0:00Hi guys, Jonathan here with Farmers Friend and I'm at Bountiful Blessings Farm with my dad John and we are going over questions that have been submitted

0:06by our customers. We have a a question from Ricky. He says, "I saw your recent email highlighting the greens harvester.

0:14Can you create a video tutorial showing how to use it? Share the crops you find it works best for. Can you get a second cutting on crops and maintain quality?

0:23If so, which crops work best for the second cutting, and which should we expect just one cutting?" So, it's a good point. We need to do a more

0:31dedicated video on how to how to use the greens harvester. There's quite a bit of footage out there on using it, but I

0:39don't know. Do you want to talk about this at all as far as like the the cut and come again? I mean, I think that the from from my perspective, the reality is

0:48that second cutings are never as good as first cutings, no matter how you do it,

0:52but it is possible. A lot of people use the quick cut greens harvester to get second cutings. And we've been told by

0:59um you know by people in the space I'm trying to remember I think even Elliot said that the second cut quality with

1:06the greens harvester was higher quality than what they were able to accomplish by hand harvesting. So um that's that says something about the greens

1:13harvester. It does leave a very clean cut. You don't end up with a lot of um a lot of greens dropped. That's the big thing is if you're cutting and you're

1:22dropping greens, that's just going to uh going to rot and and cause decay and definitely you got to get that stuff out

1:31of there somehow. You know, make sure the bed is clean. Some kind of leaf rake or something that you can just gently

1:38rake out any dead stuff cuz that'll definitely mess you up. Yeah. Um, you know, I think the best video

1:46tutorial I've seen is Curtis Stone. You know, until you all come out with an

1:52official one. Um, Curtis was the most adept at using the quick cut greens

2:00harvester of anybody I've seen. Very fast. And and um, so I'm sure you can find that out there somewhere.

2:09um until Farmer's Friend comes up with their official version.

2:14Yeah. Um but yeah, you know, as far as second cut, I second everything that uh

2:22you have said. Um that your your quality decreases with every cut. Uh in the

2:31summer, we never do second cuts. in the winter, in the cooler weather, you can

2:38get by with it if you need to. Most people I know, most market gardeners that I know actually don't do second

2:46cuts. Uh, you know, but it's nice you you have that option if you need it, you know, in an emergency kind of situation.

2:56Um, and again, you can get away with it more in the cooler weather like your arugula. You know, it doesn't get as

3:04spicy and tough as quick. So, you can get by with a second cut sometimes. You know, as far as which

3:12crops work best for second cutting, h I don't know. I, you know, I think there's a lot of variables there

3:21that it would be hard to say exactly which ones work best. I I know some people use the quick cut on

3:30spinach. Yeah. Um I was going to say I think spinach would probably be the hardest one to get a good second cut.

3:37Yeah. Um it's it's hard enough to get a good first cut with a quick cut. you have to grow it really densely and get and get varieties that grow more

3:45vertically rather than uh you know spreading out. So spinach is probably a good example of one that would be

3:52difficult to do a second cut. Um arugula and you know things like maybe um baby baby kale and stuff like that.

4:02Yeah, baby kale I think works quite well with a second cut.

4:08Um, yeah, you really just have to experiment. Of course, originally the quick cut was designed thinking of baby

4:17lettuce, but now most market gardeners are are growing um salenova,

4:23which you know, so there's I I don't know a lot of people that are growing baby lettuce.

4:29It works great with it obviously, but it's still necessary for your arugula,

4:36your mazuna, your tats soy, your baby kale, whatever other baby greens you are

4:43growing. A couple things I would say just mention quickly. So, first of all,

4:49I think it's important to mention keeping the blade really sharp, keeping a a good sharp blade on your greens harvester. Um, we do have some videos on

4:57how to sharpen the blade. The reality is it's kind of almost impossible to to get the blade as sharp as a brand new

5:05factory edge. Um it's just a serrated blade is is inherently challenging to sharpen. But you want to make sure you have a a good sharp blade at all times.

5:16And then the other thing um that I was going to mention is as far as technique,

5:22the the best way to to harvest effectively and and keep a nice clean bed is to do a kind of a a sweeping

5:31action where you you run the harvester down the bed a couple feet and then you kind of lift back and up a little bit to let that basket, the fabric basket kind

5:40of drop down and let the greens flip back into the basket. And then you go and cut a few more feet. and and how frequently you have to do that kind of

5:48lifting action depends on how dense the crop is. If it's a really light crop,

5:52you know, maybe something like like baby kale that's just not super dense and it's really kind of frilly, the brush itself may do a good enough job flipping

5:59those greens back into the basket. But if it's a really dense crop of something like arugula, um the farther you go, the

6:07more that the the harvested cut greens are going to kind of bunch up there right behind the blade under the brush.

6:13And then if you keep continuing to go on that that kind of in inhibits that cut and the greens being able to work their way back into the basket. The best way

6:21to get a really clean uh effective cut is just to do an action where you're going a couple feet, lifting up and tilting back as you're still maintaining

6:30your hand on the trigger, keeping that brush running, and then keep going.

6:34Again, just kind of that uh swooping action, I would say. So, there's videos out there that demonstrate that. We'll try to put together an official Ivy.

6:41We've only been doing this for the official video. We've only been doing this for 13 years now or something. So,

6:47we we should probably do that uh sooner than later. We got one on sharpening the blade, but not on how to use it. So, yeah. So, anyways, our bad on that.

6:55Thank you for bringing our attention to that, Ricky. And any of you watching, if you have other questions, uh even if they're super obvious, like do a

7:03tutorial on how to use the greens harvester, we want to hear it. Maybe we'll discuss it in a future video. I I would just say, you know, from our

7:10experience, forget trying to to sharpen the old blades. It's just, you know,

7:16your time is valuable and, you know, the blade, I don't know what the current price is, but they're not that expensive. Yeah. We've tried to get the

7:24price down to where people can just do that. You know, just put a new blade on.

7:28You don't want to fool with a a half sharp blade. Yeah. And and the reality is they will stay sharp a long time if

7:35you keep them out of the dirt and and protected. And so yeah, keep it out of the dirt, keep it protected, and replace it when it gets dull. Until next time,

7:45happy growing.