Full Tour Of My Fall Garden!

Welcome back to Jacques in the Garden. Today, we're going to do a vibe check and a mini tour of my garden so you guys can see exactly where I'm at with the fall garden. And also, I want to give you guys updates on all the little projects I've shown over the past couple of weeks. In fact, you can see one of them right over there, which is my mustard cover crop. So let's get started in this side of the garden here. I've been doing a lot of work and there is some great, great progress. All right. We have to kick it off with this bed here because it is growing like nobody's business. This thing is an absolutely incredible green machine. Now, this is the bed that I had covered in plastic to solarize, to try to beat back the root knot nematodes. I don't know if I beat them back, but whatever I did, it certainly seems to be working because things are thriving. Including up front here, I have my arugula, which is honestly, I think the best looking and most vigorous arugula I've ever grown. It also tastes delicious because I had some for lunch today. Now, straight down the middle, as I showed you guys in the video, I do have my Lacinato kale, this variety called Mamba, which I've really come to love and it's starting to really put out some serious growth. The flowers that I've put in between, like the calendula, have also filled in quite a bit, as have the snapdragons like this guy down here. And trust me, they don't look that big yet, but soon they're going to be towering and the cold weather is going to make them bloom profusely. Now, in the back here, I've got the butter head lettuce, which honestly is entirely ready to harvest at this point. I'm shocked it grew that fast. I also peppered in a few little beets, every little empty space I had. And the last thing I really want to show you here is the broccolini. So one of the things about broccolini is that I like to top it, which is where you cut the very top of it off to encourage all this side shoot growth. And that's especially important for something like broccolini, because if you think about what you're doing with broccolini, you're getting a lot of very small florets. So you don't want it to just shoot up one tiny floret and then have to reset the whole plant at that point. Instead, you want to encourage these plants to branch early, basically as soon as they feel like they're established in the soil. So once they were planted for about two weeks, I came back around and I chopped the tops off of every single one. So this bed, I have to say, is a huge success. I even have some herbs like this dill right here, peppered in. Now let's move on to the bed behind me. Now, this is a bed which I recently actually added to the garden. It's the one that I filled with wood chips. And it's been very, very good at retaining moisture. So the soil here has not even remotely gotten close to drying out. It's been watering everything that I've put in here very well. But I decided that it's late enough in the season that I removed the tomatoes I had here. I had a bunch of peppers. I got rid of all of it. The only thing I left was the summer squash. And I decided this is now a cauliflower bed. So I've got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten cauliflower. I've got a random Brussels sprout here. And this is a kaolette, something I've never grown before. I think it's a Johnny's exclusive. And if you want to picture basically a Brussels sprout, but instead of Brussels sprouts, they form tiny little bunches of kale. So it sounds really cool. I figured I'd try it. I'll let you guys know how that goes. I've also got a Utah celery right here in the middle to help soak up some of the moisture in this bed. Celery loves a nice wet soil bed. And the wood chips at the base there are going to feed it very, very nicely. And I've also got a couple of that green perpetual spinach chard. Now, I decided to leave this marigold here because it's the red metromorph variety, which actually changes its colors and becomes more dark red as the colder temperatures set in. So I thought it'd be fun to kind of play around with that guy in the garden. So this bed, this bed looking really good. Now let's move on to the big cedar bed. So as you can see, I do have some shade cloth on top of it, but it's a very, very, very simple structure that literally anyone can do. It's just some bamboo stakes here. And then on the corners of the shade cloth, I put a landscape staple to keep it all secure. But within this bed, it's almost entirely broccolini. But I've also peppered in some butterhead lettuce all throughout because butterhead lettuce is now officially my favorite lettuce to eat. At the end here where I have this trellis, I did decide to put some shelling peas. Not that many, because honestly, I just like snacking them in the garden. I don't want to go through and actually pick out each individual pea and then make a meal out of it. So we are going to also have some chard at the end here. I've peppered this with flowers as well, because you got to put some flowers wherever you get the opportunity. Now, I do want to take a moment to talk about this area behind me, because last year, I believe it was I put in two apple trees. One is a Fuji, the other a pink lady. Neither of them should grow in San Diego. They are considered too high of a chill hour apple. But I've got some good news. These were put in as bare roots, so they shouldn't have had too much preconditioned chill hours built into them. And from the Fuji apple, I harvested, I think, six or eight crisp, tart, quite tasty apples. I wouldn't say that they're at the same