The Free Seed Project Demonstration Garden Video Series shows you exactly how to grow your own food – from planting the seeds, to tending the garden, to harvesting the food! In this video, Robin gives a tour of the Free Seed Project Demonstration Garden and shares some of his top tips and challenges that he’s had in the garden.
This series is accessible for all, whether you have ever grown food before, or whether you have just a balcony to grow food on or a whole front yard! And we are using the exact seeds that you receive in your pack!
Plant your seeds right along with us and use this guide and video series as a reference for your gardening journey ahead.
The series is taught by Robin Greenfield and Elise Pickett from @TheUrbanHarvest
Use our guide at www.robingreenfield.org/freeseedproject/
Request a Free Seed Pack here:
www.robingreenfield.org/freeseedproject
Make a donation to receive the Power of the Seed Pack:
www.robingreenfield.org/seeds
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Robin Greenfield’s work is Creative Commons and this content is free to be republished and redistributed, following the terms of the creative commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 license. Learn about Creative Commons and see the guidelines here:
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Robin Greenfield is an activist and humanitarian dedicated to leading the way to a more sustainable and just world. He embarks on extreme projects to bring attention to important global issues and inspire positive change. 100% of his media income is donated to grassroots nonprofits.
His YouTube channel is a source to educate, inspire and help others to live more sustainable, equal and just lives. Videos frequently cover sustainable living, simple living, growing your own food, gardening, self-sufficiency, minimalism, off the grid living, zero waste, living in a tiny house and permaculture.
Find Robin Greenfield on:
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Hello everyone welcome to the Demonstration garden I'm really excited To show you how a lot of the plants are Growing and help you to get a little bit More familiar with the seeds that you Got in your pack people often ask like How much time does it take to garden and It really depends on what kind of Experience you're wanting to get out of It it varies greatly but what I really Recommend is making gardening an Everyday thing spending a little bit of Time in the garden every day and Generally what I do a little bit every Day is watering Weeding some insect control pruning and Harvesting so today I'm going to take You through the demonstration garden and I'm going to do a little bit of each of Those things Except watering because I already Watered this morning first I'm going to Show you this is a little patch here of The beneficial insect attractant mix and One of the things you see here is some Cilantro there's cilantro in the Beneficial insect attractant mix that Mix include some plants that are Wonderful as food both for us humans and For bees and butterflies and our Pollinator friends here is some Cosmos That are just starting to pop up these Attract Parasites or sorry they attract wasps
That actually eat caterpillars that are Eating your food so you want to bring Insects into the garden beneficial Insects now within this mix there's Actually a few weeds popping up so one Of the things you do a little bit of Every day is weeding but some weeds are Wonderful to eat so this is one of my Favorite weeds weeds right here there is No such thing is a weed that's the Concept that we've created they all are Plants with their own purpose and This is purslane it is a wonderfully Nutritious green I eat a lot of it and So I'm letting this this free food grow Right in the garden rather than weeding It Here I have my onions growing the green Onions are coming up and there are some Chives in here but these chives are Getting a little bit shaded out I'm Actually seeing the garlic chives with The flat leaves and then the standard Chives with the round leaves so I'm Seeing both varieties popping up here So we've got the beneficial insect Attractant mix we've got the green Onions and we've got some of the chives Here so here we have a few different Things growing we have radishes and you Can see these radishes are actually Starting to bolt which means they're Going to produce a seed pod which I'll Show you some seeds and that means you
Can make your own radish seeds for next Year so this is in the bolting stage you Can see how it's shooting up we've got Some carrots growing in here we've got Our mustard greens this is the Green Wave and then we've got some of the dill Growing right here in front so I Mentioned another one of the daily Things to be doing is some insect Control and also Some pruning so I'm going to do that at The same time the issue I have on my Mustard is actually white fly and so What I've found that really helps with That is continuous harvesting so I'm Going to go ahead and take all of the Big leaves of the mustard and What this does Is It provides a harvest of food And then it prunes the plant back So that all so it'll start putting this Energy into all these smaller leaves Which will turn into big leaves to eat But at the same time on these some of Them have these white fly larvae or White fly let's just call it white fly It's eggs or larva depending on the Stage and so this is still edible if I Left this here a long time it would Start to get bad so I'm actually still Going to eat this and I'm reducing the The issue with the insects at the same Time so what I'm doing is I'm I'm going
