Indoor Gardening for Food and Fun

[gentle music]

Victor Zaderej: Thank you for being here. My name’s Vic Zaderej. My goal today is to not only show you how simple and easy it is to become an indoor gardener, but hopefully inspire you to be able to do this, you know, same hobby that I’ve been doing for years.

So, I’m gonna start with a real quick story. So, my father-in-law, who was 78 at the time, He’s 89 now, so I guess that’s 11 years. He got into indoor gardening based on some of the things that we were doing. And he came to me one time, and he said, “Vic, you’ve got a dangerous hobby here. You’re gonna get addicted, and you’re gonna wanna do more and more of this all the time.”

But then we realized that’s not a bad addiction, ’cause not only is it fun, but it allows you to actually grow things that you can eat at home all year long.

So, that’s sort of what my story’s gonna be. And I’m hoping to show you, you know, what we do, how we do it. I’m originally from Fort Wayne, Indiana, so I grew up in Fort Wayne, but I went to school in Boston at MIT. So, I spent five years with a bachelor’s and master’s in engineering there.

And I currently work in the electronics industry. I work for a company called Molex in Lisle, Illinois. Most of you have probably heard of Naperville, but Lisle is right next to it.

And I became an indoor gardener roughly 13 years ago, so we’ll talk a little bit about indoor gardening and how I came about it here shortly.

So, the other thing I wanted to bring up is there’s a book called “Grow Lettuce in Your Living Room,” and I co-authored it with a fellow by the name of Dan Chiras. I met Dan probably about seven, eight years ago at a Mother Earth News event, and he was walking by our booth, and he said, “Vic, you know, I see you are, you know, you have these grow lights. And I built these Chinese greenhouses that don’t require energy. But I’ve been looking for grow lights, and the ones I’ve been trying don’t work.”

So, we gave him some lights, and I knew him from, you know, the books that he’d written. He’s written, like, 43 other books. So, he wrote a book on passive solar homes, which I live in a passive solar home as well. And so we knew each other just through that world.

And he started using the technology, well, method of growing that we use. And he called me, like, six months later, and he says, “Your lights are incredible.” So, he was able to grow all sorts of things, which he could never do with the lights that he was buying at big box stores or various online sites.

So, we became close friends, and then a few years later, he said, “Let’s write a book,” so that’s what this book is. So, it’s called “Grow Lettuce in Your Living Room.” It’s available on Amazon.

And so it’s a great source if you want details on things that we cannot cover here within the next hour. But I also wanted to say that if you get on to our YouTube channel, our Happy Leaf YouTube channel, you’ll find probably about 85 videos of us showing you how to grow indoors. So, there’s a lot of great information on the website.

So, the first question everybody asks is what can you grow indoors? So, the first thing I always say is start with leafy greens, herbs. Those are really easy to do.

Then microgreens are another thing if you want to grow quickly. They’re very nutritious. There’s a, we’ll talk a lot more about microgreens here shortly.

And then if you want to take it to another level, things like kale, spinach, bok choy, eggplant, peppers, beets, carrots, tomatoes, all of those things can actually be grown indoors, and they can be done quickly.

In fact, I had a customer who I met here last year and he bought a few lights, and he said, you know, he wanted to grow tomatoes, and I said, “Here, take these tomatoes.” In fact, I gave two tomato plants away, and both those customers came back, and they said, those tomatoes are still alive and they’re growing and producing.

And it’s sort of exciting. I think that’s the fun that I have at this event. Every year, I come back, and I listen to all these customers that I’ve been working with, and they either want to expand their indoor gardens or they tell me about the successes that they’ve had. So, that makes it really exciting.

So, why grow your own food indoors? I’m not gonna read through this entire list. You’re welcome to sort of glance at it, but for many people, they want to be able to grow pesticide and herbicide free. They want to grow it exactly what they want. Something may not be what they’re looking for in a grocery store, so they want to grow it. They can grow it locally, which is their basement or their closet or their kitchen.

And, you know, during COVID, you know, a lot of shelves were empty. And so now you can grow your own food all year long. You don’t worry about E. coli and Salmonella with all the recalls that we’re also hearing.

And the other thing that’s becoming more and more important, and I’ll have a little story on this, is it’s 90% less expensive. You literally can grow a nice big head of lettuce for about a quarter, whereas the same thing in the store, may be $3 or $4. So, that is becoming more and more important.

And there’s a lot of questions about food security that we’ll talk about, and there’s a really interesting story, actually, I’ll bring up here shortly. And the last part of it is it’s fun. You know, you really, it’s amazing to watch a seed turn into a big head of lettuce in a matter of three to four weeks.

