How this Organic Farm Beat the Odds & Grows Vegetables in the Desert

Alright, this is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com, today we have another exciting episode for you. I'm here in the middle of the desert, like literally in Pahrump, Nevada, and this is what basically it looks like, like the desert, although this is not all the sand, actually it could be pretty more like clay soil out here. But anyways, this is a very interesting episode, guys. Today is one of the hottest days of the year here in the desert of Nevada, actually not too far from the California-Nevada border. I could just go down in the subdivision and maybe even just like cruise into California like it's the desert, there's nothing there. But this is the desert, and I want to show you guys how this one farm called Begonia Farms here in Pahrump, Nevada is growing food in the desert. I just got out of sitting in my car and drinking some juice and under the air conditioning, and my car registered that it's 109 degrees outside here today. And this is not just like one or two days, guys, like it's all summer long is over 100 degrees, you know, two months straight basically. Okay, so I want to let you guys know that, you know, this farm defies the odds and grows vegetables here in the desert. Yes, some are in, you know, structures, greenhouses that are cooled, but a lot of it is just in the fields. You know, I want to let you guys know that plants are quite tolerant if you give them the right growing conditions, and you could literally grow food anywhere. And especially if you guys live in Las Vegas, you will want to be aware of Begonia Farms, because actually they will deliver the food they grew here to you in Las Vegas for actually just five bucks, which is amazing to me. You could also come to this farm, arrange in advance to see when they're going to be here, and they may even just give you a tour and you could buy the produce fresh here at the farm at their farm stand that I'll be showing you guys in a little bit. They also sell their produce at the Farmer's Market, which is on Saturdays at the Tractor Supply Store, and they also have a place in Vegas that they sell to that will sell it in Vegas at Farmer's Market. But I always encourage you guys to come direct to the farm for the best prices, you know, and get some of their precious crops as well. So yeah, this is what it looks like in the desert, it's pretty barren out here, but you know this property, let's go ahead and spin around and share it with you guys. Alright so this is Begonia Farms, they have a few different high tunnels that they have under cooling with water walls to keep it cool. This property is a nine acre property, and currently about approximately half of that is under cultivation, and only a little bit is actually in the cool tunnels, most of it is actually just in the field. They also have chickens of course, and can provide you guys eggs, but the most amazing thing I'm amazed about is that all the different wide variety of crops that they are growing here in the desert in an excess of 100 degree weather, right. With no shade protection, right, that's the amazing thing is, right, if you water the plants enough, and we'll talk about watering, very important element, right, the plants could survive the harsh outside conditions. Anyways, let's head into Begonia Farms and share with you guys how they grow the food here in the middle of the desert. Alright so here we are in the middle of the desert, you guys can see way down there they basically just have empty, like, it looks like sand, but just desert that is unfarmed, and then over in this area they have it farmed. So this farm was not originally a vegetable farm growing food, it was actually originally a hemp farm, because back in the day a lot of hemp was grown here in Pahrump, and there was a lot of good money in it, but then after it got legalized, then hemp was grown all over, and it basically, the bottom fell out, and then it was no longer profitable. So that's what they started this property as, they, after a few years, they stopped doing the hemp, and they were like, well hey, let's continue to farm this land, and grow some vegetables, and grow vegetables, so like the lady was in the construction business for like 25 years, she retired from that, and then now she comes every day to grow vegetables, and just, she hopes that she's going to make enough money to pay her electricity bill, to basically keep the, the, um, hothouse structures, like, cooled, with the walls, and all the electricity they use here on the property, basically to keep some, but not all of the crops cool. Of course they got to run the pumps, and of course here, they have a well, and have I think 16 acre feet of water to use a year, which they don't use, um, you know, all of it at this point, they still have probably ways to go, but they are able to grow a good amount of food here in the desert, you guys can see, I mean, this is just outside, and they got things like squash, and watermelons, and cantaloupes, and eggplants, and okra, they even have areas, nice areas with grass growing as well, they've experimented with like grass around it, which was an interesting concept, which they don't recommend, but anyways, what I want to do in this episode is I want to go ahead and take you guys around the farm, and show you guys how they are growing some of the plants, and more specifically, you know, the techniques they're using to make it all happen, whether you guys are trying to grow a little garden in Vegas, or whether you guys are wondering about sustainability of growing food in the desert, how does it all work, well, that's what this video's for, so let's come along and check out the melon patch, alright, so as you guys can see, we're here in the melon patch, and this is the area of the watermelons, which is their second best growing melon here, and some of the challenges the watermelons are experiencing is that they are cracking due to all the heat, you know, so these ones, two are cracked open, but they have plenty more that are uncracked, and so you can see, I mean, the watermelon plant, it's a desert plant, it'll grow really good here, it doesn't need a lot of water, I mean, that's what the watermelon basically collects, all the water, so it has moisture in there for