cold

This is John Kohler with growing your greens
dot com. Today I have another exciting episode for you. I’m here on another field trip
here in Houston, Texas. I’m on my vacation, but when I’m on vacation, I’m always researching
new and exciting places to grow, or that you can grow at depending on where you live. So
today we’re at RCW Nursery and their website is rcw nurseries dot com. They’ve been here
for over thirty years serving Houston and the area. While they do have a standard nursery
with a lot of ornamentals, they do have a good section of some fruit trees and some
vegetables and herbs that I’m going to be going over today. The one main reason why
I’m here today is because I found out about RCW Nursery online, because they carry a wide
variety of hardy avocado trees. So some of the avocado trees they sell are hardy down
to the teens. So seventeen degrees! I mean, the avocado tree I have is maybe hardy down
to like the upper twenties or mid-twenties, but these are hardy even ten degrees more.
Now you may be able to grow avocados no matter where you live, but unfortunately, the RCW
Nurseries does not ship. So you got to come here to buy them or find another place to
buy some of these rare varieties of avocados that I will be showing you guys in a minute. Now we’re inside the nursery, and besides
all the ornamentals that I’m not going to talk about; I’m going to talk about some
of my favorite edibles that they’re offering here for you guys, in the Houston area. So
once again, this place does not ship. You could come here to buy ‘em or you could
try to find these online, get the seeds for some of these varieties. So what we’re going
to talk about first are the vegetables. So, my channel is called ‘growing your greens’
and it’s called ‘growing your greens’ for a reason, because I believe greens are
one of the most important foods you can put into your body and most people just, frankly,
do not eat enough greens. My goal is to eat two pounds of leafy greens each and every
day. So, one of the reasons why that may happen, that people don’t eat enough, especially
if they’re growing a garden, is because in the Summer time, it can be challenging
to grow some of the greens. Things like lettuce which they have over there, and maybe even
these guys here, some cabbage, or some collard greens, you know they may get bug damage.
I mean, as you can see, these guys are getting eaten up by bugs. In addition, the heat of
the Summer may cause these guys to bolt early. That’s because in general the cold crops,
they’re called cole crops. That’s k-o-h-l-e-r, I mean c-o-l-e cole crops. Is that because
they like the cold? Well you know we need some hot crops, some hot vegetables for the
Summer, And that’s what they’re selling here. In Houston this is the perfect vegetable
to be growing and actually it is very challenging to find. I actually sold the seeds to many
of you guys out there that bought some of my seeds, the red Malabar spinach seeds. And
that’s what we’re looking at here. This is the red Malabar spinach, they actually
call it, uh, Rubra spinach and that’s what this is right here. This is actually a vining
spinach, not related to the standard spinach; it’s in the goosefoot family. But this is
a whole different kind of spinach that’s, you know, grown in the tropics. So this guy
loves the heat. If you live in South Florida, you could grow this as a perennial. If it
doesn’t get too cold, this will stay alive as a perennial. And you just basically pick
off these leaves and eat ‘em. They have a nice, uh, they’re kind of succulent actually,
they’re really mild flavor and actually you could even eat the, it’s going to, uh
uh, produce the flowers here, you could eat the flowers, I ate the flowers and spit the
seeds out and save those to grow for next year. And besides the purple variety they
got, they also got the green variety. They only have two of the green variety left, so
you guys better get down here quick to buy these. And, uh let’s see, I’ve noticed
that the purple variety in general tends to grow faster than the green variety, and both
these varieties you need to plant them, and they might grow like a millimeter a day for
like a long time, but once they get established, then they’ll start really growing much faster,
and they do like the heat and they like to stay, you know, well watered. Not over-watered
and not under-watered. And, man, these guys are delicious. Next, let’s move into some
more common vegetables that they’re selling here for the Summer time
. Another uncommon vegetable that many of you
guys may not be familiar with, is right here. This is actually called the prickly pear cactus
and on some prickly pear cactuses, the prickles have been bred out of them, so they’re non-prickly
pear cactuses. But not only can you eat the cactus pads, you know, if you go into most
Mexican markets, you can find de-prickled cactus pads for sale, sometimes cut up in
little bags, but you could also eat its fruit, and this is not fruiting right now, but the
cactus pear fruit is one of my favorite fruits by far. They just tend to get a little bit
seedy, so that’s why I like to juice ‘em, which easily removes the seeds, which make
the dark pigments and the nutrients in there available for me to drink and consume. And
I’ve actually videos on YouTube showing me juicing the prickly pear cactus, one of
my favorite. So grow your own and have your own cactus pears and cactus pads to eat. Now we’re going to talk about more standard
vegetables that you guys might be growing and, actually the most popular we’ll be
talking about next. But the first one we’re going to talk about are these guys, and these
are peppers. So whether you grow hot or sweet peppers, I always like to grow the small variety
peppers. I find they produce more over a longer period of time, plus they ripen up more regularly.
