Gotcha, hey, you gotta do what works and improve over time! Yes, vermicompost would be a fantastic use. I gotta get some worms haha. Are you limited on outdoor space like I am?
Awesome Mathew, Yeah worms are a great idea, they can eat right through it and break it down. I wonder if all the worms would creep the rats out too 😂 Is your worm farm inside or outside?
So many times, people advertise the romantic side of a business or career without ever giving informed consent as to all the work involved. So before somebody jumps into this business, they should have informed consent as to everything involved which is why I really enjoy watching your videos. No surprises.
You are so real! I appreciate that in people. You are easy to listen to and learn from. I am 64 and have in the past year changed my way of eating and microgreens are a perfect way to add greens to my diet and learn how to grow them and I would love to have a side income. Thank you so much.
Donny, Thanks for all the education and videos. Just some ideas: 1. Put down cardboard then one or two costco blue tarps (or similar) in the wheel area. Should give you more speed loading onto the trailer and make unloading/wheeling to the dump spot a little easier. Just fold up the cardboard/tarps and wedge between the bins and the side of the trailer, or just throw inside the bin after its empty. 2. A boat wench or electric wench might get one or even two bins up if you made something to double load it. And I'm shorter than you, but I'd squat lower than the lift point and drive up with legs to turn those over, but could be different body mechanics. 3. You could load into a truck and use a rake/fork to push out into the dump pile. You can also back all the way into the dump pile, and just dump out your window into the truck bed. The ultimate would be to have a hydrolic dump mechanism on the truck bed though, then you'd only need a broom to knock down any stragglers. 4. Dumping into a field where someone runs a chicken tractor or just dumping to a chicken farmer might be the best usage to turn those seeds and greens into meat or eggs and compost at the same time. Dump prior to moving the chickens into the dump area. 3* After using a truckbed to take out tokyo onions to the dump site with just using a rake and fork, I bought a dump capable minitruck. It was a no-brainer thinking of time/money/effort etc. Best regards
Smart! It’s amazing how fast the spent trays add up. Hope you’ve thwarted the rodents for good! We are composting on site, and are lucky to have enough space.
Haha they sure do! Lucky you, one day I'll have more space too and can do a nice big composting area :) How many trays are you going through per week at this point?
@@DonnyGreens During the summer farmers market we did 40 trays per week, not so much now in the fall, but plans to scale way up in the spring! We are testing some on-site vermicomposting ideas to see if we can close the self-sustained loop, using a Hungry Bin, with plans to add more if it works. Just not sure if we'll outpace the worms with coco/sprout waste from the trays.
Hearing about the rats reminds me of my time at the brewery. First thing that popped into my head was, "You need a brewhouse cat". We didn't buy a cat we just found a stray and left food out for it. Our mouse/rat problem disappeared overnight.
I was warned about growing Sunflower and the rats that would follow. But then quickly realized that my 2 indoor cats and 2 outdoor cats basically solve that problem.🎉
On most of the West Coast, trash pickup consists of Landfill, Recyclables, and finally Compostables. In a new law in California, specifically, the Industrial composting company is supposed to accept table and food scraps in the bin, or in a small compostable green bag. Both the Recyclables Bin and the Green Compostables Bin are very low cost per month for a weekly pickup. If you lived here, you could just roll out 1 or more Green Compostable Bins for pickup on a weekly basis. This of course could change if you decided to keep more materiel on site for other projects..
Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and passion for growing micro greens. You have mastered the art and it is awesome that you share your knowledge with everyone. The totes are heavy and way to much work. The solution I used when rats got into my compost bin is simple: PUT A SECURE LID ON BIN!!! THAT IMPLYS THAT THE CONTAINER IS COMPLETELY SEALED BOTTOM AND SIDES. Then coordinate with your pick-up man and YOUR DONE! Honesty, HARD HEAVY work when your young sets you up for health problems 4-5 years down the line.
That's a good point... It was annoying to coordinate with this guy, but this make a lot of sense. Maybe ill try that out if this doesn't end up working out for me and is too straining. Thanks for looking out and your kind words 🌱💚
Was thinking similar. Looked like a back injury in the future waiting to happen. Why not fill your 6 bins up. Get the worm guy to rock up the next day or 1 set day per week then dump the 6 bins in the worm farm guys container from your upper level similar to what you were doing before. If he needs to bring as many containers as needed. Then all emptied in an hour, no storage outside, no rats making nests and breeding and no back issues in the future. Might not know it but your discs of your spine are like a marshmallow. Once you squish it doesn't bounce back(herniated disc etc). PLUS you don't have to pay to hire a trailer or spend the time or effort dumping and moving the soil in the compost. Time is money. Hope this makes sense and is helpful.
yep, great point. We have deff seen mold in them, even prolific sometimes but hasnt effected the crops so far luckily. lids keep it contained to a degree. I also started storing them outside once full!
