Hello, everyone, and welcome to Experience Michiana.

I'm Kelly and Dave and we are all about town today.

Experience Michiana having a great time.

But I want to talk about two things real quick, first, because we do have a great show for you all.

First of all, thank you for This beautiful flower I did, I did.

Yes, it's not from the city property.

No doubt whatsoever.

It's not on the ground.

On the ground.

You gave it to me, you know, and I said, that's Koslov, because we really do love each other.

I love working with each other.

I've never had a work wife until now.

Yeah, no, exactly.

And I'll and I'll be that I'll be at work right here since I'm your wife.

What's going on with the hair.

OK, so last week I don't know if you know this.

I don't know if women do this.

But guys with our hair, we can check an app to see how long it's going to be at the barber's that you're going to be waiting.

OK. And I said ninety five minutes.

So I got super impatient.

So instead of going to a professional to cut my hair, I went home and buzzed all my hair.

And then I was like, I have to be on TV because I totally forgot about that.

I forgot that, I forgot that I'm on TV and I'm like, this is terrible.

So I think it looks good.

It makes you look very distinguished.

Oh, yeah, my hair is very gray when buzzed.

Yes.

No, looks great.

But like I said, we have a great show for you all.

We're taking you lots of places.

But first we're going to head over to lavender fields.

And we were talking about that song by the Beatles: Lavender Fields Forever Or is it Strawberry.

You know, it's lavender today, Martha.

We have to tell you, we are always excited everywhere we go in Michiana.

But today it's almost like a cause for celebration.

And that is because we have been wanting to come here.

We're at the Lavender Hills Farm in Niles, Michigan.

We have been wanting to come here for two years.

One year we missed it.

Yeah.

And the next year, of course, was pandemic.

But now we are here and it is a cause for celebration.

So glad to be here.

So tell us, how long have you been here?

Well, we planted our first half acre of lavender in two thousand one, and at that time I just wanted to feel the lavender.

Oh, I just want to be in my backyard.

Just we had no plans for what to do with it, but we soon realized that we needed to be serious because the weeds were getting out of control.

So I started doing farmer's markets in the early 2000s and just selling buckets of fresh lavender at the market.

And then people started asking me, well, can we come out to the farm?

So that's why we finally ended up in two thousand eight, opening up the farm with a gift shop and everything.

And now you've expanded.

You have how many?

Seven, eight varieties?

I think we have ten now.

Oh, my God.

Oh, wow.

I didn't even know there were that many varieties of lavender.

Oh, there's hundreds.

But the tenth one that I just started, I actually it was a plant that came up from seed from another plant and it was white and it has pink flowers on it.

So I called up Martha's White like I buy lavender.

Lavender has so many uses.

It smells so great.

It makes people feel good.

But it also you can distill it for the oil.

You can use it in cooking because floral fragrance flavors are really popular right now.

You can make so many things with a dry, it has a decorative.

It's just a very versatile plant.

And you have a gift shop here.

I saw you even have soap that you can make with it, too.

Oh, well, everybody loves lavender, soap.

Right.

So yeah, we have one of my employees makes the soap for me and I've got another one who does all kinds of crafty things, wreaths and garlands and honey.

Yeah, we have our own honey.

My husband keeps the bees right down the way.

Wow.

And so we know it's a very nice floral honey.

So now we had mentioned lavender season is very short, right.

It starts in is it late June, late June.

And usually it goes through the end of July.

The lavender for fresh lavender.

Right.

And we dry then.

So we always have dried lavender and products in the shop.

But yeah, it's it's some of the varieties will have a little bit of re-bloom, just a few flowers coming out throughout the late summer and into the fall though too.

So that's not all the varieties, but some of them do.

So you have to look at the right variety if you want to have that.

So that's the great thing about coming here is you can actually come and pick it yourself.

So when people come, how did what did they do?

So I feel like this is something I would probably mess up.

Tell me what I need to do.

Well, first of all, we give them a five inch twist tie or as many of those as they want bunches.

And that's what you use to measure the bond.

So as long as you can get the ends twisted around the bunch, that's a five dollar bunch and we give them scissors to use, OK?

And we instruct them on which flowers are ready to cut.

So say this variety, which is just starting to have some stems that are ready to cut.

You look for the stems that are stiff and that have a few flower buds open.

There's still a lot of immature ones in here and those won't continue to the different.

Yeah, they will continue to develop after you after you pick them.

So you have to go for the ones that are mature.

If you want a nice looking bunch, not like a typical rose where you wait for it to bloom later.

You want that.

