HUGE Fall Seed Starting Session (Our Favorites For Fall)

Well fall is here and the Epic Garden and the Epic Homestead are undergoing a transformation. You can see behind me, there's actually quite a bit still growing. We have some squash, but in front of me we have a ton of trays and it's time to start some fall seeds. So I figured what I would do is just kind of hang out with you guys. Maybe it's a good time to pause the video, go grab your seed collection and get started. So I'm really excited. Let's just hop on over and get into it. I'll start talking about some of the things that I am growing. So here we go. We're going to start off with some snow peas. Why are you always here? I can't believe this. Why are you always here? Is the thing. I heard that we were going to start seeds. I didn't come in here. You didn't hear it. You didn't hear it cause I didn't invite you. I mean, I saw the trays. I saw the trays. I didn't invite you. Well, look, he's here. I got my stuff. Yeah. I'm like basically ready to go. Honestly. Here's the thing, like, it looks a little similar to my seed setup. I don't know where you got that idea from. All right guys, Jacques the Garden Hermit is here. We're celebrating the very first video that went up on his channel, which is called Jacques in the Garden. So go check that out. But yeah, I mean, dude, we have a lot to start seeds for here. And also at your place, you had a little bit of an oopsie, right? Basically a bunch of rude caterpillars came in and kind of ate my entire seed tray. So. Yeah. Yeah. You know, watch pot never boils type of thing. I don't know. Maybe you should have washed it a little more. Anyways. So I actually started some yesterday. So while Jacques gets started with his set, I'll talk about some of the things that I got going. Really, if you're in a climate where you can start seeds right now, I recommend popping it out and doing it with us. It's kind of a chill thing to do. So what I started were a couple of new varieties of peas that I haven't grown before. One that I have, which is the Desiree Dwarf Blauchacker. We'll put all these up on the screen, but three that I hadn't. So organic green arrow shelling pea. Usually I grow a snap or a snow pea. So that'll be kind of interesting. I've got the row seven. Oh yeah. So row seven is pretty well known for just testing a bunch of different things out. So a lot of the seeds they sell on the seed pack itself, it says experimental. So we'll see how that goes. That's a snow pea. And then, I mean, this is a sugar snap pea, it's pretty standard. Yeah, it's classic. So I sowed about actually half a tray's worth of that. So each of these trays are six cells in these Epic six cell trays, but 12 fit perfectly in a 10 20 tray, which means it's back to a normal 72 cell tray. So we got 72. So half of those, 36, 36 peas. Enough math. Let's actually just get back into it. So the other things that I started yesterday, fall is a great time to do anything in the brassica family, which maybe Jacques, you can share some stuff you've experienced with brassica, but I have had some struggles with it. We all know, if you watch the Epic Gardening Instagram, San Juan Cabistrano this year, pour one out for that guy because he really struggled. He got destroyed by cabbage worms and just the heat. But, uh, you know, I planted a couple of things here. So I got champion collards. I have a Romanesco cauliflower. I have premier kale. I have Steve's tender early broccoli, which for us I think might be a really good choice because it gets done quick, which for us is a challenge because the heat can mess with your brassicas. I have Waltham broccoli and then I have early rapini, another early variety. Most of them are coming from our friend Bridgette over at San Diego Seed Company, which I highly recommend. Her germ rates are really, really high. She just puts like her heart and soul into it. I'm actually excited for some of those too. Yeah. I mean, we may have popped by the warehouse and grabbed a little shopping spree. So what are you doing? So I just said what I'm doing. The only other thing I think I planted was, looks like some brussels and some snowball cauliflower. Yeah. Yeah. So I'll tell you one thing. I'm not going to plant this here. So I don't know why they only give me kohlrabi for free, but uh, You know why? Because no one wants it. Because it doesn't sell. That's why. I grew it last year, even though I heard everyone say, what's the point? I'm like, you know what? I'll try it out. Maybe it's really good and everyone was just commenting on it. But it's basically just broccoli stem. So I'm going to pass on that one. Well, I'll say this, you know, when you sign up for those farm boxes that people have, it's like, sometimes it's like 42% kohlrabi and everyone's like, why would I subscribe to this anymore? I don't know what I'm supposed to do it. Yeah, I know. Some of you probably say, well, there's a million things to do with kohlrabi. Sure. But there's like 7 million things to do with other plants. So that's what I think. Yeah. So I mean, on that note, I have three different, so I already kind of overstocked from Johnny's last year. So I tried to get a little easy at the San Diego Seed Warehouse. Yeah. But basically I'm going to get some rapini growing. That's like a really nice sauteable kind of broccoli. Thin stems. It's almost like one floret on a stem. Right. It's like a broccolini. Yeah. You eat a lot more of the greens. Yeah. And then I actually have a broccolini, a broccoli that's supposed to do well in high heat. And some Bulgarian cabbage I actually picked up while I was in the area. Did you smuggle? I mean, like, let's just say it was in the suitcase. On accident. And as far as I know, that's sometimes okay. Well, I'll tell you this. When I got back from Barcelona, I smuggled a pregnant onion back. Yeah. It's ornamental. It's ornamental. I found it on a rooftop and I, and I just, oops, fell in my boot, you know? And, uh, yeah, I mean, I, I, I grew it out. It's like a tiny little, uh, ornamental allium that they kind of like, they kind of gets really fat. And then it just has an ornamental stalk. Okay. You know, a little oopsie, but sometimes that happens. No big deal. Yeah. So you got that going on. I'm going to be doing a lot of flowers in fall. I'm going to see what works cause we're, we're scheduled to have a pretty hot fall. We actually had a little bit of clouds lately, but I don't think that's going to continue. Cause Jacques, you're just saying that we had a Santa Ana come through. We're starting today basically and into the weekend, it's