Planting Fall Crops, Cucumber Salad & Harvesting More Potatoes!
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00:00 That will protect our crops for sure.
00:03 Any critters wanting to come in and eat stuff, huh?
00:05 - I'm just doing this one for now.
00:06 - That's a good idea.
00:07 - I'm gonna do some more right there and right there.
00:11 Like later when we're planting.
00:14 I just want to protect everything.
00:16 - Yes, I know you want to protect everything.
00:18 You do a good job of it.
00:19 Oh, Russell.
00:21 Russell, have you had a rough morning?
00:23 What's up, dude?
00:24 You been fighting?
00:29 All right, guys, so our raised bed vegetable garden
00:31 is where we're gonna be working this morning.
00:33 And as you can see, it is very full still.
00:36 We have a lot of productivity going on.
00:38 I mean, the productivity is spilling out into the driveway.
00:41 This is a melon plant right here,
00:44 kind of crawling over the lavender.
00:47 And there are a ton of melons.
00:48 So I thought we would do a little walkthrough
00:50 and then I'll show you where we're gonna be planting.
00:53 So starting here at the entryway,
00:55 we're gonna have to watch our steps
00:56 so that we don't run into your barrier.
00:57 But these containers are absolutely gorgeous.
01:02 Carolie Petit Pink Gara as a centerpiece here.
01:04 Look at that.
01:05 There's a honeybee working it right now.
01:08 Supertunia Vista Jasberry, Sparkling Amethyst Supervena,
01:12 and then Supertunia Raspberry Rush, I think, right?
01:15 That's the striped one.
01:15 They are doing amazing,
01:17 have not been trimmed at all this season, just rocking.
01:20 Looking beautiful.
01:21 Okay, as we enter in, you can see the center container
01:23 that we recently hacked back.
01:26 It was looking flushed out.
01:27 There wasn't much color on it.
01:28 So I came in and I mean, I cut the heck out of it
01:32 to where it was just little green plants left
01:34 and they are coming back beautifully.
01:36 Let's just start with this raised bed here.
01:37 We've got some dwarf sunflowers,
01:39 which are about ready to go for it.
01:40 You can see all of their buds right here.
01:43 I've got those on both sides.
01:44 I thought that would be so happy
01:46 to see the beautiful yellow blooms.
01:48 We have tomatoes just going crazy.
01:51 I'm taking the no trim approach this year,
01:52 which is so awesome.
01:53 I get way more tomatoes.
01:55 As long as you have room to let them roll
01:57 and you don't mind how mangy they get.
01:59 I mean, we've just picked so, so many tomatoes.
02:03 It's amazing.
02:04 They're just, they are everywhere, everywhere loaded.
02:08 Also in this bed, we came in fairly recently.
02:11 It feels like it was recent.
02:12 We planted some bachelor's buttons.
02:14 Just wanted some later summer flower activity in here.
02:17 And in this bed, we have carrots from our spring crop
02:20 and there were four rows.
02:21 And I think we've pretty much picked everything
02:23 off of the outer two rows.
02:25 And now we're working on the middle rows.
02:27 We planted a, what kind did I put in here?
02:30 Suyaos.
02:31 Did I put a tag?
02:33 Oh yeah, Suyao, long cucumber.
02:35 And I see one.
02:36 I see a gorgeous one in here.
02:39 They are curved and like a tiny bit spiny,
02:41 but they're one of my favorite cucumbers
02:43 because they stay very firm in the center.
02:45 They have seeds just like all the other cucumbers,
02:47 but they don't get that softness in the center,
02:49 which I don't like.
02:50 I like my cucumbers to be really crisp.
02:51 I think I see another one over here.
02:53 They're probably all over in here.
02:55 If I start looking, oh, look at that beauty.
02:57 I started these late though too.
03:00 At the same time I planted the bachelor's buttons.
03:02 Our limelight hydrangea standard looking amazing.
03:04 Colette rose is throwing some more blooms.
03:06 This is always such a beauty right here.
03:08 Been keeping it fairly pruned up so we can get through.
03:12 Doing a little bit of a better job at that this year
03:14 than I did last year.
03:15 And we did toss a bench right here
03:18 because, and it's kind of,
03:19 it's right underneath the canopy of this elderberry
03:21 because Samantha loves to ride her tricycle
03:24 up and down this brick walkway.
03:25 And that way we can sit and enjoy it.
03:26 And she can just play to her heart's content.
03:28 And turning back around,
03:29 you can see these two beds on my left.