So, what can you grow? So, we talked a little bit earlier, but microgreens is a really, really good way to start. There’s lots of different kinds of microgreens. They’re very healthy, they’re very nutritious. And, you know, you’ve probably heard a lot about microgreens. And I think that’s a way to quickly get into a hobby that is very rewarding.

But leafy greens, anything that’s related to herbs, to lettuces, are something that you can also very quickly grow.

Tomatoes, you know, most people say, “Well, how are you gonna grow tomatoes indoors?” And the answer is it’s actually pretty easy, as long as you have the right varieties of tomatoes and the right methods and the right lighting for tomatoes.

So, there’s a tomato variety from a company here in Wisconsin. Most of you have probably heard of Jung Seeds. But Jung also has a brand called Totally Tomatoes. And I tested a lot of their tomato varieties, and I’ve probably grown 30 different varieties. And I’d say there’s three types of plants that are really good.

And the one is called Little Red Robin. And I was growing that, it was growing really well, and I was talking to Brian Isaacs at Jung, and Brian said, “I’m not supposed to tell you this, but that’s the variety that we grow or work with Purdue for growing on the International Space Station.”

So, now it’s public knowledge. But basically, that variety produces a lot, and that’s the one that grows, you know, for two or three years already, some people are using it, and it not only grows a lot, but it’s also very, tastes great, and it’s a compact plant. So, it’s really no more than about two feet in diameter and maybe a foot and a half tall. So, it’s a great plant to grow indoors. So, there’s a few others that are like that, but that’s one that really is good.

So, things like cucumbers can be grown, beets, radishes, carrots, all of those types of root plants can also be grown indoors all year long.

So, I guess these are just some comments related to the book. So, basically, the book is based on doing passive hydroponics. So, there’s no pumps, there’s no motors. There’s a person by the name of Bernie Kratky, Dr. Bernie Kratky, who we’ll talk about here in a few minutes. He developed a method of indoor gardening that is very basic and is simple to use, so any of us can do it, and I can promise you that.

And so what we’ll do is we’ll talk about four different methods in the book. Today, we’ll actually talk about three of those four. Where do you get the materials? What types of costs do you have to, you know, incur to get started?

So, Dan’s expertise was being an author on sustainable living. And then mine was really developing the lighting and also the indoor gardening. And we collaborated to create the book. And there’s a lot of great information in it. So, I think I can get you started in this discussion. But I think, ultimately, if you really want a deep dive into it, the book or the YouTube videos are a great way to go.

So, my indoor gardening story. So, I’ve been an outdoor gardener for 35, 40 years now, and I, you know, have raised beds, and I grow all sorts of things outside in the summers. But when the summer ends and you get fall, you gotta put everything away. You’ve gotta can it, you’ve gotta put it, you know, in the basement or wherever you’re storing your potatoes, and you wanna keep going.

So, about 12, 13 years ago, again, working for my company called Molex that I work for, we were asked to develop a horticultural, or a grow light. So, we did that. We designed one. It was this little magnetic puck that, you know, you could snap on anywhere, and it was really pretty incredible. I was actually able to use it in growing all sorts of things indoors.

And customers, well, I shouldn’t say customers, friends and relatives would ask me, “Well, where do you get those lights?” And I would tell ’em, “Well, Molex will sell you 10,000 of ’em, but if you want to buy five of ’em, there’s no place to go.”

So, my wife and I started Happy Leaf as a way to basically sell those types of lights to people who wanted to grow indoors. And then six months later, Molex says, “Well, that’s a niche market. We’re not gonna make those anymore.”

So, I said, “Uh-oh, we either have to forget the company, or we design our own.” So, now we’re actually designing our own. We’re building our 10th generation of lights. Every year, they become more efficient, they look better, they’re less expensive to make.

I work with professors from Purdue, primarily, and we’re doing research with them on all sorts of unique ways of pulsing lights, for instance, to reduce energy use, but primarily on finding the spectrums of light that really give you the phenomenal plant growth that allows you to grow quickly indoors and pretty much anything you want to grow.

We do manufacture our lights in the United States. In fact, about 100 miles south of here is Oregon, Illinois, which is where I live. And we manufacture it right there. So, unlike most of the others out there, it’s, they’re not made in China.

This is Bernie Kratky, so this is his picture when he was in the, at the University of Hawaii. And a lot of the things that Bernie came up with, I think are ingenious. And the reason I say that is that they were really a simple way to be able to grow without pumps and motors.

So, most of us have heard of hydroponics. You have to have aerators, you have constant moving pumps. I stayed away from that like a plague because it was just too complex.