going to be hot. So we're probably going to keep all this in the shade until it germs. If you're not a native San Diegan or Southern Californian, what is a Santa Ana? Describe it for everyone. Santa Ana is where you have like this climate system where in the great basin. So like Nevada area, all that pressure and really hot dry air basically pushes towards the coast. So usually what we get is a coastal breeze, which is nice and cool. But during a Santa Ana, it's basically the reverse. You get all the hot desert air just blowing through San Diego out into the ocean. Yeah. So it gets really hot and it gets really dry. Like humidity drops by like 50%. So yeah, it's a pretty drastic difference. It feels like you're living in the desert, you know? Um, and it, it's gnarly if you have allergies, which both of us struggle sometimes with allergies. Actually, I'm feeling a little tickle right now. Yeah. Not, not staged. Just I've been sneezing like crazy all day today. I'll vouch on that. Yeah, yeah. I've been sneezing. So, um, yeah, it's, it's pretty gnarly. But anyways, what I'm saying here is that I'm putting in some flowers that should play well, whether it is fall or a hot fall, I suppose. So for example, I'm just doing calendula right now. This is Pacific beauty. This plays in a cool or warm season. But yeah, I mean, I've been really, really wanting to expand my flower palette and have done so a little bit this year. But actually we just had a really fun conversation with a few people on the podcast. And I was telling you earlier about how we're going big on bulbs, hopefully, which is not really a Southern Californian thing. You know, a warm zone. It's like Northeast. Yeah. It's usually something I don't, English garden, you know, but I had a conversation and there's this thing called a Stinson garden, which is a Dutch thing, which is basically like planting tons and tons of bulbs in one place and sort of letting them naturalize and letting them become part of that landscape. So you leave it. Yeah. You don't, you don't necessarily dig it back up. I mean, maybe we'll have to cause of our climate. But um, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm excited to do that. But just aside from that, I mean, I'm not planting bulbs right now. So I'm planning just a bunch of sort of random things that I think might look really nice. Yeah. I'll say that I grew that exact calendula from San Diego seed last year. And it was, I think my favorite flower last year. It did really well throughout the winter. It had really like wonderful color. I would say the tea's pretty good. Oh, did you have it? I had it once. It was, it was, um, I mean it was good. I wouldn't say it was like stellar, but maybe I didn't, maybe I didn't give it enough of credit. I mixed it with like Tulsi and it was kind of really pleasant honestly. Okay. So I'm going in now with Alaskan nasturtium. So we've done nasturtium on the channel quite a few times. I talk about it a lot actually, I've done it on the podcast. But what's interesting about the Alaskan mix is it's a variegated variety. So the leaves go from, you know, a cream white to just the standard green and it looks really cool honestly. Yeah. I think it has, um, some different colors on it too, which is pretty interesting. Yeah. I would, I mean, nasturtiums, they are edible. I certainly don't like the taste. Like I really, actually I would, I would go as far as say I hate the taste. I hate it. Um, so I'm not, you're not gonna find me eating them. However, uh, you will find me growing quite a bit of them I think, just because I love their, Ooh, hold on. I got distracted. Polka dot mix corn flour. That looks really nice. Also known as bachelor button, which is an edible, if you want it to be, I would call it more edible decorative. Like you're, you're probably not gonna. It's one I usually don't eat very often, but I think I've had it now that you mention it. You would like, I mean, one great way to do it is if you have like a little glass of a little champagne, a little glass of that bubbly, you can just put a couple of these in there and just spices it up. Yeah. I think I've seen that when people make those pretty butters. Oh yeah. Like a, like a floured, floured butter or whatever. Yeah. Who knows? Maybe that's coming soon. I'd like to make a little herb butter. Yeah. A little pasture back here. A little, little grazer, a couple of grazers out here. Yeah. So yeah, I'm for the way I'm going to see these is I'm going to just sprinkle on top and then kind of tamp them down. Yeah. And then at the end I'm going to come back through and just sprinkle soil over everything and water it. Yeah. I'm doing a slightly, so I'm not doing it how I used to do it, where I would poke a hole and then cover up with the soil that's there. I'm, I'm lightly tamping with the back of this marker, just tiny, just so it has a place to sit. And then I'm going to do exactly what Jacques is doing where I'm going to come through and just fill that little hole. And to me that should work. Yeah. Either one works. There's so many different ways to do it. I think it's not worth getting hung up on. Well, people get, you know. Yeah. Yeah. People definitely. People kind of like lose it based on how you do it. And I'm like, okay, well if the plant's growing, problem solved. Yeah. Right. We're not all trying to be like commercial growers out here. Right. And I feel like for like the brassica seeds are just, I mean, you can't even see them if I hold them up. They're just tiny little. Yeah, they're yeah. So there's, for that, I just usually don't bother trying to do anything fancy. Brassica is such an easy germ. Yeah. It just sprouts like no one's business anyways. So it doesn't really even matter what you do with it. Yeah. And I'm going to over seed a little bit. Like I'm putting two to three in each. Yeah. Somewhat similar here. I'm doing delphinium right now. I don't know if it's a big fall move, but I guess we'll find out. I mean, we do know it doesn't like the heat. Yeah. So it's cause we did, we did plant it out in the front yard and let's just say it had a moment in the sun and that's it. It didn't have much else. It was a flash in the pan. I'd call it Icarus over there. It just didn't have a good time. Okay. So I just put in the Pacific giant delphinium. Name, name makes me feel like it'll do well here. Yeah. I mean, we are in the right spot. We are in the right spot. So, okay. So now I've got snap dragons. I haven't grown these before. I've never grown them either. But I like the look. Yeah. So I mean, this is just, this is a full flower flat