Just want to give you guys a quick reminder
if you guys love my videos when it's me. Check out compassion-tees.com, link is at the end
of the video. Alright, this is John Kohler, growingyourgreens.com, with another exciting
episode for you. Check it out bad. It's still a winter time for you guys. But guess where
I'm in the world? I'm here in Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico is a territory of United States.
No passports needed aren't occurring. All you guys to come visit Puerto Rico, it’s
an amazing place. People are so nice down here and I'm having a great time when most
you guys are freezing today it's 80 degrees. Actually that could be a problem for the farm
that we're going to visit a second but always the reason for this is just in a residential
neighborhood right. So you guys can have a farm. You guys don't need like you know one
hundred eighty acres like the farm I just visited a little while ago. You guys can have
your own farm in your house right even without a lot of space. I have other videos where
I show this guy who has a farm in his apartment grow Mike Green's.
Check the video down below we're used to just 16 square feet of space in his living room
to grow Mike Green that can net him over one hundred thousand dollars a year. Now this
business problem won't make you as much as micro greens but this farmer if he was fully
ramped up in production and depending on how much volume he's selling he could make between
sixty thousand to like over one hundred thousand dollars in one year if he had everything sold.
So you know that's the monetary claim that he makes that I don't know what he makes.
But here's the thing right. I mean making the product to sell is the easy part. Finding
customers is the hard part. And that's what he's working on right. This business has been
in this location here for the last five years and he has regular customers. Maybe you even
get to visit one of them big farmers, small farmers and even just residential that he's
now breaking into and out. Yet a smart you know situation where he's you he went after
bigger farmers first because he knew that they would be the repeat customers and that
a person buying a retail may or may not rebuy it. Plus the big farmers you know they buy
some. Some farmers buy 50 gallons in one time. So you know if a gallon sells for 60 dollars
times 50 I mean that's some cash zoning is what we're going to show you guys today is
the farm actually it's not even in the house it's actually below the house in the basement.
And this is actually called a West Knight Worms. And what they do is they build have
a one word farm in the basement. So anyways let's go ahead and take you down into the
basement and show you guys the worms that are growing on. Alright. So this is unlike
any farmer ever visited literally. This is in the basement of a house. This is basically
an unfinished basement and it's approximately 15 hundred square feet total but only about
a thousand square feet are in use. So and in this farm what they're grown is actually
they're growing worms but they're not actually selling the worms necessarily and they're
not even selling the castings which is actually to me the most viable part of keeping Worms
is the castings in this farm actually they're maybe making something even more valuable
that's even easier to make than the castings right. They're making the worm elixir. So
let's learn about the worm elixir here today at West Knight Worms.
Alright, so this is West Knight worms and this is the farm here and what you're going
to see behind me is basically all these containers that are custom constructed to house the worm.
So literally these are worm homes, right? And what they are they're just big bins. There's
20 of these and all the standard sized bins are about two and a half feet by about nine
feet long and then there's a few smaller ones that were like they made. At first that are
better known maybe like five feet long. And you know they've gone through a lots of different
you know designs for the worm bins and this is the one they came up with. So I kind of
want to take you guys on a journey of how this worm farm operates including you know
the worm bin construction what they're feeding the worms. They actually talk about the leaks
here that they're making out of the worms to sell to farmers around Puerto Rico as well
as even ship into United States. So actually I think we want to look at the thought original,
we're bins that they're no longer using. Alright so this is the first worm Bean they started
to where their bins are a lot larger now and a little bit different actually. And what
this is just basically plywood right into two and a half feet by maybe like five feet.
This is when they started. Right now this is actually just holding some composting materials
that they will end up feeding to their worms. This is not in production.
Basically they found out that the worms would eat the wood so they didn't want to do this.
So then they figured oh you know the words are eating the wood so let's make it even
better. So let me show you guys the next innovation of their worm bin. So here's the next worm
bed designed basically it's the same thing just larger so they made it bigger and then
actually they lined it with some plastic but they found out that the plastic basically
degraded over time and would get into the castings and their product. So they didn't
want to do this and then they came up with the… I guess we'll say the final design
or actually know the next design think of history as the next one. So the next innovation
came when they actually got given to them this big box and what this box is basically
is catching shreds at a local factory that went out of business and is made out of plastic.
So they figured wow you know we can use this and it's in the worms are going to eat it.
And it worked really great. And this is just a small size and then they actually built
the real you know prototype of their current design. Alright. So this is the final design
you guys are looking at. Basically it's made out of some plastic sheeting. I think they
make pipes out of or something like that and then they put a cover on it so that no other
insects or birds or anything could have a field day and eat all the worms. And in addition
you'll see the wire behind me here because they have birds and bats and rats in the air
that they hop that constantly battle and try to keep out of this area. And they put this
over so that there's no further insects in there eating basically the special diet. The
worms are supposed to be eating to make their high quality castings and the worm elixir.
So basically what happens is they put all the worm Chow inside here and the worms eat
it. They digested and turned into castings and then the product they sell actually they
take water but not annual water they don't use city water that's chlorinated or with
you know different kind of chemicals or toxins they actually catch rainwater feed the rainwater
to fish. I'm getting ahead of myself. And then they use though fish waste water to water
the worm castings to get a very high nutrient basically worm elixir or we could call it
worm leech. Right. And the other thing is they don't take the first run as they water
the worm castings. They throw that away basically. They use it on their own trees and then they
basically catch after about an hour they catch the really deep rich black. Nutrient dense
worm leech aid or worm elixir as they like to call it.
