So it's been quite a while since I can remember seeing my gardens this bare and empty. There's
just not a whole lot growing bare spot there and bare spot behind it mostly bare spot there
with a few zinnias still kicking a tarp plot behind it. Another bare spot and then a recently
mowed cover crop. Now there is a good reason for all this, two main reasons. One fall has
come early this year I wasn't ready as I should've been with my transplants there still finishing
off in the greenhouse. So we're just waiting on some of these plots here where we're gonna
be putting fall crops in the ground. Reason number two is we have recently stopped doing
our market farming operation so I don't have as much pressure on me to just always be planting
and growing things. That means of these ten plots I have which I'm going to keep all ten
even though we're not market farming anymore I can use those ten plots to improve my rotation
even more and do even more cover cropping so I have nice healthy soils when I do grow
vegetables in that particular plot. So there is a lot of nothing here behind me but that
is about to change. As I mentioned my transplants in the greenhouse are finishing off probably
got another couple of weeks left so in the next couple of weeks well start putting a
lot of those in the ground and showing you how we do that. The other thing that's about
to change or that has already changed is now the 1st of October around here and the ideal
time to plant cool-season cover crops for us done here in south Georgia, Zone 8b that
time is early to mid-October and so we added a bunch of new cool-season cover crops to
the site this year. Really excited about trying them out in some of these plots out here and
so will be showing you how we're gonna get those in the ground as well. So today I wanted
to take the chance to walk around all ten plots and kind of give you a preview of what
we got planned coming up in the next couple of weeks worth of videos. So let's start out
here in this area we call the dream garden where we got six 30 x 35 plots this first
plot here is where we're gonna be putting our alliums. As you might know, we added a
bunch of good onion varieties this year, so I'm gonna be trialing a bunch of those varieties
those short-day onion varieties. We're gonna put some Elephant Garlic in here some leeks
and maybe even some chives. Now this doesn't always happen but I do usually try to plant
crops that have similar nutrient needs in the same space cause it just makes it easier
to kind of feed everything and so that's why we put all of our alliums in the same plot.
All of our onions, garlic, chives, leeks, so forth, they all like plenty of water, like
plenty of nitrogen, so it makes it easier to give them all what they need cause they
all kind of need the same thing so this area has been tilled after we mow down that cover
crop of sunflowers we had here and we got some volunteer sunflowers popping up over
there a few little weeds here and there. We're gonna come in here with a heavy heavy dose
of compost on this plot and put it on here thick at least 3" or so we may cultivate before
we do that take care of those weeds or that compost will just smother them out so heavy
compost in here and then coming in with some alliums. Ideal planting date is going to be
early November but if we have some transplants or stuff ready before then won't hurt to get
it in a week or two early. And then moving over here to plot number two in the dream
garden this is where we had our big okra plot throughout late spring all throughout the
summer and into the fall a little bit we've since come in with some loppers chopped those
down left the roots in the soil there just cause it's easier with them big okra plants
but this plot is gonna get a cover crop. So where gonna be planting a cover crop of Kodiak
Brown Mustard here doing a little process we call biofumigation and we've got several
videos out there on this process and how it works but basically when we have crops that
are susceptible to nematodes, okra being one of those tomatoes being another one. It's
a good idea if you have the time and the space to follow that planting with a cover crop
of mustard and you can use Broadleaf Mustard just regular Florida Broadleaf Mustard we
have that on the site and you can harvest some of it and then till the rest of it in
the ground. This Kodiak Brown Mustard is not fit to eat it's pretty hot but it also works
really well as a biofumigant so the spicer the mustard the better it's gonna work to
suppress those harmful nematodes so we let the cover crop grow up get a lot of vegetation
on it, chop it up till it into the soil and that whole breakdown process there gets rid
of those bad guys. The third plot here is where our kind of failed fall tater experiment
took place after Sally came through and dumped all that water and these things rotted so
here we have a pretty blank slate I've got some herbs growing in the greenhouse we've
got some brassicas, lettuce stuff. So this is gonna be a food plot I haven't quite determined
how I'm gonna arrange it here but this is gonna be one of my food plots this fall so
we're gonna stake things in here with fall planting we usually put stuff on three-foot
rows we're not gonna plant carrots in here that's what we planted last fall so no carrots
in here but no other cool-weather crops. I'll probably end up mowing those zinnias down
when we do get ready to plant this. I've enjoyed their beauty but I'm gonna get them out of