So, what Bernie did is he realized, what he did is he realized that the plants will absorb water and nutrients while in a container like this, and then effectively, the water level will drop. But what he said, or what he realized is that when you add water back, you cannot fill it all the way up because it’s not gonna get its oxygen for respiration if you do that, so it’ll kill the plant.

So, basically when you fill the jar up with water, you fill it up only to the bottom of the net pot. And that was the magic that he realized that plants will actually grow without all of that exotic technology that’s required to make it grow.

So, when he was doing it in Hawaii, he didn’t need light ’cause they had all the light in the world in Hawaii. And basically, I work with Bernie, and I actually talk to him about once a month now, and he teaches me a lot about nutrients and all the details of plants, but I teach him about lighting and LEDs. So, he’s using our lights to actually do that type of, He’s still continuing to do research. He’s 80 years old, so it’s pretty amazing fellow. I really have enjoyed that relationship.

So, “I’m not a gardener. Can I really do this?” And that’s a question that I get a lot of. Basically, it’s so easy that it’s almost funny.

So, no experience needed. We guarantee it. There’s a slight learning curve just as far as knowing the steps associated with indoor gardening, but it’s actually, I would say it’s much simpler than growing outdoors in the summers.

So, in the book, we’ll go, you know, through the detailed process. But even today, we’re gonna actually go through the process of how do you actually plant and grow.

So, here’s the three methods. Kratky jars, which is what I just lifted and showed you here, is one way to grow things like leafy greens, herbs. And if you wanna grow microgreens, there’s literally a tray that you can plant, and a matter of 8 to 10 days, you have mature microgreens that you could be eating in the comfort of your home.

And then what we call self-watering pots. So, those would be used, they typically have coconut coir and vermiculite in ’em, but if you wanna grow tomatoes, cucumbers, beets, carrots, radishes, root plants, that’s when you would use that method. Still passive, there’s still no pumps or motors, but it’s a slightly different media for basically growing.

So, those are gonna be the three different methods that we’re gonna talk about here in a few minutes.

So, Bernie, this is actually a picture of Bernie when he came to visit me with his sister and brother about a year and a half ago. So, this was a little, his comments on, after he read our book, we included it.

So, he said, “I’m absolutely delighted that some home growers are using these simple hydroponic methods, along with LED lighting that allows you to basically become an indoor gardener all year long.”

So, if you ever need to talk to Bernie, let me know and I could probably arrange it. So, but he’s sort of my hero in this industry.

He developed the method when he was on sabbatical in Taiwan, working with a professor from Japan. And if you go on YouTube and type in “the Kratky method,” you’ll find hundreds and hundreds of YouTube videos regarding the Kratky method.

So, what can I grow in Kratky jars? So, we’re sort of gonna talk about the individual steps now. So, things like lettuces, dill, herbs, anything that is basically leafy greens is something that grows really, really well.

And then some of the other things like kale, spinach, that are leafy greens, you will actually grow those in a mixture of the coconut coir and vermiculite.

So, one of the methods that we advocate is basically growing on a baker’s rack. So, this is a baker’s rack. And what we do is we adjust the height of the baker’s rack. So, you typically start near the top of the rack. And then as the plants get bigger, you can just move the plants down.

So, if you wanted to feed a family of four with all the greens that you wanted, you would literally do it on a baker’s rack. And that is your greenhouse. Greenhouses in some ways have become obsolete because you have to heat ’em, they’re expensive to build, you need the space.

Why not, for, you know, less than $1,000, more like $600 or $700, you can have a baker’s rack in the basement of your home or anywhere else in your home where you have the space, and you can literally grow everything you want. And that’s really the main story that I’d like to get across today.

So, some of the advantages of growing in one-quart jars, so, you saw that one quart jar I had here, is basically the cost of the jar, the net pot, and everything is, like, $3. Everything is reusable, so you could literally wash it, throw it in a dishwasher, sterilize it, and reuse it so there’s really nothing to throw out.

You typically would put, you know, you’ll see that the roots actually, in this case, look nice and clean. What I did is I had a dark sock over it, and the dark sock prevents the light from getting in it so you don’t get algae growth. So, that’s sort of important. But you can go to the local dollar store and buy a dozen socks for about $10, and you have all the socks that you’ll need for forever.

And having a sock over it allows you to quickly check the water level. So, if the water levels get low, you just lift up the, or lift, lower the sock to see that, and then you fill up with water and then you keep going.

And the other thing that is really neat about this is that it’s amazing. People are amazed when they come and see this, that you can put a seed in a canning jar, and in a matter of three to four weeks, you’re eating your lettuce. So, that’s sort of a really, really neat way of being able to grow.

