(both laughing loudly)
- Jacque and Kay, back again.
Sunny day summer's here.
Pretty much.
- Feels like it's getting here.
- It's getting here,
which means summer crops are getting here.
They're in the greenhouse, they're in the seed cabinet.
They need to get in the garden.
So today is the summer seed soiree.
(bright upbeat music)
So Jacque, I've got a bit of a potato harvest that I've done
over the weekend.
- I saw it was pretty thick looking, harvest upset.
- It was a massive yield 'cause we had late blight,
basically is what happened to our potatoes.
I left these 'cause they don't have it.
- Yeah, they actually look a lot better.
- And so we're gonna let those run
because as you've said and as I've learned,
really just let the top foliage die completely.
That's really your best bet.
So what that means is this area is now open for business
at the old store of Kevin.
I mean look at this though, like...
- I just grab the potato.
- What was this?
- I mean that's like a nice little
chunk of organic matter, right?
- That's some om if I ever seen some.
So what I'm gonna do though, Jacque, I don't...
I don't have any bio-one I'm just gonna use tomato tone.
I'm gonna do a big sprinkle 'cause we're putting corn
in a chunk of this bed here, (coughing loudly).
Let me get, all right,
- Let's see if we find any potatoes in here.
- The problem is there's potatoes deep guaranteed.
- All right.
- I want you to though, tell the world
what you think about Russian banana?
- Garbage.
Don't ever grow that potato.
We've tried it two years in a row in both of our gardens.
It is a POS of a potato if I've ever seen one.
There's no point in growing them.
There's no point in eating them, they're garbage.
All we're trying to do here is just level and mix.
We're going in with corn.
We're gonna have to go over there Jacque,
because we've got the seedlings.
- Ooh...
- the seeds.
Maybe. - Why don't take
that little lunch?
(both laughing loudly)
We'll put it in the back pocket.
- Feel like a king over here.
So anyways, we're just leveling.
- Oh my god, dude, (laughing loudly).
- Really?
- Dude, what's going on?
- No way.
- A little...
- 'my girlfriend and I really spent time Jacque
trying to harvest, but...
- 'there might be a honey hole over here.
- Might be a little honey pot.
I remember this was a fruitful area.
- Oh, that'... - I'll say that's much.
- That's, that's it.
- You know what?
Just for the people.
Just for the people, just for you guys.
We'll do it, we'll do a little potato harvest right now.
- Okay. - Why not?
We'll do one.
This one's really not looking that great, to be honest.
- That's fair.
- So here's what I like to do, I do this.
- Oh...
- I know I'm gonna get nearly none off the actual, right?
- But what I'm looking at this...
- It's not bad.
- Really impressive.
- So here's what I do.
I go, here's the center, right?
I come off the center and I try to undercut the whole thing,
the whole zone, right?
- Right, show me that gold.
- Potato sphere as we call it.
- Oh...
- Look at that.
- Oh, little abo...
Oh, just the casual bonus right there.
(indistinct)
My experience in grow bags with potatoes
is a little bit disappointing,
but when I grew them in ground or in a raised bag,
I'm very impressed.
- Yeah.
I think what you really need is they can push their way
through as we've seen some pretty tough soil conditions.
- 'yeah, totally.
- But the (indistinct) is in that front yard bed
that we just recently pulled.
Those ones did quite well in a pretty loose mix.
Why don't you break down what's in the box.
- So we got some popcorn.
I don't know if we need a whole bed of popcorn,
but... - 'probably not.
- We have two different kinds of strawberry one.
I know you've grown that one before.
- Yeah, I'll skip that this year, it was nice though.
It's nice.
- And then we got honey and cream.
- Okay, that's a sweet corn obviously.
- Yeah, which sounds really nice.
It's 84 days, so it's a pretty standard.
- Yeah.
- 'then we got...
- so it's May 2nd or third right now.
- Yes.
- So knee high by the 4th of July actually puts us
in a good position for that
probably will be a little bit higher.
- This one over here, sugar baby, 2065 days.
- I mean...
- 'so if you're in a cold climate,
that's the one you're definitely gonna want to grow.
- I'm interested in doing a double block den.
- Sure.
Oh yeah, there's probably enough space, yeah, there is.
- Yeah.
- 20 days of space?
- Yeah.
- And then there's butter, gold, and 60 day variety.
- When you say 20 days of space, Jacque, what do you mean?
- So if it takes...
This says it'll take 63, let's just say one's 81 60.
- Yeah.
- So there's 20 days in between
when they're ready to harvest,
which means that when they tassel or produce pollen
and flower, then they'll be separated.
They'll have enough gap
that they're not gonna cross pollinate and create a hybrid.
- Because it would be a very big mistake
if we had planted two different varieties
with the same days to maturity next to one another.