Say if I grew like a standard bell pepper plant, I might get 2, 3 peppers off a plant,
depending on you know, how well it’s cared for, maybe more. But on one of these guys,
actually this guy has been really prolific in my garden. It’s a hot red cherry or the
cherry-bomb peppers and here’s a little pepper on here. I mean this is guy is almost
getting ready to eat once it turns red. But these guys produce a lot of peppers over the
whole entire season until it frosts, instead of just a few peppers. So that’s why I like
to grow these. In addition, here at RCW Nursery, they’ve got really good prices. These four
inch pepper plants are only $1.49. So I mean even the big box stores, on sale, is $2. When
the peppers are not on sale at the big box store they’re $2.98. So, this is literally
half price. Now not only for the price do I recommend you guys shop your local nurseries,
like the RCW Nurseries here in Houston, but I also encourage you guys to support small
businesses and local businesses instead of large giant corporations. Although you know,
you guys know I feature large corporations in my videos sometimes, because over all else
I want you guys to grow. And if that means you got to buy some stuff from a big large,
big box corporation and you’ll be able to grow your food, I think that’s good, but
I think it’s even better if you could support a small local nursery instead, like the RCW
here. And they got some fabulous looking peppers. Next we’re going to talk about the number
one growing vegetable in the Summer time by home gardeners. You know you might not know
somebody that grows red Malabar spinach but, most people if they’re growing food at home,
they’re growing tomatoes, ‘cause everybody loves tomatoes. Now, here at RCW Nurseries,
I like that they have over two dozen varieties of different tomatoes and that was just a
quick count. I’m sure they have even more, probably like closer to thirty, maybe even
more varieties and that of tomatoes. And that’s one of the things you will get by coming to
a locally owned nursery. Some of the big box stores may have, you know, up to a dozen different
kinds, if even that, and you know they’re going to be much more limited in scope. And
I want you guys to be able to try and grow all the different varieties, because you will
find that some varieties may grow better than others. Some will yield better than others,
and more importantly, some will taste better than others to you. Like, I personally like
these ones called the, I think they’re called the Coyote Cherry tomato. Like they’re very
low acid, they’re almost like yellow, almost translucent. And when they’re ripe, they’re
just OH so delicious. Like they don’t even taste like a tomato to me, because they’re
just, ah. They’re so good. But anyways, coming to a locally owned nursery, you could
find so many more varieties than you can at a big box store. In addition, one of the things
I like is that they’re plants here, for a four inch tomato, $1.49.That’s their everyday
low price. I mean, at some big box stores, not on sale tomatoes, are like $3.48, $3.50.