So, nutrient options. There are literally dozens of nutrients that you can use. This is actually a list of ones that we like. I believe the one that we have suggest to start with is the one called MaxiGro, which is the green bag on the upper left.

But the one that Bernie actually recently recommended to me is the one called SUPERthrive. And the reason that one is nice is that it’s liquid and it’s very easy to get dissolved into your water. So, you know, all of ’em have their pluses and minuses. And if you want a fully organic one, the one on the left here, the Pure Blend Pro, is an organic version as well, so there’s a lot of options.

I highly recommend you try the ones that you like the most and see what works best for you.

So, what else do you need to do this? So, one of the things that you need is a net pot, which is basically the little pot that’s inside of here that holds the clay pellets. You need the hydroponic clay pellets, which is basically fired clay, and that’s used to hold the seed initially. After they germinate, the seeds will drop, and effectively, the roots will be held by those clay pellets. And then the roots will basically drop down, and you’ve got, those are effectively your soil.

So, the process to actually do the planting is this. So, what you do is you start with a large-mouth canning jar and you fill it with water right up to that lip that’s on top of that canning jar. And then you take your net pot with the clay pellets, you know, you sort of fill it within maybe a quarter of an inch of the top, and then you put that into the jar and screw the lid on.

When you do that, the water level will come basically to the top of those pellets. They’re gonna be wet. Now you take five or six seeds and drop ’em onto those wet clay pellets. So, now they’re sticking to those clay pellets. And now you take your black sock, cover it. And the purpose of that, obviously, is to prevent algae growth on the inside. So, that’s it. That’s the whole process of actually planting.

And now I actually did 12 jars, and I sort of timed myself ’cause I’m doing some experiments at, in our office, and I think I did 12 jars in about 15 minutes. So, I do it because I take a gallon container of water, fill four jars up, and just do it. And it’s just, it’s very quick and simple.

And so now you have, basically your garden is planted, and now you can leave it under the light. You, typically, I would turn a light on for 16 to 18 hours, but you can leave it under the light. Go on vacation, I say, to Florida for three to four weeks, and when you come back, you’re ready to eat.

So, this is sort of what it looks like when you grow after one week. The light, basically, not the light, but the plants will be maybe a half an inch to an inch tall. The second week, you know, they’ve gotten a little bit bigger. Third week, and somewhere between the third and fourth week for this particular lettuce, you can literally start eating it.

You can see what the roots look like, and that’s pretty much what these look like that I had up here. It looks like a little Santa Claus beard. And so what happens is those roots just drop and follow the water level. So, that’s really one of the things that Bernie realized is that the plants will effectively follow the water level down and absorb nutrients and the water.

And again, the comment that I have on the bottom, “Never add water above the bottom of the net pot or you will kill the plant.” So, that’s the reason passive hydroponics works, because otherwise you’re gonna have aerators and moving air and bubbles. And that’s something that I’ve always wanted to stay away from because of the complexity associated with it. So, this is really a very, very simple way to do that.

So, microgreens. Many of you have probably heard of microgreens. Basically, they’re immature plants that use standard seeds. You know, you can have broccoli microgreens. You can have kale microgreens, you can have radish microgreens.

And they’re typically considered to be five to ten times more nutritious, higher energy, or higher nutrient density. They’re very easy to grow, there’s lots of varieties. There’s literally 50 varieties. A company called Johnny’s Seeds in Maine is a really, really good source. Another one is called True Leaf Seeds, which we’ve recently started buying from.

They grow very quickly, so literally 8 to 12 days, you’re often starting to eat ’em. They can be grown in very small spaces. I mean, we literally are growing microgreens with a little light that is, actually, this is what it looks like. It’s a five-watt light, but yet it puts out enough light to grow an entire tray of microgreens.

The other thing about microgreens, I don’t know how many of you have bought ’em, but they’re very expensive to buy. A tray is like $20, $25. It costs about $1.50 to grow that same tray of microgreens, and that includes electricity, seeds, and nutrients. And so if you enjoy eating greens in general, that’s a great way to go.

Very quick to plant and to clean up because we don’t use dirt or soils or anything. You literally are using nutrient water just like we do this process. So, the cleaning-up process is a few minutes, and then you can replant and keep going again. They taste great.

And for those of you that are entrepreneurs, it’s a great business opportunity, because again, if it’s something you could sell for $20 and it cost you $1.50 to grow, I don’t know of anything that has margins like that anywhere else, so it’s a great opportunity.

So, what do you need to grow microgreens? So, this is a microgreen tray. You can actually get on Amazon and type in the word “microgreen tray.” And you will find varieties of ’em that exist. The only thing I’d make sure you do is look to make sure that they have a cover. There are some that you can buy that, without the cover, but the cover is absolutely critical for germination.

