COTTAGE & SUN GARDEN MULCHING / PLANTING DAHLIAS AT THE FARM

Say hi Maddie. No. She's got it easy. We are edging this sun garden which is a beast of a garden to kind of maintain. Don't fall off that ladder. Oh haha. Hey don't tempt me. No so I am actually looking out our office window right now at the garden from above just so I can kind of give you an idea of what we're doing to shape up this garden. I do have to edge this every year so let me zoom in a little bit. If you see this edge here and I'm going to try to hold this steady but this edge this little grassy edge here that is what we kind of have to clean up every year because the weeds take in and take over and the grass grows in. So that's what we're cleaning up all the way around that bed today and we're cleaning up a lot of the seed weeds that sprout which by the way letting all of these seeds go to weed and grow is actually a really good way to get rid of them because they're no longer dormant in your soil for the next few years. So I did learn that at one of my master gardener trainings because it was like oh what's the best way to get rid of weeds and I was like oh mulch like just mulch them bury them they won't sprout and the instructor was like actually let them sprout because then the seed is no longer there it's no longer dormant and it will no longer come back to haunt you. So it made sense and with the way things run lately at our property they are all sprouting happily and we are kind of just taking their heads off and then we're going to mulch on top and as you can see Maddie already filled the tractor wagon with some mulch so we're going to get down there. It's a glorious day. It's beautiful. The birds are actually nesting in their boxes so this is this is like a long time coming. I'm super excited to get this done. We did conquer the cottage garden at night the other day maybe. What's going on over here? It looks like you're making a big mess for me to clean or maybe the wind will clean it for me. Holy smokes. It's gonna rain all day which means you'd like me to help most likely right? Well no that's my way of getting the hint. So what do you need me to do? Not weed hopefully. I already did. I filled the wagon with mulch. It's gonna go quick. Yeah hey I'm on call then. The bud came out and now it's wilting. Oh you know why? Bores. Look there's the hole. There's the hole. Wow. Rose cane bores. And where do they go after they cause all this damage? Actually I need the big clippers. Do you have those? They're at the barn probably. I need to cut this whole thing off. Well it's looking pretty good. Definitely making some progress. Grasshoppers? Yes. All right well I'll grab a wheelbarrow maybe. I'll start picking up some of the debris here. You don't have to make it more of a mess than it already is. Be neat when you're making a mess. I have to clean it up don't forget. All right it's like eight o'clock at night. I think I just threw my back out. Doing the fourth load of mulch today. I wasn't planning on this. Jax what do you think? Fence is down buddy. Now's your chance. Sneak attack. Whoa there he goes. So now that we're back in a couple things I wanted to go over because I get a lot of questions about what I use for mulch. So I order from a local supplier Hudson Valley Organics. They supply this black gold. This is actually manure and wood chips and compost and amazing stuff. Like as you can see this is stuff that feeds the microbes in your soil and that in turn helps to make nutrients in the soil available to the plant to uptake. So I add layers of this every year. Not layers. One layer in the spring every year. It breaks down over the course of the season and feeds the soil and then the next year I do it again. Last year I skipped the year because we were so busy with the farm. I never got to it and by the time I did have time this had all grown in and mulching while these plants are super huge is just not fun. You get soil all over the leaves and it's not fun. So anyway we're cleaning this up. But yeah this is like oh my god it's so beautiful. Like I love this. This is exactly what you want. Some people use wood chips for mulching. I'm not a huge fan of straight wood chips. Takes them a little bit longer to like biodegrade. But this has a combination of a whole bunch of stuff that is just so much food and health for your soil which in turn gives you super healthy plants that bloom and are disease resistant and you know even if they get munched on by insects it's not going to kill them. It does allow them to just be more vigorous. So we have some beautiful tree panties blooming today. The euphorbia looks amazing. Come get a shot of this. This is one of my favorite plants so much so that I ordered 72 plugs for my gardens to plug in because I love the color of the leaves. It's like raspberry. It gets these beautiful little flowers in the spring. Bright yellow. They're so much fun and you can shear those back also and then the foliage just stays that beautiful burgundy. Just some color when you don't really have color and they're an early bloomer so they're amazing. The allium, see how small these flower heads are? They're gorgeous but they need to be divided up. So I have super huge clumps of allium everywhere and