all the seeds, and actually they have all seeded watermelons here, and so, I mean, it's really hard to find seeded watermelons these days, and these are truly sun-ripened in the field, they don't harvest them until they're completely ripe, here's one right here, I could tap on, it's sounding really nice and ready to go, but yeah, watermelons, an amazing crop that will grow great here in the desert. Alright, so even better than watermelons, a crop that does really good, and actually will even just come up as a volunteer in random spots, and then they'll have all these melons growing are the cantaloupes and other kind of musk melons here. These have gone really well for them, and you know, when we were walking around on a tour a little bit earlier that I took, you know, she was like, oh, this is ripe, and she'd just basically pop it off, and it actually was vine-ripened, because it literally fell off the vine, unlike the cantaloupes you guys buy at the grocery store, where you just, they just pluck them off too early, and then they're never that sweet, right? These are fully sun-ripened, some of the best melons you have, I had some yellow watermelon earlier, it was actually quite delicious, but yeah, if you guys live in the desert, you definitely want to focus on something like the cantaloupes, or the watermelons, because they can easily handle the heat, provided they're watered appropriately, you know, during these heat waves, since it's been over 100 degrees, they basically do a nice deep water in the morning, and then maybe throughout the day, they'll water for, I don't know, 10, 15, 20 minutes, for like, during 4 times spaced out during the day, so as the plants basically transpire, it's like us perspiring, you know, we won't just drink a gallon of water in the morning, and then just not drink water the rest of the day, like, I'm out here in the sun, I drank a quart of juice before I started this video, and when I'm done with this video, because I'm perspiring, I'm going to drink another quart of juice, and that's what they do with the plants here, they'll water them several times throughout the day, 4 times, you know, spaced out, so that the plants never fully dehydrate, and you know, lose their lives, and so that's a very important concept I want you guys to remember, especially when you, you know, start out the plants early in the season, you want to start trying to water them infrequently and deep, but in the middle of the heat, don't be afraid to just, you know, water, you know, deep in the morning, but yeah, during the day, just give them a little bit of hit of water, so that they can cool themselves off like we would. Alright, so another crop that grow here quite successfully are all the squashes, they can be quite productive, but the challenge they've had, yes, here in the desert, they also have the squash bugs, and they will basically spray organic sprays on the squash bugs that generally aren't too effective, but even though they have squash bugs, right, they still got squash growing, so we're just going to go here, and they really like to grow the patty pan squash, so here's a nice patty pan squash, despite the squash bugs here in the field, they're still growing lots of squashes, squashes are quite productive, and I want to encourage you guys to eat more squash, right, I love to just use a spiralizer to basically make like zucchini noodles out of squash, and you don't even need to cook it, it's definitely a healthier alternative than eating like standard spaghetti, so yeah, squash grows great in the heat of the desert, 109 degrees today here. Alright, so here's an interesting area of the farm that they did as an experiment, which was kind of like a failed experiment, they basically put in grass, so they basically have their rows in between the grass, and the grass, they can run their mower in between them, and they're like, this will be good, because it will keep down some of the other weeds, they have some really invasive weeds here that grow on the farm, that send down these really like nutsedge-like tubers that are super big, that go down 4 feet, and so they figure like, if we plant grass, we won't have that other, you know, weed growing up, which actually did work, but now the issue is they have like a lot of grass, I don't know, definitely could kind of conserve water, but also use water, pros and cons, the result was that they probably wouldn't do this again, but nonetheless, they have rows, if you look carefully, in between the grass, of things like beets, radishes, and carrots, which to my surprise are all growing well here, in the desert, in excess of 100 degrees, so I'm going to show you guys some of the beets they're growing right now. Alright, so two of the best crops she grows here, believe it or not, here in the middle of the desert, are the beets, which I have here, and then maybe a couple of aisles over are the carrots, which we dug up a few a little bit earlier, but she says those are some of her best crops, and of course, she starts from seed, and it's amazing to me that these beets here have just so little tops on here, but then the beets are so huge, so like, let's just go ahead and pull one up, they're literally just sticking out of the ground here, look at that, these beet tops aren't even that big, and then the beet roots, down to the bottom, look at that, they're huge, she loves to make pickled beets, of course, you could cook beets, you could eat them raw, you could juice them, beets are amazing food, and to learn that they grow really easy for her in the desert, it's just simply amazing, so yeah, if you guys are looking for locally grown beets, she's definitely got them. Alright, so this is another area of the garden that I want to show you guys, there's a nice grassy area, because they got dogs and whatnot, but behind it, they got basically rows, and this is their second year growing the artichokes, which are actually making some really nice artichokes, still, even here in July, right, with all the heat, they're still producing, trimming them back really nice, beyond that, they got some tomatoes, outdoor grown tomatoes that aren't doing the best, and then they got things like the eggplant and okra, growing really well as basil, as well as some other vegetables, so I want to go ahead and take you guys back in