So this is literally half the price. So that’s a good buy in itself. Finally I want to talk
about when selecting tomatoes to purchase, you know you want to pay attention to how
many days it takes to go to full maturity. So right here we have the “quick pick, a
trouble free tomato with heavy yields. The 48 ounce fruit are round and smooth, prone
to sun scald. This is a great choice for your Fall and early Spring garden”. So that’s
telling you not to grow it in the middle of Summer when it gets really hot. Now the sun
scald is, it happens when the sun hits the tomato. It’s like you get sun burnt, you
know on your skin if you get too much sun. While the tomatoes will get sun burnt and
the leaves actually absorb the sun to create the photosynthesis to create the energy to
make the tomatoes, but the tomatoes don’t like the sun. So hopefully you’ll have enough
foliage or enough leaves on your tomato plant to cover up the tomatoes that are hiding and
ripening down below. If not, don’t worry, just get some standard shade cloth and like
fold it over like four times and then put that on top of your tomatoes. Just like clip
it, so that it covers your tomatoes but not the leaves of the plant. This will prevent
the sun scald. Aside from that, this is a sixty day tomato. So that means it’s going
to be ready in sixty days. For example, the one next here, called the Golden Jubilee,
is an eighty day tomato, So that’s, it takes over an extra half a month before you have
tomatoes. So, that’s why I encourage you guys to pick some early tomatoes and also
some ones that will produce late for you, so you will be covered all season long. One
of my favorite early tomatoes is called the Early Girl. Now we’re going to talk about more tomatoes!
John I need more tomatoes. Well each tomato plant can put out poundage of fruits. So,
you know you may not want to plant too many unless you’re prepared to eat ‘em all,
or at least, like what I do with my extras is sun dry ‘em or dehydrate them all and
save them for the Winter time. So what we’re going to talk about next is some of the tomatoes
they have here at the RCW Nursery, that are the one gallon size. So I always encourage
you guys to buy the largest size container with the largest size plants that you can
afford. So if you’re a rich guy, man you got money, buy the bigger plants now because
guess what? That means you’ll be eating off your plants sooner rather than later.
In general, the plants in the larger pots are actually older, more mature plants than
the ones in the smaller pots. But you need to pay attention, because that’s not always
the case. In any case, what we’re going to do is talk about some of these guys right
here right now and the reason why I decided to talk about these guys are because these
are the special varieties you need to grow if you want to have a patio container garden.
So you know, if you have limited amount of space or if you’re growing in a container
on your patio, on a balcony in the middle of New York City, these are the very varieties
you want to grow. So this one right here is actually called the Sweet and Neat, So I grew
this Sweet and Neat red tomato last year. This happens to be a Sweet and Neat yellow
tomato. So I didn’t know they actually had the Sweet Neat tomato in yellow. These were
very flavorful tomatoes and they did quite well and the plant stayed amazingly compact.
It actually didn’t get too much bigger than this right here, so this is perfect for a
small space. You know if you don’t want to have tomato vines trailing for twelve feet,
this will stay nice and compact. And look at all the flowers – each one of these flowers
is going to turn into a delicious cherry tomato for you to eat. Now besides the Sweet Neat,
they have another excellent tomato for growing in containers that I actually haven’t seen
before. This is actually called the Tumbling Tiger and this says, “sweet, delicious small
fruit, great in salads or for eating fresh, determinate”. So, uh, let’s go ahead now
and talk about determinates and indeterminates. So the determinate tomatoes like live for
a specific period of time. You know, say you had some horrible disease and they only said
you’re going to live to eighteen and then you’re gone, right? That’s how the determinates
are. The determinates are going to live for a specific period of time and yield all the
crop at once and then pretty much they’re done. They’ve had it. They’ve put out
their, uh, yield and they’re moving on. Whereas the indeterminate plants have no specific
determined life span. So you know, provided it doesn’t freeze, get too cold, those plants
can continue to grow and grow and grow and grow and continue to put out fruit for you,
the whole season long. So the Tumbling Tiger is a determinate, just like the one before
it and you can kind of tell that how it’s growing, it will not be that big. I mean,
the Sweet Neat, what happens on some of these tomatoes, if they’re not going to get too
big, the main trunk, or what you would call the trunk, gets really nice and thick and
stocky. It doesn’t get long and spindly, and it just doesn’t get that tall. So this
guy is probably going to be a little bit larger than the Sweet Neat. The next one which is
also known as, uh, a container tomato, is called the patio tomato. But this guy is going
to get a fair bit bigger, I don’t know I guess in a large container you’d grow the
patio tomato. I mean I grew the patio using micro-riser, it rocked us one year. And man
this thing grew like, probably to like six feet, by the time if I stretched it all out,
because I didn’t actually trellis it up, I didn’t think it was going to get that
big. It it it grew out to like six feet, so that can get actually kind of big, But it
produced really well and unfortunately to me, the tomatoes, the patio tomatoes, didn’t
taste all that great. I’d rather grow some other alien variety. But nonetheless, it’s
great for a larger size container. The other two that I mentioned, probably better for
a smaller container. Now for these container tomatoes, I would recommend a minimum of five
gallon pot larger, if you could get away with it. Next, we’re going to talk about herbs, medicinal
herbs – actually just kidding. Well actually they’re some medicinals we might talk about.
