LA Can builds community trust and food security through urban gardening, emphasizing that the most impacted individuals hold the best solutions. Their Skid Row rooftop garden demonstrates how cultivating trust before crops fosters sustained engagement, leveraging ancestral knowledge to strengthen cultural connections. By integrating with local food coalitions and ensuring leadership from those with lived experience, LA Can creates sustainable, community-driven initiatives.

Urban food insecurity disproportionately affects marginalized communities, where systemic barriers limit access to fresh, culturally relevant food. LA Can’s approach addresses this gap by combining practical gardening skills with organizing strategies that empower residents to lead solutions. Their model shows how food justice work can bridge immediate needs with long-term systemic change.

This post examines LA Can’s key strategies: building trust as a foundation for participation, restoring ancestral food practices, and collaborating with broader food justice networks. We’ll explore actionable insights for replicating their success in other underserved neighborhoods.

Readers will gain practical steps to establish trust-based community gardens, integrate cultural food knowledge, and partner with existing organizations to maximize impact.

By Matthew Enloe and Todd Cunningham | Cerca Cultivation

TL;DR – Quick Summary

Discover how LA Can builds trust and community through urban gardening and food security initiatives.

Community Empowerment: LA Can emphasizes the importance of involving the most impacted individuals in finding solutions, fostering community empowerment and trust.

Trust Building: The organization’s rooftop garden in Skid Row has become a powerful tool for breaking down barriers and building trust among residents.

Sustained Engagement: Key advice: Before growing crops, focus on building trust and rapport with the community, which fuels sustained participation and engagement.

Cultural Connection: LA Can leverages ancestral knowledge and traditional practices to connect people emotionally and culturally to the food they grow, enhancing community buy-in.

Collaborative Impact: Collaborate with existing food-oriented organizations and coalitions to integrate your garden space into broader food security efforts, maximizing impact.

Pro tip: Ensure that people with lived experience lead the initiatives, not just participate, to build sustainable and effective community-driven projects.

Empowering Communities Through Inclusive Leadership

Matthew: Those collaborative efforts reflect the values of LA Can and the community that you serve. And it was almost like you were like, I know it’s taking a while, like, sorry. And I was like, dude, don’t be sorry. Like the fact that we’re doing it this way makes it more meaningful and just makes me want to like. Todd Cunningham: Years. Matthew Enloe: Be like, yes, like, I agree, take your time, take the time to ask, like, the folks involved, vet me, see, make sure that I have a fit. So I was thinking about that. Todd Cunningham: That’s what we get. Yes, the people who are most,. We believe that the people most impacted are the ones who have solutions to the problems. And that is something we want to be empowering people with in a big way. here’s you mentioned there. Matthew Enloe: Yeah, yeah, the people,. Say that again, the people who are impacted, most impacted. Todd Cunningham: Most impacted are the people who. Are the very people who have the best solutions and know the way forward for what they want to what needs to happen. So we look to that that’s why community is so critical. And every step along the way, it’s like in terms of defining how we design our gardens, our farms, to the relationships that we have, to who we listen to who we trust, trust is such a huge.

Building Trust in Community Spaces

Todd: Part of this, we haven’t even mentioned that, but it’s like that’s a common through point through line through all this. And having a line of sight from like where you are to where you want to go is really, you know, it’s mandatory. Matthew Enloe: Yeah, yeah. And even just walking around or doing other sort of, like, support work on skid row, like, you see that folks have a, like, they have to for their own protections have walls up to to let someone even to receive any sort of, like, sometimes it feels like even just like walking by and like a smile. It’s like, why are you smiling? Like,. But which like is fair, right? Like who knows. Right, right. Matthew Enloe: What the intentions are. But when people come up onto the rooftop, it’s like all of that trust building happened so quick where they’re in the garden space. And it’s like, you guys have made a whole thing that helps build that trust and that buy-in of the folks living in and around Skid Row. And I see it so much on the garden and maybe there’s something that I don’t know. Tell me is that like across all of it? Is that something special for the garden that those walls come down so fast? Is that is rock alley can? Todd Cunningham: It’s across the lake. And it really is. I mean it comes directly from our leader, our co-founder, our founder rather, sorry, our founder Pete White who is our executive director. Absolutely, he has nurtured that and gendered it and made sure that was it here from the very beginning.

It is all about trust and about making sure that we are listening and we are including your voice and that our voices are together. We’re like bringing forward things to build our own power, build our individual power, but also community power. NECA is reinforced at the committee levels as well as at the across the organization level too. Matthew Enloe: So it’s not just the garden, it’s the whole Oregon. I mean, like, I, I love being up there on the roof. I want to take some time. We’re approaching the end to make sure that we can give some sort of like some of. No, it’s everything. Matthew Enloe: The guidance or even just examples of what has worked for setting up this garden space to work as a tool for organizing work for community building. So what advice would you give to anyone wanting to start a community-driven growing space in an underserved neighborhood area? Is there any advice that comes to mind? Anything that’s worked for you? Todd Cunningham: Some very basic, yes, some very basic things are, one is just grow trust before you grow crops. It’s important that you, that we, you know who you’re, you’re, you may not know exactly who you’re going to be targeting or who you want to engage, but it’s important that you establish trust and have a great rapport with people because that’s what’s going to actually. Fuel the interest in coming back again and the interest in interacting from people on the other side. It’s like they’re going to want to participate if there’s trust there. Because just growing crops, we see this all the time. Gardening, mean, many people watching your podcast probably know this.

It’s like lots of people are really excited about gardening in the beginning, but after two or three weeks, it’s like, it’s not moving fast enough or they’ve got other things which are competing for their attention. growing crops can be left to somebody else’s, somebody else’s, not that those somebody else’s are any less valuable than anyone else’s, it’s just that they are not, they don’t find there’s not a connection there. And so growing trust is a fundamental piece. We also find that like, you know, because food is so central and vital to all of us, that we also have years and years and years of experience behind us that we could tap, you know,. Kind of restoring those ancestral practices. And these days, those things are in high demand. It’s like people are very interested in that. And especially as we find more and more issues around vaccines being questioned and chemicals being questioned and the lack of understanding about the origins of where the foods that we’re eating come from, lots of big claims being made and then being debunked a couple of years later. we can look to our ancestors to actually help to lay out a plan for us and having people making sure that we’re honoring those we respect them and we respect the the cultures of the people that we’re dealing with and often in again like I mentioned earlier in disenfranchised communities it is often a very frequent experience that people are dismissed and then no one’s even caring to bother to ask like what their. Culture is, what their heritage is all about, and their level of understanding about it either. Every seed that we plant comes with a question.

It’s not literally this, but just how are we organizing around this? Whether it’s a plant where people want to grow it because they just love the taste of it, there’s an emotional connection already there. And how can we use that emotional connection to actually further conversations about other things that are happening? Matthew Enloe: Bringing coalitions if you have other kind of food growing or food oriented coalitions that are doing similar kind of work. They don’t many times those guys don’t have a garden or they don’t have a kind of food component to what they’re doing. So we do that with our coalition for the California Hunger Action Coalition Chalk. It’s a statewide coalition and also Hunger Action LA which is a LA based coalition of food providers. Matthew Enloe: Food banks, community-based organizations as well. one last thing I would say is to be sure that you’re, you are listening to and giving opportunities for people with lived experience to lead. act, not just participate, but lead. Leadership is so critical in this. If it’s all on you, you’ll be exhausted all the time and you will miss things and you will, it just, can’t be done by one person. This is all. We’re all in this together. get our food together. We share all these. Matthew Enloe: Can tell. Me that you get tired sometimes, Todd? Todd Cunningham: Yeah, a little bit sometimes. Yeah, but it’s like, yeah, it’s like, it’s not just about participation. It’s really about training people to lead. And, you know, all of us are eager to learn things and to share. And then of course, the natural human behavior is once you learn something is you want to share it with other people.

So, you know, and then of course, further down the road is like being able to push that conversation. Matthew Enloe: Me too. Todd Cunningham: Beyond gardening into like food assistance, food legislation, equity, making sure that everyone’s getting what it is that they need and not basically how it’s been decided by other governmental forces. Matthew Enloe: Yeah, yeah. So I think like the what I’m sort of just like. Unpack a little bit of like what we said as advice for folks who are trying to build community-based garden spaces is one, build trust before, grow trust before you grow crops. Two is access the generations that have come before, access that ancestral knowledge. Three, honor it. Todd Cunningham: And honor it. Matthew Enloe: Three was to look for folks who are already working in the food, like policy food, activism. You were talking about how you’re working with orgs that are focused on food security. And. Todd Cunningham: Yeah, to focus on yes,. In the food system. that could be a retailer, it be a retailer, it could be a distributor of food, it could be a food policy organization. There are also legal aid organizations. Matthew Enloe: Right, because garden space,. Yeah, the garden space that you’re trying to build could fit in as a missing component into their activities. So you could have further benefit outside of just what you’re focusing on directly. It’s like there might be areas or organizations that might need you that you don’t even at the beginning know that you could serve them in a special way. And as we were wrapping up, there something beyond? Am I missing one? I was trying really hard to. Yeah, asking people with lived experience. To lead. People with lived experience to lead.

Yeah, very, very important. And just stay on top of what’s happening. Be alert. Be aware, because there are decisions being made, you know, that are not, they’re not running out to like hear us. They’re not running out to like say, what do you think about this? It’s like they’re making decisions without us. And.

Excitement in Recent and Future Garden Projects

Matthew: Leadership. Todd Cunningham: Our voices are critical. have to be, we have to make public comment. We have to be aware of what is happening. And one way to do that is making sure that community is involved because it’s gonna force you to. Matthew Enloe: Yeah. Well, this, I knew this conversation was going to be a blast. I’m really glad I didn’t forget. As we’re coming towards the end of the conversation, I have a surprise question for you, which is the question that I want to ask everyone who’s on the podcast. What’s something that you’ve grown recently that’s excited you? Todd Cunningham: No. Okay, besides lamb’s ear, which I talked about earlier and that one that really excited me, being able to grow mustard greens, I didn’t know, I you know, I didn’t know how much I loved them. I thought that I’ve had mustard greens my whole life and mixed them with other kinds of greens. My mom cooked them, you know, from being from the south. It’s like greens were a regular part of our diet, but.

Todd: Mustard greens and being able to grow them differently, both in the ground and the soil and also like in the towers so they grow more speedily. We can get more food, more good food to people faster. That’s exciting. That’s an exciting food for me, like recently. But lamb’s ear is probably at the top. Matthew Enloe: Yeah, I love. At the top. As people who grow do a lot of growing, like you can’t say like, what’s your favorite plant to grow? You know, because like, you’re like, I don’t know, how do I pick? But what I like asking, what’s something that’s excited you that you’ve grown recently? Or what I ask folks who haven’t, who are just getting started, is what’s something you’re excited to grow? But mustard greens is great. Is there anything you’re excited to grow? Todd Cunningham: Uh so many things. I don’t I don’t even know how I’d call what I would say about that because there’s I’m learning about new plants all the time as well from you from us folks in our community we’re constantly coming up with new herbs and not even they’re not new herbs but like for herbs that we aren’t yet growing we have about 25 different herbs that we’re growing up there up on a rooftop farm now.

Matthew: Or just all of it. Todd Cunningham: But we’re doing seasonal kinds of things as well, eventually turning those into products and things we can drink and enjoy and heal ourselves. So that’s an area that’s great exploration for us and for me. Matthew Enloe: Well, that’s one of the best things about gardening is you just always get to learn always get to explore All right. Well, I think we’re reaching the end Todd. Thank you so so much This has been a blast you have been an awesome first guest.

Todd: Thank you so much. Thank you. sure saying. All the.

Further reading: Learn more.

Innovative Healing Popsicles combine traditional herbal remedies with modern food preparation, creating accessible wellness products like lemon balm and mint popsicles made from apple pulp and fresh herbs. These creations serve as both healing tools and social connectors, fostering community through shared experiences in gardening, harvesting, and post-harvest processing.

Gardening and food production are proven tools for healing, community building, and social change, offering tangible ways to address systemic inequities. Organizations like LA Can demonstrate how food-based initiatives can bridge gaps in power dynamics while empowering marginalized communities to advocate for food equity and policy change.

This post explores how hands-on gardening programs create healing spaces, the role of food in activism, and practical steps for starting community garden projects. We’ll examine the multi-step organizing process, the importance of art and culture in advocacy, and how to build sustainable, people-centered initiatives that promote food justice.

Readers will gain actionable strategies for launching community garden projects, fostering inclusive organizing, and leveraging food as a tool for empowerment and social change.

By Matthew Enloe and Todd Cunningham | Cerca Cultivation

TL;DR – Quick Summary

Gardening and food production are powerful tools for healing, community building, and social change.

Unique Healing Products: The organization creates unique products like tinctures, teas, and herbal popsicles, combining traditional healing methods with innovative food preparation techniques.

Monthly Healing Circles: Monthly women’s healing circles and community garden days provide hands-on experiences that foster connection and personal growth, with activities like planting, harvesting, and making herbal remedies.

Activist Organizing Process: Organizing in the activist world involves a multi-step process, including building rapport, identifying issues, and developing strategies, with a strong emphasis on art and culture to amplify the message.

Community Food Empowerment: LA Can’s Fresh Roots from the Row program brings popular plants to the community, teaching people how to grow their own food and developing leaders who can advocate for food equity and policy change.

Garden Healing Space: The garden serves as a healing space, where individuals can reconnect with nature, find peace, and empower themselves, as seen in the personal journeys of unhoused participants who found solace and purpose through gardening.

Pro tip: Start small with a community garden project by focusing on listening and building relationships first, then gradually develop a structured plan that empowers everyone involved.

Creating Healing Foods and Products from the Garden

Matthew: And when you learn that there’s it just opens up a whole new canvas for for us to be able to create new products and things like that. And of course, we’ve had, you know, there’s longstanding tradition making tinctures or droplets of things that you can put in your mouth to actually heal you, to help you calm down, help you sleep, deal with stress and whatnot. But we’ve also created a tease for some of our committee meetings. And there are members of our committees who basically come up and create. So we’ve created and popsicles. We’ve created a lemon balm and mint popsicles, which are basically, you know, to pick a popsicle, silicone popsicle maker and mix like we’ve mixed apple juice. We’ve done it with apple. Even if you juice an apple, you know, there’s the pulp that’s left over. That makes a great.

Organizing for Community Empowerment and Healing

Todd: Extra. Great kind of medium to actually insert and put in the kind of herbs also to feature them and it’s all together makes for a experience but also a healing one and you know it’s it’s I can’t speak enough about how that food is a is such a great kind of tool for. Socializing obviously, I think we all know that the kitchen often is the most popular place in people’s homes when people gather for parties and whatnot. But it’s also a place that people, we all share it in common because we have to eat to survive. And so the making of these products is also a healing process and one that is quite meaningful. And people of course look forward to getting those popsicles or getting the teas and things like that as well. Matthew Enloe: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Todd Cunningham: We’ve used it in programming like our healing circle for women’s healing circle once a month. It happens from our downtown women’s action coalition committee. Every month, a new one, they’re looking for new things each time, and they’re making them. Matthew Enloe: Yeah, yeah, I’ve so when Todd and I see each other every week and I’m we’re always talking about the the production and the planning and execution and making the time that we spend in the garden with the folks who are coming to participate in that program. It’s very hands on gardening focus. But what I actually I’m so. I can imagine how much fun it is to make the tinctures with a group of people and participate in what in the gardening world or the farming world we’d call it post-harvest practice. But how everyone can come together and the garden or the farm. extends for other opportunities.

So thank you for sharing that because I’ve never been part of that. I’m part of the first step. But the fact that y’all take it and work together to make popsicles or teas or tinctures, I can imagine how fun that is. at some point, I’ll have to come to that part and hang out with y’all. Todd Cunningham: Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, your ears would be burning. Because we’re, we’re often referencing you and your, your vision and all the good stuff. And what are going to get from Matthew next? ask him to get this, this, this crop, this seedling. so it’s, and of course it goes, it goes even further. This helps us to, this helps us to organize together. It’s like, you know, people, when you share things in common, you realize that much more, you have even more in common. And when you’re living in. World where there’s lots of, just where you’re displaced and dismissed and disappeared often and increasingly disappeared, just having a place to be able to organize around the issues that you’re concerned with, you realize you’re not alone. And food is a great way, and gardening and the kind of things that we’re doing in our Food and Wellness Team are great ways to actually bridge into those other areas and realize that we can work together for good. Matthew Enloe: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. The when you say organizing, think within the activist world, organizing means something pretty clear. It’s but. For the folks outside of the activist community, if you could just quickly describe what is organizing? It might sound simple, but within this world, what does that mean? Organizing. Todd Cunningham: Sure.

you know, organizing is, it’s a multi step process, basically to gather people together and I’m going to bastardize this definition, but basically I’ll just tell you the steps, the steps that it takes. It includes first getting to know people, you know, establishing a rapport with groups of people and finding out what, there’s, there are issues that they’re dealing with. can’t, they’re having a hard time. Matthew Enloe: No, you’re good. It’s off the top of your head. Todd Cunningham: Breaking through or are disenchanted with like a process that is there there for them to be able to air their grievances or what have you and We come together and define like what are the things that were what are the things that are the most? Urgent the one things that were most eager to like get fixed or to address from lawmakers and so then we gather those things together we assemble and. And we determine a strategy of how we’re going to go about it. We pull together, you know, art is a huge part of this art and culture. Of course, every activist movement has includes art and culture, whether that be a protest sign or a chant or letter writing even, or going expressing public comment. Those kinds of things are gathered together. Then we look, we’ve set milestones of goals that we want to achieve. And there are different constituents, of course, with many issues around food. Matthew Enloe: There, you know, food, when we talk about food as being political, every bite that all of us have, every bite that we eat, someone else has touched it in a way, whether to determine where, when, how, and how much we’re going to get by the time it gets to us.

So because there’s a lot of stakeholders in that process. And so it’s important that we are identifying who is, who’s got the power. and how do we how do we claim our own power and and build our own power together to come because that is the that is the one thing that that can make for serious change for social change is really about you know power our kind of community power they definitely listen to that and oftentimes you know you find that they’re not listening to people who have the power. Anyway, we’re seeing it right now in our political world right now. We see it all the time. Things are out of touch. Decisions are made which seem kind of countered as a way that we live our lives. And so as we go through, we build that. That’s how we organize basically. And so food is one of those early and food and gardening in particular is an early entry point into being able to do that. Matthew Enloe: Yeah, and so as we get towards the tail end of the podcast, I want to talk about maybe ways to inspire other folks on this topic of what does organizing look like? What is setting up garden spaces that have impact into the food, meals, activities, empowerment in other vulnerable communities? I’m, the way you were describing how LA Can doesn’t jump right to the end to the problem solving. Whereas like if someone maybe from the outside is thinking about organizing, they might think about like, just making a structured plan, right? But that’s not at all what LA Can does. Working with y’all is so like,.

