Welcome to the Epic Outdoor Gym.
There's so many updates in today's vlog, both indoors and outdoors,
but primarily outdoors because the theme of today's episode is preparing the
backyard for the new shed. Kevin Espiritu here from Epic Gardening.
Check it out. This is the outdoor gym.
We're in a time in which most of the gyms are closed anyways.
Now the cool thing about this one - squat rack comes down like this,
and so I can push it flat up against the wall when I'm not using it.
And when I want to use it,
I can just start repping out some squats and/or any other exercise and try to
get myself back in shape.
But that's really something I was so excited about,
was to have an area of the homestead where I could work on my physical health.
Gardening, doing all that stuff - perfectly fine, great low effort way,
but sometimes you got to put in some actual work. And that's what this is for.
A couple other cool additions, some spotter arms here. So that if I,
which is probably going to happen, end up having to drop the weight,
it'll drop on these spotter arms. I've got some mobility bands.
I've got my weight rack here. And then over here,
I've got the thing I really need help with.
So being 6'4" and 200 something pounds - it's a little more than something too!
My pull strength isn't good. I used to rock climb a lot.
And so this is something that I'm really excited about. Honestly,
just doing some dead hangs for posture,
but also pulling out some pull ups with a little bit of
effort. It's going to be great.
Next up a couple updates on the grow bag garden and the shed. So first of all,
the grow bag garden is in mostly shade. It's like a part shade garden, 24/7,
and that's contributing to a couple of things.
A little bit slower growth than I would like but also, think about it.
Hot temperatures, water, and shade is a recipe for what? Mosquitoes,
which you guys know I've been dealing with.
So I have to move this anyways to prepare for the new shed,
which is getting put in in just a few days. This shed has to go.
So I think while I build out the rest of the front yard garden this might
actually move up to the front yard and I'll get irrigation plugged in over
there.
So hopefully that keeps the mosquito pressure down and the growth will go way up
on these.
But we have to talk about what's actually going in the front yard garden.
Today we have a busy day.
We have FedEx coming with the Birdies beds for the front yard.
[Inaudible].
At long last, I've actually gotten my own Birdies beds.
These are the ones I sell on the Epic Gardening store.
Straight out of Australia, the number one product in Australia.
It took me a while to get them because I put myself on my own wait list and I
had to prioritize customers over my own beds. So I have them here in the garden.
Now let me show you some of the new models that I'm really excited to put in the
front yard because it's a mix and match of shapes and sizes that I think will
work really well. So this first bed, the one that I am literally IN right now,
is the tall 8-in-1 bed. It's got some bracing bars here.
This holds quite a bit of soil, almost 60 cubic feet of soil.
A little over two yards of soil. So this is going to be the mainstay.
Where you guys have seen my front yard raised bed that's a little bit lower,
made out of wood. This one's going to supplant that one,
but within I've got the Birdies tree surround.
So this is going to go around all of the trees in the orchard,
which pretty soon I'm going to have to start tackling that.
Cause you want to put your fall trees in, in fall.
You wanna put your orchard in in fall when the roots can actually start to
establish and they don't have to worry about forcing fruit or dealing with all
sorts of weird temperature stress. So this guy's eventually going out,
the tree surrounds are going out and a couple of the other models are going out.
So pretty soon here on the channel,
you'll see the front yard garden much like the old Epic Garden at my old place.
So I'm sitting here now on about a 50 foot long pile of mulch.
It's a mixture of fruit trees, pine, chips,
logs and I've also got some compost.
This compost that you see here was brought to me by Brijette over at San Diego
Seed Company. But it comes from the local landfill, which sounds bad.
But a surprising fact about that is this compost is often held to a higher
standard than many bag mixes. Now, not all bag mixes of course,
there's some fantastic bag mixes that I know, love and promote.
But if you go to the local municipality,
you can fill a truckload up of this for $0.
And if they fill it up for you, it's $12 for over a yard.
It doesn't really matter the size.
It's just the size of whatever you're putting it in, a truck.
And so I've got a ton of mulch to spread,
to do some sheet mulching on the areas of the yard that I'm not going to be
attacking for a while. And then I also have a ton of this amazing,
amazing compost that I can start mixing in to native soil and topsoil to build
all of the soil that's going to go in the raised beds. So Brijette is here.
