today i snuck up to the epic assistant
natalie on our team this is her place i
see some beds here i see some birdies
beds right here let's go on back and
take you on a tour of natalie's house
and i'll tell you what guys
i'm already seeing a little treat that i
like right here
we've got some loquats these are one of
the best
underrated fruits you're ever going to
have
absolutely delicious i'm gonna take one
more for good measure here let's go find
her
and i see her right here hey kevin
what's up hey so natalie is our
executive assistant here on the epic
gardening team and she has an incredible
primarily container garden that's
correct over 100 containers 100
containers indoors and outdoors and she
has an incredible cat that's hanging out
trying to escape right now so natalie's
going to show you every little nook and
cranny of her container garden and i
think you guys are going to absolutely
love it okay so as you can see i have
these awesome containers yeah these were
on sale um they're just like regular
like rubbermaid containers so you can
find it home depot or sure like 10 10 or
15 bucks yeah that was actually on sale
for four dollars a pop
there you go um and then i have these
grow bags here that i got like two or
three years ago um they're really great
to use because i can
coat both these and the baskets all
around the garden yeah so are you moving
these at all because of the sun and
we're just kind of shifting just
reshuffled everything so it'd be ready
for you guys to come but it was
completely different before
um
these are all like shadier areas over
here because it gets blocked by that
wall and by this shade yeah where's
north south east west india um so that's
west okay east north south got it yeah
so you're you're getting a little
blocked on your southern exposure yeah
um one tip that i want to show you is
what i do with my brussels sprouts to
make sure i can keep growing them when
it gets hot yes so that's a huge problem
here in san diego you guys are always
complaining about your bugs with your
brussels sprouts and i don't have the
same problem so i think you should try
my tree i think we should um if you look
here you'll see that the brussels
sprouts are covered in white powder that
is diatomaceous earth and what that does
is basically dry out it's tiny little
particles that get in the skin of the
bugs and it dries them out so what i
just kind of slices them open yeah yeah
and so what i do is i just coat that um
it doesn't rain here enough i probably
do it like once a week and then i don't
have any problems with aphids um any
caterpillars or anything like that
because they just don't want to be on
there yeah we've tried i mean we've
tried it before i think we may have done
it during some rainy seasons or
something we got a little discouraged
but yeah we'll try it again because the
aphids are a nasty pest on these
brassicas guys it's gnarly yeah the
other thing i do to help with pests is
like co-plant so you can say i have
three different kinds of gar uh yeah
you've got dustin dusty miller here
right and then you've got looks like
charred or beef these are yeah and then
this is the brussels sprouts and there's
actually carrots in here too and you can
see that these have actually been eaten
by like a caterpillar or something and
that's fine with me because i carry it
somewhere else so yeah protecting the
good stuff eating the stuff i don't
really care about so we've got more
totes around here it looks like we got
some fava beans some onions some red
kale and then peppers peppers yup
peppers onions
these are going to be squashes and then
back here we have fennel oh nice yeah
yeah rosemary um so are you ever
planting one thing in one tote pretty
much no no never i always put more than
one thing in a tote usually a flower a
vegetable and a fruit okay so you're
doing like a classic inner planting
technique yeah is that something you
learn because you said you grew up
gardening you guys know i didn't grow up
gardening i probably picked it up in my
early 20s
you have a bit of a crazy story natalie
yes i do yeah so growing up i learned
how to garden by my family um i would
consider it a cruelty environment and so
i got to spend a lot of time outside
with my grandpa learning how to grow
beans let me show you my beans just like
the ones that i had when i was younger
yeah
[Music]
okay container alley here yeah so these
are my beans they're green beans always
remind me of my grandpa he used to have
huge rows of them that he would throw
over these large trellises yeah and i
remember walking down there as a kid
picking the beans one of my favorite
times where did you grow up um in
seattle washington okay okay cool in a
cult in a cult in a culture and a cult
that's where that's where natalie grew
up and so you have an interesting
perspective on gardening because
obviously
i don't know much about it but it it
sounds like preservation
canning prepping survivalist elements
are in that absolutely so you've got
that it's sort of in your dna yeah i do
and you know i've taken all the best
parts of what i learned since i've left
the cold and turned it into this
beautiful garden you see now yeah so
talk to me about the
system here because it's it's grow bags
almost exclusively but you kind of did
this little trellising or terracing
action yeah so when i moved in this was
just a completely dirt lot um and there
was a big erosion problem uh that's