Because when you eat corn is a bunch of seeds.
- (chuckles) Yeah.
- And so the actual cross pollination is what you're eating.
Unlike something like, you know peppers where yes,
those seeds would be cross pollinated in theory,
but it doesn't really matter
'cause you're eating the fruit flesh
more than you are the seed.
- It's kind of a weird distinction.
But, basically when they pollinate
whatever forms is what you're getting,
and that's what you're eating.
So you don't really...
Since these are both sweet,
it probably doesn't matter that much,
but if one was like popcorn, one was sweet...
- 'you wouldn't yeah, - that'd be a good time,
- you're not gonna have a good time.
Not gonna have good time.
- It will effectively, it'll ruin both.
- Yeah.
- So I'm just pre moistening and sort of shaping this bed
level 'cause we're gonna direct, so the corn,
and I'm gonna give it a nice soak afterwards
because corn's a pretty tough hole.
I wanna make sure that it actually germinates.
(gentle music)
All right.
- So...
- What do you got for me?
- The board is gonna give you something very satisfying.
- Yeah.
- Which is an extremely straight line.
- Yeah.
- So if we were to plant rows of corn.
- Yeah.
- Just go like this.
That's gonna be a perfect straight line of corn like that.
So we could separate our grids.
Have like really tight spacing, really linear corn.
- You know what I like too?
Now that you've put me on this.
- Yes.
- Here's what I like.
I like saying here's my bed edge, right?
- Yeah.
- So we're gonna come in, we're gonna do a board.
- Yeah, and you can shoot it down.
Carry that way down line.
So now that's a perfectly essentially straight line.
We could plant in a very nice row right there.
- Yep.
So we'll do that, we'll go six inches, right?
There it is, we'll do this.
- Yeah, I did all my three sisters' corn six inches apart.
So the two we're gonna end up planting are honey and cream
and butter gold.
Butter gold is 63 days honey and cream is 84 days.
So that should give us a nice separation.
Both are sweet corns.
(bright upbeat music)
- We talked potatoes, now we're talking sweet potatoes,
which as you might know,
aren't actually even close to the same plant.
They don't grow really the same way.
Almost at all.
- Yeah.
- At least from the plants out, you know?
- Yeah, like you can't take a cutting from a potato
and plant it and get more pot...
At least I don't think you can.
You might be able to.
- So we're going in with sweet potatoes.
These are slips.
So this is what comes, you're gonna have the potato here,
it's gonna root up.
There's gonna be roots on the bottom
of the potato in the jar
and then you're gonna break these off.
And then these will root as they are here.
And then you go ahead and plant these.
So we have what, four different varieties?
- Yep.
I like these Japanese ones.
- Actually really just wanna go with Japanese.
Just only in this one. - Let's do it.
- 'Cause I really like these (indistinct).
- They're like less,
the thing I usually don't like about sweet potatoes is that
they're honestly usually too sweet for me.
- Really?
- And the masaki, the Japanese style,
like with the white inside...
- 'look at the leaf.
Or sorry, the root.
- Oh yeah, that's gonna go, that's gonna go...
- Yeah, that's gonna be really nice.
- But yeah, they just taste better to me.
- So Jacque, I'm just gonna...
This had the (indistinct) potatoes
we were talking about earlier with a huge yield about,
there're about five potatoes in here.
I think we got about 15, 20 pounds
out of just this birdie's tall round bed here.
And so we're gonna do a big amend.
- Reason being?
- Well why not?
But also that sweet tea's long season crop.
- That's true.
- Let's give him something to chew on down here.
But the reason I chose this bed jock
is because this soil is already pretty loose.
- Oh yeah, you're right.
- And the sweet potatoes really want a bit of sand
if you can get it in there,
there's not a lot of sand in here,
but it's far looser soil than the average bed that I've got.
I don't know why, it's just...
- I mean, we definitely tore it up
when we pulled the potatoes out.
- Yeah.
- So that helps a little bit.
- But even before that,
the potatoes were growing in relatively loose
you know, so I think you go one there,
you know, you could just do this...
- 'oh four and then one in the middle...
- 'four, and then one in the middle like that.
I think you just do that. - I think that works.
- That's easy, okay.
You could do my new favorite method
of planting the trile slide in.
I love just about to try, you come in...
- Boom.
- Pull it to the side. - Oops.
Yeah, when it's wet, it works a lot better.
- Better when it's wet.
Well, (clears throat) excuse me.
- Anyway, (laughing loudly) go in there.
- 'as they say.
So there you go, so pretty deep in, pretty deep.
There's even a case.
Look, that's a root nodule that would come out right there.
- Yeah.
- I think there's a strong case for me
to go even a little bit deeper.
- I'm gonna do the fast pull pop in.