03:31 This is a three by four and a three by six.
03:33 There's nothing currently planted in this one.
03:35 So we're gonna plant that one today.
03:37 And this one, I did seed some didiscus in here
03:42 the same time we planted the cucumber
03:44 and the bachelor's buttons.
03:45 And not so great a luck.
03:47 It could be one that wants to germinate
03:49 in cooler temperatures or something, who knows.
03:51 I haven't really done a lot of reading on that one.
03:52 I just tossed them in to see what would happen.
03:54 Some of them came up.
03:56 So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna put
03:57 this little cloche thing.
03:58 It's not a cloche.
03:59 I don't know what you'd call that.
04:01 It's kind of like a little trellis.
04:02 We're just gonna pop this up in here.
04:04 We'll let whatever didiscus is in here grow,
04:07 but I'm gonna toss some Oregon sugar pod peas right in here.
04:10 And then we've got a sun sugar cherry tomato plant
04:13 right here, which there are a bunch in here,
04:14 but I came in and picked a bunch yesterday.
04:17 Yeah, these are yum.
04:20 So good.
04:22 In this same bed, which I probably should do
04:24 a little bit of trimming, I've got peppers.
04:26 They're still growing like crazy
04:28 and producing tons of produce
04:30 underneath the canopy of the tomatoes.
04:33 There's a red bell in there.
04:35 Serrano right here.
04:36 And in this bed, much the same.
04:37 We've got more pepper plants.
04:38 You can see some beautiful red bells in there.
04:41 Another tomato.
04:42 This is a Roma.
04:43 Beautiful.
04:44 And then in this bed, you can see the sunflowers here.
04:47 And then we've got a tomato.
04:48 This is a super fantastic tomato.
04:50 That one is an heirloom pineapple,
04:52 but I have a mazel bazel in this space
04:54 and it got so big and like top heavy
04:57 that the whole plant just kind of bent over.
04:59 All of them did.
05:00 So this plant bent over.
05:02 This one bent over and broke.
05:06 That one bent over.
05:07 It originates under the tomato
05:08 and kind of goes into the walkway,
05:10 but I'm still using off of these plants.
05:12 So even though this is probably
05:14 the most wild looking bunch here.
05:16 Did you find a tomato there, dude?
05:17 - Yeah, it was right in there.
05:18 - Oh, playing croquet with it.
05:20 Anyway, I'm just gonna leave those until frost takes them
05:22 because I'm still using a lot of them.
05:24 And in this bed, we've got cosmos,
05:25 which is a late seeding.
05:26 So we'll get some color here soon.
05:28 This is the Tuscany melon.
05:30 And there are two hills in this three by four race bed.
05:34 Look at this.
05:35 Holy moly.
05:37 And then I planted more because, you know,
05:40 we needed more up here.
05:41 These went in later than this batch right here.
05:44 I know they're huge, aren't they, bud?
05:45 They are everywhere, but they are looking so gorgeous.
05:48 And there are melons all over.
05:49 I'm not gonna tromp around.
05:51 Well, maybe I'll tromp around a little bit.
05:52 There's an opening.
05:53 There's another melon there.
05:56 There's another one.
05:58 There's another one right down in here.
06:01 I don't know if you can see that.
06:03 - I can see one right in there.
06:05 - Doesn't that one look like a beauty?
06:06 - Yeah, that one looks super good.
06:08 - Then we've got our blackberry plants right here.
06:11 And then we've got one more three by six with nothing in it.
06:14 So we'll be planting that today.
06:16 As far as fall season crops go,
06:18 we're basically just doing a repeat
06:19 of what we planted in the spring.
06:21 So those types of crops that can handle cooler temperatures.
06:23 Carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, greens,
06:26 like spinach, lettuce, kale, chard, radishes.
06:30 Did I say beets already?
06:31 Peas, green onions.
06:33 There's probably more that I'm missing,
06:35 but that's kind of what we do around here.
06:37 I'm not even growing all of those this year.
06:38 I just don't have the kind of space to dedicate.
06:41 We're mostly gonna be focusing in on greens and peas.
06:44 We're doing American spinach, the lacinato kale,
06:47 Tuscan baby leaf kale, butterhead lettuce,
06:50 that's the Casey variety, and organ sugar pod peas.
06:53 A couple of really important pieces of information
06:55 you want to know when you get ready
06:56 to plant your fall crops.
06:57 One is your average first frost date.
06:59 You can find out by Googling that average first frost date
07:02 and your zip code, and that should give you the date.
