- As a gardener, it is a temptation to grow just about
everything under the sun, but there are nine crops that us here on the "Epic Gardening" team would grow every single season and in this video, we're gonna show you
exactly what they are. My first must grow veggie is, believe it or not, squash. This is something that most gardeners by the end of the season,
you're so sick of it, you're literally chucking
it at your neighbor's house, you're gifting it to your friends, but this variety, Centercut
squash out of Row seven seeds is really sort of a standout
in the squash category. So I'm gonna harvest one and just kinda show you it really quickly. Look at this thing. So this is it in its summer format. It can certainly be
grown all the way through and stored as a winter style squash. You can eat it in either format, but this in its more green
and less mature state is really when you wanna have it. So the Tromboncino squash, the Italian one is super long-necked. This of course, the neck
is long but not as long and the flavor is really good. It's dense, it's not watery, it's as you can see, extremely productive. We have all sorts of
little baby squash forming along the entirety of the plant. I actually see a little bee in there, pollinating that one as we speak. It's also great as a cover over certain parts of your garden. For example, this arugula, you can see this is going to seed so what I wanna do is
actually come through and clip this stuff off but the squash leaves can actually act as a bit of a shade cover for some of your more sensitive
plants like this arugula. I mean, as we go into summer, it's not really gonna want to
be growing in this environment but if it's shaded for a
little bit, then it can be and the summer squash
let's enough light through but stops enough of the heat that it can be a good sort
of companion planted crop but the Centercut squash
is my first pick for a crop I will always grow. - The number one thing that I will always grow no
matter what is a tomato. Tomatoes in general are by far
my favorite garden vegetable. Nothing gets me more excited
than growing tomatoes every single spring and summer. You just can't beat the flavor,
aroma, texture, you name it, on a garden-grown tomato. I haven't even found a
farmer's market tomato that competes with a homegrown tomato. So tomatoes, definitely,
bar none, I will be growing no matter where I live,
I'll figure it out. Even if I'm an Antarctica,
I'll figure out a solution. But when it comes to a
particular variety of tomato, our personal favorite has become
the Cherokee Purple tomato. So it's not just a pretty tomato, it has this kind of
purplish brown color to it, but it has such a rich complex flavor that other tomatoes
just don't really have. And in particular, what I mean is that a lot of tomatoes that you get will either be sort of sweet or acidic. The Cherokee Purple to me,
is a very perfect balance of that sweet and acid flavor, but it also has this deeper
rich sort of earthy umami kind of smokiness to it. I don't know how to best describe it, but it just has this flavor that's deeper than a regular tomato. The other thing that
we really like about it is it has a really nice firm,
but kind of silky flesh to it. So it's just wonderful sliced up on some fresh sourdough bread, in a salad, just eating it straight up with salt. I love Cherokee Purple tomatoes and that's what this guy is right here. You could see, I already have about, I don't know, maybe a dozen or so fruit, and they're all hanging
on this trellis net, which is doing really wonderfully. So Cherokee Purple, definitely
try it, if you haven't. Definitely grow it, if you haven't. - One plant that I always
have in the garden is kale. So being in the Pacific Northwest, this climate is perfect
for all sorts of brassicas. It's cool and moist and for these cool season crops, they do really well throughout the year. So with kales, I've grown many varieties, some of them quite freely, some that grow really, really tall but I have fallen in love with dazzling blue kale
with its flat leaves. So blue green leaves, and they have this beautiful
striking purple mid rib that adds a lot of ornamental value whether you're growing it in
the garden or in a container and I find with the flat leaf, it's a lot easier to spot aphids and if they're on the underside and actually there's not a lot of space for them to hide out, you can easily blast them
off with a jet of water and they're just kind of gone. So it's a great plant, really delicious and what I also like to do is grow them into these big tall plants. So I let them over winter and flower in the spring for the bees and also if you didn't know,
the yellow flowers are edible. - The second crop I will always be growing in my garden is garlic and as you can see an abundance of garlic. Once you figure out how to
grow this crop successfully, it's taken us maybe two years
to figure out for our climate either the right varieties
or the right techniques but this is such an absolute staple because it stays good for so long once you're done growing it and come on, you use it
in pretty much everything and you're cooking, so for example, let's just take an example one
right here like this, right? So here's a nice head of garlic, it's been sitting out
for quite some time now and all I really need to do
to prepare this for storage is just give it a little
trim on the root side here so the roots are nice and trimmed up and I can come through and
just chop off the neck. There you go and if there's a little dirt
on it, I just brush this off and take maybe one of
the papery layers away. And there you go, you have an absolutely
gorgeous head of garlic that you can store. So if you're storing hard neck, it'll store three four months, soft neck it'll store six to nine months and like I said, once you figure out how to grow this crop, it is one of the best things you can have for long term flavor in your kitchen. So we have a couple guides, actually three part
