It's been a pretty crazy last seven to 10 days or so here at the Epic Urban
Homestead. We're doing a lot. It's a lot to show you. A lot of updates,
some good, some not so good.
And hopefully you guys can give me some advice later on in this vlog as well,
because a lot of you have a lot more experience in some of this stuff than I do.
Welcome to Episode Number Four of the Epic Urban Homestead.
I'm already seeing evidence of activity here. As you can see,
something attacked some kind of bird.
So far I've counted eight different species of bird on this property.
But I have a magical, magical thing I want to show you.
Now this is the smartest hummingbird feeder that I've ever seen.
I found it on a YouTube video. And I mean, come on.
This speaks to the half Asian in me.
This is a Kikkoman soy sauce bottle turned upside down.
The pressure of the water and liquid does not allow it to spill when it's
perfectly level upside down. And as you can see, this is already empty.
So let me show you how I make new nectar and fill this up.
All you need is some cane sugar and water.
And I apologize for the echo. I still only have an air mattress in this house.
So you do one part of sugar,
which I'm just going to fill up to the bottom of this little mason jar indicator
here. We're going to go one, two, three, up with the sugar with water.
There it is. You don't need to boil it.
You don't need to add any dye or anything like that.
And you just give it a little shaky. We'll let this dissolve,
I'll take it outside and I'll fill it up. Solution is mixed, unhook this.
It's just some metal wire that I've bent around it.
And you can clean these out with a pipe cleaner just going straight through like
this. But man, I've filled this up once in four days and it's already out.
So it's going to be a hot spot guaranteed.
I have a couple hanging from different trees.
And there's I think three native species of hummingbird here in San Diego.
Hopefully I can get all three, that'd be amazing.
But I've seen them going crazy for it.
It's very clever and you'll see why in a second here. So you'd think why would,
why would this work? Well, the red cap attracts them, easy to hang,
easy to fill.
And if you just hold this for the initial turn and then let this
go, you get a spill or two. Actually I didn't even get one that time.
Look at that. Holds itself right in place. Boom.
We're filled back up and in no time,
probably not before I even finish this video,
I'll see hummingbirds coming and hitting this. Before the shed comes down,
and it is coming down guys, I know some of you aren't so happy about that,
but it will be repurposed. I've put up a rain gutter garden here.
So these are three foot chunks of just standard vinyl.
You can use more dressy ones,
aluminum or steel if you want something more long lasting.
But I had this lying around. So I might as well use it, right?
So this is three foot long. You've got some end caps on, I've got some supports,
which in this case, because I'm taking the shed down,
I just screwed straight into the shed.
But if you want to not do that then I would recommend some other sort
of attachment. What we have done here is just,
it slopes down an inch every 30 inches.
So roughly a bit more than an inch drop cause these of course are 36 inches.
So you go boom, drainage holes right here.
So the water hole will drain into this one, slopes down,
there's another drainage hole, boom, slopes down.
And I can even put a catch bucket right there so I can re-water from the top.
So this gets some nice I would say half day sun for these herbs which,
it's just a bonus really. That's perfectly fine.
And there are so many different designs you can do here.
Like you could actually put downspouts and connect these.
You could use those 90 corners,
and come around the corner of a shed if you wanted to.
So the rain gutter garden,
this is almost the simplest it could possibly be there are so many different
ways you can dress it up and make it a lot more modular for your space.
It wouldn't be the Epic Urban Homestead if we didn't have dragonfruit and if we
didn't upgrade our dragonfruit growing system.
So this trellis is straight from my friend Richard over at Grafting Dragon
Fruit. This is his version two trellis. So a 20 gallon pot,
that's what I've got down here. And then I've got a fencepost, four by four,
cedar rot resistant (still will rot at some point in time). But by that time,
we'll have plenty of dragonfruit, not a big deal. Then up here,
it's two by fours that you just create a simple square frame.
And the reason you do that is because what you want to do is train your
dragonfruit mainstem up.
Remember these are natural climbers in their native environment.
So you don't have to worry too much about this.
I decided to throw some nursery tape on because mine I converted to this.
I had to prune off quite a bit of this low growth.
But what you have going on is, you can see,
it's gonna start to spill down on all sides.
And eventually it's going to cascade like that,
what was that person in the Addams family? Itt,
whatever that hairy thing was that like had no appendages whatsoever and just
the hair was going everywhere.
That's what you want to go for with this dragonfruit.
So my plan at this place is to have five to six,
maybe five to 10 different types of dragonfruit all with this style trellising
system. Might even call it dragon alley. We'll see.
Comment down below if you have any names.
But I'm really excited about having a more robust support structure for the
dragonfruit because at my old place I was just growing it over the railing
because I was learning dragonfruit at the time.