the way so we can make more room for cool-weather stuff here. And then this guy right here where
we have our tarp over this plot where we had our Iron Clay Peas in the summer as a cover
crop that tarp is uh done it's job, doing it's job and we'll soon pull this off and
heavily heavily compost it. I'm not gonna reveal what's under there yet not gonna show
you the magic of the tarp quite yet. You'll see that when we do that video was gonna pull
it off and gonna try to do some uh slightly no-till stuff here so I'm gonna try and just
throw a big load of compost on top of it and not till it. We'll see how that works I feel
like there probably is still a little bit of debris from those peas underneath that
tarp we will just see. We're gonna try that and kind of compare a no-till situation to
a till situation here we're gonna put compost on both of them but this one here since it's
been tarped I think we can get away with not tilling it will just have to see. Now I should've
mentioned when I was talking about doing that mustard cover crop earlier were not gonna
compost the plots that we are cover cropping just not worth it my opinion. I'm only gonna
compost, where I'm planning on putting vegetables there so, we're gonna let the cover crop do
it's job of feeding and rehabbing the soil you know in those plots and where we are putting
vegetables we are gonna come in with a heavy dose of our gin trash compost and then the
plots that are cover cropped they'll be composted before next spring. Moving along plot number
five here in the dream garden we just pulled up our peppers they still looked alright they
just weren't making a whole lot of peppers I don't know if this cool weather had something
to do with it. They just weren't you know a good use of my space in the garden or in
this plot at the current time so this is gonna be a cover crop plot we heavily heavily had
this thing planted uh grew a lot of stuff here last fall as far as brassicas and stuff
so we're gonna give this plot a break on the fall/winter crops this year. And the cover
crop we are gonna be putting here is our Marvel Chickpea that we just added I've never grown
those before but I have grown pea cover crops plenty of times they always treat my soil
very well so looking forward to trying those chickpeas right here. And for plot number
six or our last plot here in the dream garden we've just taken down some pretty tall Sorghum
Sudangrass now, I wasn't able to do this with my push mower I had to do it with my riding
mower which doesn't have a mulching kit on it but I was able to do a decent job of keeping
all the debris kind of inward in the plot so I save all that good organic matter and
you can see a lot of that there. It just kind of looks like hay covering the ground nice
weed suppression and I'm gonna till this in the next day or so add all that to the soil
always helps condition the soil adding all that organic matter and that good stuff so
like I said this stuff was really tall got it chopped down had to run over it a couple
of times with the mower but I figured one or two passes with the tiller and this guy
will be ready to go. And this is another one that we farm pretty heavy last fall and throughout
the winter with brassicas: beets, I think even had some carrots here at one point in
time, so we worked this one pretty hard last year gonna give it a break this year. I'm
gonna plant a new cover crop of our Frosty Berseem Clover. This clover is really really
good at fixing nitrogen does a great job with that, one of the best nitrogen-fixing legumes
out there. And the name frosty suggests this stuff is really really cold tolerant not like
we need it down here in the deep south but it can withstand single-digit temps so this
stuff should just be fine and dandy all throughout the winter months on in to the spring when
we get ready to use this plot again. Now I will admit I was exaggerating a little bit
earlier when I acted like there's just nothing growing out here on my homestead. In this
area we call the dream garden there pretty much is nothing as you saw but we got four
other plots where we do have some stuff growing and where we do have some more plans for other
vegetables more cover crops. Let me show you those real quick. So in this big plot behind
the dream garden we've got our pole beans/runner beans looking pretty good there. We did a
video planting those and did a video trellising those we also planted some English peas on
a video recently and those guys let me get down here to show you are just starting to
pop up there. You can seem them popping up along there we planted them pretty thick I
need to get in here once they get up a little taller get in here with my single tine cultivator
and kind of scuff that soil a little bit so I don't have any weed issues. Still working
on finishing digging our sweet taters this big or the patch of green you see left here
is the purple ones I'm waiting on those. Those were planted a little later than the others
and I still got a row or two of Georgia Jets to get so I'll be getting this hopefully within
this week getting all that out of the way then will have a pretty good area here from
where that wood line is all the way till where that English pea trellis is gonna be to plant
a cover crop and um I think in this area here I'm gonna play around with some cocktails
maybe with our new Forage Cabbage or Forage Collards and just do some experimentation
