- Welcome back to the homestead, guys.
Today, we're gonna come in here
and we're gonna chop up
every single one of these plants
into little pieces
so we can start incorporating this into the soil.
So I'm gonna get started over here.
(Kevin laughing)
- What are you using, a little boy's toy right there?
- It's the mowdown showdown!
(mower engine revving)
(Kevin laughing)
- What's going on, guys.
We are chopping and dropping even further.
You remember last time we chopped and dropped
with the machetes.
The machete boys were in town.
Well, now
the mowdown showdown boys are in town
because what we want to do
is level this all out.
And we also have a big pile of compost
because we're finally gonna be building
a compost bin here at the homestead.
We wanna break up all this compost.
So right now,
it's just time to mow all this down.
Maybe we'll take turns, Jacques
Let's get to it.
- I'll get started over here.
(all laugh)
(mower engine revving)
- One of the biggest reasons we're doing this
is to get more surface area of this organic matter,
break it up as much as we humanly can cos
when we eventually do build out the compost bins
we'll be layering in browns and greens, carbon and nitrogen.
And the more surface area there is,
as long as it doesn't mat together like crazy,
- Exactly
- The quicker we're gonna be able to make epic compost.
Look at that!
- You wanna hit this guy?
- It's one of our Kobochas from last time.
Should we just put it under?
- Give it that chop
- Give it that chop chop?
(mower engine revving)
- Oh!
(all laugh)
- Let's try the compost.
- Let's chop it.
(Kevin coughs)
(Kevin laughs)
- What is that?
What is that?
A wool of sheep?
There's like a bunch of wool in the ground here.
The initial mow over is done.
I think what we might do is
bump this down a height level
and maybe hit it again.
Honestly, dude, I think a lot of this stuff here
- It's a little too thick.
- I don't feel too comfortable
with just a basic little lawn mower hitting that.
So I think we should probably
save that for...
maybe we throw through the chipper shredder
when we bring out the real big gun chipper
- Yeah.
- And build the compost pile but,
guys today it's just
getting this material broken down the size.
Eventually we're gonna grab a tiller.
We're gonna get a big load of compost
- Put it here, spread it out, till it all in
and level this whole area out
cos what we really want is a huge
watermelon, cantaloupe corn,
just a of shmorgishborg nonsense here but
it's just not in a condition that we could actually
confidently plant that stuff out right now.
So Bob of course doing some hunting,
maybe we'll let this be for a sec.
And actually the next thing we wanna do
is finally plant out some beds
over in the back garden.
- Let's do it.
- Okay, We're over here.
As you can see, there's like four, actually five
backyard beds that we haven't planted out.
- Yeah.
- So what do you got?
- I think we got some Japanese Hulless corn.
So this is a popcorn, right?
- That's a popcorn.
That's a popcorn.
- I've never grown popcorn.
I think I'm gonna basically come in like this.
- Yeah.
- And then, just do the classic
- And pull away?
Hey, guess what I'm gonna do Jacques?
- Use your hands or?
(Kevin laughs)
It's called 'being one with nature'.
We just come in really quickly here
why don't you pop me one of those real quick.
(Jacques laughs)
- Perfect.
- Ooh, that's a little sharp.
- Honestly these... - It looks like it's working.
are fun but completely pointless.
Fun, but pointless.
We're gonna do a video pretty soon
on dumb gardening tools.
- They might be your new favorite.
- I don't like 'em
- I think that you'll like them.
- No, I don't like 'em, I don't like 'em.
off come the cat gloves.
- Maybe I should switch over to those.
- We learned last year actually that corn doesn't
really wanna be transplanted that much
- That's true.
- and so let's just not disturb it more than we already are.
- Yeah, we could snip on off if we decide.
- And remember Jacques last year we learned that
we should probably transplant a little deeper.
- Oh yeah, you're right.
- cos of that wind issue.
- Let's go ahead and push that in a bit.
- So we'll go in a little bit deeper on these.
- Yeah, so what we found is that
you can transplant corn, totally fine,
but it might expose
like the roots will become exposed over time as you water.
- And then it becomes kind of floppy.
