238 Backyard Produce - Pre-Spring Rapid-Fire SHTF-Style Gardening

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This episode is straight-up war planning for backyard gardens and patio planters. 

We’re breaking down the seed-start regimen we’re running right now… indoors, under lights, before the grid even thinks about blinking off.

Which heirlooms and open-pollinated varieties of plants actually deliver calories when the niche-market hybrid-seed catalogs stop arriving in the mail.

How we amend soil that doesn’t collapse the second the last truck of Jacks 20-20-20 rolls off the lot.

Hardening schedules that don’t coddle weak plants into early graves.

And layout decisions that turn every square foot of soil into a calculated succession growing minefield.

This isn’t gardening for aesthetics.

This is growing ammunition against hunger.

Every seedling we force through these cold weeks is another notch carved into our rake handles.

The Spring season is coming like a freight train with no brakes.

You either get your starts locked in now, while there’s still electricity, still water pressure, still Amazon deliveries… or you spend the proverbial collapse explaining to your family why you thought that “later” was an option.

No more excuses.

No more “maybe next year.”

The year is now. It’s happening with or without you.

So, Let’s talk about that.

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Transcript

This episode is straight-up war planning for backyard gardens and patio planters. 

We’re breaking down the seed-start regimen we’re running right now… indoors, under lights, before the grid even thinks about blinking off.

Which heirlooms and open-pollinated varieties of plants actually deliver calories when the niche market hybrid seed catalogs stop arriving in the mail.

How we amend soil that doesn’t collapse the second the last truck of Jacks 20-20-20 rolls off the lot.

Hardening schedules that don’t coddle weak plants into early graves.

And layout decisions that turn every square foot of soil into a calculated succession growing minefield.

This isn’t gardening for aesthetics.

This is growing ammunition against hunger.

Every seedling we force through these cold weeks is another notch carved into our rake handles.

The Spring season is coming like a freight train with no brakes.

You either get your starts locked in now, while there’s still electricity, still water pressure, still Amazon deliveries… or you spend the proverbial collapse explaining to your family why you thought that “later” was an option.

No more excuses.

No more “maybe next year.”

The year is now. It’s happening with or without you.

So, Let’s talk about that.

00:00:00.40
Keith
31 this morning, and it's going to be in the upper today, but it's gorgeous. I mean, it's just sunny. You really need to be outside, but I've been in on the studio all day doing the comms, post on the comms, so I just finished it, actually.

00:00:14.82
Keith
So, because tomorrow, I'm going to do my birthday stuff tomorrow, so we're going to go out and have some fun.

00:00:20.16
Jeremy
Oh, that's right.

00:00:21.91
Keith
So, I'll probably hit yesterday.

00:00:22.10
Buddy
Was it your, Jeremy, was your birthday too?

00:00:25.29
Jeremy
It was yesterday, yeah.

00:00:26.94
Buddy
Damn.

00:00:28.84
Keith
Let me guess, yours tomorrow?

00:00:29.09
Buddy
I feel left out.

00:00:32.41
Buddy
yeah I'm going to have an honorary one tomorrow just for giggles.

00:00:35.34
Keith
There you go.

00:00:36.73
Jeremy
Just make it up.

00:00:38.87
Buddy
Yeah, just because.

00:00:40.20
Jeremy
Nice.

00:00:40.64
Keith
I had a guy working for me years ago that that said that he had to take off a couple days off of work twice for ah there his grandma dying. And he was a total bullshit artist.

00:00:51.96
Keith
He took off all the time, and all he did was fucking make excuses. So I told him the last time, I said look, this is the last grandma that gets to fucking die. That's it.

00:00:58.20
Jeremy
a

00:00:58.47
Keith
There's no more.

00:00:59.84
Buddy
Well, I mean, you can have, ah you can technically have about four, maybe six, depending on, you know, I mean...

00:01:03.97
Keith
i suppose you could, I guess, but...

00:01:08.25
Jeremy
I think that, I mean, I've seen, because you got to think, let's let's say you've got your birth grandparents and one of your parents separates, like kind of like with me and Missy.

00:01:19.13
Jeremy
Now they have another set of grandparents on, you know, step-parent side.

00:01:19.12
Keith
Sure.

00:01:24.58
Jeremy
It's like, yeah, I can understand that. But...

00:01:29.19
Keith
Yeah, I didn't, I wasn't taking into account the math. I was just trying to be really fucking rude.

00:01:34.46
Jeremy
um

00:01:34.42
Keith
Make sure he understood. and ah Punk ass motherfucker.

00:01:40.18
Jeremy
Yeah, yeah. So yeah.

00:01:43.09
Keith
I'll have to cut most of that shit out. So anyway, what is going on, fellas? We are talking about we are talking about gardening. I know. It is that time of year again.

00:01:54.74
Jeremy
It is.

00:01:54.69
Keith
And, ah buddy, I heard you sent a text earlier talking about how your girlfriend wanted to plant her tomatoes yesterday. Bad idea.

00:02:04.82
Buddy
Yeah, cause ah especially because we have frost now, so you know it's a thing.

00:02:09.75
Keith
Would have killed them.

00:02:11.06
Buddy
ah Yeah, year. Yeah.

00:02:14.07
Buddy
it happens every year you know

00:02:15.28
Keith
Wait, wait. When you mean plant, you mean seed or you mean plant transplant?

00:02:18.69
Buddy
Oh, no, no, no. We were, we had to go to, uh, let's see, we need to go grab a few things to prep the bed. So we were at home Depot and a couple of other places. We have ah a few places we frequent went for stuff and and she started collecting plants.

00:02:33.06
Buddy
You know, we walked in, uh, to grab, you know, a couple of things and, and, uh, she started, grabb she went off on her own and grabbed a, um, a basket and started,

00:02:33.85
Jeremy
Hmm.

00:02:43.92
Jeremy
Hmm. Hmm.

00:02:44.60
Buddy
walking through there just throwing plants on there and i and i went out there like what are you doing she goes well it's warm out let's let's put some plants in i was like no you can't do it you know but you know what the cool thing is uh home depot is full of those uh you know fair weather planners you know they do it every year you see them ah about this time of year um

00:03:07.34
Jeremy
Mm-hmm.

00:03:09.18
Buddy
And the cool thing is they they plan it, it dies, they come back and they buy more. So, you know, if I was Home Depot, I would put that stuff out around Christmas, you know, because there'd be people, there will be those people.

00:03:17.85
Jeremy
yeah

00:03:21.91
Jeremy
Oh dude, you can't just go. It's like walking into Sam's or Costco. I'm going to get toilet paper. I spent $1,000. You can't just go into some of those places, you know, like, like I've gone into Lowe's to get like, you know, some lumber and I leave with just stuff that I don't even know why.

00:03:30.09
Keith
Oh.

00:03:32.84
Keith
Mm-mm.

00:03:42.07
Jeremy
Like I, it was a compulsion thing. Like, Ooh, look at that. Oh, look at that. Yeah. Yeah.

00:03:48.68
Keith
I can spend pretty much every single day in a home, in any kind of a home improvement store.

00:03:48.98
Jeremy
But,

00:03:54.81
Keith
i mean, I, I love walking around, looking at tools and grabbing stuff and playing with stuff, getting ideas, you know, looking at different paints and wood and all kinds of stuff.

00:03:58.78
Jeremy
Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm.

00:04:03.96
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:04:04.62
Keith
It's fun.

00:04:04.82
Jeremy
i like to I like to get ideas of the stuff I probably never will do. So it's a lot of fun for me.

00:04:08.59
Keith
Oh yeah. Yeah.

00:04:09.74
Jeremy
Yeah. Like, man, I could totally do.

00:04:11.03
Buddy
yeah

00:04:11.12
Keith
Yeah. I walked through, I'm like, ah when I, when I become a millionaire, this is what I'm going to do.

00:04:11.77
Jeremy
Mm-hmm. Yeah, just need to hit those numbers. Yeah.

00:04:19.08
Buddy
You know, some people go for walks. Some people go, you know, out and do yoga or, you know, go the gym. I go to a Home Depot or Lowe's actually.

00:04:26.90
Jeremy
Right, right.

00:04:27.94
Buddy
I like Lowe's better, but just walk around and it's my happy place.

00:04:29.46
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:04:32.26
Buddy
Yeah.

00:04:33.21
Jeremy
Well, for for us, for our garden, we're actually, you could say we're getting a ah late start legitimately.

00:04:33.56
Keith
Yeah.

00:04:41.98
Jeremy
We've had a lot of really crazy weather. um And, you know, we were gone on our cruise. I had surgery. So we're getting kind of kind of started late in the game.

00:04:53.33
Jeremy
But we do have... um Let's see, we've already gotten our seed starters going and you know, watered in and they're they're out in the greenhouse because before this crazy weather that we have today, ah it had warmed up significantly.

00:05:10.04
Jeremy
Cleaned out the greenhouse. And um we had found some shelves, just basically a curb alert in the neighborhood and went and picked those up.

00:05:20.44
Jeremy
And um I've got them in the greenhouse. We've got Roma tomatoes seeds in. We've got our purple Cherokee.

00:05:30.81
Buddy
so nice.

00:05:31.10
Jeremy
um i am going to try again doing corn. I'm going to try. I'm just... I got to figure out what it is that I'm doing wrong. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but I'm doing something wrong.

00:05:43.87
Keith
What did you do with your corn last year or when you when you failed?

00:05:44.15
Jeremy
Um,

00:05:47.58
Jeremy
um so the, everything had started to develop correctly. Like it was going, it was, you know, I could see the ears of corn developing and all this stuff. Um, um I had, you know, i had hand um ah ah taking the tassels to the silks, you know, I had done that by hand, making sure that everything got and you know, the right amount of pollen.

00:06:11.10
Jeremy
And then all of a sudden, the the inside on the inside of the husk, you know, where the corn is developing, a couple of them turned to mush. A couple of them got that, crate like, I don't know what it's called. It's this crazy looking fungus.

00:06:27.70
Jeremy
And a couple of them, yeah, and apparently in some countries it's a delicacy. No thanks. I'm good. um

00:06:34.87
Buddy
Yeah, I'm good, too.

00:06:35.57
Keith
The fungus is a delicacy.

00:06:37.50
Jeremy
Yeah, it it is.

00:06:38.32
Keith
o

00:06:38.54
Jeremy
it yeah Have you ever seen it? It looks like some of it, you know, sometimes it looks black or different colors. There's some places in South America,

00:06:45.00
Buddy
You're talking on the on the husk, right?

