- Good misty morning, my friends.
It's been a while since you've been here on the vlog.
But today, we are taking this back bed here,
this really long back bed, and planting some garlic.
As per usual there's a jackhammer in the background.
So let's just take a little quick montage
of raking this flat so we can get our garlic cloves in.
(upbeat music)
Okay, let's hit those cloves.
Well here are the varieties that we've got, quite a few.
Right now, the Garden Hermit and I have
to just start splitting cloves.
Okay, you start there, I'll start here.
- Yep.
- We're just cracking the bulbs, that's all we're doing.
You just wanna be careful not to remove the papery skin.
Some of it is okay - Yeah.
- but all of it is not okay,
it would rot away if you did that so let's start going.
- Right away, I can already tell that this is a hard night.
- Yeah, yeah, this one, look at that,
that's actually sprout already.
- Oh nice! - The bask, this'll do well.
- You know what we should do is, guys if you have
a prediction for how many cloves we're gonna end up with,
definitely drop it in the comments.
'Cause I can't even estimate.
(Jack laughing) We have at least 30 bulbs.
So you gotta imagine we've got at least 150 cloves.
- I'd say we're probably gonna break 200 for sure.
Cause I've planted 200 and this looks like more.
- This looks like more yeah.
So a friend of ours Ann, she puts this bulk garlic buy-in
and I went down the list and just ordered a quarter pound of
every single thing just to see if it would work.
So we're gonna have quite the crop this year
and our methods have improved.
So I would say we should have
our best year of garlic yet by a long shot.
(upbeat music)
We've popped all the cloves.
We're gonna do a little bit of filtration,
pulling out some of the smaller ones
and those weaker looking mushy ones.
But now he's gotta kinda sort these all out
and get them on over to that back plot.
I've got my Hori Hori.
I've got the bulbs Italian, the one with
the nice thick bulbs just to show you how to plant.
We've shown you before,
but why not a little bit of a reminder?
So what's nice about the Hori is
you can just stab down about four inches or so.
I went deeper last season because I was planting them later.
So I'm only go about four inches down
and we may put some mulch on, we may not.
But the easy thing to do is just come in,
pull this to the side,
pop the clove down and obviously pointy side up.
Just kind of shove it down in there.
Boom, cover back up and you're good to go.
And then you want to go spacing wise, something like this,
about six inches,
and then you can do diagonal for the next row.
So you bias like this like little,
making little triangle grids.
So I'm gonna put these in
and Jack's help out let's get into it.
(upbeat music)
(animated sound) (Jack laughing)
- Ooh I was close, a little scary.
- That was a cleanup right there.
- Yeah.
This is so short it would actually curve you.
- Yeah, it's actually just sharp.
- So we got to thinking about
the fact that you use so many of these labels here
and I wanted to come up with a label
that you actually never have to throw away again.
So this is the prototype, it's obviously very simplistic.
There's a cool little technique that I wanna do,
but tell me what you guys think it's stainless steel.
It should never, never, ever wear out, never rust.
And it's just a metal Forever Plants Tags.
So we're call these the Epic Forever Plant Tags.
(upbeat music)
We're all done.
We've got this wild contraption that Jack rigged up.
So it uses the Hoselink Quick Connect so.
(water splashing)
Why is coming out like crazy?
All you got to do is quick connect it up down here.
If I can find that connection point,
which is hard to do upside down, search for it here.
Come on, where are you? (cameraman laughing)
There we go, alright we're in connect to that.
And as soon as you flip this now,
it's go out to all these little 360 degree
adjustable sprayers
(Kevin laughing) (Camera man laughing)
Hold on, hold on. (beeping sound)
There we go. (water splashing)
Oh! Really easy way to meet out water.
I would say this setup is probably a little more complicated
and weird, but you can do it with standard drip line
and a hose the way we did it,
you don't have to copy that power post method
'cause these tools aren't really even available.
But the basic idea is you wanna wet a large area over
a longer period of time let it actually soak in.
You can just use these adjustable sprayers
and it'll just kind of plop a nice amount of water down.
So now we have to go on over there.
There's three more beds in our eight grid,
the front eight as we call it
that we need to plan out with some root crops.
- Can't help it.
- I love flipping stuff so much.
My mom used to get so mad at me
'cause I'd flipped like glasses while I'm talking to her.
Never in my whole life, never dropped a single thing.
(Jack laughing)
She's gonna protest that, but never dropped a single thing.
And I can just flip things all day long I'd be happy.
- I wouldn't try it on this one
that one is a little bit risky.
- Are you challenging me? - You sure?
(Jack laughing) Sure, went double.
(Kevin whooshing) Life's easy.
Alright. (Jack laughing)
We're planting some carrots, we're planting some carrots.
So I've got the Chantenay here.