Personal Stories of Healing and Connection in the Garden

Matthew: It’s what I get to see every time is that we have we have. do the lights turn off for you? Todd Cunningham: Yeah, they just don’t come back on. I. Can turn I can do I can do some switching around. Where are you? Matthew Enloe: As well. As stretches too. But what y’all do is you guys intentionally put the listening first, the conversation as part as a key ingredient for the organizing. And.

Todd: Yep, yep. Matthew Enloe: Yeah, even when we’re working in the garden, when we’re doing that, we’re constantly talking, listening, planning. Before we go into making the organized plan, we take steps to make sure that people are heard, that people are empowered, that people are brought in so that it’s not just like no direction is taken just by one person marching on their own, which is… Todd Cunningham: Yeah, it’s quite really pretty good. Matthew Enloe: Someone were to do that, they wouldn’t have be building that power that exists in community. Do you have any stories or examples of times where you saw like a moment when the garden brought healing or connection or peace to someone on Skid Row? Any particular things that stand out? Todd Cunningham: So many, so, so many. It’s virtually almost every person this happens with on an individual basis. And I get to see it because it’s like, you know, I’m the point person here at LA Can for our garden work day, which happens on Thursday mornings at nine o’clock. And we get to work with you. And it’s like, you know, I can think of a couple of them in particular. One, a person who had been, who was unhoused. Matthew Enloe: Who is unhoused or was unhoused at the time. And she just came to us and wanted to, she had heard about it, but she had grown distant from her family, estranged, and but there her family’s from the south and she had planted things before but just had not really, didn’t have a place to plant them to do anything anymore. And she heard about this and she just couldn’t believe that there was a place where that she could actually do it.

And she wanted to just come here every week. and she was on her own personal healing journey. She would take some time to meditate. She would, but then when she was planting things and harvesting, she was so curious. She was like a sponge. And like in terms of information, she would ask Matthew lots of lots of questions about just the origins of plants and where they came from and how to take care of the chemistry behind them as well. Matthew’s a great expert on that. so, but then we would, the conversation would turn into like,. How can she give back? How could she? She just was so grateful, I would say, for being able to, you know, kind of energize herself and empower herself in a new direction, in a direction that she had long abandoned. Another memory really quick, I don’t want to forget this person who just recently joined up with us. Was so excited. She had not been upstairs really much at all. was a member of another one of our committees and she wanted to grow. She came specifically with some things she wanted to grow and one of those was Swiss chard and she planted it and she went in a little, I mean I’m gonna say a little reluctant. I don’t know if she was really reluctant but she was she was not sure what was going to happen and she was away for a couple of weeks or three weeks maybe after we planted them. When she came back and saw what was there it’s just like.

Matthew: See.

Todd: The joy, the overwhelming kind of like calm and peace that came over her, just the excitement, the smile from ear to ear and excitement about staying, sticking with it was palpable. It was amazing. And it’s like, so those kinds of things, those are moments that we experience that each, and each person has their own journey. You know, not everyone is that way. Some people are just like all about like,. Getting to the final crop and like being able to create salads and foods out of it as well. There’s a range of different experiences that people have. But in terms of healing and connection, it’s almost always, almost everyone has that same kind of thing about connection for sure. Matthew Enloe: Yeah, yeah, and we’ve seen folks who pass through, you know, like, there’s some folks who have been there pretty much since the first day I started working with y’all. And then other folks who have spent a couple of months with us and then moved on to other things. And what we see is really reflective of all growers. You know, it’s when I’m working with talking with someone who’s growing in Connecticut or. Growing in Arizona. Everyone has their own relationship to the garden and we all get something slightly different out of it, but we’re all connected in the activity together. So we can be our full authentic selves and we see it so much on the rooftop and so much of yourself comes out. but you’re also participating in something that you’re sharing with someone else, the same activity, bringing the parts of our own personality out, our own vulnerabilities.

So yeah, I mean, that’s one of the, I mean, there’s a reason why I fell in love with gardening a long time ago, and that’s a huge part of it. Todd Cunningham: Yeah, I did want to like just for real quick before I talk about, I know you’ve mentioned like people who want to start their own kind of space, community growing space like this. Before I answer that, I was just going to say that we also have, you know, we’ve been able to have great success in directing people towards campaigns. So, you know, this is, as I said, it’s like it’s a great organizing tool. And we have one of our campaigns is really to kind of. Not even kind of, but is to dismantle the kind of the systems and the processes that are out there that do serve to harm us and continuously oppress us. And so we call that decolonizing our foodways with the notion that like our many of the decisions that are made are not made by people who are who look like us, who’ve had a background like us. And for black and brown people in Skid Row, this is especially concerning because of course it’s like what. Happens is we are more prone to health outcomes that are not positive, where there years taken off our lives in terms of life expectancy because of serious illness and chronic illnesses and things like that. in this decolonizing our foodways, we are attacking, we’re addressing all the places where we get food from, auditing those places, identifying where there are.

Where the rubber hits the road, where it’s at the moment of truth when you’re getting food, what the choices are that we’re given, how fresh the food is or not, how much we are in dire need and in a constant search for affordable, healthy food. And as we all know across every community now, it’s like finding that kind of jam, it’s like a scavenger hunt. And so… In terms of that kind of thing, it’s important. For our garden space, we have a program called Fresh Roots from the Row where we’re taking some of our most popular plants and bringing them out to the community. Not everyone can make it over to Ellicott on Thursday mornings or any other time. And they don’t actually know. They haven’t had the experience of being able to experience our rooftop farm or in fact growing their own food. And so we want to teach people. And this is a great, this is where our program also is all about leadership development, creating leaders who can actually help train other people and to lead conversations with with electeds and lawmakers from a place of experience and passion and to be able to get us to new levels of understanding and enlightenment in our society about food assistance, legislation and equity. Matthew Enloe: Yeah, and as you were talking about the intentionality of the vendors that you guys work with, the different organizations that you might partner with, I remember when we first started working together,. Because you and I had known each other before we were working together in any sort of like professional regular capacity.

There was a certain point where you were like, I know there’s a lot of steps, but we have to make sure that we have, you know, everyone who’s part of Ellicand agrees that this is the right decision to go. That working with y’all or working with another org that I might be like, hey, these guys might be cool to work with. You guys take the steps to make sure that…

Further reading: Learn more.

The LA Community Action Network (LA Can) operates a rooftop farm in Skid Row that cultivates over 27 crops using traditional and hydroponic methods, transforming urban agriculture into a platform for activism and community empowerment. The farm’s accessible design—featuring elevated beds and hydroponic towers—ensures inclusivity, while culturally significant plants like collard greens and lemongrass foster connection and nostalgia. Each harvest ties to political education and policy advocacy, demonstrating how food intersects with systemic change. Urban agriculture plays a vital role in addressing food insecurity and economic disparities, particularly in underserved communities. LA Can’s model bridges the gap between sustainable farming and social justice, providing residents with skills, leadership opportunities, and a voice in policy decisions. The farm’s success highlights the power of intentional design and community-driven initiatives to create lasting impact. This post explores the farm’s layout, its role in political activism, and the educational benefits of growing culturally relevant crops. We’ll examine how accessible gardening techniques empower residents and why integrating activism into agriculture can drive systemic change. Readers will gain practical insights into designing inclusive urban farms and leveraging food production as a tool for advocacy. By adopting these strategies, urban farmers and activists can create spaces that nourish both bodies and communities

By Matthew Enloe and Todd Cunningham | Cerca Cultivation

TL;DR – Quick Summary

Discover how a rooftop farm in Skid Row is transforming lives and communities through urban agriculture and activism.

Diverse Crop Production: The LA Community Action Network’s rooftop farm grows over 27 different crops, including herbs, vegetables, and fruits, using both traditional and hydroponic methods.

Accessible Garden Design: The farm’s layout is intentionally designed to be accessible, featuring elevated beds and hydroponic towers, allowing individuals with physical challenges to participate in gardening.

Cultural Plant Growing: Residents engage in growing culturally significant plants like collard greens, lemongrass, and oregano, which not only provide food but also evoke nostalgia and community connection.

Food As Activism: The farm serves as a platform for political education and activism, with each harvest tied to organizing efforts and policy advocacy, highlighting the intersection of food and politics.

Medicinal Plant Education: Educational moments, such as learning about the medicinal properties of plants like lambs ear, empower residents with knowledge and practical skills for health and wellness.

Pro tip: Incorporate culturally relevant and fast-growing crops in your urban garden to engage and empower your community, fostering both immediate and long-term benefits.

Introduction to LA Can and Its Mission in Skid Row

Matthew: All right, Todd Cunningham, welcome to Cultivator Connections. Thanks for being on the show. Todd Cunningham: Thank you, Matthew. I’m really happy to be here. Thank you. Matthew Enloe: yeah, it’s such a pleasure. So this is our first guest. You’re our first guest. You have the honor of being the first guest. And what that means is we might be doing some technical difficulties, working some things out. I’m trying to figure out what the format of Cultivator Connections is. to help meet the mission of the podcast, which is bringing together growers of all levels to learn from people cultivating food and community. So that’s you. I want to give you the chance to introduce yourself and what you do, the organization that you work with, and how that relates to growing food and community. So go ahead. Todd Cunningham: Okay, well, thank you so much. Looking forward to this conversation. So I am, my name is Todd Cunningham and I’m the food and wellness organizer here at LA Can, Los Angeles Community Action Network. We are based in Skid Row, a community led human rights organization that whose mission is basically to help people dealing with poverty, create and discover opportunities while serving as a vehicle to ensure that we have voice, power and opinion in the decisions that directly affect us. The key things in there about creating and discovering opportunities and having voice power and opinion. These are things which when you live in a disadvantaged community like Skid Row, often you’d find that there are not a lot of services for you. And so for us, and it’s like we are deeply dedicated to that and making sure that we are helping all, we’re all helping each other together.

And as we talk about it today, our rooftop farm and what we’re doing here in our food and wellness group. Matthew Enloe:

Todd: is all directed squarely at doing that. Matthew Enloe: Yeah, and that mission of LA Can resonates with me so much. Todd and I have known each other for years now, and we’ve had the really awesome privilege of working together on a professional capacity up on the rooftop. So, Serika comes once a week and helps facilitate some of the programming, which I want to get into a little bit later on, about what that programming looks like. how that makes an impact. But before we get into that, let’s just start by talking about the garden space itself. So can you paint us a picture of what the garden looks like? Todd Cunningham: Sure, gladly. Our rooftop farm is a rooftop farm, It’s a farm with several gardens on it. It is actually on the second floor of our building. And it’s almost a world of peace unto itself. It’s where we grow produce and herbs and healing plants. But more importantly, what we’re cultivating is leadership. We’re cultivating relationships and building power. Matthew Enloe: We use the farm to train residents in how to grow urban growing and herbal care, but also in organizing, speaking to legislators and actually shaping policy. And those things are not always things are thought of as being put together, but every harvest that we have there is tied to activism because food is politics. It’s quite beautiful up there. Matthew Enloe: Mm hmm. Yeah, that is that’s the if we could take like one awesome sound bite, the food is politics. That is true. We, you know, food is a human. Both of us believe that food is a human right. And.

Matthew: Sometimes there’s elements of exclusion or limits to access that are artificial barriers, is why a group like Ellicann and a rooftop farm like what y’all have there is really important for calling out those barriers, which are sometimes just artificial and helping to empower folks to bust right past those barriers. So, on the rooftop, what does it look like up there? Todd Cunningham: So it is comprised, I wanted to just jump in one thing you’ve mentioned there, just to add on to it, I guess I would say, is that those barriers are sometimes also intentional. And so we will talk about that. But yes, sometimes they’re not real, they’re artificial, but many times they, and we’re finding of course more and more we’ve known for many years that they are intentional and we’ll talk about examples of that. But if you’re a question about what the rooftop looks like, it is. Matthew Enloe: Mm-hmm. Yes. Todd Cunningham: A beautiful display of like a, we have an herbal farm, an herbal set of gardens, which are basically in raised beds where we’re crops like rosemary and thyme and lemongrass and mint and things like that, which are all about healing, both medicinal and culinary herbs. We have a section of the farm, which is also dedicated to solidarity and uniting.

the finding where we where we honor and and plant and grow foods from other cultures around the world other in particular other cultures which are facing oppression from their government so we’re we’re tying that into it’s a teachable moment obviously lots of political education about what other groups are what are doing around the world and honoring their their their struggle and their survival and then we also have a a huge section of the farm which is dedicated to growing mass amounts of food. So the big, the most popular foods that people like. So collard greens and mustard greens and potatoes and peas and things like that. Tomatoes, which everyone is always expects in a farm. So we have that. We also have, so that’s one way, that’s one part of our gardens. The next, another part of our gardens are basically these hydroponic towers where we have about four of those which can grow about 28 different plants on each tower. And that’s just using no soil, but water and nutrients that come in and rain down on the root, you pump it up through an aquarium pump and rains down the roots and grows that in about 28 days. Most crops are grown where it takes maybe close to three months in soil. And we have trees, we have lots of fruit trees, about 15 different fruit trees and other garden beds which are more accessible for people who are are challenged, physically challenged, not able to stand up and not able to be stooping over because if you gardening, know, there’s a lot of stooping over and bending over. So we want to make that as accessible as possible.

The reason we do all those different types of gardens are basically to give people in our community a wide range of experiences, to grow your skills, but also to understand just how food is brought to us. How do we get our food? Because we don’t know where our food’s coming from more more often. It comes from a test tube, it comes from.

Design and Accessibility of the Rooftop Garden

Todd: countries far away, maybe ones that we don’t agree with their politics, but we’re not part of that. And that’s why food is political. So we’ll talk about more of that, but that’s, we invite many people to come up and visit us if you’d like. Matthew Enloe: Yeah, I think you did a really awesome job of explaining what the garden looks like. So as you’re walking up onto the second story, you’re turning and you’re seeing, what is it, 23, 20, more than that. Todd Cunningham: 27 or something like that. Matthew Enloe: 27 metal trough, like a horse trough, beds. And then towards the back of the farm, as you turn the corner, you also on the right have those elevated tables, like a four foot by eight foot bed on a table. that helps with the accessibility. And then you come around the back and towards the back we have the four hydroponic towers. What I love about how y’all have the garden arranged and especially with the crop planning and the sectioning off is it shows intentionality, which is something that we’ve been talking about, I’ve talked about on a couple of the first podcasts where it was just me, which is. that intentionality, the planning that goes into the garden. And usually the way the conversation is going is I’m talking to people growing at home and talking about, you know, their considerations are gonna be, how do I get the most bang for my buck? How do I get… How do I make this hobby of gardening into something that I can afford to keep on doing? And so the conversation is going more that way of like very practical hobby growing.

But why I’m so excited to have guests on the podcast and especially you is. we’re thinking about accessibility and what the crops are going to be used for in programming or to, or organizing. And I think that layout of the garden, how you guys have it all set up is like a way that we can take that conversation from just like the hobby grower to someone who uses that intentionality in multiple practical ways. So I guess with that planning and intentionality, how does that reflect some of the mission of LA Can with planning, execution, and where the garden parallels how LA Can takes actions out into the community for organizing and stuff like that. Todd Cunningham: Well, we have a fair amount of people who are hobbyists in terms of gardeners. A lot of people have had success at that. this garden is not a brand new thing. It’s like it’s been a labor of love for LA Can and a necessary need for our community for a number of years. So we stand on the shoulders of many people who have had the vision to do the right thing and include the community. The community has helped to design that. the very garden that you’re talking about, the way that the farm is laid out. But basically, we need to grow, we need growing practices that address a lifestyle that’s under oppression. And so food is both survival and a strategy. So basically, this is helping to solve, residents in our community are facing hunger every single day. This notion of food insecurity, where you’re worried about you’re not gonna have food for the next… meal, you don’t have money or access to food for the next meal you’re going to eat.

That’s a continuous thing. That’s an ongoing thing in Skid Row. But it’s also people face stress and trauma, insistent systemic erasure. And so because of that, it’s like the part of our mission again, as we’re helping people discover opportunities, it’s an opportunity for people to come together, socialize, to organize, and to realize that there are ways that we can come together and actually build power to take on and make demands of elected politicians who are not always listening to, not thinking to listen to people with lived experience. So it facilitates that it is a, as much a place of growth for plants as it is for individuals as well. Matthew Enloe: Yeah, yeah. And some of the experiences that we’ve shared up in the garden with folks who are facing all sorts of instabilities in their life. Like, I can think of experiences that we’ve had where folks might be just outwardly showing so much stress and some of those traumas are right up on their sleeve. And we spend two hours together and the opportunity for peace and calm and knowing that they’re also participating in something that’s gonna go beyond themselves to serve the community that they live in right there on Skid Row, those have been so, so impactful. So to get into like some of the practical of like some of the crop planning. Todd Cunningham: Those are great. Matthew Enloe: I had a question which is what crops or practices have proven most meaningful or useful for residents who rely on the garden harvest? yeah, talk to me a little bit about that. Todd Cunningham: Yeah, I would divide that into two different camps. One is a camp for like feeding.

And of course, because people are hungry every day, it’s like we’re the herbs and some of the culturally rooted plants are the ones that people are most excited about growing. And those are things like oregano and mint and lemongrass, collard greens, know, fast growing greens, kale, mustard greens, all those kinds of things. Those are most meaningful because they engage people in a nostalgia for gardening. And for some people, you have the people who grew up with gardening or come from families where there’s a long history of growing your own food or just eating culturally rich food. And then you have some people who don’t, who never did have that. And so to see their faces light up and to see, just to watch the transformation. Matthew Enloe: As you were talking about the peace that comes over people when you get a seedling and then nurture it and plant it and nurture it all the way through its many stages Harvest from it a couple of times even it’s just amazing and it’s almost like it’s this Magnetism that comes from it’s like it draws you back to it and people want to check in on the plants that they’ve been taking care of and and and noticing it gives us an opportunity to talk about you know, some topics of the day or current events. It’s like that’s often a big part of our discussions about what’s happening with them and in our community, and especially with respect to food justice. Then there are, so that’s the food thing, but we also have things that are most meaningful, crops that we’re growing that are meaningful in a different way in terms of educating what are the other uses of these crops.