00:06:46.71
Jeremy
huh

00:06:47.81
Buddy
you're You're talking about on the husk? Yeah.

00:06:49.50
Jeremy
No, no, no. Like on the corn, it almost looks like, it almost looks like the kernels got like redonkulously large turned funky colors and they just, it just looks icky.

00:06:59.34
Buddy
Oh, okay. Okay.

00:07:02.38
Jeremy
That's the only way I can describe it as icky. Um, but, um, in some places it's a delicacy. Apparently I'm not going to do it.

00:07:10.88
Keith
There are things I will eat that are gross. That ain't one of them.

00:07:14.10
Jeremy
No, no, it's like, um, in a lot of, uh, places in South America and Mexico, apparently it's a thing, I guess. I don't, I don't know.

00:07:25.13
Jeremy
I'm, I'm good on that, but, um,

00:07:26.61
Keith
Well, they tell themselves that because they don't want to ruin a harvest.

00:07:28.09
Jeremy
yeah I mean, i imagine that it came from out of necessity, you know, many, many years in the past and they figured out how to, how to dress it up, you know, but.

00:07:38.64
Keith
Oh, yeah.

00:07:41.69
Keith
I think a lot of things that are considered delicacies come out of exactly that statement.

00:07:45.72
Jeremy
Oh yeah, actually most, most Spanish foods that you see now in a restaurant, um, you know, that was poor people food, you know, cause the rich people would never eat, you know, trepitas, which is, you know, the, the, the intestine or, you know, they wouldn't eat the skin of the pig, but poor people learned how to turn it into, you know, an actual food.

00:08:06.66
Jeremy
They took the skin and they shaved it off, threw it in oil, you know, fried it. And next thing you know, you have chicharron. It's, um,

00:08:13.12
Keith
Yeah, yeah peek you have pork grimes, man.

00:08:16.74
Jeremy
Pork rinds, yeah. um I forgot, not everybody that listens to us this is a Spanish speaker.

00:08:23.38
Keith
No, i got i got a bag sitting right across from me right now. It's it's waiting to be opened.

00:08:26.29
Jeremy
Hell yeah.

00:08:27.25
Keith
Chicharrones, waiting to be opened.

00:08:27.70
Jeremy
Hell yeah. That's cholesterol in a bag right there.

00:08:30.72
Buddy
Yeah.

00:08:30.94
Jeremy
um But anyway, so

00:08:32.89
Keith
but But why is it that when I start eating them, I can't stop?

00:08:35.95
Jeremy
It's heroin. That's what it is.

00:08:37.34
Keith
Is that what it is?

00:08:37.59
Jeremy
that's correct

00:08:38.02
Keith
Okay, it's heroin.

00:08:38.32
Jeremy
It's crack. It's cracked does crack cocaine.

00:08:39.41
Keith
Crack.

00:08:40.66
Jeremy
um So, ah yeah, I'm hoping again for corn. i found, i don't know if you've ever, I'm sure you've seen them there. It's called jewel variety. It's an ancient corn.

00:08:51.48
Jeremy
They are heirloom seeds. You see them when, you know, a lot of people don't wouldn't eat them because they just, they don't look like regular.

00:08:57.27
Keith
Multicolored?

00:08:57.90
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:08:58.71
Keith
Yeah.

00:08:59.16
Jeremy
Yeah. A lot of people just, they, they think of corn, it's supposed to be yellow and that's actually not the way corn originated. It was multiple colors. Very pretty also. Um,

00:09:10.03
Keith
Now, didn't we call that, when we were young, didn't we call that maize? I thought what thought we called it maize.

00:09:14.58
Buddy
Yeah, we call it Indian corn.

00:09:15.32
Jeremy
Yes. Yeah. My, east yeah.

00:09:16.86
Keith
Indian corn.

00:09:17.42
Buddy
It's a maze. Yeah.

00:09:18.42
Jeremy
My, yeah. Mays or my, it's, um, it's the way the corn used to look, uh, here in the Americas. Um, and you know, the Westerners that came or the, you know, Europeans that came here, they were looking at it and you know, they were looking at their corn and like, what the hell? Like, what's wrong with your corn?

00:09:36.92
Jeremy
Um, But we're trying again. um What else we got going? um We've got some fruits going. We've got your honeydew. We got some cantaloupe and we got some other stuff going.

00:09:49.69
Jeremy
But I am going to try to grow chickpeas or gombanza beans this year. um

00:09:54.57
Keith
Mmm, garbanzo beans. Love them.

00:09:56.57
Jeremy
I love them. Absolutely love them. I did not do a tremendous amount of them because I want to see, you know, how they handle the climate and the soil here. um And then, and like a lot of people on who who are on the Facebook page, they've seen the videos that I've made over these years. We have a bed of asparagus and our bed of asparagus, this is already growing.

00:10:20.27
Jeremy
It's in its third year. So we're in our harvest year for our asparagus. And yeah,

00:10:25.02
Keith
That's what I was about to say. three it takes, what, two, three years, right?

00:10:27.83
Jeremy
Yeah. Yeah. So we're in our third year, we've already got several shoots coming up. um They haven't thickened up yet. So right now the the main part of the stock is growing up. So it's the tall part.

00:10:40.63
Jeremy
And then you'll start to see the thicker stocks coming up. Those are the ones that we're going to harvest and eat.

00:10:47.13
Keith
So, okay, so but so on the asparagus, how do they overwinter?

00:10:47.70
Jeremy
Mm-hmm.

00:10:50.93
Keith
Do you have to bring them in, or how does work?

00:10:52.63
Jeremy
No, no, no. We let them, we let them do their natural process. They are annuals. They come back every year. And once they're established and they're actually rooted and growing, they keep coming back year after year after year.

00:11:00.83
Keith
Oh.

00:11:04.98
Jeremy
So now we're in our, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:11:05.85
Keith
So they die back in the winter. They turn brown and all that. oh okay. Okay.

00:11:10.14
Jeremy
And inadvertently, and I don't know exactly how this happened, but we have proven that the same thing will happen with arugula. And the same thing will happen with a the long green crunchy stuff that you put into salad, celery.

00:11:28.95
Jeremy
So we walked out there the other day.

00:11:29.95
Buddy
Thank you.

00:11:30.87
Jeremy
were going to clean out, you know, leaves and pine needles and all that mess. And I looked and I was like, there that's a whole bushel of arugula just sitting there. I reached down and I ah plucked a couple off and I smelled it. And i was like, yep, that's arugula. And I ate it.

00:11:46.17
Jeremy
And man, it is so strong. It's like the strongest arugula I've ever had. um

00:11:52.47
Keith
ah We got some seeds of arugula. We're going to try it.

00:11:54.80
Jeremy
Oh, man, i love arugula. I don't know why I love arugula so much, but it's just, you know, it's a vegetable. It's, it's, I don't know.

00:12:02.31
Buddy
is a vegetable.

00:12:02.78
Jeremy
It's, yeah, it's got a lot. It's got this like buttery, spicy taste.

00:12:07.58
Keith
oh yeah.

00:12:07.90
Jeremy
It's got a really nice smell. um We use it for salads and all, you know, actually a lot more than just salads. I'll just take a whole bushel of it and just eat it. I love it. Um, and also last year, um we started to learn that strawberries and, asparagus grow well together.

00:12:28.22
Jeremy
And we have, i think I counted 12 strawberry plants that we didn't do anything with over the winter. We didn't touch them, didn't pull them out, nothing.

00:12:39.15
Jeremy
They're back and they, they are already developing.

00:12:40.54
Buddy
Nice. That's good.

00:12:43.13
Jeremy
So yeah.

00:12:45.34
Keith
That doesn't sound normal.

00:12:45.42
Jeremy
Um,

00:12:46.74
Keith
Is that is that supposed to happen with strawberries?

00:12:49.18
Jeremy
struck

00:12:49.26
Keith
Our strawberry plants you know died off. They were done.

00:12:52.79
Jeremy
Well, I'm, I don't know if it's normal. Um, but I do know that, I mean, once you got to think though, if you, strawberries are kind of like say mint or, lavender or some of your, or you know, your herbals, once they're established, they can end up taking over a whole area.

00:12:57.91
Buddy
It can be.

00:13:13.68
Jeremy
They're almost like a weed. You know, they're a weed that grows a really good berry. But once they're established and they're in there, they're in there. You know, you'rere you're going to keep having them year after year.

00:13:22.27
Keith
Hmm. Hmm.

00:13:24.41
Buddy
Yeah, my my grandfather, he he raised them growing up, and over he would overwinter them, and you're right, it's like a weed, and he would just stick cotton seed holes over them over the winter.

00:13:24.76
Jeremy
So.

00:13:35.64
Buddy
He'd put them on really thick and wet it down and and take it off in the in the spring, clean up the bed a little bit, and here they come. So it lasted maybe six years before, I think.

00:13:43.51
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:13:47.99
Buddy
they he He needed to go in and, and you know, replant every year and replenish it, but I think the sixth year is when, you know, it went to went to the to the the yard.

00:14:01.88
Buddy
so

00:14:02.39
Jeremy
Yeah. So, and this is just in one of our, um, we, we took, it was a, it was a, um, a box you know bed that we had, uh, the wood ended up rotting and we had brick leftover from a project. So I just created a larger bed, for that asparagus and strawberries. And, you know, we just elevated the dirt a little bit more and those things are in there. They're established and they're already growing.

00:14:28.54
Jeremy
So what else we got going? ah Planted pole beans, bush beans um and French cut green beans. um So we're going to be doing all that. So I've got eggplant still to seed and a couple of other vegetables that, you know,

00:14:49.22
Jeremy
I'm looking forward to and then of course our tomatoes we always go bonkers on tomatoes the Roma's really did good last year and our Cherokee purples and our black cherry tomatoes really did good last year so and um

00:15:02.17
Buddy
Nice.

00:15:06.26
Jeremy
even in a lot of people will buy a lot of tomato plants. We, we don't, and we we, we, we harvest our seeds, but what we do is we propagate.

00:15:17.05
Jeremy
So as we go to strip down leaves and stuff like that, we don't toss them. We will re propagate new plants and then we also use it to make our own insecticide. So, We end up giving plants away, you know, like once we get them started and they've got roots and we put them into small potters, we actually use those for trade and we give them away as gifts.