But we’re just going to talk about herbs. Now the reason why I like the herbs, is because
they are one of the easiest things to grow, especially if you are new into gardening,
never gardened before. Grow the herbs, you know, grow some Rosemary. That’s very hard
to get rid of actually, you really got to abuse it. Or, uh you know, even some mint
– Wow, this stuff smells amazing. This is actually the Kentucky Kernel mint. Man, smells
so good. Brings me back to my childhood. My grandma used to have like a field, well I
don’t know about a field, or a patch of mint that just grew wild at her place there.
And as kids I’d just literally go play and pick and eat the mints. Anyways, it brings
back some fond memories of my childhood, play with brother at my grandma’s farm. But in
any case, here at RCW, they have over a half dozen varieties of different kinds of mints.
So have you ever tasted Kentucky Kernel mint, Mojito mint – Yes that’s the same Mojito
mint you could make that alcoholic beverage with. Chocolate mint, Lemon mint, Grapefruit
mint. I mean, so many different kinds of mint and each has a unique different flavor. And
let me tell you, mints are one of the easiest things to grow, and if you’re not careful
it’ll actually take over your garden. So for that reason, I recommend you guys plant
it in containers, or if you want to plant it in your raised bed, at least plant it in
a container inside your raised bed. Check my past videos for when I actually did that
in my own garden. Next I want to cover a few more herbs they’re offering here. A few
that are rare and a few that I just like a lot. It’s always a treat for me to come to a
new nursery, because you know, I’ll always see at least one new plant that I was not
aware of and this is one of the ones I found today actually. It’s actually called the
Jim Best Oreganos. So check it out this is actually a variegated variety of oregano,
that’s completely edible. So, you know, no longer do you have to have straight green
leaves of oregano, it can be now variegated, look pretty and also taste delicious. Let
me go ahead and try and taste a little leaf here“mmm” Has that nice oregano
flavor that you’ve been looking for. I always encourage you guys once again to grow different
varieties of stuff. Grow variegated oregano next to the regular oregano for some cool
color displays. You know, or different colors in your garden. So I like that they have this
available, and it’s actually, you know, I haven’t seen it before. In addition to
something I have seen before, is right next door, this is actually called the Mexican
Marigold mint and this is actually not a mint, it’s more related to the Marigold. And this
you could use the leaves, they use the leaves as a flavoring. I like to just eat the leaves,
it has a nice flavor. In addition, you can also eat the flowers of this guy. One of the
things I like about this plant, is that it is a perennial, or should be a perennial with
the weather here. Next let’s take a look at another perennial from Mexico. Now, we’re going to talk about two more
herbs. At least, one of them is my favorite. One of them I’m also quite fond of actually.
The first one is this one right here. They just call it a Sweet Herb. So I love you Sweet
Leaf. So anyways, yeah, this is also known as Sweet Leaf. But it’s not that Sweet Leaf
you’re thinking of. But this is actually called the Stevia plant. So, I love the stevia
plant. They’re making actually a non-sugar sweetener substitute with this stevia plant
that’s now being sold near you in those little packets to put in your coffee. Originally,
they actually put the stevia leaves in tea to make it sweet. Actually, you can bring
your own tea, add stevia leaves and it would be sweet on its own. So, like I like to add
these to juices and add these to smoothies. And sometimes, just eat ‘em straight for
a nice rich of sweetness without the sugar, so it’s not gonna affect your blood sugar.