Through here I'm pruning out all the Ones that have the insect issue on them Uh I'm actually going to prune a couple Of these radish leaves at the same time Harvest a few of those off Here's a big mustard here that I see has Some white fly damage And Then I'll probably come back through and Harvest this mustard again in probably About a week this will be back to about This size if I had to guess Now what I'm also going to do is I don't Want this to seed yet I don't want this To bolt When It Bolts it starts to get Really strong flavor like um you know The mustardy strength And it starts to shoot up instead of Producing leaves so also where it's Bolting I'm going to go ahead and take Those Take those off so that it keeps Producing leaves and so I just you can See this one how it was starting to Shoot up so I went ahead and harvested That to try to give myself More more time but these mustards I Don't know how much longer they're going To last but they're getting into their Stage of being They probably put out the majority of Their production So At this stage I could probably Harvest a
Little bit of this Dill but I'm going to Go ahead and just let that continue Growing Here I have the basil mix one of the one Of the ones that I'm the most excited About and there's four different Basils Popping up in here you have your Standard Italian basil this is holy Basil which just just An incredibly healing plant We have a Thai Basil coming up over here And then we have some lemon Basils Coming up over here let me just make Sure Yes very lemony basil so Um I mentioned when plants are bolting You want to prune the top off So how that works on basil is when when You cut the top what happens is it'll It'll Branch out And it'll actually send up two New shoots and so when you harvest You're not taking you can actually be Producing more food by harvesting so Consistent harvesting is key so I'm Gonna go ahead and just prune the tops Off Of a few of these So there's a honeybee that seems A little angry with me right now You can tell when a honeybee is angry Because it does have a different pitch [Music] And this one's got a bit of the angry
Pitch going on now I don't know if you can see right behind Me but we just rescued a swarm of bees So there's a few thousand bees pretty Busy right now but that one seems to Have moved on So continuing to harvest the basil a Little bit here you can see the holy Basil so what I'm going to do is I'm Going to go ahead and prune a few of These off holy basil tends to be able to Have seeds and continue producing hello Bee you are back But I'm going to go ahead and harvest Some of those wonderful medicines so More more harvesting can be done here But that's what I'm going to show you For now Hello bee Arugula so I'm gonna go ahead actually Not on this one but on the next one over I'm gonna Cut a few of these arugula back So you can see the arugula has gotten The seed here and I let that get away From me it's just one that kind of got Away from me so this bolted which means This the flavor It's gonna be much stronger personally I Love it but once it gets to this point It may be a bit too spicy for you so you Want to keep it from bolting by pruning It back so I am going to go ahead And prune some of these back and try to
Encourage it to keep on putting out More greens But I'm also going to leave some of These because these are going to go to Seed I'm going to harvest those seeds and That way the free seed pack can keep Delivering year after year without Having to get another one I'll be Self-sufficient in arugula no problem You can actually see some seed pods on Here already you've got your flowers and Your seed pods and this little seed pod Here with the yellow flowers that's the Asian greens popping up here so this is One of the Asian green plants and There's probably Four five six times more seeds coming Off this one plant than you got in the Pack so definitely letting some go to Seed is is a key to having seeds for Next year I'm going to harvest some more of this Mustard that Um Is getting pretty big And you can see how I'm working with the Pruners I like to use pruners actually more than My hands I do recommend a pair of Pruners they go a very long way So I'm pruning At the same time as I'm harvesting at The same time as I'm doing a little
Insect control Taking care of three things at once Oh and of course eating Always nibbling in the garden And do you have to wash the greens It depends on what you put on the greens If you don't cover them with pesticides Then gnome You do not have to wash the greens In fact I rarely ever do And as you can see I'm still here So there's a nice little Bunch now this Leaf for example is pretty old you Totally could eat that but this is not Going into the salad bowl This is going into the salad bowl Including the arugula Flowers so a couple of the Russian kales We've got the White Russian pet kale the Red Russian kale and the lacinado what Came up here or what I transplanted here Are the white russian kales these are Coming up beautifully Now when you harvest these what you do Is you harvest the bottom ones So there you go I harvest the bottom Ones and I'm consistently coming out Here and harvesting these this has a lot Of aphids on it and a lot of people Would toss this out because they're Aphids but Aphids are made of kale So all you're eating when you eat a Bunch of aphids is
A manifestation of sunshine of kale They're nutritious I would say they're delicious but you Don't taste them even you don't even Notice that they're there Good soft kale Okay I'm gonna go ahead and harvest a Turnip This is the first turnip of the year This is the purple top Globe turn up Thank you There you have it A beautiful little turnip and A lot of people don't do this but the Turnip greens are delicious and Nutritious too those cook right up so You don't just get the turnip you get All of the turnip greens as well So that's the Harvest from today just Doing a little weeding a little bit of Pruning a little bit of harvesting at The same time and that's a pretty nice Little Harvest Now one thing that I do want to show you Is that I've got some carrots right here I've got some turnips right here this is Planted way too close together I still Got some you know good turnips but look How much space this one turnip took You can imagine you can only fit so many Of them in there which is why it's so Important to watch the videos on spacing So you give things the desired spacing That they need to be really productive
