(both laughing)
- Another day, another dahlia.
(both laughing)
- We've got quite a lot of dahlias here.
- There's so many.
And that's why today, is the, "Dahlia Daddy Doozy."
(bossa nova music)
So Jacques, we've clearly gone to the extreme here.
You're already getting dusted, getting Dahlia dusted.
But look, I mean we've got,
I would say, 200 maybe,
clumps, - Yeah, like 200
- Of dahlias? - actual clumps.
Actual clumps,
let alone what you can divide those clumps into
which we'll show you a little
Dirty Dahlia trick in a second here.
But this is what we're growing my friends, dahlias.
There are 57,000 plus different cultivars of Dahlias,
- Pretty wild. - It's insane.
- Yeah. - Yeah, it's insane,
and honestly, when they were discovered
it was more of an all-purpose plant.
- Yeah.
- It was not really bred for all the different colors.
It was, it was the edible.
- And the really cool thing is
that nowadays you could literally find a dahlia
for everything you need, any shape, any color,
except blue. - Except blue.
- And they'll look incredible, so.
- So what are we dealing with here?
Let's just take a peek.
Let's show the people what we've got.
And they honestly look
just like edible tubers.
Right? - Yeah, yeah.
And you can eat them,
and historically they have been eaten like a food source.
- No.
- I've tried them, and I wasn't that crazy about it.
Really, what did it taste like?
Jerusalem artichoke,
something like that? - Yeah, it's kinda
like a very starchy kind of mild root,
is what I remembered. - Yeah.
So if you've saved your allowance up
and all you have is one clump of dahlias,
you really wanna stretch it,
'cause you can just drop this in the hole
which is probably what we're gonna do today.
But if you really are getting particular,
it's actually totally fine
because every Dahlia tuber will just be a genetic clone
of whatever it came from.
So you know you're getting,
- Exactly. - what you want.
- Yeah. - You know you're getting
exactly, no hybridization, et cetera.
If you're going from seed, different story.
But to your point, Jacques,
you've got the tubers that are coming in, right?
They're sort of around this main stem.
And even right here you can see there's
like a little eye here,
right? - Oh yeah, there it is.
- And so if I wanted to just isolate this one here,
I wanna be probably more aggressive
and cut out more than you might think.
- There it is. - There you go, right?
I didn't just cut it off,
for example, this would be the mistake, right?
Is to come in here and cut like that.
- No, it's pretty fibrous.
- You know, but this can't grow.
- Yeah, this is now
a dead tuber. - this can no longer grow.
- Maybe it's a food for later?
It's a little snack.
But see the difference?
I've kept the chunk of the crown
with which an eye is coming out of.
So I know I'm good here, and yeah,
I lost a couple little snacker tubers here,
you know, I don't know.
- You're just gonna eat it raw?
What does that taste like?
Wait, wait, wait.
That tastes like something.
- All right, well gimme a little chunk.
No, no, try a bite.
It's a carrot, tastes like a carrot.
- Really? - Yeah.
- Actually it does really.
- It tastes like a carrot.
- That's really weird.
It's actually really sweet.
Well, you remember the Amazing Maize Maze
from last year.
What we're gonna do is gonna do the Dahlia Daddy Doozy
out behind the greenhouse
where our raised beds are hanging out.
We're gonna plant around them,
and just have it be crazy for spring.
So let's get to it, Jacques.
We have to do a bit of Tetris here.
- Yeah. - Because we have
the raised beds, which are the new pretty shapes ones,
the rotational and some of the trapezoids and all that.
We need to leave them here.
- Yeah. - At least right now.
- Yeah, we're not moving 'em today.
- We're not moving 'em today.
And we're not moving 'em for the spring.
But we need to plan a bunch of dahlias here.
So what are you gonna do?
I mean, all I know is you need to loosen the soil up.
Yeah, that's fair. - Fortunately,
it's recently rained,
so you come down, just give it a quick loosen.
Nothing crazy, I'm not tilling it.
I'm not turning it.
But about 10 inches or so,
'cause these guys hate being forced to kinda like
get through the soil.
Yeah, I mean it's a tuber,
so it needs space to kind of bulb up and grow and spread.
So you wanna make sure it's nice and loose,
or else it's just gonna struggle.
- So here's what I'm gonna do.
I'm gonna call out what I'm planting.
- Okay. - Because there are
a bunch of different, like 14 different styles
- Yeah. - of Dahlia.
Then you have the species.
- So then the way we'll keep track of it
is by saying the name and having the video.
- Yeah, exactly.
No lists, just record yourself.
So I'm going American Sunset right here.
- And I'm gonna go in with Bicolor Dinner Plate dahlia.
- Don't water in.
By the way, you are gonna find so many grubs in here.
You're gonna want to kill yourself.
- I've actually been seeing a lot with this rain.