here, guys. If you love snaps, you'll want to grow this dwarf variety of the old garden favorite. I do love snaps. Oh, deer resistant as well. That's good to know. Luckily we don't have that problem. We don't have that, but Oh wow. These seeds are tiny, dude. Those are tiny. They honestly look like, um, caterpillar poop. That's exactly what they look like. They look like a, like a. Too soon. I just, I'm already dealing with it. I've seen so much. Just to give you some trauma, trauma flashbacks. A little bit. Yeah. Sorry. Well, I mean, we've all, we've been both dealing with it. It's pretty, it's pretty bad. All been there. Yeah. All right. What's next on the agenda? Oh wow. I'm going to do. I don't know if it shows up. Oh, is that a coated seed? It's coated. Yeah. They're kind of sliding away, but basically they're tiny brassica seeds and they look kind of silver. Yeah. I don't remember it mentioning that. I don't either. Um, on this one. That's a real thing though. I mean, so if you get a, so it's either treated or coated or both. Yeah. Uh, it, it works pretty well. I mean, I would say your germination goes way up when you get seeds like that. The problem is it's just way more expensive. Yeah. So typically. Um, so this year, uh, for my celery and lettuce seed, I actually ordered pelleted seed. Yeah. And so usually they do that because when they're using like seeders, they want a nice consistent size, like when they're commercially growing a whole row. And it's actually really nice for the homegrower too, because some of those seeds are so tiny that they're hard to control. Yeah. And so I really enjoyed that because it was really easy to just pop one seed in each cell instead of having to like. Yeah, it's pretty clutch. And actually someone was telling me, we did a video recently on germinating carrots on Instagram and someone was saying actually what they do is they just use pelleted carrot seed. Uh, and that's how they deal with it. Especially if they're a farmer, because if they're a farmer, they can put it into like a Jang seeder or something and they get perfect spacing and they don't have to thin and they don't have to worry about, uh, With carrots, the problem is that after germination survival rate, if it dries out. And so they just don't even have to deal with that. Right. You know, which is great. That's the tricky part. Okay. So I just went in with anise hyssop, uh, which I, I believe I've purchased but not grown. Uh, and it has a little bit of a licorice flavor. You can use it as an herb. I haven't used it as an herb, but I'm mostly, yeah, I'm mostly interested in using it as like a bed filler and like a fragrance type of plant. Okay. I have a few more in this little deck here. This here also kind of splurged a little bit. Oh yeah. Got some fancy, little F1 seeds here. A hybrid, um, a purple and a, um, like orange cauliflower. Okay. They're like the most expensive seed packs I've bought. Talk to me about the price. Well, actually, first of all, let's talk about F1 hybrids cause a lot of people may not know what that means. Yeah. So there's some things, um, so if they're just like an heirloom or even just open pollinated, it's basically a seed that if it goes to seed and you save that seed, it's going to essentially grow almost exactly like the original plant. There's a chance it could have pollinated with something else. Probably not. But probably not. Yeah. Um, so F1 means that, oops, they took two different plants and they got the pollen from one and pollinated like pollen A and pollinated plant B with pollen from plant A. Yeah. So what happens is cross pollinated. Yeah. Cross pollinated. So you get a seed that's produced from that pollination that they forced. And so when you grow that plant, if it goes to seed, you're not going to get the same plant. Yeah. It's basically like a one and done. So usually they're more expensive because A, they take more labor to actually produce and B you can't, it's almost like, I don't want to say proprietary. Um, yeah. It's hard to recreate cause you don't, if you don't know the two parent plants, then nobody else can really make it. Yeah. It's not, I wouldn't say it's accurate to say proprietary. It's definitely, basically what you're doing is the genetics aren't stable when you do that. It would be like, and this, someone who is a genetic expert is going to cringe at this, but like, you know, if you had a child with someone and then the child had a child with someone who was like somewhat close to you, I guess, looking, of course it's not going to look like you. It's not gonna be a clone to you. You know? And so what the F1 stands for, the one is the generation. And so when people are trying to create a new seed variety or a new cultivar, let's say of a tomato or something like that, typically you either only produce it as an F1 forever. And that's what Jacques is meaning basically, where you kind of have to go back to whoever made the variety because they have the parent plants and they're propagating out the parent line by cloning those out and continually crossing and crossing and crossing. And something, I don't know if I ever told you this, but when I went on that seed tour, I learned that these F1 hybrids only have a certain amount of life in them years wise, before the genetics of the parents clone wise deteriorate enough that they actually can't do it anymore. And so you'll lose them over time. I've heard that that's actually happening to some of, uh, Sungold, which is like one of the most popular tomatoes. Yeah. Um, there's been some rumors. Rumor mill, the rumor mill. The genetics are getting a little unstable and some people have been, growing them and getting results that they did not expect. Interesting. So there's definitely a scramble to find a replacement for that one. Yeah. It's really acting. It's one of the better cherry tomatoes. Yeah. Okay. So while we were talking about that, I put in tall white alyssum, which you turned me onto this year as an interplant between tomatoes. But the tall one, I don't think I've grown. And so hopefully this kind of just grows to like, I don't know, two by two feet or so and just fills in a nice area. And then I also planted black night scabiosa, which I did grow earlier this spring and actually was one of my favorite varieties of flowers. Really pretty flower, unique sort of shape to it. And we actually discovered that monarchs really like the scabiosa out of anything else. They seem to flock to it as an adult. Of course the larvae are going to probably be on some native milkweed species. But yeah, it was, it was really cool