- So, okay, let's hear it.
Oh, okay.
- Okay, okay.
That actually works.
- I don't mind that, I don't mind that at all.
So I go, here's what I do now.
I come in, I do the seismic shift.
See?
- (chuckles) Oh, I like that.
- Look at that, look at that.
It comes in a little bit lower every time.
It's very customizable.
You can get it to the exact depth that you want.
- I'm here for that.
- I think last year, Jacque, we did in the wine barrels
we did those two potatoes.
- Yeah.
- And we just planted them far too late.
I would say certainly a month at least after this.
- Yeah, just do too late.
The other thing is that over there
they get a little bit of afternoon shade.
- Yeah.
- Here it's gonna get full sun blasted all year round.
- Blasted by...
- 'probably gonna get some big potatoes outta here.
- I think so.
And sweet potatoes and potatoes by far
some of my favorite plants to consume.
- High calorie yielding too.
- Yeah, high calorie.
- So we got sweet potatoes in.
Do we wanna add any more up here?
Do we want to do 'em in the back?
I don't know.
- Yeah, I mean, I think here's the tricky part for me.
You don't want just to be sweet potato.
- 'well this is timing.
Like those onions right behind you in
that short urban round looking really good,
but they're not ready.
You need that neck to be cracked, right?
These ones over here in the original eight and one,
they're looking amazing,
but they're still about a month from a crack, right.
Good and what I mean by that is that
that chute that's coming up, you want it to look like this
before you harvest the onion.
That means that it's actually dyed off at that point
and you have a tighter seal at the top of the onion.
Especially after you cure it.
- Dude, those are big onions too.
- Come on, come over.
Come over and look at these onions guys.
Come over and look at these onions, these are crazy.
I mean, come on, look at this guy.
- That one's also huge.
There's a huge one over there.
- Well, what's crazy dude is, I mean, look at that hunker.
- Yeah look, here's a hand for scale.
- Hand for scale.
So, (laughing loudly)
- 'but here's what's crazy. - That's a big boy.
- You think this one's like just not bowled up yet?
False, it just simply, isn't revealed.
See?
- Damn, good potato year or onion year.
Good potato and onion year.
- Yeah, I mean it's been a good year in general.
- His leaks look fabulous too.
- What do you think?
Should we...
- 'you wanna do a test pull?
Ah, I mean they're ready whenever, right?
- I kind of don't, but I kind of do.
This one looks like it you could make a case to pull it.
- Wow, there's some strong roots.
- This is what I was slightly worried about
is I didn't hill the leaks up at all.
So I don't have a ton of white material here.
I could use about that much of the leak
for classic leak purposes.
Of course you could figure out something to do with this,
but you know, it's more of a would you, smells good though?
Smell really good. - That smell good.
- They're coming into the greenhouse.
We're gonna raid the tomatoes.
And it's not even a raid Jacque,
because I think they are crying to be taken, right?
- Yes I agree.
- So I've got some in the four cells.
Got some in the six cells.
Got some clones over here.
Rootstock, tomatoes over here.
What's your philosophy on tomatoes this year?
Every year we sort of change, you know.
- I agree, so this year, first of all, I'm rotating.
I'm not planning in the same bed.
- Right.
- I got hit with the (indistinct).
- Yep.
- And then second of all,
I'm not putting 'em all in one bed.
So before I just stack them and rows, exactly
now I have separate rows, different areas for that airflow.
I need that airflow.
- So are you doing separate rows for the airflow?
But are you gonna say like beefsteak row, slicer row?
- I have a big boy row.
- Yeah.
- And then I have another big boy row there.
- You got small boy. - And then need some
my cherry toms cherry, my little babies, yeah
- All right well here's where I'm at.
I'm at...
I want to target no more than three, two...
No more than four of each classic type.
No more than four cherries, no more than four beefsteaks.
No more than four heirlooms. - Got it.
- And so, I mean, look, I've got red, yellow, brandywine.
To me that's a go. - put it in.
- So that's a one, right?
San Marzano.
Now if it's a paste,
I'm gonna go a little higher
because I can do whatever
the hell I want with paste, right?
- Yeah, I agree.
- So I'm gonna go, San Marzano
I'm gonna put all four of those in probably.
And that's a good candidate for your method where you say,
this is my paste zone, you know,
rainbow blend cherry
that goes in. - 'throw it in,
- That goes in.
- So I honestly like...
- 'super sweet a 100 F1?
- Yeah.
I think at this point in the season,
like the advantages of putting up don't matter anymore.
- Sun gold.
- So let's just pop 'em.
- Pop 'em, pop 'em, drop 'em.
Wild bore beauty king that's going in a 100%.
- 'yeah, that was one of your favorites lester.
- We have Amish paste.
