(gardeners laughing)
- Jacques, today, I looked at the forecast,
and it literally just said "Wind."
(Jacques scoffs)
- Well, let's get some chores done
before we get blown away, then.
(both gasp and call out)
- Whew!
Looks like it took us where we needed to go.
And those of you who remember...
("Jeopardy!" game music plays)
(Jacques snorts and laughs)
The Machete Boys are back.
Actually, you've got an ax.
- That's all I can find.
- Why are we standing next to some bananas
with an ax and machete, Jacques?
- Well, I think we're a little overcrowded here.
- Yes. - Need to do
a little bit of thinning.
- This is a standard Cavendish banana.
There are three. - (indistinct) this.
- Not what you really wanna be doing with banana.
Really not. - Yeah.
They're gonna just compete with each other,
and you're not going to get the fruit set.
- Yeah.
- You got to choose the winner.
- So, to me, this is the winner.
- I agree.
- Pretty obvious on that.
Who wants to do the honors first?
You want to give it an ax chop
or you want me to hit it the 'chete?
'Cause, guys, yes, you could try to split this off.
I'd rather chop it at the base,
not damage any potential root structure
on the one that's going to survive.
These really aren't going to transplant well.
- No, they're too big. - They're really not.
Yeah, want to ax it? - Honestly, I feel like
if I ax this, it's going to bounce.
I feel like we need maybe
a little bit more of a nuanced tool.
- [Kevin] I think you need to hit it.
- But I think I'll give it a try.
- [Kevin] Just don't cut the irrigation lines.
(Jacques wheezes and laughs)
- That's what I was worried about.
(ax slashes)
(Kevin laughs)
All right. - That's actually not bad.
- Slightly effective.
- Actually not bad.
- Probably not the right tool for the job.
- No, probably not.
You need someone to come finish it off for you?
- I think so.
- All right.
'Chete Kev is here.
(Jacques snorts)
Fun fact.
I named Chete the Hen after the machete.
- Woo.
Almost lost my hat there.
(machete slices)
(Jacques laughs)
Problem solved. (laughs)
- I think in general,
you're going to want this as close to the...
- It's juicy.
- It's really juicy, dude.
What the...
- Do you think I could just snap this?
- Ooh.
Smells kind of fresh.
(Jacques sniffs)
- Honestly, that smells a lot like a cucumber.
- Smells like a banana skin.
(Jacques snorts)
- Totally, totally different things.
- [Kevin] Honestly, it looks like a heart of palm inside.
It really does.
And I was just about to put a disclaimer
like sometimes we offer good advice
but maybe not the best practices.
- Yes. - In this case,
maybe grab a handsaw,
cut it down,
but you know what?
A machete is so satisfying to use.
- It's just so fun to use.
I want to 'chete this one.
I want to 'chete it.
- Okay. - I want to 'chete it.
- I was going to try to like- - I'd say clear the area
'cause there's no guarantees.
(machete slices)
And I missed the line.
- Perfectly missed the line. - And I missed the line.
All right, I mean, problem solved.
- Cucumber. - Cucumber, you think?
Let me give that one a hit.
- Another one.
- Hmm.
Tell us what you guys think.
(sniffing)
So, Jacques, at least the banana has a chance now.
I would say it still doesn't really want to grow
in the environment we've been giving it.
The wind right now, the temperatures,
just the fact it's in San Diego and not in Hawaii,
for example, is one of the things that's working against it,
but we've at least given it the ability to have a shot.
'Cause I've grown, I mean,
this is like the fourth offshoot of this plant.
- Right.
- The main one is dead right down there.
- In the middle, yeah.
- So, yeah, we'll clean this up later,
but Chore Number One, complete.
All right, we're armed with real tools for the job,
and we're out here in the orchard
at the best stone fruit we have here, Jacques.
- Very prolific.
- It's prolific.
It's almost too prolific, and that's why we're here.
If you'll remember, a while ago,
we actually pruned this back.
This was probably like September of last year.
So, here's what happened.
We had a flowering event,
as you can see with this one right here.