where my dryer is and i would wake up
every time it rained to a mud puddle in
my dryer so i decided to use these
garden beds to do actually like uh
terraform the hillside so that it
doesn't have an erosion problem anymore
yeah so i actually started at the top
and i would dig out a little circle
for every single garden bag so that it's
even down there oh okay so you flatten
that one spot flatten the one spot and
then i place it and then i move down and
then i find that spot and i plant it so
i moved down the hill one by one that
way honestly probably took me like 12
hours to do this yeah because i mean
anytime you're doing something like this
it takes time to make sure that you're
not messing with the erosion or yeah and
it's clay under here hard clay so i was
like
friend of mine had some in a situation
like this in his front yard he did all
wildflowers same slope and it just
do you have a really eclectic collection
of things in grow bags and you guys know
we we actually wrote a book on grow bags
called grow bag gardening so there's a
lot of different things that we can show
off here that i think are really cool
like pomegranate right here pomegranate
so this actually has two fruits
pomegranate and down here strawberries
that's a great inner plant let me show
you
a little little quick taste nice ripe
strawberry here's one for you okay thank
you
cheers
sun ripe and strawberry oh that's good
strawberries you've got another dusty
miller here you've got this is a rose
yeah these are favorite roses and they
actually turn red they go yellow to red
so you can see right here this is a new
one it's yellow it goes to this orange
color and then it spins this smells so
good doesn't smell so good guess where i
got them walter anderson food for less
food for less food for less okay so talk
to me about the budgeting of a garden
like this yes there's there's different
scales of course at my house we go a
little hard and a little crazy and i can
imagine this probably didn't cost you
that much it didn't a big part of
prepping is making sure that you uh are
living within your means so what i do is
take a lot of cuttings yeah um this
group from a cutting that grew from a
cutting
uh this grew from a cutting a lot of my
roses came from cuttings as you know
these two came from food for less they
were on sale for a dollar each their
bare root roses wow and i saved them
look how gorgeous they are they were
sold as bare root or they were just so
dead that they were no they were sold
but they were also kind of dead yeah
what i love about yours is first of all
the visual the look of it is really nice
but just the eclectic planting that
you've got going on and then under the
slimmer verbena you have a strawberry
you have a beet so in that you have uh
you know lots of food are you looking at
15 these are all 15s right yep yeah 15
gallon grow bags 50 gallon grow bags 15
gallon guys is pretty much the size you
can do the most with it you can get a
little pomegranate tree in there and you
can get strawberries and a tomato and
it's attainable for pretty much any
able-bodied person um i am small i'm
five foot two on a good day and um i can
pick this up like
no problem there you go yeah yeah it's a
good workout though so after a day of
moving this sure feeling buff sure all
right let's check out this other side
and let me show you my cool color garden
okay cool so you'll find more dusty
miller i like to play this at entrances
to create an entryway experience i
learned that landscape architecture okay
so what's your love i love this plant
but what is what is the reason that it
shows up so much in your garden um it's
super easy to grow these are all from
cuttings of one plant wow um over here i
have a lot of different kinds of salvias
which are native to this area gorgeous
and you're saying this is your cool
color area cool color area over there is
my hot color area my warm colors this is
my cool colors um so over here i have uh
beets interplanted i have that is a
watermelon right there no way yep a
little watermelon i'm not gonna let it
spread
let it sprawl over
yep these are more beets um this is a
rosemary and these are some of those
fava beans that you saw over there yeah
yeah um and then under here
is a little pepper that i started from
seed look at that so it's going it's you
know it's gonna be a banana pepper
what's cool natalie about your approach
is
one bag three purposes and then many
bags and how much square footage do you
think you're working with in the
backyard ooh
not not much i mean it's like
300 something square yeah
space yeah and a lot of it's on a hill
so i reclaim some of that space too by
planting on the slope and then even look
at this like what you guys notice is you
notice how natalie's kind of escaping
this rosemary i mean this is a very well
pruned and managed one you can see if
she's sort of chopping the tops off here
so you have like this one beautiful
plant that's really going to last you
like as long as you need it to yeah and
in container gardening it's really
important to have correct pruning
because that root structure needs to
support the plant the best it can so
with this rosemary i cut it back about
four weeks ago and then another four
weeks i expected to be popping off new
shoots perfect okay i see something i
like over here something actually that's
new for us that i've been using for a
few years now the airpod
