- [Kevin] Oh. (upbeat country music)
(Jacques laughing)
- That's some corn.
- Got lost in the maze, my friend.
We may have not grown it exactly how we wanted.
But, we did grow it.
- And it's pretty tall.
- It's pretty tall.
Today, we're doing a Fall seed starting session.
(upbeat banjo music)
So grab yourself some seeds, my friends,
your favorite seed starting trays.
You know the ones we prefer.
And let's get started.
And I brought Jacques, just for a little spiritual support,
a little mascot for us.
- Last time you said that,
I saw a very frightening pillow.
(Kevin laughs)
So, I don't know if I'm ready for this.
- Here you go.
(Jacques laughing)
- So, what's the deal here?
- So, in our team chat, in our company,
I found a company that said
they'll just mail you anything on a potato.
And I said, "Don't send me this."
And then our lovely blog team, Lauren and Sarah Jay,
sent me a potato with my face on it
and a haiku that says,
"A haiku to the potato daddy.
Your blog team sends our regards.
This is not a squash."
With that said, I don't think we need to say more.
I think we need to get going - I think we're good.
with seed starting. - But I feel like I'm gonna
angle it more towards you.
Just 'cause I don't know if I'm ready.
- Hey, I'm always watching.
I'm always watching you.
So, here's the thing, it is September 7th right now,
as we record this.
And it's a hot, hot, hot day.
It's been a hot week.
- Too hot.
- So, we're starting another round of Fall seeds.
We are very much hoping that this won't be the case
by the time this sort of comes up and gets ready.
- Yeah. Hopefully by next week we'll be
easing into something good.
- And I'm gonna start off with a redemption.
And I've tried to redeem myself many times,
let's just hope this is the year.
So, this is the giant cabbage year three,
San Juan Cabbage trial.
- I feel it this year.
I think we've learned from our mistakes.
We know what to change, what to do.
We're starting earlier.
- I also started earlier. Exactly.
So I'm gonna grow-
I'm gonna preserve about half the seeds,
but I'll put two per hole here.
We got a lot further last year than we did this year.
- Yeah, totally. - Or the year before.
Excuse me.
And I think, in general, with our Brassica style crops,
the cabbages, the kales, we had a lot.
Well, I at least in my garden,
had a lot of success doing way earlier.
- I mean, I did too.
- Did you? Let's just say that.
- Yeah. I know, you did well.
You did well. (Jacques laughing)
But, for me at least, it was a water shed year.
- Yeah, I actually had a very, very significant harvest.
- I had a strong cabbage year. Strong broccoli, cauliflower.
It was great.
I mean, it really was.
The Alliums and the Brassicas
did well. - Yeah.
- So, in goes my sixth x giant cabbage.
In case you want one, in case anyone else wants one.
- Maybe one in ground, one in a bed.
- We'll do that.
- But, I'm gonna do a Dwarf Drill mix Nasturtium.
I just, I love Nasturtiums.
I know they could be kind of polarizing.
But, I like the way they look.
I'm not gonna eat 'em, but I like the way they look.
- Yeah, no, I think that's totally fair.
So, something I had a lot of success with
from last year's Fall episode.
We did a lazy man's beet bed.
We just sprinkled the beets over the top
and then raked them in.
Remember that?
- Yeah. And some radishes.
- Yeah, a couple radishes.
We got a boatload of beets though.
Beets are sort of a compound seed.
You don't need to plant more than one per hole.
So, just pick a good looking seed and put that in.
You'll usually get more than one sprouting out.
And that's actually fine with beets
because you can separate them
once they have a little bit of a swelling,
that swelling at the bottom, you kind of separate those out.
Like a multi-sowing style approach.
- Yeah, totally.
And then I'm going in with a Spigarillo,
which is a type of broccoli. - Ooh!
But, it's like a leaf broccoli.
It makes these like twisted leaves,
and you actually just harvest and eat the leaves.
- That's it?
- I went to this restaurant where I had it
and I was like, "This is like, incredibly delicious."
- I'm doing a-
This is a hybrid spinach.
So, this is Kolibri, this is out of San Diego Seed.
Vigorous growth and disease resistance.
- Oh, that's good.
- I'm doing it because spinach is a really
quick growing green, guys.
And if I'm, you know, 30 days to harvest in early September,
I'm still looking at the hotter parts of the month.
So I'm hoping that - Yeah.
- the hybrid resistances are gonna help me out there.
We'll see.
- I've actually never grown spinach in my garden before.
- Really?
- I'm just not a big spinach eater.
I used to like baby spinach.
But lately, something's just not doing it for me.
And then I'm going in with a Georgia Southern Collards.
- Mmm. - I do like collards.
I didn't grow in the Spring.
