your own food. You know, like here in South Florida, you know, a pound of greens at like Costco is like five, $6 depending on what greens you guys are going to buy. That's a lot of money. But if you have a vine that like takes over, you could have like endless amounts of some things like longevity spinach that now you're going to be every week that you normally buy and consume the greens and keep buying them over and over every week and $5 going out this week, next week, the following week, depending on how much, you know, leaves and leafy greens you guys are eating. If you're growing yourself, that's all money you're saving. So in the long run, you're going to save so much money. And yes, you may make a few, you know, unsuccesses or failures at the beginning, but you just keep changing your approach, like you said, keep records and then doing a bit different and then you're going to find what works. And especially in this area, you know, ask her because she's taught so many people and she's experimented herself to find out what works and what doesn't. And I mean, that's really the value is to find something that's doing in your local area so that you can be successful. So another challenge that a lot of people have is that like they say, I don't have the space to grow anything, you know, what would you tell them? So it really doesn't take a lot of space. I mean, you've kind of seen my area. Most of my space right now is propagating and sharing and saving. But if you took the plants and you saw pictures, you took at my longevity spinach, my Malabar spinach, two or three pots is really all you need to feed, depending on how big your family is, but really is all you need to feed yourself. And the more you cut it, the more they expand. So a lot of these plants spread out, not up or they don't need a lot of, and the more you cut them and eat them, the more they're going to branch out and therefore they don't need a ton of space. One other thing is if you have zero space, zero yard, look into sprouting. Look into sprouting and microgreens because sprouting takes a jar. There are some people that have no yard, no nothing. If you could have a tablespoon of seeds that turn into three quarts of food. Wonderful. So, you know, I want to talk about, you know, cause I was actually in your home and I got some ginger bug and turmeric bud, which is perfect for me at this stage because I'm kind of getting over something here that I probably picked up on the airplane. But you know, I know you're into making a ferments, which I believe is great, but also you're kind of into like the DIY kind of like a prepping model. So why, why is this very important to you? Yeah. So, so for me, uh, preparing for a lack of, you know, lack of supply, lack of food, uh, shut down in the supply chain is really important. And what I started when I started this in probably 2019, I think when things started getting weird, thinking about what I, what would I save and why I think about calories and fat and, um, and, and flavor a little bit. But there are things like honey, maple syrup, coconut oil, olive oil, bone broth is a liquid that shelf stable. So those are things that are kind of in my, um, back pocket in my pantry. Um, I do have a lot of dehydrated, uh, products that I could, that I could eat. Um, I also did learn about fermenting because fermenting is a way, an ancient way of preserving our food. Also, a lot of the food when you ferment it is more bioavailable nutritionally. So I make ginger bugs, ginger, you can ferment ginger and turmeric. Um, you can ferment things in honey like garlic and make your own cough syrup, uh, pineapple and cranberry and honey makes a great, a great cough syrup, really good cough syrup. So it's, it's, it's just a dabbling in, um, you know, some of this, this fermentation and it doesn't take a ton of time and it's fun actually. Wonderful. Yeah. I mean, uh, another technique of course, when you have overabundant harvest of your food besides dehydration, you could also do canning that could have shelf stable jars for many years. Also, of course I do freeze drying myself, put a link down below to the only freeze dryer I recommend that is the best out there after me researching all of that. All right. So I think one of the final questions I have for you is that if somebody lives here in your area, how would they learn about your classes, the talks, and even try to get some free plans from you if you've got extras? Yeah, if I'm here. So if you reply, um, on this feed, I'll respond. If you're locally in Sanibel, um, you can, you know, contact me through your message, put a note on this, this video. Um, I'm under franny tut yoga on Instagram. You can connect with me there. And definitely if I have plants in your local, I would love to share them with you. If you have any questions, please ask them because I love helping and asking questions about a lot of what I do is, is theoretical, um, it's some of it's local to Florida, but a lot of it is a practice that I've developed that really can be implied everywhere. So how local is local? Like if somebody lives in what, uh, Cape Coral, which is like just across the bridge, would you give them free plants? Oh yeah. Yeah. If you come get them. Yeah. I'll definitely. And I always have, I always have my favorite plants, um, ready to share in little, you know, little containers. So absolutely. I love to, I love to share and I love to hear, um, how they grow and what I tell people is if you, if I give you a plant, the only thing I ask you to do is when it gets bigger, propagate it and share it. Wow. So basically like paying it forward. You're paying it forward to make basically the country a more resilient place, provide people a better quality food so they can help get healthy and more important, be more resilient in case something happens. Absolutely. Wonderful. And I'll put all her links down below so you guys could reach out to her and contact her after this video comes out. And uh, you know, and also, you know, besides giving you the plants, you're also share with you guys how to do it exactly so that you succeed instead of fail like she did miserably after she moved here from Maryland. If you guys enjoy this episode today where I came over to share with you guys, Francis's grow like literally in her screened in backyard, be sure to do a big thumbs up. Maybe next time I'm in town, I'll visit her again to see what she's up to and what she's been doing to even be more successful and sharing this message with even more people. Make sure you also share this episode with other people that live here on the islands that they can learn about this amazing resource that she gives out free plants so that more people could get growing. That is super passionate to me that she, I mean basically the reason for all our plan starts is that she can give them a way to you also be sure to click that subscribe button right down below. So miss my new upcoming episodes. I've come out every five to seven days. You never know what show up while you've been learning on my youtube channel and make sure you click the bell so you get notified as many videos come out and finally be sure to our past episodes. The past episodes are a wealth of knowledge. Over 1800 episodes at this time on this channel dedicated to 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. Until then, remember, keep on growing.