So there’s many things, there’s one in particular, something called lambs ear, which is one of our favorite crops. Matthew Enloe: we grow that we learned was actually used as a bandage during the Civil War. It’s like it’s antiseptic, antibacterial, anti-everything basically. It’s like really, it’s really soft, fuzzy, it’s a beautiful plant. And it tastes good too, but like it basically it will serve to heal wounds and protect it from any kind of infections. Something we never expected to find out. We didn’t know that that was the case. And so that’s, you know, we have. It’s an educational moment. Also, people discover, we all discover that we can get plants are almost medicine as well, not just for ingesting, but also for topical kinds of things as well. use many of to create tinctures, salves, herbal teas and things like that. it is twofold in terms of like when I answer the question about what crops or things are there, they are most meaningful to us. Matthew Enloe: Mm hmm. Yeah, yeah, I think like, what that what that’s making me think about is people might be interested in hearing about, like, one of the herbal medicinal tinctures, something that comes out of the garden. Like, for instance, like the lemon balm or something that you guys have made into something else. Can you just tell us just one that comes if any come to mind that. Sure, sure. Matthew Enloe: You’ve taken a garden and made something and interacted with people. Todd Cunningham: we have a number of our members are quite well are creative, of course.

Further reading: Learn more.

The easiest edible flowers to grow are marigolds and nasturtiums. Marigolds offer robust growth and a unique flavor, ideal for salads and pastries, while nasturtiums provide a spicy kick but require careful management to prevent invasive spread. Both thrive with minimal effort, making them perfect for gardeners seeking quick, edible blooms.

Edible flowers enhance culinary creativity and offer medicinal benefits, but selecting the right varieties is crucial for success. Gardeners often struggle with invasive species or finicky plants, so choosing resilient options like marigolds and nasturtiums ensures reliable harvests. These flowers also serve as natural pest deterrents, adding functional value to home gardens.

This guide covers growing techniques, flavor profiles, and post-harvest care for marigolds and nasturtiums. You’ll learn how to identify healthy seedlings, maximize shelf life, and integrate these flowers into your garden-to-table routine. The focus is on practical, high-yield strategies for home growers.

You’ll gain actionable insights to cultivate vibrant, flavorful flowers with minimal maintenance, ensuring a steady supply for cooking and garnishing.

By Matthew

TL;DR – Quick Summary

Discover the secrets of growing and using edible flowers and herbs to enhance your garden-to-table experience.

Marigold Benefits: Marigolds are a top choice for edible flowers due to their robust growth and unique flavor, perfect for adding color and taste to salads and pastries.

Nasturtium Caution: Nasturtiums are incredibly easy to grow and have a delicious spicy flavor, but be cautious as they can become invasive, spreading rapidly from seeds.

Healthy Seedlings: For healthy seedlings, look for strong stems, fully developed true leaves, correct color, and white roots, ensuring a successful transplant and growth.

Cool Harvesting: To maximize the shelf life of your produce, harvest leafy greens early in the morning when it’s cool, and place stems in water to keep them fresh longer.

Herb Harvesting: Herbs like parsley, dill, and cilantro can be harvested using the ‘cut and come again’ method, allowing for multiple harvests and continuous growth.

Pro tip: For the best flavor and yield, focus on growing herbs that you frequently use, and consider the ‘flavor per square foot’ when planning your garden space.

Easiest Edible Flowers to Grow and Their Benefits

Matthew: Matthew Enloe: So edible flowers are really fun and they’re really important to some folks who are into medicinal gardening. Calendula, marigold, there’s plenty of others that aren’t coming to mind that have that people use for medicinal gardening practices. But what I want to talk about is what’s the easiest to grow? What’s the easiest edible flower to grow that I can end up actually eating? So my rock solid go-to is marigold. And it’s not like… I think a lot of people haven’t eaten marigold flower, so the flavor might be a little bit interesting or off-putting. But what I love about marigold is that it grows really strong and it does have a very specific flavor that I like. So when I go to add it to a salad, When I go to add it to a salad, it has that very pronounced, just by breaking apart the flour and sprinkling it in. I’m usually doing it for the color, but I’m doing it for a little bit of the flavor as well. And then also what comes to mind is nasturtium.

Now, big warning on nasturtium. It’s very easy to grow and it tends to be a little invasive. when Nistertium gets growing. it goes from flower to seed really quickly and there’s such an abundance of flowers on your big nasturtium bush that those seeds which look like little dried up like nuts or peas, they’ll drop and even if you rake and try to get them all up you’ll miss some and then you’ll have nasturtium again in a couple of months. So for some areas like on a hillside on the side of your yard it can be really great because you’ve always got nasturtiums. and can always just pull them out and you know they’ll come back. The flavor also is delicious. It’s one of my favorite flavors on the planet. So if you’re wondering what one of the easiest edible flowers is to grow and get onto your plate, nasturtium is super easy, super delicious.

It has a molecule in it called allee isothiocyanate, and that’s that spicy mustard flavor, that spicy wasabi flavor, the one that tickles up in the back of your back of your mouth, up into your nose. It’s a different spicy from like hot pepper spicy, which is capsaicin, is the molecule that’s actually telling your tongue, triggering your heat receptors on your tongue. Alliisothiocyanate, on the other hand, is triggering your olfactory system. So up at the back of your nostrils, it’s, it’s tickling all of that back there and that’s the spicy sort of that we feel when we eat really spicy mustard or wasabi or nasturtium flowers. They’re really easy, they’re really delicious, but they’re really invasive so be careful with nasturtiums. And then forward back to the marigold.

Marigold, think, is like really solid and it’s kind of like a secret gem of the gardening world because you can get it anywhere. It’s really easy to grow and it’s kind of fun to throw some color into your salads and also to use on pastries as decoration. So that’s edible flowers. So like if you’re doing your nursery at home, we’re talking about that succession planting.

Signs of a Healthy Seedling for Successful Transplanting

Matthew: One of the questions I get are what are some signs that my seedling is super healthy and going to take a good transplant? our seedlings here we do the best that we can to make sure that they have a few key qualities. That’s a strong stem, at least one fully established set of true leaves, and also good chlorophyll production, nice and green. It’s the colors that we’re expecting. and that the roots are nice and white. So here’s a spinach. This will be ready in not next week, but the following week. But it’s already starting out really strong. So we have good strong stems, which is kind of hard to see on camera. But if you look down in there, there we go. There’s some strong stems. They’re not too floppy, so it’s like keeping its structure. It’s not just flopping straight down. And this is still still developing, so that stem will only get stronger. We’ve got a pair of true leaves already emerging, so this is almost ready to go in. But we want those true leaves fully developed.

They’re still on the small side. The color is right. This is our red spinet. So you can see there’s some of the red in the stalk. I don’t know if you can really see it, but it’s definitely there and it’s coming up. This one’s a little bit better, for example. So the color, that’s just one of the seed husks from when the seed germinated. There’s a little bit of red. I hope it’s coming through, but the color is correct. It’s nice and green. It’s got that red because it’s a red vein spinach. And then last is the roots are nice and white. They’re strong. They’re healthy. They’re not brown and tangled up.

There are some varieties like thyme, oregano, some of the lamey hessi, where the roots can be a little bit on the browner side, because they’re thin and they tend to run. So it’s not a hard and fast rule, but I would say that the four main signs of a strong and healthy seedling is a strong stem. fully developed, one fully developed set of true leaves. the right color, so lots of green chlorophyll pigments, as well as if it’s a variety that has certain color characteristics like a rainbow chard or a red vein spinach, that they’re developing that color. And then last is strong, is very healthy white roots.

So those are the four main things to look for. in a healthy seedling. If you’re doing your nursery at home, which I definitely recommend, we do our seedlings to help people get a head start on their garden, help people catch up if their nursery might have fallen behind, and to help people who are just getting started to get a good start. But once you’re getting into the point where we’re talking about like garden to table production, you’re going to want to start thinking about your own nursery work. And that’s what I want everyone to be keeping in mind. Also, if you’re shopping in person… at a store looking for looking for seedlings. You can also look for that.

Post-Harvest Practices for Extending Produce Shelf Life

Matthew: If you’re at a nursery and you see a really thin stalk and it’s not holding itself up at all, even at like an angle, sometimes it’s a it’s a larger stem. So like it’ll lean a little bit, but you don’t want it just completely flopping and having like that arch in the stem. That means it’s not strong. It’s probably light deficient. And it might have gone through some stresses where it’s gonna have a hard time rebounding from those stresses. So that’s like, as we’re talking succession planting, growing food on a regular basis, doing your own nursery or doing a nursery for other folks. That’s my tip. So. on to another topic is What is post-harvest practice?

How do I take what’s in the garden and get it onto a plate? There’s resources out there. Where I learned most of my post-harvest practices is by tapping into some of the resources from each state has. Each state has resources available to growers where there’s, like in California, we have the UC Extensions Program that works with the California Department of Farm and Agriculture to give farmers and gardeners resources to know about certain crops. So… Each crop has its own needs and when you get into cut flowers it’s even crazier. Like some cut flowers, they’ll pick them at a certain time of day. Some they put them straight in bleach. Some they put the stem straight into almost boiling water. Some they’ll burn the end of the stem after they’re cut. Flowers is something else. Home gardeners don’t have to worry as much, but I’ve got a couple of tips for post-harvest practice.

One, leafy greens, harvest them when it’s cool. Harvest your leafy greens preferably as early in the morning even before the sun’s out. Your stems are nice and strong, full of water. There’s not a huge heat differential that the leaves are going to start dumping that water as soon as they’re cut. What you’ll see if you harvest right in the middle of the day on a sunny day is that the protists will wilt really fast. So if you’re trying to avoid your protists wilting and staying longer in your refrigerator is or out on the counter getting it onto a plate. Harvest when it’s cool.

Early in the morning is great. Another tip is you can put stems in cups of water. That helps a lot of plants grow. A lot of plants stay healthy. Like for me when I do my, when I harvested parsley for dinner last night, I cut off a nice big bunch and I took what I needed and I put the rest in a cup of water and it’s just on my counter at home. And I harvested after the sun had gone down and that parsley is going to be good to use for the next couple of days. So harvest when it’s cool. If you have cut a long stem, you can put it in a cup of water.

And if it is hot, then what you want to do is get that temperature down as fast as possible. An example is like strawberry growers. For strawberry growers picking out in the field, sometimes they’ll put full shade structures over so that where the strawberries are being picked, it’s already cooler than the area around in the field. and then they’ll put them into their cases and sometimes even in the field before they get into their storage area, their cold storage, they’ll have fans that are blowing that hot field air out.

So they want to evacuate the heat that might be just sort of held by the fruit in the cases that they’ve picked into. And then they’re rushing it over to again blow the hot field air out and bring that temperature down to around freezing right around 35, 32 degrees. The quicker for every minute that the temperature gets brought down in the field is hours of shell fly down the line. And again, the information that I how I learned about this, these practices, post-harvest practices for strawberries, is I actually listened to a whole, watched a whole video series that was released for free on North Carolina’s Department of Field and Agriculture, had a whole packet of, I think it was like 25 videos each one of… half hour to an hour and a half long by the professors at their universities, at their agricultural universities. So they’re just full lectures available online for free from the North Carolina Department of Farm and Agriculture. And I had no idea that this is what folks did to extend their strawberry practices.

But So if you’re interested, going to university sources, going to state sources for information is going to be a solid resource because there’s like academic research to back it up in years and these resources are for farmers. So and the intention is that these farmers… will have more success out in the field. That’s why these departments exist. The UC extensions program that works with Department of Farm and Agriculture is actually coming out in a couple of weeks to help us to help take a look at our greenhouses to see if they have any tips on how we can improve our practices to control moisture or, and then also to help look at some of our water chemistry and see if there’s anything where like maybe where we could make improvements there. So. state university resources for harvesting practices, but from just a practical personal gardener method, harvest when it’s cool, get it cooled down fast, and put stems into water, it’ll stretch out the shelf life for your produce. What else?

Maximizing Herb Yield with Proper Harvesting Techniques

Matthew: What do we got next? Let’s see. Okay, so this topic is similar to harvesting for, to extend the shelf life of your produce, but it’s about herbs.

So, it’s, the topic is, How do I extend and maximize the amount of yield out of my herbs that I’m growing in my garden to, like, what harvesting practices can I use to get the most out of that one plant? Herbs are a great example because they’re perfect candidates for cut and come again. Green onions. So I’ve got some green onions right here. On green onions, once this plant grows up nice and tall, the way I do my green onion harvesting is I clear cut and I just leave behind about, let’s say this plant’s about maybe 10 inches. I leave behind two inches below and out of that same stock that green onion will do a couple more pushes. That’s if I need the whole bunch. Sometimes I’ll also pull off a bunch. off to the side and just clip that to the same two inches down and then that area will push and then maybe next week or a couple days later I’ll pull off the other side that I didn’t harvest so we’re bouncing back and forth on the same plant.

Parsley, dill, cilantro, fennel, green onions. Maybe there’s some that I’m missing, but those I always do cut and come again. I’ll just go down and I’ll just make sure that I’m not going all the way down to the bottom. I’m leaving two, three inches so that there’s more growth to come up behind. And I’ll just clip off what I need and use it and then let the younger growth come up behind and replace it. I do two, three, four harvests off of… my herb plants.

Now that’s the faster herbs. The slower herbs, the thyme, sage, thyme, sage, oregano, mint, I just grab what I need and then usually with all of them, like once or twice a year, I’ll give them a haircut down to about three inches and then let them push out again with a bunch of fresh growth. When an oregano plant gets going really big, sometimes the older leaves start to get and the stems start to get really woody. I want that fresh, young, new push of growth. So I’ll cut it down, give it a haircut. And at that point, the roots are super established, really strong.

And I’ll only leave behind inch or two inches of growth on a bush that was maybe this big, maybe like a foot in diameter of oregano. I know I’m not going to use all of that oregano right now. It’s going to be compost. But in a couple of weeks, a month, and you can even dry all of that oregano. And a couple of weeks in a month, a couple of weeks, a month or two, that oregano will come back even stronger with fresh, young, tender growth. So that’s thyme, oregano.

I don’t do it so much with sage because it’s more of a bush. Sage, rosemary, that type of stuff. I just cut off what I need and then I’ll prune it kind of in more of a… Like how I prune a shrub where I’m pulling off larger branches. But the creeping Lamey Ashi, I give them a haircut. That’s Lemon Balm too. Lemon Balm, do it all the time. Just right down to the bottom. Let it push back with fresh young growth. And then let me see if I’ve got anything else I wanted to talk about.

Flavor per Square Foot: Maximizing Garden Yield

Matthew: This was a so one One of the last things is like flavor per square foot so we’re we’re talking about how to How to maximize Like yield how to quantify yield right your yield might be in the dollars that you save By not having to buy at the grocery store That’s going to mean that you’re going for the most expensive thing in the grocery store that you would be buying, your thyme or oregano, rosemary, sage, as a fresh little clamshell, and you’re saving a lot of money by not buying those every once in while. You just have it in the garden. You have it forever, pretty much. But a fun one to think about is flavor per square foot. And anything that you grow at home, if you, as you get better at gardening, sometimes you’ll grow a cherry tomato and you didn’t water it enough or it got stressed out or didn’t get enough light and it doesn’t have that much flavor.

That happens every once in a while, but every strong plant that you grow at home is going to have more flavor than what you can get at the grocery store. Typically, unless you’re maybe paying top dollar. Farmers markets have really great flavor for the most part in their produce. But if you want the flavor per square foot, obviously it would be an herb garden. They pack the most punch. But the way I want to think about it is like, what flavors are you interested in? What are your favorite flavors? And that’s what guides me in my like flavor per square foot. When I’m thinking about I only have 27 ports on my hydroponic tower.

I just think what’s most important to me? We’re going into some of the holiday seasons and I’m actually hosting this time of year. So I’m doing collards, a big chunk of my tower, as collards and mustard greens. Because I want to do one big stewed greens as a kind of surprise for my family. We don’t usually have stewed greens, but I am really excited because those, that’s how I chose to use the space on my tower for the last month, was because I want to share those flavors. with my family. So think about your favorite flavors, think about what you like to grow, and plan out your garden accordingly.

Garden to Table: Holistic Gardening and Food Production

Matthew: Yeah, so talking farm to table, garden to table is pretty fun. I’m usually answering like specific garden questions for folks, but I like to zoom out and sort of think more holistically about like, how do I how is my gardening gonna end up as food?

And I think even just by like starting the conversation, starting to think about the topic, you’ll end up making those decisions. thank you guys for taking the time and listening to some of my thoughts on the topic. I’m hoping that maybe one of our next podcasts we’ll start having guests on, which I’m really excited about. And yeah, happy growing and thanks for listening. I’ll catch you guys on the next one.

Further reading: Herb Varieties & Uses: Holy Basil vs. Italian.

Garden-to-table success starts with strategic planning and succession planting—staggering crops like romaine lettuce (two seedlings weekly) ensures continuous harvests. Nursery-started seedlings save up to five weeks of grow time and reduce garden space needs by 33%. Prioritize versatile herbs (cilantro, green onions) and low-maintenance vegetables (tomatoes, cucumbers) for maximum kitchen utility. Harvest lettuce early to prevent bitterness and bolting, typically within 45-50 days.

A well-planned garden bridges the gap between homegrown produce and daily meals, addressing food security and sustainability. Cultivator Connections, with 20+ years of urban farming expertise, helps home growers optimize space and yield through data-driven techniques. This guide covers succession planting strategies, space-efficient nursery methods, and harvest timing to maximize productivity.

We’ll explore how to align planting schedules with harvest frequency, select high-impact crops, and maintain soil health through rotations. You’ll learn to design a year-round garden that delivers fresh ingredients weekly, reducing grocery costs and waste.

By implementing these techniques, you’ll transform your garden into a reliable food source, ensuring a steady supply of homegrown produce tailored to your culinary needs.

By Matthew

TL;DR – Quick Summary

Discover the secrets to a year-round, productive garden that keeps your plate full of fresh, homegrown produce.

Succession Planting: Succession planting ensures a steady flow of ingredients by staggering plantings based on the days to harvest, such as planting two romaine seedlings every week for a continuous supply of lettuce.

Nursery Efficiency: For space efficiency, use a nursery to start seedlings, saving up to five weeks of grow time and reducing the space needed in your main garden by up to 33%.

Herb Versatility: Herbs like cilantro and green onions are the most versatile and impactful, enhancing a wide range of dishes from stir-fries to salsas.

Tomato Cucumbers: Tomatoes and cucumbers are rock-solid choices for vegetables due to their ease of harvest and minimal processing, making them perfect for quick meals.

Lettuce Harvesting: Harvest lettuce early to avoid bitterness and bolting, which can occur when the plant sends up a flower stalk, typically within 45-50 days of planting.

Pro tip: To maximize your garden’s productivity, plan your planting schedule around your harvest frequency, ensuring you have enough space for multiple successions and regular rotations.