As you heard,
she brought over a $12 truckload of compost from the local landfill,
which actually you're saying oftentimes is held to a higher standard than bag
mix.
Yup. Really good stuff. Lots of regulations. Um, you know,
it's a city run operation so there's a lot of people watching what they're
doing.
It's great stuff. Okay.
And then the caution is it's great stuff but it's very fine textured and it's
usually running a little hot. So break it down.
Totally. This stuff,
if you stick your hand in the middle of it you're going to feel hot.
Yeah. It's warm. Okay so what we're doing here is,
although you could mix this in with topsoil and create a nice raised bed mix
straight out of the gate, this IS already raised bed mix. And quite frankly,
based on what's left, only the basil has survived.
So I think it probably needs a little bit more nutrition.
These are pretty hardy. So what are we doing here?
So we can add this, there's a couple of different options.
You can mix it in to your existing bed. You also can use it as a top dressing,
almost as a mulch. And when you water it,
it's going to kind of crust and really hold in the moisture.
What's important to know is that stuff like this tends to be hydrophobic.
So the first time you water it it'll look like it went through,
but then you stick your finger in. It's bone dry. Totally.
So you just gotta take your time, drink a beer, whatever,
and stand there with your hose and really get the moisture all the way through.
And then it will keep more moisture in which is really important right now in
our hot weather.
Yeah. Yeah, I always say if you have a hydrophobic mulch, you just water it,
moisten the top, wait, move on to another bed, come back and do it again. Yeah.
Yeah. Patience is key. Okay, cool. So in this case,
maybe we'll mix it in just because why not? Totally.
So we're just gonna throw a couple shovelfuls on and then get it in there.
Another thing that's great is it looks really nice. Look how dark that is.
It's got that nice, yeah, it has that nice texture.
It looks beautiful. I mean, it's very picturesque, right?
Totally. So I'll start pulling it across the bed.
And this is great because this bed, actually guys,
is going to be moving to the backyard as sort of a shady,
sort of ornamental kitchen herb style garden. Uh, and so this soil,
it's just going to condition for a little bit, which is great, right?
I mean we can just let it work its way down. And then when I move all this soil,
we'll be in a really good spot for fall/winter. So if I'm mixing it in,
I'm going maybe two, three inches, right? Nothing crazy?
Nothing crazy. If you have soil that's pretty terrible. Yeah.
You really want to mix in three or four inches of this if possible. Yeah.
What I see happen a lot is people will get raised beds,
they will buy a raised bed mix from, you know,
lots of different places. And it's a good filler. Very woody too. Yeah.
Or it can be very sandy. I've seen that there's just like a lot of sand. Yeah.
And so it's really lacking the other component,
which is all the organic matter that you get in something like compost. Yeah.
So it's just a really good idea to, you know,
if you go to the Miramar greenery and you get a truckload, if you,
even if you don't need it all,
keep it on hand and you can mix it into your beds every season when you
change over from one crop to another.
Yup. Like as we are right now with fall to, summer to fall. Ooh,
there's some nice fungal growth going on here. Look at that, that's gorgeous.
That mycelium. Yeah. That's nice. Well,
I just disrupted it but that's okay. It'll come back. It'll keep growing. Yup.
And then after this for someone who's, you know,
just amending their first bed let's say,
for the first year of gardening I am watering it in,
I'm letting it rest for a week or two in a perfect world, right?
I'm inoculating it maybe.
So if you have, let's say this bed's empty and you're filling it.
You went and got raised bed mix and then you listened to our advice,
got some compost, mixed it in on top of what else you have in there.
I'd water it really well and then I would let it rest, because it's so hot.
It's still breaking down and it also might take you three or four times of
watering it before you feel like you really got water all the way through it.
A lot of times.
It's a very frustrating part for a beginner gardener, I think. Totally.
I tell people, you know, very beginning gardeners. If you have a brand new bed,
you filled it up, you're all excited.
What you should do is put your hose on like a, just a barely a drip. Yeah.
Put it in the bed, go do laundry, you know,
whatever you need to do, set an alarm on your phone,
come back maybe in like an hour. Maybe two hours.
Move it. Yeah.
So that way you really saturate it all the way through. It's so important.
