(MUSIC PLAYING)
Weird but true, ladybugs might look like cute little harmless beetles...
CARLY: But they release toxic chemicals to protect themselves from predators.
CHARLIE: Don't fret because they're nice little organic helpers
at this farm where we're at!
Can we tell them where the farm is?
I don't know, it's a little shocking. What do you think?
-No, just a little hint. -Just one hint? All right.
-It's time for Weird But True! -It's time for Weird But True!
CHARLIE: Did you know there are more stars in the sky
than grains of sand on the whole planet?
CARLY: Whoa!
-This is incredible. -I know, right?
-CHARLIE: Charlie here. -CARLY: Carly here.
-Yes! -We're best friends.
-Let's go! -Let's go!
-CARLY: We live here, in Chicago. -CHARLIE: With a little imagination...
For the rest of time.
And a whole lot of exploring.
-CHARLIE: Whoa! -CARLY: This is so epic!
CHARLIE: We're discovering just how weird the world can be.
-Hey! -We made it.
CARLY: This is unreal.
(THEME MUSIC PLAYING)
-CHARLIE: Farming! -CARLY: Farming!
-And a helmet. Nice. -Thank you.
Hey, guys. Charlie here.
-You know my friend, Carly. -Hey.
We're so glad that you're here 'cause we got something cool to show you.
So, you know I like working in the gardens outside HQ, right?
Well, we started growing produce. Lots of produce.
And now, we have more than we could eat.
So, Carly whipped this up.
CARLY: Charlie and Carly's garden stand.
And we're open!
All right. We are open, folks! Come and get your produce! Fresh produce!
CHARLIE: Hey, come on, one at a time!
Hey, Patrick! Put down that tomato. Everyone, stay in line.
-CARLY: Oh, Charlie! -You all right?
-Yeah, I'm good. -This happens every week.
CASEY: Oh, no. Guys, am I too late again?
-CARLY: Hey, Casey. -Yeah, we just sold out.
You're supposed to be my suppliers.
I have 12 orders for strawberry rhubarb pies.
Hey, it's gonna be okay.
We can reserve you some from next week's harvest.
Charlie, write this down. How many orders do you need?
-Four baskets. -All right, four baskets of strawberries
-for Casey. -Excellent.
-There you go. -Got it.
MAN: Everybody, they're taking orders!
Here they come! Oh, my goodness!
Wait, wait, wait. Not my stand!
No!
(CROWD CLAMORING)
-(CARLY GRUNTS) -You good? Come on.
-What happened? -Look, this is crazy. Ugh!
-There are like hundreds of orders here. -CARLY: What?
CHARLIE: There's no way we can fulfill these.
Wait, Charlie. Wait, no, no. This is perfect.
If we convert your garden into a farm, we'll be able to fulfill all the orders.
A farm?
Plus, we'll have a real business on our hands.
-Let's do it. -Yes!
All right, guys, I guess that means today, we're unraveling the world of...
-CARLY: Farming! -CHARLIE: Farming!
Okay. So, did you see these? There are like a million of these.
Charlie, trust me, it's all gonna be fine because farms are incredible.
Think about it like this.
A garden is a space where you might grow a vegetable or two,
and maybe some flowers, trees, and shrubs. But its primary purpose is to look pretty.
(ROOSTER CROWING)
CARLY: On a farm, you grow fruits and vegetables
and raise all sorts of animals.
Everything grown or raised on a farm can be used, eaten, or sold.
That's the purpose of the farm.
-See, it's gonna be a cinch. -Okay. Well, if we're gonna do this,
-we gotta make a lot of changes, right? -Right.
We can only grow things we can eat, sell, or use.
So, that means no flowers, and we're gonna have to get rid
of that stone pathway and the pond,
gotta get rid of those benches...
What? Come on, come on! I love that stuff.
Charlie, maybe you'll love farming, too.
We're gonna have a lot more space and we're gonna have to figure out
what to do with it, so...
Carly, our garden is perfect.
I seriously doubt there's anything we could possibly find that, oh...
-We could have leech farm. -A leech farm?
(GASPS) I can see it now.
We could get a big tub, fill it with water and raise leeches.
As leech farmers, we could sell our leeches to people
who practice leech therapy.
Weird but true, supposedly, it helps blood flow.
-Wait! Here's another one. -(ELEPHANT SNORTS)
CHARLIE: We should create a black ivory coffee farm.
All we need to do is get a bunch of elephants and feed them a nice mixture
of fruit and coffee beans.