this area and share with you guys the easiest crops that you'll be successful at growing here in the desert, that just grows the best for them, with the least amount of care. So the first crop I want to highlight for you guys, and I want you guys to grow, and it may not be a common vegetable that a lot of you guys eat, but if you guys live in the desert, you guys should be eating it, because it grows so well, and it grows so easy. You know, one of the things I want to encourage you guys to do is grow the things that are easy, yeah, she's got tomatoes, they're definitely struggling, she's got some for sure, but you know, the plants right here, the okra plants are not struggling. So you know, hey, buy your tomatoes from the farm here, that they can specialize in growing tomatoes and doing it properly, maybe like indoors in cooled houses, and grow your own okra because it'll easily handle the weather outside. Okra's been, you know, probably the number one crop that's doing the best in my garden this year, personally, I've grown it many years, of course, but you guys can see their okra here, the problem with the okra is that it grows so dang on fast, they got to harvest it every day or they get too, you know, fibrous to eat, but they're just constantly flowering, look at this, this is like a whole cluster of okra that has not even sprouted out yet, makes so many okras. So you know, there are crops that'll grow easier or more difficult, it depends on how much time you want to spend in the garden. When they plant okra, the main time they have to spend with this is harvesting it with tomatoes, they got to deal with bugs and all kinds of other issues, right. So yeah, grow is easy, actually next door we have another row that just grows really easy and is quite fruitful and productive as well. Next up I want to show you guys the eggplant, yes, the eggplant's another Solanaceae family plant related to tomatoes that usually are the shining star, because everybody wants tomatoes and then maybe everybody wants peppers which also can grow well here, we'll show you guys the peppers here, but the eggplants are just going gangbusters, I mean look, here's an eggplant here, eggplant here, baby eggplant here, there's a flower here, another fruit here, there's just so many different eggplants, she has four different kinds of eggplants, my favorite of course are something like the Japanese, the thinner style eggplants, they cook a little bit easier than these big fat huge ones, and I want you guys to get a taste for eggplants and learn to work them into whatever you're cooking, right. I think that we need to modify our diets to our climates and where we live versus the other way around and the whole industry is basically providing you all different kinds of fruits and vegetables all year long when we really want to try to focus on eating a good percentage of locally grown food that are in season, right. So yeah, I get to appreciate eggplants, I mean for many years I resisted growing eggplants, I don't like eggplants, I don't know how to eat them, all this kind of stuff, and now that I'm growing them I'm like man I love eggplants, I love to just pressure steam them, link down below my video on how to cook eggplants in the Instant Pot, I don't know, super quick, super easy, and they're super delicious at the same time, and of course they grow really easily here in the desert as well. The next crop I want to encourage you guys to grow in the desert is basil, they got some standard Italian basil over here, but even doing a lot better than the Italian basil is the cinnamon basil, if you guys look very closely there's lots of bees that are seeking the pollen to the cinnamon basil. Basil is another no-brainer crop that you guys should be growing in the desert, or if you guys want to buy good quality basil, like basil is not a product that ships really well, if you guys have been disappointed by buying basil at the store because it wilts, it's often black and there's no flavor to it, hey, grow it yourself or support the farm here and get some fresh basil picked right for you, delivered that's going to have flavors that are literally out of this world, they're going to be so strong and tasty because the heat creates basically the plant to create more of the flavors of the basil so that it can protect itself from the stress of the elements, but also you're going to get much stronger flavored basil than you've ever tasted before. Of course this year my favorite basil to grow has been my Thai basil that has a nice licorice flavor for me, I'll even add it to my watermelon juice, I like watermelon juice with the Thai basil, it tastes amazing. So one unexpected plant that has just grown really good for her here that I'm quite surprised and even here in the middle of July, 109 degrees, it's probably 110 by now, are the onions, I mean some of these onions are huge, they're like bigger than my fist, they're super large, super huge and they've been just growing quite nice and easy for her as well, she was like it amazes me truly the diversity of the different crops she's grown here and she can provide to the local area so that you guys can eat more local and fresh food. So another Solanaceae crop that does a lot better than tomatoes are the peppers, she grows a lot of the smaller style peppers outdoors without any protection, you guys can see they're growing really nice, lots of peppers on there to harvest, she also grows larger bell peppers like more protected inside, a little bit cooler weather that is just going off like crazy, but yeah I encourage you guys to grow more peppers instead of tomatoes, you will definitely be more successful, my favorite peppers that are sweet to grow in the desert are the sweet banana peppers, they've always been a constant good producer for me. One of the things she grows a lot of are the tomatoes because here's the thing, like gardening in the desert is like gambling in Las Vegas, right, sometimes you win, maybe not too much you win, and a lot of times you lose, so when you plant tomatoes, right, it's definitely, you're not going to win as much as if you plant okra or eggplant, right, you're more guaranteed to hit a winner and actually have production and grow food when you're growing something that's going to be more stable for you guys, right. So tomatoes, she