I think they've been kind of drawn up to the surface,
and they're really not liking it.
Which I actually like a lot.
Might have a idea on how to speed this up though.
- [Kevin] Oh yeah?
But does it have to do
with your favorite tool of all time?
- Yeah, and it's actually something we recently got
that might be fun to play with.
(auger whirring)
I'll stand up.
I think I'll stand up.
- So that's one? - Ooh, this one, interesting.
Orange Turmoil.
- Okay. - It's a decorative Dahlia.
Aren't they all?
If you're a little, you know,
if you're just feeling a little angsty.
(auger whirring)
Hey, Laura, from Garden Answer.
We're living your life right now.
This is way better.
- [Jacques] Way easier. (auger whirring)
- Okay, so how about this?
I'm your simple farmhand,
and you're the master, just designing this, okay?
- [Jacques] All right, so I make the holes
and you plant them.
- Yeah.
- [Jacques] That one might be a little deep.
- You gotta give me some time to to place.
So this one is, - It's gonna give me
time to do my design. - this is Mexican Star,
and this is a single flower dahlia.
You know what's gonna happen here, man?
- What? - Once Dahlia season's over,
we're gonna be like,
digging these out - Oh, yeah.
- for the rest of our lives.
All right, this one is Myrtle's Folly.
Whoa, okay.
Myrtle's been having quite some folly.
I don't know.
This is like a crazy looking one.
Color Spectacle.
Eyes up, main stem up, ideally.
Neo dahlia.
- Okay. (auger whirring)
- Interesting.
Night Butterfly, Temple of Beauty.
Red Labyrinth.
It's kind of a weak one, yeah?
Let's go back into the Labyrinth here.
This is Dahlegria.
Should we just start a U-pick farm after this?
- [Jacques] Just come cut your your own dahlias?
- Yeah.
- [Jacques] I mean, might be able to make
a couple bucks that way.
- Oh, this is Dinner Plate Dahlia Mix.
- [Jacques] Nice, so those are the big boys.
- So the Dinner Plates, I'm actually gonna throw in a row.
- [Jacques] Oh, okay.
- Because it's a mix.
- [Jacques] Oh, right, that makes sense.
(groovy music)
All right,
see a full square here. - Coming together here.
Yeah. - Finished the circle.
Should I do a little freestyle in the middle?
- I'd say grab a box,
and throw some in. - Start planting?
- [Kevin] Kasagi went in there.
- Red Labyrinth.
My Love Dahlia.
So there's the eye that's actually started to grow.
So right at the base of the stem,
so you could cut that out in theory,
and plant just that one.
But we're throwing the whole clump in.
Liquid Desire.
Cantarino.
Lindsay Michelle.
Cafe Au Lait.
- Oh shoot. - It's one of the
most pretty ones that I've seen in my opinion.
Definitely growing this one in my garden this year.
- What's the one you overwintered, variety?
- That one is Georgia Bloomquist,
which is a pink,
with like yellow frills on the edge, I believe.
- [Kevin] Good one?
- But I really like the structure of the Dahlia flowers.
- Yeah. - Like they look
so complex, like geometrics. - They're super ornate.
- Yeah, yeah.
Like it's truly purely like a cosmetic, beautiful plant.
Dahlegria Bicolore.
- So I'm gonna try to do some patterning here.
- [Jacques] Some like cute designs?
- I might just keep this as a field.
- [Jacques] Gallery Leonardo over here.
Chinatown Dahlia on the corner.
Hercules Dahlia.
Probably gonna be a strong one.
Joey Hubert Dahlia.
I like the sound of this one,
Dynamite Dahlia.
All right, this one's named after
a classic banger of a movie,
Pulp Fiction.
Right here.
I'm gonna call this one Royale with Cheese.
- Ew. - And that's gonna go
right here.
And then behind this bed is going to be Dark Star.
Joey Arenda.
This is Striped Ambition.
Sounds promising.
(lo-fi music)
- You think I can do a double flip?
That's a clean one, right?
- Yeah. - This is a one with a treat,
360 or something like that. - Ooh.
Little twist? - That's like one
with a little twist.
I mean, - that was two, right?
- That was two.
- Let's do a three.
- I'll never doubt your flip and catch skills anymore,
because I've been wrong
so many times. - Should we do three?
(synth music)
- Not bad.
- Not bad, not bad.
See mom, I don't drop stuff.
I don't drop stuff.
All right, we're gonna plant some real dahlias.
I've got,
old,
(Jacques laughing)
I actually don't know what color that is.
It's pink.
Is it pink? - Yeah.
- Only, or is it like,
- It's pinkish white.
- A little magenta? - Maybe a little purple.
Yeah, a little magenta.
- This is more red orange.
- But I got a little white with little tufts of pink.
- Okay. - This is like a wine,
- That's wine, - almost kind of color.