The commercial kitchen I work at uses an organic waste removable service for industrial composting. They have a truck with an arm that lifts those “toters” over the truck and dumps them upside down. We just wheel the cans to the back of the building and the truck is contracted to come twice a week and additional times can be scheduled.
LOVE that David, that's like literally the ideal scenario in my opinion. I gotta try and find some sort of service like that in my area, thanks so much for this 🌱💚
You should compost your leftover Microgreen soil and use it in your outdoor garden after it is composted. Someone with chickens would most likely pick up your microgreen waste on a weekly basis to feed their chickens. You could also start a worm farm and use your microgreen waste to feed the worms and make high quality worm castings and liquid fertilizer as another business.
Nice video! Thanks for taking us along on your dump trip. I’m not commercial. I have an 8-tray rack for microgreens for my family, plus additional sprouting containers. I don’t have nearly the waste volume that you have with your business. I just dump around back, then trash whatever hasn’t composted in a month or two. Instead of soil, I use a hemp mat growing medium.
I’m curious about the hemp mat… can you tell me where you sourced that please? I’m also curious if you’ve compared that with soil or coir, and how you have found the results? The mats look like could be a lot less labor… cost benefit ratio?
@@lorenzovillegas2457 I bought a big box of I think 120 hemp mats (maybe 180?) from “Johnny’s Seeds” in Maine. Including shipping I think that cost about $150, maybe $170. I got it over a year ago, and I still have half a box of hemp mats. It’s a heavy box, so shipping isn’t cheap. Next time I will try to order directly from the hemp mat producer in Canada. YES, there are tradeoffs. When I lived in NorCal I composted my soil with the roots and produced my own potting mix. I had a big tumbling composter. I could do most of the work outside, but I kept the trays indoors to grow microgreens. Now I live in the northern part of Idaho where temperatures are below freezing half the year, and usually snow is all around. In this cold weather I do my complete operation indoors year round. Soil is just too messy for indoor potting! So much cleaner to use a hemp mat, then throw it outdoors to compost or throw into the trash. For microgreens the mats are great. My growing is somewhat hydroponic compared with using soil. With soil, the moisture is stored in the soil and requires less frequent watering. Using mats requires me to fill the bottom tray with a thin layer of fertilized water, which requires replenishing 2 or 3 times a day. But my whole operation involves so much less mess, easier to cut the greens, easier to clean up. And fast - throw the old mat out, rinse the tray, throw in a new mat, spread the soaked seeds and I’m growing again. Using soil requires a separate complete operation for composting unless you are buying bags of soil all the time. I never tried coir. Both ways produce abundant crops of microgreens! My best innovation that improved my crops was adding a small fan to each tray to circulate the air and cut mold down to zero!! I am up to 14 crops now in continual rotation. This just feeds me and my wife, and occasional gifts of greens to neighbors. My main source of seeds and supplies is True Leaf Market out of Utah. Highly recommended! Good luck! 👍
@@flyshacker Dang man! That is one heck of a response! Thank you so much for sharing. Yeah I’m in Spokane doing the same. Just getting started on micro greens indoors. Your insight is sound according to others as well. I try to look for those common denominators and not reinvent the wheel… at least until I’m in a place to really understand how choices are impacting growth and mitigating problems such as mold, or reducing labor intensive practices, without cutting crucial corners. I wish you great success🙏 Enjoy the beautiful country up there where you’re at.
Suggestion: perhaps consider getting a few rotary composters, and then offer the resulting soil (which takes 30 days after each drum fills) for sale to locals. You could probably sell it for $30 per contractor bagful. The only hitch is the likely backlog that will form in cold weather .... THEN you donate it to farm. 😉
Put a piece of plywood on the ground behind the trailer... and bungee cords across the lids to hold them down after you load them in the correct direction. Farm life =) It seems like it would be easier to go back to your guy that picks up with his tractor, and just get a container designed with a lid (like the trash cans you are using now, or a dumpster) to keep the rats out. Again, bungee cords to keep the lid secured. Good luck!