Carrots best planted direct
and also best planted sort of in a furrow,
which is why we have these tools
instead of poking our fingers in the soil.
(warning sound)
- Problem solved right there.
- Right there. - Problem solved.
So I'm just, the thing I'm gonna do here is
I am gonna smooth the surface out so it's nice and level.
But besides that, you just want to throw
a furrow down sprinkle them in generously
and then you'll just thin them out later on.
And you're good to go.
- We have a couple of different varieties here.
- Yeah why don't you talk about what you're doing?
- So I've got Tendersweet, Jamie got it for me
but they are apparently tender and they are sweet.
- Yep. - So that's a good call.
What do you have?
- I've got, ooh what is this?
Weird flower kinda guess. (Jack laughing)
So I got the Chantenay to start.
- That's a great one.
- Which is great because they don't grow that, that big.
They're great for containers, they're sort of stubby.
So if you are a container grower,
you don't even need one more than about six inches deep
to grow Chanetay pretty well
as long as you've got the right soil.
- Yeah,
- It was nice as we built these beds up
pretty significantly I would say.
So we've got about six inches above ground and we loosened
below the ground as well when we did that big till.
So we're be totally fine for carrots.
Actually I'm gonna make a prediction,
I think we might have our best season of carrots
that I've personally ever had right in this bed right here.
- I think it's definitely gonna work.
- It's on, it's on like it's looking good.
- Yeah.
- Crystal ball says it's looking good.
- The biggest challenges with carrots is,
making sure that they stay wide enough to germinate.
And we had some rain and we're gonna have more rain soon
so it's pretty ideal.
- Nice time to plant them.
I make, they say like plant carrots
about a 16th of an inch deep.
I don't stress about that, I think they'll still come up
just fine if you don't do that.
And so I'm leave my furrows uncovered for now though.
- Okay. - So I know where they are.
- Oh, I see. - Just so I know.
Alright next going in is the Nantes Coreless Carrots says,
"long storing carrot, high yielding, reliable."
Coreless I would assume means,
it does not have that central core where you cut in
and you see that little centrifical circle going on.
That's not the right word, but that's fine.
(Jack and Kevin laughing)
Just tryna sound fancy.
- Should we detour?
- I was thinking about it 'cause we might have the space.
- Yeah.
- I think we say, I think we say yes.
- Alright.
- I want as many carrots as I can get.
- Alright.
- It's easily my favorite root crop.
- It's so good. - My country mile.
I was in over sprinkle.
(Jack laughing) Christmas just came early.
- Yeah, sometimes I like think maybe I should
try this space them properly.
Other times I'm like, " Can't come back and thin it."
But the question is, are you going to come back?
- And actually the answer for me is I actually will.
I actually do do it, which you probably are surprised by.
(Jack laughing) - I didn't say it like that.
- But no, well your face said it all though.
(Jack and Kevin laughing)
- No, I do come back and thin because
the reason why is 'cause if I go out in the garden,
I'd just kind of look around and I'm enjoying it.
It's actually enjoyable to come
- Yeah, it's true. - grab a small one
and then eat it and then, you're good to go for the day.
- Juwarot? (Kevin laughing)
- What? - We have try that. Juwarot.
- Yeah, yeah, Juwarot. - Juwarot.
I don't know, I don't know, we don't know.
- Juwarot.
- Says it's a flavorful heirloom carrot.
- Yeah.
- So all of these are from San Diego Seed, I think.
- That is correct, yeah.
Virginia has really expanded her carrot selection
and her root crop selection I noticed this year.
- Yeah, for sure.
- Way more of those.
Which is great for the start of the year.
- Yep, yeah the best thing about growing carrots
this time of year is that you,
if you grow them in the summer you'll get carrots
and you will be able to eat them.
- But they won't bulb fast.
- They won't bulb fast and they won't be as tasty.
They won't be a sweet.
- You know what?
I'm throwing two rows down
and that's exactly the perfect amount to just use a pack.
- Oh yeah?
- Yeah unless I'm going a little heavy and I be going heavy.
(Jack laughing)
I'm go a little deep on that, but that's yeah.
- I'm also not complaining at all
'cause I'm tryna go around the garlic
and then I'll get on the other side.
- Yeah.
- A couple of volunteers here, who are we to say no?
(Kevin laughing)
- When you get a treat from the garden guys,
you don't deny them.
Okay, Little Finger is this one here.
So this guy, super sweet baby carrot, fast maturing,
great for container gardening.
So all these, I mean all the ones I planted should be good
if you're a patio or a balcony gardner.
Don't think you can't grow carrots
just cause you don't have like a foot deep soil.
You definitely still can. - Oh Yeah.
So we're not gonna.
- We gotta get the other one ready.
- I say, let's throw another variety in the middle.
- Just do it. - Just thinning out.
