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Happy growing!
we had a really nice deep rain yesterday was a I was hoping for it we had been working up some soil and getting things seated and it was just what we needed the ground is now cooler and a little bit more moist it’s a great day to start doing some planting yesterday I was up in Trumansburg and I took a visit to Countryside and visited my friend Daniel it’s an Amish Run outfit I have a relationship with him where I scoop Up Older Flats of seedlings annual seedlings that haven’t sold and either buy them or trade them for perennial nurs stock he’s slowly adding in currents in Willow and Elderberry and it’s really exciting to have that exchange and I’m left with annuals that I would never be able to do with our setup they have heated Greenhouse they have lots of folks working and so we got all these leftover peppers and tomatoes super leggy Tomatoes but that’s fine we can field plant them and we also have lots of our own things going on in here little hot peppers that we care for and varieties of tomato that Sasha really loves you can see how much smaller they are when you don’t start them with a heated space little Tomatoes versus Greenhouse Tomatoes but that’s the beauty of working with other folks so today I’m going to start loading a bunch of these onto the trailer with our little electric crook the car with the trailer attached this has been working wonderfully I’ll share a link here if you’re interested in learning more but we’ve been hauling extensive amounts truckloads worth of material in fact I got a big big load of compost for the chickens yesterday and they’re happy with that so they’re happy with this investment too I’ll load on today and prioritize the absolute biggest plants I gave them a deep uh hydrating soak in a very informal compost tea bath that’s that right there it’s rainwater with handfuls of compost stirred together letting the seedlings sit in there for a minute or two to really take on deep hydration but also like a nourishing soak and we’ve got hot peppers and sweet peppers the lettuces will go in at our home in our backyard Zone one but the peppers and tomatoes the eggplants will go out to the field that’s next Once I load up nice project for the morning to start getting these in I’m going to bring some water and compost and a couple of tools and get out to the field we’ve been using this very simple system for getting water for the field for a couple of years now and it works fine enough there’s a Chinese food place not far from here that uses fryer oil we get the containers out of the recycling we rinse them as thoroughly as we can dilute them over time it’s fine enough whatever and then we use our rainwater tanks once we get a good rain and there’s enough in there we refill from here put the lids on throw them in a vehicle and then this way we can walk around and give a gallon or two of water to each plant it is manual but it’s free and it’s an abundant resource it’s wild sometimes how much prep work it takes just to get started so it’s now 8:00 a.m. and I finally have the trailer ready to go we’ve got our plants we got some water and we got a bunch of compost I got some shovels and I’ve got this cool drill uh augur bit that attaches to my drill I’ll show in a moment it’s just funny it feels like a a small amount of a full day’s work already and I’m now finally ready to get started planting and here we are right down the road nice thing with the electric car and a decently tightly mowed field is we can pull up right to where we’re going to work boy this is a a video for another time I’d like to do a more detailed tour we got potatoes and amarinth and winter squash and sunflowers and more tomatoes and cabbages and sweet potatoes and cabbages and cauliflower seabuck Thorn cuttings all onions all throughout lots and lots of stuff that’ be for another time but for now what I want to do is identify beds that did not get um addressed very well or thoroughly this spring so for example this one we just took an electric mower with a bagger and mowed this down I’m going to use a drill to drill holes periodically and start with eggplant in here so I just have a standard drill nice quality Makita that’s what I work with so that’s what I’m using and I found this online if I can find a link I’ll share it there I think a 3 in diameter ground augur that has a Chuck that matches the drill I certainly don’t need the full depth that this offers but it’s got a little leading tip and it cuts decently well in the soil the one real gotcha is if it’s not uh on the right side of your correct side of your body when you’re using this and you hit a rock you can absolutely break a wrist uh I’ve come close a few times so I’m going to set up a tripod and show how I do this if I just put this in the ground and start drilling and it hits a rock it spins really fast it spins in this direction for me so I put it so that it’s up against my hip and then it works pretty [Applause] nicely wrong setting it should be on a little slower it can get gummed up if you got lots of debris in the soil oop see gota be [Music] [Music] careful in rocky soil that’s dense that you’re doing your first Cuts in you really if if you have um issues with your wrists or your arms or you don’t feel like you have the control strength this is not the right tool I feel like I’m understanding it and I’m still