And you know they've been doing this now for five years. That's amazing that this literally
small business young man I would say young man owned. He's younger than me you know a
recent or soon to be college graduate is running this business successfully. And that's really
cool. And then he's figured a lot of things out along the way. You know he's as you saw
he went through their various different bins. He's also went through various different recipes
for feeding the worms. He's only ever improve that. So actually I think I want to talk about
next: the actually the recipe. You actually feed the worms. That's actually top secret.
So one of the claim to fame themes of West Knight Worms is there seek a recipe that I
try to get out of them and I said hey if I come to your farm I want you to disclose all
the ingredients but you want to tell me the amounts. And I get here and he's revealed
a portion of the rest of the ingredients and none of the amounts. So I'm going to share
with the guys as much as I know. So basically what I was told when I met the farmer at the
farm local farmer's market Rincon farmer's market. He said he has 18 different ingredients
that he actually puts in and feeds the worms right. You know some of the worm farms I've
been to that grow really good castings might have up to I don't know 10 different ingredients
but this farm is using up to 18 or using 18 different ingredients in varying proportions
in amounts. And I was also told that he's using like real
whole produce right to feed the worms. And the reason how all this came up was I guess
he was in college and he had a biology instructor that said Hey we got three tests you know
are three final exams or something you know in the class but if you do a project right
you can only have to take one test. So then he came up with that idea to like have a worm
farm. And he submitted that to the instructor. The instructor said you know what. That's
a great project if you're in high school but that's not good enough for college. So then
he had to go back to the drawing board and figure out hey what can he add to this project
to make it even better. And then because the instructors English and
he's a you know a bilingual Spanish and English he started researching in Mexico like different
things about worm castings and nutrients in crops and found that each different plant
or vegetable has different nutrients in there and then when you feed them to worms you know
that's going to make a different kind of worm casting or you know where licks her. And so
that's what he totally put together. He put together a whole project to do and the instructor
evidently approved it. And that's literally how his business was born here today. And
so he really prides himself on feeding the worms like food produce and
Different ingredients to get the highest quality and most amount of nutrients actually in his
wormy elixir as well as the castings. Now haven't tested the castings personally because
some casting that I've used have actually doubled my pepper harvest and I don't know
that his worm elixir will do that. I sadly believe in good quality worm castings. Check
the link download to a forum I visited that makes the best quality worm castings that
I personally found. Botha what I'm going to do next is actually try to show the guys as
many of the 18 ingredients that I am aware of with you guys and how we process those
ingredients before you give them to the worms. Then take these ingredients and put them into
the bin. No, no, no. That might cause excess bugs and problems.
You know if the food is fresh he actually dries them. And processes them in several
ways. So the bins behind me have all different kinds of food stuff materials. Let's see if
we could open a couple up and show you guys what's inside. So this one basically has a
shredded like newspaper where all this stuff is like really light it is blown away in the
wind. So you have shredded newspaper is actually just a really good thing to feed worms. In
any case because it is a say low source when you feed worms to say low source they make
these things called sailings to graders in their guts which then in turn will be in the
worm castings or I would also suspect the worm elixir that they make. What are the sailor’s
degraders? Well the sailors degrader is, basically, are they degrade sailboats. So when you add
the compass you know the worm castings or the elixir to soil you know there's microbes
in there that start breaking down the organic matter to turn that into nutrients available
for the plants. Let's go through a few more of these bins and see what other items in
the recipe we could find. Let's see. So the next ingredient in the recipe or in these
two bins here on a bike and lift them up they're like super heavy but I could show you guys
basically they're banana peels and bananas from what I'm told. And instead of putting
the Robin Hoods in which you know can cause a lot of fruit flies and all this stuff they
basically dry them out first to the perfect rightist level and then beat them to the worms
and then actually then rehydrate these with water so that you don't get all the smells
and they actually add some paper on top of this because they literally live upstairs
and it could start to smell. In addition basically they get like they use egg shells you guys
could see basically these are just put it back in the little holder here just the egg
shells for the nutrients in there to feed the worms as well. Let's see if I get a spy
anymore. Ingredients in this local area for the next ingredient that are being fed to
the worms is actually bunny poo. Now all come right out and I'll say that I
don't agree with how these bunnies are being kept but basically what they're doing is they're
feeding them pellets and actually leaves and basically this is an ingenious way to keep
the bunnies in the poop goes into this little tray here or the rabbit pellets and they collect
the pellets and then you know dry them out and then actually feed them to the worms.
Now you know the owner of the company also had research like different kind of maneuvers.
And what's the most nutritious manure for in terms of nutrition for your plants. And
he came up with elephant manure was like at the top. So he tried to sort some clean elephant
manure from a local zoo. I think he said Sheep was also high up there. And then after that
he found that bunnies had some of the most nutritious poo in the world. So the next ingredient
that uses to feed the worms are actually star fruit. So he has a star fruit tree here. These
fruits are amazing. They taste amazing. I personally bite a tree I'd be eating as many
of these but especially starter fruit. They're productive throughout the year for the most
part. More times than just once a year like many tree crops. And sometimes you just can't
pick them alright. So if you guys look at the ground they're
just littered with right star fruit. And the problem is star foods is that once they hit
the ground right bugs get up and then they get solved and they get mushy and you can't
use them right. But there's still good nutrition in here that could feed his worms. So he picks
up all the star fruit on the ground and then actually takes him to feed his worms so I
don't know too many other places that would feed pretty much look whole star fruits to
worms. Alright so another fruit that he feeds the worms or these guys but papayas right.