07:05 So I looked mine up last year and it said October 4th.
07:07 I looked it up again today and it says October 9th.
07:10 So you figure out that date,
07:11 then you count back to the day you're currently on.
07:14 Which for me, that means I have 46 days.
07:16 46 day window to get my crops going.
07:18 The nice thing about what we are planting today
07:20 and most fall season crops is that
07:22 they can handle a light frost,
07:24 which is all you really get right in the beginning,
07:25 or light frost, which is like 32,
07:27 right around 32 to 28,
07:29 and then hard frost is 28 and below.
07:31 The other important piece of information
07:32 you do want to know is the maturity day
07:34 of the crop you want to plant.
07:35 So you want to make sure that whatever you're planting
07:37 is gonna fit within your growing window.
07:39 So most of the things I'm growing today,
07:41 the greens are usually like anywhere like 40-ish days
07:44 or so, 40 to 50 days.
07:46 But you do want to keep in mind also that
07:48 as you approach that first frost date,
07:50 you know, the days are getting shorter,
07:52 the temperatures are getting cooler,
07:53 so they will slow down.
07:54 Their growth will slow down.
07:55 So you could add a week or two weeks
07:58 onto that maturity day to give yourself a buffer,
08:00 just to make sure that things will grow.
08:03 I'm getting after this project a bit later
08:04 than I normally do,
08:05 but I didn't really have in mind
08:06 to grow a ton of fall crops this year anyway.
08:09 What I think I'm gonna do is plant our spinach
08:12 and butter head lettuce in one bed,
08:14 our kale in another three by six bed,
08:16 and then we'll pop the peas in
08:17 right where we looked in that smaller grazed bed,
08:19 which Douglas is now laying in.
08:21 You got your tools?
08:23 Good.
08:26 Very nice.
08:27 Okay, we're gonna be amending as we normally do
08:30 with some Biotone starter fertilizer,
08:32 and then I'll be top dressing with Lannan seed compost.
08:35 Right there.
08:36 As far as planting goes,
08:37 I'm just gonna follow the directions on the seed packet.
08:39 I think are the greens like a quarter of an inch deep
08:42 or something?
08:42 The peas, I usually go about a half inch deep
08:44 and I space those about four inches apart.
08:47 Yeah, it looks like the spinach and kale
08:48 are both half inch deep,
08:49 and then the lettuce is kind of a surface sow situation.
08:53 So I'll just put the seed down
08:54 and put a little bit of compost over the top of it.
08:56 All right, guys, here we go.
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10:52 All done.
10:55 So again, in this bed, we have the Oregon sugar pod peas.
10:58 In this one, I did two rows of the American spinach
11:01 and then two rows of the Casey butter head lettuce.
11:03 I also found another cucumber and picked some serranos.
11:06 And in this one, I split it up differently.
11:08 I did the back half with the lacinato kale
11:10 because it gets so big.
11:11 And then the front half has the tender baby leaf.
11:14 And I thought since we found this extra cucumber,
11:16 now we have three, we could run inside quick
11:18 and make my favorite cucumber salad.
11:19 I'll show you how I do that.
11:21 It utilizes serrano peppers.
11:22 I got three of those.
11:23 And then we need to run to the root cellar
11:24 and grab a shallot, which has already been harvested,
11:27 but it needs to marinate in the fridge for a while.
11:29 So I thought we could prepare it,
11:30 get it marinating in the fridge
11:31 while we go harvest potatoes.
11:33 It's nice to have every space filled up
11:35 in this garden again.
11:36 So there's our cucumbers.
11:37 There's our peppers.
11:38 There's our shallot.
11:44 It's 45 in the root cellar.
11:45 It feels so good in there.
11:46 Are there some big ones out there?
11:48 You show them to me.
11:49 - Really big ones.
11:50 - Okay.
11:50 We're going to take a pumpkin field trip
11:51 before cucumber salad real quick.
11:54 Oh look, one of the boxwoods is wearing Paul's hat.
11:56 (laughing)
11:58 Yeah.
12:00 Do you want me to show you a really cool one?
12:02 I'll show you one.
12:03 You want to see a big orange one?
12:04 Just follow me.
12:05 These are kind of pokey.
12:06 So if you can walk over them, that'd be good.
12:08 Daddy's going to cut those down.
12:09 Okay. And walk over the stems.
12:11 Okay. You got to,
12:14 well that's kind of a big one.
12:15 Yeah, for sure.
12:16 But let's poke through here.
12:17 Try not to step on any of the stems.