getting Zapped periodically um but what’s nice about is it really creates a nice little pocket you can drop a plug into and then what we can do is focus on deep mulch deposition around these lots of compost um maybe some cardboard if needed but it is a very uh fast no till way to inject plants so long as they’re big enough I wouldn’t do this and then sew some lettuce seed or carrots but for plugs that are well established I can Bank compost and mulch around it’s a fast way to go down through a bed and drill out the holes eggplant um ready to go and so I can tuck it in and these are solonus crops so I can let the soil go up the stem just a little bit I recognize this be very easy for the weeds to completely take over if this is the only move but from following up with some really good compost uh around the plant to boost them and then really thick deposition of grasses around and on top of the weeds that can transition this if things work properly about 15 minutes worth of work to use that little drill a little wild of a tool so again not recommended if you’re not feeling really comfortable with it go light and if it’s Stony soil question whether it’s an appropriate tool basically these are now these plugs have been injected into the ground recognizing fully that this is not a good solution if I just leave it like hey let’s just come back and get eggplants but we plan on um working up the soil in between the row of the eggplant and the sweet potato that soil could be used to bank up against the stems of the eggplant to strengthen them uh or to uh dump deeply on top of weeds I have a weed whacker that’s pretty accurate if I’m careful with it and I can do detailed work around these we also have a couple round bals of hay off in the distance and bedding from the chickens so with all of those ingredients in that management uh the idea of continually building soil adding to these permanent raised beds robbing from the walkways that pathway feels like a valid and viable way to have these eggplants be able to pop through the weeds we’ll share notes as that unfolds this next bed to work on these are all running East West and the center of this bed had figs and pomegranate cuttings that I don’t think are working really well the South Side have a nice block of onions on one end but nothing in the middle there’s some gappiness in here and so I’m using the drill on the North side just in case the figs and the pomegranates want to root and grow I don’t want to erase them there’s also seab Berry cuting that are rooted here from last year so I want to work around that but these are all small red peppers I haven’t worked with these before but uh Sasha really likes red peppers and it feels like smaller ones have a better chance of being able to grow without getting a little blemish and then rotting and so it’ll be more numerous small red peppers putting in about 80 of them so hopefully we like them couple of sweet observations Happening Here one thing so to the north of this bed is a potato bed these are a dark purple potato that we’ve been saving for years and years we’ve got them in a two two row zigzag pattern in one monolithic bed and I’m using the BCS rotary plow to cut sod to feed these potatoes we’re healing them by robbing these walkways so this will be cut and sent to the potatoes and they’re such a hungry fast annual once they’re up that it becomes a destination as I’m clearing out these little pockets to put in the peppers a little more particular particular pepper pockets as they say um the weeds that come out of here can go directly into and next to the potatoes they’ll just gobble them up once there’s soil on top so potato beds throughout Gardens act as these amazing kind of like compost catches compost piles that you can throw any thing at and then throw some soil on top and the potatoes will grow right through it nice to see the center of this bed in a few spots some hazelnuts we just ran out of bandwidth in planting them in air prune boxes so we put a bunch of hazelnuts into the middle of this bed with some soil on top and some compost some areas are stronger than others kind of thought Vols might get them but seems like at least some are here and with these little cells is not normally how I do it but I like the idea I can put these four packs down the line and pre-flight them and then just drop them in it’s almost like a production Farm scene here with waist stream from an Amish nursery and the pursuit of building soil pretty works out pretty nice another sweet side bonus of this micro tillage regime is lots of little bird friends come to hang out they know the Bobble links in particular when we work up the soil with the BCS or with these little drills we give a little space and they Bop through and try to get some worms out of the mix it works out lovely ended up with a nice 50 or 60ft row of peppers through here plopped in 15 20 minutes with that drill minding my wrist of course and left with a few extras we can give away to some friends um nice straight clean row that works out well it’s not like I love straight rows but if I’m doing things like uh rotary plow to harvest and Hill potatoes it really facilitates having the straightness the person who owns this land appreciates and enjoys good clean straight lines and I’m really happy to lean into that side question here for those of you that are proficient pepper professional planters