This papaya. While it looks super ripe super good right. We'll go ahead and pick it down
for you guys. Sugar is a problem with this one. You know the problem is it's got two
holes in the back because I don't know if a fruit bat got in there. Something got in
there but now there's fruit flies in there this can't be eaten by human at this point.
But guess what. The worms will love it. Alright. So another fruit that actually feeds
his worms is right above me. It's bread fruit, or in wine, right? And he has a tree here
and some of the trees I've showed you guys here. He does necessarily harvest and feed
all the fruits here like he doesn't grow all the fruit. He feeds his worms here. You know
some he goes to outside farms but these are some of the ingredients they actually uses
you know bread food is one of the fruits that I think could save the world if you live in
the tropics breadfruit is the number one fruit you guys should grow because it's a perennial
crop it produces lots of calories. And it basically grows year round. Check the link
down below. Here's in for excellent video I did about how breadfruit can save the world.
So another ingredient that I was told he uses is the avocado. And this is an avocado tree.
And this tree unfortunately was affected by the hurricane. You know I mean I'm here in
Puerto Rico everybody sees the news and in my opinion the news shows the worse things.
And I mean I mean if I look out into the city I don't see like destroyed houses I mean I
see a vibrant city that's looking amazing and yes I will not doubt that they had some
issues during the hurricane and directly after you know he lost a lot of his worms actually
his farm he lost because he could not get water and could not get food.
And so he lost it set him back. You know no years. About over a year ago. And likewise
you know a lot of the farmers I've talked to they may have lost anywhere between 20
percent of their crop to 40 percent 60 percent or more just depends on the crop. But this
place looks amazing like nothing really happened. So that's the testament of the Puerto Rican
people you know to basically re resilience this and it looks like to me that this avocado
tree is resilient because if you guys look over there this tree was standing straight
up right it tipped over went over the fence. They greatly cut it off and now it's reshooting
actually to the main leaders trunk right here. It's an amazing tree just after a little bit
over a year right. And yeah. So anyways that's one of the Greens and limited what's happening
here in Puerto Rico. I think I have maybe a few more ingredients to show you guys and
then I'll share with you guys actually how they process these ingredients before feeding
the worms. Alright so, the next ingredient that he feeds
his worms is something that he grows himself and it's right here in these basically I don't
know whatever. IBC totes they're full of water. They're full of fish down below but up top.
He has all these greens going I don't know this plant or whatever but basically I was
told that this plant could be eaten a salad. And so we block she eats this like just a
little leaves. And we'll go ahead and try one. I mean taste alright. But basically.
I like the taste but guess what. So do the worms and now you'll feed this whole root
structure and everything and all the roots have actually beneficial microbes from the
fish down below you'll feed them all the greens. Let's go ahead make sure this guy goes back
in properly. As well as you know he's got fish in these totes. So what happens is you
guys see this big one behind me basically off the roof and there's no gutter there's
just a little hole in the roof where it all drains down into and the water comes off the
roof and basically goes into this one main tote and then that tote overflows into that
one and then it goes into this one. So this is this water he uses to actually hose down
the worms and give them their moisture and also ends up in the worm elixir that he generates.
Alright so what do you see as a warning before I go on like don't eat that green stuff that
I showed you guys that I said was edible. Like really burn in my mouth. Hopefully I'll
still be waking up tomorrow. Who has the next ingredient? I want to share with the guys
actually this guy and this is basically the corn cob and the corn husk there. But he does
not feed the corn itself. It is too hard for the worms but didn't just take this and chuck
it into the bin of course all the all the ingredients are dried. But then are there
and put through a next step which is one of these guys and I know you guys never seen
one of these before. It's basically half of a 55 gallon drum. We take the top off. What
is inside here is basically it looks like it looks like a string trimmer right. So it's
like a string. Turner that's made from a motor from like a washing machine that spins really
fast like this industrial cord. So it's basically like a shredder and then they basically put
the top on said like you know it's not dangerous. They put in the newspaper the corn whatever
in there they basically grind it all up and a small particle size which is perfect for
the worms, right? We don't like things that are too huge and the worms don't either.
So this is the excellent way that encourages the worms to be able to eat them eat them
eat all the food faster and more importantly make their castings and make the worm elixir
quicker. Alright. So I've got a few more ingredients I got out of home to share with me to share
with you guys. One is which of this guy right here. Basically this is just coffee grounds
right. So that's an excellent thing to feed the worms and then we have another one which
I don't know what it is. UNIDENTIFIED fruit. Flying Object. So yeah I mean I think that's
all the ingredients that he'll allow me to share with you guys. I don't know how close
we got to 18 or not. And then we don't know the exact proportions he uses either because
that's proprietary but at least this gives you guys a good starting point of some of
the fruits vegetables he uses here. But of course he locally sources his fruits
and vegetables so obviously if you're in Maine you wouldn't want to try to feed them plantations
and bananas and avocados because you guys can't get those. You want to beat them other
things that are local to you. So you know this is a, you know, locally made of Puerto
Rican produce product here in Boca, alright? So I found out two Margarita three guys a
share. Let's see Granada, which I don't know what
it is exactly and quarter sown, which I think is in the unknown as family. I know the tree
does take 10 years to produce fruit anyways, what you guys were looking at now is a bin.