When the elephants poop out the beans, we'll collect them
and brew them into coffee.
Some people say, it's the most flavorful coffee in the world.
A coffee farm where we brew coffee from beans
that we pick out of elephant poop?
Those don't exist!
Weird but true, they do exist in Thailand.
Charlie, I like your enthusiasm
but our customers are not interested in leeches and exotic coffee.
Ooh, you're right. Looks like they're looking
for, uh, strawberries, rhubarb, cucumbers,
-and tomatoes. Our specialties. -Exactly.
We'll grow those then. What's next?
Well, we need to harvest a lot of crops in a short amount of time.
Right now, you're doing everything by hand which simply will not do.
We're gonna get you some brand-new state-of-the-art farming equipment.
-All right, then. -Hey, sir. Hi, sir. How you doing?
The name is Saskatoon Baudelaire, Salesman Extraordinaire.
My farming equipment will have you farming so fast,
you'll be on the back porch sippin' sweet tea in no time.
Well, I sure do like the sound of that.
All right, I'm gonna set you up with a 300-horsepower commercial tractor.
And I'm gonna add some machinery for the back.
A 25-foot field cultivator.
A cultivator is a big piece of farming equipment that tills the soil.
That means it stirs up the dirt and pulverizes it.
This is one of the first steps you take when you plant a crop.
We're gonna add a field planter.
Oh, who-ho.
CHARLIE: Wowee!
CARLY: A planter is also towed by a tractor.
Just pour a bunch of seeds into its giant seed tank
and drive it over your field.
The seeder will cut tiny trenches into nice little rows,
deposit a neat line of seeds, and cover them right up.
What do you think happens when that seed starts to grow?
-Well, I... -Oop.
Time to harvest. I have a something special for that.
And that, my friend, is a combine harvester.
A combine harvester is an all-in-one piece of farming equipment that can complete
almost every part of the harvesting process.
Let's say you have 400 acres of corn, the combine harvester can cut down
your cornstalk, separate the cob from the stalk,
and then separate the kernels from the cob, all in one machine.
-(COW MOOING) -(SHEEP BLEATS)
Carly, this is perfect. This equipment is definitely gonna speed things up.
-How much is it gonna cost us? -Looks like 400,000 dollars.
How much did we make at the stand last week?
Uh...
We're a little low.
CARLY: Okay. You know, maybe the super big professional stuff
is a little out of our league,
so we could go for these smaller versions.
They're just like the big ones, but a little more our scale.
-CHARLIE: Well, Saskatoon... -Oh, hello there, young man.
Ooh, I see you just picked yourself up a nice batch of farming equipment.
That's right, ma'am, it's just a little too much for my small operation.
Now, did my son, Saskatoon, sell you this?
Yes, ma'am.
CARLY: Oh, we don't need that big old tractor-pulled cultivator.
No, this machine is also called a cultivator,
but it's a much more manageable size.
And bless your little rhubarb-pickin' heart,
you don't need this big old planter.
This seeder right here plants the seed, it'll be just right
-for your little farm. -This is perfect.
This combine harvester, well,
I got something right here that'll do your job for you.
You can pick all the rhubarb on your little farm
using this small harvesting tool.
You just be careful because it's a sharp knife.
Mrs. Baudelaire, I sure do appreciate the help.
This right here is exactly what I'm looking for.
That's why they call me Mrs. Baudelaire, Saleslady Extraordinaire.
(BARNYARD ANIMAL NOISES)
-Carly, these are perfect. -And purchase.
-Farmers got it all figured out. -They sure do.
And it makes me think, if we have better equipment now,
-what if we had better plants? -Better plants?
-Yeah. -CARLY: Wait, what do you mean?
Aren't all the plants the same, like isn't one strawberry plant
just the same as any other strawberry plant?
Well, it kinda seems like that, right?
But plant scientists have been able to create all different kinds
of strawberry plants, you know, some with more strawberries
or bigger strawberries, or tastier strawberries.
They're making super strawberry plants.
And it's all done through a process called selective breeding.
Let me tell you about it.
Selective breeding starts like this. Scientists choose a specific plant...
I choose sunflower.
...and then select something they wanna change about it.
I wanna make the flower part the size of a pizza.
They'll start by growing a crop of sunflowers.
Each one will be a little different.
They'll choose the two with the biggest flowers
and use them to pollinate each other.
Next, they'll harvest their seeds and plant them in the ground.
This will grow a new crop of sunflowers.
They'll do this over and over and over, only choosing the biggest sunflowers
to pollinate and plant.