definitely grows tomatoes, she has a lot outdoor, a lot undercover that grow a little bit better in some cases, but in the sun and the heat if you're not watering enough, if your soil is not healthy enough, then they could, you know, the plants could dry out, they could always get some pest pressures or stress, so that's why I prefer other Solanaceae family plants such as the eggplant and even peppers over the tomatoes, but of course because she plants so many tomatoes, she's going to have a good percentage of them that produce so she still will be able to meet the local demands of people who want fresh grown tomatoes throughout the summer. Another common grown summer crop are the cucumbers, and the cucumbers can have challenges here in the desert, especially when it gets above 100 degrees. Here she has some lemon cucumbers that still have some, you know, cucumbers on the vine, let's go ahead and pluck one off for you guys and show you guys what they look like. These are some of my favorite cucumbers, the lemon cucumbers, they look a little bit different. Now these are not necessarily the most heat tolerant cucumbers out there, I would recommend you guys plant like Armenian cucumbers or striped Armenian cucumbers, they do a lot better and there are other heat tolerant cucumbers that you guys could buy, there's a cool shop called the cucumber.shop I believe is the website, and they sell lots of different cucumbers from some of the most, you know, desert climates and heirloom cucumbers that will grow great in the desert. I hope that they are able to literally spread their seeds out more and more people are able to get some of these more rare varieties of cucumbers that will do good, better in extreme climates than the standard market more, or even lemons that she has had some challenges with growing. Alright, so while they do grow a lot of things outside and under direct sun with no shade protection, they also have some climate controlled hoop houses with basically fans and water walls that help keep it more humid and cooler inside, it's probably like maybe 20 degrees maybe cooler inside than outside, so actually let's head inside one of them and show you guys around. So this is what it looks like inside the high tunnel, it's probably a bit loud because the fans which are basically just like from Home Depot, but they got lots of things growing, they got like a lot of tomatoes that look a lot healthier than the outside as well as even carrots growing inside as well as peppers and maybe even some leafy greens as well, so let's go ahead and give you guys a hand cam shot and show you guys around. Alright, so first over on this side they have some peppers and these are just standard bell peppers, you know the bell peppers have not been good for me to grow outside in the desert, I think it's just the bell peppers have been hybridized and bred to be super huge and big and the plants are not that resilient, but if you guys look here in the cooler temperatures, a little bit more humid areas, you guys can see her bell peppers are just going off, there are so many bell peppers forming, they're so heavy that the plants are even tipping over, I've never seen this productive bell peppers in the desert anywhere, so yeah just the simple thing of putting up a structure and growing them in its structure is absolutely insane, I mean look at this plant guys, this plant is loaded with all these bell peppers, they're going to be soon ripening up, this is amazing that she's able to grow all these peppers in the desert, also she's been experimenting with turmeric right, this is some of the healthiest turmeric I've ever seen anywhere, yes I've been to Hawaii and Florida and the Caribbean where they grow turmeric, but she has one patch of turmeric here in the desert of course, this is with water walls running in the background with fans, so it's keeping it nice and cool and this turmeric is just looking amazing, she's not selling the turmeric, she's kind of like more experimenting to see how it's going to do, but that could be a really good future revenue source for her, in my opinion I'd fill this whole greenhouse up with turmeric if it was me, because turmeric sells for, like at Whole Foods for 15-20 dollars a pound for organic turmeric, of course she's also growing the ginger, I probably wouldn't mess with the ginger because the ginger could be imported and is relatively inexpensive, although that's been growing good for her too, but the turmeric to me is impressive, these plants look amazing and I'm sure they're making lots of rhizomes to eat, over here of course next to the water wall where it's nice and cool, the fans are running, basically this is like evaporative cooling at it's finest right there, she's got some watermelons going out to some people later, but she's also got some Paris Island romaine lettuce growing here in the desert, totally amazing, she actually has lettuce that's actually heading on up, she had a lot more lettuce here but she had to pull it out due to some bug challenges, but yeah she's able to grow some lettuce, she has a little bit of storage here, she makes like sweet potato slips, that's also been growing well for her in the desert, as well as starting different plants inside, let's walk down over to this area where there's like this little arch trellis thing, we could walk under where all the cherry tomatoes are growing, and then she's also got bok choy growing here in the desert, I mean this is definitely a cooler house, but look at that, nice big huge bok choy, I mean bok choy to me is like a winter crop, I grow it in the winter, harvest it, it starts to bolt really quick, but she's even successful at growing it here in the summertime of course, as we're walking underneath this arch trellis you guys can see, she's got lots of different kinds of cherry tomatoes right here, let's go ahead and try one here, nice orange cherry tomato, that's good, let's go ahead and try a red one, she's even got yellow pears, I really love how this is like underneath an arch, and all the tomatoes could basically hang down, and she could harvest them, she's also got some beans growing up as well, it doesn't look like they're quite in production yet. Now we're in the second of the high tunnels, and like just putting up a high tunnel, putting in some fans and a