12:19 Now look.
12:20 - Oh my gosh.
12:21 - Well, there's a whole bunch of white ones in here too.
12:27 And there's another big one
12:28 that's going to turn orange right back in there.
12:30 Our Hubbard squash,
12:31 our blue Hubbard is not looking too hot over here.
12:33 Oh, but the squash are looking pretty.
12:35 Oh, there's got squash bugs.
12:36 That's why.
12:37 Oh, shame.
12:38 We need to get after those.
12:40 You want to know something though?
12:41 The blue Hubbard squash is always a host plant
12:43 for squash bugs.
12:45 And I've heard it from several different farmers
12:48 that if you plant a blue Hubbard somewhere in your,
12:51 the vicinity of your other vine crops,
12:53 they'll always attack the blue Hubbard
12:55 and stay away from your others.
12:57 So maybe we just let this one go.
13:00 And that's why it looks so sad.
13:02 There's our produce.
13:03 I might need to go grab another shallot,
13:04 but that's kind of a big one.
13:06 Here is the recipe.
13:08 And I will try to remember to type it down below.
13:10 So it's easier to read.
13:12 But basically we use sugar, cucumber, boiling water,
13:15 salt, chilies, shallots, and it says white vinegar.
13:17 I'll use either white vinegar or the rice wine vinegar.
13:20 Either one works.
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14:16 Okay, I've just got to try one,
14:17 even though it's still warm.
14:19 Mm.
14:22 That's so good.
14:25 I'm pretty sure I've made this salad for you guys before,
14:27 but it kind of just worked out perfectly
14:29 that we had the perfect amount of cucumbers.
14:31 And now this will accompany our dinner.
14:32 Okay, let's go harvest potatoes.
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16:53 All the potatoes have been harvested.
16:56 I can't even believe it.
16:57 And today we got six crates of potatoes.
16:59 I think the first time we were out here, didn't we get three?
17:02 Am I remembering that right?
17:04 Anyway, lots of potatoes.
17:05 I have no idea how many pounds we got out of this space.
17:08 Maybe in the end, once we've got them all cleaned
17:10 and all in their baskets,
17:11 we can get some weights of everything.
17:13 But we've already been using off of them too.
17:15 The interesting thing,
17:16 and I've already got all the potatoes spread out
17:18 in the barn, but I have these russet burbanks
17:21 in the back of the gator that I wanted to show you.
17:22 Look at these weirdo potatoes.
17:25 Oh my goodness.
17:28 So the main reason for knobby potatoes,
17:31 if you should happen to run into this
17:33 in your own potato patch,
17:35 is a heat and or water stress.
17:38 Especially if you have periods of dry and hot
17:42 followed by cool and rainy.
17:44 Which is exactly how our summer has been.
17:46 And I'm thankful for all the water that we have received.
17:49 It's been good for everything.
17:51 But of all the varieties of potatoes,
17:54 russet burbanks, which is what these are,
17:56 are more prone to show the stress signs.
18:01 I pulled a lot of potatoes out of the ground
18:03 and only the russets looked like this.
18:05 I'm really tempted to draw faces on some of these.
18:08 Kind of looks like the Loch Ness Monster a little bit.
18:11 Don't you think this part looks like the sloth
18:12 off of Ice Age with the eyeballs?
18:14 Not this part.
18:15 (laughs)
18:16 Look at this.
18:17 Okay, let's head to the barn
18:18 and I will show you our haul from the day.
18:21 And you know, the last thing out here
18:22 that we have to harvest are the rest of the onions.
18:25 After that happens, I'm actually going to
18:28 tap into a water line.
18:30 Let me show you.
18:30 So you see how we've got the four runs of drip tape
18:32 right here?
18:33 Those watered all the onions and all the potatoes
18:36 and then also the peppers.
18:37 But we also have, if I dig around in here,
18:41 well, maybe I can show you.
18:43 There's a half inch black poly line somewhere around here.
18:46 Probably somewhere where it's hard to find it.
18:49 Okay, just trust me, it's there.
18:51 I don't want to dig around in here anymore.
18:53 So it runs alongside here and I branched off of that.
18:58 So the drip tape ends at the end of the peppers.
19:01 Oh, here, see?
19:02 See how the drip tape or the drip poly drip tube
19:04 runs right here?
19:06 And then I have individual emitters that are watering
19:08 all of our tomato plants.
19:09 To not waste water, what I'm going to do is tap into
19:11 that half inch black poly right here.
