Step Into Spring with Kevin and Jacques | The Beet

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What we've done in the backyard is you take pressure treated four by four posts.

Yeah, last a lot longer.

Last a lot longer and the plants really not interacting with it.

And you just ram them down two or three feet into the ground with no concrete,

no rebar, nothing.

You cram the earth around it and then you put a cross beam across.

And it's actually better to use two two by fours sandwich together placed vertically.

Yeah.

Rather than one four by four or like one two by four placed horizontally.

Yeah.

Because it'll, it'll basically bow like crazy.

Yeah, we figured that one out.

We figured that one out the hard way.

But either way, I mean, this travel system has lasted for three years,

only because we had an insane day loose of rain,

did one of them wash out.

Yeah.

And it wouldn't be that hard to put back by this.

Jack, we're back, sun shining on our faces.

It feels really nice.

I have to say.

It honestly does.

And it's, it's spring, man.

Yeah.

I know.

I've called it.

It's officially spring.

I remember you messaged me and you said, hey, I think it's spring.

And it was like maybe early February at that point.

Yeah.

But legally, it's not.

Legally, it is not.

Karen Derrickly is not.

Yeah.

But um, San Diego Lee.

It is.

For sure.

And also just looking at the garden right now.

I know.

I'm like popping up.

Oh, it smells good, dude.

This is crazy.

It smells like that green apple, that monsana.

Just smells so good.

I love it.

I love it.

I love it.

Um, we have to get back home at horse.

Hey, you know, it's right here waiting for you to hop on.

Waiting for you to ride.

So where are you out with the season right now?

Uh, I am honestly, it's funny, because even though I said it was spring, early, at that point,

I hadn't even started my tomato.

Which is weird.

Yeah.

Usually I start them in January.

I'm a little bit even a little early.

Yeah.

Um, this year, I waited until the first week of February and.

I feel okay.

All of my tomatoes, my first ones are up in six cells,

so they're gonna get potted up, maybe today.

Some of them, my young peppers are up,

but most of my brasicas are coming out of the garden already.

Like I've already had a lot of bolted broccoli,

I've already harvested most of the cauliflower,

and pretty much I just have a bunch of cabbage.

So, so I'm getting ready.

I do have like some of the spring stuff started,

I have a couple of bush beans,

but mostly it's in the greenhouse right now.

Nice, yeah.

To me I know it started because like I was saying,

all of the weeds or herbs are up right now.

Yeah.

Not only they up, like the chamomile,

it's fully producing.

It's producing right now in mid-February,

which is just wild to see.

Course in assertions, we've ripped a lot of those out

here at the homestead camera call.

You can't.

Nor should you.

Yeah, that's true.

But there was so many.

Yeah, and so I see some flowers at like half height already.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean spring's definitely here.

This year I guess I'm focused more on like,

just using what I eat and not stressing too much

about like maxing out this, maxing out that.

I mean a couple years past, I was like,

I need the best looking produce, the biggest produce.

I don't care, I just want like this year at least.

Yeah, who knows, next year it could definitely change.

But this year I just want enough to use.

Those of you who watched the homesteading channel,

you know, we had a pro chef come by and do some cooking.

I've been using services from a chef

to just kind of get my health and check

and getting produce from the garden is like a big part of that.

So yeah, yeah, that's kind of what I'm looking at.

Yeah, I'm excited because A, we got rain yesterday too.

So we got like a little over half an inch at least.

And we might get more tonight, very exciting.

Because it's not gonna be a dry year.

And in terms of like my overall,

I guess direction I'm going this year,

mostly the same, I have to admit.

It's like I want a lot of peppers,

I want a lot of tomatoes.

The only thing I'm really doing differently this year

is I'm expanding my container growing a lot more.

Oh, are you?

And part of that is because I am sick of dealing

with those rooton nematodes, I still want tomatoes.

So this year, I think I'm gonna set up like 8, 15

or 20 gallon growbacks.

Oh, yeah.

And just go on my driveway, a row of tomatoes and growbacks.

I was gonna say you're gonna do tomatoes with the growbacks?

Yeah.

I just wanna avoid that.

So I think I'm gonna do that.

I might expand like a couple more berries and containers,

get some more of that fruit harvest, a tree or two.

So a little bit more container expansion, but beyond that,

I am also growing a lot of garlic.

I feel like I always say I'm growing a lot of garlic,

but this year I have like a whole 10 by 10

bed of just garlic and then another three by eight

bed of just garlic and some more in the front.

