馃攳
5 Fast Growing Veggies You Can Harvest in Under 1 Month - YouTube
Channel: Epic Gardening
[0]
If it's your first time gardening,
[1]
I'm of the belief that getting a win
under your belt is a huge moment.
[6]
That first harvest is
something you never forget.
[8]
That's why in this video we're going to
go over five different crops or families
[12]
of crops that you can
grow in under a month.
[24]
Kevin Espiritu here from Epic Gardening
where it is my goal to help you grow a
[27]
greener thumb. All right,
my first harvest was so bad.
[31]
I mean I tried to go from zero to
a hundred like boom, like that,
[35]
and I did hydroponic cucumbers
just straight out of the gate.
[37]
Which tasted terrible. I didn't
feed them the right nutrients.
[40]
And so how do we avoid these problems?
Well, that's what this video is for.
[44]
Easy harvests.
[45]
So in this video we're going through
the fastest to the slowest all within a
[48]
month.
[49]
So we're going to talk about some stuff
you can grow in 10 days and we're going
[51]
to talk about some stuff that pushes
up right against that month mark.
[54]
And at the end I'm going to take
some recommendations from this video,
[57]
from my garden,
[58]
and whip it into a simple garden salad
just to show you kind of how I actually
[62]
use this stuff.
[63]
So cultivate that Like button if
you want 20 years of good harvests.
[66]
And we're going to need it these
days. And let's get into the video.
[69]
Fast crop number one is microgreens.
[72]
Now the only reason that I'm showing
you these seeds that I'm starting is
[75]
because I don't have a tray
of microgreens right now.
[77]
But I've done so many videos and it's one
of my favorite crops to grow actually.
[81]
So I have an entire 45
minute guide on microgreens,
[84]
but let's talk about them
really quickly. Number one,
[86]
the fastest crop you're ever going to
get are microgreens. What are they?
[90]
In a nutshell,
[91]
it's basically just growing plants
more or less to this point and then
[95]
harvesting them.
[96]
So it's the same seeds that you would
use to grow a plant to its full form,
[101]
but you just plant way more of them and
you plant them very densely along a tray
[104]
like this. So you'd usually
use like a 10x20 tray,
[108]
you'd seed it very heavily and then you'd
water that in and they'd grow in this
[112]
big mat. It's kind of like
those chia pets and in fact,
[114]
you can actually grow chia microgreens
if you wish. Now, the reason I like them,
[118]
number one, they're fast. Number
two, highly nutritious. Number three,
[122]
you can cycle grow them. You
can keep succession sowing them,
[125]
tray after tray can
come out of the garden,
[127]
and they're very easy to work into
recipes. You just harvest them off,
[131]
chop them up, put them
into a salad, a soup,
[134]
whatever you want to do and
they're good to go. So again,
[136]
I have massively detailed and in-depth
guides on microgreens already on my
[140]
channel, but I do want to show
you some things. Basically,
[142]
this is the stage that you
would harvest a microgreen at.
[144]
Seeds have seed leaves - cotyledons,
cotyledons - however you pronounce that.
[149]
But those are the leaves that are actually
already structurally within the seed.
[152]
When it sprouts,
[153]
those ones are the first to show up and
they don't look like the typical seed
[158]
from that plant. So if
you're growing arugula,
[160]
the seed leaves don't
look like an arugula leaf.
[162]
The first set of what we call true leaves
is right around the point that you'd
[166]
want to harvest a microgreen.
[166]
And so you can see right here we have
some true leaves and the reason I know
[171]
that is because right down below,
specifically on this one right here,
[174]
it's very easy to see,
we have some seed leaves.
[178]
Those are like the little baby
boys and then these ones come out.
[180]
Now imagine you have an
entire tray of these,
[183]
then that's a really nice meal in eight
to 12 days. Some crops take longer.
[187]
Basil for example, could be 21 days,
[189]
but that's still an entire tray
of micro basil at three weeks. So,
[193]
fantastic first crop in our fast
crops guide. Second group of crops,
[198]
peas and sunflowers. They're
technically still microgreens.
[201]
A lot of the times they're
sold as microgreens,
[203]
but they do look quite a bit different
and I kind of group them in a different
[206]
way. So these are pea shoots,
[209]
these are pea shoots that are probably
going to go into my garden to grow as
[212]
actual peas, but I could certainly
just literally eat these right now.
[216]
They have a nice fresh vegetal pea flavor,
[218]
high in nutrition and they're very easy
to sprout. You know peas, you soak them,
[223]
the seeds for a little bit if you want
to. You don't even have to do that.
[226]
And then once these come
up, you can literally just
[231]
eat those right there and that tastes
really nice. Really fresh pea flavor,
[236]
very easy. Now over here on this side
right here, we have some sunflowers.
[240]
Sunflowers in fact are probably my
favorite microgreen of all time to grow
[244]
because they really retain that
nutty flavor, which is really unique.
[249]
You wouldn't expect them to, but they do.
[251]
They kind of just taste like a greener
version of a sunflower seed and it's a
[256]
very fresh, refreshing flavor. And
I really love doing sunflowers.
[260]
And the thing about sunflowers when
you're growing the microgreens is you do
[262]
want to soak them and you do want to make
sure you're watching out for mold and
[265]
such because it's just a bigger
seed. More things can go wrong,
[269]
but still you're getting these in 12 to
15 days. Okay, our third group of crops.
[273]
It's going to be the whole world
of baby lettuce, baby lettuce,
[278]
baby greens. Now what's great about
this example right here, as you can see,
[281]
I have some looseleaf lettuce here
that's very mature, very adult. Behind us
[286]
we have looseleaf lettuce that is, ooh,
I don't know, two, three weeks old.
[290]
And then this stuff here
is just transplanted in
about four or five days ago.