So lastly I wanted to show you a couple Of the pots that I just recently planted Where things are in a younger stage So I have 12 pots here for the 12 Different seeds that you receive in the Pack and I'm just going to share what They are they're still in a pretty small Stage I just planted most of these from Seeds a few weeks ago and then I Transplanted some as well So we have Um we've got our Dill we've got our Basil we've got mustard flour mix kale These were transplanted we've got Mustard here I believe let me give this A little nibble Oh This is actually turnips And then we've got our herb mix here With our lemon balm and with our Chamomile We've got our radishes Here we have arugula Then we have carrots and then we've got Our chives and or sorry our onions and Our chives so now we're here at the Garden in the back and I'm excited to Show you what's going on here and here I'm actually going to focus on sharing Some of the challenges the issues that I've been having over the last couple Months in the garden before diving into That I want to share one of the joys and That is the beneficial insect attractant
Mix is popping out some flowers this is The cosmos and not only do they bring Joy but they also bring in beneficial Insects like wasps that'll eat the Caterpillars that are eating your food So these have been bringing in a lot of Joy to have these and there's more buds So they'll be continuing to come in Gardening there's always going to be Challenges you know no matter what your Garden is you're going to have Challenges it's just a question of which I've actually had six main challenges That I've been working with first big One cut worms cut worms have been a big Struggle and the reason is is they don't Come in and just like nibble on one leaf What they do is they come in and they go To a plant and they just cut it right at The bottom and topple the thing right Over like they'll take a plant topple it Right over whole plant is dead so over Half of this Garden has been Cut down by cut worms my solution for That that has really worked is you take A pot you cut the bottom and then you Put that over the plant bury it down Some and that creates a guard and you Can also use tin foil as well as a guard So cutworms have definitely been one of My biggest challenges but since I've put These in which is work but in a small Garden manageable the cutworm problem Has been more or less taken care of
Right here my biggest challenge is that This Garden is It doesn't get enough Sun so this Garden Oldney is getting about two and a half Or three hours of full sun right now and You generally want a minimum of five Hours and more like up to seven hours of Direct sun so these plants are all Growing really slowly because they're Not getting enough sun with enough Sun These plants would be way further along They'd almost be most of them would be Fully mature and a lot of them would Actually be harvested at this point the Great thing about this Garden is it's Got really really beautiful soil this Soil was built right here on site by Albert whose beautiful property this is And so that's been one of the like Beautiful things to work with here is This nutritious rich soil however I Bought soil for the plant for the pots And that soil turned out to be super Carbon heavy very low on nitrogen so all Of my plants have been stunted because There hasn't been the the nutrients They've needed or the nutrients have Been locked up in the carbon so with all Of my pots I've been having to add Nitrogen to them fish Emulsion being the Main source and so that's been a Challenge and it's definitely a Challenge that you know some of you will Come across with your soil the two other
Insects or diseases that I've been Dealing with have been white fly and They've been a big struggle on the Mustard out in the front beds and the Other one is the downy mildew that's Been on the basil that has been a Substantial struggle I'm just here in Florida for a few months so I'm really Gardening in a place where I'm in the I'm in a challenging middle Middle Zone and uh Kind of like yeah I'm just here for a Short period of time so I haven't gotten Used to everything here but I'm learning These things as I go and figuring out How to work with them and with all of These I'm not using a single pesticide I Definitely was Um Kind of Tempted to use pesticides but I never Have used one and still I have not used One Lastly I mentioned here there's not Enough Sun the shade The other challenge here in Florida is We're getting into the period where Summer is actually so hot that the Plants are bolting and so I'm kind of Struggling with some of the annuals in To the sun into the summer months where It's really hot so those have been the Challenges that I've been dealing with Here in the garden and I wanted to just
Share some of those with you because Many of those are challenges that you're Going to be dealing with as well so Every day I do a little bit of watering A little bit of weeding a little bit of Insect control remember your hands are The best pesticide your hands and your Minds no need for those toxic chemicals That are going on to our food and into Our body if we're using them and then of Course a little bit of pruning and a Little bit of harvesting I've got my Harvest for the day which I'm excited About Really excited about this lemon basil And a last little thing that I want to Share I have plants that could be Considered a failure these this pot Didn't have enough nutrients it was the Soil that I'm struggling with and I Planted some of the Asian greens from The mustard mix and as you can see They're tiny little plants they bolted Right away I could pull these out or I'm Just going to let these go to seed that Way I'll have more of these to plant Next year so all throughout the garden You can see many things that are in Different stages there is no exact one Way to do anything it's about getting in Tune with the garden and working with it And all of its different stages I'm so Excited and happy to have shared this Time in the garden with you and hope
That you're becoming more confident and Learning a lot more to become liberated From the global industrial food system And just enjoy the time in your garden Growing your own healthy food