 Welcome to the Private Property Farming Podcast. My name is Mbali Nwokko and thank you so much for tuning into this episode. Today we're going to be talking about alternative home gardening solutions using a growing system. But before we get into our conversation today, I just want to remind you at home that we have a competition running where you can stand a chance to win your very own growing system. And all you have to do is go onto our Facebook page on the competition and comment about what type of crop you'd like to grow onto the system. And the winner will be announced in the next gardening series episode. So let's get into today's show. I'm joined by none other cast from home growers who will explain to us what a growing solution is. Kass, thank you so much for joining us. It's always great to be here and I'm glad that we can present the grow barrel. Absolutely. I'm so excited. So just explain to us what the grow barrel does. Because the grow barrel is probably the finest growing system that you can get. It's a soil based solution. So that's the one thing that people need to understand. It has an integrated worm form. Now there's some magic around there. Because what happens is the soil has to be kept in the best condition possible. And the only way you're going to do that and you can't beat nature is to use worms. So you have red wiggler worms that are inside the barrel. You feed them by taking your kitchen scraps and you put it inside the barrel. And they munch away on those scraps and they populate that in the soil with the highest possible nutrients. And the plants that are inside here benefit often from those nutrients. And the runoff, when you water this barrel, the runoff runs all the way through and it collects in the lower trough which is re-horvested. You can take it water harvesting process and basically water your vegetables again and the whole cycle continues. So it's highly nutritious. It's very effective. It's water harvesting. It's organic. There are no chemicals. You've got a worm form in there. There is, honestly in my opinion, there is nothing better than this. So just to explain on this kitchen scrap, you're saying it's anything from eggshells, teabags. You just slot them in here and where do the worms come from? Very good question and I'm glad you're asking them in that order because when we talk about kitchen scraps, we refer to everything that is not acidic. So we do not put in meat, we do not put in fish, we do not put in bones, we do not put in citrus, we do not put in onions, we do not put in bread. Some people don't and do put in banana skins. I personally don't. They decompose slowly anyway but the worm is going to break them down. Now the interesting fact about a red wiggler specifically is they are the most incredible little creatures so what they do is they can pick up the electromagnetic discharge from plants. So as soon as they feel that they can sense from the soil and the root system that the plant is no longer producing an electromagnetic charge, the red wiggler worm goes up and eats and disposes of the decaying matter and puts it back into the soil as fresh food. So that is what's remarkable. So a lot of people get squeamish and they go, oh I don't want worms in there, I don't want worms in their food source. But you will not get worms, they live beneath the soil, actually shy. You can talk and you can go around and look at this barrel and I can scratch the surface of the soil and as we scratch you'll see the little red wigglers and what will happen is they will disappear because they don't want to see you and they don't like light. So they are always in the barrel. They are remarkable. And does this barrel come in only blue? Let's say I want an orange barrel, red looking barrel. Does it come in various colours? Yes, another good question as well. The barrel comes in many colours. But we only work with two colours. We work with the blue and we work with the green and the reason being is that the blue and the green barrel are the only two barrels that are considered to be food safe barrels. In terms of, now if you understand the history where the barrel came from, in terms of America and Europe, those are the first few areas that started recycling barrels in terms of making them into farming, growing units. That's where the movement started and there are various laws around the world that govern the usage of a green and a blue barrel specifically. They are termed as single-use barrels. You can't use them more than once for transportation. Whereas the other barrels, the red, the brown, the silver, the grey and the yellow, those are used for many other substances. Has it as stuff? Absolutely. And a lot of people come here and they go, ooh, I'd like a yellow barrel, I'll put you in my garden, a red barrel. So I say to them, you must understand, when you look at colours, red and yellow are warning signs. That's telling you, keep away from me, I'm dangerous. It's like a robot. When you're going in your car and you're driving, you're heading towards the traffic light to change colours. Orange means be careful, red means stop. There's a reason for that. The same with the barrels. Barrels work exactly the same way. And the FDA, if you go read about it, in America, the Food and Drug Administration, they closely monitor and watch in terms of the shipping line, in terms of moving of single-use barrels being green and blue. So that's why we will only use green and blue to top that off. We only use brand new barrels. We don't recycle or upcycle. And the reason being is that we need to know that if we are giving you a barrel, we know that there's never been anything in it that's toxic. Absolutely. And that is very, very important. Because we're growing our own food which goes into our stomachs, you know? Yeah. So that's an empty barrel. This is