And basically how they start this, Ben is, he started with worms from actually uncle
Jim's worm farm in the U S we shipped them the red wiggler worms here. And even in this
you know, basement that will he stay, it stays between like 75 to 90. And you know, the red
wheelers don't like it too hot. So you know, he had, does not have them in the, in the
sunny part, you know, the sun doesn't hit like this Ben, which is actually the closest
to the edge. So it stays a little bit cooler. And then the way he cools down the worms,
cause that can be a big problem if they get overheated. He is basically uses the water from the fish
that you guys thought to basically cool them down. How this whole bin starts. Cause this
is a nine feet section. He starts at the very top and he basically will put some of the
compost or the castings and the, with the worms in it from a previous batch and start
here and let them you know, get happy. And then basically the next section he'll add
some of his food or his recipe mixture down here and then he'll keep adding more, more,
more, more and more until the whole bin is filled up. And at a certain point, once the
bin is what he calls mature, which means it's actually broken down to a nice texture and
there's no big food chunks or food particles, right? Then he'll start forming this for the
elixir or the lead shade. So, it basically takes a hose that I saw connected
to the fish water that you guys saw a little bit earlier. He takes a hose and a basically
sprays this down, right? And as he sprays it down, what happens is this basically will
literally leech out or he'll create a T literally by writing the water through all the castings
and basically run out all the nutrients, which includes, you know, a different minerals as
well as beneficial probiotics or beneficial bacteria that can be helpful. And then he'll
basically, he'll water this and it'll let the runoff maybe for the first minute or two
or even a little while. And then he catches that. And then that he uses for his own personal
trees and whatnot on sites. But that's not the stuff he collects to sell. He collects
the stuff after its runoff, just the light stuff. Then it starts running really dark black.
I mean, this is a really rich stuff, you know, looks not like the lead shape that I've normally
seen. It's like super like almost look like a Coke color. Right? I'll show you guys in
a little bit. And they basically, he collects that down through this gutter system that
goes to the end that then goes to a bucket. So let me go ahead and show you guys that
real quick. Okay, so just learn like the lead sheet that comes off initially when he waters
basically goes into the bucket and then he'll basically re feed that again into the worm
bin. So we're only feeding like the top here a little bit at a time and he's only going
to the middle cause the last part is actually the, a fresh compost that he put in that's
not yet finished. Then once he puts this in, then it actually
starts leaking down and running down this into the buckets that we'll show you guys
next. Alright, so here is the worm elixir that he's harvesting. Basically comes down,
runs into- runs down a little. I'm like, I don’t know, the roofing corrugated roofing
material into this pipe and then the base of that pipe drips it ever so slowly down
into a bucket. Now basically one of these four bands that's in full production can produce
like one gallon a week. He has 20 of these. And if they were in full production, that
means you can produce 20 gallons of this warm elixir or worldly Chait a week, and he sells
each one each, each gallon for between a 60 to like $100 or $1 an ounce. Actually, if
it's a small size or $60 a gallon, right? So that's $128 in between 60 to $128 he'll
sell this, this literally this liquid for. Anyways, after it comes into here, it's even
further processed. So let me go ahead and show you guys the steps. Alright, so this
is some of the worm elixir or worm leachate that was collected, but if I look in here,
there's like all kinds of, particularly it now, he does not want to sell that to people,
right? So what he does is he has his main harvesting tank where all gets combined and
he has basically a sieve here on the top. And then he basically pours this carefully
through the sieve. If I could do that and you could hear it, it's going into this big
huge tank right now. Once it's in this big tank. Then he'll basically tap it off the
bottom of this tank, which actually is probably going to blow out at me super-fast. We're
going to try to just do it super slow once it's in the big tank. Then he basically, he'll take some of it off
because it had been filtered once, but that's not good enough. He's going to filter it again,
so let's see if I could open this very slowly because it's going to blow out due to all
the, literally the pressure from this tank. Oh, not too bad. It's just kind of shooting
out as you guys can see and then basically he'll fill up another bucket and then he'll
filter it again to make sure you don't have any fine particulate. So the next step is
he'll take this bucket and then he'll basically pour it into another filter, which is actually
just meant for oil, which actually even a smaller a hole in the sieve and we'll pour
this through there. They don't go into one of his main tanks that he does harvest from.
It actually fills his, his, the next step, which is the next filtration step. So what, we're going to go ahead and take
you guys upstairs to the, to the bottling area to show you guys that. But before we
do, actually I want to show you guys some of the equipment that he uses. Not to make
the liquid elixir or leachates but actually to harvest the castings. So he's built a few
contraptions basically to get the castings out after he is ready. And so this is what
he's constructed here. I mean, this is just like the innovative innovation here in Puerto
Rico when you don't have all the things at the home Depot and you can't buy them like
making that shredder and kind of, Oh, this. And this is a unique design for a trauma.
All I've ever seen is basically using some bicycle tie hers, right? Like a, I don't know,
10 speed bicycle. And he basically cut a hole in a section of it and took out some of the
little spokes here so you could actually fill this up inside here. He basically took some just some thin, rolled
like wire, fencing material and just lined it and he just uses tie wraps to hold it and
literally you could just put it in there and spin. So all the good castings you know, we'll
come out here and then the other, the rejects dev. will cut out the other side that then
he'll catch and then reuse in a system this way. He's also not, he's saving all the worms,
from actually getting expelled with the castings now. Actually he hasn't even used this trommel
since the hurricane hit because he, he's still working on getting back to production cause
his farm was, you know was hurt by the hurricane and the food and water shortages that occurred.