No, these, these yeah.

These won't continue to open, but they will continue to smell good for their everlasting.

So what are some of the things that they can do with it at home?

Well, I recommend that they take them in and unless they're going to use them, you know, just as fresh cut.

Flowers, which you can do and you don't have to put, if you put it just a little inch of water in the bottom of a base and and they'll keep in that and they'll dry eventually as the water evaporates.

They all keep nice looking that way.

Or you can bundle them up and hang them upside down to keep the stems straight and then dry them that way.

And you need to have it in a low humidity environment to do it.

Well, don't make the bunches too big, but you can you can use them then and all sorts of crafts.

You can use them in fresh crafts where you're like weaving ribbon in around.

And we have some of the lavender ones.

But there's also, you know, you can strip them off the stem and put them in sachet bags and that's OK with the wind just blew in.

Did you get it?

Oh, it smells.

I know.

I was go.

Oh, it smells so good.

I was going say its very calm out here.

You even have chairs where you can sit and relax, bring a picnic if they wanted to, right?

Yeah.

And people do that.

Yeah.

We got the nice chairs underneath the shade tree are my mini oak hickory forests is one of three and one hickory tree, lots of shade and it's usually 10 degrees cooler than the rest of the field.

Well, what's great is after you come and pick the lavender, you can always go shopping and Courtney.

You know how we love shopping.

I mean, we're pretty good at it.

We're excited that it actually, you know, we're pros.

So do you think we could take a look at the gift shop?

Sure.

OK, this smells amazing.

This is a lavender lemongrass body balm.

This is something I wouldn't necessarily think of.

But you have so many options here that all come from the grounds.

Yeah, that's lavender.

Lemongrass is a really nice one.

It's very healing, too, for the dry skin.

And it's a it's a good one with a lot of people really love that.

And lavender itself is so calming.

So I feel like so relaxing.

If you could just smell the lavender.

So to the minute we walked in, you'd have like, oh my goodness, this like it it is very calming and it's so funny.

Doesn't I mean it is a gift shop.

We feel like this is lavender heaven feels like, you know, just floating on the clouds and everything.

But like courtney said, you have so many things here, I mean, you have to bath and hand soaps and and lots of oils and everything lavender water too, you know.

OK, and how are you with this year?

Right.

We also distill some of our lavender for the oil.

And part of that process, it's a steam distillation.

So the steam carries the oils out of the plant.

We collect them in a glass separately funnel in the oil be floating on top.

And the blow that is the the fragrant lavender water.

So we separate that off.

That's great as a lemon spray, a this thing to keep some people to use it on their dogs, I think.

Oh yeah.

I don't that's the thing that I've heard.

And so the essential oil is a big part of our operation and that's year round.

I know we just still at one usually when it's fresh, but you can you can dry it and distill it after a while, OK, If you don't have time to do it when it's fresh do it when its dry.

This one is different.

I wasn't expecting to see this.

It's an all natural insect deterrent.

Yes, I know.

That's a blend of different essential oils.

One of them is lavender, of course.

And there's also a lemon eucalyptus, which is also what's a real highly recommended for, for instance, natural repellent.

I see you have cleaning products as well for the home, right?

Yeah, we use some of our lavender hydra's all from a distillation in there, as well as some soap and more essential oil.

So it's a nice, strong smelling and good cleaning product.

It's like you said, it's such a great product because not only is it safe in the home, but then your home smells really nice as well.

And so there's so many more things here.

But I want to go up here because there's chocolate lavender, chocolate.

Really catch your eye on that.

Oh, yeah.

I saw that as soon if I got in here.

Wow.

Lavender, you can eat a lot of different ways.

I know you have some recipe books here and things like that too.

What's one of your favorite ways to use lavender in a recipe?

Chocolate I prefer it and sweet things like chocolate goes great with chocolate.

It's great in shortbread cookies.

Those Oh lavender shortbread is the bomb.

Those are really good.

Oh yeah.

There's a lot of sweet recipes that that's used and you can use it in lemonade.

You can either steep the buds and hot water and string them out or you can use extract which we also make and extract and you have the recipe books here.

So people like me who don't know what to do with it, I have a tool and she has the chocolates here as well.

So lots of other items.

Well, thank you so much.

We like I said, we had waited two years to be here.

Definitely worth the wait.

What are your hours that you're open.

OK, so now during you pick we're open Sundays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Twelve to four and Fridays and Saturdays ten to four.

OK, all right.

Well thank you so much.

We had a great time.

All right.

We're going to get ready to do some picking and some shopping.

