- Today, we are gonna be planting a ton
of tomatoes in the bed where the garlic used to be.
I just harvested out over the weekend,
probably 200 heads of garlic, Jacques.
- They look really good.
- They're sitting over there,
we'll show you those in a second but,
I did not start as many tomato seeds as I wish I did.
Jacques started more this season.
It seems like every season we kinda trade off a little bit.
I think last year I started a ton of flowers,
this year you started a ton of tomatoes.
So I'm stealing a few Jacques tomato starts.
You have a couple selections here.
We have indeterminates here. - Oh, yeah.
- But then you've been really into the dwarf tomatoes.
- Big time.
So, over there in the front are the dwarf tomatoes.
And the nice thing about them is that they max out at like,
three to five feet tall.
And you could support them
with literally just a single stake.
So, you don't need a whole complicated trellis
and string and all that. - Right.
- Really easy and they're great in containers too,
but we're gonna do 'em in the ground here today.
- Yeah, yeah. So you guys remember last year
we had three different trellis styles?
We had the Florida Weave here.
We had a large string trellis in the middle.
And then we had a lower lean over there.
So we haven't really decided the trellising methods
we're gonna use yet for the indeterminates,
but the indeterminates are gonna go in every 18 inches,
across this back row,
at least as many as we have that we wanna plant.
And then the dwarfs, like Jacques just said,
we'll just put in front.
Because if you look over here,
we have all these leeks and onions
that we have yet to pull out.
And that's probably where our pepper
and maybe our eggplants and stuff are gonna go.
We can dedicate this whole thing to tomatoes if we want.
So, let's see.
Let's go ahead and get planting, Jacques.
- Sure.
- Why don't we do the Principe Borghese...
(Jacques laughs)
small plum?
Okay. Well that one's going in over here.
- Okay. So.
- And you took off most of the foliage.
- That's right.
I already trimmed off all the lower stuff.
These tomatoes have been, I started all these on March 12th.
So some of the lower leaves are just starting
to look a little rough.
And since we're planting deep anyway,
just make sense to remove 'em.
- And this time, unlike my garlic crop,
which I sort of forgot the names of
because all the labels got a little bit muddied.
I am going to make sure that we pay attention
to these labels this time.
Okay. What am I gonna do next?
Granadero Plum?
So I can go plums in a row, I guess.
Oh, you know what?
This is coming outta the four-inch-deep 4-Cell.
- Oh, yeah. I have a little bit of both.
- [Kevin] Let's take a look at the roots. Ooh!
(both laugh)
Don't mind if I do.
- I mean, you could see the advantage of the 4-Cell
on the edges here.
There's no wrapping of the root.
- Yep.
- It's just sticking out and it prunes itself.
- Goes straight out and then kinda, basically dies.
- So I'm not gonna even bother messing with the root ball.
I could just literally plop it in the ground.
Some of these are actually new.
I eliminated a lot of tomatoes from last year
that I just didn't care about.
- Well, that's what happened to me, remember?
- So I tried a lot of new ones.
Like, Beauty King ended up being amazing.
- Oh, that's right.
- And then, there were a couple that looked good on paper
and did not perform well.
- Yeah. No more purple tomatoes this year,
I'll tell you that much. - Yeah, man.
- I'm out.
- Okay, this is B-L...
(Jacques laughs)
B-L-Yan-B-G?
What's that?
Is that just called a bad handwriting?
- No, it's actually Bulgarian.
- Oh, is it? Okay. Never mind.
- Blyan.
And this one's Maglia Rose.
So these are actually Bulgarian tomato seeds that I brought,
figured I'd sneak a little into Kevin's patch.
- It's called brought.
It's called smuggled.
Back from the motherland.
- Let's just say I asked myself and I decided it was okay.
- Yeah.
- But there's a few different Bulgarian ones here,
and let's just say, I have no idea if they're gonna work.
So I decided to put some in Kevin's yard.
- Here's why.
It's because this year, dominated him in garlic,
dominated him in brassicas,
looks like I'm dominating bulbing onions and leeks.
- That's true.
- He's trying to sabotage me.
- So here's the thing.
If he beats me on tomatoes, like, I'm out.
- If I beat him on tomatoes, he might be out of the company.
I mean, he might be actually gone.
(Jacques laughs)
Do you wanna do two Sungolds or just the one?