I know this video is a bit old. Although I was thinking you could build something like your sandwich board. That is smaller about half the size of the bin. That you could tip the bins over forwards with the lid back.
, donny, it is just only suggetion,ive seen u have an extra spaces try making your own composting area ,tht can be possibly useful in ur veggies or might be reuseful to your microgreen, think about it
I use a screen mounted on a 2"×6" frame its 24"×24" . I screen the dirt dry it out then mix it 50/50 with new potting soil in a composter . So far it hasn't affected anything.
Great videos as always. You may need to invest in a dumpster trailer with hydraulic lift. That way you just reverse into the pile, flip the switch, drive forward and back and then flip the switch of and go home. No more hauling 100kg bins.
Thats EXACTLY what im saving for now lol. Im already sick of this toter setup, im too big scale for this lmao. Every three weeks i gotta dump 6 heavy toters
Vermicompost so you can use the soil again after a while...wormcast is very good fertilizer...worms can be use to feed fish...fish waste can be use to feed plants, etc...
Yes absolutely!! Adding the worms this spring! I not am composting on my own property so I can do what i want now and make my systems awesome. Thanks for the comment!
I would still load them the way you first did... and use a ratchet strap to keep them from opening. Removing 2 straps will be less work in the end then having to spin 6 totes as you unload them.
I'm surprised you don't setup a small like, "slide" from your back door down to the ground-level wheelbarrow... where the spent soil just slides right in... though your soil dropping skills are prolly on point :D
Hi. I’m new to your videos and really curious how much you’ve been able to scale your business since posting this and if you’ve changed your growing media. I am binge watching next weekend 😂 I hope to find that by now, you’ve found a cost efficient way to get rid of waste materials
In a word.... PIGS! Pigs are amazing in handling mats from processing.... and they look at this as treats. Pigs process much faster than composting and vermiculture and are still making great material for use on farms, mix for compost and in keeping vermin tendencies down. Also mixing other Ag waste only helps this system go even better. Resource: Joel Salatin and other familiar names for regenerative and restorative ag are prolific in writing about the use of pigs for processing this material that comes from micros.
Someone may have said this, but have you thought about having the dump truck come by every time you're 6 barrels are filled and have them back up to the door with the drop then dump the barrels right into the dump truck?
@@DonnyGreens you're welcome. While I have you I just want to thank you for inspiring me! I am excited to repurpose my cannabis growing equipment and get this new venture started. I live in a town that's all meat and potatoes and not the healthiest bunch. There is a summer farmers market that's a five minute walk from my house so hoping to get a few crops in by may when that starts and get a booth to educate and meet new clients. Thank you for breaking this down step by step! I have tried watching other people's videos but can't watch them. They beat around the bush and make lengthy videos on subjects you can cover in 10 minutes or less.
Jeez! What a huge PITA! Isn’t there a mulching company nearby who will come pick up the material and take it away since youre giving them free mulching material?
I thought Long Island was all developed but it has some wooded areas. My impression has changed. I had a girlfriend in Valley Stream when I was a Summer Camp Counselor in the Pocono Mountains back in the summer of 80'...oh Judy...where are you know...
we sel smaller trays , soil included without chopping them. customers chop when they wish and lasts longer. also removes all the plastic bags and trays crap. sales are up ;)
Can you find a way to compost the spent material and reuse it for your growing trays? You will not have to buy new growing soil. Probably a mixture of new and old 50/50 maybe.
Hi! I’ve been growing micro’s 5 plus years on a 4000m2 farm under glass and I can safely say you can reuse the soil for growing micro’s if you can compost them in an environment that’s warm enough. We have a 200m2 composting area where we throw the left over trays on top of each other. Our secret is chickens, they come in and love the compost! They start to scatter the soil around and eat all the left overs so at the end of the day there isn’t much left to compost and we can reuse the soil in 7-14 days. The key is, put your compost somewhere where you can keep it dry, our compost/chicken coop is never wet (because we have the glass greenhouse) and this is a major factor for reusing soil for microgreens successfully. Hope this helps!
Uhaul trailers are cheap - and stolen often, and strangely enough most commercial vehicle insurance policies do not cover the trailer, damage to the trailer, or damage from the trailer (like if you hit someone), and many residential policies do not as well. For me, not being able to always watch the trailer Uhaul insurance is cheap compared to replacing a stolen trailer, you should check your auto policy to insure you are covered in an accident.