- Be right back. - Yep.
- What you got?
- There is not much than that.
- Danvers, you can't go wrong with the Danvers.
It's a classic, good for heavy soils,
resistant to cracks and splits.
- It's gonna look really nice when they all come out.
- Oh dude! it's gonna look so good, little carrot stew.
(Kevin laughing) Or carrot soup.
I've never actually had like,
I normally try to jam my carrots into like weird places.
- Yeah, you have planted a full bed?
I don't know that I have either.
- I've always seen pictures and it just looks so good,
- I've seen them.
- I have always wanted to do it
- when I went on a seed tour in 2019 of
a bunch of these seed companies,
I saw a huge a hundred, 200 foot rows of carrots
and I'm talking like fully mature
- And it looks good. - It looked so good, yeah.
Cool thing about carrots is they need to be sown so shallow
that you don't need to obsess about maybe if you're moving
these around when you're covering up the furrows,
'cause chances are, they're not gonna go
deep enough no need to worry about it.
(upbeat music)
- It's gonna be a really nice bed.
Might come over and harvest a couple.
This is what this guy does,
(Jack laughing) just comes over.
He thinks he's got free reign in the garden.
Alright, we're gonna put in some radishes in the next bed.
Jack has convinced me to do it the hermit way,
which is as you know, if you go watch his channel
or watch our tour a little bit more unkempt and natural.
I don't mean unkempt in a bad way,
by the way, I really don't.
(Jack laughing)
So instead of doing it in this mechanical way like
I tend to garden and part of that is for you guys,
part of that is just because my brain works that way.
What we're gonna do here is kind of just scatter them
and then I'm just gonna leaf rake agitate the soil to cover
them up and maybe 10% of them get covered, it's fine.
So I'm ready. - You wanna scatter?
- No, no, I'm gonna leaf rake.
- Oh Okay.
'cause you're the guy who wants it on camp, so we're gonna
- Alright let's...
- let you live your best life here.
- I mean, this is kind of like a very loose idea,
so should we try to do it in that area or just everything
- This is you, this is Jack's plot,
- Alright. - at the Epic Homes.
- I don't know what's gonna happen then.
(seeds shuffling)
- How does it feel?
- Let's say it. - How do you feel?
- Good. - Feel good, yeah.
- It feels right, I'm gonna just scatter
- You are not putting that many on.
- Well, I'm gonna do all the beds.
Okay, okay, whatever.
(Jack giggling)
I've been wanting to scatter that.
Chinese watermelon radish red, red meat.
This one is fat, I mean this is a fatty radish.
Quite nice. (seeds shuffling)
- This will be like a little salad bar.
- Oh yeah.
- Those seeds are definitely...
- Make it rain. (Jack laughing)
Okay, what do we wanna do next?
Chinese Chavo fruit.
So this is a green radish and it's long.
So it actually kind of
at first glance looks like a cucumber almost,
- Yeah it does. - but it is not.
(Jack laughing)
It's like you're feeding the birds.
(Jack laughing)
You're gonna throw a couple little sprinkling out here.
- Feel like with radishes like
- Never heard anyone. - this might work.
- I don't know, hundred percent will work,
the radish is so hardy.
- And the cool thing is that
a lot of these are gonna grow at different rates.
- Yeah, you wanna do more?
- So pour as you need, yeah let's get in there.
- So all we're gonna do then is just scrape up the soil
and then just water it in.
Even if some of these are still on the surface,
I think it's fine, I think they'll still germinate,
but I guess we'll have to find out.
(Jack laughing)
The one thing I want to make sure I don't do is like
hold them all to one side.
So I'm gonna go back and forth.
- And I will just put in some on top of wherever
you're are going. - Distribute them, yeah.
Another smarter way to do this probably would be
to grab some soil or compost and just top dress,
we're just sort of running low right now.
(playful beats)
(Jack laughing)
- That should work, man. - Yeah.
- That should work? - Awesome.
- And that was way faster than the carrots.
(Jack laughing) - Way faster.
- Although the carrots are gonna look nice.
And I actually wanna know where the carrots are.
- Yeah, that one is actually,
these are all gonna look different, so it's like...
- Okay, this is the last set.
- [Kevin] Last a bit of planting here.
We've got the beets, so this is the speed way to do it.
Just pull the furrows, same as the carrots,
but beets are hardier cause their seed is compound.
And so you don't have to even care if it's gonna germinate
'cause it's almost guaranteed to in fact more than one will.
So yeah, just pull the furrows and throw them in.
Let's talk about these.
We've got the Badger Flame Beet at row seven.
This is a classic actually quite beautiful.
Sometimes I've noticed that it's a little more finicky.
I don't know if you have.
- I haven't really grown that one yet.
- Yeah, but it's quite a nice one.