[295]
And so you can see how we talked about
microgreens earlier in the video. Well,
[299]
this is the natural growth cycle
of lettuce. It's growing up.
[304]
Microgreens harvest at very, very young.
[306]
But if you let that same exact plant
go a little longer then you can harvest
[310]
right here, you can harvest right
here for a micro head of lettuce.
[313]
Or you can let it go
and harvest around here,
[316]
although this is longer than a month.
[317]
Now what I'll say about this is if you're
planning to specifically harvest at a
[322]
younger stage of life, then your
spacing should be a little different.
[326]
So right here I'm spacing around four
per square foot and that's because I've
[330]
planned for them to be about this big.
[332]
So I've spaced them roughly
four or five inches apart.
[334]
But if I know I'm going to be harvesting
my lettuce at these sizes back here,
[339]
then I can plant them much more densely.
[341]
So I might plant them
at nine per square foot.
[344]
And then I know that once they kind of
start filling up that space clip, clip,
[348]
clip, clip, take them into the
garden and or sorry, the kitchen,
[351]
and then start cooking up a great meal.
[353]
Our fourth group are the
greens of root crops. Yes,
[357]
you can eat the greens of
all root crops. And in fact,
[360]
some of these are my
favorite greens to eat.
[362]
What we're looking at right here
in the foreground are beets.
[365]
Beet greens can be eaten and in fact
sometimes I actually prefer them.
[369]
I like these beet greens nice and
sauteed in some olive oil, some onions,
[373]
some garlic.
[374]
It's a really nice flavor and sometimes
you know the beets aren't as appetizing
[378]
to me. So you can
definitely grow beet greens,
[381]
radish greens and turnip greens and you
can just harvest them for their greens
[385]
before they start to bulb out.
There's nothing wrong with that.
[388]
They germinate fast and they grow fast.
[390]
Now I will say you can get baby radishes.
[393]
Sometimes the beets take
a little longer. Turnips.
[395]
You can get baby turnips to some degree,
[397]
but baby radishes can definitely
be harvested at that 30 day mark.
[401]
You can get a really nice
crop of radishes. In fact,
[404]
let's just go ahead and show you kind of
what you can get here if you wait just
[408]
a little bit longer. See this.
[410]
This is a great example of a baby little
root crop that you could harvest in a
[415]
really short amount of time.
[417]
Our fifth group of crops is what
I'm going to call upgraded greens,
[421]
some more fancy and cool ones.
[423]
So we have a whole mess of kale back here.
This is certainly older than 30 days,
[428]
but again, baby kale is
oftentimes more tender.
[432]
It can be a little bit sweeter, a little
bit less fibrous, and it's very tasty.
[435]
So sometimes the baby kale is a lot
easier to use in a salad if especially if
[440]
you don't like kind of
crunching through this.
[441]
I personally am probably gonna
turn this into kale chips,
[443]
but you can see a different cultivar of
kale here. This is dazzling blue kale,
[447]
which is quite beautiful and the main
vein down each leaf has this amazing,
[452]
amazing color. But the leaves are
also much more tender, much fresher.
[456]
And so kale is a fantastic elevated
green that you can grow in under 30 days.
[460]
Another elevated green that you
can grow in less than 30 days,
[463]
certainly not one of this size,
but it is bok choy or pak choy.
[467]
I recommend getting a dwarf
or baby bok choy variety.
[470]
They're very cute and you can
kind of just pluck them out,
[473]
throw them in a stir fry. They're very
good. Here's another one right here.
[476]
This is Beni Houshi mizuna
or it's basically a mustard,
[479]
which kind of gives that nice, peppery,
[481]
spicy flavor to either
a salad or a stir fry.
[484]
So there's a lot of different, you know,
[486]
extra greens besides the
world of looseleaf lettuce
or these more simple greens.
[492]
Now that we have our list
of quick growing crops,
[493]
I've got my beet that I pulled out for
you guys earlier and we're going to grab
[496]
a couple more selections here and
whip it up into a really quick garden,
[499]
fresh salad.
[500]
So I'm going to take this looseleaf
lettuce right here because it's looking
[503]
really good. Boom.
That's amazing. This is,
[506]
maybe it's a little longer than a
month, maybe 35 days or so I would say.
[510]
And mizuna, this is the Beni Houshi
mizuna, the flowers are edible,
[514]
so I'm going to take the
flowers for a garnish.
[517]
Just take a couple of those and I'm also
going to take some leaves on my kale
[523]
back here. Again,
[526]
this is an older kale but the same
rules apply and the same theory applies.
[531]
So we're just going to grab
from the oldest leaves,
[535]
getting those oldest leaves
first, cut and come again style,
[538]
which I have a video on on
my channel. And look at that.
[544]
This plant is still rocking and rolling.
[546]
It's looking really good but
we've cleaned it up a little bit.
[548]
We've let some more light in and we
have a nice little micro salad here that
[553]
we're going to turn into really quick.
[603]
Well, I'm certainly not a chef but I
have to say it looks pretty good and it's
[606]
probably going to taste good. But
before we taste this, first of all,
[609]
thanks for watching. Second of all,
[610]
if you enjoy urban gardening or you want
to learn how to garden in small spaces,
[615]
then this book Field Guide to Urban
Gardening is my book and I wrote it
[619]
specifically for that purpose.
[621]
Take you from nothing to learning how
to grow your own food. It's on Amazon.
[624]
You can get signed copies for
my store. But, Bon Appetit guys,
[627]
thanks for watching and I'll
see you in another video.
[636]
That's good, that's fresh.
[640]
And you know the best part
is that at Trader Joe's,
[644]
Everything but the Bagel Seasoning,
[646]
that stuff literally can go on anything.
Most Recent Videos:
You can go back to the homepage right here: Homepage