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- You guys have seen me do a lot
of projects here at the homestead, and it might seem
like things are getting to a point where I'd be content.
I'd be happy with the projects that I've done.
And while that is the case,
there are many more projects that I wanna do here
at the homestead that I haven't even begun.
So in this video, I'm gonna walk through just some
of the things that I want to change or improve,
which might be videos coming down the road.
Starting off over here, this is the artichoke patch,
but only for about half of the year.
There are no artichokes here right now.
They're underground.
They're waiting.
So this area is kind of dormant
for a time where in San Diego, it's about half the year.
It's just too long.
And so what I want to do is I got these two wall trellises.
These are from TerraSculpture.
They're the Ina Wall Trellises.
I'm gonna bolt these onto the wall here,
and then the plan is to grow something that's perennial
and can handle only afternoon sun.
So maybe something like a climbing rose.
I'm not quite sure ye.
Comment down below if you have a suggestion,
but I got two of these going up right here,
and then I'm gonna be putting something
in this area that can counterplay against the artichoke.
This year we did some sunflowers sprinkled in,
but even those are now spent.
So I gotta figure out something, perhaps in this back area,
to give this some texture
while our chokes are in the ground.
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Next thing I want to do, you guys remember
we kind of redid this fence here.
We restained it and we put new posts in,
because the posts were about eight feet apart.
We put four-foot posts.
So I did a bit of an upgrade,
but the final thing I'm thinking, I don't know about you,
but I think it would look a lot better
with some kind of cap here.
Maybe like a two by six, same sort of stain,
just running all the way down.
And what that would do is that would solidify this
a little bit, kind of make it
so that these aren't as exposed.
And I think put a nice, tidy look
to this entire front yard fence.
Now here on the outside, what I'd really like to do
is kind of put some kind of edging here along this fence.
So what you can see is it's really just the sidewalk
and then immediately the dirt.
And you can see Bermuda's kind of creeping on through.
The fence is set back a little bit.
I think what might be really nice is taking some nice
COR-TEN Steel style edging and running it down
and giving the sidewalk a bit of a separation.
So it'd probably come up to about here or so.
That lets me be a little bit more carefree
about how much I'm mulching in this area.
So I can throw a few more inches of mulch,
hopefully suppress some of these weeds,
'cause about every two or three months,
this entire thing is split up with Bermuda
and we have to rip it all out again.
So some kind of COR-TEN edging
around the entire property line would be really nice.
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Over here, this is basically the side yard,
when you get into the backyard.
As you can see,
it's very easy to get into the backyard.
There's nothing blocking, not only myself,
but potentially anyone else from getting in the back.
So this is a project that's already in place.
It's almost done, but there's nothing here quite yet.
So it's a gate, it's a big gate.
It's about this tall, kind of opens up interior
with two gates that kind of flip this way
and it's gonna be a leaf pattern.
So there's a leaf here and a leaf here.
And then the same wood that we're using
for this fence is gonna be horizontally laid out.
And this is just a way so that if I need to,
I can park the car on the side,
not worry about anything happening to it.
Or especially when we're working,
we're trying to get some stuff done here at the homestead.
I wanna make sure
that no one can just wander onto the property,
which sadly happens more often than you would think.
So putting a gate up here is gonna be a crucial addition.
A place you don't really see here
at the homestead is this under awning in the backyard.
You may have seen it way back when I first bought the place.
Obviously, things have changed a little bit.
I've got the outdoor gym,
I have some makeshift storage, and that's about it.
One of the things I really want to change
about this area is this concrete floor.
Now, the extreme thing to do is actually
to jackhammer it out.
It's not level, it's kind of all broken up,
but I think at the very least, we could put some kind
of new coating on it so it doesn't look all dingy,
like the paint's been chipped off.
This is actually something the flippers did.
They put a really rough coat of this sort of gray-blue paint
on here that as you can see has chipped off like crazy.
Just doesn't look good.
Doesn't feel good to be in this space,
especially since myself and some
of our team members are just family
and friends who are hanging out here.