And I have some onions and wheat.

So I did revisit the wheat.

And the thing about all those is that they take a long time.

So that means that a good chunk of my garden

is basically locked out until like June.

Yeah, I mean, the wheat, the garlic is gonna take quite a while.

I'm excited this year.

I mean, we've got dare I say it.

I think we have a pretty good garlic crop this year.

It's like it really gets so far.

We've got a lot last year to the garlic rust.

I was gonna say even it does, actually in this case.

Also, I think them.

It was a bit of both.

I think the rust was a little more impactful.

Yeah.

So this year we got our garlic in.

I would say slightly late.

It was for us December, but of course for us,

that's not a true winter.

It was more soft neck than hard.

So we didn't do a whole lot of the

fertilization, the freezing, et cetera,

or the cold stratification.

It's looking healthy.

I think with garlic, you really want,

as much leaf production as you can early on,

I'm seeing that now.

Yeah.

So I'm happy about that.

Especially since it's only February,

and you've got like, looks like eight full leaves out on each.

Which makes me, maybe I'm getting a harvest before June.

That's the thing.

Yeah.

Which is, that's when normally you'd get it.

I'm gonna watch like a hawk, because if I start seeing rust,

et cetera, I want that plant to develop

ideally before the rust takes it.

You know what I mean?

Because last year, I'm removing the harvest of the test garden out.

We got a lot of clothes that were usable,

mostly because we planted hundreds of actual bulbs.

So like, let's say we lost 90%,

but 10% still like 25, 30 good clothes or bulbs,

excuse me.

And this year, I'm hoping for a bit higher ratio than that.

I think this bed is probably going to be,

I'm going to say it'll all be successful.

Yeah.

It looks really, at this point, even if it did get disease,

it's far enough along that I think it'd probably be fine.

It probably would.

And your onions also look really good.

Your way ahead of me on onions this year,

mine are like that.

Like, yeah.

Like I think I probably planted mine like a month after you.

Yeah.

And I don't have any good reason for that.

This year, I just kind of felt delayed.

I feel like the weather was so weird

that I just kind of dropped the ball into my timing.

That's how it goes sometimes.

I mean, we got some stuff in, early this year,

we got some stuff in late.

The thing is, a couple things I'm excited about,

we got our potatoes in.

I don't have any potatoes in.

I'm surprised about that.

I know.

Now that you've become a potato convert, you know?

A homegrown potato converse.

Yeah, homegrown potato.

I've always been a potato convert.

Yeah, I always be clear.

Be clear.

Let's be clear.

This boy is born and bred on potatoes.

It's true.

No, so we had done this big experiment last year,

eight different potato growing methods.

And the one that shocked us was the Rufstalt method.

Yep.

The classic Rufstalt, where you just drop

and then cover with straw.

I think she does hay, but in our case, straw.

Yeah.

And we got insane amount.

Yeah, and they were big.

And they were huge.

And I believe it was like twice as big as the next method,

as far as weight goes.

So what we're doing now is we're doing another video experiment

on just the Rufstalt alone,

just kind of highlighting that method.

So that'll be coming up on the channel.

But then from our favorite supplier, potatoes,

wood prairie farm, we've been big on a couple of varieties.

You turn me on to the Sarpomira.

Yeah, there was supposed to be some like royal potato

that only the royalties had access to

that now as plebs are allowed to grow.

Yeah.

And they're tasty.

They are tasty.

They are tasty.

I'm productive.

I thought that was kind of like the one Sarpom

that existed, turns out.

Paul and the team who was shopping for wood prairie this season

found Sarposhona, Sarpo Una, and maybe one more.

Yeah, maybe.

Maybe.

They really expanded that line.

The Sarpo lineage has spread, I guess.

So it's not for, maybe it's for gestures and princes now.

And maybe we got the lower line.

That's a little bit of us, you know?

I don't think all of the lower kings.

But no, I'm excited about that.

I want to see how those taste and also potatoes.

If you're really thinking about like home food production

for a family, I think about it now.

We've done that crops for calories video while that.

I think about it now is like, what is your baseline plate filler?

It's got to be your potato, your beans,

your sweet potatoes, maybe your squashes or something.

You need something to put on that plate, you know?

Because if you're running greens and garlic and stuff,

it's not going to cut it.

Yeah, you always need a little something extra

to fill those ribs, but I do love the potatoes.

And I found that when I tried growing them last year,

I did grow bags and raised beds.