This is just a little bit behind our peach tree,
so there's some flowers still lingering
but really, mostly, it is young fruit,
and far too many young fruit,
so we want to think right now,
the time's passed for a shaping cut.
- Right. - Right?
It's more, does the structure look good?
I would say we actually did a pretty damn good job.
- Yeah.
- You could make an argument, I suppose,
to clean out some of these in here.
- Yeah, anything that might be crossing or things like that.
- But I don't really think I'm ready to do that yet.
I'm more ready to just assess and do a little thinning here,
and then we can take a look at the citrus
which needs a lot more of a haircut.
- One thing I'm noticing is that
there are some of these branches that-
(scoffs)
Well, anyway.
Appear to be dead?
- Yes. Yes. - And so I think
we could cut any of these dead branches
without harming any production.
- I agree. I agree.
What I'm going to do is get somewhat aggressive
on some of these.
So, you've got one, two, three, four,
five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 peaches
in about two inches of branch space.
- Yeah, that's not going to work.
- Even if you could grow them, you still wouldn't,
'cause it's gonna break the stem no matter what.
It's just no matter what.
So, what I'll choose to do is the least mature ones,
this one here, this one here, this one here, this one here,
this guy and that guy at a minimum,
to me is obvious, right?
'Cause you want to leave the more mature ones on.
- Totally. - One of these two has to go.
- Yeah.
- I'm preferential to this one.
It's a little bit smaller.
- Okay.
- And then, to be honest with you,
down this one branch, there's five more,
so what I'm going to do is I'm going to leave two,
maybe three per branch total.
- Probably the wise move,
because last year what we did
is we basically didn't thin anything on this tree,
and we had so many fruit, which was really cool,
but then there were a little less sweet
than we would've expected.
- So, like for example, Jacques, take a look.
I just took off the small growth here,
so I have one more, right?
And then I'm going to take off these small growths here,
and maybe this one here.
- And part of this is also conserving energy
for the rest of the tree,
so this is great. - Because, yeah,
they might abort themselves later,
but you're sort of helping it out by doing it early anyways,
so, yeah, it's a little labor intensive.
Honestly, if you're in a backyard orchard situation
like myself here,
it's kind of fun to do this type of stuff.
Now, if you were growing 50 trees,
you're definitely not going to do this.
- It's going to be rough.
- That's the thing about gardening.
It's like gardening, farming, orcharding, all these things,
scale up and down the techniques that you want to use
based on the time and inputs that you actually have to use.
- But the tree looks really healthy,
and I think it's going to be
an absolutely wonderful harvest.
- It's going to be a great peach year.
Great peach year.
I think we're going to see
some of the best-tasting fruit this year
that we've ever seen.
If you remember from Stone Fruit Frenzy,
we get a little...
- [Jacques] Get a little hyped.
- Get a little lit when the fruits come out.
So, over here, we got no work to do.
Plenty more to do over here,
but I actually want to turn our attention
to the citrus hedge,
which we put in almost two years ago now, Jacques.
It was one of the first things you and I did together.
- That's true.
- One of Jacques' first tasks here at the homestead.
Let's start over here where the larger trees are.
- Let's do it.
- Alrighty.
Back to the citrus orchard.
Many moons ago at this point.
So, Jacques, we planted them four feet apart
like we've talked about a million times.
We're starting to see the results of that almost come in.
In fact, I believe our Bearss lime
and our citrus here are just about to touch, so.
- Yeah, and that's the goal, right?
- That is the goal. - We want it to be a hedge.
- Yeah, that is the goal.
Just let it be.
Just let it fly.
However, these plants, citrus,
you can prune them nearly any time of year.
There's not like a terrible time to prune them.
- [Anguished Person] Why are we still here?
- And so what we're going to do now
is we're going to shape them
so that they just look a little better
going into the spring season
while trying to not remove a lot of the lower-third growth,
which is where they really want to be,
and trying not to thin out the interior.
- Right, 'cause we don't want any sun
to get into the tree for citrus.
- Yeah, and as you can see, there's a lot of bushiness,
so we're not really going to run into that, I don't think.
- Yeah, I think we should do that.
- But there's some haircuts, like for example this.