Yes.

You have a lot of things to get after this summer we had last year.

We are ready to come together once again and one of the ways we can is through this summer concert series presented by the Jewish Federation.

Joining us, our most, the executive director of the Jewish Federation, and Emmanuel, the artistic director of the South Bend Lyric Opera.

And gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us.

And thank you for bringing this to the community.

Why don't you tell us a little bit about the series and kind of what inspired you to bring this?

Well, thank you very much, Kelly.

I'm just delighted to be here.

Well, look, you know, we all are coming out of covid hibernation and we want to do it carefully and slowly and safely, according to CDC guidelines.

And so what could be better than an outdoor concert series in June?

For example, we had the South Bend Symphony Orchestra and I was thinking, how could we follow up in a big way?

And I met Emmanuel at their season opener and we said, hey, maybe we could bring in the Lyric Opera as our second concert of the of the summer series.

And and so the Lyric Opera will be with us this next Sunday, July 11th.

And we are still accepting reservations for this free concert.

You can go to the Jewish Fed dot org to register.

And then in August, we will conclude the summer outdoor series with a jazz concert with the Danny Herman band.

OK, that sounds wonderful.

And I know a lot of people already getting tickets for the one that's coming up on the 11.

Emmanuel, what can we expect at this performance?

Well, thank you, Kelly.

Thank you for the invitation.

We are we are also ready to perform.

We've been ready to perform for a while.

We postpone our season.

This is our fifth season and we should have been the sixth.

But we've moved that school this year and we decided to do an opera called The Coming of the Rusticana.

So Star Soprano and Fuchs will be there with us at this event on the 11th, which is which is really exciting.

And pianist morale booster.

And we'll do some excerpts from that.

But we'll also do some other songs and some of the things that people may like to hear, such as the same as the drinking song from the other, which is a very fun song to do.

So we're going to do a lot of things there on the 11th, and we're excited about that because on the 15th we're going to have the premiere of China, which is which is a fantastic show and we're very excited about that.

That is wonderful.

What does it mean to you to be able to bring live music back to the community?

Oh, I this is this is what I love doing.

So so when when we had to stop for for a minute there, it was very difficult, not just for me but for all of of my fellow artists.

And now we're back.

And it's very important to connect again with the community to to be here.

We're in South Bend and South Bend has has a beautiful art scene and performance scene.

So when the symphony orchestra, we have a whole bunch of other venues and and we're excited to connect again.

And that's the thing that that I miss the most, being out there singing and performing for our community.

And most to me, that's one of the best ways to connect with with the community is through music, because through music, I mean, we learn so much.

And it's a language that we can all understand.

Well, you're certainly a Kelly music is so magical and it creates such a community connection.

And we cannot be more pleased to offer this three part summer concert series here on our beautiful campus of Twenty Eight Acres in South Bend.

So, again, for your listeners, we invite you to come out to the Federation this Sunday, go to our website if you're interested and register for will be a phenomenal show with the South Bend Lyric Opera and it will be taking place at the Jewish Federation.

Can you tell us where that is?

Yes.

So it's 3202 shalom way.

It's just off of Ironwood and McKinley.

All right.

OK, well, gentlemen, thank you so much for being with us.

And she did say there are still tickets available.

I'm going to go on the website.

I better get a ticket.

How get your get your ticket on our website.

Gates open the two thirty and the show begins at three o'clock promptly.

OK. All right, gentlemen, thank you so much for being with us.

Looking forward to the concert.

Thank you.

Thank you, Kelly.

I am here with Jessica, who is from Visit Nappanee, and every month they have Friday fest going on and that is coming up soon.

Jessica, what is the next Friday first?

The next Friday first is this Friday, July nine.

We we hold the fest from five to nine and every evening when we do the festivals.

And what is the theme for this month?

Because I know each month has a different thing, right?

This month we are all about the arts.

So visual arts, performing arts or even getting the community involved, this time with an interactive mural that they can make their mark on.

So it'll be a colorful musical, exciting time.

So for many people who watch Experience, Michiana, maybe Nappanee has never really been on their bucket list of places to go and visit because it's one of those little hidden gems in our community that isn't always like at the forefront of people's minds.

So for people watching in general who haven't been to Nappanee, obviously year from visit Nappanee, what are some of the things that people can really Experience?

What do you think people will be surprised to learn about Nappanee?

I think they will be surprised at some of the bigger city type amenities that we have.

We have the Round Barn theater out at the barns, which does some world class musicals and theatrical performances every season.

We have some great fine dining rue-152 at the Barns steak house.