So I'm starting to get this idea in my head guys
of it's cannon season, you know?
So I'm going...
- They're trying to preserve.
- Marzano and pastes?
That's gonna be a zone of the garden.
- And I actually, I've always wanted to try the Amish paste.
I've heard legends.
- Well you, I've got six, so you can do it.
I got more Marzano here too.
And then I've got the glacier.
I think it's a little late in the season
to want to put a glacier in
'cause that's that 65 dayer.
- Yeah.
- I don't really think I need to do that.
- It's determinant but whatever.
- Cherokee carbon. - Oh one from France.
I need this one.
- Lost some friends.
- I need this one. - Yeah, we do...
- 'because we need this one because we grafted
the Cherokee carbon to the Ford amino root stock.
And this is the only one we have left as the control.
So we're gonna take this one in.
Oh, the current tomato.
We're gonna do that one.
- I've grown those before.
- It's gonna be a weird boy.
- (indistinct) Look how small the leaves are.
It's like even the leaves are small, not just the tomato.
- 'yeah, it's a bizarre, bizarre tomato.
Maybe we should do a grafting sesh today instead of a...
Oh, this is the rest of the show guys.
This is the rest of the show.
We go grafting mode.
- Okay, I'm here for...
- 'let's graft everything.
Amish paste graft three, don't graft the other three.
- Okay.
- Right?
Because we've got, let's get another tray.
Should we hit with the CLE grafts?
- I got trays, i'll get trays.
- We're playing a tune today.
So we've got big Ford aminos here.
- There's a tomato out here called McDonald Giant tomato.
- Really?
- I don't know where that came from.
- Neither do I.
So these are four aminos, all of these.
- Wow, (laughing loudly).
All right.
- Let's take it on over to the grafting table.
So what I'm gonna do, Jacques,
is I'm gonna start with the beauty king.
I don't know if I want one or two of these.
I don't know.
- I'd say you might as well try two.
I might as well try to a chance that one doesn't make it.
- Yeah, actually that's a good point.
It's a good point.
- So that tool is a specifically made for grafting?
- Yeah.
- Makes it really nice and repeatable
'cause it has an angle guide
so you get an exact cut to match your other cutting.
I'm gonna go in with just a razor blade,
like a, this is an astro like shaving blade.
- Yeah.
- And let's see, so I got Bigfoot aminos.
Who do I want to put on there?
- Oh, you put this in?
Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I'm gonna go below little chop.
- I'm gonna select something over here
- 'and I need to go below the graph.
Oh, below this, right?
I'll do this, right.
- So I'm gonna do San Marzano.
I think this is a really interesting use case
'cause San Marzano's,
I wouldn't say that they're the most vigorous,
they're very famous but they don't yield that much
traditionally I believe.
- I don't think so.
- And so...
- 'although last year I got a ton, honestly.
- Oh really?
- I did get a ton, remember that front bed?
I just kinda went...
- 'right, right.
So I'm going on halfway Jacque, kinda like that.
- Looks good.
- Going halfway and then slider on.
And we're good.
- So I'm gonna just chop the top off this Farino.
- Whoops.
- Like yeah, might be a good idea.
- Because I'm gonna just come in straight
down the middle here and then cut like half an inch down.
The nice thing is I just cut the top off
the bottom I'm still gonna leave to grow.
And we could still use that tomato if we want to.
- Totally, that's the nice part about the cleft graft.
- Yeah, you're not actually as much...
- I think I'm fine.
It just doesn't look that good.
- So there we go.
So all I did is I cut this into like a flathead screwdriver.
I'm gonna just slide it right into that cleft.
So I'll do one more,
I'll do one more beauty king
'cause it's probably my favorite
beefsteak I'm growing this year.
Oh, yours looks nice.
Your cleft looks nice.
- That was a little touch and go for a minute.
- So see, look at this on this
I'm gonna have to come above the seeds...
- 'so you can match it?
- Yeah, I need to match.
So here's a unique one, Jacque.
I'm coming all the way up here.
Mm.
Because...
- 'so you get that diameter Chuck.
- I need that diameter.
And I'm gonna come in with your razor
and take this leaf off.
- All right.
So there's a San Marzano cleft graft.
That's one.
- That's a nice graft, look at that.
- It's a clean one.
- You can't even tell - 'you can't see it.
- Can't even tell, I might as well be fused already.
- Very nice.
- Ready to grow.
That's the benefit of this tool.
- Yeah.
- Is you get a perfect match cut.
(upbeat music)
Jacque and I have a ton more grafting to do.
We need these to set,
get healthy and then go out in the tomato garden,
which has yet to be planted.
So stay tuned, subscribe.
If you wanna try this out,
botanical interest.com or seed company.
Good luck in the garden and keep on growing.
(sober music)