Even if I let this grow,
what benefit am I going to get from this?
- It's going to flop.
- Almost nothing,
so I'm going to come in and give it a pretty serious cut.
- Okay. - So, you have free rein to-
- [Jacques] To get in there?
- To maul.
Like here, I see these sorts of branches
come up a lot, Jacques,
where you get one come up, right?
So, this is an offshoot from a lower one.
- Oh, I see.
- And then it just starts going wild.
It starts putting a ton out.
To me, I'm like, I'd rather not.
I'd rather not.
(upbeat music)
Part of this is aesthetic.
I just want it to look a little bit cleaner.
It is a hedgerow, after all.
And part of this is maintenance of growth and shape
as per the decision that we made
to plant them this damn close, right?
Not a common decision.
Sorry, I'm juking you.
Something about this variety here, Jacques,
it really loves to go vertical.
- Yeah, let me see what this guy is.
- I don't know why.
- [Jacques] That's a Golden Nugget Mandarin.
- Yeah, this Mandarin just loves going vertical.
I'd prefer it to bush out more.
It really stays like...
I mean, it's protecting its interior, which is great.
- [Jacques] Yeah, that's great.
- I don't know.
- And some of these are kind of twisted and floppy.
I don't think they're going to support good fruit.
- I don't think so either.
I will say, I'm not going to take a look at this.
I'm not going to touch the Satsuma.
The Satsuma needs all the help it can get.
Or sorry, the Yuzu.
- [Jacques] The Yuzu.
- I'll knock off the rotten fruit on this, though.
It might be because it's the first one
in the chain of gray water.
It's getting the most water.
It might be getting a little too much?
- Oh, interesting, okay.
I mean, honestly this already looks
a lot more pleasant to me,
the one that you first did,
and this one looks a little more organized.
- Yeah, I think so.
- So, you want to let it bush in the way you want it to,
you know what I mean?
- Right, control where it grows.
- So, the Bearss lime has been
our most productive citrus by far.
- And easily my favorite.
- The Bearss, in contrast to the Golden Nugget,
is coming out a lot, not going up as much.
- That's true. - So, I'm going to
take it down a little bit from a width perspective.
- And then I guess any of these branches
that might be sagging on the floor probably aren't ideal?
- You know, I don't mind that.
- Okay. - I don't mind that.
I'm still regretting my decision to not replace this one,
the Owari Satsuma, but-
- [Jacques] Oh, there's one fruit?
Have you sampled?
- No, I've had a few.
- Oh, that's right. - I've had a few.
It's actually quite good.
You want to try it?
- I'm not here to say "No."
- It came off easy, so, let's try.
Little windy city jams right here.
(wind blowing)
- It's a little dry, but very good.
And mad concentrated.
- No, it's really good.
It's not too dry to me.
It just has a lot of pith.
It's very concentrated flavors.
It's like a gummy almost.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- I agree.
- Mm.
So, see what happens, Jacques?
Like look at this piece right here.
I pruned it right there a while ago.
- Oh yeah.
- And it just went wild below it,
and I don't want it to do that, so...
- But this one does have a nice bushiness to it.
- It does. It does.
- [Jacques] What was this guy?
- There we go.
Look at how many offshoots from one.
It's almost mutant-esque.
It's almost like it's water sprouting from itself.
You know what I mean? - It's true, yeah.
Like it's panicking.
- Yeah, it's panicking or something like that, so.
- But there's a lot of new healthy growth coming, so.
- A lot of new growth.
This one, I think we don't touch.
- Yeah, too sensitive?
- This is the Cara Cara.
- Oh, that's good stuff.
- And it's small.
And let's let it be.
This is an example of a plant that I, again,
think we probably shouldn't touch much
because it is not as compact as you would want it to be,
so I don't know, I mean...
- I was thinking maybe-
- Maybe this one here. - Cut out some of these?
Yeah, hopefully it'll bush up closer to the center.
- But I'd like to see these fruit come ready.
- Okay. Yeah. - You know what I mean?
Like this guy here's-
- That's definitely ready.
- This one's definitely ready.
Let's take a look.