They have sushi and craft beer and spirits.

Our coffee house downtown is excellent.

They risk their beans, have amazing, generous sweets and their counter boutique shopping.

We have so much art really in town to sculptures all along the streets and art path and our parks department.

It's it's a great little town and like you said, a hidden gem.

We're really proud of it and proud to be your guide for visiting Nappanee.

Absolutely.

And Friday is a great opportunity for people to come along during the summer and Experience Nappanee for the first time.

And again with the Nappanee, you may not think about being a vibrant arts center, but what are, what are some of the things, again, that will be on display for people?

Well, we are going to have an interactive mural this time.

Artist Cassie Graber is our muralists this time.

And so you can come and add your mark to this big community mural.

And once she puts the finishing touches on it, it will be on display at the Boys and Girls Club.

I love it.

It's a great opportunity.

It's one of my favorite towns.

I love it.

It's small.

It's not very far away, but it feels like you're in a totally different world.

Just the pace of life feels so wonderful there.

So I hope everybody comes along to Friday Fest.

So for anybody who may not be able to make this one, can you quickly tell me about the next one?

Yes, the next one will be August 13th, just another month away.

And then we'll have one more in October, October 15th, which has an October fest type of theme to it awesome.

I know that if you search for visit Nappanee, your website will come up and people can get all the information about that.

So, Jessica, thank you so much for joining us on Experience Michiana.

Thank you very much for having us.

So today we're going to take a look at pure green farms, which you've been driving by and experiencing without even knowing it.

But you could come take a closer look, too.

So we're going to talk with Joe Mcguire.

He's the CEO of Pure Green Farms and he's going to show us how this happens and how you can experience sustainable food grown right here in Michiana.

Oh, hey, Joe.

You know, I came to see the green house growing operation, but what is this big thing right here?

Yeah, where are you looking at?

This is a hot water storage tank that's fully insulated and it holds two hundred and sixty thousand gallons of water that's constantly recirculating.

And we use that primarily for the winter months when we're having to heat these facilities.

We use radiant heat by running hot water, low flow through a series of pipes, and that helps us keep the greenhouse warm for the plants and also the people that work in our head house.

Wow.

So that's a much more efficient way of heating things than, you know, piping in gas heat or electric heat or something.

You've got it right here.

So you've got a lot of we're going to see, I think, a lot of greens and lettuces and stuff in here.

And usually those are grown in California or in Arizona and we get them from thousands of miles away.

But this is right here literally in our own backyard, which is really exciting to see.

And he uses a lot less water.

Yep.

Right.

Than whatever is being grown in California, Arizona, plus all the shipping.

So how much water do you guys use here?

Because I know they grow in water, right?

Correct.

So, yeah.

So this is hydroponic growing and we grow fresh lettuces here.

Three hundred and sixty five days out of the year.

And with the use of technology we're able to do that.

And so we are able to control our environment and use about ninety five percent less water than a typical field operation now and of course.

Our water is abundant here compared to the West Coast, where they're suffering some of the worst droughts in the history of recorded time.

It's really a benefit to have this here and be able to provide the local population with fresh lettuce all year round.

Yeah, well, I'm really excited to see how this works.

Thank you so much for showing us around.

Oh, yeah.

Excited to show you.

Come on in.

Well, we're all suited up and in the greenhouse, so we're not going to contaminate anything which is important because as we just saw, it's a pretty technology driven process.

The machines that are filling the trays with the peat and planting the seeds in that.

Well, what else?

It's a lot of automation in here.

Yup.

Yup.

Yeah.

So we're wearing our PPE for the primary function of keeping this room clean and we want to keep it from outside infestations and then any contaminants that might be on us from wherever we've been.

And that's part of clean farming.

And we just looked at Chris doing the integrated pest management.

That's so we can avoid using pesticides.

We have to control bugs just like any other farmer, but using this controlled environment and all the technology allows us to accomplish that.

So despite our best efforts, stuff still might get in.

Absolutely.

But instead of spraying that with chemicals, which I don't want to eat and I want other people to eat right, we're going to try to take care of the bad bugs, with the good bugs.

Absolutely.

Very cool.

Clean farming and clean food.

Yes.

Can we get a better look at all that we've got going on here?

Yeah, we can step right up and look at it.

Wow.

This is quite a sight to see.

I mean, this is a lot of food growing in here.

So how how much space are we looking at here in terms of acres?

Sure.

This is three and a half acres under glass, is how we call it, of growing of these fresh lettuces.

And how much food do you get out of three and a half acres?