and interesting to see that. Yeah. It's really nice structured flower. It looks really interesting. Totally. I've never grown those before either. Totally. So I'm going to get some red Russian kale in. Okay. Um, I really always like red Russian and it seems to do pretty well here. And then this is one that I'm going to keep trying. I don't know if anyone's going to like eating it, including myself. And that's a escarole. Um, so I got, for some reason I got really interested in growing escarole. Last year I grew some, but I waited too long and it got into the summer and it just really was too bitter. Just wasn't having it. Yeah. But I'm going to try again. Um, it's one of those bitter Italian greens. Do you know why, uh, it's sort of grouped with endive? It's like endive and escarole on like a seed list. It's always in the same spot. I think that they're, I think they're both chicories. Not entirely sure if that's true, but they're, I think they're related. They're both like a bitter Italian green. Yeah. They're sort of like a weird. Flavor profile. They're like similar. Yeah. I do know I like endive. Yeah. I don't know that I've had much escarole to say. I think it's one of those things that you find less often. Yeah. I heard this interview from like the seed breeder at Johnny's and he was talking about how like excited he was and I was like, all right, well, if he's excited, maybe I should try it. Yeah, it's a testimonial. Yeah. This one I'm excited about. This is Marvel of the Four Seasons lettuce. That one looks really good. Looks amazing. We'll put a photo up, like I've been saying, but yeah, it says, this is a great description. Listen to this. Marvel of the Four Seasons might just be the sexiest lettuce around. It's just as beautiful as it is tender and succulent. This finely flavored green and red lettuce can be sown in the fall or spring and cold climates or all throughout cooler months. Okay. So if you're ready to get a little risque, ready to get a little aesthetic over here. Yeah. Well, lettuce, I mean, lettuce in zone 10B where we are, you basically just say no in the summer. I mean, you can't do it. So you could do it. It's just, you're gonna have to put it in the shade. It's going to grow slower and it probably won't taste as good. So you kind of just wait it out. You go winter into spring and then you go fall into winter on, on lettuce here in California. These are our shoulder seasons as they call them here. Shoulder seasons. We don't have a true fall or a true winter, but we do have some big shoulders. Getting ripped. And I'm going to throw a little pak choy in. Okay. It's bo pak. Yeah. So like we said, brassicas can be hard here just cause it's kind of warmer. So I tend to go with hybrids just because they're often bred to have qualities that do well in like heat, for instance. I know a lot of people are like heirloom only until I'm, till I'm dead. Yeah. And it's like, I understand that instinct for sure. But I also want to grow things that won't die here. And so there's stuff where like the hybridized version just almost looks and tastes very similar. Like there's, I was talking with some seed breeders in, you know, the Cherokee purple, the famous Cherokee purple. There's a variety of seed breeders who have Cherokee something like Cherokee, this Cherokee, that Cherokee star or whatever. And it's the same thing except for that it has blight resistance and it's earlier. Right. Or it has some sort of qualities like that. So, you know, everyone's got their own preference, but. I used to be pretty into just heirlooms. Just heirlooms. Yeah. But things like powdery mildew, like this year, all my squash or the zucchini was all heirloom. Yeah. And then they got wrecked by powdery mildew. So for my second succession, I bought F1s that are resistant powdery mildew and so far they don't have any. Yeah. Surprise, surprise. I'm pretty excited about that. So hopefully the taste is still the same. Usually the biggest compromise is flavor, which is what I'm going for. Yeah. But you know, they're like Kevin said, there are varieties like that Cherokee purple that should taste. Relatively the same. Yeah. So we'll see. Totally. All right. I had a little bit of an allergy attack, so I had to do something about that. It was just crazy, but I brought a little treat for you. Hey, it's the end of summer. To a good season. Yeah, there you go. It was a pretty good season here. I have to say, a lot of failures. We actually talked about on the podcast recently, Jacques is going to become a semi-recurring guest on the Epic Gardening podcast. We're just going to kind of riff on what's working for us in the garden. And we talked about our failures, our successes. And, you know, they were many of both actually. Which is fine. I think it's fine. I mean, that's the best way to learn. I messed up squash this year. We both did actually. Yeah. I messed up my brassica, my big, my big one, you know, my big boy, San Juan cabbage strano, the giant cabbage. We may actually start another giant cabbage and grow it through into the fall cause that's actually the right time to grow it. Yeah, especially for a big one. Yeah, exactly. Cause we'll push it through the winter cause it doesn't get cold enough to kill it. And then when it comes out the other side in spring, it'll still be heading up, I think. I think that's going to work. That should probably work. Okay. So I'm going in with the Allium family. What we're going to be doing here in the backyard is doubling the space. And that requires a different method of approaching the garden. It's probably going to be a little bit of row gardening on that side, almost like a little mini farm. And so I want to grow a lot of Alliums that I personally love. And one of my favorites actually is, I would say the least common, which would be a leek. I really, really like leeks. We actually have a couple started over here so you can get a sense of what they end up looking like. There's a couple in here, there's three clusters, maybe four in some of the other ones. And what's really nice about that is as we learned from Charles Dowding, you can, you can just module sow as he calls it. But yeah, I mean for me, I just, I guess I would just call it putting more than one seed in the, in the thing, you know? But um, anyways, that's what I'm going to do. So I'm going to plant quite a few leeks here. These are German leeks. This is from Renee's Garden Seeds. And I'm going to plant at least, I don't know, I mean half a, half a flat worth probably. If you want. I want a lot of leeks. I mean, one of my favorite things, I'm