And this is a much more efficient method for growing.
Now here's something I never thought I would do.
And this would be designing and building a window box.
These are made out of one by six here, planted some beautiful flowers,
nice little pop of color up here on the porch. Yeah,
it's just one by six screwed together.
The cool part is I didn't want to screw in to this one by three right here.
So what I did is just cut some more one by six and screwed that together to form
this little hanging clip. This one's a bit loose,
but I improved on the design on the second one I built,
which is right over here.
So this is a little bit tighter and you can see it's a little more sturdy there.
And then you just throw some drainage holes underneath with a half inch drill
bit. And you're good to go.
So a lot of different little projects here just to throw some curb appeal on
here. These will do really well, at least for now.
Switch them out as the seasons change, but hey,
your boy is getting into flowers.
The success of this first inground bed I've put in here at the property has
really blown my mind to be honest with you.
The native soil seems to be very good with a little bit of amendment.
You can see these tomatoes are showing absolutely no signs of any ill effects
from pests, diseases or just improper growth.
The jalapenos are already throwing flowers. The onions over there,
which I'll show you, are doing well. But what is this weirdo thing here? Well,
it's just a simple three by three by three PVC frame that I've put some shade
cloth on because what I noticed is,
I wanted to protect some of these plants from the ill effects of sunburn,
which they can all suffer from. And so what you do, it's very lightweight,
is you can come on, pop it on top like this,
and you get a little bit of protection for some of those more sensitive plants,
especially early on from sunburn.
So this is a cool little thing that I could put on modularly.
I could have built this the entire length of this bed.
I could have built it four foot by eight foot if I wanted to and just had one to
pop right on top,
but I'd rather have something a little bit more flexible and modular. But man,
this inground bed makes me think that I need to do a lot more inground beds,
especially in the backyard,
as I can just get quite a bit of bang for my buck out of the native soil here it
sure seems like. The very first pollinator garden here is planted out.
The milkweed has already been getting dominated by monarchs and I can see little
milkweed caterpillars here hanging out.
So we're already starting to see the effects of bringing in.
This is not necessarily a native. This is actually tropical milkweed,
which I'll talk about on the main channel and why it might not be the best
option. But regardless,
a lot of these native plants that you see here are bringing in a lot of
beneficial pollinators. I'm seeing hoverflies,
I'm seeing all sorts of things and these are barely grown in.
And this is just one little section. So this guy right here I rigged up with,
again, some one by six. It's a little insect home.
Inside this I've got bamboo, I've got little leaves, sticks, twigs,
stuff from around the property,
native things to this property to hopefully lure in some of those beneficials.
Now, there's a lot of study that I have yet to do on insect homes.
I'm going to refrain from doing the giant insect hotels in favor of a more
targeted "many" approach. So let's say a ladybug home, a lacewing home,
a solitary bee home and actually target the species based on how they like to
nest. So that's what I'm focused on. This is a preliminary test.
We'll see how it goes and of course I'll update you all.
But what I'm really thinking about here on the property is developing a native
to me, so native to Southern California, specifically San Diego,
pollinator matrix like a three by three grid or something that I can put around
different areas of this property so I get full coverage of pollination.
Full coverage of beneficials,
all sorts of life brought in here because that's what it's about.
It's about free pest control, free pollination,
and just a better overall balance to the garden. So this is the testing grounds.
This whole thing may change in lieu of a better system or a better environmental
option. But for now I'm pretty happy with it, seems to be doing pretty well.
Our lemon tree here has been given a haircut. It's been roasted a bit.
So what I did is I identified all of the dead branches and stems.
I cut those down to the first point of new growth.
And I apologize about the wind here guys, my mic, my normal mic broke.
So this is what we're dealing with. But anyways, I cut the height down.
So I want to be able to reach all the lemons.
I don't need the most possible lemons on a single tree.
I need accessible lemons at a size that's manageable that doesn't interfere with
other orchard trees that I'm going to plant. So I've done that.
I've actually taken quite a bit of a hack down to the interior where there's
stems and branches that were just intercrossing and not really doing a whole
lot. All these water sprouts I took off. Pretty gnarly pruned.
That hopefully will set it up for success.
And actually I want to show you the loquat tree too because I found out a little
surprise about the loquat.
The loquat tree is actually two loquat trees and they seem to
be growing in unison. They look roughly the same age.
This one is a little bit older.
I'm guessing that they were just planted at the same time.
I have no idea really.
But I did a poll on Instagram about whether people thought I should chop one
down. It would be this one that I would chop down or leave them both.
And it seems like the consensus is to leave them both.
And I actually agree with that. What I'm going to do is, again,
same with the lemon tree, cut up dead tissue away.