one that's like fully kitted with crops already growing. Yeah, it looks so stunning because I can already see different type of vegetables here. So just explain what this barrel has. And yeah, and also the soil, I suppose it's potting soil as well, right? So what we do is we do a mix, again, only on organic. Okay. We do a mix of potting, mix, and composting. And by turning it up into a mix before we feed it into the barrel, the reason why we're using composting is because that is a beautiful blend for those red wigglers to eat as well. So once you've thrown the soil in, et cetera, those guys are eating already. Okay. And they're creating beautiful, future nutrients for your soil system. And also what you need to understand is when you populate your barrel for the first time with soil, gravity also plays an effect. Okay. So as you've loaded it, it's very full. Yes. And after a few weeks you see that the soil is actually dropping. And that's only because gravity is pulling it down. So you have to top up as well, that you've got to do. Okay. So in terms of the varieties that we've got here, I mean, we've got different types of mints. Yes. We've got different basils. We've got varieties of it. We've got lettuces. We've got spinach. We've got blood sorrel. We've got a whole host. Incredible, incredible herbs and vegetables. And they honestly just carry on growing. They really and truly do. What we're still going to do, this particular one, and as many others that we have at Home Growers, we're going to get them ready for season. Okay. You're not so soon. You're going to get egg plants. You're going to get everything. You're going to see an explosion of color. And you're not going to see the blue. Now the one thing in my house, I've got a blue barrel. And people say to me when they come in and say, no, I don't want blue. I want green. So I said, you know, I'll be honest with you. My first choice is a blue barrel. And I'll tell you why I like blue. Okay. Because when the green is green, there's a contrast. And it stands out. So you see this explosion of absolute beautiful greenery. Now if it was green on green, you don't really see the green. Which is also very special. So, but it's a really remarkable, remarkable system. So this one here, we might be lucky to show you. I don't know if you will. As I lift this open, we might be able to see some worms. There's a baby worm that's in there. Okay. But you're not really going to see it too well. They're probably just sleeping. But they're crawled up. They'll come back later. As we throw food in, they'll land up coming through. Yeah. They'll land up harvesting the food, putting it back into the food source. And they are happy. So a couple of questions, right? You said the grow barrel takes soil, right? Right. How many bags of soil or compost would one need to fill up? And when you're filling up the bags, is there a waiting period before you start planting? Okay. So when we set up the grow barrel, we take it as an empty unit. Yeah. We remove the cap. Okay. Take newspaper, but the non-glossy newspaper. Okay. You make little balls out of the newspaper. And we shove it into the top of the barrel. Till it's full. Correct. We'll close to full. Okay. And then, only then, Yes, I can see that. And those are the exit points for the worms so you get in and out into the soil baseline. So when we pour soil in here, we don't want the park to fill up. And the reason being is we want ease of passage, ease of passage for those little worms to get around. Yeah. So that's why. But they'll manage the way. They love newspapers. They really do. So we then pour in the soils of the mix that we do. And we're talking around about nine bags of potting mix or potting mixture composting mix solution. Okay. And we just pour it in. Okay. And that is it. So you pour it till it's full to the brim. That's right. There's newspaper in here. That's right. And then what happens? And then once it's all settled, we then start the process of putting in our seedling plugs. Okay. So we end up putting seedlings in every one of these pockets. And that naturally starts taking effect. The other thing which is beautiful about the barrel, which is really special, because it's 365 degrees as a complete circle is, you're getting different degrees of heat that hit the barrel at different times of the day. So a lot of people say, but what happens if I get more shade or less shade? It doesn't really make a difference, because the barrel itself has got different facets of where the light hits it. So you can take this one here and you put your hand there. It's cool. Yes, it is cool. But if I go to the side there and you'll find that that is warm. Actually, it is. That's right. So what happens is you get a buildup of this magnificent moisture inside the barrel. The root systems grow towards it. And that's why a certain veg will grow so much better at different parts of the barrel. And the root systems find it. Nature's magnificent. We can't teach nature anything. Nature will teach us. Just like the worms look after this entire system. Same with the way the roots grow. It is the most remarkable. You'll find that we have mint growing, but the mint was never planted in a pocket, but it was planted on that side. And the rooting system found out where to go because the conditions were perfect and all of a sudden you have this magnificent growth. The beauty of nature. It is absolutely spectacular. And the one thing which you would also notice which you can see and you can sense it where you weren't on camera, unfortunately, and in exposure is the scent. You just rub the leaves and you get this magnificent scent that you get off there. The aroma is absolutely incredible. What you also have, you have a brilliant, brilliant ecosystem right before your eyes. You'll get your predator insects that will