Yeah.

And I was like, I thought the grow bags would be okay.

And I went up to bigger grow bags even.

But the raised beds like crushed the amount of potatoes

that I got compared to the grow bags.

Why do you think that is?

I think it's just like the unlimited actual access to soil.

I think you really get punished for uneven watering

because it could do it.

And so if I don't actually set up irrigation on it,

and I'm only watering it, whenever I decide to water it,

it's never that great.

Well, especially because it's more like a user error, I guess.

Yeah, it just depends on the style of gardener you are,

because I'm more like you where I'm going to put a system

in place because I'm not going to want to rely on myself.

Yeah, I'm not the type, I don't have the type of brain

that remembers things on schedules that often.

No.

Unless I really bake it into my routine.

Yeah, that's fair.

And especially now that I don't live at the homestead,

it can't really be part of my routine,

like 7 a.m. every morning,

but it would be for some of you listening.

And so, yeah, when we've got irrigation on pretty much everything,

and I think what I like a grow bag for,

definitely the problems we've been dealing

with in the root nine episodes,

you kind of have to use it if you have like a soil

of born disease or pests.

Yeah, clean soil, fresh start, you should be safe.

Yeah, I was going to say also bad soil on the ground,

or soil you're not really comfortable with,

coarse go with that.

We've seen, when I wrote the book,

grow bag gardening a while back,

we've seen so many different clever designs for grow bag gardens.

You can make them look amazing.

Yeah, that's true.

Like you can have them in rows like you're saying,

we saw someone with like a trellis next to it,

so like every grow bag attached to the same sort of long trellis.

Yeah, I'm thinking about how to set up the trellis

for all the tomatoes.

Yeah, I was wondering how you could do that.

No concrete plants yet.

Well, you could do is kind of like the one that we've got behind

where you do the grow bags, let's say,

are like in a 10 foot space,

and then you do four by fours coming up and over,

and then you just drop lines.

Yeah, I know, maybe it just puts them like feet on it,

so it doesn't wobble and fall over

since I'm going to have it on the driveway.

Oh, really easy enough to take a part and just store.

I'm actually surprised at how well

that method worked in the backyard here.

Yeah, so because for those of you who can't see,

of course, what we've done in the backyard

is you take pressure treated four by four posts.

Yeah, that's a lot longer.

That's a lot longer.

The plants really not interacting with it.

And you just ram them down two or three feet into the ground

with no concrete, no rebar, nothing.

You cram the earth around it,

and then you put a cross beam across,

and it's actually better to use two two by fours

sandwiched together placed vertically,

rather than one four by four or like one two by four

placed horizontally, because it'll basically bow like crazy.

We figured that one out.

We figured that one out the hard way.

But either way, I mean, this trellis system

has lasted for three years only

because we had an insane day loose of rain

did one of them wash out.

Yeah, and it wouldn't be that hard to put back, by the way.

No, no, it was windy and very rainy.

So that's a tough one.

The wind was crazy here for a little bit.

Yeah, we had a couple 40 mile per hour guest yesterday,

which was nice.

But yeah, I think in general trellising,

I'm almost like a little bit tempted to grow less

and determine it tomatoes every year.

Yeah.

Try to go more towards dwarf and determinates

just to simplify the trellising act.

Like just throw like a cage around it, walk away,

not worry about it.

Otherwise, like the pruning game,

like I don't mind it every year up until I hit August.

Yeah.

And then once I'm in August and all the tomatoes

are already like five plus feet tall,

and I have like 20 of them.

I'm like, okay, now this is like too much work.

But here's the thing.

There's a way to solve this.

But you're not gonna like the answer.

I don't like it.

I don't like where it's going.

And you know what it's gonna be.

You just don't have to do that.

You just don't have to.

You know, you could let that plant.

Like you could say, say you've gotten 80%

the yield off of one of these indeterminates.

You can just say, that's enough.

You could.

Could.

But that's the thing is the Jacques Gardening DNA can't.

I can't.

And so, but that's everyone.

I mean, I have my things about that too.

I probably maybe these days could be too liberal

scrapping a plant rather than like trying to nurse it

or this or that, just because space I've got it.

Yeah.

Finally, you know, yields on one guy.

So, yeah, I don't need 20 indeterminates, you know.

Yeah.

Aside from the interest of it, right?

Yeah.

Like, I don't need that.

And of course, like when you talk about a garlic

or an onion or a long store that's like a flavor enhancer

in the kitchen, then sure, grow a ton.