00:15:37.43
Jeremy
so

00:15:37.72
Buddy
Yeah, want if you have a healthy plant, especially the Cherokee purples, if you have a healthy plant, and you can just take a clipping off and, you know, get those, ah you know, propagate it and get it so a nice root ball going on them.

00:15:52.07
Buddy
And, yeah, it's people don't, you know, they just don't understand.

00:15:52.38
Jeremy
<unk>re They're so easy to grow.

00:15:58.10
Buddy
You can, it's it's home. Well, tomatoes, I think, is is a weed. I look at it the same thing as like a strawberry. It's kind of like a weed.

00:16:05.25
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:16:05.40
Buddy
And it's so easy so easy to grow. I had a lady one time say, older lady, she would go you know shopping for tomato plants and she'd take a little clipping you know off and then she would make her own.

00:16:19.70
Buddy
So she really never bought any.

00:16:20.09
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:16:21.18
Buddy
And she's like, oh, you just got to take a clipping, throw it in the ground, it'll grow. And i would she was...

00:16:25.82
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:16:26.04
Keith
So she was stealing them from the store? Like the little...

00:16:28.76
Jeremy
we

00:16:29.94
Keith
Wow.

00:16:30.04
Jeremy
I know people who do that. I do.

00:16:31.70
Buddy
yeah it's a thing but she she uh said you can just throw it in the ground it'll grow and i was like no there's no way and i tried it and it did and it was great

00:16:32.60
Jeremy
i do.

00:16:32.58
Keith
That's messed up, man.

00:16:41.75
Jeremy
Yeah. I know people who go to Home Depot and Lowe's and go through the garden area just looking for dropped leaves.

00:16:48.51
Keith
Hmm.

00:16:48.70
Jeremy
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if it fell on the ground, is it not free?

00:16:51.74
Buddy
it's a thing it can be if you know what you're doing

00:16:56.55
Keith
It depends on whose ground it is.

00:16:59.45
Jeremy
Yeah, I guess that's probably true too. But yeah, um looking forward to, you know, getting everything going, even though we are getting a late start. I'm not going to overly stress on my jalapenos or any other peppers yet because nothing is going to happen with those until the hottest part of the year anyways.

00:17:19.90
Jeremy
so

00:17:20.12
Buddy
yeah

00:17:21.05
Jeremy
And even our even our early season peppers, I mean, they're called early so season and peppers, but... They weren't really, they weren't really early season at all.

00:17:31.28
Jeremy
They were just kind of normal, normal hot stuff.

00:17:32.09
Buddy
Yeah. If you find one that's early season and and it produces, let me know, because I have yet to find one.

00:17:38.36
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:17:39.46
Buddy
I mean, i'm I'm talking they'll set in from March in the ground or probably April, maybe May. they'll sit in the ground or in a a pot or something.

00:17:45.72
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:17:47.97
Buddy
and And I won't really get anything worthwhile until August or September. As soon as it gets up to around 95 here, they start producing real well. So I don't know what it is.

00:17:57.94
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:17:59.67
Buddy
I mean, we, and it's, what's weird is Oklahoma gets really hot and we'll stick them on the West side where they get the the evening West sun and man, they just love it.

00:18:06.21
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:18:10.61
Buddy
It's, it's a thing, man. But yeah, if anybody, Anybody out there and listening, you know, finds an early variety of of, you know, jalapenos or any kind of peppers, let me know.

00:18:23.30
Jeremy
Well, based on your recommendation, think it was probably last year or whenever it was about those lemon drop peppers. um

00:18:31.57
Buddy
yeah.

00:18:32.06
Jeremy
Those were our number one producing peppers. And i have no less than, i'd say 150 to 200 of them in the freezer that are shrink wrapped.

00:18:43.87
Buddy
Ooh.

00:18:45.11
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:18:45.88
Keith
Nice.

00:18:46.84
Jeremy
Yeah. Yeah. They went absolutely nutsoid. And i mean, even after the you know, jalapenos and everything else started to go away and, you know, pretty much into the winter, they were still producing. Um, in my, I will just say that, um, nobody takes care of your garden as well as you're going to take care of your own garden. And, um,

00:19:12.12
Jeremy
ah My overwintering experiment did not did not go well, did not go well at all. um But I tried to overwinter a bunch of peppers, and um I actually tried to overwinter some tomatoes.

00:19:20.32
Keith
What did you overwinter?

00:19:30.34
Jeremy
And i sent you guys some pictures when we got back.

00:19:33.53
Keith
Oh, yeah, we saw the pictures.

00:19:34.36
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:19:34.41
Keith
You had a couple of tomatoes, right?

00:19:36.18
Jeremy
Yeah. Um, the, I don't know if it was just a fluke or, you know, and just, uh, I don't know what was going on with those particular tomatoes, but, um, the plants themselves, the actual stock and everything else, everything died in there died because it didn't get watered properly. i just say it that way.

00:19:55.64
Jeremy
Um, And we did have a harsher than usual winter here, but it was a wet winter. And the other day when I was working out there, I pulled it was actually one of those um but those lemon drop pepper plants.

00:20:13.11
Jeremy
And when I was pulling it out of the bucket, I noticed that the um the root ball was still pliable. It was still moist. the mo The moisture inside of the soil was still, you know, there.

00:20:26.68
Jeremy
The stalk itself was hardened over and dried. But I was looking at it and i was like, well, hold on a second. These roots, these roots are alive. They're good. So I made a bucket of um starter soil, vermiculture, and some worm castings, and dropped it in there, and I and i watered it in really heavy.

00:20:47.38
Jeremy
and I'm going to see what happens. I'm just going to see if I can bring it back to life. I i don't know if it's going to work, but I'm going to see if I can do it. So... If I can do it, you know, and I can find somebody possibly this coming winter, if we have to travel to take care of our stuff properly, we may have we may have peppers throughout the whole winter. Hopefully.

00:21:07.32
Keith
Jack's 2020, man, it'll pop it.

00:21:09.29
Jeremy
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

00:21:10.19
Keith
It'll just explode. I won't won't produce the peppers part, but it'll, the the green will come in. That's for sure.

00:21:15.93
Jeremy
Yeah. Yeah. So what do you guys got going on?

00:21:21.11
Keith
um Well, buddy, how about you?

00:21:24.38
Buddy
Well, it's kind of been experiment winter for me. i have, I have two hydroponic set setups that I have on the countertop that I've been growing jalapenos all winter jalapeans and jalapenos and Fresno plants, Fresno peppers. And so far i need to transplant them. It's just a matter of being in town long enough to do it.

00:21:48.95
Buddy
I mean, it's just one of those things where it's time. So I'm going to, up pot those take them out the water up bottom you'll see you know only the strong will survive with that we did have one plant that we left in the ground and cut it down to the basically to the soil and then we piled on a bunch of mulch on top and we're just we're basically we're trying to see whether it's gonna come back

00:22:19.60
Buddy
noticed there's some greenage coming out, uh, kind of dug down and looked and it's starting to come back. So we might have successfully, um, kept one jalapeno plant alive all winter.

00:22:30.49
Buddy
So yeah.

00:22:30.55
Keith
No kidding. That's crazy.

00:22:33.79
Buddy
Um, I've, I've overwintered some inside before and and um I've took my strongest jalapeno plants. Um,

00:22:42.17
Buddy
Cleaned off the roots real well, brought them in. Use some, you know, Dawn soap and some, you know, slips me. Buddy brains hit me.

00:22:54.18
Buddy
Anyways, we cleaned them.

00:22:55.51
Keith
clean the roots?

00:22:57.59
Buddy
Yeah, clean the roots off and kill any bugs and stuff. Oh, my goodness. I see it right there. But anyhow, so you clean them up and bring them in.

00:23:05.03
Keith
It's a mage's earth.

00:23:06.55
Buddy
Do what?

00:23:07.88
Keith
It's a mage's earth. What are you talking about?

00:23:10.81
Buddy
it's It's a spray. It's... Oh, man.

00:23:15.16
Keith
you talking about neem oil?

00:23:17.05
Buddy
Yeah, neem oil.

00:23:17.91
Keith
okay.

00:23:18.46
Buddy
Thank you. Thanks for being my brain today. And neem oil and blue dawn, then you clean it off really well. So you take the plant after the season, you know, when you bring it in, you just clean off the roots really well, clean off and cut it down back to about where they, where it, you know, was...

00:23:37.27
Buddy
where the soil level was. So you got a stump now with some roots and you just throw it in ah in a pot, a pot, it you know put some fresh soil in there, a little bit of, uh, whatever you're going to feed it, uh, vermicompost or whatever. And just, you want to just keep it moist, uh, not to the point to where it, it starts to mold, but just, Keep it watered over the winter and stick it in a warm area.

00:24:02.36
Buddy
And then you can hopefully replant it, you know, when the season gets warm enough. um You know, usually you plant your peppers when your soil gets to about 70 degrees.

00:24:15.64
Buddy
And just throw it in there and let it go.

00:24:16.73
Keith
or Or transplant them because you can start them all inside like I have.

00:24:20.63
Buddy
Yeah, yeah. And, you know, one of the things that even I've made a mistake of is when you do your starts inside and and you go to transplant it is you got to harden them off.

00:24:33.30
Buddy
And that's a process. And so.

00:24:35.32
Keith
Explain it to the to the listeners.

00:24:37.50
Buddy
Okay, so hardening off, you you've taken them from a controlled environment inside. they You've usually dialed in your, it's got so much sun today from your grow lamps or maybe a windowsill, but it goes from a nice environment that it's used to and you're taking it outside. And usually when you start to harden these plants off, it's usually in the cooler temperatures outside. So You want to start out taking them out for, you know, three to four hours a day at the heat of the day, just so they get used to the air, the wind, the warmer part of the day, and then bring them back in at night when the temperatures go down. And so, you know, usually about a two to three week, four week period, you you just take that time that it goes outside and you extend it by a couple hours.

00:25:23.96
Buddy
And you're gently introducing them to the you know, the exterior world outside. and uh it it will help your basically it's going to help your uh that shock that you normally get when you go to transplant it or plant it or up pot or whatever you'll help your success rate you know with uh just being gentle with the plant and lot of people go and you know buy them from uh you Lowe's Home Depot whatever wherever they buy their plants take them out throw them in ah in the ground um

00:25:58.23
Buddy
And you're you're putting them into shock when you do that. And, you know, lot of times, well, why did it die? and I used the right things. Well, it's because your plant went into shock, you know. There's so many factors in there for a plant success that, you know, you can do just one of the things wrong and, you know, you're you're going back to the place and buying some more. So...