what do you think with these uh flowers that are popping off do I pinch right below here and let them get bushy do I let them just start setting up a crop the soil conditions seem really nice for them to get established it’s moist it’s warm uh there’s some more rains coming so there shouldn’t be major stresses on the plants but would it be helpful to head them back maybe I’ll do an experiment and do half let me know in the comments this is the next bed I’ve got 16 cayenne peppers to put in they’re a little bit of a bigger container so these are ones I’m going to save the tags and wash the containers and return them they can reuse these and it feels pretty important it’s a lot of plastic otherwise but there’s 16 of them and the bed’s complex so I went through with the sharpened shovel and dug some pilot holes every 2 ft or so in and amongst the seab berry and the English Walnut and we’ll tuck them in so that they seab and walnut can do a second year of Nursery crop and we can get hot peppers in the meantime hopefully it’ll be exciting to see how this bed unfolds with hot peppers on the south and then uh indeterminant tomatoes on the North I know it’s a little close but I think I can feed the tomatoes really heavily I think I’ll go less intense feeding on the peppers some observations to learn from will the seab berry plants confer a little bit of a nitrogen boost to them will the English walnuts be a little antagonistic since they are jugin family get to learn some things there and I’ll pound in stakes and run these Tomatoes pretty tight and um wellmaintained onto the wire so there’s ample room for the peppers to grow and lean South they’ll block some light over the walkway that’s okay and then these cuting we don’t have to interact with much so hopefully this cropping regime works out lots of interaction minimal with these cabbages that are uh planted right into stubble of old Sudan and then high-intensity tomato and Pepper with Nursery in the middle boy it’s a lot to figure out for an hour and a half of work I’m about halfway through these and I think having a field that’s already thoughtfully laid out having a sense of where things are going to go having a good sharpened shovel this is the shovel I’m using in Rocky clay soil I really like taking a standard shovel using an angle grinder and cutting it to this profile really lets you get in you can even hit that with a file at the end to sharpen which I should have done and then you can use it to skim weeds out but that and then the drill for the smaller plugs that are ready to go it really facilitates feels like I’m learning how to farm in a real way here I think where the drill really excels is when there’s loose soil that’s relatively Rock free and you’re trying to plant in particular Tomatoes these are some leggy lemon boys I’ve never worked with them before but they seem compelling nice uh yellow indeterminate tomato and these deep holes let you drop the whole plug in see I can drop it in could even go deeper than that quite a bit in fact but that lets the step of the Tomato root up a little bit and get stronger but we’ll pound in trellis probably metal tsts and run good quality string every foot or two down the whole line to Trellis them turns to potatoes here so weeding can be sent to this bed and weed management can be done with a little micro tilling tilting and hilling for both the tomatoes and the potatoes hopefully with good enough Health in the soil a good abundant sun and wind growing season um the spacing here would be compatible to not have disease build up we’ll see a little less than amazingly satisfying to look in the back of the trailer and say oh there’s still some stuff in here but the reality is I am my back is telling me hey man you got to take a little break it’s a Sunday so that’s it I’m going to get that amount done the water a couple water’s left on there the compost is spread out but a lot of plants went in probably about 70 or 80% and that’s fine enough got a half row of lemon Boy tomatoes to the north of a Nursery bed that has hazelnuts and cuting in the center and onions on the south got a whole bunch of smaller red peppers half of the bed mulched with deep rich compost half left with the soil as it is so we can see if the peppers respond nicely I’d be love to hear notes from folks um Peppers do you feed them thoroughly I kind of feel like I understand that they want less uh intense nutrient and then they fruit and flour more rather than vegetation share notes let me know we got got some Hungarian yellow wax peppers lots of Solon stuff happening in this field so I really have to keep my eye on keeping things clean and organized not having like plants flopping on each other or choking each other out I think with the amount of sun and openness in this field we should be able to avoid disease but it’ll be on our quality of cultivation that dictates that I’ll do a more thorough update on what’s happening in all these fields when the time allows but for now I’m going to head back home and check in with Sasha and little zini and maybe have some breakfast and that’s it so Middlefield lots more to do over there lots of potatoes happening garlic is looking beautiful really excited to see how the rest of this season unfolds in this landscape and we’ll share as it goes thanks for watching
37 Comments
Test it out for us. Pinch half and keep the other half unpinched!