Introduction to Garden to Table: Planning and Harvesting

Matthew: Matthew Enloe: Hi everybody, welcome to Cultivator Connections. I’m Matthew Enlow, the host of this podcast. And today we’re gonna be talking about garden to table. So the idea is how do you… plan and grow, harvest, clean, cook, the stuff that you’re growing in your garden. You’ll see that we’re in the greenhouse today, one of our greenhouses here.

It’s November 20th and the weather’s starting to cool down. So we put our greenhouse covers on like last week. As the weather starts to cool down, especially at night, all of our little seedlings, they start growing slowly and they don’t like when the temperature drops below like 45 degrees, 50 degrees. They start slowing down and not being as healthy, but we put the greenhouse covers on from… November end of October November all the way through to March when it starts heating up here in Southern, California So yeah the topic for today is garden to table What we want to do is we want to make sure that y’all have Have all that you need To get that To get that garden plan going so that you’re eating what’s coming out of the garden That’s one of my biggest things as long as I’ve been helping people grow their own food is I want to make sure that I’m giving people the direction that they need So that what they grow in their garden ends up on a plate so if Like our mission is to help people grow food where they live learn work and eat if All of the plants that they’re growing end up as compost or end up overgrown That’s not really us fulfilling our mission as a company.

It has to actually end up on a plate to be food. Otherwise, you’re just grown edible plants.

So I really want to dig in today on a couple of high level topics with planning, harvesting, cleaning, and and then even like preparation post harvest practices. How do you make sure that what you’re putting on your plate is healthy, clean and delicious. So I’ve got some notes and just to keep me on track. So I’ll start with the first topic, which is… Let me just read it real quick. Alright, how do you plan your garden so that you’re not getting everything all at once, but you’re having a steady flow of ingredients?

Succession Planting for Continuous Harvest

Matthew: What this is called in the gardening world, farming world, is succession planting. What that requires is for you to have an understanding of the life cycle of the plant and the days to harvest. On the back of every seed packet and also on the description on our website of every plant that we sell, we have some guidance on how long it’s gonna be from either seed to harvest or seedling to harvest. And so as you’re planning out what you’re putting into your garden, if you’re a beginner grower, you’re probably just going to be throwing stuff into the garden that you like or you think it’s interesting. That’s great. But. when you’re going to really try to increase that productivity, make sure that you’re eating as much as you can out of your garden, succession planting is the term that you’re gonna use to guide your planting plans. So what succession planting means is that you’re not planting all at once. A good example is lettuces.

I eat lettuce every week, and if you think about it, if I’m eating lettuce every week, that means I probably should be planting lettuce every week. In Southern California, we can do that year round. In some other places where it gets too hot or too cold, you might have to switch that lettuce out for a different leafy green. some areas it’s getting really cold and the hardy brassicas are going to be able to tolerate the cold a little bit better this time of year. So growing seasonally is and adjusting your cooking. is a way if you can’t grow year round where you are, to sort of adjust your planting plan so that you are doing that succession planting.

So an example of succession planting is I know that it’s 45 days to harvest from this seedling of romaine. I’m going to put in two, so give myself a fighting chance, I’m going to put in two romaine seedlings into my garden bed or into my hydroponic tower and then if I can I’m doing that every week and I’m putting two in, two in, two in and then by the fifth or sixth week I’m pulling out that first harvest. and replanting in the same space or in a new empty space. Sometimes it’s nice to leave in a soil garden some space empty for a little while, even a week or two just gives the soil a rest and you can amend it. You can put in some compost after each grow cycle. The amendment side is a different conversation, but that succession planting is whatever frequency I’m planning to grow in, to harvest, whatever frequency I’m planning to harvest, I’m planting at that same frequency. So from a planning perspective, I’m gonna need to allocate that amount of space in my garden. so that I can do that many successions.

A five week variety of lettuce, five, six weeks, means I need enough space for two heads of lettuce every week for six weeks. So let’s say that’s half a square foot for two heads of lettuce. I need to multiply that by six. and that gives me three square feet of growing area to plant lettuce every week. If you’re growing from seed, you’ll need more space. That’s one of the benefits of seedlings is that they take so little space. So 72 plants of this Swiss chard are growing in, you know, one and a half square feet right here.

Having that space efficiency means that I don’t have to take up that space in my grow out area, whether or not that’s a tower or a or growing in the ground. If you have an abundance of space for urban farmers like us, space is the premium. So having a nursery operation really helps to maximize that space because you don’t have that germination time that two, three, four weeks. This Swiss chard was planted almost four, three weeks ago now, and it’ll be ready the week after next. So that’s five weeks of bed space that we’re saving. by starting in a nursery. And even if you were to do your own nursery at home, you’re gonna reduce the amount of space, but still be able to plant seeds every week so that you only need that grow out period.

So we cut off five weeks of growing. by putting it in the nursery where we can plant more densely. And then we only need four or five succession spaces. So instead of all that time for that head of lettuce that we’re talking about, you might need instead of three square feet, you might need four, five square feet of growing area in your soil garden. in order to have that same cycle of lettuce coming out every week. So that’s the sort of idea that we want to get into where we’re staggering, planting.

We’re constantly putting our inputs into the garden so that we can take out what comes out of it. If you plant everything all at once, then your garden is going to be very dramatic boom and bust cycles. You can make it go a little further if you’re doing, for instance, leaf harvests off of your bok choy, off of your hydroponic tower. you put in six bok choy and you’re harvesting off the leaves off of those six plants over the course of four weeks. So that’s like a different way.

Maximizing Garden Space and Rotation

Matthew: It’s not succession planting, but it’s you’re using your harvesting approach to get multiple harvests. Whereas you could have an alternate option is those large outer leaves that you’re harvesting off of six plants every week, you could have been putting one bok choy in every week into each port and be on a cycle where one’s going in every week. So that’s succession planting and that keeps you in rotation. It doesn’t have to be that dramatic for a home gardener. This is what we’re doing for some of our larger in-person service customers. We’re showing up with 36 romaine lettuces, which is a half of one of our trays. and we’re showing up every week and we’re replanting two hydroponic towers. 36 or…

Like we have a site that has 33 towers. So we end up bringing two trays to plant out three towers because they’re really tall and they 44 plants each. So we’re bringing romaine every week and we’re harvesting, planting and harvesting romaine so they have a steady flow into their dining halls at a school. For a home grower, you’re not gonna be doing that as much, but it might mean that you are doing your nursery work every other week.

And then as things are done in the nursery, you’re planting them into the garden and pulling them out. If you’re, for instance, buying plants online from us, it might mean placing an order once a month. And… and then making sure that you’re harvesting, you’re staying on a rotation. It’s all about that rotation to maximize your garden space and make sure that you’re not leaving things in the garden too long because you’ve invested so much time and emotion into that, into those plants where you actually let them go too long and they’re not delicious anymore. So that’s how I think about maximizing the amount of food that’s going to come out of a garden. It’s that planning, that planning the successions, planting more frequently and harvesting more frequently, and then allocating the amount of space based on the number of successions that you’re going to do. You have something that you’re planning to come out in five weeks, and six weeks, and seven weeks, and eight weeks. So you’re gonna be planting on week one, two, and three. Those are the successions. Next topic is, I’m just reading it.

High-Impact Herbs, Greens, and Vegetables for Cooking

Matthew: Alright, what combination of herbs, greens, and vegetables have the biggest impact in my everyday cooking? Herbs, for me, is really obvious and it sort of shows in the popularity of what we grow. It’s cilantro, green onions, followed up by parsley, and then getting into dill, and then we start working our way back. green onion and cilantro, they can be used across so many different cuisines across the globe. So you can have a lot of diversity in your dishes from those green onions and cilantro. You can make everything from a stir-fry to a salsa. with cilantro. So green onions and cilantro are what I find to be the two most impactful herbs in getting the food from the garden onto the plate.

Vegetables changes seasonally, but tomatoes and cucumbers, those are rock solid. It’s really easy. which we’ll get into some of the post-harvest practices, it’s really easy to get them off of the vine and onto a plate. There’s very few steps that it takes to actually get them there, especially because they are commonly eaten raw. As far as greens go, I gotta go with arugula and kale. Arugula and kale, they break down super easy. They take very minimal processing and they can just end up in a salad. And then obviously there’s lettuces. Lettuces all day, super useful. You just gotta make sure that you’re harvesting them on time before they get too big, overgrown, and potentially they bolt. They send up a long center stalk that has a flower.

That’s what happens when the lettuce goes too long. ever walking through a garden and or maybe your own garden and you see your lettuce is looking really tall and maybe even starts to have like a cone shape going upwards with lots of smaller leaves that your lettuce is bolting. It’s trying to put up a flower because it’s at the end of its life cycle and it’s ready to do what it started out its life doing which is reproduce. Make another set of seeds so that the next generation can come along. At that point, the lettuce tends to be very bitter. It’s still edible. It tastes more like a chicory, like an endive, or an escarole. But… it’s very bitter and it’s not the lettuce that you were expecting. So it’s important to get your lettuce. I like to get my lettuce even on the early side. It tends to like, I like it nice and tender and I like getting it straight from the garden onto a plate. Again, foreshadowing for the post-harvest practice, which we’ll get into. Next topic, which I have a calendula right here to about is edible flowers.

Further reading: Herb Varieties & Uses: Holy Basil vs. Italian.

By Matthew Enloe

Imagine a world where fresh, nutritious food is grown right in your neighborhood, transforming urban landscapes and strengthening communities. That’s the vision driving Cerca Cultivation, and in a candid conversation with Matthew Enloe, we’re pulling back the curtain on how they’re making this a reality. Get ready to explore the innovative strategies behind growing food closer to where we live, learn, work, and eat. This interview offers invaluable insights for anyone passionate about sustainable agriculture, food security, or simply the desire to connect more deeply with their food sources. You’ll uncover practical approaches to cultivating a more resilient and localized food system, moving beyond theoretical concepts to tangible solutions. Dive into a discussion that demystifies the process of bringing food production into our daily lives. We’ll explore the core principles behind Cerca Cultivation’s mission, uncovering how they foster growth and connection within communities. Discover the nuances of specialty crops and the exciting potential they hold for urban farming initiatives.

TL;DR – Quick Summary

Unlock the secrets to growing specialty herbs and peppers, maximizing garden yields, and mastering advanced cultivation techniques.

Specialty Herb Sourcing: Specialty herbs like holy basil and motherwort are often harder to find and more expensive, making growing them yourself the best way to access them fresh, especially for medicinal uses.

Perennial Herb Savings: Growing hardier, perennial herbs such as thyme, oregano, sage, and rosemary can save you significant money compared to buying small, expensive bunches at the grocery store, as they can be free for life once established.

Pepper Planting Timing: Specialty peppers like shishito and Thai peppers can be grown at home, but success hinges on timing: start them in late spring/early summer to ensure ample foliage development before flowering and fruiting for a better harvest.

Pepper Nutrient Needs: Peppers are heavy feeders, requiring a nitrogen-rich fertilizer early on, followed by a phosphorus-rich blend for flowering and fruiting, and consistent feeding once established to maximize yield.

Indoor Pepper Cultivation: Growing jalapenos indoors requires advanced techniques like optimizing artificial light spectrum (blue for vegetative, red for flowering) and duration (16-18 hours for veg, 8 hours for flower), alongside hand-pollination, to achieve good yields.

Pro tip: For indoor growing, focus on creating a flat, expansive canopy during the vegetative stage (6-8 weeks) by adjusting light hours and spectrum to maximize light exposure to every leaf, which is crucial for yield under artificial lights.

Cultivator Connections: Growing Food Closer to Home

Matthew: Hi everybody, welcome to Cultivator Connections, the podcast that we’ve started through Cerca Cultivation. The point of this podcast is to help bring people closer, like the name of our company implies. We’re trying to help people grow food closer to where they live, learn, work, and eat. And this is one way that we’re trying to do our best to serve all of y’all. And what we’re going to be doing today is answering some common questions, talking a little bit more about specialty growing, specialty plants, and maybe a little bit more advanced techniques. So if you guys have any questions like that, hopefully I get a chance to cover it. The main topics I’m going to cover are herb varieties and their uses, pepper growing challenges, microgreens and baby vegetables, seasonal growing strategies, and then ways to sort of start maximizing your yield as a grower in your garden. So without further ado, let’s get right into it. Topic number one, herb varieties and their uses. So one way that this question comes up is like you’ll see there’s a special variety of basil like holy basil or cardinal basil and maybe you see you come across it on like a blog online or you across it when you’re flipping through a seed catalog and you’re wondering what is the difference between holy basil and the common basil which is usually a Genovese or sometimes it’s called Italian sweet basil and you might be wondering what’s the difference what are the growing conditions that I need to consider why is it more expensive and I want to address that here and this is a good example that can be taken into other herb varieties as well. So, holy basil versus Italian sweet basil.

Holy basil is a little bit more tender. It’s has often used, you’ll find it in medicinal herb growing guides, and it’s a little bit harder to find even the seed for it. And it’s kind of rare that you’ll even come across, that you’ll come across it at all in a grocery store. So if you want to start making these more sort of healthy, teas and tonics and holy basil is one of the varieties that you’re trying to use in those like in those teas you your options might only be dry or to grow it yourself so with a specialty with specialty like this that might be something that’s the only way to get it so for specialty herbs options are kind of get dry. Like I was having conversation last week with someone who wanted to grow motherwort which is kind of calming. It’s known to be calming and calming and relaxing without it being like sedative or like making you sleepy. and I asked them, because they were making like teas and tinctures, I asked them whether they getting it now and they said that they were just getting it dry and ground. So what they were asking me is like, can I get it from seed? you help me find the seeds? And I had to tell them like, no, because motherwort, this one, It’s harder to find the seed, but it’s easier to find the live plant because it’s propagated primarily from root division. So it’s hard to find the seed, but you can find the plants. And I sort of started helping them search for the plant, where they could source it either locally or online.

So that’s a good example of like, if you want the freshest of that specialty herb. your only option might be to grow it. So that’s for, and that’s for a lot of things that fall under the medicinal herb category. Comfrey, Molin is hard to find as a living plant. It’s a little easier to find as a seed. and then there’s more common medicinal herbs, which are like something like Rosemary, Rosemary or common mint, like a spearmint or a peppermint. So just because it’s got a special use that you’re looking to use it in doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily hard to propagate or hard to find, but some of them are hard to propagate and hard to find. And that like that just the reason why they might be hard to find is because there’s not much demand for it. For instance, I grow more romaine and green onion than any other variety because more people want romaine and green onion than anything else. But I still am always looking to try and find things like holy basil was on our summer menu because I knew it was hard to find. I’m trying to incorporate when I’m picking the offerings that I’m going to be giving to other people, a lot of the common stuff that they’re interested in, that everyone’s kind of interested in, stuff that I grow for myself as well, as well as the stuff that’s kind of a little bit off the beaten path and can serve more people with maybe it’s their first experience getting it or… they like can’t find it anywhere else. Like a good example is on a kind of on a whim. I started growing marjoram over summer and I’m still growing it now and marjoram.

I don’t love the flavor. It’s like kind of has a unique like almost soapy kind of like how some people think some people perceive cilantro as a little soapy. I which I don’t as much but I do. who kind of associate marjoram with a soapy flavor. But it’s in almost every like Italian, dry Italian herb blend, they’ll have marjoram in it. And one of our customers, a week or two into when we had launched marjoram, they were like, I can’t find this anywhere. I can’t even find the seed. And by doing something that… I thought was a little bit interesting off the beaten path. I was able to meet that customer’s needs. So it’s probably not only you or you in your area who wants to grow that one particular fun, obscure, like unique plant, herbs specifically, because this is what we’re talking about. There’s probably other people around you. So it’s definitely something worth like sharing and sharing with your community. maybe even introducing people to their new favorite herb that they’ve never grown before. A good example of that is a friend gave me some seed for papalo, which is a central and South American herb that’s really hard to find fresh here. But they gave me the seed and I’ve since been growing it year over year and saving the seed because lots of people in my community, I started introducing it into my cooking and lots of people in my community can’t find it fresh anywhere. So I get to give that out to like friends and folks around me where they can’t find it.

And so moving on to another question was, herbs can I grow that will actually save me money compared to buying them fresh at the grocery store? That’s a good question. So your really, really, really common stuff, green onion, cilantro, parsley, you’re not going to save any money there. The biggest benefit is that you have them when you need them fresh. Like for me when, let’s say like I just happen to not be growing cilantro or parsley at that moment, if I have to go to the grocery store even just, even if it’s 50 cents or a dollar for a bunch, which is more than I need, it’s just frustrating for me because I’m like, why didn’t I, when I harvested parsley last, why didn’t I replant it? So the benefit isn’t cost, it’s having it when I need it as fresh as it can be. For those ones, that’s green onion, parsley, cilantro. On the other hand, thyme, oregano, sage, rosemary, these things are so easy to grow almost all over the country, almost year round. Obviously, if you’re growing in somewhere where… is literally frozen. You can’t do it. You can’t be harvesting off of your oregano then. There are techniques to keep your plants warm over the winter. I’m not that experienced in cold weather growing. Honestly, we’re always open to suggestions and advice. So emailing us at info at or support at saracacultivation.com even with just like hey, I grow in cold climates and Or commenting on our social media. I grow in cold climates and this is something that actually benefits me or this is an approach that I’ve learned over time.

I would love to learn that because I’m that would help edify me and give me more information for if I end up going somewhere to try and grow in the cold. So yeah, I mean, I would, I’m always, I’m always learning no matter what about gardening. I’ve been doing it since I was a kid and I love it and I do it every day, but I still have plenty to learn. So yeah, I’m always open to suggestions and advice and anything that can help me become a better grower. But point is, is the things that can save you money, a little clamshell, plastic clamshell package of time. And just because you need a little bit of time for your roast or your soup, can, to me, it’s so frustrating when I don’t have that one herb that I need. and it cost me three, four, five dollars for a few sprigs, which, knowing that once I have it and have planted it it’s established of rosemary, for instance, it’s literally free for the rest of my life. Those hardier herbs, are mostly in the Lamiaceae family, that’s the mint and sage family, those ones are the ones where you can usually save money by growing them yourself, especially because you have them year over year over year, and once you have it, you kind of have it forever. Next. Topic two, pepper growing challenges. The question is, why are specialty peppers like shishito and Thai pepper more expensive, and can I grow them at home? So, shishito and Thai are a little bit more specialty. They’re… There’s more specialty than that, but I think it’s, I think that this person was asking based on, comparison to bell peppers or jalapenos.