- Cherry wine.
- All right, let's get these doozies in the ground.
Dude, those artichokes though.
- [Kevin] Oh, look at these chokies.
Honestly, biggest, like huge, huge.
And look at the sweet peas. - I have envy.
Envy.
- Look at the sweet peas. - Oh, they're starting to go.
- Look at that little nugget. - It's a cutie.
Might come back in a couple weeks
and harvest that for you.
No big deal. - If you do,
that's the end of your life.
So the question is where?
I like the idea of one in the back here.
- [Jacques] Oh, okay.
- [Kevin] Maybe a tall boy.
I feel like this nasturtium needs
a little pop of something.
- You think so?
Right in the middle?
I don't know about that.
You feel confident about that?
- I don't feel confident.
- You shouldn't.
You really shouldn't, about that decision.
There's a lot of it, a little too much nasturtium in there.
- Well, you know what was funny was in the rain,
it looked real good.
- Oh yeah. - It just looked so pristine.
- All dewy,
with the drops on them? - Oh yeah.
- What about this move?
Just call this a flower bed.
- I say call it a flower bed.
- All right.
It is what it eats. - Look at this.
Found a little,
- Little cabbage leftover?
- Yeah, a little subterranean.
You know what I'm curious about is,
this one's got the trellis sort of wrapper.
- Oh yeah.
So I'll have to put it in that way.
Make sure I don't mess that up.
- I've done that move before.
It works really well.
- Yeah, it's interesting that,
- I've never seen a nursery do that.
- I guess I would say
because of how dahlias have been bred, is my prediction,
that they did not breed them for stability at all.
Just for beauty.
- Yeah.
- And so they bred them to go up
but not grow in a way that could support that at all.
So then you have to do that.
- Yeah, like I think the flower farmers use
like a net that they place over it.
- Yeah. - And then they grow
up into the net and that supports it.
All right. - So I'll see if I can go
straight in.
- Wow, that's the big boy.
- Au naturale.
- Have to go deep.
- I mean, look at that.
- [Jacques] That looks healthy.
- It's not bad.
It's crazy the quality of this soil over time, dude.
It's really gotten good.
- It's really ramped up.
It looks really rich.
Yeah, because you remember the first season here,
when we first met,
it was tough to get these beds to like,
be what you needed them to be, so to speak.
- Yeah. - You know,
like you'd put in a bunch of raised bed mix,
and then it would just kinda just be a little too woody.
It'd be a little too, and now I think we're good.
- I think, yeah, we've been topping with compost
the past like two years, I guess.
- Two years.
- And now it's really looking quite wonderful.
- It's what we always talk about that came true.
But we just didn't believe it for ourselves.
- I mean, I'm not mad at that.
- No, what do you think of mine?
Solid? - Smells like nothing.
Yep, I like that color.
And like the structure of the petals themselves.
- I like the placement,
putting it in the back here.
- It's decent placement. - Letting it be.
- Yeah. - I'm gonna throw this one
right here. - Should I just throw this in?
Or actually I don't wanna hit a potato.
Yeah, those are some delectables.
- [Jacques] Yeah, I like putting it in the middle.
'Cause then you could always plant around it.
- I think you gotta go direct in the middle
and go around, or you go periphery.
- Yeah. - And have it just be
an accessorial plant.
- Right. - You know?
- This one's ready to pop too.
This must be a dwarf variety,
it's so short.
- Yeah?
I gotta say I'm not as big on these two.
I think I like the more tall,
kind of larger flowered,
less flowers overall per plant
approach. - Oh, okay.
- Myself, at least. - Yeah.
This one I'm not crazy about either.
Well, I guess we'll have to see how it sizes.
- Yeah. - Because look,
there's like one, two, three, four,
- Yeah, there's a lot. - Five, six, seven, eight,
new. - No, I don't think
this one's gonna get any bigger than this.
- These are called Baby Jacques, right here.
These are like small versions
of your big tower trees that you've got.
- They're getting there though.
They're looking pretty good.
- They're doing okay. - Looking healthy.
- What's nice is like the tops are still really solid.
- Oh yeah. - They're still really solid.
- It'll go up to like here.
Casual. - All right,
check it out Jacques, it's finally happening.
- I'm actually gonna get really deep.
- It's finally happening.
Yeah, if you smell one of the new,
- Actually, - Yeah, I know.
- That's almost delicious.
- I wanna say, could you eat it?
- You could. - This particular one,
I think you might be able to.
- My understanding is you could eat any rose,
but you should like treat it organic.
- But look at this,
- Which it is. - This is what's cool to see.
- Oh wow. - You're gonna see an offshoot
and then you're gonna see a cluster.
Right, so although this is the most flowers
we've ever seen on this arch, I think,
I mean look at the top. - The best is yet to come.