Again, one of the nutrients that we’d recommend, although recently the one that Bernie recommended, the SUPERthrive, is one that’s also a great one. You need a paper towel, and that paper towel, basically, is something that you lie down on the surface so the seeds don’t fall through.

We talked about Johnny’s Seeds, a great source for seeds. True Leaf Seeds is another one. If you get on Johnny’s website, you will literally find 50 different types of microgreens. They’ll tell you how fast they grow, and they’re very inexpensive.

If you were to compare that to the way that you buy seeds in these packets for $3 or $4, they’re exactly the same seed. But here for about $15, you can get a whole pound of ’em. So, the only difference is that microgreen seeds may be last year’s version, and they may not germinate quite as well. But the truth is, you could use those seeds to grow plants to full maturity if you wanted to.

So, how do you plant microgreens? So, you start with a tray. Make sure you lie it on a flat surface so that everything is flat. Fill it with water until it gets to the top of that white tray. You place the paper towel on top of it. And then basically, so, now you’ve got a wet paper towel and now you sprinkle the seeds, and they typically say spread ’em about one seed distance from the other seed, so you’re putting a lot of ’em, and there’s probably 10,000 seeds on there.

Cover the tray, put it under the light, and then basically, within a day or two, you’ll start seeing that the seeds start cracking. And usually three to four days, you’ve taken the cover off, and now they’re growing. You may see these tiny little white things coming out, and people say, “Well, something’s not looking right.” But those are actually the beginnings of the roots. And the roots will literally drop down and go through the paper, and then you will literally see ’em on the back side of that tray. And so you’re really growing very much like the canning jar approach.

So, these are two different images of microgreens, kale’s on the left, radishes on the right. And this is about 8 to 10 days. So, when you’re ready to harvest them, you literally just lift ’em up, give ’em a haircut, and then you can just leave the ones that you haven’t eaten and come back a day later and have another salad or put ’em into whatever you want. So, they’re really, really quick and easy to grow. So, that’s microgreens.

So, now we’re gonna talk about how do you grow root plants, tomatoes, peppers, spinach, kale, and that you’re gonna grow in a container that I call a self-watering container. The one on the left is from a company called Hydrofarm, called the tomato trellis. The one on the right is a company called Bloem in Michigan. So, they’re manufactured in Michigan. It’s called their Lucca container.

And I usually use those for growing things like cucumbers and tomatoes. That’s a perfect type of container for that. And the media that you use is typically a mixture of coconut coir and vermiculite. So, I usually use about 70% coco coir and 30% vermiculite or perlite. So, you can sort of interchange those as well. And that works really well for growing root plants and, again, tomatoes, cucumbers, and plants like that.

So, spinach, spinach is one of the leafy greens that does not grow well in containers like this because it doesn’t germinate very well. So, basically we suggest you grow your spinach and some things like, cilantro is another one that is hard to germinate. We suggest you do that in a mixture of the coconut coir and vermiculite.

So, this is a container of spinach. And this was my first harvest. So, spinach will grow, this is a spinach variety called Corvair that I really like. And nice, big leaves, it tastes incredibly good. So, we’ll typically cut the big leaves first. And then there’s a lot of other little leaves underneath that are starting to get their light to ’em.

And so you’ll typically get two to three cuttings, not because it’s growing back, but the leaves that are underneath it didn’t get exposed to the light, so now you’re able to effectively get them to grow. And then you can do another cutting from them. So, spinach is an incredibly healthy, quick-growing, you know, plant that you can grow this way.

So, you saw this image earlier, but basically I wanted to bring it back again. So, again, you can grow beets this way, you can grow carrots this way, turnips, radishes. So, basically, root plants grow really well in this type of media.

Here’s peppers, this is a poblano pepper. I’ve grown dozens of different kinds of peppers. So, those of you that like peppers, peppers take a while to grow. It requires a little more heat or warmth to get ’em to grow well. And then cucumbers. This is a variety called Kosara.

And one of the things about cucumbers is you’ve gotta use what’s called parthenocarpic cucumbers, which are ones that basically are all female. They don’t require pollination. And there’s also quite a few of those. And again, Jung Seeds and Totally Tomatoes has a variety of parthenocarpic cucumbers that you can use.

Tomatoes, so we talked a little bit about tomato growing earlier, and Little Red Robin, or sometimes they call it Little Birdy Red Robin, from Totally Tomatoes is a really good choice, and that, their location is literally an hour from here. They’re not very far, Jung Seeds. And I think they have stores, retail stores all over the state. I don’t know if they carry this variety in their retail stores, but you can definitely order it online.