Alright, so what you, what he has been using to sieve out his worm castings is something
like I made, this can be made a little more heavy duty, but basically you just have four
pieces of wood with some screen that's stapled to it or nailed to it and you just shakes
it. And then out of the bottom, he'll get his
worm castings, which is actually to me, these look a little bit dry, but they're actually
nice, warm, cozy. I can tell this is actually warm poop on the whole thing. So I'll be sure
to wash my hands after the hit. But the worm castings to me are probably the most important
valuable aspect of the, we're a worm operation, you know, I mean, he sells the elixir, which
on a financial level is a lot easier to generate because literally he's taking, you know, water
and adding it and basically selling water with nutrients and some of the beneficial
bacteria in there. Whereas the castings really hold you know, additional nutrients as well
as the bacteria. So if you bought castings from him, for example, you could brew your
castings in water with some other different ingredients and increase the microbial population. And once again, leech out some of the minerals
that can be used to increase the health of your plants. Here's a holding area for castings
or the output of the worm bins that he, he, he needs to still filter out. So I don't want
sure that the guy is the final step of making the worm elixir here. So basically what you
saw went into that big barrel there, goes into this tub here and if you guys could see
it, we'll pick some of this up for you guys and show you guys the color on that. Look
at the color on that man. That's like really Coca-Cola color. You know what I mean? A lot
of lead shade or a worm elixir that I see is like, almost like kind of yellowish. It
looks like pee, but this is like really rich and a deep color. And now I want to go hit into actually smell
it for you guys and actually if you smell it really there's like it actually almost
I want, I don't want to say it smells like a Coke cause it's not like that sweet, but
it like has no off-putting odor. Right? It doesn't smell nasty. It smells like, you know,
really, really good stub. It smells like, just like water doesn't really smell, but
it smells like a tad sweet maybe. But like no off-putting order serve. You guys are making
some kind of lead shade that you get out of your worm bins that smell nasty, right? You
guys got some issues. What happens in my, in pinion is that you're getting basically
rotted fruit material or water investible material in your lead chain, in which case
you probably really want to dilute that step before you feed it to anything because it's
not fully decomposed. Like to me, this is actually nice, fully decomposed product. So
what he does is then he takes this next filter here, which filters into like, I think 2000
microns. And he will take and then run this mixture
through the, this sieve here. And then he'll get the really nice fine product. Now he even
has a farmer that will inject this into the irrigation system and other, you know, a computer
controlled methods. So for that farming he actually even has to strain it even further.
And once it says strain to this consistency, then basically it gets bottled up, sold here
in the local area or even shipped to the United States. Now unfortunately his label is entirely
in Spanish because he has focused on selling here in the local area. But hopefully his
website is both in English and Spanish with all this same information. So what do I need
next for you guys is actually the owner of the worm farm. We're actually, we have to
make a delivery of his product to one of the local farms. So I hope that I'll be able to
interview the actual farmer that's been using this product for, you know, a few years now
and get a testimonial for you guys. And then we're going to come back or go ahead and interview
the owner of this worm farm. John: Alright. So I'm here actually at a farm
here in Puerto Rico at Hacienda Jose, and we have Jose Garcia with us. And they just
did a delivery here of the West Knight Worms elixir here. And I wanted to get, actually
Jose on the, on the camera here for you guys to let you guys know how this product works
for him. Cause he is a repeat customer. He's not just buying this for the first time. He
has seen some significant improvements here on his farm by using the West Knight Worms,
a worm elixir. So Jose, what have you seen when you use and spray this product on your
crops? Jose: Well, I have used it for several things.
First, when we are developing baby trees, we use it for this stage of development, to
develop a heavier roots or healthy the roots and on it well stem development of the three.
Also we use it in these type of crops, which is, this is pumping to get more, and more,
a better soil and enhancement. These type of farm we required to do a lot of soil improvements.
So these type of product helps the soil to, to, to enter into a natural biological effect
that will cause the soil to have nutrients available for the plants.
John: Cool. So what benefits have you seen by using this product?
Jose: For instance when we have eggplants we have used it in the eggplants crops. It
has [inaudible] to stem, to span… John: To grow bigger? The stem to get bigger?
Jose: No, to span the cycle of... John: The cycle of the growth. Of your production.
Instead of having like how much percentage improvement production.
Jose: I would say 30 to 33%. John: 30% more production just by simply using
this product. Jose: Yup. Once a weekend. So that made your
income go up like 30%. Right. John: Wow. Just by using this once a week.
Wow. Now, besides the production, any other benefits have you seen from using this? Jose: Well, the soil improvement. Yeah. The
soil here has to be conditioned for, to get a better pH volume. So this help us on that.