The one next door to it right here is another one of my favourites. It’s called the epazote
plant. And epazote is a pot herb in Mexico that’s known to actually take away the flatulence
from beans. You know, some of my friends that have like tasted it, they said it tastes like
gasoline. But, I think it’s a nice, unique flavor and each one of these herbs that have
different flavonoids and the flavor component that are actually really beneficial for us.
I’ve never actually tasted the epazote and the stevia leaf together, so it should definitely
be really fun. So, let’s see what it tastes like.. Wow, it’s a combination
I could live with. Kinda tastes like sweet gasoline. No, actually, it’s quite good.
I do like it. It’s unique ‘cos the stevia’s so sweet and the epazote you just get that
nice pungent flavor. Let me tell you, I love all herbs.
Another perennial they have here from Mexico is this guy right here. This is actually Mexican
oregano. But, this is not related to the standard oregano. I like this stuff because it actually
has a nice hot and peppery flavor to me, although it also has a reminiscence of the oregano
as well. And, once again this should be another perennial in your climate, so I like the plants
that you can literally just plant once and come out your door 365 days a year and pick
some. Now, you’re not gonna be making salads out of this stuff, but, add in a few leaves
to a salad or a juice or to a soup can definitely spice up your life with some herb.
The next thing we’re gonna look at is the aerated compost teas that they’re selling
here. You can learn more about them at the wormaholics.com. Not only do they sell one
aerated compost tea, but they sell 3 different kinds. One based on the worm castings, one
based on compost and one even based on alfalfa meal that I’ve never seen before. So, let’s
go over to ‘em and talk more about their aerated compost teas. Before we get into the
grand finale of the avocados, which is why I came here, I wanted to share this with you
guys. I mean, this is really cool. I’ve never seen a nursery – a tree nursery, a
plant nursery – that also sells not only one kind, but 3 different kinds of aerated
compost teas. So, that’s something to think about. This is something you might want to
do if you live in the Houston area. You wanna come out here and get some of these compost
aerated teas. Number 1, they got the aerated alfalfa tea. So, they say aerating the alfalfa
meal should produce some growth stimulants to make your plants grow better. Next here,
they got the Count Earl Grey’s Compost Tea, and this is your standard compost tea. In
addition, they have the Count Earl Grey’s Worm Tea made with the worm castings. So,
they’re selling the compost tea here for 5 dollars a gallon. And it looks like to me
they’re making it in a standard IBC tote that they aerate and that’s as simple as
that. So, you guys could easily make this at home. Now, one of the things I do wanna
say is that they’re using well water that’s not chlorinated here and they recommend when
you put this on your plants, right, because the main benefit of the aerated compost teas
is not the nutrients in there, it’s the microbes, silly, it’s the beneficial microbes
and bacteria in the compost tea that will then go on your soil and start breaking down
the nutrients and make them bio available for the plants. And this is called the food
soil web, and this is how nature works. So, they do not use chlorinated water, they don’t
use residential water. They use well water here, and they recommend once you put the
compost tea on your plants, don’t even water it for 2 days with your standard city water
‘cos you’ll negate the benefits of the microbes, because watering with chlorinated
water is gonna kill the microbes, man. So, that’s why if you do it, I recommend you
guys get boogie blue filter to filter out your water to remove the chlorine, so that
your microbes in your soil, whether you’re making the compost tea or whether you’re
buying it here, the microbes can flourish. So, I think it’s great that they have not
only 1, but 3 different kinds of aerated compost teas available. So, next let’s check out
those cold, hardy avocado trees that I came here for.
Now, we’re gonna talk about what I came here for and probably what you guys may be
watching this video for, is the avocados, romabajambos or we’re gonna have an avo-lanche.