with some mixtures here see if I can find one that I like better then the mixture I
used last year so last year over on the other side of the barn from where I'm standing now
we did a cool-season cover crop cocktail of Austrian Winter Peas, Hairy Vetch, and Tillage
or Daikon Radish and it worked awesome even in our sandy soil it did really really really
good the tillage radish even though they're kind of designed for harder soils or there
more promoted for harder soils to break up you know that hard ground they also work really
well in sandy soils for scavaging for nutrients way down from below and then we have those
peas and that vetch doing some nitrogen gathering for us so I really really like that mixture
and I would highly recommend it for any of you out there looking for a particular you
know combo to put together but we got a lot of new cover crops that were suggested and
I want to try around with some new mixtures and see if I can find one that is has big
of a homerun as that one was last year. And then right behind the plot I just showed you
we've got this guy here where we've been doing our kind of chop and drop with the sorghum-sudangrass
this has been mowed three maybe four I think just three times already but it's coming back
it will get mowed four times before it's all over with and still kicking along there still
you can see every time we mow it just add more and more of that good stuff just covering
up that ground there just like you know dropping good organic matter almost like mulching the
soil surface there adding all that good stuff and we do eventually incorporate it in so
we can plant something else here uh it's gonna be some good stuff there. So here we are gonna
do another cover crop I farm this one pretty hard last year and we're come in here probably
with another experimental cocktail so that's what will do on these two plots that are close
together that guy I showed you a minute ago and this guy were gonna play around with some
mixtures see if we can find one we really really really like. And then lastly real quick
I'll show you these two guys which you've already seen one of them, where we're not
changing anything in the near future, got our Primus sweet corn it's looking a lot better
since we hilled it still working on solving that worm problem a couple more weeks of the
spinosad should take care of that. Our lettuce we transplanted on that back row there it's
looking really good starting to grow some over here is a cover crop of sunflowers we
planted several several videos ago mostly dwarf varieties here and I can't remember
which is which but this is one variety here and this variety stays really really low to
the ground and then we got these guys here which are relatively short but taller than
the other two dwarf varieties and then these guys here that are kind of in the middle there
and then these last two rows are taller varieties I planted on the back end we got I think Santa
Fe Sunset and our Chocolate Cherry Sunflowers here on the end which will get taller than
the rest of these but these are filling in nicely I have had to make a couple of passes
through here with the wheel hoe keep it clean between the rows but happy with how those
guys are looking haven't had to water them a whole lot they just been kinda kicking along
doing there thing they'll be here a little more longer for a little while till they start
blooming and they'll bloom for several weeks and then they'll be done and we'll mow it
and then figure out what were gonna do next. So as of now and this can always change we're
only using three of our ten plots for what I call cool weather crops we got the one plot
we're gonna put all alliums in and those other two plots we're gonna use brassicas, lettuce,
carrots, some radishes just kind of a hodgepodge of cool weather stuff. The rest of the plots
is gonna be cover cropped or we're just riding these warm-season fall crops out until we
have a first frost what they extinguishing of my market farming has done has given me
a lot more freedom to feed my soils take better care of my soils as opposed to just working
the fire out of them and that's why we're only growing cool-season stuff in three plots
as opposed to last year when we were closer to seven or eight plots so this is gonna allow
me to take care of my soils a lot better do a lot more cover cropping do better management
do a better rotation system so I'm not growing in any if it's a plot that I grew in last
fall or winter it's not getting any vegetables in it this fall and winter it's only getting
a cover crop and I'm gonna try and strictly stay behind that every year that way I have
a good rotation and it's gonna help my pest and disease issues long term. So I hope you
enjoyed my mini-tour there to kind of give you an idea of what we'll be talking about
what we'll be doing on our upcoming videos as we go from bare homestead to having all
these plots being planted with something whether it be vegetables or cover crops. I'll put
some links in the description below to all the cover crop varieties we talked about today
so you can go to our site and check those out. If you enjoyed this video make sure to
give me a big thumbs up, don't forget to hit that subscribe button, and hit that bell button
so you get notified every time we come out with a new video and if you did enjoy this
one check out these other two videos right here, I think you will really enjoy those
as well. Will see you next time.