Tiny Tim is another tomato variety that’s a great one, but not from, unfortunately, not from Totally Tomatoes ’cause it’s a completely different seed. I don’t understand why, but RDR Seeds is one that I found on Amazon, and it works great. I’m actually right now in the middle of testing about three or four other varieties of Tiny Tim as well.

Sweet n Neat is also from Totally Tomatoes, but I noticed that they don’t always carry it. So, what you see there on the bottom is a bowl of cucumber tomato salad that I actually, I love that. It’s, I grew up with cucumber tomato salad. So, I grew the dill, I grow the cucumbers, and I grew the tomatoes, so those are sort of, I’m proud of being able to grow all those things indoors.

So, this is an image of a baker’s rack. And there’s a little bit of a backstory on this one. So, we live in what’s called Ogle County, Illinois. Ogle County applied for a CDC grant a couple of years ago. A year and a half ago, they got it, and it’s a $500,000-a-year grant for three years for developing methods to reduce food security issues.

So, their whole objective is to figure out how to grow food, and not only grow food, but also provide food to people who need it. But one of the things they wanna do is to educate people on how to grow their own food and provide it initially to them.

So, next weekend, actually, I’m gonna be speaking at the Ogle County Health Department and teaching people how to grow their own food. So, this is actually in their building. The first year, they went out and bought these Chinese tower gardens, and they were complete garbage. They just literally, the lights were terrible. There was water being shot everywhere.

And so what happened is they threw those out, and they started doing a web search, and they saw there’s a company in Oregon, Illinois, that teaches people how to grow food, and they make their own lights, and let’s see what they do.

So, they came knocking on our door, and they said, “We’re here from the Health Department.” And you can imagine what we thought, because we’re growing lettuce and herbs and tomatoes in there and said, “Uh-oh, we’re in trouble.” So, they said, “No, we’re here to have you teach us how to do this.”

So, we started setting up these areas, you know, these shelves, these baker’s racks all over the county, so we’ve got ’em in the YMCAs, we’ve got ’em in the churches, we’ve got ’em in a couple of the different health department locations.

So, this is what it looked like when we set it up. Joyce sent me a picture three weeks later, which is the one on the right, and they said, “Vic, take a look at this.” So, that’s what that shelf looked like, which was really the one, the shelf there, the second one down. But they’re growing a lot of microgreens. So, that’s what the trays are. And then they had one shelf with the lettuce on it. So, that is an interesting story.

The fact that we were a mile and a half away from them, they’re the only county that got the funding, and we’re, as far as I know, we’re the only company in the country that’s teaching people how to do this method, along with developing the lights that really enable it. So, that was an interesting story, I thought.

So, all three methods require light. A lot of people will come up to me and say, “Well, I have an LED shop light. Can I make it work?” So, I went out, and I bought an LED shop light. It’s actually sitting in our booth here. It uses 48 watts of light or power. It looks nice and bright.

So, I grew the same plant, the same nutrients, everything, side by side. The one on the left was under the LED shop light. The one on the right is our, under one of our Procyon lights, which use a tiny bit less energy. But that’s sort of the misconception is that people think, “Well, I’ve got a south-facing window.”

Well, the days are still short, they’re still cloudy, and the windows block 75% of the light hitting ’em anyways with the low-E coatings on ’em. So, you need light, and light is the magic that didn’t, that enables us to do this when 10 years ago, you were not able to do this before. So, that is the magic.

So, we’re gonna talk a little bit about light. So, most of us know that you need decent temperature, humidity, and you need nutrients and water. But light is something that we’ve always taken for granted. We assume the Sun is gonna shine and make us, you know, grow our plants, but the winters, that doesn’t work. In the summers, it’s fine.

So, this is a interesting graph. So, in the middle, you have what’s called the visual spectrum that our eyes see. So, our eyes are very sensitive to yellow and green light. And so when we look out, everything looks green, and because our eyes are so sensitive to green and plants reflect some level of green light.

So, when somebody talks about lumens or talks about foot-candles, they’re actually talking about how our eyes perceive light, but plants perceive light very differently. In fact, they use light. They need red light in much higher intensity levels than our eyes, you know, are sensitive to.

So, the chart on the top, which says PAR, Photosynthetically Active Radiation, is the energy plants use to grow. So, that is the big difference between somebody talking about a grow light, so-called grow light that you’re buying on Amazon or Menards. They’re nice and bright to your eye, but they’re not necessarily bright to the plant. So, it’s sort of an important thing, but it takes some time to figure that out.