water wall, what a big difference it could make by dropping the temperature about 20 degrees from outside, as well as creating more humidity, she's basically trellising her tomatoes up, which could take a lot of work, but these tomatoes actually look quite healthy, and they're just loaded with tomatoes on here, she's also got things like the marigold to prevent the bugs, as well as the basil interplanted in there, as well as lots of nice kale, wow, so like she has some dinosaur kale out in the field which is kind of marginally growing and staying alive, but the kale inside here, the curly kale is looking absolutely amazing, I want to go ahead and give you guys a hand-camped shot inside this second high tunnel. Alright guys, so check this out, the tomatoes outdoors didn't look so good, but inside here where she just has it to reduce some of the sunlight, have it a little bit cooler, a little bit more humid in here, these tomatoes are really loving this weather, so if you guys want to grow tomatoes in the desert, you know, hey, set up a greenhouse or a high tunnel with a cooler wall, and it's going to be, plants are going to be a lot healthier, they're going to produce a lot more, and ripen more tomatoes up for you guys. Of course behind that, look at this nice kale here, man that's some really nice desert grown kale here, in the middle of July, these leaves are nice and huge, nice ruffled leaves, these would make some great kale chips, looking really healthy. Now they will probably taste a bit stronger than winter grown kale, it tends to be a bit more sweet, but you guys can see she has lots of kale growing as an understory of the tomato plants. Alright, so now we're in the last high tunnel where she has a lot more tomatoes, like she really has lots of tomatoes, there's some tomatoes planted outside, but most of her tomatoes are planted undercover, I mean there's hothouse growing tomatoes, you guys could buy a Costco or what not, but it's amazing how many tomatoes she's growing and how much healthier they're doing, comparing them from just growing inside to outside, by modifying the climate, creating a microclimate here, literally in the middle of the desert with the structure, and some cooler walls using the basically swamp cooling technique and some fans to drop the temperature down, the tomatoes are much, much healthier and a lot more productive. Of course I also want to highlight and encourage her to grow underneath the tomatoes, so while the tomatoes would be trellised up, there's a lot of ground space that she could be getting in other crops, sometimes she has some edible flowers, nasturtiums or marigolds underneath there, or basil for the pests, underneath here she has a lot of different bunching onions, but I think there's really a lot of value in the soil that's not being grown in underneath the tomatoes, I'm trying to find a viable crop to grow underneath it, so you can basically grow more crops in this same climate controlled space, I think the climate controlled space here and having the high tunnels are really a big advantage, and I'd like to see her utilise this more to grow more crops that she couldn't otherwise grow outside that could help her business and her farming business stay sustainable and maybe even make a little bit of money. So I think the last thing I want to do, we're going to go ahead and interview her, the farmer, and learn why she started this farm and share some of her experiences growing food here in the middle of the desert. Alright, so now the pleasure of bringing you guys Leah Bales, the owner, operator, founder of Begonia Farms here in Pahrump, Nevada, so I want to ask her some questions today, so Leah, why did you get the idea to farm literally in the middle of the desert? Well, I guess it was craziness basically, yeah, just started out doing a different crop and that one didn't work well, so we switched and went to vegetables. So what has been your biggest challenge growing vegetables literally in the middle of the Mojave Desert? The biggest challenge is the heat, and since we grow organically, trying to keep the bugs our crops. Yeah, so I mean, the heat, I'm so impressed on what you've been able to do here in the middle of the desert, like it's 109, maybe 110 now, and it was like 115 yesterday, yeah super hot, and like all your crops, I mean yeah, there's a few things that burned up that's bound to happen, because once again, you know, gardening or farming in the desert is like gambling in Las Vegas, right, but you have better chances of winning at growing food and succeeding than gambling in Vegas, because you will lose your money. So yeah, she has a few things that didn't make it, and that's alright, but you just plant more, and then you have more winners, you have more plants that are productive for you guys, and you know, you've got to get on the right watering schedule, so let's talk about that, because you know, without water, none of this would be here, we're sitting on a nice lawn area right now, that would just, the sprinklers just came on, so why don't you show everybody your watering secrets to make your farm happen? Our watering secrets are that we purchased water rights here in Pahrump, and we do right now, because it's so hot, we water like four times a day, about 20 minutes each time, we use drip tape on most of the stuff, we do have a couple of fields that we have sprinklers in, but that's just because we have like the grass, and really, the grass is beautiful, but the ultimate purpose of the grass is to enrich the soil, and eventually turn it all in, and grow in those areas where we do have the grass. Wonderful, great, and then so, what crops have been growing really well for you with the least amount of management and care, so like, you know, there's a gardener in Vegas who works all day, he can't, I mean, you're out here every day almost, like, doing something, pulling weeds, doing this, doing that, and I know, personally, from my experience, some crops are more what I call high maintenance, like a high maintenance girlfriend or boyfriend, right? And so what are the least maintenance crops that somebody could just grow and kind of almost, like, almost walk away from, yes, you still need to do some tender loving care to some plants? The A number one best plant are the zucchinis. Zucchinis? They