- Yeah, yeah, for sure.
- All right, here's the other one.
This is the $15 tomato seed pack.
- The Margolds?
- And I have the Lucky Tiger.
It's one of these fancy, like, stripy tomatoes
that are apparently delicious.
- Okay.
Brandywine Cherry? (whistles)
- Yeah.
Apparently it makes cherry tomatoes
to taste like a Brandywine heirloom.
- The B Dub C. - So... (laughs)
The B Dub C. - So I'm going in from here.
- So I'm actually pretty hype up.
- I'll give you the honor of the Brandywine
and I'll do the cherry. - All right, I'll take it.
(slow paced upbeat music)
- All right. Determinate time, dwarf time.
We don't have to space it out this time
'cause we're actually just gonna split the difference
between these two so that, ideally at least,
when it grows in,
you kinda get a little visual breakage between.
- A little more light through.
- Little bit.
So these, we don't have as many varieties
and there's five unique varieties, Jacques.
- [Jacques] Yep.
- Do you know much about these?
'Cause I haven't seen these before. Boronia?
Is that, it's not Bulgarian, right?
- No. - No?
- Yeah, the only one I actually recognize,
that I remember specifically getting is the Rosella Purple.
Which is- - Which I have right here.
- there you go.
- Yeah. That's what it looks like.
- That's like a Cherokee Purple analog basically.
- [Kevin] Yeah.
- So they bred it to essentially just match
whatever a Cherokee Purple is.
- Interesting. - But be a small plant.
- So this is Uluru Ochre. - Yeah.
- Ochre. Ochre.
- Some of the names are unique.
So I'll go in with the Adelaide Festival,
which is the other one.
- Nice.
- And then- - A little Australian mix.
- Yeah, there you go.
Oh yeah, actually the cool thing about this project
is that they did it in Australia at the same time.
So that they could grow year round.
- [Kevin] Ah. Smart.
- So they did a selection in North Carolina
and then they sent seeds to Australia to grow it.
So you could get two growth cycles in the same year.
- This is all Craig LeHoullier's Project.
- Yeah, exactly. - Who we actually had
on the podcast many years ago, guys.
He is known as NC Tomato Man.
- [Jacques] Yep.
- And honestly, has grown more tomatoes
than probably anyone on earth.
- [Jacques] Alive, yeah. - As far as unique varieties.
- [Jacques] Yeah.
- I think he said he'd grown 4,500.
- I believe it.
- Which is absolutely bonkers for any human being.
- I think he grows a couple hundred every year.
- Every year. - Every year.
- And, you know, he's an older guy,
he's been stacking up seasons
and he's just been going all the way.
By the way, the fertilization for this guys, nothing fancy.
I'm just doing a literal handful of Tomato-tone.
- I think I just found something.
- A little boost?
- No, I don't want- - You found some garlic?
- No, found a rock.
- Oh, dang. Here. - All right, hit me.
- You're about to get hit.
(musical note squeaks)
- Ooh! Good aim.
In with the Uluru Ochre.
I'm gonna start applying gardenstraw
while you're doing that. - Okay, I'll finish these up.
- Hard to beat that fresh (bag rustles) mulch, you know?
- It looks so good.
(bag continues rustling)
- When you can't figure out how to perfectly reshape a bed,
you just put more mulch on it.
(Jacques laughs)
And make it look like it got reshaped.
(playful music)
And yes, I am watering over the top of these,
but it's really not a big deal at this stage right now.
(bag rustles)
- Yeah, especially since it's still daytime.
- It's daytime, it's mulched.
So there aren't soil splashes
that are gonna come up on this.
And all I'm doing is just a really quick water
to kinda matte down the straw just a little bit.
(bag rustles)
So we have about two thirds of this bed planted out now.
And, this is like when you put your tomatoes in,
I think, think of it as like, the foundation of the bed.
And then you come in later and you put in your basil.
I mean, we could fit cucumbers,
like ground, bushing-style cucumbers down through here.
- It'd be fun to try actually. - I would really like to,
'cause apparently they have a really beneficial effect
when companion planted.
You know, your alyssum, some of the stuff
that we've talked about before.
- Yeah.
- So, all right. Let's move on.
Next up is peppers,
but first of all, I wanna show you a little update
on the chickies.
(door handle rattles)
They're getting a little bit bigger.
A little bit thicker.