So bell peppers, jalapenos, those super common ones, even serrano, poblano, habanero, those ones can get a little bit more, like habaneros can get a little bit more pricey. But once you start getting into the shishito and tie, then it can be harder to find and can be more expensive depending on where you are and the time of year. So. The answer is can you grow them at home? It’s kind of like yes. Yes, anyone in the States can grow pretty much anything if you put enough work into it. What I would recommend as a starting point is grow them in, start them in spring, late spring even, into summer, so that you can make sure that you’re putting on that foliage, the larger leaves, before starts to flower and then fruit. That way you’ll get more harvest off of your pepper plants. I started a habanero in like, I think August and I got like one really awesome jalapeno. It was delicious. Had it packed a really nice punch, really hot. But I started it so late that I only got one habanero. So my suggestion is if… Yes, you can grow anything at home. It just depends on how much work you want to put into it. If you want to have a better chance of success, it’s going to come down a lot to timing, the time of year. That’s the first starting point. The other thing is peppers. They’re pretty heavy feeders. They want to be putting on a lot of large leaves, which means that they’re going to be wanting a lot of nitrogen at the beginning.

So going for an all-purpose blend or a vegetative blend before into your soil is going to help them get a really strong start and then after that you can start feeding them in with a more fruiting tomato pepper fruiting blend of organic fertilizer or however you feed your plants. If you feed your plants primarily with compost, then you’re not going to be making that switch. You’re just going to make sure that based on your experience with composting, if you’ve been feeding your soil with compost for a couple of years, you should have a good feel of how your compost, whether you’re making it at home or getting it from somewhere else, you should have a pretty good idea of how much it takes to burn a plant. So how much too much and what you want to do with peppers because they have heavy feeders is you’re want to just back off right below that and start feeding once the plant’s established. It has a nice strong root system so probably not the first six weeks of the plant you’re going to you’re not going to be doing that heavy feeding but once it’s established it’s got roots it’s got multiple stems and lots of leaves then you can start increasing that feeding with your compost if you’re if you’re just getting started into composting, it’s a good exam- it’s a good opportunity to start pushing that upper limit of how far you can go before you start burning plants. And burning a plant means that it just has too much, usually, nitrogen in the mix and the plant can’t take it. So it’s getting like a toxic dose of nitrogen. That’s more rare with, from my experience, with home composted, homemade compost.

More often than not, I see underfed peppers that are under producing when they could take more compost if you’re feeding with only compost. If you’re using an organic bag soil or a bag fertilizer, there is a good chance that you could overdo it. So start with the bag recommendation. There’s often a low dose and high dose recommendation. And as the plant matures, you’re going to want to push more towards that high dose. And again, if you want to get even more specialized, we’re going to be doing is feeding a lot of the vegetative growth fertilizer at the beginning. And then once it starts to put on flowers, you’re going to switching more towards that fruiting flowering. And that’s going to be more phosphorus rich than the nitrogen rich vegetative growth fertilizer. So those are my suggestions. I hope that that’s useful because, but yeah, I mean, think the number one tip is make sure you’re growing at the right time of year. That’s my number one tip. That’s how I found. I get the most yield. The other things you can add on top and what you’re doing with that is you’re trying to get the most amount of peppers off of that one plant and the most delicious peppers off of that one plant. Either way though, if you’re growing them at home and taking all the care and consideration to have a really healthy plant, then it’s going to be delicious. If not for anything other than just the fact that you grew it yourself. Next question. What’s the secret to getting jalapeno plants to actually produce a good harvest indoors? Producing jalapenos indoors is an interesting choice decision to make to start like right off the bat.

My question would be like, is this the best use of your space? Is this the only way that you can grow peppers? I can think of maybe you really want a jalapeno and you want to grow a jalapeno and this is your only space, your only option. In that case, go for it. If the other thing I can think of is for some reason you can’t, like you aren’t going to get a chance to grow outside in spring and summer. In that case, I would say go for it. But if you have the outdoor space and it does get warm enough for you, definitely try to go for outdoor. The power of the sun is really hard to duplicate indoors. the amount of energy that it takes to actually do the photosynthesis that the plant needs is so much compared to what the sun produces for us for free. But if you want to grow indoors, despite all of that, and you’re like, still want to grow jalapenos indoors, to increase your yield, You’re going to need to dig a little deeper into slightly more advanced pruning techniques. So what you’re thinking is, how do I, because you’re going to be using artificial lighting, what do I do to maximize my canopy so that the light that I’m paying a lot of money for hits every single leaf? So you’re going to be taking a lot of care and consideration to push that canopy up and flat. And this is during the vegetative growth period. So you could spend six to eight weeks in this vegetative stage and the way that you can keep the plant in what’s called keeping it in veg, meaning that it’s not putting effort towards fruits or flowers.

It’s just putting effort to building strong stems, strong roots, and a strong canopy. you can adjust the light hours and adjust the light temperature. That’s not temperature, meaning like how hot or cold it is, like in degrees Fahrenheit or degrees Celsius. The temperature describes how much blue or red it has in it. So as you get higher up the Kelvin scale, towards 6,000, you’re getting bluer, bluer, bluer. what looks like, imagine like an office building where it’s a super bright white light, that’s bluer. And then imagine like a cozy lamp next to your bed, more that orange hue, that’s going to be lower towards 3,000 on the Kelvin scale for the light temperature. and the more blue that you have and the longer you let that light run, let’s say 16-18 hours of on time with blue light, the plant is going to respond to that light duration and light spectrum to stay in vegetative growth. Once you have that really flat canopy where the light from your light source, it’s going and it’s hitting every single leaf, building really strong stems and leaves, then you can either and there’s some LED lights where you can adjust the spectrum or there’s some people will even switch out their light fixture for something that’s more blue, vegetative growth, and they’ll switch it to something more red. They’ll reduce drastically reduce the light hours down from 16, 12, 16, 18 hours a day on to eight hours on.

That hard flip of going from vegetative to floral growth is going to trigger hormone responses of the plant to sort of almost start panicking and say like, okay, now it’s time to put on flowers and then they’ll start going into flower and they’ll start producing those hormones that say, all right, let’s make flowers, let’s make fruit. So at this stage, you’ve flipped from flower to fruit or sorry, you’ve flipped from veg to flower. During this vegetative growth period, you can also parallel or like in tandem do one other step, which is kind of what I described in the soil growing, outdoor soil growing for the specialty peppers from the last question. It’s a nitrogen, high nitrogen plant food. for the vegetative growth stage and then it’s a high phosphorus plant food for the flowering fruit in the growth stage. that phosphorus is going to be used in the flower production and used in the hormone regulation of the plant. So, and at that point you don’t want to be putting on leaves. You want to have the plant putting all of its effort into getting sugars that are stored in its stem structures and produced by the leaves going straight in like a pipeline into your flowers and your fruit. Last tip around this whole topic is because we’re looking for pollinated pollinated flowers to make the fruit going along and if you have decent airflow sometimes the pollen can float around but you’re most likely not going to have a pollinator like a bee or a hummingbird to come along and actually touch the flowers. So go through and hand pollinate. That’s and the way I hand pollinate, some people will use a paintbrush, which is more sterile.

And if you’re doing a larger operation, you know, it makes sense. What I do is I just go and I touch the center of every flower and the pollen that my fingers pick up. I transfer to the next flower. So I just go and that’s once, twice a day, every time I look at the plant. And I do this for my tomatoes outdoors. I’ll go through and I’ll just real quick, just touch all the flowers, almost any flowering plant that I do. I also like it. It’s kind of fun because you get to look at, look more closely at the flowers and know that you’re helping the plant. So hand pollinating combined with all of those efforts of Choosing the right light spectrum, choosing the duration for the on time for your lights, and then choosing the right fertilizer for those two main stages of growth. The vegetative or the flowering and fruiting stages of the life of the plant. I think like my thoughts on this are that if you like for me, I love a certain part of this because of the challenge and the technicality and the sort of hobby side of it where it’s like I get to explore and build my skills as a grower and it’s something that like is really fun to sort of problem solve. If you’re just trying to increase like the yield or the harvest and you have a finite amount of time or energy or resources. I do think that you’d be better off if you can find a way to grow outside, to grow your jalapenos outside. But if not, I hope that those tips help. On to the next question. Topic three, microgreens and baby vegetables.

Are microgreens worth growing at home or should I stick to full sized vegetables?

By Matthew Enloe | Cerca Cultivation

Ready to transform your thumb from brown to green? Cerca Cultivation’s Matthew Enloe shares invaluable advice for aspiring gardeners, revealing the absolute easiest vegetables and herbs to cultivate, setting you up for immediate success in your first growing season. Discover expert insights that will demystify plant selection and empower you to start your garden with confidence.

TL;DR – Quick Summary

Unlock your green thumb with these expert tips for new gardeners, focusing on easy-to-grow plants and quick results.

Growing Strategy: For beginners, herbs (cilantro, green onions, mint, oregano, thyme, sage) and leafy greens (lettuces, kales, arugula) are the easiest to grow, as many are related to common weeds and are resilient.

Plant Selection: When selecting vegetables, cabbages and cherry tomatoes are recommended for fall planting due to cooler weather reducing pest issues, while radishes are “bulletproof easy” and offer quick success.

Soil & Nutrition: For rapid results within the first month from a seedling, dill, parsley, and green onions are ideal due to their “cut and come again” nature, allowing for multiple harvests quickly.

Seasonal Planning: Hydroponic growing offers significantly faster results than soil, with plants like cilantro showing substantial growth in just three weeks compared to soil’s longer timeline.

Cultivation Success: Cerca Cultivation’s DIY seed starting kit provides a curated experience for new growers, including 6 beginner-friendly seed packets (romaine, green onion, kale, arugula, basil, radish), 12 expanding plugs, and a multi-purpose, recyclable PET tray with tear-away plant tags.

Pro tip: Prioritize growing plants you frequently eat; this psychological connection increases engagement and ensures you’ll utilize your harvest, making the gardening journey more rewarding and sustainable.

Stephen: So this is the last kind of two questions that we have and they’re both about plant selection for new growers. So first off, which vegetables are easiest to grow for someone who’s never garden before?

Matthew: Yeah, yeah, that’s a good question. The easiest things to grow are going to be herbs and leafy greens. Lettuces are in the dandelion family. Dandelion is a weed. They’re in the aster family, which also includes dandelions. So relatively, and I hope that no one takes this who’s had challenges with lettuces in the past. Maybe it’s your growing climate. But leafy greens, that’s lettuces, which are in the same family as… dandelion, brassicas, which is your mustards, your kales, arugula, broccoli’s cabbages. All of those are actually, it’s not even a family. It’s a species, the same species brassica that is from the wild mustard plant. They’re just subspecies from the wild mustard, which is also a weed. Those ones are gonna be really easy. And then your common garden herbs are gonna be really easy. That’s cilantro, green onions, cilantro and basil. just, seasonality kind of matters. But green onions, chives, both are a little bit harder to start from seed, but once you get them going, they’re pretty much impossible to kill. Mint, oregano, thyme, sage. Once you get them started, they just don’t like the roots to be too wet. So just don’t overwater those. But yeah, those ones are going to be the easiest ones. But when it comes to veggies, as we’re going into the fall season, cabbages are pretty easy. The weather is cooling down, so there’s less likely of the little cabbage moth butterfly caterpillars. coming and eating everything. They don’t like the cool, they’re not as reproductive during the cooler weather. So cabbages are really easy this time of year and cherry tomatoes are pretty easy. Cherry tomatoes and cucumbers are pretty easy. so what’s easy? That’s one way to sort of look at the question.

those are what comes to mind. Lettuces, leafy greens. common garden herbs, and then for veggies, cabbages and cherry tomatoes, cucumbers. But I would encourage people to go for what they eat a lot of. Because if you eat a lot of it, presumably you like it a lot and you’ll eat it when it comes out and you’ll be more excited for it. So that makes it a little bit easier to keep your attention. So there’s like the psychology of it as well. If I’m trying to grow a plant that I am not gonna eat, but it’s really interesting, but I’m not gonna eat it. I feel like it’s easier to have that be just a novelty of starting, but I’m not caring so much about what comes out the other end that at a certain point I might just forget about it. That can be the case for some of the really specialty peppers. That could be the case for a luffa gourd. A luffa gourd is going to, you gotta wait a long time for it to dry out on the vine, and then you gotta make it into the luffa gourd. They’re really cool and really fun, and you might be excited about them, but they’re, more complex, they take more care and you’re not going to eat them. But like a radish, pretty hard to not be successful with a radish.

Matthew: And there’s lots of pretty common culinary cultures that radish is a staple, especially like a daikon. So if you really like daikon radish or you eat a lot of daikon radish, try growing a daikon radish.

Stephen: Yeah, exactly. That makes total sense. And when you guys are putting together your seasonal bundles and things like that, are you guys thinking about seasonality in terms of what’s going to be easiest to grow for your customers and whatnot as well? Like if somebody buys a seasonal bundle from you guys, is it something that is already going to be kind of curated for easy growth for them?

Matthew: Yes. So when someone buys a seasonal bundle, they can expect a good mix of things that are really easy to things that are more unique and might be a little bit more challenging to maybe nudge you a little outside of your comfort zone. I think a good example is our roots and shoots bundle. I have fava, which is really easy, fava bean.

Stephen: okay.

Matthew: which is really easy, so easy, but it’s a little less common, but it’s also delicious. So that’s something that’s easy, a little unfamiliar and very delicious. And then I’ve got something like a purple pole bean, which can be take a little bit more for me. Sometimes my pole beans, like I really got to sort of make sure that they’re not, check on them a little more often.

Stephen: Hmm.

Matthew: I feel like they can, if they’re not putting on that vegetative growth or they’re not trellis, right? It’s a little bit harder, even though it’s maybe a little bit more common to use, because you just use it like a normal green bean, but it’s also purple. So it’s interesting. And then something like, like a radish, there’s radishes in that bundle, which are bulletproof, easy. Yeah, exactly. sounds like a good mixture of things. That makes a lot of sense, the way that you guys curate them. Okay, so I think that we just have one last question and then I have one more question that you actually haven’t seen yet. So the last question is, what herbs should I start if I wanna see quick results in my first month? Or is that even possible? This time of year, anytime of year.

Stephen: And maybe you’re going from seedlings specifically, from one of the seedlings that you guys have. So maybe let’s change that up a little bit. So what herbs should I start with if I want to see quick results my first month? And I’m going to be buying a seedling from Cerca. Okay, okay. If you’re trying to get quick results on a… If you want… Ask me the question again. Okay, so what herbs should I start with if I want to see quick results my first month and I’m buying a seedling from Cerca?

Matthew: Okay, from a seedling from us, the quickest results are going to be dill, parsley, and green onions after a month of growth. The reason why I picked those ones, cilantro too at this time of year, the reason why I picked those ones is because they’re really easy for cut and come again, meaning that you’re going to take a little bit off. Your first harvest is going to be small, but your next harvest is going to be bigger and then more and more and more. So those ones grow quickly to that first harvest. Whereas basil, once you get it up and running and you’re doing cut and come again, that takes like more like six weeks, eight weeks before it’s like big and booming and then you’re getting a ton. So you’re gonna get a ton of basil once it’s going. But for fast results, and you only need a little bit of dill, a little bit goes a long way.

So that’s why it’s gonna feel more productive quicker because you don’t need as much. So I’d say dill, dill would be my response to a month of growth, but a month and it depends on where you’re at because, know, for us in the middle of July on a hydroponic tower, like forget all of that because I could get you a finished whole bunch of parsley in like three weeks.

Stephen: That makes sense.

Matthew: versus like this time of year, things are slowing down, which is kind of good for herbs because it gives them a little bit more time to develop the complex flavors. And then also growing in the soil is completely different from growing in hydroponics. So you’re definitely going to need to be a little bit more patient. But yeah, I’d say dill, parsley, cilantro.

Stephen: Hmm, that’s interesting. more patient growing in soil or more patient growing in hydroponics.

Matthew: way more patient growing in soil. But it’s worth, I think it’s worth the wait sometimes, you know, if you’ve got the space and you’ve got some really good soil, it can be worth the wait.

Stephen: So. But growing hydroponically, within one month, you might be able to see significant growth on certain plants, whereas in soil, that same plant might be much, much smaller. OK.

Matthew: Yes, yes, definitely. I could go grab you a three week old parsley from transplant. So the question was, one month of growth, what should I grow to have a quick results with herbs? in soil, growing in hydroponics, different timelines. Everything changes depending on the time of the year. But I think a good example is our frilled cilantro.

Stephen: Yep.

Matthew: So frilled cilantro, this guy right here starts out about three inches tall. And then after three weeks of growth in the hydroponic tower, we’re looking at this. that’s ready for its first harvest. And you can see that we’ve got, I don’t know if you can see it, we’ve got small younger growth coming down below. So once you harvest off the top and.

Stephen: Wow, that’s huge.

Matthew: It’s gonna look a little bit ugly when you harvest this way for cilantro, but you can just harvest the leaves right off at the top, just as long as you’re leaving some of that new growth right there coming up and not cutting that part off. You just want to cut the more mature stuff on top. Yeah, you can also take more time with it and like pull the tallest ones out and just take what you need. That’ll end clip them lower. That’ll make it look a little bit cleaner and a less ugly. yeah, cilantro, parsley, dill, they’re all in the family called umbilifer. And they do, they’re pretty quick compared to… like stuff that’s in the mint family, the family Lami-eishi, which really likes to go slow and establish, but once you’ve got it, then you’ve got it.

Stephen: That makes sense. Well, I think that’s it. That’s all been really, really helpful. The last question that I have, which wasn’t on the original list from other people, but this is actually just a question for me because I was talking with you about this last week and I think it kind of goes in line with a lot of this kind of new grower, new gardener, where should I start kind of questions. But could you show one of your new gardening kits that you guys just released because and like show all the different things that you have with it because it’s so helpful. I love this whole new kit so much.

Matthew: Okay. Yeah, yeah, let me grab one. Alright, this is the new kit. This is DIY hydropon, DIY, this is our DIY seed starting kit. And it comes with, comes with 12, it comes with an instruction card and it says right there what’s on it. It has six seed packets, six plant labels, plant label tags and 12 expanding plugs. So these are expanding plugs. They’re a little bit different from the bonded medium that we use for the plants that we send. but they are also hydroponic and soil compatible. So you get 12 of those. You get six seed packets. Right now this kit includes romaine, green onion, kale, arugula, basil, and radish. Some really, I would try to go for the most popular, but still beginner friendly varieties and things that. are almost universally loved. And then the tray itself has a tear away top. So there’s a perforation along this hinge here. So you can actually tear this off and it has tear away plant tags, which are maybe a little hard to see, but all of these tags right here, they’re your six plant tags.

Stephen: Mm-hmm. So you just press those out and then use a little sharpie to write what’s on each of them. That’s so cool. And then you can use that bottom tray as the little grow tray, right?

