- As a gardener, it is a temptation
to grow just about everything under the sun,
but there are nine crops
that us here on the "Epic Gardening" team
would grow every single season
and in this video,
we're gonna show you exactly what they are.
My first must grow veggie is,
believe it or not, squash.
This is something that most gardeners
by the end of the season, you're so sick of it,
you're literally chucking it at your neighbor's house,
you're gifting it to your friends,
but this variety, Centercut squash out of Row seven seeds
is really sort of a standout in the squash category.
So I'm gonna harvest one
and just kinda show you it really quickly.
Look at this thing.
So this is it in its summer format.
It can certainly be grown all the way through
and stored as a winter style squash.
You can eat it in either format,
but this in its more green and less mature state
is really when you wanna have it.
So the Tromboncino squash, the Italian one
is super long-necked.
This of course, the neck is long but not as long
and the flavor is really good.
It's dense, it's not watery,
it's as you can see, extremely productive.
We have all sorts of little baby squash forming
along the entirety of the plant.
I actually see a little bee in there,
pollinating that one as we speak.
It's also great as a cover
over certain parts of your garden.
For example, this arugula,
you can see this is going to seed
so what I wanna do is actually come through
and clip this stuff off
but the squash leaves can actually act
as a bit of a shade cover
for some of your more sensitive plants like this arugula.
I mean, as we go into summer,
it's not really gonna want to be growing in this environment
but if it's shaded for a little bit, then it can be
and the summer squash let's enough light through
but stops enough of the heat
that it can be a good sort of companion planted crop
but the Centercut squash is my first pick for a crop
I will always grow.
- The number one thing
that I will always grow no matter what is a tomato.
Tomatoes in general are by far my favorite garden vegetable.
Nothing gets me more excited than growing tomatoes
every single spring and summer.
You just can't beat the flavor, aroma, texture, you name it,
on a garden-grown tomato.
I haven't even found a farmer's market tomato
that competes with a homegrown tomato.
So tomatoes, definitely, bar none, I will be growing
no matter where I live, I'll figure it out.
Even if I'm an Antarctica, I'll figure out a solution.
But when it comes to a particular variety of tomato,
our personal favorite has become the Cherokee Purple tomato.
So it's not just a pretty tomato,
it has this kind of purplish brown color to it,
but it has such a rich complex flavor
that other tomatoes just don't really have.
And in particular, what I mean
is that a lot of tomatoes that you get
will either be sort of sweet or acidic.
The Cherokee Purple to me, is a very perfect balance
of that sweet and acid flavor,
but it also has this deeper rich sort of earthy umami
kind of smokiness to it.
I don't know how to best describe it,
but it just has this flavor
that's deeper than a regular tomato.
The other thing that we really like about it
is it has a really nice firm, but kind of silky flesh to it.
So it's just wonderful sliced up
on some fresh sourdough bread, in a salad,
just eating it straight up with salt.
I love Cherokee Purple tomatoes
and that's what this guy is right here.
You could see, I already have about,
I don't know, maybe a dozen or so fruit,
and they're all hanging on this trellis net,
which is doing really wonderfully.
So Cherokee Purple, definitely try it, if you haven't.
Definitely grow it, if you haven't.
- One plant that I always have in the garden is kale.
So being in the Pacific Northwest,
this climate is perfect for all sorts of brassicas.
It's cool and moist
and for these cool season crops,
they do really well throughout the year.
So with kales, I've grown many varieties,
some of them quite freely,
some that grow really, really tall
but I have fallen in love
with dazzling blue kale with its flat leaves.
So blue green leaves,
and they have this beautiful striking purple mid rib
that adds a lot of ornamental value
whether you're growing it in the garden or in a container
and I find with the flat leaf,
it's a lot easier to spot aphids
and if they're on the underside
and actually there's not a lot
of space for them to hide out,
you can easily blast them off with a jet of water
and they're just kind of gone.
So it's a great plant, really delicious
and what I also like to do is grow them
into these big tall plants.
So I let them over winter
and flower in the spring for the bees
and also if you didn't know, the yellow flowers are edible.