one day I will get to dividing those. Maybe in the fall. I have to put a little marker in there because the problem with dividing allium is that the foliage dies back after they bloom. So you're like oh and you do have time to get to it. You don't know where the clumps are and your plants are filled in. So it's a little bit of a like okay you have to plan to do this. Put a little marker or stake in the middle of the clump and that way in the fall you know where to dig them up and divide the bulbs out because if you do that you give them more space and the bulbs will get bigger and your blooms will get bigger. Otherwise they're just going to bloom little purple balls like this which is fine. It's been that way for a long time here so one day I will get to them but other than that all right we are back to work getting these beautiful edges cleaned up. What'd you say? What are we gonna do with this? I'll show you what I'm gonna do with that. Take heads off? Yeah it's got a blade on both sides. Watch out you better behave. This looks good. I see a footprint. Dang. That looks nice. But you know what? This edge except for right here where I have not taken up the edge part. You're lucky I didn't go right over that. I am lucky you didn't go over that. Oh poor thing. I moved a coneflower and it's pouting. Oh way back there? Yeah it's not happy. I should go water it quick but I'm in a hurry. All right so anyway this is looking, I know the blackflies are terrible today, but it's looking better. Looks so much better with mulch though and then back there is just a big mess. Yeah there you go. Ow I got a black fly on my hand. All right time to go to real work. So just when you thought it was safe to slow down here at the farm my wife's foot has slipped off the brake pedal and we are flooring it folks. What are you doing? Hey I need to document. Oh yeah it's time usually before you document. What happened to pots is all we gots. Looks like we're going for it. So is this going to be your dahlia patch here or what? Does it look like we're planting dahlias? Yes it does. Why do I ask some questions? Because not everybody has the knowledge that I do honey. So it looks like we're back on here at the farm. Some excavation work got done and yeah we're speeding towards our destination which is bankruptcy. All right I'll be digging holes folks. Enjoy the show. I'll let you go. So I told Blake yesterday lesson one in mowing the lawn is to mow out. Obviously he didn't listen to me. Now he's going to be complaining that the mower deck is full of grass dad. Let that be a lesson to you kids out there. Be mowing out. You don't want to be riding over the stuff you already mowed. It makes zero sense and here's where karma kicks in and my angle gets taken out by a rock. That was a close one. Yes. Is there a method to your madness or no? No. So is your goal to get most of these potted plants in the ground? The ones that pre-sprouted. So these are poplars. So I have five of those. I'm only going to do probably four. Three to four unless they're like the KAs. I have like two to three of each variety that are going in. So I did the KAs already. Those were the most important to me. So worst case scenario you could grow that dahlia in that pot or do you have to get a bigger pot? They need bigger pots. So but one size up and you're probably good for the season then? Oh no these should be in five gallon pots like that. Wow. Yeah. And is that just for tuber reproduction or like for people that don't really care about the tubers? You can't grow big beautiful plants in a quart of soil. They need they need food. So they also need to lift weights because that looks like a huge pot over there. Serenity. This one should go in. I think I only have one of these. Ew. Go away. Wouldn't it be more exciting if you just planted them all and didn't really know what went where and then you had to kind of like figure it out? I'm not planting them any particular way. I'm planting them together. Oh here's another skiffle. We're getting there. Did you put these in like alphabetical order or something? I just brought them. What I did was I potted them all up like once I knew that the tuber was eyed up I potted them in our basement and then once they sprouted I brought them outside and then I would bring them here. So it's all just really a matter of who sprouted first. Can I walk in the basement now or do I have to step around pots? Did you leave me a path at least? I don't know. You'll have to look. I haven't fed the fish in weeks. Okay. Well you put a bunch of pots right in front of the fish tank. Can you help me find this instead of walking around with the camera? Well I don't really know what I'm looking for. Well you ain't gonna find it filming. You'd be surprised. Why don't we just plant what we have over there? It looks like we have enough to go with. This is room. I'm gonna put three rows in that one bed. Orange globe. I guess we could do orange globe. I found them all. Is it a coincidence that you're gonna use three in this row because I'm shoveling? No it's because I realize I'm not gonna plant a tent of what I have. So I'm cramming in plants. Make you feel better. Well is this it? Is this your entire stock? No. I haven't even started the