just grow, they just grow. If you can keep the bugs off of them, you will, one plant can take you through the whole summer, you know, one person. You got a couple of people in your family, grow two plants, you know, and they just grow fantastically. So, I did see some squash bugs out here, because I hadn't seen squash bugs in forever, and I'd go to, like, look at a zucchini, and I'm like, oh, there's these little ass spiders, they look gross, because of the little babies, like, so what do you do for the squash bugs, and do they affect or kill your plants, or what happens? Mostly what we do is we use, like, Dawn dish soap on them, very diluted Dawn dish soap, which will kill most of them. Sometimes I go out and I shake the plant, and then I just step on all the little bugs, but mostly, if I have a plant that is being destroyed by them, I just keep that plant there, in hopes that they won't go to the other ones, and I plant more plants. Ah, so once again, it's a numbers game, like a lot of things in life, like, whether you're single guy and you're dating, the more girls you ask out, the more dates you're going to get. Exactly. The more times you gamble, the more times you're going to lose, but the more plants you plant, the more food you're going to have. Exactly. So, after zucchinis, what are maybe some other, a few crops that grow really well for you here with lesser maintenance? What grows really well, okra, eggplant, let's see, beets and carrots grow great too, you just have to have the right soil so that you can pull them out without breaking them, and those artichokes are fantastic. Oh, the artichokes, right, yeah, they're still, like, blooming and making flowers, as long as you don't let them, like, grow too big and go to flower, you can still harvest them and eat them. Yep. That's amazing. And those are delicious. Yeah, and so what's your technique for keeping them alive, because, you know, you get frost out here in the wintertime, so you, what do you do? With the artichokes? Yes. We cut them all the way down to the ground. To the stump, yeah. To the stump, and then we just get a bunch of straw and just pack it all around them. So you basically insulate the ground so that the roots stay alive over the wintertime so that when the springtime comes, they're popping up and they're already making more artichokes for you guys. Exactly, and they grow very well, and the great thing about artichokes is if you go over there and you pull and you get a piece with a root, you can just take that and stick it in the ground without waiting for a seed to germinate and make a plant. Wow, so you get it, like, basically from cuttings. Yes, yep. Yeah, so I was surprised that you don't actually have asparagus, because asparagus is another kind of perennial crop that should do pretty good here. Unfortunately, I forgot to tell you, I do have asparagus. Oh, I didn't see it. Where was it? Yeah, it's back over there in the corner. I've got three beds. Oh, and how are they growing? It's only the second year. Ah, so they're still establishing. Yeah, they're still establishing. But yeah, maybe artichokes do a little bit better than, well, I'd rather eat artichokes instead of asparagus. I would too. I mean, I grew up with artichokes growing up in the Bay Area of California, and my parents would eat them, and I still eat them to this day. I just have to be in a mood to eat asparagus. I like it, but it's not something I want to eat all the time. I love artichokes. I will cook those every night. Slice them up and . . . Yeah, and the other thing is, the artichokes have a longer season of availability. So, from the spring until mid-July, here at 109, 110 degrees, 115, they're still productive, whereas asparagus is like early season by now. They're already fermenting out and just growing bigger, you know, so you've got to think about that, you know, on what's more important. Hey, if you've got this much land, though, hey, grow both. Grow them both. Grow as many as you can. Right. So, I wanted to ask about how do you fertilize out here if you're growing organically using organic methods, and you're not using, you know, chemical fertilizers, like what do you feed your plants to make them look all this healthy and grow nutritious and nice and huge and big? Feeding the plants, we take worm castings, fish emulsion, blood meal, and bone meal, and I'll put a bunch in a bucket or, you know, like a cheesecloth with water and just make a tea, and then it takes a long time, but I go around with a 5-gallon bucket and a cup, and I feed each individual little plant. Now, I could do it through the watering system, but I'd have to have so much to do that, because there's a lot of water coming out at a time, and it would just get too diluted, so I just do it by hand. Right. How often do you feed the plants like that? Probably once a month. I should maybe do a little more, but it's very time consuming. Yeah. I mean, that's the one thing I've learned just living in the desert, is you need to supplementary, I call it supplementary, feed your plant whether you want to foil or feed. Soil drench, I use things like the Pure Protein, which is basically fish hydrolysis, but better than the fish emulsion, still smells, as well as trace minerals from kelp and phytoplankton, as well as things like compost teas, soil humates, I like a lot, and fulvic acids, too. So another question I have for you is, why don't you have a whole lot of fruit trees? I know you're starting a little orchard, I actually didn't get to show in the video today, but you have one peach tree that's really productive. Yes. But is that one of your goals, to have more fruit trees here, or do more or less vegetables, or what's your plans with that? The plan right now is to make a full orchard, and the reason why I don't have more is I've been buying the trees from Tractor Supply and Star Nursery, and every place that I've looked online where you can buy just the little root stock trees, they're all out. Oh wow. Even for next season. So I've got to figure that little bit out, and once I do, I will plant as many as I can out there. Yeah, you probably got to contact a big grower and take a trip out with the truck to California and just come back with a truckload of stuff, you could probably get a better price instead of buying stuff retail like