i love this airpod i want more of them
they're so much better than the viv
sunbathing we'll hit you up
with it you're on the team we're gonna
get hooked up um so this tree actually
came from jacques yes garden jacques
um he gave me this fig he had propagated
it from a tree that they chopped down on
his friend's property yep yep and as you
can see down here i have it in planted
with strawberries and this is going to
be another watermelon
and what i'm going to do is i'm going to
let the watermelon grow down this slope
and so there'll be a little melon path
and that'll be nice so the thing we like
by the way guys on these air pots is
effectively it's like a different
version of a grow bag where you can see
the sides have all these little holes
cut out of them and basically it just
air prunes which is really really really
good for container trees because you're
not going to get that root girl at the
bottom where it circles around it's an
ogee old school way we love them so much
we actually put them on the store pretty
recently i would say yeah i would love
to see more of these in my garden
because they're really aesthetic like
they look cool they look modern they
look neat yeah and they actually hook in
really well to like if you had five in a
row just pop irrigation on each of them
it works really well the other thing i
really like is eventually i'm gonna need
to pop this up it's really easy to do
you just basically unwrap it so right
here you see there's this hole right
here this little screw right here you
just unscrew it unwrap it and then put
it in another pot that makes it so much
easier when i found this i think i found
it like maybe three years ago three four
years ago and i was growing indoors in
my old place yeah and the thing i loved
is that when you get it it's literally
just a flat sheet that you roll into the
container and then it comes with a
container bottom cool product totally
anyways so you got a little bit more
stuff going on back here let me tell you
about this sunflowers random sunflowers
i had sunflowers in my yard last year i
noticed that one of them was gone and a
gopher had actually pulled it down a
hole
this year
this popped up where the sunflower was
after the gopher pulled it down the hole
so he did you a favor i guess he just he
just made it perennial for you that's
all he did direct so from a gopher yeah
um so i let it grow and then i will grab
the seeds from it once it's ready and
grow more seeds next year
okay so how come we've got some bags
over here these are are these
quarantines or no these are actually
shade so you see that this fence right
here yep um blocks the sun for the most
of the day these are my celery my mint
other things i don't like the sun very
much my
so you can see that this has bolted and
i was trying to protect that from the
sun sure okay we'll see that and then
actually i have loquat starts you were
talking about how loqua is such a
underserved fruit um these are straight
from the tree so i just plotted these
these are about a year old you just put
the soil um
you put the seed right on the soil on
the top just like right there you
actually don't feel it in the low quad
yeah it's a huge seed um i can actually
show you some seeds and then this is one
year old
and i plan on planting a few every year
so that i can give them out to my
friends there you go yeah loquats i mean
we talk about them a lot here in san
diego they grow really well it's like
one of the most interesting flavors it's
sort of like a tropical peach but yeah
the the plants themselves are kind of
expensive yeah they're gonna start and
then each each fruit has like at least
two or three seeds in it
if i harvest it off the tree at my house
you know that one that thing would have
thousands of seeds so if i really wanted
to start a loquat nursery i probably
could you know i just might
all right kev so here i want to show you
my seed starting table okay it looks
like we have a new guest here
so sandy likes to sit here behind the
window and i do too every morning watch
my seeds so here you can see i have the
four cells and the six cells i'm
actually using the six cells to
propagate i was gonna say you've got a
unique little set up here show you what
i'm doing here so these are salvias like
i said so i told you i grew those from
propagation yeah these are salvias being
propagated in epic six cell yeah so
you've made good use of the bottom dome
and top dome that we have we created
these little individuals
either way it's like if you have one of
the epixel trays you can put on an
individual humidity dome and bottom tray
if you're a smaller space gardener like
you natalie this can be really good
because
this plant might just need humidity and
nothing else does so it's great to do
that in the tray anyways you've got this
going on and you've also got some yeah i
like to recycle cheap and free so you
can see sometimes i do buy six cells i
keep them and then i use them to pot up
stuff that's really small yep
you got a strawberry tin strawberry tin
that i'm also using to propagate i have
some roses in here tomatoes a cuban
oregano and
a salvia honestly strawberry things are
perfectly designed for propagation
because you got the ventilation holes
and then you got the the humidity and
it's great because you can't actually
usually recycle clam shells and so this
is a way to reuse it and reduce that
actually impact really almost all