Take a look at these girls.
Starting to really get into lavender's coloration.
I honestly don't even think you could call
that lavender as a color.
I mean, I am colorblind,
but she looks gray to me, guys.
You tell me what you think.
So I've been thinking, I might have a name
for the Cream Legbar,
and that name is Rufio.
So if you know, uh oh, don't come out, don't come out!
Argh! (laughs)
But if you know the reference of Rufio,
leave it down on the comments,
but she's got a little signature look that reminds me
of a character called Rufio.
So, lemme know what you think.
But, now we gotta plant some peppers with Jacques.
So let's go do it.
By the way, look at the garlic.
I told you I harvested this out this past weekend.
So some of them split underground.
And these ones, I think I may just let them sit like this
and use them as bulb garlic or clove garlic for next season.
So I can just let these store
and then when the time comes next season,
you pop the clove out and plant them.
'Cause these are actually pretty large cloves.
But, the real story is these honking bulbs right here.
So the storage process
is really after what's called the curing process.
And that's what we're doing right now.
When you see them sort of sitting here,
they're sitting here in a cool,
sort of dry place for about 10-plus days.
I mean, at least 10 days.
You can go up to three or four weeks, honestly,
if you want to.
You're waiting for these roots to dry out.
You're waiting for the tops to dry out.
You're waiting for this skin to get papery.
You can kinda see how it flakes away here
and actually makes it really easy to clean as well,
'cause you can just pop off one layer of skin really easily.
And then what you will do is trim this, cut this.
And you've got a nice head of garlic
that you can store for the long haul.
If it's a hardneck garlic,
it'll store for about three or four months.
If it's a softneck, you can go six to nine months.
So, I gotta lot of cleanup to do pretty soon.
Now let's get to the peppers.
So here we are.
If you remember, this was actually our radish madness bed
from a many, many episodes ago.
We threw radish seeds on here
and used a rake and just scraped it in.
And actually, it turned out to have an incredible amount
of radishes and turnips.
- Yeah, we just don't like radishes that much. (laughs)
- Yeah, that's the problem.
And the turnips, let's just say, you guys know what we did
to those turnips.
Didn't turn out that well.
(Jacques chuckles)
Jacques, you have some peppers here.
- Yeah.
- Actually, quite a few.
I see shishitos here, I think we should plant all of 'em.
- Okay. Let's do it.
- I love shishito peppers. - Yeah, I know.
That's why I brought them.
- Yeah, they are a little floppy, huh?
- Yeah, some of 'em- - Look at that.
- Like, these ones are starting to unroot a little bit,
but if we plant 'em a little deeper, they're totally fine.
- Yeah. So we got Pludine Capila?
- [Jacques] Yeah, Plebadine Scapilla.
Oh this is Bulgarian?
Okay. Okay.
- That's the only one.
The rest are standard.
Let's just say I already have four in my-
- Really? - garden grown right now.
- How are you gonna space your peppers here?
- I did closer to 16.
I almost did 12.
- I was thinking 12 for the space.
- Yeah. - Yeah. I was thinking 12.
- Because I think that one of the problems with peppers
is that they like the little micro climates of being close.
And so they get a little more humidity
and they get protected from sunscald.
So, she does germinated really well for me this year.
- [Kevin] It's honestly one of the better peppers.
It's like just like a good guaranteed
all around performing pepper.
- And it just tastes really good.
- And it just tastes great.
You blistered these bad boys, you're in business.
Little pop, pop, pop, pop.
No big deal.
- You make it look so easy.
- I mean it is. That's the thing.
Gardening's easy guys.
(playful music)
- Cool. So, you mulch it up. - Most of the peppers in.
We'll throw us some mulch.
We'll plant these in a couple days later,
but, yeah, just time to get some mulch on.
So guys, I'm really sad,
but I completely missed the very first dragon fruit flower
of the season.
I knew it was coming.
Did not know it was blooming.
I was not at home over the night last night.
And look at this.
It is, this looks like it's opening.
It's actually closing.
And so, our garden hand here, Paul,
who's probably made into a couple videos.
He did some pollination here.
This is the sugar dragon.
So, I think we should get our first dragon fruit here
in about 30, 40 days.
But I didn't come out here to cry over spilt dragon fruit.
I came to harvest this bed out here.
So coming along.
So over here, the bed that we planted out many,
many months ago has really started to fill out.