garage tours. Oof. All right. This is just what I got in over the winter. And where are we gonna put those? That's why I'm trying to cram plants in. All right. I like the new landscaping job here. All right take those four over there. Yes I will. You're welcome. All right five of these. These poor guys need dirt. How are you doing this? With a shovel? No. How did you lay them out? I didn't really. I just kind of put them here. It started here. I just sat them down. I didn't really lay them out in any order. But the orange globe. So you're doing two like a section right? These two are the same? I just put them here so you can organize them. What do you think today? Have you had enough of this manual labor? Actually it's just gonna be even hotter. That's why we're trying to get it done today. It's gonna be close to 90 degrees in a couple days and it's cloudy too. It's always nice to do gardening here at the farm when it's cloudy. Uh-oh what happened? Removing one? No somehow this ended up not by friends over here. So unless Blake screwed up a tag somewhere and just stuck it in. I mean it's possible I screwed up the tag. Did you? I may have. I don't know. I don't know what clicks these plants are hanging out in. Did you take a did you spill one and the label came out? I don't recall. I plead the fifth. So it's possible but yeah I don't know. I didn't know they were in some. Well I'd like all the varieties together. Well that's the whole point of planting them somewhat organized. Why would I want you know that's what I did last year. It was a freaking horrible mess trying to keep them all straight. Well they're all dahlias right? So who's gonna complain? You? We are when we're digging them and dividing them and all the varieties are everywhere trust me yes you will be complaining too. That's what got me into this mess was trusting you. I don't remember to work long weekends to be in the vows. That was a low blow seriously. You're lucky I'm wearing three socks. So what is the plan now? Is this going to be the final destination for all your dahlias this year or what? Yeah but some are going to be in pots because I don't have the space yet to really grow them up. I don't I don't have the room to grow all the ones I have so like these are all these are all dahlias that I got in. They're not even I haven't even started pulling the dahlias from the garage yet. Pots is all we got. Yeah we're gonna have lots of pots lots of pots. Well you did you did sell some of your inventory right so do you feel a little bit better this week compared to last week after being robbed? Yes. As most of you already know we uh got robbed last week. Somebody decided to help themselves to our generators and weed eaters unfortunately so I guess their existence is my greatest revenge. Hopefully every time they pull that cord they realize it's on a machine they can't afford. So hopefully you know that. It doesn't really matter we replaced the generators. I think it was we got one replaced. Well I just think it was more of a fact that we felt violated so. Yeah well you didn't feel it we were. Well we were. We got comfortable. I grew I've grown up in this town. We also locked everything with a combination freaking thick cable wire that apparently what's what good is it if you can get something to just cut it off it's stupid. And we did have cameras on the property but unfortunately between all the birds flying around in the barn and the fact that we were checking out the footage of one of them and didn't have it working at the time we did not catch the criminals on camera so we have ourselves yeah we always catch ourselves doing stupid stuff we're talking bad about one another on video or maybe the carpenter's getting in an argument who knows we catch everything but the criminal yes kids stealing candy it's been an adventure but you know what I didn't lose my most prized possession and that's you honey and my children well yes nobody nobody got robbed at gunpoint and lost their life so I'm looking at it as a you know what it sucked but the reality is it could be could have been a lot worse so I'm gonna just leave it at that count my blessings that they just took equipment and not lives and now we have uh upgraded our camera system and security system and we're gonna leave Jax the pug down here to watch the place that ought to deter criminal activity from occurring down here I would think the only thing that will stop happening is the crap that we step in in the lawn because he will happily be eating it all well come on he's going to be patrolling the property I'm sure that you know they may have to test a sample here and there just to make sure so other than that it didn't stop us because here we are one week later they couldn't have stole the rototiller or anything had to leave the most valuable and back-breaking tool that we have boy did I destroy that one I hope that grows that one might wilt this week I'm pretty sure I ripped a few roots so what are your plans for these dahlias what do you keep asking me that for well I'm trying to get I just want them to grow I'm trying to keep them alive so that when it's 90 degrees out they're not completely dead by the time I get home from work they're going to need to be watered so are