Matthew: Yep, exactly. Yeah, so I mean. Right, right, right. So you just tip. So you’ve got 12, so you can do two rounds of growing. You just, you put these in a bowl, put six of them in a bowl, let them hydrate, and then they’ll puff up to about like two inches, two and a half inches tall. And then you place them back into here, and you’ve already torn away the plant tags. You label what you’re planting, and then they sit in here, and you put them in a well-lit window. and as much light as they can get until they’re ready to transplant. And we’ve got all the instructions on the instruction card right here. But yeah, so this packaging is, we put a lot of thought and design into this packaging to make sure that it’s as little plastic waste as possible, but still protects your plants well. We also designed it to be dual purpose. So these are actually, This is the same packaging that we send our live plants in. They fit just like this in this packaging and also come with the tear away plant tags. Yeah, we don’t want to create more waste, more plastic waste in the world. But we also know that we have to protect these seedlings so that they end up as healthy as they can be when they arrive. So as we were designing this, we had this DIY seedling kit in mind. so that we don’t have to keep on creating different plastic products. have a multi use for this one, for this one plastic component. And it’s also, recyclable, recyclable, P E T that’s the number one in the recycling sign. yeah, recyclable plastic. and, yeah, we’re really, really proud of it.

Stephen: So that’s recyclable plastic still. wow.

Matthew: I think we tried to do our most to design packaging with both the planet in mind as best we can working within our constraints and as little waste and as multi-use that serves our customers as well as possible.

Stephen: Yeah, no, it’s so cool. I love that. I love that little tray and just the fact that the little, even just the little plant tags press out of the center of it and then the tray itself can be used to grow in and all of that because if there’s gonna be plastic there already, it’s so much more useful to be able to say, okay, cool, we’re not gonna print extra plastic tags and put them inside the plastic packaging. We’re going to make it a part of it and also just a cool part of it. It all looks so, it’s so fun to use and just like tear away the little bits and tear away the top lid that has its own labels for all the different seeds and all that stuff too.

Matthew: Yeah, yeah, I mean, like, there’s, we’ve, we spent so much effort on this. When someone gets our live plants, they get a printout of what plants are in each cell, A, B, C, D, E, or F. And people were having a problem where they would be like flipping back and forth like this, and they’d be like, which plant? A? that’s A. but the, the This is Tearaway so you can look at it while you’re looking at the plants. And on the bottom side, we have ABCD so that you don’t get confused while you’re going to label your plants. Yeah, and we had some.

Stephen: It’s also clear so you literally can look straight through it and see that’s A, that’s B.

Matthew: Yeah, yeah, so we really, really tried to, I mean, the other thing is, is it was just hard to pack everything else for my team, which I’ve got to make sure I shout out my team, Sarah, Cornelio, Sebastian, Ruben, Mike, Annalise, everyone here. This would not work without the team of individuals who works here and keeps this thing running. I couldn’t be more grateful to be working with them, but I… had them in mind, because I used to be on the packing line. I used to be the packing line. So I was thinking, what can be more useful to my employees? What can cut out a step for them having to, because I wanted to include individual plant tags, but that was just an extra step of something that could be mixed up or confusing or frustrating while you’re just trying to get the plants in the package and out the door to the customer. trying to take every single. like with the design of our packaging, trying to keep everyone who’s going to be touching it in mind.

Stephen: That’s so cool. Well, I think that that’s it. That’s all of our questions. I think you’ve answered all of them so helpfully. So is there anything else you want to.

Matthew: I hope so. No, I’m just keep growing everyone. I well, yes. There’s one thing I do want to do on every single podcast. And that’s any guest who I have is.

Stephen: So I think that was my last question. That was the last one that we got for this week. But was there anything else that you wanted to.

Matthew: Yes, yes. There’s one thing that I want to have in every single podcast and I hope I don’t forget it, but I want to ask the guest, what recently have you grown that got you excited? Or if you haven’t grown anything recently, what’s something that you’re excited to grow in the future? It recently can be anytime in the past month, year, 10 years, something that you’ve grown that you got excited about and enjoy.

Stephen: Ugh. I don’t know if I’ve ever grown anything without your help.

Matthew: Okay, but no, that’s not true. You’ve got stuff. We were working on plants last weekend.

Stephen: That’s true. I mean, I was chopping down a bunch of plants because I have a bunch of trees. I’ve cultivated plants that were already there quite a bit. Like I’ve had trees for a long time and I’ve cared for them quite a bit. My favorite plant that I have is in the front yard.

Matthew: We’re going to do it, Jeremy. But that counts.

Stephen: And it’s this tree that I think that the people who previously owned the house made it into a lime slash tangerine hybrid plant. And it grows these lime, tangerine, orange things that are just the most tasty little citruses that I know of.

Matthew: Are you talking about the big lime tree? No, was a… Because you got a lot of citrus.

Stephen: No, well there’s the, no, no, no, there’s the big one that has the tiny little lemon limes. I don’t like those really. But those are okay. But then next, like forward towards the street, there’s this little like orange tangerine lime. pretty sure, but they’re so green.

Matthew: But then they write it Either way, that counts. That counts. It’s your plant. You cared for it.

Stephen: But no, I don’t think that they are because they’ll be fully, fully green. And then if you eat them while they’re fully green, they’re perfectly beautiful orange on the inside and they’re super sweet while they’re still green on the outside.

Matthew: Well, there’s a bunch that are super green on there right now. So you should get eating.

Stephen: If you peeled one right now, it would be super sweet. Which is why don’t think it’s just a purely a tangerine tree. Because usually if they’d be green, they’d be a little bit harder. They taste like they’re almost ripe, while they’re 100 % lime green.

Matthew: Well, I think that that’s a perfect answer to the question. Your wild citrus that we don’t know what it is, but it ripens up all weird and it’s delicious. think that’s a perfect answer. Okay, well, I’m gonna wrap it up. This is, thank you for being on the first episode. Thank you for encouraging me to do this. It’s something that we’ve been talking about for a long time.

Stephen: Alright. Yeah.

Matthew: And to anyone who listened, I hope you got something out of this. Yeah, it’s a little bit of plant talk, cultivator connections. You can find us on Instagram and online. Instagram is @cercacultivation and our website is www.cercacultivation.com. It’s where you can find us and yeah.

Stephen: Yeah, plant talk.

Matthew: Keep growing.

Stephen: All right, sweet. Well, thank you. Thank you for having me. Bye.

Matthew: Yeah. Thank you.

By Matthew Enloe | Cerca Cultivation

Ready to dive into the world of hydroponics but unsure where to begin? Cerca Cultivation’s experts are here to demystify the process, revealing the essential equipment you need to cultivate a thriving small hydroponic garden right at home. Prepare to unlock the secrets to successful indoor growing and transform your green thumb ambitions into reality.

TL;DR – Quick Summary

Unlock the secrets to starting your own thriving hydroponic garden at home, even if you’re a complete beginner.

Growing Strategy: Beginner hydroponic setups, like wicking or Kratky systems, require no pumps and can be DIY’d with basic containers (e.g., 5-gallon buckets) and a hole saw drill.

Plant Selection: Essential equipment includes a reservoir, a growing medium (coco coir, rockwool), net cups, a water-soluble nutrient solution, and a pH testing/adjustment kit.

Soil & Nutrition: Maintaining a pH of 5.5 is crucial for most hydroponic plants; a pH down product (preferably phosphoric acid-based) is needed to adjust basic tap water.

Seasonal Planning: Visual cues for insufficient grow light include plants stretching, having thin/weak leaves, and often being accompanied by aphid infestations and high humidity.

Cultivation Success: For nutrients, a single-part dry nutrient (like the AeroSpring product mentioned) is ideal for beginners, providing all necessary plant food without complex multi-step systems.

Pro tip: When sourcing grow lights, prioritize LEDs for energy efficiency and less heat, and always observe your plants for signs of stress (stretching, thin leaves) to gauge light adequacy, as this is often the first indicator of an issue.

Stephen: No, I think it is. I mean, I’ve learned things and I’m around you often. So I think that people will definitely, definitely think so. All right, so this is kind of moving into another topic altogether of essential equipment for beginners specifically, so what basic equipment do I need to start a small hydroponic garden at home?

Matthew: More fun. OK.

Stephen: So this might be maybe a more basic, I’m thinking, of a question than like an aeroponic, or not aeroponics, but the garden that you just talked about.

Matthew: So a really basic kit. So let’s I’m going to I’m going to take this question and assume that people are interested in the more DIY approach, which is where I started. There’s different types of hydroponic systems, which I’d love to get into probably on another podcast in the future. But there’s some that don’t even need pumps. So Those are referred to as either wicking or crack key systems. So a wicking or crack key system is going to not have any pump, but you’re depending upon the gap between the top of the plant and the roots that grow down into the water, which isn’t moving, you don’t need a pump. You don’t need an air pump, but that gap actually oxygenates the root zone. allows the plant to not just be completely soggy and be anaerobic at the root zone, which will cause the roots to start rotting. So the basic equipment will be some sort of a container, a five gallon bucket, maybe a 10 gallon Rubbermaid tub. You’re gonna be cutting holes out. So some sort of a hole saw drill, something that can cut a hole big enough to put some sort of a cup that holds the plant in position. You’re gonna need some sort of a growing medium. So, hydroponics is growing plants without soil and a nutrient solution who the plants still need something to hold on to. So that could be cocoa core. That could be, there’s some foam based growing mediums. There’s rock wool, which is, it’s, It’s minerals that have been heated up and spun into a fiber that’s compressed into these little blocks. That’s a pretty common beginner hydroponic medium.

There’s expanding grow plugs which have cocoa core or sometimes a combination of cocoa core, peat moss that have been compressed into little pucks that hydrate. So you’re gonna need some sort of a growing medium. And something I’ve seen people use yogurt cups and they… with an exacto knife, cut slits into the yogurt cup. And that’s all the, that’s pretty much it for the structure of it. It’s some sort of a growing medium, something soft that the plants can germinate in. You can use a soil blend, like a potting soil blend, because they’re not going to be in that for that long. But it gets loose and sometimes it falls through the little slits in the net. cup. That’s what people are making when they the slits in the yogurt cup. You can also just buy net cups from a hydroponics store. That’s one side. The other side is the nutrient solution. And the nutrient solution is going to need some sort of water-soluble, all-balanced plant food. And that’s going to provide all of the food that plants need to grow. You’re going to a nutrient and you’re going to need something to test and adjust the pH. The pH is the acidity of the water. So plants grown hydroponically, typically almost every plant that common garden plant in hydroponics is going to thrive with a pH of 5.5. Neutral is seven. Anything over seven is considered basic. So we want the water slightly acidic. And 5.5 is about the pH of lemon juice.

But what you’re going to need is a pH down, some sort of pH down product, which is an acid that not only fights the weak bases, weak bases would be calcium carbonate, potassium carbonate, sodium bicarbonate, but you’re going to fight the strong bases. that’s like, then, so you’re going to need a stronger acid. to fight those stronger bases so that you can actually bring the pH down and not have it just spiked right back up. Because most tap water is a little bit basic.

Stephen: So for people who don’t necessarily know everything that you just said, do you guys have a basic pH adjustment kit or anything or nutrients that will help with that? is that something that, where do people find that kind of thing?

Matthew: So we have one on our site right now. It’s fine. It’s a good solid one. It’s the one I started with. We’re working with a local hydroponic company right now to get something a little bit more advanced. So that’s TBD. Probably before the end of the year, before 2026, we’ll be selling some of their really cool nutrients and pH adjusting. supplies, but we have a pH testing kit from General Hydroponics, which is pretty good. It’s good enough that I use it. That’s kind of the name of the game with pH adjusting. It just has to be good enough. You just got to hit 5.5. There’s nothing really fancy about pH adjusting. Nutrients, on the other hand, is a whole world. There’s. single part dry nutrients. There’s liquid nutrients with steps for every step of the growing process from vegetative growth all the way through like three different blends to get you through fruiting through flowering. And then there’s additives. like calcium, like a Cal Mag. So there’s a whole world. We sell the most basic beginner. Single part nutrients, it’s complete, has everything that the plants need to grow. All of the plants that we sell that we designate as hydroponic friendly on our website, they’ll do well with our nutrients, do well with our pH down. So yeah, it does not have to be that complicated, but you can get as complicated as you’d like.

Stephen: So to kind of summarize that, for the most basic equipment to start a hydroponics garden at home, what are the bullet points of all the things we just talked about?

Matthew: Okay, you need some sort of a reservoir container to hold the water. You need some sort of a growing medium that’s something soft that the plant starts in. You need.

Matthew: Coca-Cola, Rockwool, or our plants are ready to go. They pop right in because our growing medium is, it’s a bonded medium that works in both hydroponic and soil gardening. A net cup, something to hold the plant in place. And you need a pH test, something to test the pH. So that’s either litmus paper drops or a pH probe.

Stephen: Okay. Cool.

Matthew: And then something to adjust to respond to that. a pH down product, some something with a strong acid in it. Phosphoric acid is the main thing that I’m focusing on in a pH down. Just because it’s also a plant food. it, when it reacts with the carbonates in the water, the alkaline. Yeah, it releases the phosphorus as available. phosphorus. And then you need a nutrient.

Stephen: Okay, and you guys sell a single powderized nutrient, you said?

Matthew: some of other people. Yeah, single part dry mute is what we would call it, but it’s a powder and you just, there’s a million ways to dose your, your, there’s as many, it’s probably six main different ways you could approach how to dose your hydroponic system. But the instructions that are on the back of the one that we sell is, and it’s by AeroSpring, our partner, our hydroponic partner. Yeah, so we. Yeah, we saw that one. I like it. I like it. It works great. It’s so easy. But I’m hoping that we get some more advanced level stuff soon. It’s coming.

Stephen: Okay, sweet. So the next question was I think maybe kind of in the same vein as that but maybe it’s slightly more advanced because it’s springing in lights, How do I know if my grow lights are providing enough light for my seedlings?

Matthew: Oof, look at the plants. That’s the first question. If you’re going to go buy plants, that’s a whole world of questions that you need to answer. First is like how many plants are you gonna grow? What’s your canopy? So that’s the amount of leaves that are going to actually need the light. Are you going to be doing cooling? because if you’re going to be cooling your grow room, then you’ve got more options for lights that run hotter. What’s your energy bill that you’re okay with? Because a thousand watt sodium metal halide bulb that’s running for let’s say 18 hours a day is will have a noticeable increase and will also need cooling on your plants. LEDs have come a long, long way and usually an LED will have some sort of like conventional sodium metal halide equivalent. But it’s hard to know with LEDs, like what that conversion is. So, Yeah, like what I have to do is I have to go find when I’m sourcing grow lights, I have to ask those questions. And then I have to do research on those specific plants about what type of part that’s photoactive region that tells your light spectrum, how much like how many actual photons the plants expect.

Stephen: So getting back to like as a more beginner though. What could I, because I don’t know how I would go about all the, that would take hours of research for me to even understand a lot of the thing that, yeah, exactly. So is there, is there anything that I can do by looking at it? Like from looking at it, like you said in the beginning, what would be those visual cues that I’d be looking for to know if my grow lights are actually enough for what I’m growing?

Matthew: It would take hours of research for me to get you what you want. So. So yeah, you have a grow light and you’re like, are my plants sick because I’m doing something wrong or is it just not enough light? It’s a good question to be asking.

Stephen: or doing my plants just not like me.

Matthew: Or do my plants just not like you? I can’t answer that last one for you. I’m sorry. So what you’re going to be seeing is you’re going to be, imagine lettuce is a great example because we all see lettuce so often and we’ve seen it in the grocery store so many times. Ahead of Romaine, maybe 10 inches, 10 inches tall. And the leaves are pretty compact and a nice dark green. But your romaine, all the leaves are spread out like wide and they’re all really thin and they’re curling a little bit and they’re skinny and they’re stretching. So what the plant is doing is it’s responding to those low light levels and it’s actually the hormones that the plant are producing are telling it open up, I need light, because in nature it would be in the shade. So it’d be like open up, need light, so that I can finally get to the point where I produce a flower and put the seed down, which is what I was born to do. So open, and the leaves will actually, the cells in the leaves will actually elongate. And that’ll push those leaves out to be longer and thinner. So you’ll see that in a poorly lit, a poorly lit indoor grow, skinny, thin, weak, like you touch them and the leaf breaks. And then also usually, usually accompanied by that, you’ll see two other things. That plant is so weak that if, for instance, aphids come in, they’re gonna love it. cell walls are thin and they’re easy to pierce and just suck all of the all the sugars out of each cell. So you’ll usually see an aphid infestation and those aphids most likely didn’t come when you put the plants in.

They could have, but they probably came through the front door. As you were walking in there’s aphids and the pests. Spider mites aphids are the two worst indoor. pests and they come in through the front door. They’re just hanging on our sleeve and all it is one. They are so prolific. There’s that and then you’ll also see a lot of humidity. So these are the three things that I’ll see together with insufficient lighting, insufficient dehumidification and.

Stephen: Hmm.

Matthew: Sometimes that’s as simple as making sure that it’s not a super closed room with no way to get air exchanged out of the room and aphids. And once you have aphids, it depends on how far the outbreak’s gone. But the first thing to do is to try and get those aphids from the plant that has most of them away from the plants that don’t have them as fast as possible. So you’re gonna be removing that plant, potentially washing it. And sometimes you can wash it off. Sometimes you wash it and just call that the harvest. You eat that one. Good. Now you’ve got an empty space ready for you to go to plant another plant. But there are all sorts of pesticide measures that you can take everything from very benign, like some things that are practically useless, like like diluted milk. I would hate to say if diluted milk works for you, let me know. I’ve never seen it work. To neem oil, is really, neem oil is really common and mildly effective. An organics spray that I find to be much more effective is called Azamax or Azera. It has the concentrate from neem oil. It’s just more concentrated, but still comes from.

Stephen: Hmm.

Matthew: Still comes from the neem tree. And then up to synthetics, which I’m not that familiar with. But there are synthetics that can kill pretty much anything.

Stephen: Yeah, it’s, there’s a lot to it. mean, you you’ve made an entire career out of it, so I get it. A lot of these questions are quite long answers, but I think they should be. They’re helpful.

Matthew: Yeah, yeah, I I hope it’s helpful.

Grow Your Own: Community, Free Seeds & Shared Experiences

By Matthew Enloe | Cerca Cultivation

Beyond the simple transaction of buying groceries, Cerca Cultivation’s Matthew Enloe reveals the profound satisfaction and invaluable community connection found in growing your own food. Prepare to discover how transforming “seeds to seedlings” with Cerca Cultivation offers a richness that extends far beyond monetary value, fostering shared experiences and a deeper appreciation for your harvest.