19:14 And then I'll just put new couplers.
19:17 So we can still run the drip tape right here
19:19 off of the same line, but we are not going to be
19:20 wasting water from this point all the way to the beginning
19:23 of the row.
19:24 And that will probably be a five minute fix.
19:26 And then we can go the rest of the season
19:28 not stressing about the water out here.
19:30 Okay, now to the barn.
19:31 (wind blowing)
19:34 Okay, here are the rest of the potatoes.
19:37 Look at all of these.
19:38 And some of them are monsters.
19:40 So the red Pontiacs right here,
19:43 which I didn't plant very many of them.
19:45 I planted these from my own seed that I saved from last year.
19:48 But hey, Aaron, you should come look at the size
19:50 of these potatoes right here.
19:52 Oh, I think this one's biggest.
19:55 - Oh my goodness.
19:56 - Yeah.
19:57 - Whoa.
19:58 - That's a monster potato.
19:59 - That's crazy.
20:00 - Yeah, so we had a few huge potatoes
20:03 and then some big ones in the red Lasoda category as well.
20:08 Yeah, like look at this.
20:10 My word.
20:12 And then right there, those are the rest of the russets
20:16 and there's some weird knobby looking potatoes,
20:18 but most of these are fairly normal.
20:20 German butterballs are in this section right here.
20:23 Clearly I planted the most of those.
20:25 And then Yukon Golds,
20:27 I think I had the fewest of those of any variety.
20:29 But they are gonna sit here for the next few days
20:32 just to dry.
20:33 You can see that some of them look pretty dark.
20:35 It's because they're still wet from the rain we got
20:37 last weekend.
20:39 So we need to let them dry
20:40 and then we will brush excess soil off of them
20:42 and pack them up in the root cellar.
20:44 It works to do this here in the barn
20:46 because it stays,
20:47 like I have the lights on in here right now,
20:48 but it stays pretty dim.
20:49 You don't wanna let your potatoes dry out
20:51 where it's too bright
20:52 because they can't be exposed to sunlight.
20:54 Otherwise they turn green and that's not good.
20:57 So anyway, this process doesn't take very long either,
21:00 just a few days.
21:01 Now let me show you the ones that we already have cleaned
21:03 and put in the root cellar,
21:04 kind of how we pack them.
21:05 Okay, so you can see these harvest baskets right here.
21:11 These are empty, ready for some other ones.
21:14 But what we do is we choose baskets
21:16 that have good airflow, number one,
21:19 and then we pack these in burlap sacks
21:21 just to keep excess light off of them,
21:23 even though it's always dark in here.
21:25 But you can see how nice these look.
21:28 Kind of cleaned off there.
21:30 Little bit of soil on them,
21:32 but that's kind of typical.
21:33 And for all of these,
21:35 we decided to put large size potatoes
21:38 toward the bottom of the basket
21:39 and smaller ones toward the top
21:41 'cause the smaller ones don't keep quite as well.
21:43 So we'll use through those first.
21:44 Small huckleberry golds and the large ones are down here.
21:48 And all the beautiful onions.
21:49 I love it when it starts to fill up in here.
21:52 And you guys, that is gonna be it for today's video.
21:54 I'm so happy to have the fall crops in
21:56 and I hope it was helpful just to see what we're doing.
21:58 I mean, it wasn't a comprehensive list
22:01 of all the fall crops or anything like that,
22:02 but definitely go talk with somebody
22:04 down at your local garden center
22:05 or a good gardener in your area
22:07 just to see what they're doing and kind of timeframe.
22:09 That's always really helpful.
22:10 Can you hear the kids?
22:12 I think there's a birthday party going on next door.
22:14 It's a very happy sound.
22:15 Sounds like they're having fun.
22:16 Anyway, I'm also very happy
22:18 to have all the potatoes harvested.
22:20 I love to harvest potatoes.
22:21 It's still, it's hard work to do it.
22:23 And it's been nicer this year
22:24 just taking it in little bit of smaller chunks,
22:26 but it got pretty hot today still.
22:27 It was 90 something degrees, low 90s.
22:29 It is getting cooler,
22:30 but it's still pretty warm for that kind of job anyway.
22:33 So I'm very happy to have that done.
22:35 Now I'm gonna go inside.
22:36 I'm gonna tuck into that cucumber salad.
22:38 I think it's gonna be so refreshing
22:40 after a day out in the heat.
22:41 Thank you guys so much for watching this video.
22:44 I really hope you enjoyed it
22:45 and we will see you in the next one.