From Zero to Green Thumb: My 14-Day Journey into Indoor Gardening!

Hey everyone, so I was watching a couple of documentaries on the food industry and it sparked us to become a little bit healthier and eat more vegetables and try to live a healthier lifestyle. And so I just got back from Home Depot, bought a whole bunch of different stuff and am going to try gardening a little bit. I'm in a condo, so we don't have a ton of space. But I bought a cherry tomato plant here. We've got a green pepper plant at the back. This is an orchid, right?

Yeah.

This is an orchid that Nina insisted on buying. It's the most expensive thing on the table. But we made a deal that she had to keep her area clean if she kept the orchid. And 2 spinach plants. These are actually really cool where with the spinach— let me bring this up— you can cut the end leaves off and eat them as spinach and then it continues to grow. So I'm excited to try that out. But What sparked this was sprouts. So I got this pack of sprouts here. Now these are onion sprouts. I don't know what kind of the best sprouts are to find, but I was inspired by a friend of mine named Phil Nata from philnata.com, and he grows sprouts all the time. He's done some videos on them, and he's just popping these back as snacks. And so I thought, you know what, I'm going to try it out. I didn't want to buy all the gear for it and buy it in bulk quantities that he usually does. I'm going to try one pack, see how it goes. And then if it works, keep doing more. So you get to join me on my onion sprout journey today. So Nina is going to demonstrate while I read and narrate what's going on here. So let me load the package. It says, "It's as easy as soak, rinse, and eat in 8 to 14 days. Delicious in salads, sandwiches, dressings, and soups." Okay, so step number 1: put seed in a wide-mouth jar. We're using a clásico tomato sauce jar. Here's Nina expertly demonstrating how to pour seeds into a jar. Oh, look at those!

Oh, it's black.

Yeah, they're black. It's supposed to have an oniony taste, but we'll see how it goes. Okay, cover with fine mesh or cheesecloth and secure with a rubber band. We don't have a fine mesh or cheesecloth, so a tip that I learned from Phil Nada is you can use your hands.

The seeds are coming out.

Onto your hand?

Yeah, it look like it will come out.

But they'll stick to your hand. This is why you're supposed to buy the gear.

Oh, I know what to use.

What?

The—

tea strainer.

Yeah.

Is it big enough to cover that? Oh, totally big enough. Amazing. Okay, here we go. For the audience that is enraptured in this video, you know, they're hanging on every breath, we gotta explain, you know, here's the tea holder. Okay, I'd say do one more. One more rinse. A bonus point for anybody watching if you could tell me what that machine is to Nina's left. In the— behind there. You can tell me what that machine is, you get—

You should show the top.

You get serious bonus points. No, no, no, you gotta be able to recognize that. I had never even heard of this kind of machine before meeting Nina. Okay, completely drained?

I think so.

Oh, okay, you know what? Now it says soak for 4 hours. So, let's fill it with some water. All?

All the way?

No, I think it just has to— the seeds have to be inside. Nice. That's gonna be our sprouts soon. I don't know if we're supposed to cover it. I'd say leave it uncovered. Okay, so here are our seeds that were soaking for 4 hours. It is 5:18 PM, so at 9:18 PM we're gonna try to come back and do the next step. 9:23, we're a few minutes late. Whatever, doesn't matter. We are making some dinner. Well, Nina's making some dinner. We got kale and cauliflower. Cooking up a storm. Okay, our sprouts are just sitting here in this jar. Let's see what the next step is. Nina is very excited.

Yeah, ready. Okay.

Okay, ready? Next step. Drain, then rinse at least twice a day. So do we have to rinse again now? What do you think? Let's do one more rinse. I'm still curious to see if anybody guesses what that machine is behind you. Alright, that's it. We're going to let it sit. Booyah! We'll come back tomorrow morning and we'll see how it goes. Sprouts in action. I have just finished my breakfast, checking out all my social media stuff. It's my birthday, so there was a ton of comments and everything, so it was a lot of work this morning but a lot of fun. And I'm going to check on the sprouts and see how they're doing. So here they are. Doesn't look like anything has happened yet. And, uh, Nina is not here, so I am solo today, and I need to rinse these twice a day. So we're gonna do a solo rinse. I don't know if we can see it in here. Some of them do have just a little bit of a white spot coming out of them. So they are starting. It's actually working. This is exciting. So let's rinse it off. Alright, that's it. Back in business. So tonight I have a birthday dinner at my parents' house and then some salsa afterwards. And then after that I'll come back, we'll do another rinse and see if they keep growing. I just got back from salsa class. It's my birthday. We had some fun. And, uh, gotta come home and water the sprouts. Give them another wash. So I have Nina helping me again.

How many rinse?

I think just one rinse. That's all I did this morning. Oh, you did way better than I did this morning. I had all the seeds in the bucket. It took me forever to get them out.

Skills.