I also, besides that, these I use other techniques, like organic materials to the soil, but this
is something that goes directly to the roots in the liquid farm. So it really reacts more
quickly. John: And I know on your farm you have, we're
in the pumpkin field now, but he has, like amazing breadfruit here and he grows plantations
and cacao, have you used this product on, on those, what happened? Jose: We use them for the fruit trees at their
earliest stages, and it helped us to, basically, to develop a better root structure. So, that
was when they were in the two to five year age. Now they are adult’s type, so we don't
use it there anymore. John: And so do you think using this on the
trees when they were babies made them stronger, more vigorous so that now they are more productive? Jose: Yeah, definitely. During the earliest
stage of, of developing the baby three, you really want to have a very root structure,
very good root development. So by the time you transplant that to the field, then you
have a root structure that will be able to suck nutrients from the soil. So for Montessori. John: Good. And so the other question I have
is, did the trees stay here after the hurricane? So did they blow away or did… because was
the roots so strong using the product? John: Well, I'll tell you what you saw those
trees over there. They weren't really harming anybody. They were hammered. Yeah, their stem
on the roots were there, they were almost 3.
John: You pruned them? Jose: Well, we pruned them, but the hurricane
did a better job. So, but they have recovered. John: They recovered. Now he cannot claim
that this is the reason why it recovered from the hurricane. But it can help.
Jose: But in the early stage we use it. John: Yeah. And so it developed better roots
that be anchored into the ground when the winds came, it was more resilient.
Jose: That's right. John: Alright, perfecto. Yeah. So tell everybody
what you do here and if you have a website, if people want to learn more about you, Jose: Hacienda Jose is an agroindustry business,
we do develop crops but also we have a like a manufacturing plant here. So basically we
use our crops to develop probes that are finished [inaudible] to, process products for, to be
ready for cooking. Like, for instance if you have tostones from plantains, then, we make
tostones ready to, we cook. Ah, so you don't need to really buy the plantain or the [inaudible]
and make them the same with the bread foods. Also we've eggplants, we make a pro out of
eggplant, which is a vegan certified pro and it’s a- we call it eggplant caviar.
John: Eggplant caviar? How do you make that? Jose: That is basically an eggplants and other
ingredients which are pepper. It is really a vegetarian product. Yeah. So, so it’s
a product that to the use of [inaudible] and to use it as a heavy sauce on the tostones
and other things. Okay. So right now we are remodeling our manufacturing plants. So we
are not in production. We are going to be back by maybe the next weather.
John: Oh, perfect. Yeah. So I mean, you know, I think that's a really good thing for farmers
to do is not only grow the crops because if you grow the crops and then you sell the crops,
you cannot get so much money. But if you take the crops and then you value add and make
them even more valuable, then you can charge more money and you can be more profitable
and sustainable as a farmer. Jose: That's our purpose. Our purpose is have
value added products out of our crops. John: Yeah. And I would encourage more farmers
out there, especially that are watching this, you know, to do the same. If you're not going
to do it entirely a hundred percent you know, do a good percentage and start expanding into
this so that you can be more financially sound. John: Alright, so now I'm here with Giovanni,
the owner and farmer here at West Knight Worms and we're going to ask him some questions
about his worm farm that you guys just got to saw and heard. Even a testimonial from
a local farmer here when we went out to his farm. So Giovanni, why did you even start
this worm farm literally in your mom's basement? Giovanni: Well at first it was just a hobby
and we just wanted to school project I did it, I liked it and they had become a hobby
for my own self. I started producing the worm casting and the worm leachate and when I started
to find out the benefits and to see the demand for it, nobody was producing worm leash in
here in the Island. They were producing worm casting but not worm leachate. So I decided
to focus in giving some to the farmer to see if the same results that I was seeing my home
they were seeing themselves. John: Cool. So then you, like you just heard
the farmer before, but so what, what has farmers experienced from using your worm elixir?
Giovanni: Well, one of the biggest things I've heard are the, they get more products
from the crop production, more production. They see more growth on the plant, the plants
last longer. The life expectancy is almost half and the more time a plant they'll usually
last two weeks. Double, three or four weeks, almost double. And the plant, the fruits are
completely natural. There is no chemicals and nothing. Deeper color on the fruits and
the leaves. John: And do the fruits taste better or from
using your products or you don't know. Giovanni: Well in my opinion, they taste better.
I've seen people that said that it tastes better. So I've been hearing a lot of testimony
that the taste is more sweeter or more refined, less sour on some fruits. John: Cool. Well, I'm glad you're doing this
here in Puerto Rico. And even, you know, many States and many cities around the country,
like they don't have worm farms. I mean, we're the you know, the worms are one of the best
ways to eat garbage. So if you're having like a lot of food scraps or collect food scraps
from, like, juice bars or coffee place. I mean you could get free resources basically
to feed your worms, you know, shred of newspaper to basically a, you know, a divert things
going from landfill and actually creating a good product that can help you know, your
local city or state. I mean like, you know, Giovanni is doing here in Puerto Rico. So
another question I have for you is, you know, how do you come up with a process and that
recipe that you're actually feeding your worms? Giovanni: Well, the recipe, first I just decided
to maximize the efficiency of the products. I know that people try to make simple warm
castings to make as fast as possible, but I was not looking for speed. I was looking
more for the quality of nutrients and beneficial bacterias. So I decided to focus more on that
than the speed of process of getting the product made. So that's why I started to look at the
webs recipes, looking online, look in different universities all over the America. I started
looking at university from the United States, from Europe, from Latin America, and Mexico,
different universities. They have all the research online. They started to research
with fruit, gives me this nutrient, these bacteria. And that's where I decided to make
my recipe. John: Wow. So I mean literally this is born
from the ground up to focus on the highest quality worm elixir or worm leachates possible.
