RV - MOBILE -TINY HOUSE -GARDEN FAQ. I'll tell you all the ways I made a garden in my Class C RV...

Hey everybody, it's Robin with Creativity RV, and as you can see behind me, my overhead bunk greenhouse in my Class C RV is doing great, and it didn't happen right away. I had some trial and error, and you guys have sent me a bunch of good questions. So today, I'm going to do my top five FAQ questions and answers, so that if you guys want to do a greenhouse, big or small, in whatever kind of a rig you're in, you can do it without running into some of the obstacles that I did. Got my rosemary, my mint, my pepper plant, my sage is doing great. I'm really surprised how much of the sage I use in meals, because I was used to that dried stuff, but this is delicious right off the plant. My oregano, if I don't cut it every two days, would be growing to the ceiling right now. My thyme is doing great. By the way, another thing I've learned is that if I'm going to buy something new, I don't transplant it right away. I keep it in its little container for about two weeks until it acclimates to this environment, and then they do a lot better. Here I've got basil. I have finally gotten my basil to survive, which is great. I've got two kinds here. This is my tomato plant. You can see I've got some little buds blooming in here, but I might be giving this away. Here is my little bug trap, which works great. I've got aloe vera that a friend gave me. And then here's my strawberry plant. Look at this, you guys. I mean, I... Oh, oh no! Oh no! You guys, I went to show you and it fell off. Oh no. You know, I have gotten a lot of strawberries on here, but, you know, they just take a long time to grow out. And I mean, clearly the plant loves it in here. It's doing great. I actually got another one right here, and you can see this one has buds on it too. And to pollinate them, like I was saying, all I do is, you know, I use my hand or I just give it a little shake. And then I've got two more tomato plants in here. I've got parsley, which I would like to almost triple the amount of parsley I have because I use it so much. And I just got some garlic chives, which I'm enjoying. And then, you know, I've got a perennial right here that I'm about to give away because it's done flowering now. And you know, just some ivy I have in a beaker jar over here. But all of this and my microgreens, I grow completely in my overhead bunk. I use it all. I use something from in here every day. And they all grow with these lights and these grow bags. One of the most common questions I got is, what if I go through one of the checkpoints between state lines where they ask about plants and produce, would I have to throw all my plants out? Well, this is a good question, and one that I considered before I started my garden. Now, I've been through a lot of these checkpoints, and when you look at the rules state by state online, because they do vary, two of the strictest states are California and Arizona because they don't want plants to come in from another state that have bugs or, you know, some kind of a fungus or something that could be spread to the crops there. And that's totally understandable. They seem to be concerned about a few things. First of all, did I purchase commercial soil? I did. I purchased my soil or my compost from like Home Depot or on Amazon. So I didn't just dig it up out of the ground where something could come along with it when I take it to the next state. The next thing is that these are not for sale, they're not commercial plants, they're just for my own use as houseplants. And have they ever been planted outside? They have not. They have lived their whole lives in containers just like this. And so when I go through a checkpoint, which I'm sure I will, I'll tell them all those things according to what I've read, it should check the boxes and they should let me go through no problem. So I've been through lots of checkpoints, mostly going through Arizona or from Arizona into California, like between Quartzsite or Ehrenberg and Blythe and also Lake Havasu. Most of the time, there's either nobody there or I slow down and the person just waves me through and a couple of times when I was staying in Ehrenberg and I went over to Blythe to do my grocery shopping, they only check, by the way, from the Arizona side into California. They would ask if I had anything and I would say, only produce that I bought at the store and they would go, great, no problem, go on through. I'm hoping that I have the same experience with this. If they ask me, obviously I'm going to say, I have an herb garden, it's always been indoors, I used commercial soil, it's not for sale, and I'm thinking I won't have a problem. If anyone out there has had a different experience, please put it in the comments below so we can all learn from it. The second question that I got a lot was, how do the strawberry plants and the peppers and the tomatoes get pollinated if they're not outside? Honestly, you guys, I hadn't even thought of this until you asked me. Luckily, I looked it up and I have been able to pollinate my strawberry plants. They have been going nuts. All you have to do is take the pollen, which is on the outside of the flower, and move it to the inside of the flower. That's what the bees do when they walk around on the flower. You can take your finger or a q-tip and just knock the pollen into the center of the flower. Also a fan will work. One thing that I do use in here is a USB powered fan that I put up there, not only to keep the humidity down, but also to help the pollen blow around. My tomatoes and my peppers are either self-pollinating varieties, or because they're next to each other, the fan is supposed to do the same thing. But I'll be totally honest, I got some blooms on my pepper plant, and then I pinched them off and buried the stem a little bit deeper because it was supposed to help with the health of the pepper plant, and since then I haven't gotten another bloom to pollinate. And on the tomato plants, I did get some small tomatoes, I ate them, and now I've got some more little buds forming, but to be honest, the strawberry plant I love because it's gorgeous and it's doing so great, I got another one. And the tomato plants, now I have three. And the pepper plant, you know, it's kind of like the romaine and the lettuces that I was growing. For the amount of work, I don't get a lot of food. It's not like I have rows of this stuff that I can get food from. So I do have a new friend who's a camp host down the street that has actually a