And I honestly really hope to be able to give a lot of this

garlic away to people so they can experience

fresh cream garlic.

Yeah, I mean, it's something different for sure.

It's way more aromatic and oily and delicious.

Imagine you walk up to someone, because I'm trying

to make like friends in my life, you know.

It's hard to make friends as an adult.

Imagine you walk up to someone and you go, hey.

Here's a little fresh garlic.

A little taste.

Why don't you take it home?

I mean, if you say it, like I just said it,

they're not going to interact with you,

because it sounded a little too sensual.

Yeah, it sounded like a little quid pro-crow.

Yeah, it sounded a little political, you know.

But no, I mean, we've been doing this.

I mean, I've been given into my chef.

Obviously, it was my mom and stuff,

but I'm thinking whatever happened

to drop in some garlic off at the neighbors, you know.

Bring it back.

Go community.

Go community.

One garlic at a time.

One garlic at a time.

Nobody's going to be mad.

The world, you see all these reports.

I don't know if you've just plugged in on this kind of stuff.

Hopefully not.

But like, there's so many returns out lately

of social isolation being so high.

Yeah, amongst every generation,

every single one, I can speak for myself.

I feel that a lot.

But also like younger people.

Imagine if you're 25 now.

The internet, it's 2026.

So the .com boom happened before you were born,

which means that your inception on this earth

existed with basically is like commensurate

to the actual curve of the internet growing,

which I think is probably the biggest reason for this.

Yeah, I've heard that's an interesting one.

And then just the fact that today,

like you don't necessarily need community as much

because everything is so easy to access.

Whereas like in the past, like you would depend on a friend

or a family to like help you with this or that

and like show you how to do this or that.

But you have access to like everything

around you at all times on demand.

Yeah, and so it's created like this.

It's almost like even though like the need

from having that community is like not like a bad thing,

it's sort of removed it because now you just can access

whatever you want.

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I mean, if you have the means and even if you don't

also because you could freaking corner it

or after pay it or whatever.

I mean, I just saw something come out recently.

I forgot the name of it.

I don't want to name it because it's

I don't think it's a good service.

But you can basically it's like buy now pay later for your rent.

Yeah, it's crazy.

Yeah, it's crazy.

So we're moving into this world where like the internet

ization and the on-demandness of all of all things

that you're right, like if you go back,

this is like one of the reasons Epic,

I realized why Epic sort of had to exist I felt was like,

if you go back three generations, still, I think,

maybe four, you do not exist without knowing

how to supply some of your own produce in some way.

Or you know someone directly who's there, right?

Because we're talking 30 years as a generation.

That's 120 years ago.

That's 1900.

I know someone who was born in 1895, my great grandma.

She, of course, she had some way

of producing on food or she grabbed it or she just did it, right?

That skills gone.

A lot of other skills to live on the planet

are obfuscated away to certain services, you know?

So you're totally right, like you don't need to rely,

I don't need to rely on you to get me my potatoes.

No.

But I think it's the intentional act of choosing to.

Yes, that's what brings you back to being alive, I think.

Yeah, just the other interesting thing

that I recently learned about is like,

there's some anthropological study that shows

that communities in like, especially in Asia and Southeast Asia,

they still have way more of a community sort of feel

and reliance on each other because they grow rice.

And with rice, you actually need a lot of people

on hand to do the work to clean it,

to maintain it, to plant it, where it,

so it's like a community project to grow your main staple.

Yeah, whereas like with something like wheat,

it's so like automated, mechanized,

and like straight down the row,

that it's like a much more isolated, like, solo act.

That's interesting.

And it's like just an interesting little thing.

Related to growing food.

It's really good food and I also think, tentative.

I don't want to make it too exciting,

but I am tentatively planting a Japan trip at the end of May.

Yeah.

And I'm trying to set up about four farm tours.

Oh man.

One of them will be rice.

The guide I'm working with is an epic fan

and he has a rice farm.

Oh wow.

So I'm hoping I can get there.

The rice planting window is like very specific,

according to him.

So I may miss the actual planting window.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It would have been amazing to go out and plant rice

though in the fields, you know.

But I think you're right.

I think also like being half Asian growing up

sort of in a more communal based culture,

you, like, you know, even in Japan,

they say like the children are raised by the neighborhood.

Yeah, right?

Like that's not here anymore.

No.

It's gonna be everywhere.

It used to just be how it is.