level as the best Fuji I've had, but they are definitely better than most of the apples I'm used to growing. And San Diego also mentioned that the pomegranates here are still producing. I have a couple of flowers that are studying right now. But I also have a couple of bigger fruits heading down low. So feeling pretty good about most of the orchard this year. And the other thing I want to talk about, speaking of orchard, is the grape here in San Diego. Grapes don't really go dormant until something like basically January. It is starting to lose some of its leaves. I might trim it back to let some more light into the garden. But I'm still not entirely sure if I want to keep the flame seedless grape. It is just way too disease prone. But I do actually like the taste. I've tried a couple other grapes from the garden, from other people's gardens. I got to say, the flame has something about it that I really enjoy. It's got not just sweetness, but it has a little bit of tartness and something else that I can't put my finger on. I've really come to appreciate it. So now let's get into the last couple of beds over on this side. So let's kick it off with the bed back here. Here I did find some gophers. I did catch a gopher. And actually, funny thing about this side of the garden, I've decided to get back into tilling. Now, I do want to reserve that for a future episode where I go a little bit deeper and explain my reasoning. But I think it is going to pay off in the long run. There are always reasons to do one thing versus another. I don't want to speed through that right here. So let's just get into what I did on it. I basically added a bunch of compost, crab shell meal, worked it into the soil and then replanted it. Up front here, I have collard green, collard green. The sorrel that's been here for over a year now. Another couple of collard greens, a couple of snapdragons, actually a poppy right here. This is I think it's the Icelandic poppy. I just transplanted it the other day. On this back section here, I have some sugar sugar daddy snap peas that I've already transplanted into the garden. There's only a couple of them that were already in sick cells. But I've also densely seeded all along the drip line here. So I'm hoping to have a wall of snow peas and snap peas to make it very easy to just cook something out of the garden here. Now, if we take our attention back over here to the cover crop, this is a very recent episode I did where I decided to do a very dense seeded mustard cover crop. And again, this is to fight the root non nematodes. But I just wanted to give you guys an update of what this looks like now. It's starting to grow pretty well. I've got to say that, honestly, I think I seeded it too densely to the point where all these plants are competing and they're now going to take longer to grow than I really intended. So now what about this bed up front and the actual sidewalls? This bed in particular is going to be an interesting mixture of burgundy broccoli all along this backside here. Burgundy broccoli could get pretty tall. It's almost kind of like a broccolini more so than a regular broccoli. So it tends to bush out and get pretty big. So I decided to put it on this backside. And on the front here, I put a fast growing cabbage. This is a cabbage that I believe has like 65 days to maturity. It's not going to be a big one, but that's fine because I want to harvest these cabbages in the true fall season before we even get to the actual winter. These might even end up on the Thanksgiving table if I'm lucky. Probably not. Actually, now that I think about it, but maybe some of the other ones I planted earlier that I'll show you in a moment might make it by then. I've also, of course, put some zeolite calendula here, some snapdragons down the middle and actually one more cosmo. I decided I wanted to try pushing it into the late winter season and just to see how it does. Now, I do want to talk a little bit about this back section here because it has been giving me a little bit of trouble lately. So this whole back section here has always been kind of an oddity because it gets a lot of shade from the house, especially in the wintertime. So I've decided I'm just going to try to basically shove some flowers in here. And if they work, well, then they work and everybody wins and get some beautiful blooms. So I've got a calendula there, a zinnia that I've left in the ground from before, another one of those Utah celeries. And then I'm also actually putting in a hollyhock right over here and as well as another hollyhock down here, hollyhocks get pretty big. Now, the question is, will they get enough sun to actually get tall enough? And if they do, then they will get plenty of sun because I've had hollyhocks get up to like 10 feet tall. No problem. And that's basically what I'm hoping to do. I just don't know if it's too late in the season to pull that off. I did also want to talk a little bit about this kale. This kale has been in the ground now in the garden for. Oh, man, at this point, going on five years, actually just about five years, and it's still going strong. It's actually had a couple of resetting. Recently, it's been hit by stink bugs pretty hard. But I think I've mostly beat them back. Just to give you an idea of what this actually looks like down below. This is one plant. So one plant, it branches there, comes up, these branch again. But all of this kale you're seeing here is coming out of a single stalk. So it's hard for me to walk away from that. I love how Dr. Susie it looks. And also it still tastes good. So let's go pop over to the other side of the