It's in the Golden Beet category,
which if I had to pick a beat to grow,
I would definitely pick golden over a non.
- Golden is for sure my favorite,
'cause they're really good raw.
- Yeah, and in a new release from
my organizational tendencies, (Jack laughing)
we're actually not labeling these seeds.
It's very easy for us to tell what's a Badger Flame
and what are you planting over there?
- I'm doing Golden on the opposite side.
- Yeah so...
- And they form a different size.
- Exactly, the other thing to remember is,
remember it's a compound seed.
So you don't have to stress too much about your spacing.
You can actually space them quite aggressively
and just thin them out, it's not a big deal at all.
- Yep.
- So out over here on four rows or maybe five rows.
- Oh wow! I'll pick up pace.
- Well, I think I might just be
a little more heavy handed than yours.
(Jack laughing)
I think I might just be a little too agro on my seeding.
Honestly looks good though.
- Here you go then. - What else you got?
- I'm gonna do the Early Wonder...
- Little pop of those, little pop of color.
(seeds shuffling) (jack and Kevin laughing)
So the final three of these little micro plots
as well as most of the garlic are planted out.
That means almost all of the garden is planted
except for that little section back there
which we'll probably save
for another time still deciding what to do.
For now, I'm gonna get some lunch,
I'll see you guys in a second.
Well I sent Jack home for the day,
you might see something on his channel coming up in
the next few days.
But man, I'm just kinda looking at this background here
and this is crazy.
It's been a little over a year since I moved in here at
the Epic homestead and I can't believe everything
that's gotten done when you actually look back at something
and you see your progress,
that whole saying of brick by brick,
eventually you build the wall, I think that's the saying.
Either way, it is incredible to see this.
These incredible, I got to say, I love these beds.
I may sucker for a geometric structure.
And then you've got these, what's this, what's this?
Custom painted Birdies Beds my friends,
this giveaway runs until the end of the year 2021.
So make sure that you enter this just a way to give back to
you guys because I can't express how much,
just being able to share the gardening journey and
connecting with all of you has changed my life for the
better and also change the lives of people like Jack, Chris,
some of the other members of the Epic team,
and there will be many more coming up in 2022.
We're actually gonna be actively hiring
for about 20 to 25 different roles here at Epic Gardening.
So stay tuned for that.
But let me show you a little bit of sneak peeks
on what's coming up next year at the homestead.
So our garlic is in, actually this is also allium as well.
It's mostly leaks and there's some onions right here.
The cabbage is doing quite quite well.
We finally got cold enough where the cabbage worms
aren't really propagating too much.
And so yeah, there is some damage,
but as you can see right now,
there's no no bugs or no pests,
not even any eggs on the undersides of these leaves,
which is exactly what I wanna see.
'Cause I always have a problem with brassica.
Over here this is sort of a random crop of potatoes
but coming in quite healthfully.
These look amazing, amazing, amazing.
And then over here I did a little bit of Dill and Fennel.
So Fennel up front and then Dill right here.
These were transplanted in,
but they're coming in quite strong and we'll see.
I think I should get quite a good harvest there.
Over here, this is the Irv bed.
Probably need to do a little bit of clearing out.
I don't use this rue a whole lot,
I may end up taking that out.
But this is getting nice and bushy.
I want to show you a quick five second sneak peek of
something that I haven't even shown on the main channel yet.
Ooh, what could that be guys?
What could that be? Can't hold it too long.
Okay, then over here we have the Epic sink,
the Epic outdoor shower.
And as we go out front, there's no pathway here
because we're putting in the Epic pathway.
Check out these artichokes, these things are going off.
What's really cool about it is
they'll propagate themselves right?
As you can see, there are two right there,
but if you wanted to,
you could separate those out or thin them out.
I actually lost one right here when we were doing some of
the digging for this area, but that's okay,
I have plenty up here.
And then as we get up here in the front,
some of you will remember San Juan Capistrano,
the giant cabbage, well this,
this is his progeny, this is San Juan Capistrano Jr.
I have actually three of them right now.
We're protecting them with the chicken close here
to make sure that we actually have a chance
to grow these bad boys.
Up here we have more brassica.
This is cauliflower,
a little lemon grass hanging out up there.
And then it's mostly just leafy greens, Bok Choy,
more leafy greens, mustard, carrots,
and then another sneak peek of some new products coming to
the store quite soon are the coat steel Birdies Beds.
So these have a protective rust coating
that gets even darker over time.
Sort of has this nice sort of copper esque looking patina,
but it's stainless steel.
So these are coming pretty soon.
Gonna have these open for pre-order on the source soon.
We've got the short round, we've got the short six in one,
the tall six in one style models right there.
Well, that's it for today's blog.
We'll see you guys soon.
Happy holidays, good luck in the garden and keep on growing.
(soft upbeat music)