- Surprised by how vigorous it's been, too.
- Oh, look at that juice just dripping.
There you go.
Actually, you want me to cut a quarter?
Here, I'll cut you a quarter.
- This might be a little too much for one bite.
- One lemon.
Here you go.
Quarter for you.
- Perfect.
It smells good.
Ooh! - That's great flavor, though.
- It's good,
but I think I just stripped a little bit of enamel there.
- Here's some problems I see with this one.
- Yeah.
- I see really long stems with minimal growth,
and you can even see the damage to the stems.
- [Jacques] Oh yeah.
That's probably sun damage, or is that?
- It's either sun or stress.
- Yeah.
- You can see why, right?
You got all this fruit hanging at the very end.
- Yeah, maybe we could thin some of the fruit?
- I would say let's thin some fruit,
relieve a little bit of the pressure,
and then once we get the fruit off of it this season,
let's cut it back and maybe see if
we can force some bushiness out of it.
This might be a particular habit of the plant,
but it really seems to want to thin itself out on the stem
and actually push a lot of the growth to the edges,
you know what I mean? - Yeah,
it really does seem to be favoring
the very tips of the branches for the production.
- Look right here.
I mean, up here?
You're getting a lot of that.
- So, I'll thin out this branch 'cause it's extremely heavy.
- You could, but this isn't even strong enough to hold it.
- Yeah. - You know what I mean?
I don't know.
Maybe we let Mother Gaia and the winds deal with it.
'Cause here's the thing.
All this new growth out here, you're not losing it.
- That's true. - Because you don't really
want it because it's hanging off of, I mean, look.
It's an offshoot of,
did you get this stem here?
It's off-shooting here.
It has another offshoot here and another offshoot here.
I think you're gonna go here, maybe.
- [Jacques] Okay. I'll hold it.
- Honestly, though, do you even want that?
- I feel like this might bush up
and give some sun coverage here.
- Right, let's see. - Is my theory.
- [Kevin] To cut at that angle?
- It's pretty heavy, too.
I think that's probably the right move.
- That's the right move.
Honestly, there's a case.
Look how much fruit is over here, dude.
Am I really that worried to be losing this right here?
I'll live and die by my decision here,
but I'm going to cut this.
(saw rasping)
- [Jacques] Wow, that's fast.
- Yeah.
All right, 'cause look, I mean,
does the tree look better or does the tree look worse?
I think on the net, it looks better.
I think probably, this tree,
you'd rather have this tree be twisted 180,
'cause most of the sun's coming in this direction.
- Agreed.
- But we can't really change much of that.
Maybe what we can do, Jacques, is when the wind chills out,
we'll come in and treat this with some Guard.
- Paint it?
- And see if we can get a little bit
of the sunburn off of it.
- Yeah, and plus right here, there's new growth coming,
so that should fill in.
- That should fill this in.
I'm a little tempted, 'cause you see some growth coming up.
I like seeing this a lot, right?
I'm a little tempted to trim this down slightly.
Honestly, like maybe here.
- [Jacques] Oh, that hard.
- Because we've got new growth coming out here
that's not thrown way out this way,
but I'm honestly on the fence.
I might leave it.
- I feel like, yeah, we probably took a lot.
I would say maybe we just harvest any of these yellow ones
to free up a little energy.
- Yeah. Yeah.
- And maybe it'll go.
- Well, let's let that be for now then.
We've done enough.
The kumquat always goes through this weird hype cycle
of being super deficient
and then putting a lot of fruit out.
- I love the peels on kumquats,
but the fruit itself is always too sour for me.
- Mm.
I feel like if you eat it together, though,
it does hit.
- It's really good.
- This one here, again,
I'm just going to remove some of these big guys coming off.
- [Jacques] Let's see.
Ooh, there's a little sneaker in there.
- Is there? Is it ready?
- Big sneaky boy.
- So, we've had this happen a couple times
where if you see right down here
where I'm pointing with my Felco saw,
it is below the graft point,
but it tricks you and makes it think like it's not,
and it's like flush, right?
So, you got to do is you kind of come in here.