little pop-up greenhouse in her campsite, and I think I'm going to take her the strawberry and tomato plants, but I'm a little torn because I hate to get rid of them. I do love them. But, you know, those are easy things to buy at the store. What I have really enjoyed the most are the herb plants. Now my herb plants have been going crazy, and I'm trying to eat a lot of vegetables, and you guys, there is nothing like a fresh-cut herb. Like if you've never cut up a leaf off of a basil plant and put it right onto your food or oregano or rosemary or sage or something like that, it is a game-changer. I keep lavender and mint, and I put that in my iced tea, and I just really love that stuff. So I am going to go gangbusters with the herbs, and if I get rid of some of the bigger plants that aren't producing food for me, then I can put more herbs in, which is great because I do go through the herbs. Another question I got a lot is, what about weight? Well, you guys know that I use these fabric planter bags because they're super porous for drainage. I can water them from the bottom, but also they're easy to pick up by the handles. I can move them easily. They weigh not a whole lot, probably about as much as a plastic container would, and I also have plastic bins back here. Now my overhead bunk is rated to hold 300 pounds. I don't think I'm anywhere near that, but I am about to go get my RV weighed, so if I find out that I'm overweight and I take out the plants, I'll weigh it again and see what difference that makes, but I don't really think it's contributing a lot of weight to what I'm hauling in here. Another question I get a lot is, do I have bugs? I wouldn't want to live in 150 square feet with a bunch of bugs flying around, but I'll tell you that just up in there, I have had some little gnats and stuff, but never from my own stuff once it's going. It's always when I bring a new plant in, like I just got this lavender from the store, and I'm going to tell you why I had to get new lavender here in a second because of something I learned. But it's like sludgy up in here, I don't know what they put in there, and there are gnats crawling around in here. So I'm going to try and get rid of the gnats with a spray that I'm working on, I'll tell you guys about it later. But in the meantime, I do use this houseplant sticky stake stuff. I put them back in the plants and they catch them, so they're not crawling around anywhere else. I never see one even in the kitchen, which is right here, or in my bedroom or anything. Every once in a while, I'll see one flying around by the light in here, but these do a great job and they're easy. You just put them on a little stake and then when you're ready or they've got bugs in it, you just pull it off and replace it. And I think the most common question I got, which is totally valid, is what about moisture? Moisture can kill an RV, and yes, I was concerned about this. So when I built this out back there, I put two layers of cardboard on top of the bunk. I took out the mattress, obviously. Not only because I didn't want it to collect humidity, but because it gave me more of a lip right here to put things up against. So two layers of cardboard, yoga mats on top of that, so that the bins wouldn't slide around and also to give it protection. And then, you guys, I found a product that I absolutely love for humidity in my RV. I started out with one of these and now I've got four of these. And this one I actually pulled out of my shower because I don't want to take the ones I have out of there. But I have two of these back there. They're kind of hooked near some corners in the back of the bins. When I'm up on my stepstool and I'm working on the garden, I check them. So look here. See how there's the orange and there's the green buttons right there? And there's like some material in here that's kind of a dark orange color? Well here's the deal. I was getting those moisture absorbers that you can get like in the little canister at the dollar store and they didn't really do a great job for me. You know, I couldn't even tell that they were attracting any moisture and I didn't want to get a plug-in dehumidifier because it takes power. This thing works so great. So here's the deal. It's got some material in it that attracts the moisture. When you first get it out of the package, it is this bright orange color like this. And then as it's attracting the moisture, it turns dark green. Now I've had this happen twice where they've gotten all the way to almost green or a dark green and then here's what you do. It's got a plug back here and you just plug it in to any one tin source. I do it usually when I have a hookup. In fact, if I have a hookup or it's just blazing hot outside and I've got a lot of solar happening, then you plug these in for about 10 or 12 hours. They say to do it in a well-ventilated space. So not only do I have to plug it in inside or outside, but if it's inside I have to run the fan. But here's what happens. It turns bright orange again. And then you can set it back out and they will last, I think it said for 10 years. So these are completely reusable. They're $15. I have only found them on Amazon. I'm sure they're available somewhere else. But now I've got one in my shower, one in my bathroom because those rooms are separate for me, and two back here. And I'll tell you, they do turn from orange to green in the garden faster than they do in the bathroom. But I know that these guys are attracting the moisture. And so far I haven't had any signs of moisture like up in the tape that they put around the corners and stuff, which are the first things to pull off when you have moisture. So these have worked great. By the way, this and everything else I use for my garden will be in the link you see below. If you want to go check it out, it's my Amazon store where you can find everything I've ever talked about. Now, in addition to the FAQ, I am going to tell you about some stuff that worked and did not work for me. Now up here, you guys know that I have these bins and I put the fabric planter containers in them. And I didn't choose circular containers because I didn't want them jostling around and shaking the plants and messing up the soil while I was going down the road. So instead, I packed out the bottom of these fabric containers and I just wedged them next to each other in the plastic bin. And these things drain great if it's just sitting by itself and you water it. The water will actually seep out the sides of the container. But I had my bags packed in there so tight