No avalanche. An avo-lanche is when you’re at the store and there’s a bunch of avocados
piled up, and they start falling – it’s an avo-lanche. Get it? Alright, anyways. Now,
we’re gonna talk about avocados. Now, I’m the proud owner of one Mexicola Avocado tree.
And despite the weather getting down into the 20’s, high 20’s, upper 20’s at some
points, my avocado tree has survived. So, this year it’s actually flowering, and then
it actually frosted and it lost all the flowers. So then, it actually started re-flowering,
so maybe this year I’ll get avocados for the first time. I’ve probably had it for,
man, I don’t even know, 5, 6 years now. It hasn’t yet fruited yet. But, that’s
the fun of gardening, you never know what you’re gonna get. Now, what I’m gonna
say in this next clip about some of these varieties of avocados is information is purported.
That means that’s what has been said. Now, is this true? I don’t know, but it sounds
realistic. So, for example, the Mexicola avocado, it grows up to 18 feet, black skinned, rich
buttery flavor. And let’s talk about avocados for a second. So, there are 3 distinct kinds
of avocados that come from different parents. So, the parents could be from Mexico, and
the Mexican avocados are generally the smooth skin with high oil content. So, up to like
30% oil. That’s the rich, buttery flavor that we’re all after. Next is the West Indian
avocado, which is lower in oil and those are also really good. Next we have the ones from
Guatemala which are the lower oil content. So, the ones that are the hardiest avocados
of those 3 kinds are the Mexican avocados. After all, we are here in Texas and some of
these avocadoes may have originated, you know, the wild versions not too far from here in
Mexico, because we’re actually not too far from Mexico here. So, that’s why some of
these guys may be hardier than others. So, the Mexicola is said to be hardy down to like
in the 20s. So, this one right here, this guy, the avocado lila. Maybe it’s actually
a girl. So, this girl, avocado lila avocado, may grow up to 18 feet, green skin, rich flavor.
And, it’s hardy down to the mid to low teens. So, yeah, maybe like 15 degrees you can now
grow an avocado that’s hardy down to 15 degrees. That’s totally amazing! Now, I
do want to remind you guys this place does not ship avocado trees. So, if you want to
get one of these guys, do a search for avocado lila and find a place that ships. And hey,
post it down the video below for me and for other people to know as well. Now, unfortunately,
if you live in California, you might be out of luck because there is a thriving avocado
industry. They may not allow you to import avocado trees from other places. Next, let’s
talk about a few more avocado trees they are offering here.
Now, we’re gonna talk about 2 more avocado plants and give you some additional avocado
information. So, right here we got the pancho variety. It’s a green skin, rich buttery
flavor. Probably hardy down to the mid-teens. This one right next door is called the opal
avocado. The opal avocado is found originally from Uvolde, Texas, which is probably down
south and also hardy down to the mid-teens as well. So, I mean, that’s totally amazing
that these avocados can survive the mid-teens! Now, does that mean when it’s a young baby
like this small, you could put it out before the mid-teens and it’s just gonna survive?…probably
not. You know, that’s a full developed tree when they’re large and of course you’re
gonna want to plant these in a proper orientation. You wanna put ‘em in a nice south-facing
area so it’s gonna stay warm in the winter time when it’s needed. Plus, the first couple
years you may need to surround it with a little greenhouse, put some lights on it to keep
it warm, until it becomes more mature and established. Then, it gets more cold tolerant.
Like, for my avocado I protect it the first couple years and then right now I’m just,
like, leaving it to be, do whatever it’s gonna do if it’s not gonna make it ‘cos
it’s too cold. Then, I’m gonna lose it. Because I just don’t like babying my plants.