Over time, the flowers will get bigger and bigger and they'll end up
-with a pizza-sized sunflower. -Perfect.
Then, they'll package up those seeds and sell them to farmers like you and me,
so that we can grow pizza-sized sunflowers on our farm.
That's how selective breeding works.
So, they start with the best of the best to pollinate and grow
until they come up with something totally unique.
Exactly. See, plant scientists can even take one plant
and turn it into something entirely new.
These are wild mustard plants, they're fairly ordinary looking,
not super tasty, but in the past, scientists used selective breeding
to turn them into entirely new things.
They took one bunch of wild mustard and bred the plants
with the most flower clusters over and over,
eventually creating cauliflower.
They took another bunch and bred the ones with certain flower and stem traits,
turning them into broccoli.
And they took a final bunch, only breeding the ones with the biggest
and broadest leaves, eventually creating kale.
Weird but true, broccoli, cauliflower and kale all were made
from mustard plants using selective breeding.
This is incredible.
Yeah. See, selective breeding leads to all sorts of super plants
that grow on farms.
All right, from now on, we are only growing plants with the most fruit
-and the biggest leaves. -You got it.
We are gonna harvest more crops than we know what to do with.
Ooh, uh, Carly.
-Not so sure about that. -What's wrong?
Just doing some calculations here, looks like even with some super plants,
we're not gonna fulfill those orders.
Well, can't you just farm faster?
I mean, I can farm a little faster with that new equipment, right?
But, uh, our problem is space.
See, there's just not enough room to grow more things outside.
-Charlie, that's it. -What's it?
So, we've run out of room to grow crops outside, like a standard farm
but we've got plenty of room inside.
-Inside? -Yeah.
I was reading about a farm in New York City that grows crops inside.
If we expand part of our farm indoors, we might be able to fulfill
-all the orders. -How do you fit a farm inside?
I don't know, but we are about to find out
because I just booked us two tickets to New York City.
Meet us there, guys? All right, see you soon.
CHARLIE: We're off to one of the biggest cities in the United States
to learn how to grow crops indoors.
Weird but true, New York City is so diverse
that as many as 800 different languages are spoken here.
(TRAFFIC SEISMIC NOISE)
-Hey, guys, we made it. -New York City.
-The Big Apple. -Home of Central Park.
-CHARLIE: The Statue of Liberty. -CARLY: The Empire State Building.
Weird but true, the Empire State Building has a lightning rod on top,
that's, on average, struck 23 times a year.
(THUNDER CRACKS)
All that is very cool but, Charlie,
nothing here looks even a little bit like...
-CHARLIE: Like a farm, right? -CARLY: Yeah.
-This is the address? -Oh, Farm One.
-It says it. -Yes.
-Let's check it. -Come on.
Ah, perfect. Ooh, Farm One.
CARLY: Charlie, it says it's in the basement.
-How do you grow plants in a basement? -I don't know.
CHARLIE: No way! This is so crazy.
CARLY: We're underground and there are plants growing all over the place.
CHARLIE: It's like they took a farm
and put it on a bunch of shelves in a basement.
Rob Laing is the CEO and founder of Farm One.
His favorite weird but true fact is, they grow a plant known
as the Toothache Plant
because it numbs the mouth and delivers crazy flavors.
Rob, this place is incredible. This is your farm?
It's called a vertical farm, which means we stack the growing layers
on top of each other and we use hydroponics,
which means we're growing plants
in a water-based nutrient solution instead of soil.
I can hear the water trickling from, like, everywhere.
ROB: The plants are also under these LED lights which mimic the sunlight.
We can control the temperature, humidity, the nutrients that the plants are getting,
even the color of the light they may get through the day.
We can keep it the same way in February or in August,
whether it's freezing outside or boiling hot.
CARLY: Do you think of yourself as a scientist or a farmer?
ROB: We're very much farmers but also, we use software, we use the latest data.
-So we're tech farmers, I guess. -Very cool. I like that a lot.
CHARLIE: What are the sorts of things are you growing?
ROB: We generally say herbs, edible flowers,
and microgreens, which are really young plants.
So, they often have a lot of flavor to them, but they also look really great.
And what do you do with everything
-you grow here? -We sell to chefs.
There's loads of chefs in New York City who are desperate to get rare,
unusual ingredients year-round.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
ROB: What I'm gonna show you now is our hydroponic system.
You can see the plants' roots
-all hanging out here, right? -Oh, man!
So, this is normally what's in the soil,
but this is coming through in the water here.