But, this variety's really nice.
It's from Seed Savers Exchange.
They have a lot of nice collard varieties.
It's just a nice, like sauteing green.
- Dude, collared greens, hands down,
one of my favorite things to eat.
- But the best collards I've had, were where?
It was in Georgia.
- [Kevin] They were in Georgia.
- [Jacques] And our friend there
made us a nice tasty batch. - They were in Georgia.
Claudia of "The Organized Homemaker",
we went out to her garden on the main channel,
and we did an install for her and her husband.
And she made us one of the better meals
I've had in a long time.
- It was really good. - It was just so good.
- I went back for thirds, let's just say that.
- Yeah, he was, he was going in on the-
And I went in on that drink she made.
- That drink was really good.
- She made some sort of carrot sorta drink.
- We definitely need to try that.
- But anyways, enough of that.
I'm going in with Golden Pascal Celery.
- [Jacques] Oh cool.
- [Kevin] So celery seed is tiny,
if you're unfamiliar with it.
So, this is really a surface sow.
I did depress the soil a little bit,
but I'm just barely going to cover it.
It's just such a small seed.
A general rule of thumb is the smaller the seed,
the closer to the surface it needs to be,
trending towards actually being on the surface.
- Right.
- And celery certainly you could probably even get
away with a true surface sow.
So, I'm gonna do 12 of these.
I like celery and I'm gonna make sure that
I get this in the garden.
- It is really nice to have in the garden.
And speaking of small seeds,
I'm actually doing this new poppy variety.
It's called a Chima Family Heirloom.
- Mm. - Check this out.
- Oh, it's so frilly. - Doesn't that look cool?
- Yeah, - Yeah, yeah.
- I've never seen a poppy like that.
- Is it Eastern European?
- Um, actually- - Look at the front.
- Does it say? - Oh yeah, it is.
- [Kevin] It says "Cherished Eastern European."
- No, I'm very excited for this one.
And like you said, it's a tiny seed
and this one in particular, you need to surface sow.
- Do you?
- 'Cause it needs light to germinate.
- Yep.
There's a very few amount - Then I just tap 'em in.
of seeds that are put in that quality.
- I just wanna make sure that they're kind of
nestled into the soil.
- Yeah. Okay. So this one's a little weird.
I think I can pull it off.
But this is what's called Pumpkin on a Stick.
(Jacques laughing)
And this is that decorative pumpkin.
- Yeah. - You'll sometimes see.
- [Jacques] See it Trader Joe's all the time.
- Hopefully, I still have the seeds in here.
Oh yeah, I do. I do.
It's one of those where the seeds
are preserved in a smaller pack.
I actually learned why they do this.
- Yeah. What is the deal?
- So, when you're dealing with high value seed, okay?
So Pumpkin on a Stick, very well may be one.
It might be a hybrid variety or something.
When you're dealing with those seeds,
and you're buying in seeds from a breeder
who's growing those out, you need to know
that what you bought is what you got.
- Right. And it's exactly like 15 seeds.
- Exactly.
And, I think the interesting thing about this,
this isn't a pumpkin.
It is not in the Curcurbit family.
This is a solanaceous crop.
- Oh, right. - So take a look at the seeds.
- [Jacques] Oh yeah.
- It's a total fake out.
- [Jacques] It's kind of like a tomatillo seed almost.
- Yeah. It's not an actual pumpkin.
But, it does look like a pumpkin
and grow like a pumpkin, in appearance only.
- [Jacques] Interesting.
- So, I planted six 'cause I think maybe
I'll just use these as sort of a decorative-
- Why not?
- But yeah, what they'll do,
I learned this from some of my tours of seed companies,
is the better companies out there will have a seed counter
that's counting by laser...
- Oh cool.
for the really expensive stuff.
- So if you buy, you know, a pound of Marbonne tomato seed,
you're looking at 10 grand.
I mean, something like that. - Right.
Like, at that scale when you get it to a point.
- It's very expensive.
- And so, you better be sure you got
what you paid for, you know?
- Yeah. I'm going in, or I just went in with this Tiara
from Johnny's that say, "Early to mid-season cabbage,"
that makes these small cabbages that form in just 63 days.
- So, I'm hoping... - Wow.
I'll get a few cabbage before
- [Kevin] You'll get it.
I don't have to over winter them.
- I think you'll get it.
Okay. So this one,
I don't know if my germ is gonna be there.
- It's an older pack, huh?
- This is a 2019 pack. And I'll be honest,
I probably left it out in the sun or something.
And the seed is very small.
So I'm not very optimistic about this.
But, I haven't ever grown it.
This is Nicotiana.
Now, what could that be?
What could that be?
- [Jacques] A little hint of nicotine?