Skills. Nina's got the straining skills. Okay. There we go. That's it. This is the end of day 2. Mostly still just all black, but a few of them have these little white heads on them, so— We'll see what they look like tomorrow. It's Wednesday, and Wednesday is my filming day, and so I had my training session with Jenny, and then I had Susan Carlucci come and teach me about clothing, work on a clothing line. And so it's almost 2 o'clock and I haven't done my seeds yet. Hopefully that's not gonna mess us up. So I gotta wash it again. As I look into it, let me bring this up. Can you guys see? There's little— the white sprouts are starting to come up. It's a little bit bigger than it was yesterday. So this is our day 3. So I'm gonna wash it again. And hopefully we'll have something to eat pretty soon. We're supposed to eat these when they get to be an inch long. So we're still far away from that. Now when I did it myself yesterday, I just poured the whole thing in here and then had a really hard time getting them all back. So I'm gonna use Nina's technique. And just try to get all the water out without pouring it and getting all the sprouts coming in here. Aha! I did it with only 3 sprout seeds coming in here. That's a much better solution. Okay, we'll let it sit. See what it's like later tonight. We just got back from dancing. I was DJing salsa. Kizomba bachata night and just got back. And of course, I have to work on the sprouts. That is what is up. I have got to wash these sprouts. So my sink is a little bit of a mess. We had dinner and a bunch of stuff and I have not cleaned it out yet. But that is okay. So let's check on our sprouts. See how we are doing. They are still growing. If you look in here, you are starting to see the white heads come out, starting to get a little bit longer. The longest one is maybe almost half a centimeter, so coming along. Let's rinse them out, see what happens. Alright, that's it for now. We'll check back in tomorrow, day 4, and we'll see how we're doing. So I was sitting here thinking, man, this is taking a long time. You look at the sprouts, this is day 4, Let me see. This is the start of day 4. You can kind of start to see them, the whiteheads coming out a little bit more. And I was looking at the package and it says, uh, it's gonna be ready at the top there. Can you read that? 8 to 14 days it takes to make this thing. When I saw the video of Phil, I thought it was gonna be a couple days, but 8 to 14 days is way longer than I thought. I signed up for a big process, so Let's do it again, day 4.

That's it.

I'll check back in again later today. So here's what they look like. You can see that slowly but surely they're getting more and more white as the sprouts are coming out. Still far away from being able to eat them, but getting closer. We may try them and they're terrible.

No, no.

So you can start to see now it's not just white, there's some green things coming out of it. It smells very oniony. Yeah.

Woo!

Onion. So on the package it said it would be ready in 8 to 14 days. And here's what it looks like so far. This is after— this is our 7th day. So you can see they're starting to come out. You're starting— you're supposed to eat them once they're about an inch long. And now they're about a centimeter. So there's still a lot of time. I think we're going to be pushing up until the 14-day mark to eat these. They're getting stringy, they're getting long, they're clumping together. It's supposed to be about an inch before we eat them, but I don't think they're that long yet. They may be half an inch, so maybe it'll keep growing the next few days. If I keep watering. We have Jason J. Rice Fonseca doing some guest sprouting with us. Take off the lid. Alright.

Take off the lid.

And then you pour some water in there, the filtered water. This thing is like adorable. Pour the filtered water. Is it unfiltered? It's unfiltered.

Okay. How much do I put?

I usually almost fill it and then you like move it around.

Alright.

Spread it around so everything gets washed. If you smell it, it's got a serious onion— Yeah, it does. It's pretty strong. Yeah, that's pretty good. That's good. Shake it around. Guess sprouting with Jason. Who would have thought? Jason thought this morning, "I'm going to wake up and go wash some sprouts today." No, EC keeps you on your toes. EC keeps it fresh. Wait, are you called EC? You're starting the trend. I'm calling you EC. Okay, that's it. Then you drain it with the COVID Okay. And try to keep as many sprouts in the jar as possible.

Right, right.

And then we end up tapping it. Get that water out. Okay. And then I usually just tap whatever's in the thing back in. Sprouts, day 11. Amazing!

Slowly! I don't know.

Hey, gentle, gentle!

Okay, stop, Evan.

There you go. Tonight they're going to get eaten.

Very oniony.

So, it has been 2 weeks and we've been washing day and night our sprouts and we're finally ready to eat them. So why don't we maybe give it one last rinse and then chow down on our sprouts.

You can chow down.

No, you have to have one too.

It looks nice in the water.

Okay.

Okay, you eat.

No, no, we're going to have one together. Here's mine. Cheers!

Salam!

Cheers!

That's all you're taking? Yeah.

What do you think? Okay, well, I don't know if we did everything right, but That's my sprout video. I guess I have some sprouts to eat on my own tonight. Yes. And that's it. If you guys like this video, thumbs up below. Let me know what you think. If we did something wrong— and what?

Have they figured out what this is?

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. If you know what that machine is at the back, let us know what it is. Leave it in the comments. Thank you guys. I will see you soon. We may try them and they're terrible.

No, no.