- Hello my friends.
Happy holidays.
It's been a while since we have talked.
Last time you saw Jacques and I,
what were we doing Jacques?
- Eating some very hot peppers
- In the corn maze, and as you can see,
it's looking a little sparse right now.
So it's time to chop it down, build out a new little plot,
and honestly see how many ears of corn we have.
(upbeat music)
So Jacque, I have to say, we've talked about it a lot.
The corn maze didn't do that well.
But honestly, let's reserve judgment
because there's quite a few ears in here,
and I wanna see how many we actually have.
And we're probably gonna
end up making something out of the corn.
- Yeah, I mean at least we got corn.
- We got the corn. - We maybe
didn't get the maze,
but we definitely got the corn. (laughing)
- Let's remind everyone the varieties. (corn rustling)
Bloody Butcher.
- Yeah, there's Bloody Butcher and Oaxacan Green.
And both of these are
like basically solid flour corns or dent corns.
- I mean this is like dry, you know - Yeah
- This is this is all the way dry.
- It's really a stunning corn.
It's quite beautiful.
If I have to say so myself.
- You know what's nice, is getting it this dry, Jacques?
All the nonsense from like the
corn on the cob - Yeah, exactly.
You don't have to deal with that squishy nonsense.
- It's like pop, it's gone.
- Oh wow, this one's bad.
(Jacques laughing)
Oh, this is one of the pollination.
- Bad pollination.
- The pollination on this one's garbage,
but that one's not bad. - It's pretty stuff.
But you know what's weird
is look at the like the kernel pattern.
It's not like straight up in the row. - I know.
- It's sort of curled around.
I don't know if that's normal or not
but certainly more normal than this one here.
- Let's see if we can find some green ones too.
- Yeah, yeah.
- [Kevin] So what we're gonna do is
we're gonna take this all down.
We'll decide what we end up doing with the stocks.
Maybe we can kind of use them
for some decor or some trellises or something.
Maybe just compost them out.
And then this is gonna get turned
into a big square and it's kind of
up to us later what we decide to build with it.
- Yeah, we definitely have some cool ideas.
It'll be a little secret.
Maybe reveal it a little later, but
- You have to stay tuned up at Homestead, my friends.
All right, let's chop this down Jacques.
You're just gonna rip it out.
- [Jacques] I, I feel like that's probably the move.
It's probably gonna be easy.
- [Kevin] These roots.
- Looks like we got a little cross pollination.
Dude!
- [Jacques] Maybe we wanna leave those in there.
Look, I'm not weak guys.
I actually exerted about a thousand pounds of force
to get that outta the ground.
But dude, I mean, look, feel this thing.
This is like, oh that's, that's,
- That's wood.
- This ain't dead yet.
I'll tell you that much.
Oh, but look, look at that worm.
- [Jacques] Oh my god, dude, there's a bunch of 'em.
- Look at those worms.
This is a good sign then.
Let's chop and let's leave those roots in,
'cause we're gonna be swoop,
swooping this compost over anyways.
- Doesn't matter.
- And we now know in the rise of sphere guys,
the area where the roots are,
the zone under the soil where the roots exist.
Especially with corn, I think, cuz remember we talked
about the brace roots on one of those episodes.
- [Jacques] Yeah, they didn't seem to dig in though, huh?
They kind of just sat on the surface.
- But remember we learned, that you can actually
(cartoon chomp sound)
for a little bit of that sweet, sweet glucose.
- Did you get it?
- No, no, these are too old.
You gotta do it when they're young.
- That's salty.
- It's corny though.
It's little corny. - It's got a little bit of corn.
- But what I'll say is clearly, the worms appreciate that.
- Yeah - There's probably some sort of exudate
which is called something
that comes out of the root
to sort of excrete that attracts the life.
And we have proof now.
So let's just leave it.
- Yeah. And then the worms will break the,
help break the roots down and feed the soil. - Yeah.
- It will just be better overall.
- So I'm gonna get some loppers
so I can start cutting at the bottom.