- The second crop I will always be growing
in my garden is garlic
and as you can see an abundance of garlic.
Once you figure out how to grow this crop successfully,
it's taken us maybe two years to figure out for our climate
either the right varieties or the right techniques
but this is such an absolute staple
because it stays good for so long
once you're done growing it
and come on, you use it in pretty much everything
and you're cooking,
so for example,
let's just take an example one right here like this, right?
So here's a nice head of garlic,
it's been sitting out for quite some time now
and all I really need to do to prepare this for storage
is just give it a little trim on the root side here
so the roots are nice and trimmed up
and I can come through and just chop off the neck.
There you go
and if there's a little dirt on it, I just brush this off
and take maybe one of the papery layers away.
And there you go,
you have an absolutely gorgeous head of garlic
that you can store.
So if you're storing hard neck,
it'll store three four months,
soft neck it'll store six to nine months
and like I said,
once you figure out how to grow this crop,
it is one of the best things you can have
for long term flavor in your kitchen.
So we have a couple guides,
actually three part series on growing garlic,
I highly encourage you to check out
but we've tried it for many years.
We have a lot of success with it,
that's why it will always be in my garden.
- The next item on the list is actually hidden
underneath this cover right here,
which I will reveal and show you in a second,
but that is the Biquinho pepper.
So these are also called little beak peppers,
they're popular in Brazil and we've been growing the yellow
and the red variety for a while now,
it just come to be
one of our most favorite peppers to grow.
It makes a really fantastic hot sauce
that has this really rich, sweet tropical flavor to it
but also has some tartness and the perfect amount of heat.
These are the kind of pepper
where you could actually just grab it
and eat the whole thing raw
and it definitely has a kick
but it's not enough to knock you out
so that's the kind of peppers we like to grow.
We like growing sweet peppers
and we like growing slightly spicy peppers.
The kind where you could actually eat the whole thing
and appreciate the flavor.
So let me take off this cover
and show you what it looks like
'cause it's a nice little plant.
So here's the little Biquinho pepper itself.
It's honestly, a very sort of adorable plant.
It's got these little leaves
and tiny little flowers and peppers
but once this thing gets going,
it absolutely gets going
because anything that makes smaller peppers
is going to be producing way more volume of actual pepper
like individual peppers than you would from a larger one.
So you could already tell right away,
this is a pepper from Europe right here next to it
which has this big leaf
and this one has this really nice small leaf
which is typical from this type of pepper.
Now, the other thing I wanted to mention about this one
is that this one will actually produce well into our winter
so meaning like November,
I'll actually still be getting ripe fruit
that are still flavorful and delicious.
So if you're looking for a pepper
that does well in a variety of climates
including our coastal climate and including into winter,
the Biquinho pepper is not going to just do it for you,
it's also going to provide a very delicious little pepper
that could be used raw pickled and hot sauces cooked,
you name it, great pepper to have in the kitchen.
- This tall structure behind me here
doesn't have anything on it quite yet,
but very soon both the front
and the back will be covered with pole beans.
Now I love growing pole beans
because the plants are super easy and they are not fussy
and I like training them up nice and tall,
not only is it beautiful,
but it makes for easy harvesting.
Actually, I go down here
and harvest all the stuff that's dangling inside
and another tip with harvesting,
if you're not too fussy with the variety,
go for ones with colorful pods.
I like purple and golden potted ones
as opposed to green ones
because you can see them a lot easier
against the green leaves,
making harvesting really fast and easy.
I currently have two favorite varieties.
First one is Trionfo Violetto
which is a slender Italian variety.
It has purple pods, very sweet.
Unfortunately when they're cooked,
the purple disappears and turns green
but the flavor is still there whether raw or cooked
and there's also Goldmarie
which is a flatter Romano style,
very sweet, crisp, and delicious.
Now, one thing I forgot to mention with pole beans
and why I love growing them
is there's a lot of organic matter up here.
At the end of the season,
I chop and drop and let all of those leaves in the stems,
lay on top of the soil surface
and that protects the bed as we enter the winter months.
- I think it's no surprise
that the third plant I'm always gonna put in the garden
is a potato.