00:26:19.05
Keith
Yeah. Well, and one thing that I, I did not learn my, I learned my first year, but I learned it too late this year. I'm doing very well with it. And that's the, uh, the grow lights.

00:26:29.42
Keith
So the grow lights that, that, you know, you get, I don't care if they're full spectrum or if they're just shop lights. And in fact, my plants right now, all of them are on shop lights and they're actually doing better than the grow lights.

00:26:41.58
Keith
But The grow lights, I can tell you right now, you are getting a fraction of what the actual sun gives your plants. Just a fraction. And I've lowered those lights right down on top of the leaves, maybe a quarter of inch.

00:26:55.64
Keith
And I and i have them on adjustable strings and different different types of things. So as the plants are growing, I'm actually raising them up. but i'm I'm keeping them just a couple of inches away, not close enough to burn them, but close enough so they get the light.

00:27:06.18
Buddy
you

00:27:09.72
Keith
Because one... One thing I learned this year, and I don't know the mathematics and I can't tell you the formula, but but it is online if you want to look it up. But let's say you have a grow light a foot 12 inches away from your the top of your leaves. okay If you move that grow light up six inches and now it's six inches closer to the light, you're not getting half more light. You're getting at just a fraction. The closer and closer and closer you get to the lamp the light bulb,

00:27:37.55
Keith
it exponentially grows. So you have to get those bulbs really, really close to get the full amount. And even at the full amount of a grow light or a shop light, whatever it is, It's still just a fraction of what the sun's getting. So when you put it outside, it's like it's like ah it's like me ah you know it's like me sitting on a beach first day of summer.

00:27:58.22
Keith
You're going to get fried because you're not used to the sun.

00:28:00.06
Buddy
Yeah,

00:28:01.07
Keith
That same thing with the plants. They're used to this little little tiny bit of light coming out of these little bulbs, and all of a sudden now the great big giant sun is on top of them. you know So you've got to be careful with that.

00:28:09.82
Buddy
yeah and i'm I've used full spectrum lights. I've used the red lights, the blue lights, just regular, you know, a white light or halogen light or something. I've used the LEDs, you know, um and there's different formulas in there. You keep them two inches or three inches or six inches, depending on whatever, you know.

00:28:29.66
Buddy
Um, and I call this a swag mess, the swag method, scientific wild ass guess. And you basically, whatever light you use, you get it down within, i usually try to stay two inches above.

00:28:43.16
Buddy
And when you start to see the burn on top of your, um, leaves, you need to raise it. Never have it right on there, uh, because you will burn because the the bulbs get hot, but you know, an inch or two inches up, um,

00:28:55.51
Keith
It's very important. Yep. And you'll dry them out too. Mm-hmm.

00:28:59.99
Buddy
you'll dry the yeah you dry the piss out of them. No pun intended there. But it's, it's so you know, and we've you we've talked about this, on and Jeremy's mentioned you mentioned it.

00:29:12.28
Buddy
It's an experiment. And, you know, sometimes you go out to your garden and you try something like my eggplant experience. First time I tried to grow them, was like, this is the easiest shit ever.

00:29:22.48
Buddy
I had the most, I've never had eggplant before, never eaten it, but grew some of them.

00:29:26.86
Keith
Oh, we failed last year. We couldn't even get one to pop up.

00:29:29.98
Buddy
Man, I had such such beautiful eggplants the first year. I was like, oh my God, you know, this is great. The next year, i tried them three years after that. Couldn't grow them. Couldn't get in one. It was it was ah epic failure. So what did I do? was using the same seed.

00:29:45.94
Buddy
you know, the same variety, uh, same technique, you know?

00:29:48.32
Keith
Same technique.

00:29:50.66
Buddy
Uh, so the first year i put them in the same place they were because i' like, Oh, they obviously love it here. Then the next year like, I didn't get any, I'll move it. I'll move it, you know, in your garden, which is another technique you want to do.

00:30:00.78
Buddy
You know, you don't always want to plant in the same place and, uh, failed and just never could, never could do it again. So, you know, for me, that's my, uh, You know, one of the things I've learned out there that, you know, which is trial and error you know, sometimes, you know, you just fail miserably. 100%.

00:30:20.34
Keith
Right. And that that experimental process, like you said, moving around some plants, all plants need nitrogen. Some plants take nitrogen from the soil. Other plants put nitrogen into the soil.

00:30:30.86
Keith
So by moving them around, you're kind of helping them out. I don't know which ones yet.

00:30:34.07
Buddy
hundred percent

00:30:35.37
Keith
I know beans are good for it and this and that. I'm not really an expert, but whenever I do need, I just go, I just Google the shit out of it and I find, you know, find out.

00:30:41.75
Buddy
Well, one of the things they call companion planting, one of the things that, you know, when you're planting, this is the time of year you're planting your beds if you're not already planting them.

00:30:43.47
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:30:51.85
Buddy
You're planting, not planting. And so you're planting stuff out. You want to look at companion plants because, you know, you can plant, for instance, I love to plant plants.

00:31:03.99
Buddy
Italian basil with my, like, Roma tomatoes or any kind of tomato because it just complements them. You can plant your onions with them as well. Just throw some, you know, maybe chives down around it.

00:31:18.30
Buddy
And it just, it helps the flavor and the nitrogen that a lot of that stuff will put out, you know, your nitrogen-rich plants will help feed that plant.

00:31:30.54
Buddy
It's companion plant. And sometimes it's companion

00:31:32.66
Keith
Well, not only that, but the tomatoes will will shade, will give those those smaller plants some shade that they actually need. They can't be in full sun.

00:31:38.55
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:31:40.09
Buddy
Yeah, and sometimes it the companion plant, like a marigold with, ah you know, will help with the bugs. So, you know, if you really get into the companion plant, you're going to help yourself out, you know, and and everybody likes, you know, to get in and do rows.

00:31:55.93
Buddy
You know, I got to have a row of tomatoes. I got to have a row of, you peppers. got to have a row of this. Well, lot of times you can crowd certain things. And with the companion planning and you're just helping yourself out, you know, the gorilla or chaos gardening is a thing and it's a, re you know, there's reason for it. And something, you know, I was wanting to say about Jeremy and his corn.

00:32:19.03
Buddy
I, I failed miserably at corn. I don't know what it is. You know, I can watch other people in Oklahoma with, you know, they've got these nice stocks of corn and, and,

00:32:30.68
Buddy
a nice haul, but for whatever reason, I can't do it. So one year I tried what they call it, uh, three sisters and it's, uh, three sisters, corn beans and squash.

00:32:36.83
Jeremy
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Corn, beans, and squash.

00:32:41.24
Buddy
Yeah. You just, you mound up your, you plant your corn and you mound up around it and you, and you plant the pole beans and the squash and, and, uh, actually that worked out real good.

00:32:48.58
Jeremy
Mm-hmm.

00:32:52.12
Buddy
um it for space, it was great. Um,

00:32:55.80
Jeremy
Mm-hmm.

00:32:56.73
Buddy
They all complimented each other. The companion planning you know that I was talking about worked out. i mean it was It was a nice you know product that you know came out of that. so and It also looks good too.

00:33:06.84
Jeremy
And everything every time i I hear you talking about planting, italian like specifically Italian basil with the Roma tomatoes, I always imagine them too having like a really serious conversation, like a couple dudes in you know Brooklyn. Yeah.

00:33:23.26
Buddy
Yeah, you know, though when i when I was talking about that, my mouth was watering because I was thinking chicken parm, man, and some sauce.

00:33:28.15
Jeremy
No, I'm thinking like these two guys are having like a full on Guide conversation. Like, hey, how you doing, Mikey?

00:33:33.64
Buddy
Yeah, some arugula.

00:33:33.91
Jeremy
Hey, you sing Carmine.

00:33:35.67
Buddy
Yeah. Here we go again.

00:33:37.98
Keith
ah

00:33:39.90
Buddy
So, yeah. Forget

00:33:41.46
Keith
Yo, Johnny, do that move. Do that move you do.

00:33:43.22
Jeremy
Yeah. Yeah.

00:33:44.41
Buddy
about it. Forget about

00:33:45.34
Jeremy
did you see the wind take that guy's leave? Forget about it. Yeah.

00:33:50.17
Buddy
Here we go again. We lost all of our Brooklyn listeners. But yeah, probably not.

00:33:56.79
Jeremy
I seriously doubt we have a lot of them.

00:34:00.70
Buddy
Probably not. So as far as my garden goes this year, doing a lot of peppers, tomatoes, as as usual. Right now, and we overwintered, we successfully overwintered some greens.

00:34:17.02
Buddy
Mainly, what's weird is we have some cilantro that's coming out now. Um, a lot of, there was still arugula. There's still some spinach, um, some, we like, you know, a salad, like a mess, uh, mescalian mix or something.

00:34:32.82
Buddy
some bib lettuce for whatever reason it, it overwintered. So we, we reseeded it and we're going with it for now. Um, we're doing some radishes and some beets from seed to see how they go.

00:34:48.02
Buddy
Threw some early onions in. We'll see you what how they do. Last year, onions didn't do well. And so far, that's about it. We're going to try technique that we saw on online with the guy the older guy that had the tomato plants with the buckets.

00:35:07.22
Buddy
So going to go early with some tomatoes and just try it and see what happens. So going to get four buckets and four tomato plants. and And there's a... On the Facebook page, I stood stuck a ah video about this on there. So if you're curious to see the the bucket method for early tomatoes, it's right up there for you to see.

00:35:31.32
Keith
Very cool. While you were talking and I and i was listening, I looked up the the stat

00:35:35.96
Buddy
Sure you are.

00:35:36.88
Keith
i i looked up to stats on New York. We have 12 listeners, 12 listeners in New York. Now that doesn't say it won't it won't take it down to the actual, actually, no, it does take it down to the city. It's New York, New York. It's actually in the city.

00:35:50.53
Keith
We have 12 listeners in the city and we love you guys and gals.

00:35:50.75
Jeremy
Wow.

00:35:54.42
Keith
So keep on listening and don't be mad about the about Jeremy making fun of you.

00:35:54.81
Jeremy
Wow. Nice.