This is a case where maybe an overhead watering tool would work, right? Yeah.
Cause it's just pressing it over time.
As long as it's, you know, really getting the whole bed moist.
I always tell people that like think of this as a really big sponge.
And if you had a sponge this big and you only got the corner of it wet,
well then it's just going to dry out immediately. Yup.
But if the whole sponge is sopping wet,
it's going to hold onto moisture a lot longer. Totally.
So don't be scared the first couple of times you, um, you know,
start planting in that raised bed with your new soil.
Really make sure there's moisture all the way down.
Yep. Perfect. We're here now in an almost completed version of dragon alley.
These actually do need a little bit of water. So I've got Red Jaina right here.
I'm seeing some tip growth come out, but what I'm waiting for,
I have some cuttings over in the backyard and I want one on each of these sides.
So some of these varieties have four on each of them.
So I will have enough to actually grow.
These ones I'm still waiting for those cuttings to root up so I'm still keeping
them nice and well watered. Down the line,
I would say in about 10 or 12 months or so, you're going to see this growing up.
You're going to not see a whole lot of the wooden fence posts and you're instead
hopefully gonna see a ton of amazing dragonfruits. So I'm really,
really excited about the progress of dragon alley. Welcome to,
probably the last time you'll see this shed in this condition.
This has to come down. I still,
it's five days away from building the new shed where the team comes out.
I still haven't actually located and leveled out that area.
So I'm on a bit of a crunch time. But I want to demo this shed over the weekend.
And I think some portion of the new shed will overlap this. So as you can see,
I've been using it as makeshift storage.
I've got a lot of stuff I've got to either garage sale out,
donate and/or use and/or I don't know, there's just too much stuff.
And so downsizing a little bit. What we're going to do is demo this shed.
The new shed will be in a separate episode.
But now I want to talk about some awesome updates in the world of solar,
roofing and HVAC. Super hot day today, guys.
Well also because I'm wearing full normal human being clothes.
But the shed is empty. And let me walk you in the old shed. Effectively empty,
you can see I'm excited to not have to hit my head on this anymore.
So I'm going to start the tear down. Some electrical in here,
but there's no actual power running to it.
It looks like most of this was constructed via nail and I don't exactly know.
I'm going to have to get the pry bar out and like really start going on it.
So we'll see,
this has got to get done in the next day or two AND I have to level the ground
for the future site and I have to pick the future site. So a lot of work to do.
Stay tuned.
So it's going to take a lot more effort than I thought to tear that shed down.
So what I thought I would do is, at the very least,
clear out the area where the new shed will go.
So this back area right here,
which is under these big pepper trees, let me show rotation here.
So that's the back of the garage.
You guys remember the garage from our polyaspartic coating. Looks,
still looks amazing. So when we go back here,
I want the shed to be right in this zone, maybe five feet off this fence here.
So it'll be here. When I come out of the back patio,
it's going to be a total mess, but you'll hopefully see the vision here.
Let's see, coming out of the back patio. So I'm walking. Here I am walking out,
maybe hardscape will go here at some point in the future. But this area,
this back zone, the grow bag garden will move.
Probably hardscape here connecting to the shed.
Boom - shed is sitting right here. I think that'll be really nice. Okay.
I've set the area. So it's at where it's going to be. You've got this to here,
out to there, those two posts right there. So just for a better perspective,
right about there is where the new shed will go.
And I would estimate it would top out somewhere around there.
So kind of a nice little shaded backdrop area where I can store stuff in this
side here. It's about a five foot offset here. This one,
it's not five feet. It's a little less,
but I wanted to time it up or match it up to the pavers here cause I'm probably
going to try to level to some degree this area with rest of these pavers.
All right. So we're starting to shovel out.
I think the play is to keep these pavers. We'll see.
I might just remove them and throw down some gravel and actually just compact
the gravel down so it's nice and level.
Because it seems a little bit wasteful to spend a lot of money on pavers that
I'm just going to cover up,
if I can put this level surface down and the shed comes with these broad beams
that are rated 40 years. So they should sit level, provided I compact.
But right now it's about getting this little grade down right there.
It's pretty high.
So I've got to shovel out probably like a yard or two of dirt over the course of
this. So let's get back to it. Hopefully we get a good quote - about 12,
15 year life span on a flat roof and mine's sitting at about 10 right now.