getting to the point dude, where I can almost grow my own PLS, potato leek soup. So. He's on an acronym basis with that one. Yeah. PLS and I, you know, we've become acquainted over the years. I've developed a recipe I like. Maybe it'll be on an episode of Kev's Kitchen here soon. Kev's Kitchen. You know, I'm surprised you haven't seen the playlist. It's on, it's on the channel, Josh. It's on the channel. It's pretty good. All I've done, I've made um, cowboy candy with the jalapenos. But anyways, yeah, I'm getting to the point where I can grow my own soup. So I've processed my own wheat. We're going to make a sourdough bread on a, on this channel soon. But yeah, we're getting to that point. So with, with leeks, what's great is, like I was just saying, you can over-sow to guarantee germination, but also just you're going to, you're going to use more than one of them anyways. Yeah. I feel like for the alliums it's generally a good move. Yeah. Because their roots are so, they're not very like serious roots. Yeah. So it's really easy to just kind of pull them out and just separate them and then plant them. Yeah, totally. No need to dedicate one cell with one plant. Totally agree. If you're going to do it this way, cause of course you could just direct sow. Yeah, of course. Right. Yeah. Okay. So German leeks is going to be this entire side. So that's going to be 36 of those. And then the question is, what's my onion going to be? I have three choices here. Yellow granix, gold coin, which Brigette at San Diego Seed says is like, really, really good. Oh, okay. That's the only one I didn't grab. And I was like, dang, why didn't I grab that? So gold coin is a flat yellow Cipollini style. You can grow it as a pearl or a small bulb and it's 80 days. Okay. So that's one choice. The next choice is the red rock, Saboya roja. I'm going to sow that one. So he's going to do that one. That one ideal for Southern growers, short day onion. Hmm. Yeah. Growers in zones nine and 10 can plant these in the fall and let them over winter, which is exactly what we're doing. So a lot of the stuff you see on our channel, guys, you have to remember just adapt it to your zone. There's some weird rules. It's almost, it's almost not like we're breaking these rules. It's like we can't grow it another way. You know, there's not another way to grow it. Yeah. And so I'm going to do half on this red rock and this one's 165 days. So where we plant this in the garden is like we need to make sure it's half a year. So we need to make sure it's in the right spot. One of the things I really like about the Alliums is that they require almost nothing. Like they don't really want a lot of nutrients. They don't need a lot of water and you just kind of put them in there and wait. So it's like a nice way to have like a productive bed without much fuss. And in the end you get like a huge bumper harvest. It's like really nice. Totally agree. Yeah. Yeah. If you get them right, you, you get just an incredible harvest and they'll store for a bit. Yeah. I'm actually eating through, I finished like the first three varieties of garlic I harvested. Nice. And now I'm on to like the last one, which is Susanville. I think that one stores for like nine months. So I've been waiting. Smart. So that one I'm about to break into. So I'm ready for some more garlic. That's for sure. Yeah. Yeah. The garlic, you won't see us planting today. Although it is on the way. We got a couple, well, why don't you share the varieties you got? Then I'll drop the hammer on the ones I got. You don't even remember which ones I got. I know I got like the incelium red. Again. Um, I got, uh, man, what is it called? It's like Rosa de Sol. I can't even say it. It's an Italian variety. It's apparently so good. You only need one clove for a dish. So. So it says, is that what it says? That's what they claim. They say you only need 52 heads of garlic and you're set for the year. You just need one clove a day. That's to me, you know, what, and this is just my hot take. That feels like an Italian thing to say. It feels, cause you know, like with cooking especially, and I love, actually, there's a guy I chat with sometimes on IG, Fabio, uh, who's a, he's like a celebrity chef and he's like this, he's, you know, there's always a proclamation about the food. There's always like a way it has to be done. Some sort of like, you know, like you only need one for a month of, you know, whatever. But I'm excited. If it's, if it's true, I'm, I'm down to, I'm down to grow it. I'm also going to go pretty big on the leeks here. Are you really? Are you? Oh, look at this guy. Look at this. He's growing the Bulgarian giant. That's from Baker Creek. You didn't smuggle that. I actually did smuggle one and I thought it was in here, but I guess I didn't put it in here. So I'm going to go ahead and sow this one. A little bit of a fail? Yeah, it's a little awkward. I also got some of those exact San Diego seed onions. Yeah. And I also apparently didn't put them in this box. Really? Well you can use these if you want. Yeah, you can. So I've exhausted two of my trays worth of seeds. So I'm going to do what I said earlier. I'm just going to take a little bit of seed starting mix and just lightly sort of dust over them. And then Jacques, you're doing your onions. I would take a similar, but just a little bit different. Yeah. So why don't you show that? So what I'm going to do is I'm going to just get a little pot and then inside I just put soil like kind of maybe half an inch down and I flattened it. So I gave it like a really nice tamp. And what I'm going to do is basically sprinkle somewhere like 20 seeds maybe perhaps in there. And the idea is that, like I was saying earlier with onions is you don't need that much space initially. Um, so once those all grow, I'm just going to dump the pot out and then separate out each individual plant and then plant them that way. So it's almost like a bare root, like basically like a bare root tree. Yeah, basically. It's just really forgiving with onions because their roots don't tangle and it's really easy to just kind of pull them apart and plop them in the ground. It feels like they just grow straight down, you know, very vertical. And um, the other nice thing actually is that for things like leeks, so you know how when you buy a leek, it has that white portion at the bottom. The only way you get that is if it doesn't get hit by sun. So one of the things that people do is when they transplant their leeks, like let's say your leek is like, you know, 10 inches tall. Sure. You make a hole. Let's grab one actually. We