Hey there Donny Greens. I really enjoyed this video. It was actually a lot of fun to watch. You're full of so much knowledge and it's wonderful you're sharing it with us. I'm hoping you make more videos like this!!!
Thanks so much for this comment! It was my first vlog style video so Im glad you liked it. Much love, ill try to make more like this in the future for sure! 🌱💚
Man. i was about to say. Don't try and push that heavy thing up in the trailer lol. Come on. do you push a rope or pull a rope?? lol Anyway, love your videos my friend. please keep them coming. I literally started my micro-green Hobby / hopefully turn into a business 3 days ago. Ive spent at least 500 already to get the things i want to be able to start. Ive been watching your channel for about 3 weeks now so i have learned a lot but im still going slow. I truly want to turn this into a business. Anyway, thank you for the videos sir. Keep em coming.
I KNOW this was 3 years ago but your a smart man and so Im sitting here wondering why it is you have not made a worm bin of sorts outside , in the shade and just decomposed all that great stuff and have a side business, selling worm castings ? seems like a natural , organic evolution and one that does not cost too much to work or add on to existing business.
Love the videos. Was wondering if it would help your bins situation if you modify the wheels with thicker ones with tires for different terrain? Similar to your wheel barrow ones.
instated of full bin, how about u fill the bin 3/4 full. Hopefully u can increase the efficiency for u to carry the bin and the gas. I heard that the truck consume more gas if u try to carry more weight.
Do microgreens develop enough to begin fixing nitrogen (assuming innoculated legumes). To use the microgreen crop waste as a nitrogen source in the garden/compost pile?
My boy said moldy. That’s mycelium from the potting mix. That’s breaking down all the nutrients so your plants can take them up. If I was you I would get a worm bin so that you can make your own micro green compost. It would be all clean because you know why the worms are eating.
Would growing the greens in the fodder system work as well? No grow medium, it grows a matt with the roots, and then the roots can be fed to livestock.
That'd be awesome! Thats the deal I had with the composting guy but this is just fine. Takes maybe two hours every three weeks? Not to shabby and I like having full control over the situation and full control over when I dump etc.
Is it possible to use a small trummel, separate the dirt out of the other matter and then reuse the dirt. Add what you need to the soil. Now all that is left is the roots. Much lighter. Will decompose much quicker.. even if you can't reuse the soil, it can be incorporated into the lawn. The rest can be sent away ro decompose. Just a thought.
I read where you can get two crops out of each tray. Have you tried that. Also you can dry out and clean the soil or compost and reuse it. Why give it away.
Why didn't you just get a couple "toters", say 2 to 4, and leave them inside and then when you had enough to fill up the blue bin from the compost company you could dump them into the blue bin and immediately call them to pick up? This would minimize outside time and all that extra labor of loading them into the rented trailer and dumping them. I feel like you added cost, added labor, and added a time sink without any benefits.
@@DonnyGreens I have a few compost beds I have been filling up... I have a fairly large garden so there is always room to compost I grow at my home right now... I'm in the process of setting up my former she shed as a growing room It will have nice amount of space in there to really kick things off right.
why dont you put bags in the totes when you get there lay the tote on its side slide the bag out dump it in the compost ben then put the bag back in the tote? also if you dont mind looseing the bag just cut it and pull the bag out.
I was wondering what you did with it after harvest Are the leftovers (roots, seeds and dirt) just dumped after every harvest or every couple of harvests?
My God man, Get the Bigg cement blocks make yourself a compost area and purchase a Rototiller grind all your used tray beds up, all sprouts will compost as nitrogen and seeds will probably burn if you add your own lime and keep it stirred up with the tiller. Keep It Tilled, No Rat Wanna Make it a Home. Have a Great Day.
Very curious to know the reason for the 5 thumbs down! There should be some kind of a rule for people to explain the reason behind their negative reactions in words.
@@DonnyGreens Could also be confused. Thumbs up, thumbs down...so complicated. Had a thought and looked online. Thumbs up is actually considered rude in some cultures, so maybe their thumbs down is a positive sign! Looks like a 6th foreigner really liked your video. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thumb_signal
That just looks like alot of trouble. Container for construction debree ? you know like 4-6 ton, it wont cos you much coz its just organic material nothing to sort trough, you just pay for driver and truck time and small fee for renting out the container, just pick a company near you and one that already have a place to dump organic stuff (theyll get paid double for your stuff then)