00:35:59.96
Jeremy
ah

00:35:59.96
Buddy
You know, and yeah, as if Jeremy did it, it wasn't me.

00:36:04.27
Jeremy
Hey, look, have I would say 95% of my family lives up there.

00:36:04.31
Buddy
No, I will say.

00:36:04.80
Keith
sand up Send all the hate mail to Jeremy.

00:36:09.83
Jeremy
So I gotta, gotta, I gotta, I gotta pass on that one.

00:36:10.47
Keith
yeah I know that.

00:36:13.53
Buddy
You know, while I was living in Brooklyn, um I was in a garden club up there.

00:36:13.84
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:36:19.03
Buddy
I was out running. I was training for a triathlon, which that was a whole thing. I don't suggest it for anybody, especially fat guys like me. But yeah. I was running by and I'd see these people out there gardening. I'm just, you know, a plot of land. And so one day i so ran by them and stopped and started talking to them. and the cool And I think I've mentioned this before on the on the podcast, some of the older episodes.

00:36:43.61
Buddy
One of the coolest thing was the different, there was a lot of different people from different places that were in this garden club. And we there was a little plot of land and everybody could go out and, you know, showcase their, their plants and and techniques and stuff. And it was a community garden is what it what it came down to. And there was a lady there from Jamaica. There were some Italian guys. There was a Polish guy. Let's see.

00:37:10.90
Buddy
A couple ladies from, ah there was a Russian lady actually.

00:37:15.57
Keith
Thank you.

00:37:18.04
Buddy
But the the coolest thing was learning these different techniques these people brought from their country over And, you know, taught me a lot of things. I learned that's where I got the eggplant from.

00:37:28.76
Buddy
There were some varieties of tomatoes that grew up there that I tried here. one of them actually worked out great. The other one failed. But. Just some different techniques that these people used and and just a camaraderie that we had.

00:37:44.14
Buddy
We had some failures and some successes and stuff, but made some really good friends in this little community garden.

00:37:49.45
Keith
That's awesome.

00:37:50.52
Buddy
So it was it was it was really eye-opening and a learning thing for me.

00:37:56.99
Keith
Was that in the city?

00:37:58.30
Buddy
Yeah, it was actually in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, of all places.

00:38:00.51
Keith
Hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

00:38:03.81
Jeremy
Nice. Nice.

00:38:05.72
Keith
Well, um, I guess I could tell you, talk a little bit about mine.

00:38:06.17
Jeremy
nice

00:38:08.82
Keith
It's, won't talk too long, but, um, We, I, I vowed to start the seeding process early this year. Um, started in January and actually late January and early February.

00:38:22.36
Keith
I believe it was February 3rd. Looking at my, looking at my deal here, Tuesday, February 3rd. And we planted, um ah seeds, all seeds. I did my, uh, scallions, uh, cayenne peppers, cappuccino peppers, jalapenos, celery,

00:38:42.09
Keith
celery takes a long time habaneros um sweet longs those are peppers fresnos anaheim's bells and then all and then a bunch of tomatoes we did beefsteak um we got some mennonite tomatoes and when i say that i mean we we bought tomatoes from a mennonite stand downtown at the farmer's market and we saved the seeds we want to see how they came how they're growing yeah and um mountain fresh um

00:39:03.37
Buddy
Nice.

00:39:08.01
Keith
Cherokee green, brandy, wine, pinks, and yellows, Romas, and tidy treats. And then that was on that first day. Now that was a lot. Okay. I planted all those seeds in one day. And then a couple days later, I planted more, the cherry tomatoes and some collards, eggplant, um some things like that.

00:39:29.65
Keith
And, and so on and so forth. So what, so go ahead.

00:39:33.58
Buddy
You're going in the ground or you're you're doing your starts?

00:39:36.15
Keith
No, all starts in the house.

00:39:37.88
Buddy
Okay.

00:39:38.53
Keith
Yeah, on shelves, underneath the lights. And I didn't bring out the the grow lights this year. I used the regular shop lights. and And I did this because I saw a a YouTube video of this person saying, you know, you don't have to use grow lights. You can get shop lights. Now, the thing about that is that shop lights are actually cheaper than grow lights because they're grow lights, you know, full spectrum and all this other stuff. And I have a bunch of grow lights. The plants that I have on my shop lights...

00:40:06.99
Keith
they're growing better than the ones I have on my last year on my grow lights. And I had the the expensive full spectrums.

00:40:11.70
Buddy
You know what i i've I found out with with a heat pad below your so you know your your pods and the regular shop lights, that was in a little bit, of maybe some heat in my garage is where I did it in that grow tent.

00:40:27.45
Buddy
But that was the best formula that I found.

00:40:30.26
Keith
Oh yeah.

00:40:31.10
Buddy
And then I would finish them off.

00:40:31.05
Keith
Yeah.

00:40:32.50
Buddy
When you get a nice little stand, I'd move them to and another closet, basically. And I would put the the full spectrum lights on there and

00:40:37.13
Keith
Yeah, yeah.

00:40:41.82
Buddy
I don't know. that's That's kind of the formula I use, and it was successful for me. So, you know, it might be something you could do to yours with the with the actual.

00:40:48.26
Keith
Well,

00:40:52.54
Buddy
Yeah.

00:40:52.76
Keith
I might. I might. Right now, I still have them all on shop lights, but I might um because my tomato plants are like four or five inches tall now, okay? And I've got a shit ton of them. Um, and I might, because the full spectrum is really, really good on for the, for the leaves, you know, for the leaves and that sort of thing.

00:41:08.79
Buddy
Yeah.

00:41:09.26
Keith
It's got the, got the right light in it, you know, that the shop lights might not have. And you're right. I did start, we did start seeds on, uh, heat mats. Of course. Um, I went through and marked all of my seeds, uh, which ones do best with heat, which, which need heat and which ones don't need heat, but we'll, we'll do, you know, good with heat. And then some said don't do good with heat at all. And I made sure that, you know, they went on the proper thing. So I was able to put the ones on heat mats when they popped out perfect. The ones that were no heat, they popped out really good as well. Now, I didn't do very well on my, ah the bell peppers did not come in very good. My cappuccino peppers did not come in very good. Celery, I didn't see nothing yet on celery. Hadn't popped up at all. And I know celery takes a long, long time to grow.

00:41:56.41
Keith
I thought by now would have seen something. you know, but yeah, me, I mean, who knows?

00:42:00.09
Buddy
Give them a couple more weeks, and if they don't, then they're failures. It might have been in the seed. It might have been a of factors in there. so

00:42:07.45
Keith
Yeah. ah One thing I did last year that was a failure was um ah when you, you know, you water from the bottom, so you got your tubs and you water from the bottom, I would pour the, what do we call that?

00:42:16.28
Buddy
what What is that called? What do we call that?

00:42:20.79
Buddy
Yeah, the water from the bottom.

00:42:20.88
Jeremy
Oh, I was waiting for this.

00:42:21.36
Keith
sir go Go ahead.

00:42:22.36
Jeremy
um was definitely waiting for this.

00:42:26.04
Buddy
The butt suck.

00:42:27.42
Keith
A butt suck.

00:42:28.86
Buddy
Yeah.

00:42:31.34
Keith
Is that what your teacher called it?

00:42:33.27
Buddy
man i took a class yeah and it was some master gardeners and ladies and they they they said that they're like oh you water from the bottom and one of them goes butt suck and you go yeah they are man they that they just had a great time with that and yeah ah you know it was about two two ladies that look like well they both worked in a corporate world but they had a flare you know green thumb or whatever teaching this class and and uh

00:42:49.11
Keith
So nasty.

00:42:50.33
Jeremy
the other day The other day when we were putting stuff in there, we like to reuse a lot of stuff and we had a lot of the tins for food, you know, leftover from Missy's retirement ceremony.

00:43:00.06
Buddy
I about fell out of my chair when they said that. i was like, oh, shit. You know. Yeah.

00:43:14.57
Jeremy
so I was using those and was putting the water in there and she Missy was like, is that too much water? And I was like, well, they still got a butt chug, you know, i mean.

00:43:26.07
Buddy
yeah

00:43:28.26
Keith
Right. So first of all, I'm jealous because we that's that's a big problem right now for me. I have all of these plants that are being up-potted. They need to go into into pans and places where you can set them in water.

00:43:39.97
Keith
And I don't have any of that. I don't have any pans at all. Like all the ones from last year that I used, that most of them broke. They were cheap crap pieces of crap. So I went down to Dollar General and I bought a three-pack of the big great, big, giant ones that use for cooking like lasagna or something.

00:43:53.90
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:43:54.38
Keith
they They lasted like... maybe 10 minutes. I had them filled. They were done.

00:43:58.81
Buddy
Oh man.

00:43:59.10
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:43:59.90
Keith
So that's a big problem for us right now is we got to try and find place to put it.

00:44:00.25
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:44:03.13
Keith
But my problem last year was I would put the water in and I would make sure that there was water in there all the time. That's not how you do it. I learned this year, you put the water in and once the plant sucked up the water, you drain the rest of the water out.

00:44:16.38
Buddy
Yes, yes.

00:44:17.55
Keith
That was a big thing that I wish I had known last year because I got a lot of root rot last year.

00:44:22.58
Jeremy
Yeah, this year I took those pans, put the water in there, and um I was just kind of keeping an eye on it.

00:44:22.78
Buddy
Yes.

00:44:29.37
Jeremy
And I took a thumbtack and I actually poked tiny little holes throughout the bottoms of those pans. So it would, you know, kind of kind of let out while the plants were getting what they need.

00:44:39.86
Keith
Oh, because you're in a greenhouse.

00:44:41.82
Jeremy
Yeah, yeah.

00:44:42.65
Keith
Ah, see, I'm in indoors. I can't, the water would just ruin my floor. So I can't, yeah.

00:44:46.65
Jeremy
Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. But those, those little, those little pans that, you know, you use for gatherings, like the, the, I think they're called chafing pans or whatever.

00:44:55.42
Keith
Awesome.

00:44:57.20
Jeremy
I think we bought at Sam's like a 20 pack or something like that. They were fairly inexpensive and all the ones that were left over from the retirement ceremony, we just put the, you know, our starter pots in there and, and just, you know, watered them Yeah.

00:45:09.17
Keith
Great idea. Man, that's that's ah that's a stroke of luck right there, having something like that where you just collect.