come and eat the insects that cause damage to your plants. So, for example, if we've got a fennel, a fennel will grow, the ladybugs will rock up and they will end up feasting on the aphids and the cycle continues. The whole thing about this beautiful system again is when I push and talk around anything about home growing, keep as far away as you can from chemicals and toxins in terms of pesticides. Try and let nature do what nature does best. And nature is working well here. There's no growth hormones in here. There's no chemicals in here. You're not going to get anything better anywhere else than what you have here. You take this and you rub your hands to it and you smell your hands, the oils, the essential oils that come out of there. I mean, the aromatherapy that one will derive from oils coming from what you've got in a grow barrel is remarkable. So, I just want to find out how do you maintain the plants? Firstly, I can see we've got a very lovely looking stand here and with some sprinklers so I suppose this is for watering. However, can one use a watering can or when we purchase the growing barrel does it come with this? Just explain to us how we give it some water. Okay, so the grow barrel doesn't come with a watering system such as this. Okay. This was one of, and again, with home growers we have such a great movement of customers who come and see us. This was made by one of our customers because he has a grow barrel, he loves his grow barrel, and he went and made this for us that we can put on display. And you plug your host pup in it and it's got all the spray jets and it basically sprays your barrel. For a grow barrel you don't need such an instrument. You take your water from a watering can or a host pup and your water, and I'll show you on the empty one because it's easier, just water around the sides. It's all you do, you water around the sides with a sprayer and spray the pockets. Because remember the water is going to pull down anyway. So spraying there is just really going to cool the leaves off, but in terms of the nutrients and the hydration and so on, it's going to come from the top. And then you put a bucket on the ground which comes with it and it's full, full, full of nutrients. You pull it out and you pour it back in. Ah, so you recycle the water. Correct. There's total usage of water, recycling, there's harvesting of water. That's why, you know, where we don't have, we've got issues with water supply and so on, this is your solution. So where do you keep the growing barrel? Is it on the patio or do you just have to put it outside in full sunlight like this? It really doesn't make a difference. We've got barrels on property which you've seen before where it's in mostly shade and performs incredibly well. You've got some that are in direct sunshine that perform incredibly well. So it really doesn't make a difference because like I said, it's a 360-degree system. It's not going to be in some the entire day. Because you get a canopy, as you can see, you've got a beautiful canopy that grows. So what happens is you've got all these that are getting shade. So even if it's in direct sun, these guys that are doing incredibly well, they are providing essential shade to those that need the shade. Wow. So it's a very, very simple and a very effective system to harvest and grow your own vegetables at home. So this is what the solution offers you. And still on the crops maybe then. Let's say now I am finished. I've plucked so many spinach leaves and I'm tired of spinach now. I want to maybe grow lettuce. What happens? Do I just remove the spinach plant and then put in the lettuce? Or do we have to change the whole system in terms of the soil once again? How often do we have to reuse the soil before we could put in another plant inside? In terms of changing soil, there's no need for that. There's no need to top it, but there's no need to change because as long as your worm farm is healthy, then there's no need to change because they're keeping it. It's like if I look anywhere around and you're looking your gardens or whatever, how often you're digging pools out of soil and putting new soil in the water? Not quite often. Because the soil is natural and it's perfect. This is the same system. It doesn't make a difference. So the thinking is identically the same. You've got an ecosystem here. So those are going to be plucked out and put new seedlings in. For example, if I take... I haven't got celery in the front here, but the side I don't have on this one either, but let's say, for example, if one was going to harvest, you would either cut with your scissor or with your break wolf and you would have your fresh, fresh veg that you would get. Now leaves get about that size and you've got to see the leaves in them. Full growth and you harvest but if you're going to start fresh, chop this out, take a little garden fork, stick it in and remove it and start again. So now we're going to take this piece and feed it to our little friends because let them also do something. I can help you there. Let's open it up and we just pop that in and nothing must ever get wasted. Nothing must ever get wasted. Straight in there, even if you've got dead, dying leaves, like you've got this one here, so we'll pluck a few off, so in there it will decompose. That suits beautifully, it goes back in. So is it safe to say that during the day the worms come out, they fertilize the soil in this whole entire ecosystem and then they go back into their house? When they're hungry they go back up and they eat and then they go back in. If I had to brush away some of the soil now, we will actually see little red wigglers running around. They'll be everywhere. If I scratch around here, we'll find it. This thing has got, and the nice thing about it, they don't overpopulate, and the worms will be healthy enough