TL;DR – Quick Summary

Unlock the secrets to cost-effective and community-driven food growing, whether you’re a soil enthusiast or a hydroponics innovator.

Growing Strategy: Growing your own food offers immeasurable fulfillment and shared experiences, with seeds costing as little as a dollar a packet or even free through community networks.

Plant Selection: While a single plant can cost $1-5 (or $5-15 at nurseries), buying seeds is significantly cheaper; a pound of arugula seeds, for instance, yields 150,000 seeds at $0.0003 per seed.

Soil & Nutrition: Hydroponic towers offer increased water and space efficiency, deployability, and accessibility for diverse abilities, making gardening possible in wheelchairs or on rooftops with weight constraints.

Seasonal Planning: Basic indoor hydroponic kits are suitable for leafy greens and herbs, but full fruiting vegetable production requires significantly more light than most basic kits provide.

Cultivation Success: The AeroSpring hydroponic tower, though not ‘basic,’ is recommended for its robust lighting, grow tent, and 360-degree coverage, enabling successful growth of a wider variety of vegetables indoors, even for beginners.

Pro tip: Tap into your local growing community for free seeds and invaluable knowledge; this shared experience and expertise can significantly reduce costs and enhance your gardening journey.

Matthew: the process of growing your own food is fulfilling in ways that can’t be measured compared to like just going and buying it. And like shared experience with the folks around you. Sharing what you grew with someone else, it’s hard to put a price tag on that. But seeds to seedlings, on the other hand, that’s a really good comparison, which is like, packet of seeds. Sometimes they’re on like a super deal where you can get a packet of seeds for a dollar. You can get seeds for free, like I said, and I would say it’s definitely worthwhile reaching out and getting tapped into your community of growers because it’s not just free seeds, it’s free knowledge too, and it’s like meaningful experiences.

Stephen: And it’s community and it’s sharing a fun thing that you care about and that passionate about or that you’re even just trying out with other people who do feel the same way about it.

Matthew: Yeah, totally, totally. So, seeds and tapping into your community is like, I would definitely recommend that.

Stephen: I mean, you could even make the same argument that you could do yoga at home in your own living room pretty easily, but you have a lot of people who really get a lot of value out of going to a yoga class.

Matthew: Yeah. 100%. Like at the end of the day, a gym is like, yeah, maybe they might have some fancy machines, but you can do all those workouts in your home. Yeah, that’s a good, that’s a really good analogy, which is like, it’s not about the final product per se. But when you’re talking about the, to just get back to the original question is, I think the comparison is a plant. is anywhere from even just like not our seedlings just a plant. Anywhere from a buck to three bucks sometimes if you get something a little bit bigger you might spend five six bucks on it and like from one of the big nursery chains they they tend to have nice big plants that give you a great jump start and but those can be five to $15 even sometimes.

Stephen: I’ve definitely seen ones cost way more than that from nurseries and stuff like that too.

Matthew: Yeah, you just don’t buy those ones. But a fair price for a plant anywhere a buck to five bucks for a plant compared to a packet of seeds, which you will get more seeds, but I would argue probably more than you need. If you compare the price per seed, I if you really want to save money, buy a pound of arugula seeds where each one and I’ve done the calculations as part of. making sure I have a sustainable business model, 0.0003 cents per seed. So I’m looking for one arugula plant. It’s definitely cheaper to do to make that one seed last. Yes, yes, yes. I think a pound of arugula is somewhere in the like 150,000 seeds.

Stephen: Wow. So yeah, mean, it makes a lot of sense, I think.

Matthew: So yeah. So it’s like, it’s hard to make the cost comparison. It’s really hard.

Stephen: Mm-hmm. So,

Matthew: just sort of different purposes.

Stephen: And it seems it makes a lot of sense why you guys have the people who buy your seedlings that you do.

Matthew: Mm hmm. Yeah. And the more I do this, more I learn from our customers what actually serves them better. I could make all the plans in the world, but literally I brought Kohlrabi back by popular demand this week. And because I sold that, I did it as a limited time special offering. and we sold out and then I brought it back on and we’re almost sold out today. And I like.

Stephen: Wow.

Matthew: I had no idea. I know Kohlrabi is kind of cool. I find it a little bit interesting, lots of people like Kohlrabi and I’m learning and adapting to meet the needs of as many people as I can.

Stephen: That makes total sense. So getting on to the next question. What’s the difference between hydroponic towers and traditional soil gardening for small spaces?

Matthew: Yeah. Mm-hmm. So for those of you who don’t know what hydroponics is, hydroponics is the practice of growing plants without soil in a nutrient solution. So a hydroponic tower usually looks like it’s about five to six feet tall, and you’ll see plants growing out of it, like lettuce or cilantro, or sometimes there’s veggies down at the bottom or peppers and green onions at the top. So these hydroponic towers are, they are a method of growing your food, but there’s no soil involved. And that’s kind of like for people who’ve been growing for a long time in soil or people who just had no idea is like, you can grow plants without soil. And yeah, people have been growing plants without soil in this sort of conventional hydroponics methods since the beginning of the, 1900s, people started doing some like experimenting in like academic lab settings. But there’s also a rich history of hydroponics that in Mexico, in Thailand and Southeast Asia, where people were growing in sometimes, like, leaf litter, rather than soil itself, they would build up plant material. and sometimes put that out onto ponds that were heavily stocked with fish. And they would grow plants without soil in a nutrient solution. And that nutrients was coming from the ecosystem feeding, but there was no soil actually present. Soil meaning actual dirt, mineral particles like sand or silver clay.

Stephen: So is that technically like an aquaponic system?

Matthew: Those are like, I would say, would, aquaponics is a subcategory of hydroponics where you use fish as a large portion of the nutrients, providing the nutrients to the plant. So yes, they would be more, they’re hydroponics, but I think they do fit the qualifications of an aquaponic system kind of, but it was more of a sort of.

Stephen: No, no, no.

Matthew: natural approach to it, not too much human input. Effort, labor, don’t get me wrong. But it wasn’t quite so over engineered, I guess, comparatively. So if you take away soil, then the question is, why would you do that? You must have some sort of benefits that you’re getting. And the benefits specifically for a hydroponic tower that’s growing. vertically where the plants are coming out from the sides. You’re getting increased water efficiency. And here in Southern California, where we’re in a perpetual drought, that’s a big deal. You’re getting water efficiency, you’re getting space efficiency, you’re getting deployability is what I would say. It’s easy and quick and efficient to set the tower up and get growing right away. and accessibility. We work with lot of organizations with people who have diverse abilities. So they might be in a wheelchair or have like challenges with mobility. So it’s hard for them to access the garden spaces. And for those organizations that we’re working with, we usually will partner a soil garden with a hydroponic tower so that everyone can enjoy and participate in the garden because there’s something that fits for everyone. Yeah.

Stephen: That makes a lot of sense. And so for those people it’s obviously much easier to access one tower worth of stuff rather than moving around plot to plot.

Matthew: Right, right, right. There’s less bending down, there’s less strain, and you can put it on a paved surface so that you can actually approach it with a wheelchair or a walker.

Stephen: That’s really cool. I never realized that before.

Matthew: Yeah, yeah, so it’s been a huge success story at some of those places. Rooftop gardens, weight is usually a huge issue. 20 gallon reservoir full of water in one four square foot area is a lot different than an eight foot garden bed. The weight difference is significant.

Stephen: Yeah,

Matthew: and then when that 8 foot garden bed gets soaked, it’s like it’s full of water.

Stephen: It’s like an eight foot trough of water, essentially. we’ve come up across issues where we’ve had a lot of desire for a rooftop garden, but the building simply couldn’t take the weight. But we were able to strategically place the hydroponic towers along, above supporting walls so that the weight was distributed rather than on, whereas a. Mmm.

Matthew: a garden bed would be, you know, couldn’t be centralized. Yeah, so we could just place the towers on and it was like a weird layout and you’re like, why would you ever design a garden like that? And it was because that was how we could actually grow the food on the roof.

Stephen: across a huge surface area, yeah. That’s funny. like structurally, safely do it, yeah.

Matthew: So I am I think I fall into an interesting sort of space in the hydroponic growing world. A lot of people go like on one side or the other, they say, like, hydroponics is the best only do hydroponics. Or it’s like, it’s so much more efficient. It’s so much easier, blah, blah, Or hydroponics is the worst. Like it’s unnatural.

Stephen: Ha ha ha.

Matthew: And like, it’s like you’re using synthetic nutrients, which is not always the case. There are organic nutrient methods. They’re just more work. Kind of like the aquaponics is one way of tackling that. But I’m I’m completely agnostic when it comes to it. I just want to find the best tool, the best method of growing that can fit. for whoever needs it.

Stephen: Which is really funny because also outside of that, you’ve had extensive research and success, I think, in aquaponics, which a lot of people look at as borderline impossible to do successfully. Hydroponics, aeroponics in a scientific experimental laboratory. Yeah, literally.

Matthew: Got it? It was a tech startup.

Stephen: And obviously also like regular soil and whatnot. So I feel like if anyone was to have a good picture of it, I feel like you’re one of the best sources of information on that, honestly.

Matthew: Well, I just try not to get too dug in in one direction or another. And I try to just see the benefits for what they are. And if someone if if someone’s interested in growing and they’re really against the mineral based nutrients that we use the salt based nutrients for hydroponic towers, then I have no judgment there. You know, it’s it’s about making real decisions about what you’re growing and what you’re eating. And those are your decisions to make. And far be it from me to dictate like which direction to go. So some of the differences are that I love growing in soil. I love just getting dirt under my fingernails. I love that there’s an ecosystem that’s living in the soil of microbiology that’s constantly making new nutrients available, breaking down old roots. pulling nitrogen straight from the atmosphere. I love soil. It’s just so, I find it incredibly fun. so I think there’s a lot of beauty in soil. And in hydroponics, I think has a lot of like efficiencies and creativity when it comes to solving complex problems, which as we’re facing different food insecurities throughout the world. creative solutions to complex problems is going to be something that we need to be able to access at times. And then we can also just enjoy the soil and the beauty of the soil at times.

Stephen: That makes a lot of sense So Moving on from that, the next question is, can I successfully grow vegetables indoors year round with a basic hydroponic kit?

Matthew: Hmm, that’s a hard question to answer.

Stephen: I feel like this probably came from somebody who is likely, like East Coast, obviously much different climate than Southern California. We’re very lucky. We can pretty much grow things year round. But obviously not everyone can.

Matthew: Yeah, I agree. I can grow almost anything year round. I’m very, very lucky in that regard. Yes, with a basic hydroponic kit, as long as you have enough lighting, light is going to be the number one thing that you’re concerned about.

Stephen: And I’ve heard you talk about this before, but a basic hydroponics kit, maybe one that even has a light. Could you maybe talk about is that when you say enough lighting, are those two the same thing?

Matthew: Nuh-uh. Huh. basic hydroponic, that’s pretty subjective. I think there are some pretty good basic hydroponic kits on the market right now. Good enough to grow some leafy greens and some herbs. But as far as like full fruiting vegetable production, it’s those plants need a lot of light and a lot of light and basic and basic maybe as a euphemism for cheap. Those that lighting isn’t going to is I haven’t seen one. I guess I’d rather say I haven’t seen one that has enough lighting to really grow a strong tomato plant or pepper plant or squash or cucumber. They just get really big and they have a lot of leaves and they generate a lot of sugars. in those leaves that gets pumped into the fruit. And that’s what we love. But sugar is a direct transformation of CO2 and water through photosynthesis. if you don’t have enough light, those broad leaves, especially imagine like a cucumber leaf is about maybe some of them can be the size of like a dinner plate, maybe a tea plate. But they’re broad and there’s lots of them. And each one of them is expecting to have the strength of the sun to do the photosynthesis that it needs to keep itself, the cells in that leaf alive, as well as contribute to the growth, new growth of more leaves and fruit. So.

Stephen: Yeah, that’s a good way putting it. It doesn’t know what’s inside. It’s expecting the full sun.

Matthew: Yeah. There’s greenhouses. Greenhouses are a way to grow through the winter. You can’t really change anything about day length. Most there’s ways to do supplemental lighting. And there’s affordable greenhouses. We grow the greenhouses that we have used in the past for our operation, especially when we’re starting out, we’re $200 greenhouse kits. And those are definitely suitable to grow in some cooler climates through the winter months. And you can add supplemental lighting in, but then we’re starting to get more advanced. So basic hydroponic kit, leafy greens, herbs, getting a feel for it is, I think, the extent of what you could expect out of a basic indoor kit.

Stephen: Wow. Do you have any examples of any that you do like or that like not to put you on the spot and not to say those are the only good ones but do you have any that do you guys sell any that you would recommend for for this kind of thing for like an indoor with lighting or anything?

Matthew: Yeah, yeah, I, we do. We sell an AeroSpring hydroponic tower. I love our AeroSpring and that’s why we decided to partner with them. I’m pretty skeptical when it comes to consumer hydroponic systems because I’ve grown on some terrible ones in the past. Worked really closely with some terrible ones in the past. But I really like the AeroSpring. love growing on it outdoor in Southern California. The indoor kit has, because we’re pretty close with the founder and owner of AeroSpring, his name is Torben. He’s the one who designed, he started growing hydroponically in five gallon buckets and PVC pipes, just like I did. So when it came to selecting lights, he and I have had many conversations about. well, why did you pick this spectrum? Why did you pick this intensity? It’s like, oh, wouldn’t you have wanted to go with something a little bit like a cooler lighting spectrum? And he was like, yes, but I think it might’ve been a little bit too glaring when you have to look into the tent. So the one that we sell, the AeroSpring, I say ours because we’re so close with Torvin.

Stephen: That’s really cool.

Matthew: It has a whole grow tent, which can help with controlling humidity. There’s a fan that pulls the air out. Yeah, and it’s got a full three, it’s a hexagon. So it’s got full 360 degree coverage of the plants that are growing outwards because the lights are run vertically. And it has a lot of light.

Stephen: that’s really cool.

Matthew: It has a lot of light, but even still, think the question was, can grow vegetables indoors year round with a basic indoor hydroponic system? Vegetables are always going to be hard because they’ve got bigger leaves. They like to grow bigger and they like the sun. you definitely expand. And the thing about the AeroSpring is I wouldn’t call it basic. I would say that anyone can use it, but it’s a slightly more advanced kit. just from what I’ve used. Anyone can use it. We’ve had plenty of people who’ve never grown before be successful on it, growing indoors in Chicago, in Maine.

Stephen: Yeah, I’ve interacted with those a bit. They do seem like a beginner could totally figure it out, but it does seem like it has more to offer than just what a… It seems like it has stuff to offer a beginner as well as other people who are more advanced.

Matthew: And it expands you out into doing things like more than just like lettuces and herbs to like I could do a full-size bok choy, which is a in the cabbage family. So I could, I can expand out more towards certain veggies and be perfectly successful on that kit. So I hate to be so. when it comes to the hydroponic and plant questions, but I hope that this is useful to our listeners.

By Matthew Enloe | Cerca Cultivation

Join us as Matthew Enloe, co-founder of Cerca Cultivation, kicks off the “Cultivator Connections” podcast with a special guest: his brother, Stephen Enloe. This inaugural conversation offers a unique, behind-the-scenes look at the passionate individuals driving Cerca Cultivation and provides a foundational understanding of their vision for cultivating success.

TL;DR – Quick Summary

Cerca Cultivation’s podcast, ‘Cultivator Connections,’ aims to demystify gardening, offering practical advice and fostering community around growing food closer to home.

Growing Strategy: Cerca Cultivation, a California benefit corporation, prioritizes collaboration over competition, finding success through mutually beneficial relationships with other urban farming organizations in Los Angeles.

Plant Selection: The company’s mission is to help people grow food closer to where they live, learn, work, and eat, with ‘Cerca’ (Spanish for close/near) embodying their commitment to local, sustainable food and community building.

Soil & Nutrition: Cerca offers live seedlings online, curating menus based on seasonal and regional growing conditions to meet growers where they are, with average orders of 18 plants often including diverse bundles.

Seasonal Planning: For beginner gardeners, buying seedlings offers a ‘bottled success’ head start, costing around $2.50-$3 per plant, comparable to a packet of seeds, and saves time and effort compared to germinating difficult seeds.

Cultivation Success: While gardening may not always be cheaper than store-bought produce due to setup costs (hundreds of dollars), the value lies in the experience, joy, and higher quality of homegrown food, often exceeding what’s available at typical grocery stores.

Pro tip: When starting your garden, try both seeds and seedlings; any plant you kill is a learning success, not a failure, and provides valuable experience for future attempts.

Matthew: Hey there everybody, welcome to the Cerca Cultivation Cultivator Connections podcast. I’m Matthew Enloe one of the co-founders and co-owners of Cerca Cultivation. And I’m really excited to be talking to everyone today. I’ve got a guest on. First guest is just happens to be my brother, Stephen Enloe Welcome to the podcast.

Stephen: Hey, how’s it going? I’m really excited to be here. I’ve been wanting to see you start doing this for a long time, so it’s really cool.

Matthew: So a quick note on what Cultivator Connections is. Cultivator Connections is a podcast that’s supposed to be sort of a way to share knowledge as growers, answer some common questions. Cerca is our mission statement is to help people grow food closer to where they live, learn, work and eat. And we have a lot of questions that come up from our customers online. from our in-person service customers and just from friends who want to get that green thumb a little bit greener. And so I’m gonna be answering a lot of questions. Hopefully in the upcoming episodes, we’ll have some guests on who are talking about interesting things that they’re growing, but it’s about building community, building knowledge, having resources and tools available to anyone who wants to grow their own food.

Stephen: And I think one of things that is really cool to me about this whole thing is that Cerca is so community based and you guys have so many awesome people that are truly a part of your actual community that will be on as guests but also just contributors of this whole thing.

Matthew: Yeah, one thing that we talk about is that we’re kind of trying to take an unconventional approach to a for-profit business. A lot of our friends and collaborators are non-profits in the urban farming world. We’re in Los Angeles here trying to grow food in the city. a lot of organizations get a lot of traction as a non-profit organization. But being a California benefit corporation, which just means that we’re a for-profit, but we’re for-profit and for good, it’s just how we file when we set up our company. so what we’re trying to do is take a different approach to the competitive sort of idea that if you’re not working together, then you’re a competitor to be defeated, we found that all of our successes come from collaboration. Someone may, we might be trying to get the same customers, but realized that we both serve slightly different niches. And yeah, so everything that’s worked for us so far has been flipping that upside down and saying like, what if we didn’t see people as competitors first, but collaborators first?

