- All right, so we're out here prepping
for this new giant corn maze.
Just gotta do a little bit of tilling here.
Probably gonna take a little bit of time,
but you know, just another day's work here.
(man groaning)
(laughing)
- A little bit of time.
Looks like I got you covered.
(laughing)
It's the tilling...
(laughing)
(beep)
Welcome to the Tilling Typhoon.
(intense music)
What's up, guys?
We're doing a big old patch here.
You've seen us do the mow down showdown
where we cover cropped and then chopped and dropped
like it was extremely hot.
And actually, - It was very hot.
Today, it is really hot.
It's hot and humid.
It's classic summer here.
So, what's the thought here, Jacques?
- So we've got this huge wild area,
and we've got a whole bunch of compost.
We wanna spread it out, till it in,
'cause we got some nice fun plants for this area.
- A lot of really cool plants.
We have this idea of sort of doing
like a fall patch, I guess.
By the time fall comes around,
it'll look really good.
Maybe a bit of a corn maze,
maybe a bit of a very big Three Sisters style milpa.
And you were saying you've got a corn that you picked up.
- (laughing) Yeah, so I got
a couple different interesting corns.
One of 'em's called Bloody Butcher,
and it's like deep red, dark red.
It's like 12, 14 feet tall.
So it's gonna look very striking
and apparently it's delicious for like cornmeal and grits
and things like that.
- The first thing we gotta do, though, guys,
is actually get this thing prepped,
'cause as you can see,
it's looking a little rough right now.
So, I'm gonna move our honking tiller out of the way
and we're gonna start spreading this.
(light music continues)
We've got it roughly spread out.
Now begins the tilling process.
I've never used this tiller.
It's a rear tine tiller.
Apparently all you gotta do is just switch it to on,
pull it, move it into place.
So it's gonna get pretty loud,
but I'm excited to see if this thing can grind through
this compost and that hard fill soil.
(tiller clicking)
(tiller engine whirring)
(light music continues)
Guys, I don't know if it's going deep enough here.
Because if you come in and look,
there's just not,
I'm scraping up the compost and a little bit
of that chop and drop,
but I don't really think I'm really getting down
into that soil.
So, I have to think about this
and we'll see what we can come up with as a solution.
'Cause if I don't get into that soil
and I don't incorporate some of that organic matter,
there wasn't really a point to doing this till.
I think I mighta come across the problem.
I don't think I removed the little stopper plate.
I don't know the right term for it.
But it should go a little bit deeper now.
I think it was just blocked by that plate kinda dragging.
So we'll see.
Hopefully, my inability to read the manual
didn't hurt me too much here.
(tiller engine whirring)
(light music continues)
It's that easy, guys, read the manual. (laughing)
I don't know why I did not look at that,
but hey, at least we're off to the races.
Let's keep this tilling party going.
(light music continues)
Well, it's the afternoon now.
It's late afternoon and the process is finally complete.
Jacques, I had to run for a bit.
You and Paul, one of our new helpers here at the homestead,
took care of some of this.
Do you mind explaining really quickly what we did?
- Yeah, so, basically,
we put down the three cubic yards of compost
and we (laughing) I think you did the first tilling pass.
I had to run. - Yeah.
- And then we noticed that it wasn't really getting
into the sub-soil.
So, me and Paul just got two mattocks.
We went to town, we broke up the bottom,
and then we just tilled it like another three passes.
So now the color looks good.
It looks like we actually got some of that native soil in.
- Yes.
- And it's feeling a little bit looser.
I think we're good.
- I think we're good and I think the soil's loose
to like at least six to eight inches.
- Yeah.
- Maybe even a little bit more - Yeah.
Probably close to that. - And that's what we need.
And so, what you can see is we laid out
this measuring tape here.
I thought we'd have like 50 feet.
I guess my measurements are just off
internally in my brain, guys.
But we got about 20-ish, right?
And so, we'll go 20 by 20.
I think we're not trying to get extremely precise now.
In my perfect world,
I'd have like this beautiful square bed.
We're just gonna mark out some rough corners here
and then do a little bit of leveling
and discuss while we do that
some of our thoughts for what exactly you could plant
in a spot like this.
Actually, Jacques and I were talking
and the process you've seen here on The Homestead Channel
from the cover cropping to the chopping and dropping,
the mowdown showdown, to what we just did here,
if you're a budget-conscious gardener
working with your native soil,
this is extremely cost-effective for a space of this scale.
- Totally and in the end,
this will now probably be a really nice bed.
Like we'll probably get - For years.
- Great benefits out of this. - For years to come.
- And we won't have to till it again.
- Exactly, so why don't
we just start smoothing out, Jacques?
- [Jacques] Yeah.
- Remember, I'm trying to keep this grade nice and flat here
because it's such a drop down to the pond.
The more we can soak up here, the better.
- Yeah and actually, I don't think we showed it
in the beginning, but we also put like 3/4 of a bag
of Bio-tone in here.