I like to use the auger as well, i have a hammer drill with handle that i use that helps, i also go down as far as i can to break the compaction in my clay lower level and drop in compost, makes quick work!
You’ll likely burn out the motor on that drill doing this repeatedly. Look up Makita GGD01M1 cordless earth auger. It’ll save your wrists too
I have planted elderberry, comfrey, and currants based on advice from your channel. Thank you! Any other easy grow perennials for my 1/4 acre homestead with chickens and rabbits that you would recommend?
I think you’ll get results from the fig cuttings.
Pinching the pepper flower allows the roots to develop, as they are cramped right now.
I am very curious about animal pest pressure growing in an open field like that…..my pests differed with each year, as happened in the movie “ Biggest little farm”… though my pests were different from the movie due to difference in crops and being in the east coast vs west.
Hi your neighbor over on Slaterville here, based on the research I have done, don't pinch off for our climate- our growing season isn't long enough. I like the idea of doing a side by side comparison.However, one can pinch off flowers for a bit while the pepper plants get established. Some sources have even said to pick off the first few peppers to stimulate more flowering. Super interested in how your experiments go.
I guess it really just depends on the final pod size of the pepper and the quantity of blooms on the variety whether or not I would top it.
At the farm I work at we grow ~15 different varieties. If I were growing them at home, I would top all of the bell types and banana types. The bells get a few peppers on and then topple over quite often causing the peppers to have unsightly blemishes and mold issues. We have started to trellis them in the greenhouse to combat this. Banana types seem to do the same but because they set too many pods at once.
Sean where did you get that auger bit?
You should be able to adjust the torque so that it will not injure your wrist.
That’s a LOT of tomatoes and peppers! Many many many hundreds of pounds of fruit!
How self sufficient are you with food? It feels like you could be completely self sufficient. Although you don't have wheat and so I imagine that is a staple you still buy. Are there other things you have to consistently buy?
I’d prune the peppers!
Oh, I like the idea of soaking the flats in compost tea before planting. I have some comfrey swamp water that I brewed up. It stinks but it works!! There are safety videos online for using drill augers. I recommend watching them several times and using the settings they recommend. I bought a hammer drill and two auger set this year to help with planting on my farm. Safety video: https://youtu.be/Qn3jDLLUl7Q?si=Wlg5k7ViQEKR-2GN
I love those earth augers, but I use a smaller size. I've used a low-power drill from IKEA, but made a transition to a powerful paint/plaster mixer from Harbor Freight. I still use a smaller auger bit–shorter I mean to indicate by saying it is smaller. I've also been thinking of a larger size and longer–I've got to sink some posts to build a few structures.
Lemon boy is a nice tomato, I grew them last year for the first time. A nice colour to add for brightly coloured summer salad. I might punch the flower buds for now on tomatoes and peppers to encourage the plant to grow a bit bigger before setting fruit.
BTW, speaking of the earth auger, that is the tool I used to drill holes for the black walnuts, hazelnuts, and currants I bought from you this year. I used a screwdriver to open holes for the willow cuttings.
Try to keep the majority of your weight in front of the trailer. Things can get out of control if it's too far toward the back.
https://youtu.be/6mW_gzdh6to?si=8vJ2RWEMNcbNaef_
I enjoy topping the peppers for a bushier plant at that point! For tomatoes, have you ever tried Matt's Wild Cherry? In NC and southern PA they reseed readily on their own and are vigorous/grow like gang busters, crawling across the ground or up a trellis.
I feel like sweet peppers are a little different than growing hot peppers. Sweet peppers are heavier feeders. Any pepper is going to stop producing as well with too much nitrogen. Im excited for your updates here.