you going to try to make bouquets and stuff with these or are you just going to enjoy these this year well I'd like to make some money off of them I'm going to have a field and a half of them so yes the goal is to sell some in what happened to the tag did I already put it in or did it there it is like this one where did what did I just do well these all have them all right so that's I must have put them one in front of the other it's like playing a game of memory here no what happens is you think this is going to be very organized because you have all the labels but then like the sun will fade them or the water comes and then they're they all pop out and then you have to wait till they bloom to confirm that it is what you think it is so you got to tag them all just like we did last year just so you know you got what you're supposed to get so as you can tell Blake and I went ahead we dug all the holes to make Shelly's job that much easier what do you think of those holes they're pretty nice aren't they yeah you did a good job what the hell why do my tags keep flying all over you can't blame it on the wind today oh god I wish I could you know what happens I pull out the tag it just falls out and we're like every time boy this one is really ready to go you know you're pretty good at imitating yourself well who's to say I wasn't imitating you that was a compliment it was not a compliment yes it was I said you did a very good job yes and I was sounding like a moron I didn't think so I thought it sounded really good you should be and I can be your dummy don't really have to be a ventriloquist to have that hey don't be putting words in my mouth see you're stepping out of line right what's stepping out of line is this what happens it looks okay I don't know where'd that plant come from right there this one somehow screwed I think I'm just gonna let it be well you know what we dug the holes so maybe Blake might have missed one I don't know do I really need just keep going they look great so what's the deal with these plants in the cardboard boxes they don't even look like dahlias they're cuttings they will look like dahlias but these are grown from tubers you can see the size difference but actually those over there are ka's that are cuttings so they start out like this and then they go to that what does ka mean Christine Albrecht she's from Santa Cruz dahlias they're all her variety so all her varieties start with ka's because of her name so you're welcome for the free promotion well she'll get paid because we're part of their her license oh is that the woman we got to start splitting profits with yep ka yep well maybe I'm not okay with ka here let's send it back we don't need to be splitting profits is she gonna deserves she does a lot of hybridizing she's very particular her varieties are very well received and very healthy and very vigorous it's kind of hard to split profits with a non-profit organization yeah we'll see how that goes is she gonna take 30 percent of our debt no I didn't think so once again I'm not okay with ka it's the way the world works now it does she doesn't sell her dahlias though directly to the public like they she does it through small farms like us so yeah but how long are you gonna be entitled to be you know giving her some of your cash as long as I give her some of my cash I'll be entitled to sell her stuff and you don't have to give her a portion but it helps her continue her breeding of amazing dahlias and it's also out of respect because she's highly um she has like a really high end reputation for breeding dahlias so it kind of helps her create more awesome dahlias I guess I should say you got there eventually well good for her I'm glad that she's part of our company now thank you yes looks like we have partners now I hope she comes to visit yes and I will have to inform her oh unfortunately the frost killed every one of your plants it was nice working with you so do you feel a little bit less stressed out no you mean I did all this rototilling for nothing no I feel better that we're getting them in am I less stressed I mean I haven't even started like my ginger not my ginger I haven't started my basil like my lemon basil and my zinnia seeds yet like so how much more space do you need well that's just it I haven't started it because I don't really have a place but I really enjoyed the zinnias last year and I enjoyed the basil because it just smelled so good in bouquets I don't know I find it quite concerning that we're in year two and you're already hurting for space down here at the farm let's be honest the the growing spaces here are not ideal so well I figured we were going to throw a little miracle grow and just go be done with this I didn't know that soil more than a miracle here cost so much money it's like bottled water who would have ever thought how much dough dirt would cost actually hey Blake can you see if I brought the gallon of water I had filled up a gallon jug of water to bring here see this is what they do they they make they put these little root riot cubes they're like spongy little peat cubes I'm not a big fan of them though yours looks so much better yeah I do a good job don't I that so this is kind of wimpy but I'm taking the leaves off and