- Perfect. - Instead of, instead of ripping.
- I'm gonna show off this corn really quick.
So this is the other one.
This is the Oaxacan green.
And actually what's really interesting is it looks
like we got some cross pollination
because when
corn gets pollinated, every single silk produces one kernel.
And so this particular kernel probably got pollinated
by another yellow corn cuz otherwise it should be
totally green like the rest of it.
So it's a pretty neat little example
of cross pollination happening directly
in the corn in my hand right here.
- All right, I got my lopper Jacque.
- So snap and then chop.
- Yeah, I think snap chop.
- [Jacques] Good old snap chop.
- Reminds me of the flap chop.
Remember that guy?
- [Jacques] (laughs) Yes, I do.
- Oh. Woo hoo.
- There's a good one.
- Yo. Is it neon season?
Like what is this?
This looks incredible.
- That is so cool.
- Look at how like indented the,
is that what they call it? Dent corn?
- I think so, yeah.
- Yeah it is. - I believe, I mean.
- Hey competition.
Who's gonna harvest the most aesthetic one?
- It's 'cause, 'cause you already found the best one.
- I don't know, I just thought of it right now.
I just thought it might be fun to compete.
Oh my, this is, okay.
- That one's a little bit (chuckles)
- I don't know if this deserves,
- [Jacques] That one is not a keeper.
This one doesn't deserve to go into the pile.
- [Jacques] That one's, that one's solid though.
- [Kevin] Oh yeah.
That's not bad.
I see you didn't decide to bring mine back into the pack.
- [Jacques] No, I'm gonna leave it out 'cause
I feel like it's, you know, it's not regulation.
(Kevin laughs)
- Wow. I pulled some really bad ones.
It's okay, I'm leaving those.
You know, I don't think that one germinated very well.
- [Jacques] Doesn't seem, Ooh, that one's
I'm gonna leave that one on the ground.
- It's kind of fresh.
Well we probably pulled some of these.
But some of them I'm like, where's the ears?
- [Jacques] I know.
- You know, where are are the ears?
- [Jacques] I'm like, did the bird take it?
- [Kevin] It's like we know
that the Figeater beetles ate a lot of these, remember?
- [Jacques] Oh right.
- Because when we came in that one day,
there was like a hundred thousand.
- [Jacques] That's right. - Just sitting here.
- Yeah, and you've given a lot of this
to your chickens too, so.
- I probably fed about 20 ears to the chickens.
- Yeah.
- Which is a great use honestly for the dent corn.
- [Jacques] Yeah. - That didn't turn out that well.
Honestly. Ones that had the corn worms in them, even better.
- [Jacques] Yeah. A little extra protein.
- [Kevin] A little extra protein.
- Whoa, look at these guys though.
- What's that?
Oh, it's the Katydids.
- A lot of Katydids.
- Dude.
- They're so big.
- Hold on, let's capture one.
because they, they love to jump.
(cartoon jumping sound) - They are jumpy.
(Jacques laughs)
- Bro - There he is.
- No, no, there's one here.
Look at this guy.
He honestly, it's like a more badass grass hopper.
- Yeah.
- It's just a cooler grass hopper.
- And they're like net beneficial overall.
- [Kevin] Look at that booty though. Look at that.
- Like, I don't know, there's something, whoop.
- [Kevin] It turns up. - Yeah, something.
- [Kevin] Turn up for what?
(cheerful music)
- [Jacques] I think I got the winner right here.
- [Kevin] You think so?
- How about this?
Tell me, tell me how this feels.
- Let me, let me feel it.
It feels intact.
- Yeah. - Feels intact.
- I think. Let's see.
- Let's see.
- Watch this be all mold.
(Kevin chuckles)
- Oh, that's not bad at all.
- Okay. That's good.
- That's big.
- You know what's crazy too?
- It's that's the biggest corn I've seen.
The one I harvested was only the red color.
- Yeah.
- You have this black sort of ear inside, or colonel inside.
- It's like girthy.
And also it's like
It's quite substantial for corn.