- Yep, exactly.
- So going a little bit deep.
Is this the same bed where
I slapped you with the corn stock?
- I think it was, I think it was
I don't know if I ever apologized?
- You didn't.
- I don't know if I ever will actually.
(all laugh)
- Someone said I hired you
just so I had someone to roast.
(all laugh)
Let's just say it goes both ways once off camera.
One's a little more off camera over here.
- Trying to keep it professional.
- Yeah, Yeah.
He's trying to get a good performance review.
(Upbeat music)
When you're applying the straw,
especially on corn
you don't have to stress much about
potentially burying it.
It's pretty vigorous,
it's a grass after all.
It's gonna come right back up.
- Like what you're doing watering it
is gonna really help it,
secure it to the bed.
- It's not gonna go anywhere after that.
Yeah, you would be surprised
if you would think this shredded straw
would blow all over the place
once this dries out - Really never does.
and it never does, it never does.
And we've actually had,
I would say 15-20 mile an hour winds through.
- Actually I got a 30,
30 mile power gust. - He got a gust
and it just doesn't
it's surprising think it's because it's shredded so much
it kind of just has that lignan stickiness inside.
So we're in here with corn.
We're gonna move up to the front
put at least a couple peppers in
but behind us on a future episode,
we're gonna harvest out these leaks and garlic.
And that's really where the bulk
of the tomatoes and peppers are gonna go for the summer.
- So up here in the front
what we're gonna actually do is direct seeds and squashes.
- So we have Ron de Nice Squash
Prolific Straightneck Squash
and the White Scallop Bush.
These are all from San Diego Seeds.
And we have one other that's a
Gray zucchini kind of like a Lebanese style.
So I'm thinking maybe for our squash plants here,
we have two yellow Pekin peppers.
These are kind of a rare pepper.
And we were gonna just dot 'em
in the back corner is what we're thinking.
- Yeah.
- So I'm gonna go in with some of these seeds and then...
- We always have these kind of weird
planting combinations it's just whatever we have on hand.
- Yeah.
And why not?
- Why not?
- There's nothing...
- It's worked every year so far
So ain't nothing wrong with it.
So I'm just kinda trying
to pre-hydrate this a little bit 'cos
obviously it's been a bit since we planted in here.
And you know me Jacques,
I like a level bed
- You really do.
- You'd be surprised
when you have some compost as a topper,
how long it takes to actually
properly hydrate that compost
if it does dry out.
- Yeah, That's the real key.
- Takes a while so,
- So make sure we got that going here.
- Looks really good though. - Yeah.
- These beds look really healthy.
- Tons of worms deep in there too.
Could be more on the
cat claws for that job right there.
(all laugh)
- Maybe we'll do a little
pepper, sunflower, sunflower, pepper.
- Oh yeah, Yeah!
Let me go grab some sunflowers.
All right, so in with a Queen Lime Orange
and a QLZ Blush.
How deep you go on the pepper?
Do you go a little deeper than normal?
- I kinda just kept the
standard height 'cos it looks kind of woody.
- So I don't think it's gonna like going deep.
You can't actually root them
like a tomato, but only if they're still green but...
- They're not as forgiving.
- cos tomatoes really don't get Woody...
- No. - for the most part.
But peppers obviously do
and much easier to overwinter
and grow again the next season.
- I don't know, We always find tons of worms out here.
- Hey, guess what?
I just accidentally stepped on 6-cell.
- Oh, did it break? - And guess what?
It didn't matter!
(all laugh)
- Every time at the end of the season
I'm like over
zucchini and summer squash.
But then as soon as it's gone
all of a sudden I start craving it
even though I was just giving it away before.
- Yeah.
- I don't know what it is.
Well it's just,
it's just the grass is always greener basically.
That's all it really is.
So I'm going really laissez-faire here
and just throwing
three seeds down in here.
- I'm just jamming them straight in.
Yep. Okay, we're onto the next bed.
I've got the Level Head Rake
to level it out as we know we want that.
Also we put some compost on here so again,
it's about that hydration.
This bed again is gonna be a bit of a funky twist.