- The best is absolutely yet to come.
Probably in a month, maybe?
It'll be full white. - This was a
stroke of genius on your part.
Really good move.
- I love this move. - Really good move.
- This is my most aesthetic move I've ever made.
Probably the only one
I've ever made. - It's a vibe.
- Oh, are these ready?
- I'll let you in on a secret.
I took one when I first got here.
- [Kevin] Yeah.
- And it was so sour, I spat it out,
so I kind of wasted your fruit.
- That's fine, there's so much.
Let's see, let's see.
It's pretty sour.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- But you know, - it's pretty sour.
They're gonna be raining in, pretty good here.
- Well, what I thought about doing,
- Over a thousand?
- What I thought about doing is having a 'quat party.
Shake the tree, drop like 1,500 pounds of them.
- Just process? - Loquat crumble,
Loquat jam, loquat ice cream.
Loquat smoothie.
You know, Loquat, you know,
mattress. - Beautiful.
- It's actually hot in here.
Actually hot in here.
Well look at this, this is the thing I'm stoked about is,
that fig graft.
Take a look.
- It's taken. - It's taken.
Right?
Look at that.
- [Jacques] That actually has a lot of growth on it.
- A lot of growth there.
And then there's some growth
on this guy here.
- [Jacques] Starting to break through.
- And actually on the plant itself.
- Yeah. - See?
So new growth there.
New growth here.
But, here's what I found interesting.
And I'm gonna sacrifice one for the cause.
Take a look down here, Jacques.
- [Jacques] Oh, I remember those.
- These are the sticks.
- Yep. - That we propagated
with David.
So look at this one here,
it is definitely leafing out.
But here's my question.
Did it root?
And I actually think the answer
is that it didn't.
- [Jacques] It looks like it's starting to, but it hasn't.
- [Kevin] It's starting to like by differentiating
here, maybe? - Yeah.
- But it hasn't actually
rooted whatsoever. - It's promising, though.
- And it's actually quite dry.
- It does look not happy.
Yeah, so it might need a little bit of water.
- [Jacques] I didn't really think about the fact
that we're gonna have to figure out where to put 200 figs.
- [Kevin] Yeah, we might have to do a fig drop.
- Little fig drop?
- A little fig drop.
But dude, I mean, look at this.
This is by far the earliest
we've ever gotten loofah, - Oh wow,
- Out of the garden. - It looks great too.
- Yeah, looks really good.
So what we did is we clipped,
and then it germinated in about,
I would honestly say about three days.
- [Jacques] Yeah, you just snipped the tip off.
Very tip.
That's about it.
Like less than a millimeter off.
- Honestly, the seedlings look really healthy.
- [Kevin] This is the best overall seedling performance
I've had in a while.
And I think it's just temp.
- Yeah, this tray
looks fantastic. - It's just temp.
- That's the flower tray,
looks great. - It's the flower tray.
We've got another flower tray here.
Got some interesting onions from seed.
I do have some tomatoes started, Jacques.
- [Jacques] Yeah, the basics.
- Midnight Roma, Green Zebra, Black Krim.
Not ones I am absolutely in love with.
So I'm gonna start another batch.
- Yeah.
- But yeah, I mean, doing pretty dang good.
Look at this.
- Look at that. - Looks like Paul started
Queen of the Night. - Man,
he's a cactus boy.
- He's a cactus guy.
Oh.
- Sorry Paul. - Sorry Paul.
- He won't watch, don't worry about it.
- It's all good.
- This banana looks good too, I think.
Honestly like, and then these little
peppers right here. - And you know what Jacques,
I'll say this.
If there's something you want to grow
that needs a little greenhouse,
I'll give you the space for free.
I'll give him the space for free.
- Let me let you in on a little secret.
If you look right there,
I'm already doing it.
- What'd you put in here?
What'd you put in here?
Ice cream bean tree from seed.
From an ice cream bean
that I bought from like
a market. - I thought that was
a gift for me.
I mean, it's a loner.
It's a gift.
And it's also, you know,
I might come borrow.
- Might come collect.
- And then this is a Mamey Sapote.
- Yeah.
- Very coarse. - Looks like a loquat.
- Yeah, that actually does.
They're yours, but you know,
we can share the harvest.
I'm just saying if you need a little rental,
like there's a square foot over there.
- I'll take a square foot.
Honestly. - Square foot,
I'll put something over there.
And honestly, a square foot in here?
Prime real estate.
- Prime real estate.
- All right guys, Dahlia Doozy,
let us know what you think.
Let us know what you think of our planting plan.
I don't know if it's a good one or not.
It's gonna come up a little chaotic.
Just like us, we came up chaotic.
- Little slice of life. - The streets, you know.
- BTS. - San Diego.
Good luck in the garden.
Keep on growing.
(auger whirring) (Kevin laughing)