So, PAR energy that plants need to grow. So, it depends on the stage of plant growth, and basically, for seed starting, you can go, get by with 50 to 200 micromoles, or microgreens also are relatively low. But if you want to grow plants to full maturity, you want between 200 and 500 micromoles. The units are micromoles per square meter per second. So, it’s basically the amount of photons hitting a certain area.

But if you’re producing a fruiting or a flowering plant, you want even higher, 400 to 1,000. So, if you’re growing tomatoes, you get a little closer. And that’s how you basically get that level of light. As long as your light is able to produce that level, you can grow pretty much anything. You’re not gonna grow watermelon, you’re not gonna grow cantaloupe, but you can grow most other things that way.

So, this is a chart that is a really, really important one. So, this is research done by Professor Erik Runkle at Michigan State. And what he did is he used the same intensity of light, but he varied the colors. And so what he found is that, basically, the colors that you use, even though the intensity is the same, completely changes what the plant looks like and how big it is.

So, it turns out that what you want is 60% to 70% of the light to be red, 10% to 15% to be blue, and 20%, roughly, to be green. If you do that, not only will the plants look really good, but they’ll grow incredibly well.

So, what we’ve done is we’ve worked with the research done at Michigan State and Purdue and optimized our lights to actually give you those ratios of red to blue to green. So, a typical light like a shop light or even a grow light that you’d go buy on Amazon or Home Depot would actually be the one that says “typical white light.”

So, you could see the plant can be two and a half times smaller for the same amount of input energy than you would get if you have the optimal light. So, this is a really, really important observation. And so we use that knowledge to basically optimize what we’re actually manufacturing.

So, this is a spectral graph. And what this does is, on the left, you can see the amount of red we have. You have a little bit of blue and a little bit of green, and that’s really what you want. A very typical, 4,000-Kelvin, for instance, light, you could see they have a big blue spike because the actual LEDs are blue, very little red, and a lot in that green area. So, that’s the difference between a successful light that you would use for growing at home.

So, the last thing, and this may not be as important for those of us that are growing in our homes, but basically, the efficiency of the light. You know, we have a customer in Minneapolis called Urban Greens, and they have 1,500 of our lights. It’s really important for them that the lights are efficient because the electric bill is a big deal to their cost. So, we do put a lot of effort into that. It may not be as important for what we’re talking about today, but in the long run, it is important for many other commercial applications.

So, there’s a lot of specs that, you know, we won’t get into much detail, but one thing you want to make sure you do is the light has at least 200 micromoles of photons per square meter per second, PPFD, to grow your plants to full maturity, you want blue light to be more like 10%, 15%, 60% to 70% red. Minimize energy use. People say, “Well, I want a light that uses a lot of power.” Well, I actually say the opposite. I want low power, but lots of good light.

And that’s really important, but most people haven’t, don’t have that mentality yet on terms of how to selecting a light. You want to look for a really good warranty to make sure that light is gonna last you a long time. Basically, a good quality LED light should be, 10, 15 years, you should still be able to use it.

So, you know, I’m a big believer in things that you can make in the United States. LEDs are global, and they do last a long time, but it’s how you put it together and how you select it.

So, I won’t put a lot of effort or time or discussion on this, but there’s, you know, if you wanted, we could spend an hour, probably, talking about how to pick a good LED light, but we’ll, if there’s questions on that, please contact me later.

So, seed starting, so, one of the things that I would say 50% of the customers I talk to here want to use the light for seed starting. Big savings. You can actually now, instead of paying $3, $4, or $5 for a little seedling, you can literally start it in your basement, and it’s quick, and it’s easy, and it grows really well. And it’s gonna be a very robust plant.

And you don’t even have to hardy it off like you do a lot of plants that are grown under fluorescents, because they’re gonna be a lot stronger because they have the right kind of lighting. The quality of the light makes a huge difference. The plant will grow faster and healthier.

I always say, if you’re starting with a good quality LED light, start two weeks, at least, later than you would have with a fluorescent, because a lot of times, the plants get too big, if you’re not, you know, if you’re growing ’em under a high-quality light versus what you’ve been used to doing. So, that makes a huge difference.

So, fluorescents, I would say that fluorescents will probably not even be available other than for those that were saved in our basements for years in the next few years. They contain mercury, they’re not very efficient. You gotta constantly replace the bulbs. And why would you need a fluorescent for anything other, I don’t think these are even fluorescent in here anymore, so everything is really becoming LEDs.

So, seed sources for seed starting and growing, you know, these are just a handful of the different customers or the companies that we’ve worked with. Jung is a great one. We work closely with them. Seed Savers in Iowa is also a really, really good one. They have all organic seeds. Johnny’s in Maine, especially for microgreens, but they carry seeds for everything. Baker Creek Seeds.