(cricket noises)
- [Jacques] This is mine.
This is Kevin's.
Let me know who the winner is.
- [Kevin] You can win on your own channel.
(Jacques laughs)
Dude, this was your first stock we cut.
- [Jacques] Yeah.
- This thing is just, it's like a javelin.
- [Jacques] Honestly.
It's got the jab honestly.
- How far? How Far do you think I could throw it?
- [Jacques] I think you could probably get 20 feet.
(upbeat music)
- Oh my god.
- It's thick with worms.
- That's crazy.
- [Jacques] They're, they're like.
- [Kevin] Check it out guys.
Look at these guys.
Tons of big old worms.
I accidentally raked this one out,
so I'll probably just cut it off, throw it back in.
But it's a good sign for spreading the
compost on and planting something else out here next season.
- [Jacques] Look at this.
- Oh my God.
- Dude, check it out. - Oh my God.
That's a big boy Caprice right there.
Look at that thing.
Look at this one, dude. Look at this one.
Hold on.
Get, get back out here fool.
Look at that.
That's mother hen dude.
- [Jacques] I could feel it moving on me.
- [Kevin] That's mother hen right there.
Man. There's a lot of these.
I almost wanna let the hens out.
- [Jacques] A little free range.
- I'm a little tempted.
- [Jacques] It's tempting.
- [Kevin] You think?
- it's harder, like the containment.
- I kinda wanna try.
All right.
Okay. One of you girls the first one to come out.
I'm letting the first one, to exit.
- [Jacques] Whoever makes it.
- So funny.
- [Kevin] I think it's Lyva.
- There we go.
- [Jacques] Oh, she did.
- Oh, no, no. Shh. Shh.
Shh.
Papi's here.
Papi's here for you.
About to go on an adventure.
Say hello to uncle.
- Hey.
- Uncle Jay.
All right, let's see what, let's see what she does.
(upbeat music)
This is that dude
this is actually a genius idea 'cause you spread it out.
We know that those Figeater beetles larva
love to lay in here.
- [Jacques] - Yep - If you spread it out effectively,
maybe none will be less than a couple inches deep.
So they should get surfaced. - Yeah.
- And then they should just mow 'em down,
don't you think?
- Looks like they're going for the greens.
- I will say, Lobster is the most aesthetic hen
that we have right now.
- [Jacques] Yeah. - Because she's not molting.
- [Jacques] Oh right. - That beautiful colors is coming in.
Butter and, and Lab are a little frazzled.
And Rufio's having a a thin, a thin era.
(Jacques chuckles)
- [Jacques] She's pretty small.
- She is. In general, she's the smallest hen for sure.
(upbeat music)
- [Jacques] There we go.
- [Kevin] That's what I wanna see.
- [Jacques] Mia, lean back on the rake here.
- [Kevin] Mia, grab a beer.
- Just watched these ladies go to town.
Ooh, look at them.
Gucci and Lobster.
- This is awesome.
- That's high speed.
- That's awesome.
- Dude. Lyva is so fluffy.
- She's so fluffy, yeah.
She's more fluffy than Gucci.
- Way more fluffy.
- [Kevin] And she's not broody like, you know,
they can flip their their feathers up and puff up.
She's not doing that.
She's just, that's how she is.
You know what I'm actually really curious about?
'Cause sundowns in a couple hours,
if they'll know to go back.
Because they - [Jacques] They probably will.
- You know what - Might do?
- Let's experiment
Let's see if they actually will know. - Yeah.
- Because they've never been outside.
- Right. - So do they know where it is?
I'm sure they must.
(upbeat music)
So the hens are doing the rest of the work right now.
I think what we'll let them do
is just run through here until sundown.
See if they make their way back to the coop.
If this is a thing, Jacque, maybe we just do this.
- You're ready for it.
- Yeah. I'm so ready for it.
Let us know what you think we should grow here.
Until next time, good luck in the garden,
and keep on growing.
And if you're still watching.
Right now.
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- This is mine. This is Kevin's.