Stephen: Yeah, exactly and I feel like it from my understanding of what you guys have already done so much of there have been people who have been a quote-unquote competitors that you guys have ended up both benefiting more than you probably would have separately Just from realizing that you could work together and serve the people the same people but in in different ways.

Matthew: 100%, 100%. A little bit about myself. I studied environmental science and a lot of my focus was on marine biology, specifically marine ecology. And what you see is that the most resource efficient ecosystems have a lot of symbiosis where there’s mutually beneficial relationships. And that’s been a huge part of getting started. I want to take a second because this is the first podcast to just talk about Cerca and what we are, who we are. Like I said, where our mission statement is to help people grow food closer to where they live, learn, work and eat. Cerca about the name, Cerca Cultivation is, Cerca is Spanish for close or near. And when we were trying to figure out what to name this company, we were thinking local. You know, like getting people trying to be more familiar with their food. And our, co-founder, Kevin Dutton, his mom was from Peru and he grew up speaking Spanish in the home. And he was like, closer, closer, closer, cerca. And cerca is actually Spanish for close or near. And we were like, that’s it. That embodies our mission. So. What I like to say is we’re helping people grow food closer to where it’s going to get eaten. That’s a bit of the sustainability side of it. We’re trying to grow closer to our food, meaning that we have a better understanding of the types of effort that goes into it. So maybe we can, when we’re considering the type of labor that goes into our food or the farmers, can just carry that empathy for. the hard work that they’ve put in and a little bit of the gratitude.

And then we’re trying to grow communities closer by collaboratively and collectively growing food together, that practice of bringing communities together. that’s a little bit about our ethos and like who we are and just a second about like what we do. So, Cerca cultivation.

Stephen: is a place where you can go online and you can buy live seedlings. You can find healthy, strong, live plants available for sale. And me as the horticulture operations side of everything, I’m the one with Kevin as well. He’s my other horticulture right hand. I’m the one who’s doing a lot of the menu curating and making the final decision about what actually is available. So, you know, what time of year should you grow basil? And we’re serving the whole country. So we’re trying to make, you know, the healthiest basil plant available online to the consumer in Florida, where maybe that’s our only, the only people who would be served well with that basil plant. Whereas in like the Northeast they’re thinking this time of year, which it’s fall when we’re shooting this, just beginning, they’re thinking what’s gonna be able to tolerate the cold. So that’s plants like kohlrabi and like your our squash plants are gonna be in the summer. But we’re thinking broccoli’s, cabbages, things that are more used to that colder climate. So yeah, we’re trying to, we also often say we’re trying to meet growers where they’re at. That’s kind of the closer part. And that means like serving as many people as broadly as we can. selling plants online. And then we also have in-person services in the Los Angeles Orange County area, which is design. consultation, maintenance, education, and installation. So that’s who we are, what we do, what we’re thinking. and And I think one of the cool things about that too is from like an outside perspective that has seen this company grow along the way. First off, you guys do a great job at all of those things.

Like you guys really, you stick to your mission and you carry it out just one step after another, which is really cool. But also it’s interesting just to like even take a peek inside of like the authenticity of just like, I hate that word kind.

Matthew: Thank you.

Stephen: but like the the through line of everything being true to that same mission even in that you guys don’t refer to your uh… menu or your your products so to speak as your product lineup or you think you can you refer to it as a menu because at the end of the day you guys are thinking about the end user every step of it you’re thinking about this being food growth you’re not thinking about this being products to sell you’re thinking about this ads. what it actually means to the customer, which is I think a really important part of this whole community building and bringing this closer. It’s not just for the sake of like, we have this idea for the marketplace. It’s really truly, we see this need that we want to see in the world. We want to see it be met and it’s serving that.

Matthew: And that’s like, that was intentional from the beginning. So I’ve mentioned Kevin, Kevin Dutton, my business partner, my other plant dude. And David, while he doesn’t always identify as a plant dude, David Crowley is our other co-founder. He is the ethical business side of everything. So Kevin and I were just like, let’s start a nonprofit, give a bunch of plants away. But when it comes to that intentionality of taking things step by step by step, David, coming from a business background and being passionate about making a positive impact in the world. And from his starting point, it was he wanted to know where his food came from. So he started looking for people like Kevin and I, who had done a lot of growing our own food and helped other people in the past. And he was like, hey, you guys know what you’re doing here. Our missions, our personal missions, are totally aligned. Let’s refine this into something and make it something that can go so much further. And we went through that really refining process at the beginning. And it’s still being refined, but we try to stay true to that mission. We all believe it so wholeheartedly that we can make a really positive impact in the world by doing this type of work.

Stephen: No, it makes total sense. And I think that’s honestly that’s even kind of reflected with a lot of this now. I mean the fact that you guys are going through these questions that we’re going to be going through I think is just helpful. It’s a way for you to just again listen to the needs of people who are actually getting this food and growing this food with you guys and showing them how to do it a little bit better. Sometimes even some of them might just be fun questions. it seems like in this little list of ones, but yeah, I like that a lot.

Matthew: And the thing is there’s always room for improvement. I’m growing, I’m learning every day. We grow 15,000 plants per week, shipping all over the country. But I’m always working to refine to make the healthiest, strongest plants that can take the long journey through the mail and get to our customers as healthy as possible. And that’s a learning process. I come from, like I said, a science and plant background. But I’m learning that part of gardening is the planning and the, from us, a business side, and there’s so much planning that goes into it to be able to pull this off. So, yes, without further ado, let’s get into some questions. Stephen, do you want to throw me some of the questions that we were looking at earlier?

Stephen: Yeah, it’s really cool. Yeah, let’s get into some of them. And I really like this too, because I also, I’m not a plant dude. I’m not somebody who grows. I’m somebody who has done this alongside you for a long time and mostly kind of just watched on the sidelines. But a of these are honestly genuine questions that I’ve had in the past and that we’ve also, you guys have gotten from other people. So the first one that we have is what are the main advantages, maybe even just what are the main differences of buying seedlings versus starting them from seed especially if you’re a beginner gardener.

Matthew: So these some of just for some context, some of these questions are aggregated. You know, we assembled the main theme of several questions that we’ve gotten. So it’s like, when we think about the advantages, it’s more like it’s more like there’s a different place where every grower is on their journey of of their horticulture gardening skills. And it’s about finding the right fit for your garden. So Stephen, if you’re getting started, you’ve been seeing me do this for longer than I haven’t. But if I were to give you advice, so your question is, should I buy, how would you say it? Should I buy seeds or buy seedling tomorrow?

Stephen: Yeah, if I’m a beginner gardener, if I’m a beginner gardener, should I start my seeds from scratch or should I buy seedlings from someone like you guys at Cerca Online?

Matthew: Honestly, this is my honest opinion. I’d say both. It’s worth giving it a try yourself and stumbling through it. And then also having the success, almost like bottled success in a way, the tail, the head start, so that you can see, okay, this is an example of.

Stephen: That’s really cool, yeah.

Matthew: what it’s like for when I get my kale. You know, like I’ve got kale seeds, which is packet of kale seeds is maybe three bucks. And then our plants are, depending on if you get them bundled or whatever, it’s 250 to $3.

Stephen: So about the same price because most people aren’t buying a packet of seeds and growing an entire packet at once.

Matthew: Right, right, right. You would have to have a lot of space to do that. So your intention is to grow a couple of kale plants or maybe just one, one successfully. It’s your first time. So if you have the seeds that you’re starting by just throwing them on the ground, great way to start, putting them in a little bit of soil. And sometimes people will even use like toilet paper rolls or egg cartons. If you get it,

Stephen: Yeah, exactly.

Matthew: Right the first time, I’d say, bravo, you’re very lucky. But I didn’t get it right my first time. My first plant that I grew was a jalapeno that I got from a packet of seeds. And I like babied it, babied it, babied it. And I got a couple of jalapenos, but that was enough for me to get started. And then, yeah, I kept it under a little grow light in our kitchen.

Stephen: Yep. I remember that.

Matthew: then finally brought it out and put it in the soil. But at that same time, was a teenager and I was spending like, was cashing in bottles to go get plants and seeds. I would recommend if you’re getting started, try both and know that any plant that you kill is a success. It’s not that you’ve failed because you’ve learned. You’ve only failed if you don’t try again. And just because you haven’t tried again yet doesn’t mean that you won’t try again. So you haven’t even failed even still. You still can go and be successful if you do that second or third or fourth plant. So that’s a case where it would make a lot of sense to buy a seedling as a beginner. And sometimes it’s even like you just try the seeds and try that, stumble your way through until you see the success.

Stephen: That’s really cool.

Matthew: that’s a good way to go. Or you just do the seedling and see what it’s like. And then you’ve got you got the bug and you’re like, okay, cool. Now I want to upgrade my skills to get to the next level, which is I want to grow from seed. That’s one path that I’ve seen some folks go. Another reason why you would do seeds versus let’s let’s just say seeds instead of a seedling is. Sometimes there’s ways to get free seeds. can get free seeds from lots of libraries, have free seed banks. You can talk to friends and families who have been gardening. Most of us have a drawer full of seeds from a couple of years ago. And we don’t really want to do them. Maybe we’re bored with them. Maybe they’re older seeds and the germination is going to be low, but it’s enough. to mess around with. so you can get free seeds. can even, from a compost pile, squash will just pop up out of the compost pile. You’ll find a tomato plant that’s just growing off to the side. Yeah, we call, in the garden, we call those volunteers. That’s plants that, that’s plants where the seeds have.

Stephen: A rogue, a rogue gourd.

Matthew: sort of floated off wild and seeded themselves. So that’s one reason. Or if you’re trying to have like a lot of control at a little bit of higher level, you’re trying to have a lot of control about the specific varieties and hunting for that really special seed, this is for me personally, when I’m gardening, I’m looking for that. really, really special in my garden. I’m I’m asking people for this one seed because I knew they grew it out. I was like, let that one go to flower so I can get those seeds. Like, please, please, give me those seeds. I have a couple. just got given this, this corn, this beautiful corn from Jonathan Glandez. And this is a corn that they’ve been cross breeding for like the past seven years.

Stephen: Wow.

Matthew: And this is a masa corn. So it’s made, it’s a starchier and it’s more intended for like tortillas and rather than a sweet corn, which is what we’re used to buying in the store. But yeah, so friends at this point, friends will give all sorts of seeds. This is a pea. I think it’s similar to a. lima bean, but it’s indigenous to this area, to Southern California. It’s a crazy purple good though. You see that? It’s a crazy dark purple legume. It’s called Ayocote Morado, a purple runner pea. So I think it might be more like a broad Roma bean, actually. So yeah, at a certain point, you’re really hunting for that special stuff because you’re.

Stephen: Yeah, I see that.

Matthew: You know, your time and your effort is really valuable. Your time in the garden, you want to make the most of it. So that’s a case for seeds. Now on the seedling side, when you’re getting a live plant, like from the nursery or from an online seller, sometimes it’s because the seed is really hard to germinate. So that’s something like maybe an indigo plant. Like I bought some indigo plants online this year. They’re really hard to start from seed. And so I went and I found a small business in, I think it’s Georgia, that grows indigo. And that’s for making dye. So maybe the seed is really hard to start. Similarly to some of the peppers that we do, some of like the really hot peppers. the germination rate is so low and it takes so much care just to get that one seed to come up that sometimes it’s easier to just say, it’s not worth me like, you know, spending the next eight weeks trying to get this one like ghost pepper seed to come up. If there’s one that’s ready to go and I know it’s really hard to do, then maybe I’ll just go with a reputable supplier and. get that particular seedling because it’s hard to find or unique or rare and hard to start as well. So that’s a reason why. And then, yeah.

Stephen: Well, so also it seems like if you’re buying all these packs of seeds and each of these is the cost of a seedling or more sometimes, know, especially for the crazy varieties, it almost seems like you could save money by just getting a variety of seedlings from a place that allows you to buy a big variety of them even.

Matthew: Definitely, definitely. A packet of kale seeds probably has, if you’re lucky, maybe 250 seeds in it, a small packet from the store. You can get any amount of seeds. I buy my seed by, this is arugula from Everwild seed that I buy by the pound. So you can get any amount of seed. But you’re probably thinking, okay, I’ll get a packet of seeds for three bucks and I’ll get 250 kale plants. Yeah, but you only want a couple of kale plants at most. if you’re trying to get more options and maybe some stuff that you haven’t tried before, having a place like.

Stephen: Because most people are doing an order from you guys. They’re not just getting an entire order of 12 plants that are all kale. They’re getting a few kale, they’re getting a few of these, a few of that, right?

Matthew: Mm hmm. So we have our bundles are a collection that we’ve curated that so leafy green, a leafy green bundle, a veggie bundle, an herb bundle, and a lettuce bundle. And then we have specialty seasonal bundles as well, like roots and shoots is has like beets, carrots, peas, and, and beans in the roots and shoots. So we’ve curated bundles. And that’s about.

Stephen: Thanks.

Matthew: half of our customers, or half of our plants that go out actually go out as bundles.

Stephen: And then the other ones are usually also in variety though or they usually just one singular type.

Matthew: Yeah, yeah, it’s usually a variety and then people are putting like two or three, our average order size is 18 plants. And it’s usually someone will put two or three of their favorites. like, for instance, like borage is an edible flower that we sell and someone might put five borage and then the other 18, I guess that’d be the other 13 plants. are just picked from our menu, you know, to get a little bit of everything. On the rare occasion, we get someone who’s just like, I want all arugula. And I think that the purchasing sort of like the, the planning garden planning behind that is, a different perspective. I think that the common person who’s coming onto our website is looking for breadth for their garden.

Stephen: That makes a lot of sense for whatever people are looking for. mean, no one’s usually trying to just eat like five massive arugula salads every day for a week when they harvest.

Matthew: Except for our brother. We have an older brother named Chris. And he can eat five massive arugula salads every day for a week.

Stephen: Well, that’s true. That is very true.

Matthew: So there is that type of person and we have that often available for you. adding breadth without having to, know, the seed packets is more than you would need. And seeds have a finite life cycle. You can keep seeds longer in your refrigerator if you keep them really dry and pretty cool, but the dryness is the most important thing.

Stephen: which refrigerators are never dry places. They’re prone to moisture.

Matthew: Yeah, they are. are. But they’ll dry out your bread. But you can keep seeds longer if you keep them refrigerated. But eventually germination rate, which is every seed packet when you get it new has a guaranteed germination rate. And the idea there is just given common gardening, most gardeners would be able to get 75%, 80%, 85% germination of the seeds that they’re buying, but that drops off over time. So keeping seeds the same seeds year over year. Like I’ve got seeds from when I was a teenager and some of them are fine. Like the germination rate hasn’t dropped off, but some, especially like special peppers and certain squashes and like those ones the germination rate can drop off. And you just, reason why I’ve got thousands and thousands of old seed packets is because I only wanted a couple. Yeah, so adding breadth and then the last big category, we had a friend of ours who come by yesterday and he loves gardening. His name is Matt. He works at the last company that David and I used to work at and he gets his seedlings from us because he’s got a really, really busy job. He can’t… I was like, you know, like, do you want to take some seeds? Do you want to say I was asking him because he knows how to do it. He worked with us. Do you want to take some seeds and some of our trays to grow yourself? And he’s like, I don’t have time.

Stephen: That makes a lot of sense.

Matthew: Yeah. no, just not having the time. And then the last big one, which is the, the people who we serve in, in LA, like our bulk orders, because we do like, grown to order for more than three trays. those folks are usually coming to us because they’ve missed the, they’re, they’re feeling like they’re about to miss the window. on the season. So that seasonal timing is really important. If you start your tomatoes too late, then you won’t get that vegetative growth, all those leaves on during spring so that by the end of spring, they’re pushing flowers and fruiting. So like, for instance, for me, I started my favorite tomato, our ox heart beef steak. It’s a sort of like a heart-shaped tomato. It’s called cordobo. I started it a little bit late and I only got like maybe 10, 15 tomatoes off of it. Whereas if I would have started it earlier in the year, I would have probably gotten like 20, 30, at least off of that one plant. Yeah. Just seasonality is something that you can’t control because plants respond to only a few stimuli. They respond to. moisture at their roots, temperature at their roots, temperature swings and humidities in the air, daylight hours, and the fluctuation between daytime and nighttime temperatures. So those are the main stimuli that plants will respond to, and that will trigger different sort of hormonal responses for whether it’s going to be doing more vegetative growth of. of the leaves to just become a bigger plant or to put flowers on to reproduce because it’s getting towards later on in the season. Yeah, so timing.

Stephen: That makes sense. So I think that we kind of… Sorry, didn’t mean to cut you off at end of that. Anyway, we kind of went over this, but just to make it a concise answer, well, can somebody be looking at cost-wise doing seedlings versus starting from seed, if they’re a beginner specifically, and they’re wanting to just do like a home gardening?

Matthew: No, no, you’re good, you’re good. Yeah, so there’s a few different comparisons. There’s like, what if I were to just go to the grocery store, right? That’s always gonna be cheaper than, it feels like you should save money gardening, but because you don’t have the type of infrastructure of large farms and those efficiencies that come with the larger operations, you’re almost inevitably always going to, I would say that there’s probably a case to be made that you could save a little bit of money on certain things if you’re really, really, really, trying to. But for the most part, gardening is about the experience and the joy of being able to grow your own food and eat what you produce. So.

Stephen: But I think that because you grow so much of your own food at this point, I feel like you might be a little bit detached from this too, but there is a certain factor of to get that quality of food, depending on where you are, you A, might not even be able to get that high of a quality of produce, or even, I mean, we’re in Los Angeles, and to get the same quality that I would get from you, I’d be going and buying food.

Matthew: huh.

Stephen: from a farmer’s market or from like an Erewhon or from like a really high end grocery store on the best day where they just got their produce. But those are the only options for me to get as high of quality of produce as I do from you, from your farm or your seedlings.

Matthew: That’s true. That’s a good point. Where like, if you’re considering like a head of lettuce, the cheapest head of lettuce that you can get at like a Walmart, it’s like, yeah, it’s gonna be hard to beat that even in like the setup cost of a garden alone, whether it’s a hydroponic system or soil, you’re talking a few hundred dollars to get started, unless you’re going through a lot more like work and effort and time and expertise to… rehabilitate like damaged soil or unless you’re really lucky you’ve got beautiful soil and you just happen to be able to access it for free in which case lucky you. But when you set up the garden and like the cost of like when will it pay itself off it’s it’s it’s hard to compare the final produce apples to apples no pun intended. It’s possible, but that’s not really the point. I don’t think that’s really the way to think about it per se. At least that’s not the way I would think about it. Because the value isn’t in terms of pounds of arugula, you know, the value is in the process of growing the arugula. that’s like, I just, believe that so wholeheartedly that.

Stephen: Yeah, exactly.