- Yes, we also threw some organic fertilizer in.
- [Jacques] Kicked it up a notch.
- Quite frankly, probably could've added more,
but not a big deal,
'cause remember, all this is just compost mixed in,
so there should be some good organic matter in here.
- One thing we've learned is that (laughing)
if you build a new bed,
especially if you till it like we did here,
you wanna let it sit for probably at least two weeks.
- Yeah, I would say one week minimum, two weeks optimal,
'cause what we noticed when we did the till
in the back beds over there is,
we planted really pretty much right away.
- [Jacques] Yeah.
- And the compost wasn't quite finished
from the municipality.
The activity, I think you get like basically
a biological activity sort of spike really quickly.
- [Jacques] Yeah.
- That's my best guess.
And it seems to stress the plants out,
especially if the compost is hot.
It's not ideal.
- Yeah, and we've also, I think our other theory
was that it settles and then the roots kinda get smooshed.
'Cause it's so fluffy at the beginning.
- [Kevin] Yeah.
- It's a double-edged sword.
- So one way to think about this garden, guys, is,
hey, just do what you want.
This is like, we're calling it The Big Papa Patch.
(laughing) I just named that The Big Papa Patch.
- I was like, really, okay.
- Well, it's 'cause we have a big papa here,
we have a big papa here,
and you saw Paul in today's video, he's a big papa.
So it's a triple big papa patch,
and maybe we do the three papas.
- (laughing) The three papas.
- We do the three papas planting method.
Because something about this that I really love is like,
this is just gardening for fun.
It's just like get creative, do whatever you want,
be free, oh, I wanna throw this here.
Just throw it there, it doesn't matter.
It's way less precise than the other garden.
Which to me,
gotta get used to it.
- I think you might get a little addicted.
- I might be really into this.
Well look, I love the cover crops when we did it, loved it.
- 'Cause it just looks so nice.
- Yeah.
Jacques, with this much space,
how are we thinking about designing it?
'Cause you could, I mean, with this much space,
you could just do all corn and do a corn maze.
- Totally. - You know?
- If we could build a legit corn maze, I've never.
- Let's just say I'll get lost in it
and I won't come out.
- Put a little Adirondack chair in the middle.
- My goal will be to not get out.
(laughing)
- I'm actually really excited for this
because I've always wanted to grow more dry beans,
dry corn, preservation. - Yeah.
- And it's just hard to justify the space in a smaller area.
And so, this is kind of like the chance to experience it
and see if it is worth it.
And maybe it is.
- I'm a little less excited about that
than I am the freedom to grow melons,
cantaloupes, and big papa pumpkins, guys.
I wanna grow a pumpkin I can sit on.
Like and it doesn't break
under the weight of my big papa frame.
I've put on a little poundage.
It's coming off soon.
We may even be doing, Jacques, you and me,
if you're game, - Uh huh.
- We may even be doing a little bit
of that apocalypse survival this summer.
- I kinda do wanna try it.
- Seeing if we can do it,
I think maybe like a couple of weeks.
- Yeah. - Not a full month.
Maybe later in the summer. - Yeah.
- And actually, I'd love to invite you guys
to participate with us,
- That would be really fun.
- On The Homestead Channel,
because it is one of the most interesting
kind of like thought experiments you can do.
Hey, can I actually live off this
if it really came down to it?
And I think you'd be surprised with the answer.
- [Jacques] (laughing) Yeah.
- How 'bout this?
Why don't we put a poll out
to everyone at Epic Homesteading on this video
and we'll do a poll of what we should plant here.
We'll obviously select some options,
but do we wanna see the corn patch,
do we wanna see the melon patch?
What's the favorite. - Okay, sure.
- And we'll go, call it the community garden.
This is you guys gardening with us.
- I'm 50% dirt right now.
- By weight, Jacques is 50% silt, loam, and clay, and sand.
- The perfect growing medium.
Just throw me in the compost pile when I'm done.
- I used to be afraid that plants would grow in my stomach
as a kid.
- Oh, like the don't eat the watermelon seeds kinda thing?
- Yeah, exactly.
I used to think a watermelon would grow in my stomach.
- Yeah, I was like, you know what,
I don't got time for that.
I'm not spitting out these seeds.
- [Kevin] You ate 'em?
- Yeah.
- That explains a lot.
Looks like our girl's here.
Babka, you checking out the new patch?
- This is - What do you think?
- [Jacques] Prime hunting grounds for her.
- Oh yeah.
We're gonna put the wobbler on for a couple hours.
Thanks for joining us in this transformation episode.
Curious to see what you guys want to see here.
So, please do let us know.
I'll put a little poll here.
Community garden, Epic Homesteading style.
Until next time,
good luck in the garden and keep on growing.
(light music continues)
Oh this feels so good.
- [Jacques] Yeah, the wobbler.
- Ooh, oh, oh, I just got hit in the eye.
I got wobbled in both eyes at the same time.
(laughing)
(light music continues)
A dream.