So is it true that you actually use only whole fruits and vegetables and you don't use like
just scrap that people are throwing away? Giovanni: We started using scrap but we found
out we were using whole fruits. The quality of the product improved. So we decided, well
we want to get the whole fruit if it's possible. So we decided to, for the recipe, like most
in half the recipe hold all of whole foods. John: Wow. So yeah, I mean why do we eat fruits
and leave the peel? Right. Sometimes the peel has more nutrients in the fruits, but you
know, the fruits are, are really rich in nutrients as well. So I'm glad he really is using the
full fruits. And I would hope that he's not necessarily diverting real food that could
be eaten by humans or other creatures on the planet to feed his worms, which I guess are
other creatures. So, Hey, I discriminated against worms cause I want to I want the good
food to go to the humans first or to other animals. So anyways, up. But yeah, so I think,
you know, you know, even like bad fruit, like you guys saw like the star fruits, right?
If it has a bad area out of it, it's still mostly good. But you know, that's perfect
for the worms in my view. I don't know that I'd go so far to feed real whole good fruits
that we should be eating to the worms, but you know, to each their own. And once again,
this is his product and this is just my comments and what I think. Giovanni: Can I just add, we don't use fruits
that are in good condition. We use the fruit by sample supermarket. We'll buy a whole banana
back skit. But if the banana has some imperfections so that they usually throw it away. That's
the bananas that we use for example. John: So you use the whole cruise but they're
damaged, damaged or overripe or something. Okay, good. Good. That makes me feel much,
much better. Giovanni: We don't go, Oh, that's perfectly
ready to eat, no. And you just the one that they've ever rejected once.
John: Right. So you know, I know you told me earlier about a big major farmer here on
the Island. I don't know who it is, but you know, he uses conventional, you know, chemicals
and even maybe some Monsanto products and he was having some problems with his tomatoes
and your product help solve his issue. So would you, would you like to share that story?
Giovanni: Well, the thing is that when we started the business and all that, we needed
to find the way to enter the big farmers, but not other farmers want to risk using our
product. First of all, it's not regulated is combining the meal is not proven because
he's starting from scratch. They could mess up their crop. The farmer was having a really
bad problem with some certain chemicals from these big name companies and decided we'll
have nothing to lose. I've losing thousands of dollars, hundreds of thousands of dollars
in tomatoes. Then I came to him, I offered, Hey you want to try? It if it works, perfect.
If not, you were already going to lose the product. So he decided to try it in a small
area and actually improve the tomatoes... He was looking to get a maximum of four to
five harvest. He actually managed to see seven harvest in knowing that was going to lose
almost everything, using my product. John: That's amazing. So did he convert over
to like using more organic methods and get away from the chemical company after he used
your product? Giovanni: Well sadly he still use mostly chemicals
because there are like benefits in things that make farmers want to use chemicals but
he's inside a, secretly you use my products in other organic matter parts too for his
farm. John: So he uses, so basically now he's doing
a hybrid system where he would use all chemicals or for now he uses hybrid, he uses a, you
know, a, he uses chemicals and then he uses the worm castings to make up for the deficit
of the chemicals. Personally, I think it's just better to use the natural products in
the get go. But I understand everybody has got their own, you know, things they have
to deal with. So, so I know you've marketed your products originally to farmers, but now
you're making it available to homeowners and small growers and gardeners. So you want to
mention more about this? Giovanni: Well, I want to go to farmers because
I wanted to test the product and there is no better way to test a product to give it
to someone who knows about crops, knows about their plants and knows about the business.
So I decided to get started with them. Now that I know there have been five years in
the making, I've been proved the recipe enough and China developed what I want in the product,
in the results that I want. I'm getting it. And now emphasis on moving to the consumers.
At first I'm starting to move in Puerto Rico but I’m shipping two orders in the States. John: Cool. And I heard that you grow some
award-winning orchid. Well maybe you don't grow winning orchids, but you want to tell
my viewers about award-winning orchids. Giovanni: Yeah, I've, there's two competitions
in Puerto Rico. They compete on all the islands. People compete for the orchids and the first
and second, third place from these last two competitions. We're using my products in a
completely organic orchids. They don't use any other products. I buy this in cinnamon
John: Cinnamon? What do they use the cinnamon for?
Giovanni: They used the cinnamon to help for some bacterias that live in the roots. So
they are cinnamon and this, that's all they use for all the plants. The little orchids. John: So I know, you know, I know that your
product can help with feeding nutrients to the plants, right? But also there's the beneficial
bacteria in there. And so you want to tell more about how the beneficial bacteria, can
be beneficial to help with fungus? Because I know here in Puerto Rico, some citrus and
other fruit trees can't get this black or white fungus. Right? Yeah. Giovanni: Well this one, what I did is the
bacterias I'm cultivating, they actually, they lose the usually in the ground and they
live naturally in the ground, but they never get to the trunk of the plant or the leaves.
So those bacteria don't reach that easy to that part of their plans. And what I'm doing
here is adding this product directly to the plant, adding those beneficial bacteria, those
beneficial bacterias actually consume most of the fungus in the time they will cure the
whole plants. John: Wow. Wow. So that's cool. Yeah. I mean
I've seen myself, you know, there's certain bacteria that have been isolated that will,
that will eat basically fungus is, and so evidently in this product there is also. Right.
