right here I have a vanilla plant
welcome to another video in case you're
new here my name is Melanie and on my
channel I talk about growing food in the
tropics so before you leave don't forget
to hit the red subscribe button down
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videos that I post up every week and
right here I have a vanilla plant and
it's actually an orchid so I'm gonna
plant it today and tell you a little bit
about it so you can learn more about
this working the vanilla orchid is
actually the only orchid that produces
something that's edible for us so it
puts out a flower and then when it's
pollinated it puts out the vanilla bean
it grows it and then that's what we used
for the vanilla flavor and it's actually
a vining orchid so it'll grow up a tree
by attaching itself with these aerial
roots and you can grow it on a trellis
but traditionally like in farms for
vanilla they grow it on trees and it's
actually a shade plant so you don't want
to grow it in Sun which it works out
because the trees give its shade and
also a trellis at the same time so now
I'm gonna give you a close-up of this
plant I decided to plant my vanilla
orchid under this oak tree that I just
showed you guys that I have in my garden
and a few things you should know before
propagating vanilla is that it does grow
by cuttings so you wanna take a cutting
of the plant and then you want to bury
it under decomposing matter so just like
decomposing leaves and a little bit of
soil and you want to make sure that it's
upright so when I first planted mine I
was not sure which way was up or down so
I took the cutting I had and cut it in
half and then planted one growing one
way and one growing the other way and
this is the one that took and now that I
have the plant actually growing I could
tell which way is up or down
so you see the leaf it has like a little
dimple right here and on the other side
if you look at it from the bottom it's
just smooth it doesn't have that little
dimple so the little dimple is the part
that's going up so now you know that and
I'm just gonna plant it down here you
don't have to worry about brute
competition because they have the aerial
roots so they got some of their
nutrition from the aerial roots now if
you live in a cold climate you couldn't
plant it outside under a tree because
then when the frost comes it will die so
be best to grow it in a pot and then use
a trellis
if you see there's really not that many
roots growing in the ground but I'm just
gonna plant this whole thing because it
will be less shock
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I'm in Miami Florida so we'll see how my
vanilla orchid does here outside I
haven't seen anyone growing it down here
outside I've only see it seen it grown
in greenhouses so fingers crossed I'm
hoping it does well and that's pretty
much it so thank you for watching and
don't forget to like the video down
below and comment and let me know if you
guys have ever grown vanilla orchids and
where you have grown um if it's indoors
or outdoors and if you ever got some
vanilla beans out of them and if you
aren't ready then subscribe to my
channel because I post up new videos
every Friday and I love to see you guys
next time
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