Star or Tractor Supply. Yes, and these trees that we have over here, we've had for like four years, and all those out there are about a year to two years old. Oh wow. So those aren't really producing. I did get one peach tree out there that made some fruit, but yeah, the intention is to have a whole bunch. I actually, over there, also have berries, blackberries, which apparently grow very well. Yeah, you got to find the right variety, then they could do actually quite good, yeah. So we'll see. Wonderful. Okay, so another question I have for you is what's your like three year or five year goal for the farm? Like where would you like to see this in five years? You want to see this like as an attraction that people could come and visit, and you could give them tours, or you want to just be able to like get more food out to local people and get them eating healthier and local food, because basically most all the food eaten here in Nia County as well as in Clark County is imported on big trucks from up I-15 and whatnot. Yeah, before it's all ripe. Before it's all ripe and it doesn't taste like anything, yeah. My goal really is to provide fresh produce and fruit once I finally get that to the community. I will do it whichever way works best for people. I want to start a U-Pick here in Pahrump because they don't have anything like that, and I also do the CSA boxes. I deliver to Pahrump and to Vegas and to Henderson, and five years from now, boy, I just hope it's beautiful and I'm growing more, and I would love for schools to come out and do tours. I would love for people to come out and do tours. Of course, at this time of the year, it would have to be very early. Yeah, because I mean, I'm used to the heat. She's used to the heat. She's out here farming every day, and I'm out in my garden every day, but most people, you should not be out in the middle of the day, guys. I mean, we're here. It's probably about noon right now, and this is comfortable to me, but don't put your hands on the metal because you're going to get burned. You're going to burn severely. You'll be branded. All right, so if somebody wants to buy some of your crops here, like they live in Vegas or Henderson, how can they know what you have available and all the prices and all this kind of stuff? The best way is to email me, and then I will email you a list and let you know what day I need to know your order by because if I don't have your order by 12 o'clock on Monday and I'm leaving here, you're not getting your stuff on Tuesday because I'm not going to go out there and start picking, not because I don't want to, just because it's so uncomfortable and hot. So I like to do all my picking early in the morning, get all the little bags ready, marked to go to the people the next day. I mean, that makes total sense. But you want to pick in the early morning, too, so that the plants are healthier because if you pick it in the middle of the day when they're kind of heat stressed, they're not going to last as long. So that's smart. Plus they get hot, and if you put them in the fridge, then they get pithy. It's a whole thing. So if somebody wanted to come out for a tour and see the place and actually buy some produce when they came out here, do you guys offer tours? What days and times would that be? We do offer tours, and like I said, usually it's between 7 and 10 in the morning, probably Mondays and Wednesdays, but again, if you can't fit that schedule, just email me as long as you give me enough time to plan for you to be here instead of me being out doing what I usually do, you know, I'll plan for you to come and then spend time walking around talking about different things we grow, how we grow them, and why we grow them in the places that we grow them. Yeah, no, before I made this video, we went on a nice tour, and it was wonderful to see your place and get kind of like an idea in my head on how you grow all this stuff literally in the middle of the desert, because I mean, driving in, I'm like, she's really growing out here, like where's the water coming from, and to know that you have, you know, water rights and all these things, that's incredible, and that you started growing a different crop first, and now you're growing vegetables for the community. Oh, and I know you also do farmer's markets? Yes, we actually, I do a farmer's market here in Pahrump on Saturdays. That's from 7 to 11.30, and then Prevail Marketplace comes and buys my produce and sells it at their farmer's markets, which are mostly in Henderson. Alright, wonderful. That's good to know, too. If you guys don't want to make it to the farm or have her deliver it to you, which is amazing, and you, at present time, it may change, you have a $5 delivery fee, which is amazing. $5 delivery fee, yeah. I think that's even less than Uber. I mean, I don't do Uber or anything, but like, it's definitely less than Amazon, right? And then she'll deliver fresh produce for you guys, and is there a minimum order? A minimum order is $25, and you don't have to order every week, you can order once every other month, once a month, twice a week, whatever fits your schedule and what you need. Of course. And so, of course, the availability is always changing depending on what's in season, but say somebody wanted to order today, what do you have available today? I mean, I walked all the fields and I know what's available, but what are you making available to people today? All the different things. Like, just everything. Okay. We have, I'll walk my eyes around while I do it. We have golden beets, we have beets, we have carrots, which will be ready in about a week, I have kohlrabi, I have leeks, I have onions, I have tomatoes, I have cherry tomatoes, I have a little bit of cucumbers, I have watermelon, cantaloupe, patty pans, zucchini, golden zucchini, artichokes, okra, basil, tomatoes, sage, sage, I have sage, yes I do, I have sage, you have bunching onions and regular white and yellow onions in there, or leeks, did you say leeks? I have leeks, yep, I have purple onions, potatoes, I have purple potatoes, white potatoes, okra, eggplant, little hot peppers I saw, little hot peppers, we got some, I didn't do a lot of those because last year we did and I overgrew too many. Because people buy one or two, not 12 pounds. Exactly. So we do have hot peppers too, we