So the next question I have for you, like, you know, you have these little bottles and
these look like, you know, whatever like medicine man, like bottles, like snake oil salesman,
Hey, want a bison elixir? But, how is this product used actually on a farm for say vegetables
or fruits? Well, it depends on the plant. For example, with the orchids. We use two
ounces that the liquid per gallon, you can use more like four and eight, but they recommend
two ounces to get the maximum for the liquid, the amount. And for example, if you want to
use like a lemon tree, or tree or a fruit tree or something like that, I recommend four
to six ounces per gallons. And for like small gardens on your house and stuff like that
or characters or [inaudible] is two ounces per gallon. John: The two ounces per gallon just mixed
in. So you basically have a nice really, it's like really diluted down. I mean there's one
little small bottom will go a long way. Right? Giovanni: That will do three gallons.
John: Three gallons right here. Awesome. And so once you have it diluted down, like you
just pour it on your plants or you take like a backpack sprayer or a spray bottle or how
do you, how do you, how do you spray it? Giovanni: Well I recommend for small farms
in your house, a sprayer will do. You want to spray the trunk and the leaves of the plants,
try to avoid the flowers of the orchids and stuff. It will not harm the orchids, but it
will be colored black, they will actually paint the flowers. So if you strain the leaves
and the roots and you will have excellent product. John: Yeah, so it's basically staying… The
plans because of the deep rich colors, which are the, I would say like carbon or other
nutrients that are in the product. Giovanni: But it won't stain the leaves or
the trunk only flowers and stuff like that. John: Awesome. Awesome. Alright, so I think
our interview is coming to the end here. It's actually getting kind of dark and actually
I've got to head back to where I am going. But I know, you guys, ship like through priority
mail because you know Puerto Rico went again. It’s a territory of the United States. They
got the US mail. And as such, they have the flat rate boxes, which is some of the best
ways to ship, you know, garden products that could get actually quite heavy. And so you
want to explain how you ship you know, what products you ship to the US and how that shipped
and how people can order. Giovanni: Well, you can contact me through
the phone or through Facebook, Facebook is the recommended way to contact. And you can
talk to ask me any questions. I'm available 24/7 and if you want a product, you'd tell
me the address. I'll tell you the fee, the delivery, and you just pay me through PayPal
or through money order. John: Alright, cool. So what is your phone
number, or your Facebook and your website. Giovanni: My website is westknightworms.com
and my Facebook is West Knight Worms. And you can find it in Facebook easy to find,
or in Google. You can search me on Google and my phone number is 9392537444.
John: So that's a Puerto Rican number. So do people in the US have to pay extra money
to call Puerto Rico? Giovanni: No, because we are in this state,
we are in US territory. So we have callings, in Puerto Rican, there is no roaming, there
should be no roaming on a cell phone. Yeah. John: Okay, perfect. So the final question
for you, Giovanni is, is why do you call it West Knight worms? They make me think of like
the Las Vegas Golden Knights, which is a hockey team. Giovanni: Well it was actually very
funny because I was studying in school, I'm still studying school. I'm just graduate,
this my last semester, I will design it to find a way to make it more appealing to a
younger audience. So I was looking at West because I live in West side of the Island
of Puerto Rico. That's West, Knights for like the chivalry and the fighting, and worms like
the worms that fights for your plants. John: Worms that fight for your plants. That's
a very innovative title. I love that a lot. Alright, so the last question I have for you
totally is, is there any words of wisdom that you'd like to share my viewers today? Because
I mean do you have any watches? Has watched my videos in the past and you know I ask this
question to everybody, anything you want to share about worms or gardening or anything
before we sign off today? Giovanni: The tip that I can say if you want
to start a worm farm or if you want to start a normal farm is the early steps are always
the hardest but just keep trying and keep fighting on it because a later stage it will
be payoff. John: Awesome. Yeah. Why is tips whether you're
gardening, starting a business during a worm farm or whatever you're doing. There's always
going to be curve balls thrown at you mean the hurricane was a big curve ball for him
when losing, you know, he had all, all his bins running and now he's, he set back a little
bit because of that. Giovanni: We only have half production right
now. John: I have half production due to the…
so yeah, if you want to help part of the Island, you know, bring some money in. Hey, you know,
buy some of his stuff. Once again, links down below. I haven't tried this personally. Hopefully
we get to try some here one of these days. But you know, from the testimonials from the
one farmer that I've visited and from just seeing his setup here, I mean this stuff seems
totally legit to me. And that being said, I'd rather buy casting myself and you know,
make some of the compost seeds with my castings. Anyways, if you guys enjoy this episode here
at West Knight Worms, Hey, please be sure to give me a thumbs up. If you do get a lot
of thumbs up, I'll be sure to come back next trip to Puerto Rico to show you guys what
Giovanni is up to. Also be sure to share this video with somebody
else that they can be educated about the power of worms, how weren't getting help turnaround
chemical agriculture to make it even better, although going full organic would even be
best. Also be sure to click that subscribe button right down below so you don't miss
out on my new upcoming episodes I've coming out of every three to four days. You never
know where else you are or what you'd be learning on my YouTube channel. And finally be sure
to check my past episodes. My past episodes are a wealth of knowledge over 1400 episodes
at this time on this YouTube channel. Dedicate to teach you guys all the best ways about
growing the best fruits and vegetables at your home or even on a farm or starting your
own farm like today with a worm farm. So with that, my name is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com.
We'll see you next time. And until then, remember, keep on growing.
