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.