We have a couple determinate tomatoes,
Sweet Tangerine, hybrid determinates,
more of a bushy style.
And then I finally,
to Jacque's pleasure,
will be growing some eggplants.
It's not really one of my favorite vegetable.
You are a big fan I believe right?
- We're gonna teach Kevin to like it this year.
- Yeah.
Might need a little recipe
from Jacques' kitchen over here,
to really get into it.
- Don't worry about it.
I got a couple.
- All right,
well I'll have to try that this summer.
Let's go ahead and get these in the ground.
- Yeah, let's do it.
- There we go, I mean, look at that!
- I mean,
- Looks like a new tomato right there.
Looks like it just popped out.
I'm sensing a little bit of
lack of attention and detail.
- I don't know, I think this one just looks better.
- Do you think so?
You think so?
All right, so that's that.
Now we're onto the eggplants.
These are Japanese writing, right?
- Yep, the long style.
- Yeah, yeah.
Okay. So one one little hack is
these aren't quite perfectly dry
or perfectly wet.
So we might wanna just hit this with a little water
before we pull it out.
- Yeah, that's it.
So you let that soak in
and then I think it's easier
to come out.
- If they fall apart a little,
no big deal.
- No big deal, yeah.
Eggplant of the three plants
that are in that family that we typically grow:
the tomatoes, the peppers and the eggplants,
it's in that order of
how much they like heat.
Tomatoes like it the least,
not that they don't,
but they usually like it the least
then peppers and eggplant absolutely love the heat.
- They crave it.
- They're a true summer crop.
- Yeah, absolutely true summer crop,
much like an okra.
- Yeah, exactly.
- What's cool about this is then I can,
if I want to dig it out and overwinter later on.
- Yeah, It's definitely
one of these things people don't realize is
you can overwinter eggplant very easily.
- Yep, You've been growing 'em for three years,
Haven't you? - Yep.
and I already have fruit right now.
So that's the advantage.
- little rinser
oh wow.
(upbeat music)
- The last bed we're gonna plant today is
yet another interesting combination.
So I have a Big Max pumpkin
and then I also have a Rainbow Pumpkin
both from San Diego Seeds.
These are in the epic 4-cell, four inch deep
just to allow some of that root growth going on.
What do you got?
- I've got a Pickling cucumber.
This is in the 4-cell, three inch.
And that what variety is that one? Max?
- We think it's Max cos that's what we wrote,
but undecided, I can't find the seed pack.
- What you write and what it actually is
sometimes they don't match.
- You don't have to talk about it.
- They don't match.
So what I'm gonna do is
build up some sort of bit of a mound
- Shock. oh, okay.
- I'm gonna scrape just a little bit,
not nothing really that crazy.
- And I'm gonna just do
four pack of cukes all the way down.
Basically what we're just talking about is that
this tree's gonna finish fruiting soon
and we could prune off some of this
but we're gonna just plant on this back wall right now.
These could end up being
absolutely massive by the end of the year.
So we could push 'em over into the wild zone.
- So funny ever since you pointed it out,
I always sniff cucumber transplants.
- Yeah.
- 'cos the roots
literally smell like a fresh cut of cucumber.
- They smell exactly like cukes.
- Now I started sniffing roots
ever since you mentioned that.
- All right let's mulch it over.
- This is actually a common problem I think
we face and everyone else does
is that you're waiting to plant the perfect bed
and it's always better to just plant what you have
- rather than wait 'cos then
I'm sure everyone's experienced this.
You're gonna end up with
a lot of empty garden plots
and a lot of dead plants.
- This has been a big problem here at the homestead is
we were like,
"Oh it's not quite ready,
It's not quite ready." - It's not perfect.
and then a month goes by
and it would've been better if we just planted literally
anything at all.
And so just to, you know,
we are certainly not immune to this disease
of kind of mismanaging a garden.
We got one more bed to plant over there,
but right now I wanna do a final pass
with the lawnmower to clear this out.
Let me know down in the comments,
what you wanna see growing
in this part.
I'm thinking maybe a melon patch.
Until next time,
good luck in the garden.
I keep on going!
(mower engine revving)