00:45:11.12
Buddy
you

00:45:15.07
Keith
um If you're listening out there and you're at some kind of a party or something you see those pans, take them home. I know it sounds weird. Take them home. You will use them.

00:45:21.91
Jeremy
Yeah. Or if you're at a, if you're at a thrift shop and you see old cooking or like cookie sheets or cookie, you know, the, the, the cooking pans or whatever they're called.

00:45:28.11
Keith
Sure, yeah.

00:45:31.10
Jeremy
Those are good too. You know, it's got just enough of a lip.

00:45:32.88
Keith
Yep.

00:45:34.14
Jeremy
It retains the water. They're metallic, you know? So yeah, those are a good collector item too.

00:45:40.32
Buddy
I'll tell you, if you go to like Lowe's Home Depot, some of the box stores and stuff that have, you might see if they have because they throw them away. They, they, all that stuff, once they're gone, they, they throw em away, you know?

00:45:53.27
Buddy
So, um, they ship them.

00:45:54.97
Keith
You can do some dumpster diving.

00:45:57.37
Buddy
Yeah. You could ask them, you know, Hey, yeah.

00:45:58.78
Keith
Or just ask. Yeah.

00:46:00.30
Buddy
You know, if they have a, some like, even like, um, We have Atwoods here and Tractor Supply. Sometimes we'll, you know, do a little greenhouse and and put some stuff up, put the plants out there. Well, they just throw the stuff away. So you can ask them or maybe dumpster dive, whatever, whatever your your technique is to getting stuff. But a lot of times they still have, you know, the the actual tray that a lot of them come in. So that's a hack for you.

00:46:28.70
Keith
Yeah, there's a store by us that we go to and they they pile up all of their trays that all their little potted plants come in once they're done. And then you just grab them and this is how you shop.

00:46:39.97
Keith
You you grab them, you fill them up and you bring them up to register and you just take them home. So what I do is I take two trays and and I sandwich them together and I do it.

00:46:44.48
Buddy
Yeah. Yeah.

00:46:49.05
Keith
So I have all these leftover trays. and it from last year, and now they're all sitting on the back porch collecting dust. Not ah what, what am I going use them for?

00:46:55.45
Buddy
yeah

00:46:57.32
Keith
They're not, you know, because they have holes in the bottom. They're not like, you know, they're not water trays. They're just open trays. So yeah, free things, but yeah. So, uh, my flowers didn't are, are doing well. Um, I've got, um, let's see, I've got sunflowers, just a this small kind. I got sunflowers, marigolds, uh,

00:47:17.59
Keith
all different types of miracles, actually the Jolly Rogers, the double dwarfs, petite, second, the studiums, uh, alyssums or a list, alyssium, lissiums.

00:47:27.99
Keith
I think that's how you say it. Uh, forget me knots and lavender. the nasturtium is not coming up very good. It's just tiny little green speckles. I would have thought they would have come up by now, but, um, the,

00:47:39.07
Buddy
Yeah, those are good just to throw the seeds in the in the ground.

00:47:42.90
Keith
is that right? Is that, you just toss them out there?

00:47:43.99
Buddy
Yeah, I've tried them in trays before. They didn't do real well. I just usually i just i like to throw those throughout the garden just like the marigolds, you know.

00:47:55.74
Keith
And you throw the seeds right into the dirt and see what happens.

00:47:55.83
Buddy
and And we've talked about. Yeah, just throw them down there and give them a little cover.

00:47:58.97
Keith
Nice.

00:48:02.26
Buddy
And usually they go off pretty well. So.

00:48:05.34
Keith
Good idea.

00:48:06.70
Buddy
Yeah.

00:48:06.82
Keith
ah Got a lot of onions. I have 35 cells of onions. These are the big bulbing. think they're yellow onions.

00:48:13.59
Buddy
are they starts or they oh wow okay

00:48:15.20
Keith
<unk> No, these are from seed. Now, we did buy a whole bag of starts just in case the seeds didn't come up. you know And I don't know. But these are 35 cells. Every single one them is producing.

00:48:26.99
Keith
They're six, seven inches tall right now. So they're going to go in the ground very soon because they can handle a little bit of cold and and even frost, you know, you're your onions.

00:48:36.50
Buddy
so and I've done this and had success at it but you know how you buy chives You'll buy them at the store and they got the little, you know, roots on there and you cut it off anyway.

00:48:43.61
Keith
Yeah.

00:48:46.48
Buddy
So I'll save those up and throw them just randomly all winter long, throw them out in the, in the raised beds and, you know, plant them. And they're starting to come up real well now.

00:48:56.83
Buddy
So um I've done it in pots before.

00:48:59.22
Keith
that's cool.

00:49:00.71
Buddy
When I was selling at a farmer's market, I had three pots on my backyard and right off my back porch that when I would use chives or green onions, some people call them green onions. I would just cut the ends off and take them out and just throw them in the pot.

00:49:13.77
Buddy
And by the spring, by about really about April, I had just a whole three pots of chives that, you know, I use one of them and i I took the other ones out and sold them, you know, at a farmer's market for other people just for starts and stuff.

00:49:22.34
Keith
Yeah, it's nice.

00:49:29.95
Buddy
So that's a technique.

00:49:30.37
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:49:31.20
Keith
So chives are, you know, same as like scallions or bunching onions, same same sort of concept.

00:49:33.91
Buddy
Scallions, green onions. Yeah.

00:49:36.05
Keith
Yeah.

00:49:36.73
Jeremy
Yeah, the ones that we repot or we regrow, like like i when I cut the tops or the rooty part or the bottom part, I should say, from an onion, um we take that, put it in water until it starts to grow a little bit of green.

00:49:37.36
Keith
Yeah.

00:49:51.03
Jeremy
We put them out there and they don't bulb out, but what they do grow is these huge, I mean, huge green, the scallion part.

00:49:59.72
Buddy
Yeah.

00:49:59.90
Jeremy
And they grow like, i don't know, foot, yeah, like a foot and a half to almost two feet tall.

00:50:01.95
Keith
Really?

00:50:04.70
Jeremy
And they're really.

00:50:05.09
Keith
Now, why are they not bulbing? Huh.

00:50:07.35
Jeremy
um I don't really know. i don't know. um But the green part grows and we actually had one that actually survived over the winter. And I would go out there and I'd, let's say I needed, you know, scallion in my recipe or whatever. I'd go cut a piece off and bring it in. And when you cut it off, it's got like... um i don't know.

00:50:27.93
Jeremy
It's almost like slime. It's like ah you got to wash them out a little bit.

00:50:31.29
Buddy
Yeah.

00:50:31.86
Jeremy
But man, they're freaking strong.

00:50:32.03
Keith
Yeah, they're slimy.

00:50:34.70
Jeremy
They're so damn strong. Like intensely strong. I like them a lot. Yeah. Yeah.

00:50:41.17
Keith
we're We're going to, I'm going to start our corn by the seed like we did last year. And what I did last year was i I, first of all, I prepared the ground. And this may be one of the reasons you had an issue, yours, because we have terrible ground here. It's very ah clay and hard. So what I did was I went through with one of those, augers, the, you know, the the big ones that you hold, in your hand, you gas, you know, gas machine. And I augured the entire, all the rows of where the corn was going down about 18 inches to two feet. And then I refilled everything up. Basically it was like ah ah doing a, uh, what do you call it when you, uh, a tilling, but a very, very deep tilling.

00:51:22.09
Keith
And then once I got all that dirt and everything mixed up, I ah threw in a bunch of compost and some other soils and stuff. And then I made my rows, my, I mounded them up. I did a couple of rows with seeds and I also planted some of them. They both did great.

00:51:35.86
Keith
The seeds came up, no problem. And the ones I transplanted, and no problem. So we're going to try a little bit of both. And we did get some of that multicolored corn. We're going to give that a try this year as well. We didn't do that last year.

00:51:46.09
Keith
the One thing I failed at last year was the okra and I was very upset. I've got, none of them popped at all. Not a single one of them ah popped up at all out of the ground out of the seed at all.

00:51:52.74
Buddy
really yeah here man okra girls it's a weed man it grows like a weed but um and we got

00:51:57.84
Keith
This year I've got 12 And all of them are like six inches tall right now. So I cannot wait to get those in the ground.

00:52:02.92
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:52:04.67
Keith
I'm not going to mess up and put them out there before the last frost. I'll make sure I get it right. But they're...

00:52:15.03
Keith
Oh, yeah. I don't know why. I don't know why. I got them from Johnny Seed, man. It should have been fine.

00:52:19.45
Buddy
We got, it got Clemson spineless. Is that what you bought?

00:52:22.97
Keith
Yeah, yeah.

00:52:24.02
Buddy
Okay. So, you know, we have red dirt here. it' It's real acidic. And man, for some reason, it the okra loves, it's kind of like the pepper plants, loves the red dirt.

00:52:35.88
Buddy
It loves the heat. So about August, September, when it's, you know, really warm out, man, they go, I've seen them up to, I don't know,

00:52:41.36
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:52:46.25
Buddy
12, 16 foot tall, just giant stocks.

00:52:48.11
Jeremy
Oh, yeah, they get huge.

00:52:49.80
Buddy
I mean, crazy, but yeah, I've never, I've never tried them from, that's just throwing them right in the ground. I've never tried them from a start.

00:52:57.99
Keith
Everybody just throws them the ground. I just thought maybe it'd be helpful if I got them started you know early. Last year, they didn't germinate at all.

00:53:03.10
Buddy
Yeah. I'm interested to see how they do. Yeah.

00:53:06.53
Keith
Well, and these are the ones I got this year, actually not the Clemson. These are the dwarf long long pod. Um, so, but they they're all basically the same. I wish, I wish I had found some of the red ones. That would have been, that would have been nice. like those.

00:53:20.80
Keith
Um, I also go ahead.

00:53:21.09
Jeremy
Well, what I was going to say, one of one of the things you maybe have been going on with your, um with your okra, okra is actually the flower. i don't know if you've ever seen the flower, um but it's, ah it it requires, you know, your, your pollinators because it is a ah hibiscus.

00:53:42.34
Jeremy
It's actually related to the hibiscus flower.

00:53:44.11
Keith
No, no, no, no, no. no It didn't germinate. The seeds did not germinate in the, in, inside.

00:53:47.70
Jeremy
Oh.

00:53:49.63
Keith
And I did everything the way it was supposed to be. And we, we accidentally grew to okra plants the very first year we were here. And we got, we got maybe a dozen or a couple dozen, you know, little okras because it was too late in season.