have one right here. Why don't you do it with one of these? Yeah. Or one of the other, I think this was the garlic leek or whatever. Oh right. This guy, right? Yeah. Yeah. There you go. So that's actually the German leek that I sowed. So that's a great example. So like, actually I'll just pop it right out. Yeah. So get up right here. So what I'm going to do is just pop that. You could see that like it's already just crumbling. And don't worry, I'm going to just put this in a pot. It's going to keep growing. But so here we go. Got four leek plants and these were actually just all right on top of each other. And even, even considering that, it's still so easy to just grab the whole plant right out. And how, so here's a question someone's going to have is how do you then get this into its home without cramping the style of the roots? Cause that's actually a perfect root structure. So you don't want to mess it up. And, and so the thing is, is that what commercial growers do is they'll just make a hole. Like, so I'm actually, what you would want to do is bury like six inches of the leek. You would make a hole and just literally go like this, just drop it in. And some people do cover it with dirt again. Some people don't and it'll grow just fine. And how much worry do you think someone needs to have about, Oh, it's like tangled at the bottom or something's weird. It's fine. Not a big deal. Like since they, like this is going to sit there and grow for at least three months. Yeah. So it's really going to just be fine. Um, that little initial start where you just drop it in, it might seem weird, they're going to be totally fine. And that's what they do. So it's not something to really worry about. And the deeper you bury it, you don't want to bury it. Like maybe you could bury like two thirds, but basically every portion that you bury underground is now going to be the white part of the leek, which is what people like to eat. And so guys, that's, it seems like it's something that you only do with leeks, but actually from like just a, I guess a horticultural point of view, you're just blanching the plant. Right. Um, so basically all you're doing is saying, Hey, this part of you doesn't get sun, thus what can it not develop? Chlorophyll, which is the pigment that turns it green. And so that's all you're doing with leeks. Actually that same seed tour I was telling you about earlier Jacques, they were doing a test, I believe with endive or escarole, I forgot which one. And what they would do is they would put a opaque bowl over it, uh, for however many days pre-harvest. And so that would force it to be blanched. And so if it's a bitter green, it's a way to get the flavor of the endive or the escarole in a milder fashion. And so I thought that was pretty cool. It is. Yeah. They come up with all these like weird tricks. And um, like for the leek for instance, the part that is white tends to be a lot more tender and not as fibrous. So that's kind of the reason why a lot of people like to do that. Yeah. And what's kind of weird is like, that's what people, you buy a big old leek and then that's the part you use and you don't use anything else. Yeah. What I usually do is I'll just chop up the greens and then just throw it in like a soup, like as if it's stock. Yeah. And you get a lot of flavor. And if you put it in like an Instant Pot or like a pressure cooker, it actually does become tender. So try to use it. You can definitely veggie stock it, worst case. Oh yeah. It's going to be delicious. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, potato leek soup, like I said, it's my, it's, there's two soups, there's actually three soups. I don't know if a chowder's a soup, is it? I mean, let's call it. Chowder's like, chowder's like you half made a soup or you accidentally put too much liquid in a dish. Yeah. You know, like an entree. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, no one knows what chowder is to this day. But um, so the three things I really like, salmon chowder. Oh, okay. And you use coconut milk instead of the dairy. I mean, honestly, I like the heavy cream in it too, personally, but um, you don't have to. Can't go wrong. You can't go wrong. Uh, the thing that, so at one time I looked up what's the most nutritious green by just raw, like weight, you know, like mineral, mineral nutrient density by weight. And it's actually like, do you have a clue what it is? No. No. Like hazard a guess though. Is it like something you could buy at the grocery store? You could buy it at most stores. I'm going to say beet greens then. That's a pretty good guess. They're pretty high, but actually it's watercress. Oh yeah. Watercress. It's like something I never buy. You would never buy it. And so I was like, hmm, I've never bought watercress. Uh, and I actually try to grow it, but watercress is sort of like a riparian style plant. Like it wants to grow by a river. And I don't know if you guys know, but that's not present here. Uh, never will be. And so I picked up, I picked up watercress and I made a watercress soup where it's hyper heavy in watercress, obviously. And then I think it's like lemon, salt, pepper. Uh, and then you do that like dollop of heavy cream to like, and then you after the fact, you know, honestly, it might even be better than potato leek. Wow. So. All right. Well, anytime you make it, you gotta maybe save me a bowl. I might, you know, I might leave one out by the porch for you. Well, the thing is, what you guys don't know is, well you do know his name is the garden hermit. Now what you don't know is the lore of a garden hermit. And I think you know it, right? I know a little bit. Why don't you share a little bit of your story? So back in the day, uh, this is a British thing, so. Yeah. I don't know if I know that well. None of us do if it's British. Yeah. Uh, but basically it's like people wanted to have gardens, but they didn't really want to take care of it. Um, and it was like a conversation. So royal. Yeah. Like you come over and you're like, wow, like this person's garden is amazing. Like how do you do it? And then you're like, well, here, here's how. Yeah. And there's a little cottage in the back. It's like a little that's roof, you know, like stone stone little cottage. And you know, I'll just roll out a little wooden door. Yeah. And the role of the hermit is basically maintain the garden and provide entertainment for the guests. Yeah. So I mean, yeah, I don't know. Let me know how I'm doing. Uh, so that hermit life, I might move into the shed, but yeah, it's a little hot. A couple of people are convinced that