At what rate?

At full capacity, we can grow just over two million pounds of lettuces here consistently throughout the year.

So an annualized total of two million pounds, that seems like a really cost effective way to do it, even given all the stuff that's already here, is it make economic sense to grow this way?

Yeah, there is there is heavy capital expenditure to get into this.

But because we efficiently use the space and we don't have to move to different locations, we're able to grow this and bring an affordable product to the market.

Well, and you've got this investment here for hopefully a long, long time to come, right?

Yep.

Yeah, yeah.

And the goal is to get this moving and full and then hopefully build more phases to this.

So these little babies, which are adorable, are going to grow up and become actual food.

You you're going to sell and I'm going to buy what where can I get this.

Yeah.

So we're in Kroger stores in the area.

We're in Martin stores and we're on a lot of good restaurants.

Like I mentioned last night, I ate it render and downtown South Bend and ordered the garden salad and it was my lettuce.

And you knew your lettuce and I knew my lettuce.

It was beautiful.

So it must have a really good taste.

How is it nutritionally do you know how that matches up to the California stuff we might Ship in?

Yeah, there isn't any set studies on that just yet.

So when you look at our products, deep, dark, green and it's fresh, it's it's not going through the multiple processes that the West Coast processors use.

And so we have a feeling that ours is probably more nutritious.

Yeah, well, that's a potential for someone to look into.

Yes.

Yes.

I knew university researchers.

That would be fun.

So.

Wow.

All right.

Well, so from here, it looks like it gets greener as it goes through.

So eventually these babies are going to grow up and come out into something.

Yeah, this is this here is the early part of the process.

These plants have probably been in the greenhouse for about seven or eight days at this stage of the growth table.

And then as we go down to the end, you get closer to twenty four and twenty five days and then they're ready for harvest.

And twenty 25 days and twenty five days fantastic and so that's going to how does it get harvested?

Because I see everything's getting moved and taking care of my machines.

Are there where are people involved in the process?

I know there's not a whole lot, but they must have a literal hand in the.

Sure.

Yeah.

So like we saw Chris before using his integrated pest management.

So the growers are monitoring here.

But we also have a high tech camera system that goes throughout the greenhouse.

And so we're able to see images and it collects data so that we can see what's going on even from our cell phone or from our computer.

So you got growers and you have sellers and you're looking at peat levels.

You're looking at germination levels and trying to manage your climate in here so that you give the plants exactly what they want.

And you're gathering a lot of data so you can do this consistently and consistently do it well as it goes through.

Well, let's let's go take a look at the harvest space and see what happens at the end.

OK, sounds good.

Here comes a tray of arugula that looks glorious.

All right, so it's sliding in.

And it rotates.

And we got a couple of people in here, what are they up to?

Yeah, they're part of the process where we're where the lettuce is automatically going and it's an automatic harvester, gets put out belts and travels to the locations where we want to do whether it's going up for a food service process or.

Retail.

Wow.

Wow, so this is what I can buy at the store and how I can really Experience what Farms is producing.

Yeah, this is this is what our our end product looks like.

It's it's available in retail and then several restaurants in town here in South Bend and beyond.

And so great opportunity for the city of South Bend.

What you see here can really grow because this is a the beginning phases of this new technology that's really spreading all over the world.

Greenhouses that are popping up all over the world because this is.

Seems to be a better way to farm products like fresh water.

So this is really a leading method of growing food sustainably.

Anywhere in the world is right here, Michiana, right?

That's fantastic.

So besides actually eating it up, I get in the store asking for it in local restaurants.

How else can folks Experience this?

Can other people tour like I did with a group?

Is that your preference?

What can people do.

Yeah.

So, yeah, we've had several groups come through here that we've had for years.

But if you go to our website, you can contact us and get on our mailing list and we're happy to host people here and show them what's happening in on the south side of South Bend, the exciting.

You know, if you ever say there's nothing to do about Michiana, just keep on watching this show.

That's right.

There's so much there's so much to Experience and Michiana.

And if you do see something that you think that we should Experience, then just tell us about that stuff.

What are some of your favorite things to do in Michiana?

I love being outdoors.

I love being outdoors.

When we go to gardens and see different like Botanic Gardens and stuff like that, that's my job.

Or being on water, we haven't done enough on water.

Now we can do kayaking or tubing or so, yeah, I want to go down that way.

Water yoga What?

Water yoga isn't real?

We're going to find it for you.

We're not doing.

Much more to bring you on Experience Michiana This WNIT local production has been made possible in part by viewers like you.

Thank you.