did have cilantro but too hot for that now. Oh and you have some, a few heads of lettuce and some bok choy. Yes, yes, and green beans are growing right now. So, as the season starts to change and we start switching over, it starts cooling down, we'll end up, I have out there growing right now, butternut squash, acorn squash, all your fall squash, it just totally lost my mind. Alright, wonderful, and do you also grow through the winter time too and provide food like greens and whatnot through the winter for people? Yes, I do, I do, I can grow some really good lettuce and greens through the winter. I've struggled a bit with the brussel sprouts, I'll get that down one day. I don't, I mean I grow brussel sprouts and it just grows the leaves and I eat the leaves, I don't need brussel sprouts. And then cabbages and stuff like that, we do the broccoli and cauliflower and stuff like that. All your winter, I don't know how to say the word. Brassica? Yes, brassicas. Cruciferous or brassicas? Yes, yes. Because you're going to say curbits but that's like summer like. Yes, the summer stuff, yes. Like cucumbers and melons and whatnot. Right, yeah, so that's what we do in the winter time. Wonderful, so yeah, if you guys want to get a list, what is the email address to email so that they can get a hold of you and find out what you have currently and if they want to come by for a tour, they're also going to contact you through email. Yes, yes, it is begoniafarmsnv at gmail.com. Alright, begoniafarmsnv at gmail.com, I'll put a link down below in the description. She also does have an Instagram that I wish you would update more but I contacted her over Instagram and sometimes it takes her a couple days to respond so I'd recommend emailing her for the fastest response so that she makes sure she sees your message. She's so busy here on the farm working like I'm busy doing what I'm doing. She doesn't like, she's not on her phone like every day she's out in the real world in nature and I encourage you guys to get off your phones, get back to nature, spend time in your gardens, right, and more importantly support your local farm. Support us, we're here for you. So, any final comments or words of wisdom you'd like to share with other people that are trying to grow food in the middle of the desert like you are and you're being quite successful at it? Yes, don't give up. I mean, this is like our third or fourth year growing vegetables and we've grown bigger and better this year than we have any other year. I mean, you saw my bell peppers. Yeah, that's like the most insane bell peppers I've ever seen growing in the desert. Like, I've seen bell peppers other places, like if you're in Gilroy and they're growing bell peppers like that, but this is like the middle of the desert and those plants are loaded. Yeah, and the onions. Yeah, the onions were crazy. Yeah, who gets onions that big? Right, and they're still like, we're here in July and you could still be harvesting them. Yep, yep. So, that's my advice. Just keep trying. Keep trying different methods. Watch videos. Read books. There's so much information out there. And if you don't go looking for it, it's not going to jump in your plate. Yeah, and I'd say, you know, try different things and then change your approach and try something a little bit different and learn, hey, every time you fail, it's not a failure, it's a success because you've learned what doesn't work. And now next time you can do, I mean, that's how I've been doing it in the desert too. I just grow, I focus on growing the easiest stuff. I don't want to like, see, I have one bed of tomatoes and they're all cherry tomatoes. And otherwise, I'm not dealing with tomatoes because it's too high maintenance and I'm a low maintenance guy. I have, you know, lots of basil, eggplants, and okra because they grow really good and I have a bunch of peppers too because I love peppers. But yeah, I'm not going to try to mess with the hard stuff, unless the experts grow the hard stuff. Not quite expert yet. Working on it. And plus, of course, gardening and farming is a numbers game. Always have extra starts on hand to pop in the ground because, hey, bugs get one plant. No big deal. Cut it down. Get rid of it. Plant a new one. And then you're off to the races again and try again, you're right. That's the number one key to success, right. Absolutely. All right. So if you guys enjoyed this episode here at Begonia Farms, want more episodes at Begonia Farms and learning how to grow in the middle of the desert, right, give this video a big thumbs up. More importantly, guys, if you guys live in Pahrump, Henderson, or Las Vegas, share this video with other people so that they can learn some of the tips and techniques on how to grow food here in the middle of the desert, but more importantly, how they can source fresh grown food from a local farmer. It saddens me a lot that a lot of the farmer's markets in Vegas, basically, they're not really farmers. They import things from California and they kind of act as if they grew them, which is totally not true unless it's the one farmer's prevail markets that, you know, buy the stuffs here and then sells it, you know, at the Henderson markets. So I want you guys always to ask at farmer's markets, hey, did you grow this stuff? So yeah. Contact the farmer direct. You're going to get better prices. You're going to get better, fresher stuff, and you guys can eat local and eat healthier and be more sustainable on the planet. Also be sure to click that subscribe button right down below so you don't miss any of my new and upcoming episodes. I come in every five to seven days, even though I show up for what you'll be learning on my YouTube channel. I have lots of cool new episodes coming out that I filmed a few months ago while I was still visiting in Florida, as well as some videos probably still to come when I was in Missouri at the Baker Creek Heirloom Spring Festival and filmed some amazing content out there as well. Make sure you click the little bell to get notified as my new videos come out, and finally be sure to check my past episodes. My past episodes are a wealth of knowledge. Over 1,700 episodes at this time on the channel dedicated to teach 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. And until then, remember, keep on growing. Bye.