for what the barrel can sustain and what food source is available. So that's the other upside with regards to the colony of the red wiggler worms that you have. What I like about this grain barrel, it's quite steady. The fact that we've got the sand in here, we've got the various plants in here, but it's still quite steady. I'm sure you can withstand very strong winds as well. This is fantastic. This is what we talk about in general space, vertically. And again, using no pesticides or insecticides, nothing goes to waste in here. Yellow leaves, we pluck them back into the house, and the worms come back. Absolutely. The magnificent thing about this grain barrel again is there's 67 varieties of vegetables you can grow vegetables or herbs. The top we would always try and keep are the leafy, bigger bushes. So ideally like your big tomatoes are the top fennel. So you get this beautiful canopy, beautiful big growth coming out of the top. That's what you want to do. And the smaller tops, because your spinach is not necessarily small. The leaves here that size, spring onions, your celery leaves are huge. So you have all this available, which is magnificent. We've got cabbages growing in season where the heads of the cabbage are like soccer balls out of a pocket. We've done on that side where you saw earlier your onions go into the top, because once an onion grows, and it will grow successfully in there, but you'll never get it out. So onions that you don't want to put in there, beetroot you don't want to put in here, you want to put it into the top. Anything that is a root system that you want to pluck out or even the top not into a pocket because you will not get it out of the pocket. But it's a great system. And I think just like once again it's coming into home grows, you've got all the growing medium, the seedlings as well that you want to farm, and you're good to go. Absolutely. How often would one need to water the growing barrel? So that's a question that people ask all the time, and I always say use the finger test, just stick your finger in the soil, and if it's moist and damp then it's fine. And again like you felt earlier, the temperature. Remember the humidity and the condensation that you're getting inside the barrel from the shift of temperature is creating its own condensation and moisture inside the barrel. So it's never going to be dry, dry, dry, dry, dry, dry. And you'll see that even always going to be moisture inside there. And it's just one of those fantastic things. I just saw this now whilst we were talking and I want to point this out to you. So this is an eggplant. And for season it obviously leaves now. So now this is coming back to life and we're going to have eggplant coming out quite soon. So that's amazing. That's some lost season. This is amazing Cass. Sure. I'm just so surprised at how easy and efficient it looks like. It doesn't take a lot of space. But yet you said 67 varieties that could be grown. 67 varieties in less than one square meter. In less than one square meter. Now you think about it. I mean a person doesn't even have to take a measuring tape. Just close your eyes and just imagine. If you had to take and you had to plant out in your garden or whatever it was and you had to put out 67 and you put out one like pace of step at a time. What kind of space are you using for 67 varieties? A couple of meters I could tell you. And the other side is how much work? How much work does it take to keep 67 and veg healthy? You might as well be watering a pot plant. You've got to form with the whole energy and effort of a pot plant. With one person. That is what's amazing. This is beautiful. Cass this is fantastic. Thank you so much for coming on to the show today and explaining this growing barrel. We've got a competition running so I'm sure people will just start engaging because now they could physically see that you know we have spinach we have various different lovely looking crops here that could be grown with ease simple minimal maintenance rather and you water it based on how humid the soil is. That's right. And I think what I'd like to do is as we start having future episodes and that down in the line let's get feedback from viewers and let them say they'd like to see tomatoes growing and we'll take the challenge we'll put tomatoes in and then we'll every time to time we'll give them a snapshot and say look how well these guys are growing. So it would be part of the journey. Yeah and as opposed to the person that wins it would also be nice if they could share their story of the different crops and varieties that they've been planting. Thank you so much Cass for your time today it was phenomenal having you. Absolutely brilliant thank you. Thank you so much for watching this segment of the gardening series. As you've heard from Cass this is the growing barrel that can grow 67 different varieties and you just only need one person to manage it water it as and when it needs to by testing the humidity of the soil and come on to Home Growers because they'll show you how to set up this entire system with the growing medium the potting soil how we're going to get the plants inside and how the worms really work and regenerate the soil that exists inside and you could grow it outside in your home garden or underneath the patch or whichever space you decide to put it in. Trust me this growing barrel will give you food for a year's supply. So a reminder to just please enter the competition that we have running because you could win yourself a growing barrel right here from Home Growers and they will provide you with all the assistance that you need to just get this growing barrel set up and successfully growing your own vegetables in your own home. Thank you so much for watching this show and tune in for our next episode coming on next week. Thank you so much.