that it wasn't giving the bags enough room to drain. I had nothing suspending them in the bottom and they were packed next to each other. So only about, you know, the top 3 inches of the bag was getting any air and that was only on the outside. So the reason that I have purchased new lavender, because I finally found a store that carried lavender, is that my lavender, my basil, my cilantro, and my rosemary all got root rot and died. It took about 3 weeks for it to happen and then I took the bags out because, you know, I stand up on my stool and I, you know, deadhead things and I prune and I water, but I had not checked the bottom of the bags and they were waterlogged and when I took the plants out I could see that that's what happened. Now I'm not a master gardener. You know, I'm a little home gardener. I had a garden at home and someday I hope to be a master gardener. But I've heard that the two things that kill plants the most are not enough sunlight or too much water. Thanks, mom, for that tip. After this I read that the bags should be about 60% exposed to the air. Bonehead. So I racked my brains MacGyver the heck out of this thing to figure out how the bags could not be jostled around and they could still have airflow around them. So I'm not going to take it down to show you because it's really difficult to get back up there. But I'm going to go ahead and get up on a stool and show you what I did that worked great. You might be wondering why there's a bobby pin here. Just because I like to fold the bags over so they're not so tall because I was having too much soil in there and the soil was just sitting in the bottom wet and there were not enough roots to get down in there. That was one thing I was doing wrong. So I have, for the smaller plants, a shallower bowl to put them in. Then I racked my brain to think about something I could do to allow these to drain instead of just sitting right in the bottom of the bin. So what I did is I ended up getting a furnace filter. You know, one of those things that have fiberglass in it and they come in that bright green color. Well I didn't use that. What I used is the plastic mesh that came with it. Do you see that? And I just snapped it so it fits down in here and then I doubled it up. So there's actually about a quarter inch, maybe half an inch between the bottom of these planters and the bottom of the plastic bin so they can drain out. Then I still needed to secure them so they weren't bouncing around so I just used the rest of the materials. That filter came with a frame that I have used all over this garden. So I just take that frame and I tuck it down next to the actual planter and then it also came with some of this plastic mesh. And what I did is I just roll up the mesh like this and I put it down wherever I needed to secure the pot so it wasn't moving. So when I go down the road the pot's not moving but air is getting through here so the sides are still getting the 60% air that they need and it's not just sitting in a pool of water down here. That worked great. You could come up with a million other things to do. This is just what worked for me and it has made a tremendous difference in the plants. I doubled up on my lights because actually I was harvesting some of my microgreens one day and I accidentally cut the power cord to one of my lights. So I ended up upgrading because it was the same price and I got two of these lights that have three heads on it and you can see that they can be directed, they move around, they're great. Now you may have seen in my opening video on this that I actually have a 60 watt solar panel that goes on the dashboard that I plug my lights into so when the sun goes up the lights come on and when the sun goes down they go down. Well it's rainy today and if it's not perfectly in the sun, if I'm not facing the right direction or it's cloudy, I don't get enough power from that solar panel to have the lights run about eight hours a day which is what I like. So here's what I figured out for that. You'll see I have the two lights right here. They clip on to this board. That's where I put them. What I did is I got this little battery pack. I got this on Amazon, I'll put the link for this too, but I have seen these also at things like it at Walmart. Now this is a really hefty one. I got some smaller ones to begin with that were like $20, they were kind of a wimpy burger. This one was $50. It's called Black Web. It's got two USB ports. Do you see that? And I don't know if you guys can see that but it says there's 25% power left. This is running both of my lights. It started at about 56% charged about three hours ago. So I mean a full pack, a fully charged pack of this will run my lights probably ten hours and then I have to recharge it. So I actually have now about four of these. And if you guys saw a video I did last year called the ABCs of Power, Always Be Charging, I live by those rules. So anytime the sun is out or I have the inverter on or the generator is running or my car is going, I am charging up these little battery packs so that I can run my lights or charge my toothbrush or whatever else it is that I need to do. But these work great. And you guys can see the plants love these lights. If I only have the lights on one side, in an hour all the other plants are like facing that direction. Or, you know, if they're only in the center of the microgreens here then you can see the microgreens are all going that direction or they get taller closer to the light. I've had my garden now about four or five months and I've gotten to the point where everything is working and I know when to water and I know how much sun everything wants. And I use it. I probably cut out some fresh herbs to put on my meals like twice a day. And I love it. And it makes the rig smell like basil and sage and lavender and mint. And it's really great. And you know, it's great to sit in here and look up and see these beautiful plants in the lights too. So I hope you guys can use some of this information. Please give it a thumbs up if you like the video. Share it with your friends. Subscribe if you haven't already. And come back in about a week. I'm actually going to show you how I grow microgreens in the RV which I do use as food on my meals. If any of you have tried this already, please do put it down in the comments below. I would love to see what other questions you have. If you do it any other kind of a way, I'm hoping to learn from you. Maybe someday I'll see your garden out on the road. Until then, I wish you all happy travels and be free.