garden. I'll show you some updates about what's going on there. First, let's do a little seedling update. This is my most recently sown kind of last second brassica planting. I plan on putting these up very soon to give me a little bit of an insurance because I still have some summer stuff in that side of the garden that you'll see in a moment that is going to come out eventually. I also have a couple of flowers and herbs left over here. If we take a walk down to the greenhouse, I have to say it's a little bit embarrassing in there. I desperately need to clean it out. I do have some wonderful onion seedlings growing in there. I've got some tomatoes that I plan to transplant into pots to get some winter tomatoes. And I still have all of these cuttings of dragon fruit I got from Kevin. But I just haven't found the right spot for them. But I have harvested actually three dragon fruit out of these inside the tiny pots here, the five inch pots, and they actually tasted delicious. So knowing that, I kind of feel like I should entirely ignore them if I want them to continue to produce for me. Now, over here in this messy zone, these are my mature seedlings, the ones that are left over after planting so many other ones. I've got mostly broccoli at this point, a couple of cabbages. So we might find some spots for them in the garden. But for the most part, you'll see that it's pretty full. So here we are in what I call the North Garden. This is the second major garden that I built, and it is mostly looking like summer right behind me. But if you look around the edges, you'll see that it's definitely transitioned into a fall garden. So let's start off with the summer section and then we'll work our way around and to the back. So kicking off right here, we've got the blanket flower, which has been going strong for about three years now. Still looks great. It's a self deadheading flower. So if you want something a little maintenance that doesn't really need anything at all, highly recommend. This is a variety called Goblin, which is also a cool name. Now, this is the last big basil bush. I had three other ones that I recently took down. One of them turned into pesto. Two of them got blended up with olive oil and put in the freezer for use later on in the year. But right here, this is the one that I really want to show you guys. The pepper. This is the Bikinio peppers. Look how many there are on here. They're so beautiful, so prolific. I've got the red one and the yellow variety or kind of yellow orange, I guess. This is just two plants, guys. And there are, I mean, definitely more than 100 peppers. And these guys, they do look like they could be kind of dangerous, but they're really not. You can pop this whole thing in your mouth. You're not going to get burned. Not too spicy. They're also called Bird's Beak pepper from Brazil. To me, fantastic fermented pepper, pickled pepper makes a really wonderful hot sauce. And as you can see, I've got plenty of work to do with these guys. Now, the rest of the pepper bed is also still producing pretty well. The chilanos are doing really well. And I guess I've got some bell peppers hiding in the garden as well. This guy's going to go into dinner. I think I see another one hiding back there. And actually another one right there. I haven't really been paying attention to my pepper bed because literally my fridge is full of peppers right now. And I've been really focused on the fall garden. But it's nice to know that there's still a couple of harvest hiding in there. Now, back here, we have that bed that I also recently planted. And this is the one I covered in the bird netting. Now, I have to admit the bird netting does not actually block the little white butterflies or moths that make the cabbage loopers or cabbage worms. I've seen them literally fly right through it. But it has stopped any sort of raccoon or anything like that from digging up my garden. Now, this is a mostly mixture again of I believe it's all from the video. I definitely mentioned in the video, but I think it's all broccoli in this back section. The front row are all cabbages. Now, those are more mature. There's a good chance I might actually get one of those around Thanksgiving time. But maybe not. And recently I've been really into the snapdragon. So again, a lot of snapdragons, a lot of calendulas and all of the little nasturtium seedlings you see, those are all volunteers. So we'll see what sort of color they end up as. Now, on the orchard side, let's talk a little bit about that. So right here is my I think three or four in one plum tree. And it did get its first summer pruning. Now, for me, when I think of summer pruning, it's mostly to slow the tree down, actually steal some of its energy so it doesn't end up too big or getting massive year after year. But this is not the final pruning. Once the leaves all fall off, I'll come back through. I'll do one more touch up prune because I haven't really looked for like crossing branches. There might still be some dead disease stuff in there. I want to clean it up more properly as I get closer to that winter season. Now, the other one that I still haven't even touched yet is my pear tree. And as you can see, quite tall. And that is exactly why you want to prune it. You want to encourage it to stay at a manageable size so you don't have to get on a ladder to pick those pears 10 feet up in the air. Now, the one thing that is producing like absolutely crazy right now is my passion vine. I see one right up. There's a couple. There's two of them. Oh, man. Actually, there's three more right over there. These are delicious. This is the