And in fact, you can see these calendula are going crazy.
So what I wanna do to preserve these is just deadhead.
And you can actually see,
if you look at this really closely,
you can see some pm's, some powdery mildew.
So, I wanna try to remove that as much as I can.
It's gonna happen.
I think, you know, powdery mildew,
a little bit overblown sometimes.
It's just gonna happen to some of your plants
and there's not much you can do about it.
So, I wanna come through deadhead
as many of these spent flowers as I can
to keep the calendula going.
Freshens it up, you'd be surprised how much better it looks
when you clean up, you know, 10% of the flowers
that are totally spent and dead.
It just looks way better, way more attractive,
especially when you cut.
So you could deadhead this way
or you just chop the top off like this.
That's great, but now you have this sort
of wonky looking stem here.
So what I like to do is cut it really low.
Just cleans the entire plant structure up.
And then look, you're only left with either these
or these guys, which are about to bloom.
So, I'm gonna do that in a little bit,
but I wanna harvest out a couple things
that I think are probably getting pretty ready.
And that would be some of these little mini cabbages
that we planted.
So, this is some spinach that has gone a little too long,
but these mini cabbages are actually in a good spot.
So, if I get down here, give it a little chop.
I believe this is the Mini Kisaku 50 cabbage.
So yeah, it's been eaten up a little bit.
Probably, cause it's going into summer on a cabbage.
So you might wanna pull some of those away,
but that's a nice little mini sort of Napa style cabbage.
And I'll pull one more for you guys,
just to show you what it looks like.
Take a look at that.
So just sort of scrap all the outer leaves.
These are all eaten up and a little messed with.
Not bad, right?
Perfect for some kimchi or really whatever you wanna do.
So I'm gonna harvest a couple more of these out.
Ooh, look at that.
This is why you gotta peel it back
because look what I just found.
Some real rotten damage there from bugs.
And so, this one, I might just have to scrap.
They got a little too deep into the tissue of the plant
while it was heading up.
So this one is perfect for the chickens.
So let's see if they wanna eat it.
Today's episode of will the chickies eat this?
We need a better name for this segment
on the Homestead channel.
Comment down below what you want it to be. 3, 2, 1.
Oh that's a yes. - Yeah.
- [Kevin] There you go.
Now Gucci went in, did a little taste test.
Now, what I've noticed is Gucci usually leads
and then lavender's like,
"Oh, if Gucci's in, I'm in."
There. Oh, oh, oh, there you go.
So now two are in, four are out.
Now, Butter's like, "Okay."
Okay. Well, either way, I guarantee if I come back tomorrow,
that's gonna be gone.
Okay. The chickens are feasting on that rotten cabbage.
We're gonna harvest out a little bit more of these.
Jacques in deadhead.
There's a lot more coming here on the Homestead.
Actually, wow! Look at this.
- What do you got?
What is that?
- One spinach. - Oh, it's a spinach.
- One spinach.
But look at the, okay, so take a look at this.
No, this is actually a teachable gardening moment here,
right? - Let's see.
- Okay. So we planted this pretty dense, right?
We planted spinach kind of down this middle line.
This does not get a ton of sun here.
Why would it look like this, right?
- [Jacques] Stretching out.
- It never had a chance, right?
And look what it did to its stock.
I mean, honestly,- - It's so fluffy.
- it's a little disturbing.
Like, you know. - It's a new cultivar.
- You know what? Here's what you do.
Here's what you do.
You cut these off right here.
You whip up some like pudding, you know?
Oh, hold on let's go right there.
You serve it in this at a fancy restaurant,
a hundred dollars.
- A little caviar on top.
- You know some chef would sell this.
You know they'd fill it up with tapioca and be like,
you know, like stretch, spin, it's tapioca, like.
It's $700, you know.
Anyways, we're gonna clean this bed out guys.
Stay tuned. There's a huge project coming soon
on the Homestead channel.
We're installing more solar panels.
So I'm gonna do a one year solar update,
including the install of 14 more panels here.
Because look, we're in a weird, weird time right now
where energy prices are going up, gas is going up.
The price of wheat is going up.
It's a good time to start building
some more self-sufficiency,
more resiliency on your house.
Even if you're in a suburban environment.
So that's kind of what epic home setting's all about.
So stay tuned, good luck in the garden and keep on growing.