- Think about it.
It is night scented tobacco.
So, often called woodland tobacco,
this self-sowing species
grows to about five feet tall. - Wow.
- And is topped with three to four inch
trumpet-shaped white blossoms.
They open at night and release a fragrance
that basically brings in night pollinators.
- Yeah.
So, this is just below the surface of the soil.
I'm gonna dedicate an entire Epic 6-cell
and just do a sprinkle sow.
- [Jacques] Oh, okay.
- And then I'm actually gonna grow this.
- Just to see what happens.
- I've never seen seeds this small, actually in my life.
(Jacques laughing)
- Those are actually tiny.
- It looks like dust.
- It reminds me of what I'm coming up on right here.
- That's what I'm not optimistic
about this germ. - Right, I could see them.
We'll have to see.
I mean, we'll just have to see.
- So the cool thing, I went to this garden,
at UC Santa Cruz called the Alan Chadwick Garden.
And it's this giant, like, mixed orchard,
crazy diverse planting.
And they had tons of rows of that Nicotiana,
like five foot tall with these big white flowers.
And it was great because they attract a ton of pollinators,
and it helps pollinate their whole orchard.
- Yeah. - And they look really cool.
- Okay. I'm in the flower zone now.
I think I'm gonna go with-
I got King Theodore.
This is the full on, the full red.
- Oh that's a nice pick.
I'm going in with Opus Bronze Snapdragons right now.
- [Kevin] Okay.
I haven't had a lot of success on snaps myself.
- I had some good ones last year that I really appreciated.
So, this year I'm like, "You know what, I'm doubling down."
- Yeah.
I find nasturtiums, to me,
to be a great one to bush out
the side of a bed. - Exactly.
- You do get some beautiful flowers.
- And it's just such an easy transplant that,
to me, it's like an easy win to put in the garden.
- It's like the spiller, when you're building a arrangement.
- Yeah, yeah. In the arrangement philosophy.
Yeah. It's a spiller.
- So, this year, I said I wasn't gonna do it and I lied.
- Uh oh. What's he doing, guys?
- I'm going in... - What's he doing?
- for the fourth attempt of Chinese cabbages.
- [Kevin] Really?
- And every single time I do it,
they get loaded with earwigs, - Yeah.
- rolly-pollies, sow bugs,
whatever you want to call 'em.
And I think we figured out a solution.
I'm going full green stock.
- Oh, you're gonna take 'em-
- Yeah. Up high, off the ground.
Come at me.
I might even make a moat of diatomaceous earth.
(Kevin laughing)
Like, I'm getting this Chinese cabbage,
if it's the last thing I do.
- I'll tell you this right now, famous last words.
Clip this moment
because if he ever is complaining in the future,
you signed up for your own demise here.
- I've never complained a day in my life.
I don't know what you're talking about.
- Oh, interesting.
Yeah, maybe on camera.
So, I'm going in with Royal Carpet Alyssum.
- [Jacques] That's a good one.
- [Kevin] Why not?
You know, again, another-
With flowers, I think I could get a lot more sophisticated
and hopefully soon I'll-
- Yeah.
- Excuse me?`
(Kevin laughing)
I was just gonna say, we both need help.
- I think we both need some help.
- We both need some help. - We both need help.
But, I can't announce just yet.
But, pretty soon, we have someone coming to the squad
who is way better at flowers
than both of us combined. - That's for sure.
- And she's gonna help us all out a lot on the main channel,
and on the Instagram, and everything.
So, I'm gonna finish off with just Tall White Alyssum.
Keep it easy. - Keep it classy.
- Well here's the thing,
with flowers, right now for me,
I'm not growing like arrangements
and I'm not growing them in rows.
- Yeah, that's true.
- So, for me, what I'm doing is I'm looking for easy things
I can pop in to fill space.
- I'm all about that.
- And to beautify, you know?
That's pretty much all I'm focused on.
- Just little things you could just
sneak into the corner of a bed,
or between a tomato or something.
- Totally agree.
So, I'm going in with a broccolini.
It has a great name, BC 1611.
- Easy to remember. - Easy to remember.
- [Jacques] Just rolls off the tongue.
- Oh yeah. Okay. Well, that's my tray.
- I got two more. But I'm just about done.
Just going with two more cauliflowers basically.
- Yeah.
- And a Zeolight Calendula.
- So hopefully, guys, you've enjoyed
this little seed starting adventure.
We're gonna be doing a lot more Fall stuff.
I'm curious what you guys wanna see.
So, comment down below.
I mean, Fall, it's a slower time.
Winter's a slower time.
We're gonna be doing some projects here at the homestead.
So, stay tuned.
Good luck in the garden
and keep on growing.
(duck quack)
(upbeat music)