I literally could probably put a dozen more seed companies onto this list. Store ’em in your refrigerator in a bag. Keep ’em cool so they don’t get wet. The humidity can, you know, literally destroy the seeds, but otherwise, seeds can last for years and years.

The other thing that I would say is read the packet. Look at the back. So, they often will tell you when to plant, how to plant, how deep to plant, how to store. That is really a great starting place for seed starting. Most of you probably that are gardeners know all of that. So, it’s just a little bit of difference with using LEDs to get started.

So, media, potting mixes, are, or seed-starting mixes are another type of media that you can use. I personally use coconut coir and vermiculite, just like I do for growing all of the plants that I want to indoors.

So, I literally use the seed starting trays, and I plant the seeds, but then I use the nutrients, the same nutrients that I use in these jars to keep the nutrients level correct. And they will grow extremely well. So, I don’t, and the other thing is I found that the potting mixes are expensive. You know, you could literally spend a few dollars, you know, just for a small batch of this potting mix, whereas the coconut coir is very, very inexpensive to grow with.

So, moisture and watering. Humidity domes can help germinate, but I actually don’t use ’em, other than for microgreens. You can use ’em if you have some issues with the humidity levels being really, really too low. And then some people overwater. If you overwater, you get something called “damping off.”

But basically, if your plant starts dying, you’re getting a fungus on it, and it often, you know, will be gone quickly. So, I guess, really, you want something that the water will drain through it and go down into the tray so that you don’t have this issue with the fungus on it.

Temperature and humidity. So, basically, lettuce will germinate at very low temperatures. And then you could see the range of temperatures. When you start getting into peppers, tomatoes, and eggplant, they often may need a heat mat. So, that’s something where, you know, either if your humidity level is too high, that’s where a dome will help, or if your temperature’s too low, then you may actually want a heat mat to help you get started.

There’s an off-the-grid greenhouse that I’ve worked on in Oregon, Illinois, that doesn’t have any heating in it and it doesn’t have any power coming to the building, and we’re growing all year long inside it. And so what we’re finding is certain types of plants will grow really well as long as you have light over ’em. So, we use solar panels to charge up a 48-volt battery bank. And those basically drive the LEDs, and it uses passive solar to basically keep the building from ever freezing.

So, there are things you can grow all year long without any electricity and without any heat. So, but you’ve got to pick the right varieties to do that with.

So, heat mats, most of you are probably familiar with ’em. I would say they’re really more necessary for tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants. So, those are the three varieties that need to be a little bit warmer to properly germinate.

And again, I think we mentioned earlier, when do you start seeds? So, I always say, you know, a lot of the back of these envelopes may say a date or give you a date, but a lot of that is based on the fact that you’re using a fluorescent to start with. But now that you may be switching to a higher-quality light, start two weeks later, otherwise, you may be disappointed.

That’s the one story that I’ve heard is, like, “Vic, I started too early, and now my plants are too big, and I can’t, you know, I, you know, I don’t know what to do with ’em because I can’t put ’em in the ground yet ’cause it’s still too cold out.” So, that’s one thing I always say, start a little bit later.

And I usually say, around here, probably April 1 is probably a good start date, so that, I usually plant right around May 15, so that gives me about five or six weeks to get them going.

So, quick summary. You can actually grow your own food at home all year long. So, I hope some of you see that that makes sense. Simple passive hydroponic methods make it easy and, I would say, fun. So, those are the two things. You know, it’s easy, it’s fun, and you can actually eat it.

So, for me, I, a lot of people say, “Well, will it grow flowers?” And the answer is yes. But I like things to grow, to eat. And so basically that’s what I concentrate on.

And I would say, I would guarantee that anyone who wants to can basically do this, and if for some reason, they’re struggling with it, call me and let me know, and we’ll walk through it and make sure you’re successful.

And again, I listen to all people that I’ve talked to for years at the show here, and it’s, that’s the most fun of being here, is listening how happy they are with being able to do this all year long.

So, but the key to all of this is high-quality LED lighting. And the initial investment is very reasonable. In fact, if you’re growing microgreens, usually, it will pay for everything you need within a matter of three months. And if you’re growing lettuces and herbs, which have a little lower value of what, compared to what you’re paying for in the store, it may take six months, but basically, this allows you to pretty much grow anything you want.

And again, I encourage you to go on to our YouTube channel and effectively watch the videos. It’ll teach you how to do this, and it’ll give you what you need and the mistakes, maybe, that you make. And we try to do videos on all these different types of products.

And then our website is HappyLeafLED, and there’s videos on there and testimonials on there. So, there’s plenty of resources to help you get started.

So, I think that’s it. Thank you.

[chuckles]

[audience applauding]