00:54:04.30
Keith
It, it, you know, I don't even know where it came from.

00:54:04.76
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:54:06.86
Keith
We were just planting stuff that we just had left around, you know, that was hardening off and I guess it was marked wrong, I guess.

00:54:11.22
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:54:12.65
Keith
I don't know. but, uh, last year they didn't, they didn't do it.

00:54:13.78
Jeremy
Well, and I know that when our, yeah, when our peppers really start coming in is when our okra really starts coming in.

00:54:22.24
Buddy
Yeah.

00:54:22.26
Keith
So it likes the heat then. Okay.

00:54:23.51
Jeremy
Yeah, it does like heat. Yeah. I mean, they kind of look like peppers, but yeah, they are they The flower that they grow is very pretty, and it's related to the hibiscus.

00:54:33.40
Keith
Ah, okay.

00:54:34.36
Jeremy
Yep.

00:54:35.82
Keith
So, uh, next thing is that we did some succession growing and I've got, um, I've got two types of of kale, Siberian and red Russian, brussels spros Brussels sprouts, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, and that's it in ah in a tray.

00:54:53.28
Keith
And they are doing very, very well up there, probably four or five inches right now, all of them across the board. And then I succession grew a whole nother tray two and a half weeks later. So those are just starting to pop up now.

00:55:03.72
Jeremy
Nice. Mm-hmm.

00:55:05.61
Keith
So hopefully I'll have some succession time. Because the one thing we missed last year is we got a lot of lettuce, but we didn't get enough lettuce. It all came in but right at the same time. And then we didn't have any later on. And, you know, so we're trying to get them to pop up and out there in the garden at the right time.

00:55:20.15
Keith
You know, so and some lettuces you just cut right off, you know, likere like what, romaine or something like that. And some lettuces you can cut and it still keeps growing. So I don't know what.

00:55:29.64
Buddy
I'll tell you something fun to do, do microgreens.

00:55:31.09
Keith
Go ahead.

00:55:34.50
Buddy
You know, you do them on your counter. um lot of people have, a

00:55:37.13
Keith
ah Don't you have to get a whole setup with like hydroponic and all that?

00:55:40.15
Buddy
oh you can you can do it with a small tray. I've done them in like a ah small butter dish with some seeds and not even any dirt. It grows a little bit better with dirt, but you can just water them, stick them under, you know, your under your cabinets, a lot of people have lights, you know, they can turn on underneath the cabinets, decorative lights or whatever grows right there.

00:56:06.28
Buddy
But if you wanted to, you can go to a couple different places. I have microgreen kits for, you know, $20, $30 and get a nice tray of them. And, and ah it, it makes a, I'll call it a snack, but it makes a nice, you know, lettuce or salad.

00:56:22.52
Buddy
You can get radishes, you can get, different seeds to throw in there and it it's a pretty good salad if you if you're into it really really easy to do

00:56:30.11
Keith
Let's take a look at it and see. Rhonda does the sprouting. She does the the sprouting cans, you know, where you, it's like a can that sits on your counter and you cover it. And then all of a sudden, like a couple days later, you got sprouts and you, you know,

00:56:42.33
Buddy
yeah it sprouts is another another form of bamboo bamboo shoots uh

00:56:46.20
Keith
Oh, is that like micro micro green type of thing?

00:56:48.41
Buddy
Yeah, um and I like the rat the beets and the radish for whatever reason. These little greens, there's like basically little dwarf plants is what they are, but the microgreens, the little greens and leaves taste just like a radish or beet or you know whatever else it may be.

00:56:54.53
Keith
I love the radish ones.

00:57:09.70
Keith
Are they the same seed that you or have to get specific like dwarf micros plants?

00:57:15.57
Buddy
it's ah It's pretty much the same seed.

00:57:17.50
Jeremy
Yeah, I don't think you need a like a specific one.

00:57:17.59
Keith
Huh. I'll

00:57:19.86
Buddy
No, you can grow just you know from regular seeds.

00:57:22.78
Keith
have to look into it.

00:57:24.11
Buddy
So it's worth trying. i I enjoy it. Kind of got me thinking I'm going to go out there and and dig up my kits and put a couple underneath the, I don't know, and I'm starting to get hungry.

00:57:33.39
Keith
Ha ha ha.

00:57:37.47
Buddy
Maybe it's time to eat. Oh, it is time to eat.

00:57:38.74
Keith
Yeah, I'm go getting hungry too. So I got two things left. And one was the was my cucumbers. I got a whole entire tray of two different types of cucumbers, a Chicago pickling and, well, shit, I forget the name of the other one.

00:57:53.26
Keith
market Market something. It's like market cukes or item something like that. But the cucumbers come in really, really good. Rhonda has an entire tray going of loofah, which is fantastic.

00:58:05.78
Keith
Can't wait to see those come in.

00:58:05.96
Jeremy
Oh, yeah. ah yeah

00:58:08.32
Keith
Um, she did.

00:58:08.61
Buddy
of Lufa.

00:58:09.24
Keith
Yeah. She did a lot with Lufa last year and she's going to, she has a whole deck setup where she's going to sell it. And cause she cleaned them and sent, scented them and packaged them and everything.

00:58:16.22
Buddy
Yes.

00:58:18.80
Keith
And they came out really good. Man. I love that stuff.

00:58:22.39
Jeremy
I would like, I would really like to see how that goes for y'all.

00:58:22.42
Buddy
That's awesome.

00:58:27.31
Jeremy
If, if you could like share those pictures and video, cause I've thought about doing loofah, um, just for, you know, like our own, you know, showers or whatever. Um, but I don't know that we have the climate for it. I don't know if that would work here. I don't know.

00:58:45.22
Keith
Well, last year we weren't trying to do cuca up cucumbers. I mean, I'm sorry, loofah. We were doing cucumbers and we we thought a cucumber plant was planted and it wasn't really doing very well. And all of a sudden it just took off and it went like 25 feet down one one fence and like 25 feet down the other fence. And we're like, what is it? Just let it grow. What is this thing growing? And all of a sudden it started producing what we thought were cucumbers and got bigger and bigger. And bigger and next thing you know, we got like 12, 18 inch, almost two foot long cucumbers. We're like, hold on. That's not a cucumber. What is that?

00:59:23.51
Keith
And they were popping up everywhere. Every single day you go out there and they'd be five inches longer, five inches, you know, four inches longer, five inches longer.

00:59:28.12
Jeremy
yeah

00:59:29.67
Keith
What is going on? And we, we finally figured out they were, they were lufus. And then she read up on how to process them. And there you go. this is It's crazy.

00:59:37.88
Buddy
I've seen him 25 feet up in trees before.

00:59:40.70
Keith
Really?

00:59:40.94
Buddy
it's Yeah, I was like, what the hell is that growing up there?

00:59:41.74
Jeremy
Don't you, don't you have to let the husk like go brown and and dry out?

00:59:48.80
Keith
Yeah, there's two ways of doing it.

00:59:49.03
Buddy
Yeah.

00:59:50.03
Keith
You can do the green way and you can do it the the brown way. she did She did the brown way this last time and ah worked out great. But there is a way you can actually take them off earlier and there's like a you can squash them.

00:59:56.46
Jeremy
Nice.

01:00:01.55
Keith
there's like You put a couple of boards together and you squash them down and and all the juice and everything comes off and then you clean them and let them dry.

01:00:04.28
Jeremy
Yeah.

01:00:07.70
Keith
There's there's a couple different ways. She did the yup browning way. So you grab it.

01:00:11.04
Jeremy
Wow.

01:00:11.55
Keith
It's just like a, it's like a lightweight brown, hard husky looking thing. And then you just peel, peel it off and the loofah is in the inside.

01:00:16.50
Jeremy
yeah that's crazy yeah yeah

01:00:20.32
Keith
You know, then you have to start the cleaning. You have to clean them, soak them. You know, there's a process to it, but that's kind of cool. You know, just another thing. And the last thing I was going to talk about was, and yes, I, we will make videos on everything in the garden as you're including the, the lo we're building a ah tunnel for the, for the loofah.

01:00:36.30
Keith
So this way we, they can be kind of everywhere.

01:00:36.80
Jeremy
hmm

01:00:38.72
Keith
So. um Last thing is the overwintering of the the pepper plants. I brought in, i think, about a dozen, 12, 13 of them. About five or six, maybe half, a little less than half, though, did not survive.

01:00:54.30
Keith
The ones that did survive are unbelievable. They're you know they're two, three feet tall. they got They're already greening up like little bushes. And they're doing fantastic. All did was just give them a little tiny bit of water. Now, I didn't do what you guys do, like cleaning off the roots and all that.

01:01:10.58
Jeremy
Yeah. Yeah.

01:01:10.67
Keith
I just pulled them out of the ground, shook them off, shook off as much dirt as possible, shoved them into a thing and put fresh dirt in there. And that's it.

01:01:18.69
Buddy
Well, here's the reason why I'd say do that, and I was told to do that, and I got lazy, is I lost 125 Fresno pepper plants that was growing for a chef.

01:01:30.84
Buddy
My first initial run for him over when I was doing them for the winter, and I actually had a whole tent dedicated. i bought a whole set up dedicated just for this guy so I could try to do it year-round, growing peppers for him.

01:01:44.26
Buddy
I lost all my plants because i of ah

01:01:48.70
Jeremy
you

01:01:49.92
Buddy
bugs. You know, I brought in, i didn't clean off my, I just, I had my jalapeno plant and I was like, oh I'll just throw it in with those, you know, over the winter and didn't clean it off.

01:01:51.13
Keith
because Because you didn't clean didn't clean them, you think?

01:02:01.66
Buddy
I brought it in there. So I had to, I went, was going to a conference and I left and I had about a good two inch starts of my Fresno plants.

01:02:11.90
Buddy
And like I said, I had about 125 them out there and I came back and I had black aphids, whole infestation of the whole tent.

01:02:19.99
Jeremy
Oh,

01:02:21.79
Buddy
I had to take everything out, throw it away. you it was it was February when this happened, and I had to go into the tent and scrub it with ch Clorox, and all my stuff it had to be scrubbed and sanitized, and and it was a thing.

01:02:38.10
Buddy
I probably should have just thrown it all away.

01:02:39.36
Keith
I have not seen bugs yet, but since you said that, I am going to go and inspect today for sure.