- [Jacques] Ooh. Right there.
- [Kevin] You got it?
- Which one is it? - It's this one Here.
I'll pull down.
- [Jacques] Oh, okay.
- See, this was a total-
- That's one you just trimmed.
- Yeah, it was, so always look low on your tree.
This is a total, total waste.
Not even a decision.
You have to remove this.
- That's a no-brainer. - Let it go.
Now, Jacques, here's my question to you.
See this offshoot right here?
- Yeah. Oh.
- Can you see how much it's producing?
- [Jacques] Interesting.
- Would you be removing this or not?
'Cause it's, again, one of those situations
where like seven stems are emanating from one cut point.
- Honestly, that one might even be a rootstock again, too.
It's really close.
- It's really close?
It's acting like one.
You know why I know?
- Below that little graft juncture?
- Why I know that is because look.
First of all, it's close, but second of all,
it's doing a lot of vertical streaming
and it's not putting out a lot of new stuff, so.
- And actually, here's another surefire,
or wait, is it? - Do the honors.
- All right.
- [Kevin] I personally think that it is.
- So, the thing I was noticing is
that that branch has all these spikes,
all the thorns, and the rest don't.
- [Kevin] And this doesn't
- So, that must be the rootstock.
- [Kevin] Yeah, exactly.
I mean, you're not always going to get
that clear of a signal,
but in this case,
you're cutting a little bit off the side of that.
- There we go. - Yeah. Yeah.
Okay, good.
So, take a look.
You're getting bunch of spikes here.
The rest of this tree has no spikes on it whatsoever.
Dead giveaway that you were dealing with a rootstock.
And then you can also just look at the growth of it.
It is shooting straight up
and just trying to get to light,
and honestly being wild, which is what it is.
It's really more of a wild
style of citrus just used for the roots.
- And the reason why we want to take it off
is it's just robbing energy,
and it's not going to produce fruit that we want to eat.
- Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, this is a citrus we want, so now we have it.
Okay, so let's take a look.
This is the Eureka, or excuse me, the Meyer.
- Oh, it's got a little lemon on there.
- I would say it's failing to thrive a bit.
- But also these last three were only recently put in.
- Recently put in, and also they're not on gray water.
- That's true.
- So, the only thing I might do here is,
I guess honestly probably nothing.
I don't think I'd do anything.
I might snip this off.
- You got a little bit of too much leaf miner damage here,
but this new growth-
- A lot of growth. - I'm gonna give it a chance.
- Let's grab that lemon, too.
- It actually looks ready.
- It looks really good.
- This is a Meyer, so it should be nice and sweet.
- That one will be sweet.
Wow, it's really juicy.
- Oh my God.
- Oh wow.
- Wow.
It has that Meyer smell.
- It has a really sweet aroma to it.
- It smells like someone's thrown sugar into it,
like cane sugar.
- I'm actually excited for that one.
(coughs)
- Oh, that's good, though.
- It hit the back.
- Yeah.
- But it is sweet.
I like this more than the Pink Lemonade.
- Oh wow, that's good.
Wow.
- Honestly, the peel is good.
I just took a little nibble. - Is it?
Okay. - And I'm not mad.
- The peel is very thin.
- Yeah. - Very thin.
- Give it a little nibble.
- I'm going to give it a nibby, nibby.
- Oh, you took a whole bite.
(laughs)
It's actually not bitter, right?
I feel like you could candy that.
It'd be delicious.
- All right, well, let's hope that goes.
We have the grapefruit and the Calamansi.
Nothing needs to be done, and honestly,
it's getting too windy for me to care.
So, let's take some shelter in the backyard.
- [Jacques] All right, let's do it.
Watch your head, Jacques.
- This wind is blowing in hard.
- We almost got blown away out there.
It's like 30-, 35-, 40-mile-an-hour gusts.
And actually, in other parts of the county,
power lines are getting blown down, so.
- Yeah, it's crazy.
- So, we're going to call it,
but if you want to see the greenhouse tour,
it's on the main channel, so stay tuned for that.
Thanks, guys.
Let's know what else you want to see on this channel.
Good luck in the garden.