I also follow the channel Garden Answer, who grow in a much more formal and decorative way than you do, but end up working in a similar scale. They discovered the joy of a drill based auger a few years ago and after some trial and error generally use a drill designed for mixing drywall mud that comes with the ability to add a second handle at a 90 degree angle from the trigger handle. It allows for you to better brace yourself and avoid more of the danger of unexpected torqueing. They have also worked with one of the companies that makes the auger blades/bits to create a "Laura edition" auger that has less flighting (the twirly "drill" part) to make it lighter in weight while still being set up for standing height. It can still make a hole as deep as most people need for planting, but the reduced weight along with the two handled drill make it less fatiguing and less likely to cause injury over prolonged use.
Don't prune back your peppers, you are far north and your season is short. Pinch off all the early flowers on these seedlings so they get a couple more weeks to establish roots and grow larger, then produce more fruit a couple weeks later.
On the farm I work at in Northern California (mild summers) we do not top cut larger peppers (ie. Anaheim, Poblano, Bell) and we do top cut all our hot peppers. I haven’t experimented myself, so I’m not sure what is best.
I suspect if you have a long, hot growing season, top cutting will almost always be better. But for shorter seasons, maybe consider not top cutting. Especially for outdoor growing
Love the Amish symbiosis ✨
Scary drill though 😮 a tiny handspade wouldnt work…? I remember that ingenious wood chucking thing you did with a title – which I told my sister about 👍 – and wonder if some "similar" method could be figured put for the drill…? 🤔 Maybe it isnt necessary and maybe the thigh thing is sufficient as far as safety goes..? The tomatoes could even be mounted a bit or plant the whole stem lying down and then the top, above ground, is leaned (I saw a video where MI gardener showed that – eventually the top straighten itself out reaching for the sun ⚡).
Maybe a Florida weave trellis would work? You mentioned t posts so maybe that's even what you intended..
I loved seeing you use that bit of appropriate technology in terms of the massive drillbit. Seems like it would save a lot of time.
Folks, buy a long earth auger. It reduces the number of times you have to bend over, and you can bore holes faster.
As for mulching, I use straw, and lo and behold, wild turkeys love to pick out the last of the seeds, so I've covered unplanted rows with netting, and they've given up on their little foraging project.
Thanks for showing us the drill auger! That'll really help people like me who are fine with their wrists but have back issues. Also, my favorite small red sweet pepper is Lunchbox Red. They taste like sweet red bell peppers but are the size and shape of jalapenos
Hey EdibleAcres! Have you developed a 'rain garden' ever? I thought of you when I learned about them and how they work. The state in which I live is providing grants to gardeners who create one.
I'm actually going to put all my peppers in today w/ an auger and a bad back. I wish I'd bought a longer auger, though because even leaning over with that is painful. I attach mine to a hammer drill. If I thought there were any rocks in my garden, I definitely wouldn't use it…'cuz I have almost broken my wrist as well. I , too, chuck the weeds around my potatoes that I've got on either side of the garden. I don't till, and once these plants are all in, Im going to line cardboard and paper bags between rows and cover with my aged woodchips I got free from chipdrop years ago.
Love your videos and have enjoyed them for years. Thanks for sharing your knowledge:)
How is your deer pressure in that grow plot?
Do you have zero deer pressure there? I see the garden and all i can think is it wouldn't make it a night where I'm at. It's a constant struggle and I feel like I'm missing something key.
With our heavy soil, I plant our tomatoes sideways in a trench, with a little bit of the tip poking out on one end, and then mulch heavily with hay. Same principle but less digging, and we never have to water.
Yikes – that weed pressure! I'm not too keen on taking away from the farming experience with an auger but I've caved to a black/white silage tarp that does wonders for weed management. If you loose an area you can tarp – and start again from scratch later with no perennial weeds.
Peppers : my advice after many many years : do the exact opposite of what I do ! Ha ha ! And I even changes every year yet never a success. OH WELL
Hi there, I use that kind of drill only with a handle. That helps very much against breaking or hurting something.