Even when I grew up, man, I grew up here in San Diego,

double cold of sack.

So the kind of a gated sort of road,

you're not like you're just on one strip, you know.

And we would all play all the time outside until dark.

Yeah.

And this is not like the kick the can era of our parents,

you know what I mean?

This is like the internet was coming online, etc.

But the default was you got in play

until with your friends until things were home.

Yeah.

The default now is not even close to that.

I mean, do you see anyone outside on the street playing?

Never.

I never, I never see, I literally never see that.

No.

No, it's sad.

It is sad.

And I know I do, I am inspired that more people

are choosing to do things like gardening where it's like,

you obviously don't have to grow your own food.

No.

And this, especially today, we don't have to do this.

But we understand like the benefit for ourselves

in the act of doing it, but also in the community

that it can also bring.

Like having people come over and sharing the produce

like the garlic example, entertaining people

out of your space and showing them the garden

and having them like, hey, come here.

Like pull this plant and harvest potatoes

for the first time.

Yeah, letting them do it.

It is.

And it makes them excited and it kind of brings people back

together to want to do these things.

Yeah.

I think it's important.

I think it's like anything that like slows you down

and gives you intentionality, it's going to be beneficial.

I agree.

And the gardening is a great way to do that.

Yeah, it's one of the best.

And I think for me, there's an irony to it

that it's become a different thing now, of course.

So I've had to find other methods

to get that same intentionality because now, of course,

I could, but it has a different flavor these days,

you know what I mean?

And so getting into like art stuff or long walks,

I take a lot of pictures of sunsets or clouds now.

Whenever I see a good cloud,

I just say, let me capture that.

Yeah, there's been some good ones lately too.

There's been really, yes, there's been really great.

Because we don't actually, one thing I complain about

saying a day ago, it's hard to complain.

I'm sitting here in February with shorts and a T-shirt.

But our cloud game is weak.

We have a very, very weak cloud game here.

And whenever I'm somewhere else, I always like,

I'm like, wow, you guys have clouds.

It's so cool.

Oh, it has crazy clouds.

Yeah, they did.

Whenever we're out there, crazy clouds.

Yeah, it's in the other level.

We're going to be in Seattle, yeah.

It's going to be all clouds.

Maybe not in a good way.

I'm sure he's going to be only, or it sales me only clouds.

Yeah, this one whatsoever.

So that's a different game.

Yeah, it's going to be a little different.

I will be up with the Northwest Flower Garden show.

Hopefully, by the time you see this,

probably has happened already.

But hopefully, we've met you at this,

if you guys want to come out and see us.

But yeah, it's going to be an interesting year ahead.

I think I'm excited for just getting produce out of the garden.

Like a pretty normal goal.

Yeah, I think this here, one of the things

I want to do more of is grafting.

I feel like every year, I try to do some amount of grafting.

There's something so satisfying about the act of slicing

two plants and fusing them together

by just shoving one and the other.

It's very comical.

It is comical, it just works.

It's crazy that the plants are able to do that.

Yeah, yeah.

So we're going to be grafting tomatoes again this year.

I think both of us are planning a new root stock.

I've already made a new root stock to try to deal

with some of that pest pressure.

And I also have this random citrus tree

in my backyard by the chicken area,

where I have two paratries now.

And it's up against the cinder block and white fence thing.

It's just been there forever.

And I've tried it.

It's horrendous.

It's like straight acid.

Like a wild citrus.

Yeah, it'll basically strip all the enamel off your teeth

to try to eat it.

It does not feel good.

But I've left it there.

I've actually chopped it back like twice.

And it keeps growing back.

I never water it.

It produces tons of shoots and fruits.

So I'm like, I should just graft something productive onto that.

Like a citrus tree that's automatic.

I don't need a water.

So I've never done that type of grafting,

but I am looking forward to maybe even doing like

a multi citrus graft.

I like a lemon, an orange.

I think it's possible.

I think so.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And if you have a, you effectively have a wild root stock

that's overgrown.

Exactly.

Not too.

Although, I guess you could make an argument

for cutting that root stock lower and grafting lower, perhaps.

I'll probably do that.

Because otherwise, you're going to have to deal with so many

off shoots, you know?

But anyway, it's just going to be interesting.

You're ahead, guys.

I'm curious what you guys think as far as your goals this year

and dropping down in the comments.

We will see you on another episode here

or somewhere else in the Epic Garden Ecosystem.

Good luck in the garden.

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