They're oftentimes under this
in what doesn't really look like that pleasant of a space.
Now, if you look up, you also see why it might not be
the friendliest space to be in 'cause not only
is there no finishing underneath this awning,
but when we put the new roof on a year, year and a half ago,
they actually put it onto this awning
and missed a lot of the areas
where they're screwing down into the cross beams.
So there's a ton of exposed nails and screws.
It's just not safe in any capacity.
So what I'd like to do is kind of finish this off
by taking a nice finish plywood
and putting it on this, to cover that up, painting it,
and then putting the bistros underneath that.
So you get a nice, uniform surface, it looks a lot better,
and it kind of just cascades the light
and it's a lot more fun to be in this area.
And then the final touch would be something
like a nice seating area somewhere around here.
Now, I'm not gonna say this is gonna happen for sure,
but I have been in talks with a greenhouse company
to potentially put a greenhouse here at the homestead.
But on top of that,
maybe seal this room in as what's called a California room.
So this would be closed off here.
And then this area,
there would probably be windows that come down to about here
and you'd extend the wall up and you kind of make it
like an outdoor-indoor entertaining area with screens
so that you don't have any mosquitoes or bugs.
As we move out into this area, I think it'd be nice to have,
this is my little Blackstone griddle,
but a more prepared area here would be great
for entertaining and hanging out.
But something I just can't get my mind off of
is in this back garden area
if we were to do something to add some more light
and some more character to this space at night.
The way I've thought
about doing this is putting black poles,
black metal poles in the ground,
and then running a cable across in like a zigzag pattern
and attaching bistro lights to that cable
so that I can turn it on with the flip of a switch.
It'd be really, really cool to have an over lit garden
at night that you could hang out in,
wander around in, et cetera.
Now, the other way you could approach that
is doing in-ground lights,
but since we changed this space up so much,
I'm a little less inclined to do that.
I'd rather have some poles in and have guaranteed lighting.
Now, I'll actually toss in another bonus.
Something I also can't stop thinking about
is putting some kind
of retractable shade cloth that you could run on cables
and kind of toss it across the garden at a moment's notice.
Maybe it could double,
as the lighting system would be kind of convoluted
and a little bit hard to invent,
but I'm sure we could figure it out.
So let me know what you think
about that down in the comments, or if you have a design,
certainly I'm all ears.
As we go over here to the chicken coop, trust me,
I absolutely love the Carolina coop,
but I do want to give the chickens some more outdoor space.
It's a beautiful run.
There's actually more than enough space
for my six hens in there,
but I still want to give them something else.
So we have this chicken guard door
that I've currently just never opened up.
What I'd like to do is create a small chunnel,
or chicken tunnel, run it around to the back
and in the back, there's about a four foot wide space
running across this entire length,
and I'll cage that off and grow some forage in there.
And then that'll tie really nicely to the compost bin,
which still, and please forgive me, guys,
is not installed here yet at the homestead.
We're just dealing with a big old pile.
So a couple different changes here in the back garden.
(light music)
One of the last things I wanna share with you, trust me,
I could go on forever, but I'll calm down,
in this pond area there's obviously a lot of landscaping
to do around the pond, which is its own project.
But I've thought in this area, it's a beautiful patio area.
I've got a couple chairs, some tables, some lights,
but it's still pretty much in the blasting sun every part
of the day, except for the evening.
So I think I'm gonna do,
and this is a bigger project, is I think I can do
a pergola that's coming out kind of like this,
spans the entire patio area,
and drops down on the other side.
So a pretty large wooden structure
that I could then grow grapes or passion fruit up,
and it gives some nice filtered shades,
specifically in this area, without interfering with any sort
of shadow being thrown into our productive growing space.
So I think that's gonna work.
I might be able to do it from a kit or I might DIY it.
I'm not quite sure yet, but there's a lot
of different projects as you can see here at the homestead,
a lot of content coming up.
So subscribe if you want to see us tackle any
of these projects and more, and until next time,
good luck in the garden and keep on growing.