And there's like this huge trunk right here is dead.
And this trunk right here is actually completely dead and already been chopped
off at the top. So that'll free up some light on the interior, some airflow.
Loquat is a fall flowering plant. So I'm in a good zone right now,
it's mid to late summer,
to actually prune it before it starts to flower again.
So it's actually a really good time to do it. I'm going to do that.
I'm going to remove some of this lower growth for example right here.
I'm going to remove a lot of this undercanopy growth.
It's not serving the plant. Hopefully we can get a little haircut,
a little cut down on this loquat because, to be honest with you,
I love loquat but I don't need this much of it.
And this would be like thousands of loquat,
which are somewhat annoying to process. Very flavorful, very tasty,
but just the sheer time costs of processing and dehydrating and doing all that
not really worth having this many.
The first compost bin has officially been built here on the property.
It's three by three foot by three foot,
which is more or less the minimum you can get away with to actually get the hot
composting process started. So it's a very classic design.
I've used some cedar here.
It's a little more rot resistant than the cheapest construction lumber I could
get, but it still will rot away at some point in time.
And I still have plans to expand this quite a bit.
But it's just a very simple slatted design.
So airflow in these little slats here. This is nice,
you can actually take these out, fill it up,
access it and you put this back down. If I want to,
I've got a lot more so as I fill it all the way up,
I can take these and just slot them in just like
this.
So this is what I'll say is my makeshift interim composting system
because one three by three by three bin for this size property is clearly not
enough. I'll probably build larger bins and more bins.
So maybe a five by five by five, three bin system at least.
I'm not really sure how the compost will evolve here,
but I also know I want to be doing some leaf mold systems.
I want to be doing some Bokashi, some Korean natural farming techniques,
all that kind of stuff. So it's a good start. I'm pretty happy with it.
This one's clearly stuck and I'll just show you how the slatted design works,
which I'm very, very happy about. Cool little system. There you go.
So when you're all the way full you'll do that, even build a cover for this,
which I might do later on in a different video.
So this here is kind of gross but I figured it's worth mentioning.
A lot of you know that I had problems with skunks at my old property. Well,
that was a skunk right there. I found it. I buried it with dirt.
It has been decomposing,
but maybe it's a sign that I don't have to deal with skunks here anymore.
I have no idea. First time dealing with a dead skunk though.
Lots going on here at the property. I'm still not fully moved in here yet,
which I hope to get done in, I don't know, three or four weeks or so. We'll see.
The TV show is finishing up,
which I will be telling you guys about everything I can tell you as soon as I
know exactly what I am and I'm not allowed to say. But man,
things are going well here. The property is off to a good start.
I got some basic systems in place. Composting.
I've got some basic garden set up,
certainly nowhere near the level that I envision because I can see it all in my
mind's eye.
And I can't wait to start realizing that vision that I really want to express.
But I found out some information about the well,
which I'm a little disappointed about.
So we called around to a couple of different drillers and I figured out number
one, I AM allowed to do it. But what I did is I called around to drillers.
And most of them said that it's a tricky area to drill, this area that I'm in.
The soil is "weird or odd", is what they said.
They said they weren't sure of the quality of the water that would be coming
out.
And also that it was likely we'd have to drill 300 to 400 feet to
get good water pressure or at least enough gallons per hour flow.
And so that cost would run somewhere between $30,000 and
$50,000, which is like too much.
If it was a more normal well price or what I perceive to be a more normal well
price, I would have probably done it. But at that price,
I think it makes a lot more sense to be very efficient with my city water use.
I can switch my meter over to a gallon meter instead of a cubic feet meter.
So that's a consideration. Greywater is going to be a massive,
massive project of mine. No water on my property should be used only one time.
That's the goal. And then also the minimal amount of rainwater we get,
I need to set up rainwater harvesting.
And it did rain once here and I got a quick perception,
a quick analysis of how the rain is flowing on the property.
But I need another day or two of rain to really analyze and build the system and
test run it. So unfortunately,
if anyone out there knows better ways to do the well, let me know,
but it certainly seems like right now it's not a possibility.
So it's unfortunate, but you know, such is life.
And I think we'll be just fine here with some permaculture style techniques and
proper land and water management. Some mulching, greywater, all that stuff.
So anyways, it's getting a little late here. I'm going to enjoy the breeze.
Hope you guys enjoyed this vlog. If there's anything you want me to cover more,
go into in more depth, break out into its own video, please let me know.
This new channel kind of feels like it's back in the beginning of YouTube for
me, where I'm more free form about it, less structured. And it really is fun.
So thanks for coming along on the journey.
Good luck in the garden and keep on growing.