So if I do solar on top of it, dumb move, you've got to replace the roof.
And what you can do is you can wrap in your roof with your solar.
So you get this combo deduction cause it's a 26% rebate
on solar this year in California, 2020.
And so if I can wrap in the roof WITH that, just think,
let's say the roof costs $10,000.
I've saved $2,600 on my roof as well.
So get a new roof for effectively,
depends on where you apply those costs.
But if you take the 26% off the solar AND the roof and then just apply it
directly to the roof, which is some funky accounting, you get,
I mean you can get half off your roof. Which is fantastic. And you know,
just something that needs to happen, big expense,
but this is what I've been saving up for. So let's go ahead and get it done.
Good morning. We're sitting here the day before the shed build out.
You can see some progress has been made.
I've still gotta lay down a little bit of a gravel pad here.
But I wanted to give you an update on solar,
roofing and the mini-split AC system. All kind of tied together in some way,
you know, I want HVAC cause the mini-split can be run as AC,
but also as a heater. You can just run that in reverse, which is really cool,
but of course it'll be electric and thus the.
Solar will power it. So, what happened there? Well, I talked with my friend,
Ben, that was a video on the channel.
And it really comes down to price per watt and the quality of the company.
So I went through a bunch of different quotes on a bunch of different companies,
eventually settled on one that I really, really liked. No nonsense.
It just gives you the price. Doesn't have all these crazy sales techniques, uh,
which, you know, for me, that's what I like.
And we went with a 4.62 kilowatt hour production system
up on top.
So there'll be 14 panels on top pushed towards the north side of the house.
Because as you can see,
I'm sitting under some trees that block a little bit of the south sun.
So we put it in an area where it's going to be getting sun more or less all day
all year long, which is exactly what we want. But to do that,
we had to get a roof. When I say we, I really just mean me. I had to get a roof.
The roof does not,
the roof's not in a condition where I could actually put solar on it.
But you can wrap part of the price of that roof into the solar because you get a
26% solar credit here in California, which is really great.
Because you get a 26% solar credit if you build your panels this year in
2020. So that's great because part of the roof, as well as the solar,
will get a 26% rebate.
Saves me a little bit of money and it makes that per watt price go down, down,
down. So we're sitting somewhere around $2 to $2.20 per watt.
I'll do a full breakdown in a future solar video. But I'm excited. I mean,
I'm going to get a new roof. This roof is 10 years old,
flat roofs have maybe a lifespan of 20 years or so.
So I'm getting a new warrantied 20 year life span flat roof,
including the garage and, and this back awning over here.
And solar and we're doing the mini-split AC system. I was going to DIY this,
but honestly it's a little intense of a process for me to DIY with the way would
the way I want to do it.
Cause I want to have one outdoor compressor into four air handlers - one in the
kitchen, one in the living room, one in the office and one in the bedroom.
And to wind like the refrigeration lines around the house in such a manner,
not really my skill set. I will let the pros do it.
And I think it would cost me more in time than it's going to in money
given that I've never done something like that before. So anyways,
I figured I would come out and wrap up the vlog out here in the future
site of the shed. Now a little sneak peek on the shed.
What I could have and maybe should have done is put down a proper gravel frame
here. I'm not going to have time to do that before the build out tomorrow.
What I'm going to do is I'm going to level out this ground here.
You can see a little higher over there.
We're going to have to probably put in some retaining wall or something at some
point later. But the shed that I'm having built is on skids and so if I want to,
I can just pull it this way,
put down a proper foundation and then forklift it back on top of that
foundation. But the wait list is crazy on these sheds.
And so I'd rather have it built, spend a little bit of extra time,
maybe a little extra money moving it and moving it back than wait another two
months to get it built. Because, as you can see,
there's quite a bit of debris at this place.
Cause I have nowhere to put anything because there's just not enough space.
And so the shed has to exist and that's what I have to get to today.
So with that said, I'm gonna leave this vlog, close it out.
Thanks so much for bearing with me. Thanks so much for watching.
Sorry about the lack of video updates lately.
It's just been a little bit crazy and I feel like I needed a little bit of a
break from going so aggressive on posting videos this spring and this summer.
So until next time, good luck in the garden and keep on growing.