that's where you live. You actually live in the shed. Just to put out the garden straw and just kind of lay down on that. No, I saw it. So I saw this garden hermit as like a meme. Yeah. Like someone posted it as a meme. It's like a goal. Yeah. It's like, this is like, honestly, why did this job ever go out of style? It's my life goal. And then I showed it to Jacques and he was like, it's kind of my vibe. It's kind of what I'm going. Yeah. He's like, he's like, I'm actually like really into that idea on every level. And so I'm going to grab, you need some here? Yeah. Uh, I need to figure out what I'm planning next. Oh, celery. So anyways, we may or may not be building Jacques a hermitage out in the backyard and he can, you know, maybe weekend putter around. Yeah. He's got a timeshare, got a timeshare in the back. All right. I'm going in with the parsley's, the celeries, the fennels, the dills, all that kind of stuff. Uh, and I'm going to go big on the dill. Actually. I went, I way underdid the dill this year in the spring. I don't know why I put dill out and honestly, I think it was earwigs. Uh, apparently really liked dill. Well, yeah. They like anything we like, which is unfortunate. Yeah. You got a little, uh, you got a little worked up about the earwigs. Kind of personal. Yeah. Let's just say, uh, I wanted some rapini last year. I didn't get any. Like I walked out one night and I was like, you know, I'll do a little night check and I'll just see what's going on. Yeah. And um, lo and behold, there's like 300 earwig babies on every single. It was to the point where you actually texted me and you were like, Hey, I can't handle this. I'm out. You were like, I'm actually going to see a therapy. I'm going to therapy for this. It didn't help. No. And then I, yeah. And then I was like, cause, cause really earwigs are, they are a natural decomposer in the garden and they, and they do play a functional role. Of course, every organism has an actual purpose, so to speak, in, in the ecosystem until the populations get out of balance. And let's just say it was out of balance this year. Yeah. I mean, we were, when we were doing the Epic Fence that you guys saw, we would lay out those boards that we were staining. And then the earwigs would freaking lay them out back there, like vertically up. Right. And just kind of stack them, ladder them. And then we'd get up the next day to get back to staining them. And you'd pull a board away and like 400 earwigs would be at the top, like literally in the crevice at the top. And they, and they'd go, they all like fall like a cloud. And the first time you did it, you got a little mad. I got a little mad. He got a little mad. It's like, what are you guys even doing? Yeah. Like there's no, nothing sacred anymore. It made me mad. Yeah. It made me mad too. Cause I was like, of all places, why there? You know, why there? Like there's so many options and you're going to just go anywhere we're going. It's kind of rude. Kind of rude. So what did you do in your garden to prevent them anyways? You found a decent solution. So the first thing I did is just try to remove like some leaf piles and stuff and just hope that they would go with the leaves. Um, the other thing, uh, sluggo plus, I usually try not to use stuff like this, but the population, like you said, was basically out of control. Nothing was eating it. So there wasn't any balance. So anywhere where I had, like I didn't put it everywhere, but basically anything that I saw that was getting wrecked, I put some. But ultimately what I did is I went entirely to transplants because they usually seem to prefer the baby seedlings. Easy for them. They're tiny, right? So it's easy for them to get to. But like once the plants mature, even if the earwig eats it, it'll still keep growing. Yeah. So that was kind of how I got around it. Um, what I did is, uh, I tried at least a similar thing where you clear the brush, right? But, but I also tried a variety of traps, none of which worked extremely well cause like the beer trap works mostly for a slug and then there's like this potato trap where you cut a potato in half and then hollow it out. And that tends to work for the roly polies or the pill bugs. So it didn't really work that well. Um, but then I tried taking the neem cake fertilizer and just putting that in and that muted it, but it didn't do anywhere near as well as the sluggo would have, I think. By the way, I just put in the varieties I put in. So Long Island Mammoth Dill, that's a very big dill variety. Uh, I put in a celery that I have not grown yet. This is Golden Pascal. So it's a little bit lighter green. The back says a classic hardy celery that grows well in the warm winters of Southern California. So a lot of, obviously a lot of San Diego Seed Company seeds do really well in warmer climates. If you have a cold variety, you just can't seem to figure out how to grow, but they will work well anywhere. And I'm finally putting in a flat leaf parsley. It's funny cause like as a kid, cause you grew up here. Yeah. Yeah. So did you ever go to like diners? Just like a Denny's or like a Coco's or anything like that? Not regularly, but yeah, occasionally. That was like our treat out, you know, was to like go to, maybe not a Denny's, but like we'd go to like a Coco's or something. And um, so that would be our treat. And there'd be, you know, you'd get like a breakfast whatever, breakfast lamb at night. And there would always be parsley on the plate. And I'd just be like, what's this? And I would, you'd never eat it. You'd never eat it, right? Like it was a hundred percent a garnish. And now that's just not the case. Like now people, well, I think, I think everyone's into it more, a little bit. Don't you? It's like one of those like super healthy things. Um, personally I remember as a kid not liking parsley because my mom wouldn't cut it that finely. And I'd like get it and then I'd be like, I'd be like, like I'm joking. Wow. So there's a little scar there. His own mom is throwing, throwing her under the bus. I mean, maybe it was a strategy, but. Well, I'll tell you this and I know, and I know, and I know she's listening. Cause sometimes my mom will even transcribe these videos. Secret. Try to keep the epic mom, you know, in the company. But she, we're talking about Brussels sprouts. Oh yeah. And I don't think it's a my mom thing. I think it's a nineties, everyone thing. No one knew how to cook Brussels sprouts back then. It's so weird. All of a sudden it was like, Oh wow, these are delicious. It was. Okay. So how, how were they cooked in your, in your home? I just never had Brussels. Okay. Maybe they were cooked once and never again. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. So well, how they were cooked is there'd be like a pot with like a steamer basket. And then you'd freaking steam it. And then if you ran out of water, you're just heating it like in the air. And that would happen a lot. And it would get kind of like roasted and toasted, but like not in a good way. And you'd be like, okay, well this just tastes like garbage. Yeah. You know, and it's, and it smells like garbage. And so I would sit there and be like, I'm not eating this. I'm not eating this. And I'd have to like go to my room if I didn't eat it. But sometimes I'd win. Sometimes I'd lose. Where I'd sit there for like an hour, you know, and just not eat them. I think I'm going to grow early wonder beets. Oh yeah. Try those. I have badger flame in here as well, but I don't want to grow them. So I'm not going to. I mean, that's what it comes down to. Yeah. Only grow what you want to grow. I don't want to grow it. So honestly, the badger flame though, this spring did, they did do pretty well. Yeah. Yeah. I'm actually putting in an apple blossom snapdragon, just another snapdragon. And falling in love poppy. Okay. Which, uh, right. It's like pinkish reddish, limited success last year with poppies. The ones that made it, I was like so into like, uh, I think, like you said, getting into some of these flowers, I think I get it now. Oh yeah. Yeah. Cause they add so much contrast and color that I really do want to make a point of having it's worth. It's definitely worth it's at first I was like, Oh, I only want things that I'm going to eat. Yep. Um, but it's kind of silly. Um, not just because of the aesthetics, but also it's just like a nice thing for bugs to have too, like beneficials. Totally. It's all beneficial in the end. Yeah. Plus it's like, there's only so much you can eat. Yeah. I mean, that's a big one. That's what I've noticed. And I could do a better job, right? But I could eat a lot, but yeah. Oh wait, I already labeled this. Well, I'll put another one there. There you go. Okay. Now you can put it in two spots. Yeah. So I'm going to top mine. This is going to be my last tray for now. So I'm going to top mine off and then what we'll do is we'll do a little watering session and just get these, get these in a position where they could actually start to germinate. I think I'm somewhat sold on this method here, but I think there's probably a slightly smoother way to do this. Yeah. It's only, it works really well if like, like the soil mix here, it's, um, doesn't have a lot of big stuff. Yeah. The seed starting mix. Yeah. And that's really the critical thing. You don't want to put like a big wet chip on top of your seeds. Right. Cut this. This is perfect timing with the sun. Yeah. Yeah. Let's do a, let's take a photo. Okay. Of like all the seeds. We'll just, we'll just, we'll just do like a post. Oh yeah. For the gram today. Keep it simple. I was going to say for watering, I like to use the mist. Yeah. Yeah. Me too. Yeah. I've got a couple of tips too. All right. We're back in. So you got mostly onions in that, in that room? Mostly onions, a couple of flowers. And I'm going to throw in a couple of these, the fancy cauliflowers I was talking about earlier. Oh, right. The, uh, the cheddar, your own cheddar. It's a similar variety to cheddar I guess, that does a little bit better. And with cauliflower, I just don't want to mess around. Yeah. Me neither. Me neither. As soon as it gets hot here, it could just ruin your cauliflower. Instantly. It's just really sad. Yeah. It's an emo moment for sure. I don't like it. I'm not trying to relive that. No, I've relived. I've actually, I have relived it is the problem. I have relived it. Multiple times. I've lived, you know, many failures of that. That's the bane of the Santa Ana's we talked about earlier is that they'll just be having a nice cool season. And then all of a sudden three days, intense heat, dry, everything bolts. Which is exactly what just happened. Cause we had the crazy rain recently. First rain in six months, two cloudy days. And then this. Yeah. And it's like the plants are going to be like, oh, fall's coming. Oh, it's not. And then you're just, it's like getting juked out by mother nature. They got pump faked by mother nature. Yeah. Mother Gaia just turned its back on them. Okay. So we're going to move into watering now and all we need to do is just get our trays back up on here. Want to kind of do it all at once. So let's organize this real quick. Okay. We have, I don't even know how many seeds, but each of these is 72. So over 300 seeds started. And remember like the leeks, 18 sowings is probably more like triple that, right? There are tons and tons of seeds. Hopefully you've done the same as well. Talk about a couple of ways that you can moisten this. First of all, you can pre-moisten. So what you could have done when you were starting is just fill the bottom of these trays up. If there's no drainage holes, I give it maybe like half an inch or so. Yeah. And yeah, what's going to happen there is, especially if you're using the Epic 6L trays, look how big the holes are right there. You can see it. It's going to suck the water straight up through the mix. And so actually after I sow, I like to do that. I'll fill this up maybe, I don't know, a third or half of an inch, right? So I'll do it over here. And then I'll do this on yours maybe. Sure. Everyone can see it is we both seem to like to come through with the mist. Yeah. So it's kind of the only time I use the mist. You get out of the splash zone. You just come in and you just do this. Yeah. And it's, it's really nice using the mist because it doesn't like disturb the soil as much. Yeah. But it does actually drop a surprisingly significant amount of water. Yep. Yeah. Because if like, you know, we just put some poppies in here, right? So if I came through with the, if I came through with the shower, it actually would agitate those to the point where maybe they're not sitting quite in the right spot. They could get buried or even washed out. Totally. Yeah. So here you hit yours. Yeah. But hopefully you guys really enjoyed this fall starting seeds with us video. I know it's a really long one, but the whole point was to kind of have you guys sit and chill with us, reminisce on the season and get your, your fall garden going. So until next time, good luck in the garden. Oh, check out Jacques' new channel, Jacques in the Garden. And he'll have a full tour on soon. Good luck in the garden and keep on growing.