It's like grabbing a big bag of compost and squeezing out that brown juice.
That's pretty much what goes inside here.
The best parts of the soil, all in this liquid mixture.
ROB: Exactly. There's many different types of systems in hydroponics,
but all of them really rely on giving water to the roots,
oxygenating that water so the roots can breathe,
and giving nutrients.
-What are we looking at here? -It's called nepitella.
-CHARLIE: Nepitella. -ROB: It has a minty oregano flavor.
Would you like to try it?
-Yes! -Yeah, let's try it.
Just grab a little leaf.
-Yeah. -Cheers.
(SNIFFS) Ooh.
-Ooh, it's minty. -It clears up my nose very nicely.
ROB: And that's just one of over 50 plants
that we grow in this space at any one time.
CHARLIE: It's so incredible how you can stack everything
right on top of each other.
Even though we're in this, like, tiny basement room,
it's like you triple the size of it
'cause you have three layers of plants here.
Is this something that a person could do in their home?
Yeah, absolutely, there are small systems, you can start from something
that's about the size of your hand all the way up to something like this.
CHARLIE: All right, guys. So, what Rob and his team did
is they thought of everything a plant
needs to grow outside and they brought it inside.
Let's look into that a bit more closely.
There are seven things that all plants need to grow.
Space, the right temperature, light, water, air, nutrients, and time.
Plants can easily get all of this in an outdoor farm.
(COW MOOING)
CHARLIE: There's plenty of room to grow in a wide-open field
and farmers usually grow crops in the summer when it's warm.
There's plenty of fresh air outside, light from the sun
and water and nutrients in the soil.
Farms like Farm One bring all of these things indoors.
Inside, there's not that much space, so they stack the plants
on rows and rows of shelves.
They set the right temperature, pump in fresh air
through the ventilation system, rig up special LEDs to give plants
all the light they need, and grow crops in special solutions
of water and nutrients.
So, outdoor farms and indoor farms are pretty similar.
They both give plants everything they need to grow.
(WIND BLOWING)
ROB: I'm gonna give you a taste of something that chefs really like to use.
Look at this. This is called a Purple Oxalis leaf.
-So, try this. -Thank you.
-Okay, ready? Yeah. -Yeah.
-All right. Cheers.
(CHUCKLES)
-(LAUGHS) -Whoa. (GIGGLES)
Right? It's got some power to it.
-That's a ride. -Yeah.
That stem is really acidic.
-Yeah, it tastes like grapefruit. -Yeah.
Yeah, like you chewed into a lemon.
-That's the acid in the taste... -That's so good!
-Yeah. -It's really good.
I don't like vegetables, but that's good to me!
(MUSIC PLAYING)
CARLY: So, every element is super controlled.
ROB: Yeah, this is a very precise environment.
Luckily, we have an amazing engineering manager,
and her name is Kate.
Because we're trying to replicate outdoor settings,
we've developed a software that monitors and tracks every single plant
from seed to harvest.
So, each one of these plants has a unique QR code.
Cool tech word, "QR Code." That stands for "quick response."
It's a unique way of labeling things electronically.
It's this boxy kind of image here that they have labeled on all the plants.
We use a lot of technology here on the farm,
but sometimes the easiest and best solution for some of our pest issues
is mother nature itself.
This is a bag of ladybugs
and they eat all of our yucky bugs,
like aphids and thrips, whiteflies, and things like that.
They actually go ahead and snack on them.
CHARLIE: So bringing in good bugs to attack the bad bugs...
-KATE: Yeah. -CHARLIE: ...that are eating on the crops.
How many ladybugs do you think we're gonna release today?
-KATE: About 1,500. -Fifteen hundred!
-Fifteen hundred ladybugs. -Wow!
-Oh, man. -Look at them go.
Go forth, ladybugs.
-CARLY: They're like, "We're free!" -CHARLIE: Eat as many thrips as you can.
The cool thing about it is the ladybugs are so good at their job
that they don't have to use harmful chemicals and pesticides.
CARLY: This is a great example of just one of the reasons why indoor farms
are beneficial for the environment.
If you wanna get your hands dirty, I have a few jobs for you.
Great. Let's do it.
-Yeah! -Let's do it.
CHARLIE: Carly takes a turn placing 400 seeds
in a growing medium to get the plants started.
I was sort of thinking that once we got here,
we find all these shortcuts for farming, but it turns out
whether you're indoor farming or outdoor farming,
it all takes a lot of time.