I have far too many things to do in life than to baby one plant, just so I can eat avocados
off my plant. I mean, unfortunately avocados are fairly inexpensive to buy, but one of
my favourites that we talked about earlier, the Mexicola, that has a black skin and it’s
an edible avocado skin. It’s so thin and black, you can eat it. And, it’s actually
quite delicious. I love eating the skin with the Mexicola flesh that’s nice and high
oil content. Man, it is so delicious. Another thing I wanna talk about avocados is besides
the temperature that they can tolerate, whether it’s the mid-teens, upper 20s, or what not,
it’s also the amount of water in the roots. The avocados are particularly susceptible
to root rot. They don’t like getting too much water. They will rot easily, so, this
is especially important if you’re in clay soil. You wanna dig like, not only a big hole
but a nice mound to plant it in. Nice, tall mound. You wanna plant it up in the top of
the mounds so it has really good drainage. So, the roots will not be sitting in water
– ‘cos they do not do well in standing water. In addition, it’s recommended that
you actually plant above the graft. All the trees here, all the avocados, are actually
grafted, and you can see they’re grafted right here. And when you plant them, they
recommend you actually plant them above the graft. So, for some reason the top half of
the tree doesn’t make it, the part below the soil that was insulated will make it and
it will regrow from above the graft, not below. Because, below the graft is a different variety
tree altogether. We were just talking about grafted avocados and where to plant the graft
underneath the ground. Now, you do not want to use like a potting mix, because that’s
going to retain too much moisture for the avocado. You want a good draining mixture
of soil that you plant the avocado in. And plus, don’t forget the rock dust. That will
really help the avocado out. Now, the last 2 varieties that we’re gonna talk about
today are the Joey variety. Now, the Joey produces a medium size, black-skinned, Mexican-style
avocado that’s hardy to the upper 20s. And then, finally we got the Fantastic. Now, the
Fantastic avocado is the most cold hardy Mexican avocado, which is what they’re saying here.
Now, is that true? I don’t know. Do they wanna sell more avocado trees because of this
kind, because it’s the most cold hardy and that’s what you need if you’re in weather
that’s maybe not totally conducive to avocado? You know, that may be true as well. I have
no idea. But this one has a thin green skin that is edible – skin and all. So I really
like this. Hopefully one of these days I’m going to get to grow one of these guys. So
the next thing I want to talk about, is you know that science project you guys might have
had as a kid and you guys still might do. You’ll take that avocado pit out of your
avocado and if you’re not blending it up in your Vitamix and drinking it, ‘cause
you could do that in the Vitamix, it’s so powerful. It’ll fracture at the avocado
pit and you could drink it for the nutrition in there. If you’re starting the seed to
grow it into a new tree, you know uh, be forewarned, that it may take six, eight plus years for
it to grow and then may or may not produce fruit for you. That’s why I encourage you
guys to just spend a little bit of money, get a tree that you know within two to four
years, these grafted trees will produce fruit and produce a good fruit with the characteristics
you want, especially if you live in a place that’s not totally conducive to growing
an avocado. Get the most cold hardy variety and try it and see what happens. The worst
that’s going to happen is you’re going to lose thirty bucks on this tree and it’s
not going to make it. The best that’s going to happen is you’ll be eating Mexican avocados
that you can eat the skin on, out of your garden, one of these days. I look forward
to the day that I pick my own avocados off my tree, because some people said it couldn’t
be done. And I always like to push the envelope. In any case. I’ve had a really fun time
here at the nursery. They’re closed up, I got to get going here. Hopefully you did
too and learned a few things about some cold, tolerant avocados. Oh! The last tip I want
to give you before I go, to get a lead, because once again, this place does not ship. Don’t
call ‘em and say, “will you ship?”. They will not ship to you. But you could call
the nursey that may have grown these avocados. It’s actually the Brazo Citrus Nursery,
here in Texas and they may ship or they may have a distributor they sell to that will
ship to you. So anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed this episode, learning more about this particular
nursery here in Houston. If you do come here, stop by and say John Kohler sent me. They’d
get a kick out of that. But in any case, I’ve had a great time here. I got to run, it’s
getting late, got to eat dinner and, uh, hope you guys enjoy this episode, learning more
about the cold, tolerant varieties of avocados. Now you can grow some avocados, even if you
don’t live in California. Once again, my name is John Kohler, with growing your greens
dot com. We’ll see you next time. And remember: keep on growing.