I'm burying it because what you want is for this little spongy thing to go away because it doesn't at the end of the season it will still be like this under the ground but I like I want tubers to grow from this so I have to plant it super deep as deep as I can and hopefully because the tubers are going to grow above where the cutting is so I'm going to plant it really deep and kind of in a hole and that way when it grows up a little bit I'm going to take the leaves off bury it again kind of like you hill up potatoes because that's how you're going to get the best tuber production out of a cutting oh no these are going to need tags because I only have the box there you go use cardboard I was told if you put cardboard down it'll keep the weeds from coming up yeah I know actually when I go home I'll go grab the cardboard and we'll wet it down and put some rocks on for the rows because that's actually a smart thing to do although it's going to be 90 this week so anything that's out in this dirt will practically die oh it is nice though to plant here when there's a breeze I think we should have a new rule we do not plant here when it's sunny what do you think let's call this place cloudy day farm how about that we need to come up with a name I know I told you but you didn't like it I think everybody that hears this right now is gonna love it it's my dahlia's flower farm and you're my dahlia it's cute it is cute come on I can already see it welcome to my dahlia's flower farm I would like something more similar to like drafty rafters it just sounds funny and it's quirky like me but I'm not going with that either because I need something that fits you know what I've literally all winter I kind of like went on these little name binges and trying to figure out like what would sound good and what's clever and catchy and fits and I haven't really I haven't really found anything it's kind of weird can you farm yeah oh my god another one of these I guess we're doing five of these not that it deserves five spots but they're all up and beautiful I guess you'll prove me wrong it is exciting though to see you back in the garden I do enjoy watching you glow again you looked a little upset this week if I'm glowing it's because I'm somber at the moment well I'm happy I honestly this part is really stressful and I get kind of moody in the spring because there's so much to do but when it's all in and everything's like like in late July beginning of August I'm excited to see what this place looks like honey it's understandable why you get moody you know you work very hard and you know you got a lot of stuff working against you this year so it's okay to be moody at everything but me what do you think your employee and hubby sound good you know what I'd really like to get this row done well rototilling obviously wasn't enough actually rototilling really helped the soil literally is so nice you know it'd be fun to do a row like the next two rows do zinnias and then do another thing of dahlias over there it's just I have a thousand dahlias left like this is only what did I count over there like 40 that's so 50 dahlias in that row and then 75 in this row you have a thousand dahlias where did they come from you want the rundown of local farms oh my goodness when did this happen like how did I not notice this shouldn't have done that what expected to have 20 acres to grow in like we were just going to rototill and plant it ain't like that well I mean I should have known better nothing's easy for us we always we always take the heart is it us is it our bad decisions or is it just the way life works for us I don't know we definitely have the heart we take the hard route sometimes by our own ignorance but but we work hard to get stuff done and still we don't we don't really get a break we kind of get crapped on a lot well I think we catch some breaks and I just feel like we're going in blind and we're going in well you also learn full speed ahead yes I am I am going faster than we probably should be but you know what can't make progress if you're just planting 10 dahlias a year I went from planting I think I had five varieties in my first year and now I have 275 varieties in two years that's like whoa what are you doing girl but what I'll be doing is dancing through the flowers with my daughter like I did last year because that was really fun well you're your own boss and you should know by now I'm the worst boss yes you can't even you can't even work for yourself I wouldn't I would never work for me yes she is a miserable boss isn't she well don't be so hard on yourself don't be so in agreement be hard on the boss like you know what maybe you could start telling the boss where to go instead of telling me where to go what are you talking about I am the boss Natalie G baby I do too because there's nothing more frustrating than getting your wife a flower farm where she can't grow flowers you know what that's the biggest oxymoron we've done that that's us we buy 20 acres to grow flowers on but it's not workable that's what I'm saying I guess we should have soil tested the land in January when we found it that's the problem we kind of bought it before you know when the ground was frozen and we didn't even really know much