I've grown these in just about every way
you could humanly think of
and in fact, in 2019,
you guys remember I lived off primarily potatoes
for a month when I tried my apocalypse survival challenge.
So potatoes always have a place in my heart,
but as a edible crop to put in the garden,
you're not gonna find something
that is more calorically dense
and easier to grow.
So it's the combination of those two factors
that make potatoes a must plant for me.
For example, if I want to plant these,
I'm using something that's a little bit absurd,
it's the power planter attachment for just a standard drill.
I really like this,
but you just come in, - (drill buzzing)
drill down, - (drill buzzing)
you have a potato that is chilling
or the eyes are sprouting.
Throw it in,
cover it up,
barely water it ever during the course of its life,
as soon as it sprouts, problem solved.
So we just, - (drill buzzing)
(fire bombing)
calories,
(fire bombing)
calories,
(fire bombing)
hash Browns,
(fire bombing)
french fries.
(fire bombing)
It's just that easy guys.
Throw some mulch on,
you can hill 'em if you want.
We've done a couple different videos
on different potato methods,
grow bags, in ground, in raised beds, et cetera,
pretty much all of them work.
I prefer this method where you bury them deep
and ignore them.
You'll get an incredible amount
of produce coming outta the garden
and honestly you'll probably get surprised potatoes
coming out every now and then as well.
So potatoes, for that reason are my third plant
that I will always have in my garden.
- The last item for my three
is actually a little bit of cheating
and I'm going to say it's herbs, herbs, and herbs.
So right here, I'm sitting before my herbed
and in here I have things like pineapple sage,
French Tarragon, chives, thyme, green onions, cilantro,
dill, parsley, sage, and basil, and chamomile.
So I love herbs.
We use them every single day
and if there's one thing that you could do in your garden
to transform the way you cook and eat,
it's to actually grow your own herbs.
They have way more flavor
and usually when you buy herbs at the store,
it's really expensive and underwhelming
'cause you have to throw away half of what you bought.
But the beautiful thing about the garden is that
is as you plant it,
you can just pick exactly what you want
whenever you need it.
So it's really a wonderful thing.
I highly recommend everybody start an herb garden
and let me tell you, I've got a whole bunch of herb seeds
'cause I love trying new herbs,
but if I was going to choose a favorite,
I would highly recommend you guys try savory.
This is summer savory
and I personally like it a lot
because in Bulgaria,
it's the primary sort of seasoning herb of choice.
There's also winter savory
which is a lot heartier
and in our zone it's actually perennial year-round
giving us fresh herbs year-round.
So herbs don't sleep on the herb garden
and if you haven't, definitely try out summer savory.
- As much as I'd love to grow beef steak tomatoes
where I live, the growing season is sometimes cut short
by cold springs or early fall conditions.
So cherry and currant sized tomatoes are my best bet.
There are two cherry varieties
which are kind of my favorites
and they're actually quite similar,
black cherry and chocolate cherry.
Both of them have this dark brownish red skin
and flavor wise,
they're sweet, smokey and syrupy
so they're very, very delicious
and what I love about the plants themselves
is that the fruit are born on these large trusses.
So not only is it easy to keep track
of the fruit on the vine,
but at the end of the season,
when I do need to collect the unripe fruit off the plant,
I can snip the entire truss off,
take it inside and it's a lot easier to manage
than having individual fruit
that you're trying to ripen indoors.
I also like growing currant or wild tomatoes.
Yes, the plants do get kind of big and sprawly
but the fruit is quite unique
and flavorful.
I've grown Cheese Mania
which is a lovely yellow one
and this is new to me.
This is an heirloom Canadian variety called Petite Moynote.
- So there you have it, nine different crops
we think here at epic garden
that we absolutely love and should be in everyone's garden
and a little quick bonus for you, Calendula,
this can be used in the garden,
beautifully, in the kitchen, incredibly
and actually the chicken's like it a lot,
it darkens their yolk
so a little bonus for you
but if there's something you think we missed,
let me know down in the comments,
what is a must grow in your garden?
And until next time,
good luck in the garden and keep on growing.