plastic like 90 of all plastic is thrown
away even if you throw it into the
recycling bin it's crazy it has to be
like clean it has to be number five
there's all these different rules so it
looks like we've got a couple other
things is there a reason why some of
these totes are in this particular area
yeah so if you look closely in here i'm
actually starting a bunch of different
plants and so it's kind of in the shade
you pull this nasturtium back i have
geraniums that i cut and are propagating
right here so it's like a prop station
yep and it gets the same south facing so
it gets the shade for most of the day
um and i'm propagating all in these guys
there's all different kinds of starts in
here amazing
and then it looks like we got a couple
house plants going down here yeah i have
some house plants hydrangeas are my
favorite those are gorgeous those are
gorgeous look at this i mean
how do you feel how do you beat that who
doesn't love that it's just so it's my
favorite color periwinkle yeah they're
so pretty
um and of course i have vegetables mixed
in here so i have some squash some
tomatoes some herbs these are actually
carrots that i'm going to be pulling for
the stew later
and over here more fava beans so as we
kind of get to back to this cool zone
and see the rest of the garden
how long do you think this took you to
set up and how much do you think you
probably spent like just roughly so i
probably have spent like about eight
hundred dollars on my garden in the past
year and a half it's not bad um most of
that was actually on soil yeah because i
was able to get really good deals on the
bags and the bins and all that um
if you add in the price for plants maybe
i've spent like two or three hundred
dollars on the plants themselves so
total thousand bucks yeah
very similar to how jacques approached
his garden back in the day a lot of time
not a lot of budget which is a perfectly
valid way to do it so something a little
special natalie told me a couple weeks
ago she said
hey kev
i'm not going to be available this this
afternoon which is totally fine
because
i'm going out to learn how to harvest
rabbits that's correct and i did not
know that that was something that she
was into but she went out she took the
afternoon off and went out and
dispatched some rabbits because you
wanted to see if you could handle it
yeah i can't and i learned i'm actually
very good at making it a soothing
experience for the rabbit and that's the
very most humane way to do it right and
so this kind of ties to i guess your
upbringing right and your desire to be
self-sufficient and so what we're going
to do right now
is harvest a few things
and bring it inside and kind of wrap it
up there with a little bit of a rabbit
stupid operation
yeah let's do it we're going to harvest
some carrots for the stew all right uh
you know how to pull a carrot just go
ahead and you know the secret is oh look
at these little guys
these carrots are always a little
surprise aren't they yeah did you thin
at all or no i did these you should pull
this one because that one looks huge
these have been thinned like four or
five times actually i make a stew out of
them this is the last the smallest
that's why we have a little bit of a
smaller harvest here not bad though not
bad at all perfect here i'll grab those
from you okay these onions are actually
really cool they're from a friend of
mine and her grandma actually brought
them over when she emigrated here to
ellis island no way so so these are og
these are og onions okay cool they're
really cool so
just kind of you're getting all of them
i'm actually going to because i'm going
to make some onion powder too later
so i'm just gonna she's just on that
level guys she's just absolutely on that
level
shake those boys out
all right there we go next
look at these these are nice yeah like
small little bulbs at the bottom but
perfect for dicing up and the greens are
really good too yeah um so we're going
to take some of this fennel
i'm actually just going to pull this
whole guy
baby bulb
boop there you go
and we're going to get some of these
fava beans this is my first fava harvest
of the year
if you look down at the bottom of the
stock you'll see the ones that are nice
and plumpy oh yeah look at these guys
fava guys is really nice just just as a
soil improver as well that has two pods
in it yep
two little beans this one probably has
three three or four yeah all right let's
go inside okay let's see this rabbit
we have brought all of our goods inside
there's one extra good here natalie that
i remember you you dispatched this
yourself which i actually highly respect
if you're going to consume me guys this
rabbit
we're going to put it in the stew
and
this kind of ties that lady to like what
you've told me before like you have a
five year plan yes right you want what i
want a homestead i want a homestead i
want to be like you know a bachelor at
pad where i grow all my food all my
vegetables all my meat self-sustaining
uh apocalypse surviving there you go so
we you guys know we did this on the
channel actually 2019 and we might do it
pretty soon this summer so stay tuned
for that natalie it's been awesome
seeing your garden there's a lot of cool
houseplants in here which we'll probably
take a look at while you're prepping
this stew for another video sometime but
until next time guys good luck in the
garden and keep on growing