about it at all but we're just like yeah we can grow it would be like doing a house renovation and buying all the appliances and furniture and curtains yes that I do and then realizing when the carpenter shows up oh dude we don't have any money left that's happening too man it's expensive everyone's just like oh you need a tractor and it's like yeah we also need 40 grand so nope I wish I could find a used tractor I don't care what kind of tractor it is and where it kind of comes from it would be just as worthy to me to have one but and that is on the list because we also need a way to mow these lawns without spending the entire weekend as Blake says working so then he can just go to school Monday so you know he he loves to mow but I think that the farm has mowed him out so we're getting we're almost we're almost getting there well shut it noisy roll can't say it on that sounded like us about two hours ago when we were in here actually it was more stressful when we first got here because it was like we thought that this was going to be like ready to plant because it had been excavated and rototilled with a bigger attachment and I couldn't even dig in it was like nope but now it's been rototilled and it's amazing so hmm it's strange it has to be fine-tuned that's all that story sounds a little you left a few things out of that story should I fill the people in so my wife decides she's gonna buy an attachment rototiller to a skidster so we can rent a skidster and then use the rototiller attachment so it'll be less stress and work on her husband so well no so I could use it at some point really not for less stress for you yeah okay you'll find another job for that yeah anyway so so I show up here she's like oh yeah the excavator guy wrote it told everything for you okay I didn't say it like that and I don't sound like well maybe you should do it because you're a lot better at it but uh yeah needless to say we have a very expensive rototiller attachment but I was still forced to rototill today so I actually have more horsepower than a skid steer well I I think it just didn't get done enough or deep enough like I think I don't know if he went too slow I mean too fast or if he just didn't I don't know I have to I have to ask him really about it uh maybe he just isn't as good as I am and you're used to high quality workmanship oh I thought something was buzzing under my foot in the ground like oh my god I'm gonna hit it with ground bees right that'll that'll end my day great I did get stung in a jugular last year when I was trying to finish up and had a long day and I finished up my day getting stung in the neck it tried to kill me but I survived how many times a year do you think you get stung by a bee or bitten by an insect oh god bitten every hour here mosquitoes but I don't I don't really get like stung much I don't swat at bees they don't really scare me it's when I don't know they're there and they are annoyed by me and I don't know it oh god terrible terrible but this dirt looks decent until it dries out and then you won't be able to dig it with a shovel well I think it gets hard regardless well so what I did um I added gypsum as you wrote a toad I added gypsum and then the fertilizer so this is actually getting amended as we are planting uh I got gypped by gypsum she was uh putting it down in front of the rototiller that was fertilizer that's why it's oh god I'm breathing in a a cloud of it smelled like ass what was that fertilizer oh it was horrible it was a bloom booster yeah I think you know it's half the reason I have bad breath right now you why you ate it well no because I was breathing it in you were making a cloud of dust with it the thing is like right now it's like dead so I was starting to do it and then the wind picked up and just took it to you yeah and blew right in my face yeah you're not coming near me well I wasn't going to be coming to you anyway oh yeah right huh shocker what do you think I think you're a liar I'm just like yeah I'm like literally skin to you as a mosquito no no you're not I'm too tired I don't care anymore why does that look like it's too close there I gotta pull that a little this way probably come back to me actually when I come we're coming back I thought we stayed late so we didn't have to come back and there's some big weeds I gotta get out of that row over there before they become the primary plant in that row yeah because you know we were here yesterday we spent the whole weekend we were over there working your feet I am watching my feet my big feet well you I'm trying to get closer to you you know because I don't want you to get closer to me well we're going to do this together honey hey Blake Emma come help and the kids will join us as well you know I had a problem sitting back on my knees like this and today it doesn't hurt so it must not be a permanent injury it healed well congratulations yes I'm proud of myself all right my dahlia think that's gonna do it my dahlia that sounds like such an old name my dahlia's flower farm please oh my dahlia oh my dahlia oh my dahlia's flower farm what do you think all right the singing was good maybe the jingle needs a little work uh I think they all need a little work oh thank you again all right thank you