Frederick variety. So sweet. So tangy and delicious. Even just the fruit itself smells amazing. I'm actually going to be taking some of these on a trip I'm going on. Once again, I'm headed to Maine for a very special project this time. Totally different than anything I've done. But I think I'll bring a little taste of summer out there because it's definitely going to be colder than it is here. Now, speaking of summer plantings right here, that is all tomatillo, guys. And they're good. I actually made some salsa verde the other night with some of the jalapenos, some of the actual onions I still have from the harvest earlier this year. And there's still plenty more tomatillos on the way. The nice thing about tomatillos is that maybe some of you guys feel like this as well, but the pests never mess with them. I know a lot of people don't mess with tomatillos. I find them to be quite tasty, but they never really get bothered by anything. I could find the fruit reliably even on the ground. Nothing touches them. So that's a keeper for me. Now, let's get a little bit close and personal, and I'll show you what happened with my carrot then. So as you can see, we definitely have germination. In fact, we have too much germination. This this is too thick. You don't want your carrots to actually be this close together. They're not going to form properly. They're going to be too tight and right up next to each other. So they won't be able to actually swell to the right size you want. Over here, this is more about what you're trying to get, like a carrot, maybe every half inch or so. That's going to give you ideal carrots. So I will be having to go through here and thin these out at some point. Not going to be today, but at some point I'm definitely coming in here in the next couple of weeks to thin this out a little bit so I actually get some respectable carrots. Now, back here, you might actually see some wilting because it was actually quite warm. And everything that was in this middle row, you could probably tell was the most recently transplanted. That's because it's wilted. Hasn't had a chance to really root into that raised bed soil yet. So as the kind of shade has hit it now, it will start to perk up. You can even see some of them have perked up already. But the basic idea of this bed is, once again, common theme, broccoli, cauliflower and cabbages. I mean, that's the season, guys. And I'm not mad about it at all. I love to eat these things, especially when they're in season. Grown through the coldest time of the year. That is when they taste best. So I'm very excited to get some harvest out of this bed. But we do still have some summer stuff. Namely, a lot, a lot of eggplant, guys. The eggplant this year has been out of control. The Ania in particular has been producing nonstop. I don't think I've ever had this much eggplant from the garden before. And I'm not complaining about it, but I am starting to get a little bit over it. Like there's only so much different kind of eggplant stuff you could do or shove it into things. I usually like it roasted. At that point, I could slide it into even whatever I want, including lasagna. I've been doing a lot lately. Highly encouraged. Still got some peppers. And over here, once again, we got all broccoli. We've got the butter lettuce that I am now addicted to. And we also have some little baby bok choy that I actually seeded in all the empty spaces. They grow quickly, so they won't actually take up any space. More snapdragon. More of the nasturtium. I almost forgot what the name of that plant is. And in the Hugelkultur bed, it is all eggplant. It is eggplant city here. And once again, I've got so many of them. I literally don't know how I'm going to eat them all. I got to say, though, they are definitely absolutely beautiful things. So as we work our way back around, we have another pepper bed. This one has some poblanos that are still producing. I just harvested a bunch of them the other night to make garajas. We had a little taco night and it was absolutely delicious. Just take some poblanos, some mushrooms, some onions, some garlic, saute them all up together, and you've got yourself a meal. It is so good. A little bit of green beans on the edge here to try to get that last little bean harvest. And then the back here, I don't even have to tell it to you guys, but I will anyway. Broccoli, cauliflower. That's pretty much it. Now, as for the peach in the back, it did get its first summer prune. You probably literally can't tell because of how ridiculously massive this tree is. But I will show it to you guys once again. Once the leaves fall, I'll do the actual winter prune. I did film myself during this initial summer prune, and it's actually insane because it literally doesn't even look like I've touched it. And then right here is that giant bed near my back area, right next to the peach tree. I'm only showing the ground here because what's around it right now is a little bit of a top secret. You can see a little bit of the edges there. That'll be a video coming out on my channel soon. So I don't want to reveal that too much. But the plan is to actually have all my garlic in that bed. So there you have it, guys, a quick little rundown of my fall garden, a little bit of a vibe check and updates of all the projects I've been working on. If you have any questions on what I've shown or if you want to see more of a specific thing I went through, please put it down in the comments. I'll definitely check it out. But thank you guys for watching. I'll see you guys next time. And I'll throw in a little good luck in the garden for you guys as well.