01:02:44.25
Buddy
Yeah, look for little black dots underneath the the leaves. So, yeah, and it's just, you hopefully you don't have them.

01:02:48.55
Keith
Okay. Okay.

01:02:54.52
Buddy
i left I left for a week, so I didn't actually, i wasn't there to to see it. When I came back, it was too late. So, go inside.

01:03:01.97
Jeremy
Well, here's a good way to tell if you do happen to have either aphids or a cluster of aphids. If you've got ladybugs and they're just kind of like cruising around and hanging out in your plants, there's a possibility you may have them.

01:03:18.46
Buddy
Oh, well, okay.

01:03:18.62
Jeremy
So...

01:03:20.42
Buddy
So I'll tell on myself here. Good thing you said that. You're reminding me. So I was reading, how do I get rid of these? And so the first thing I did is I ordered ladybugs online and I ordered, I don't know, two or 300 of them.

01:03:37.36
Buddy
And I put them in this tent, uh, within a, man, it was less than a week.

01:03:37.53
Keith
and How fast should you get him in?

01:03:42.30
Keith
ah okay. All right.

01:03:43.19
Buddy
And, yeah, well, not the best thing to do on the inside in your tents because my garage it started out in my garage. My garage was taken over, and then they started getting in the house, and which, you know, I was like, oh, that's cool. They're ladybugs. i'm not going to, you know, do anything. But there was an infestation, so – of ladybugs but you know it didn't last long you know open up some windows and doors and shoot them out they didn't last long in the house because they just didn't have anything to eat but yeah it it did start to take care of the aphids but yeah Jeremy's right yeah

01:04:07.61
Keith
That's awesome.

01:04:19.01
Keith
Good to know.

01:04:19.18
Jeremy
Yeah. Yeah.

01:04:19.72
Keith
Don't do them in the garage or the house.

01:04:21.72
Buddy
and you can buy ladybugs online and praying mantis if you have yeah

01:04:21.76
Keith
Good to know.

01:04:26.32
Keith
We're going to both this year. We're going do both. And the praying mantis, they come in like pods, I think.

01:04:32.73
Buddy
Yes, yes. And it's it's there's directions for it. you know it There's a whole process involved in that. Ladybugs, you just let them go. And I've had people say, don't buy the ladybugs online because it's an Asian ladybug and they're they're not the ladybugs from you know your Yeah.

01:04:48.92
Keith
No, the Asian beetles look a little different. we And we have ah we've had we've had them in the garden. We've seen them. And and they will tear up your shit, the Asian ones.

01:04:58.04
Buddy
Well, I mean, most of people that you buy them from aren't giving you the Asian beetles anyway, so they're actually laid in bags.

01:05:02.57
Keith
Right, right, yeah. yeah i don't know I don't know where the Asian ones came from, but they apparently are out there because they they got to our garden. We had both ladybugs and Asian beetles.

01:05:10.66
Buddy
Yeah.

01:05:11.76
Keith
And they look they look very similar, but their heads are different.

01:05:12.02
Buddy
And

01:05:15.67
Jeremy
Yeah, again and the asian Asian one's got an orangey color.

01:05:15.75
Buddy
we'll have to do an episode.

01:05:19.45
Buddy
Yes.

01:05:19.42
Keith
yeah it's That's right. Yeah.

01:05:20.90
Buddy
It's an orangey compared to a red, but we'll have to do the...

01:05:20.99
Keith
Got an orangey color.

01:05:26.01
Buddy
later on a couple months we'll have to do uh you know the uh the bug show yeah it's uh it's i i have one so we'll bring him in

01:05:29.53
Keith
but The bug show. We need to do a bug show.

01:05:31.86
Jeremy
Yeah.

01:05:33.55
Keith
Let's see if we can find an expert for that.

01:05:37.33
Jeremy
Okay.

01:05:37.30
Keith
Nice. Nice.

01:05:38.79
Jeremy
Isn't that referred to as an ichthyologist?

01:05:41.78
Buddy
uh yeah what you said ah a bug nerd

01:05:42.66
Jeremy
I can't remember.

01:05:43.80
Keith
I always just call them nerds, but hey, that works too.

01:05:44.02
Jeremy
Yeah. Nerds, yeah. Bug nerds. Fucking nerds. Now, i will I will say this just to add on one thing. Y'all remember I had a apple tree that we started from a seed from an apple.

01:05:59.05
Keith
Yeah.

01:05:59.22
Jeremy
Um, so I had that in a garage, overwintered it.

01:05:59.32
Buddy
Oh, yeah.

01:06:03.48
Jeremy
And one day I walked out there, all the leaves had browned and fallen off. And I was like, oh man, that sucks. And I started thinking about it. I was like, it's a, it's a tree. It's going to happen anyways. Right?

01:06:15.29
Jeremy
So a couple days ago i was moving it to the greenhouse and I noticed it's got green shoots, um, on the tips of all the branches.

01:06:15.99
Buddy
Yeah.

01:06:25.88
Jeremy
And our lemon tree stayed green all year, all throughout the winter. um And it it, throughout the, you know, the overwintering process, it grew like an additional two feet.

01:06:38.42
Jeremy
So I had them in the garage.

01:06:38.67
Keith
Where was it? Where you keep it stored?

01:06:42.26
Keith
Oh, wow.

01:06:42.62
Jeremy
So I had them in the garage. I mean, it got cold in there cause it's not, you know, super insulated, but

01:06:47.22
Keith
But you got windows or something. you got light in there.

01:06:49.18
Jeremy
Yeah, yeah. So I've got two big windows and I've got the windows that are on the actual garage door.

01:06:50.47
Keith
Huh?

01:06:53.78
Jeremy
And um they they survived. Our blueberry bushes and the buckets that were also in the garage, they survived. So those trees, I think this year we're going plant them in the ground.

01:07:07.29
Jeremy
And we just got to find like a place to do it.

01:07:08.34
Keith
Great idea.

01:07:12.78
Jeremy
I'm not sure exactly where to do it.

01:07:15.01
Keith
No, man, there's people out the out there that have giant gardens and they have they're scattered with apple trees and pear trees and all kinds of fruit trees, man.

01:07:21.50
Jeremy
honey

01:07:22.97
Keith
You can you can pop them in and out of different places and they're great for shade for other other plants too.

01:07:27.38
Jeremy
Yeah. I mean, ah my biggest.

01:07:29.78
Keith
And not only that, but your value of your home goes up if you ever want to sell your home later on down the line because you know fruiting apple trees, that's ah that's a big thing, man.

01:07:34.94
Jeremy
Yeah.

01:07:37.91
Jeremy
Yeah. I mean, it it, my biggest problem is, is like for, you were talking about doing your broccolis and your, your Brussels sprouts and doing all those things. we're actually going to hold off because i think what our mistake has been so far with planting planting our Bracless plants is we get them out there when they you know they're growing and they're doing great. And all of a sudden those little white um cabbage moths come along and they just, they destroy everything in their path.

01:08:08.79
Jeremy
And i think what the key is, is this time we're going to wait a little bit and we're going to put them in later. So that way, when they really start to grow and develop, it'll be cooler weather.

01:08:20.66
Jeremy
Maybe it'll.

01:08:20.76
Keith
So we we did that too, but the but the heat killed them. The heat was not good for the brassicas, man.

01:08:26.78
Jeremy
Yeah, i'm I'm trying to find I'm trying to find like, yeah, I mean, I've got an area and the bok choy and that kind of, skin know, because bok choy is a cabbage um and the bok choy that went all that stuff was back there was in a very shaded area and it did really well until the moths found it.

01:08:28.03
Keith
I don't know. Nice, cool place.

01:08:46.36
Jeremy
And then I went back there one day, we were cutting some arugula and some lettuce and stuff. And I looked and I saw the dam. the, the silky stuff inside of some of the, um, bok choy. And I was like, damn it, man, it took them all that time to get to it. But when they got to it, it was, it was devastating.

01:09:06.10
Jeremy
And then I've got to re-burn that whole area that got infected last year from that whole, uh, um,

01:09:06.55
Buddy
Yeah, piss.

01:09:12.26
Keith
Mm-hmm. Yeah. yeah

01:09:13.91
Buddy
Pull out that flamethrower.

01:09:16.31
Jeremy
Oh, dude, I'm planning on it. Um, I got out there the other day and started hand tilling and, um, I'm going to go out there with the flamethrower and just probably go through a whole canister and just go as deep as I can with the heat and kill anything that may have been left behind.

01:09:30.61
Buddy
There's a guy I watched online never sink farms. he He does that. He goes out and burns. before he tills. So he burns and he tills and he plants. So it's a thing.

01:09:42.48
Keith
I'm going to control burn some leaves. I've got piles and piles and piles of leaves. So I'm going to control burn some in some of the areas where I can do that. You know, just watch it carefully and burn it down, lift the ash into the ground and the heat and all that sort of thing.

01:09:56.41
Jeremy
fire...

01:09:56.70
Keith
Buddy, why don't you take us out, man?

01:09:59.77
Buddy
Well, I think this a time of year where you need to get out and do the things in your in your garden. Great time for, you know, all ranges, at least in the United States, all your ears your growing zones to get out there and throw some compost on, work work it in the soil.

01:10:17.88
Buddy
um Just as a rule, you know. The old timers say don't plan anything until after Easter. You know, at least that's what I was told growing up. And it's usually a thing. So, but, you know, go out there and have fun with it.

01:10:31.70
Buddy
If you, you fail at something, you know, you're listening to us. We do this, you know, we've been doing this for years and years and we still fail. So we out and have fun with it and grow something new and put it on the website and, you know, Facebook group and let us know how you do. So just go out and have fun.

My Prepper brothers and sisters…

…  Seed choices that won’t fold under drought or neglect, tray setups that survive brownouts, soil recipes that laugh at empty feed store shelves, transplanting at the right time, watering the right amount, and the brutal reality that one missed window this month means you’re foraging or bartering for calories instead of harvesting them.

Spring doesn’t give a damn about your comfort zone, your 401k, or your excuses.

It shows up armed and indifferent.

Every start you get going in the next two weeks is a direct act of rebellion against dependency.

Every hardened-off plant that you put in the ground in the coming weeks is nutrition and calories for your family this summer, fall, and winter. 

Remember, regret doesn’t photosynthesize.

And empty bellies don’t negotiate.

Stay Prepped…

Stay Happy…

Thanks for Listening…

And Goodnight…