Hey, Charlie.
CHARLIE: And Marissa sets me up to make some deliveries.
We have a magic rose and an Amazon neon cherry.
Unique small crops like these can be hard to grow outdoors,
but they thrive in this controlled environment...
while bigger crops that need lots of space do better outside.
All right, we all packed up, ready to deliver to the restaurants?
-MARISSA: Yeah, we're ready to go. -CHARLIE: All right. Let's roll!
Let's deliver some greens.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(TRAFFIC SEISMIC NOISE)
All right, game time, everybody.
I feel like I'm smuggling treasures across the city of New York.
This is the life of a New York City farmer, right?
Eugene... got your delivery.
-Got your, uh, dianthus, neon cherry... -Yep.
-...nepitella. -Looks good to me.
-Good to go? All right. -Thank you. Appreciate it.
Thanks for coming.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
CHARLIE: Carly, this doesn't actually seem that hard.
No, I think we could absolutely recreate some of what we're seeing here in HQ,
and quadruple what we're able to produce if we are stacking vertically like this.
Yeah, hook up some water irrigation systems...
-CARLY: Yep. -...you have lights to mimic the sunlight.
-CARLY: Yeah. -CHARLIE: Yeah.
We're gonna be selling strawberries year-round, Charlie.
-Who else is selling strawberries... -Nobody.
...rhubarb, tomatoes, and cucumbers fresh, local, in the winter?
-CARLY: This is gonna change everything. -CHARLIE: I like this.
We're gonna head back to HQ, but we'll see you there?
Perfect. We'll see you soon.
CARLY: Weird but true, a typical ear of corn contains 800 kernels and 16 rows.
So, I'm working on converting our entire backyard space
just to rhubarb production.
We chose a special type of rhubarb that was selectively bred to grow
in cooler environments.
That, along with my brand-new seeder, cultivator
and my nifty little hand-held harvesting tool.
Keep in mind that you need your parents' permission before using sharp tools.
We're gonna be farming faster than ever.
I am in charge of the indoor crops, that's cucumbers, tomatoes,
and strawberries.
I'm rigging these awesome hydroponic shelves all over the house
and I've automated everything, from light to nutrients.
I can control it all using software I've got on my phone.
The garden to farm conversion is complete.
(BARNYARD ANIMAL NOISES)
We've almost quadrupled in size since we started.
-How awesome is that? -Super awesome.
And according to my calculations,
we're gonna have enough to fulfill all those orders.
It'll just take a little longer than we thought.
Turns out you can improve a lot of aspects of farming,
but you can't the fact that plants need time to grow.
That's true.
-CASEY: Hello, hello! -Casey.
Uh-oh. Hey, Case! Yeah, come on down.
Hey.
Hey, guys, just thought I'd come,
check and see how the strawberries are going.
You know, pick up my... Wait.
Did you guys build a hydroponic farming system?
Yeah, you bet.
Awesome. This means that I can get my crops year-round,
and speaking of,
where are my strawberries? I'm so ready to make a ton of pies.
CARLY: Casey, the harvest isn't gonna be ready for a few more months.
-I'm so sorry. -But my pies...
However, as a sign of good faith to our best customer,
we got you these instead.
It's Purple Oxalis
from a vertical hydroponic farm in New York City.
You'll get twice the strawberries next time at no additional cost.
I promise.
Purple Oxalis. You know, I don't think this will be half bad.
I can make a Crème Anglaise with this that my customers really like.
It's the least we could do while you wait for those strawberries.
Thanks. You guys are the best. You wanna help me crack a bunch of eggs?
-Yes. -Sure.
All right, guys, looks like we got a new project on our hands.
But thanks so much for stopping by. Come by again when we discover more things
-that are weird... -...But true.
We'll see you guys later.
Let's get cracking.
-Crème Anglaise. -Yes!
-I am ready. -That sounds fancy.
-It's delish. -Let's do it.
-Okay. -How many eggs do we need to crack?
-CASEY: About 400. -CHARLIE: Ooh, I like that.
(THEME MUSIC PLAYING)
Here on Weird But True Farms, we have the finest everything.
We harvest the finest leeches and make coffee out of the finest...
Charlie, come on, wake up. We're open.
All right, guys, come on in!
-One tomato please. -Oh, perfect.
How about that one right there?
-Thank you so much for coming by. -Thanks.
Who's next? Come on, we got the finest rhubarb you've ever seen.
-Strawberries for days. -Charlie and Carly's farm.
It's the finest produce you ever put in your mouth.