series on growing garlic, I highly encourage you to check out but we've tried it for many years. We have a lot of success with it, that's why it will always be in my garden. - The next item on the
list is actually hidden underneath this cover right here, which I will reveal and
show you in a second, but that is the Biquinho pepper. So these are also called
little beak peppers, they're popular in Brazil and
we've been growing the yellow and the red variety for a while now, it just come to be one of our most favorite peppers to grow. It makes a really fantastic hot sauce that has this really rich,
sweet tropical flavor to it but also has some tartness and
the perfect amount of heat. These are the kind of pepper where you could actually just grab it and eat the whole thing raw and it definitely has a kick but it's not enough to knock you out so that's the kind of
peppers we like to grow. We like growing sweet peppers and we like growing
slightly spicy peppers. The kind where you could
actually eat the whole thing and appreciate the flavor. So let me take off this cover and show you what it looks like 'cause it's a nice little plant. So here's the little
Biquinho pepper itself. It's honestly, a very
sort of adorable plant. It's got these little leaves and tiny little flowers and peppers but once this thing gets going, it absolutely gets going because anything that
makes smaller peppers is going to be producing way
more volume of actual pepper like individual peppers than
you would from a larger one. So you could already tell right away, this is a pepper from
Europe right here next to it which has this big leaf and this one has this
really nice small leaf which is typical from this type of pepper. Now, the other thing I wanted
to mention about this one is that this one will actually
produce well into our winter so meaning like November, I'll actually still be getting ripe fruit that are still flavorful and delicious. So if you're looking for a pepper that does well in a variety of climates including our coastal climate
and including into winter, the Biquinho pepper is not
going to just do it for you, it's also going to provide a
very delicious little pepper that could be used raw
pickled and hot sauces cooked, you name it, great pepper
to have in the kitchen. - This tall structure behind me here doesn't have anything on it quite yet, but very soon both the front and the back will be
covered with pole beans. Now I love growing pole beans because the plants are super
easy and they are not fussy and I like training them up nice and tall, not only is it beautiful, but it makes for easy harvesting. Actually, I go down here and harvest all the stuff
that's dangling inside and another tip with harvesting, if you're not too fussy with the variety, go for ones with colorful pods. I like purple and golden potted ones as opposed to green ones because you can see them a lot easier against the green leaves, making harvesting really fast and easy. I currently have two favorite varieties. First one is Trionfo Violetto which is a slender Italian variety. It has purple pods, very sweet. Unfortunately when they're cooked, the purple disappears and turns green but the flavor is still
there whether raw or cooked and there's also Goldmarie which is a flatter Romano style, very sweet, crisp, and delicious. Now, one thing I forgot
to mention with pole beans and why I love growing them is there's a lot of
organic matter up here. At the end of the season, I chop and drop and let all
of those leaves in the stems, lay on top of the soil surface and that protects the bed as
we enter the winter months. - I think it's no surprise that the third plant I'm
always gonna put in the garden is a potato. I've grown these in just about every way you could humanly think of and in fact, in 2019, you guys remember I lived
off primarily potatoes for a month when I tried my
apocalypse survival challenge. So potatoes always have
a place in my heart, but as a edible crop to put in the garden, you're not gonna find something that is more calorically dense and easier to grow. So it's the combination
of those two factors that make potatoes a must plant for me. For example, if I want to plant these, I'm using something that's
a little bit absurd, it's the power planter attachment
for just a standard drill. I really like this, but you just come in,
- (drill buzzing) drill down,
- (drill buzzing) you have a potato that is chilling or the eyes are sprouting. Throw it in, cover it up, barely water it ever during
the course of its life, as soon as it sprouts, problem solved. So we just,
- (drill buzzing) (fire bombing) calories, (fire bombing) calories, (fire bombing) hash Browns, (fire bombing) french fries. (fire bombing) It's just that easy guys. Throw some mulch on, you can hill 'em if you want. We've done a couple different videos on different potato methods, grow bags, in ground, in
raised beds, et cetera, pretty much all of them work. I prefer this method
where you bury them deep and ignore them. You'll get an incredible amount of produce coming outta the garden and honestly you'll probably
get surprised potatoes coming out every now and then as well. So potatoes, for that
reason are my third plant that I will always have in my garden. - The last item for my three is actually a little bit of cheating and I'm going to say it's
herbs, herbs, and herbs. So right here, I'm
sitting before my herbed and in here I have things
like pineapple sage, French Tarragon, chives,
thyme, green onions, cilantro, dill, parsley, sage, and
basil, and chamomile. So I love herbs. We use them every single day and if there's one thing that
you could do in your garden to transform the way you cook and eat, it's to actually grow your own herbs. They have way more flavor and usually when you
buy herbs at the store, it's really expensive and underwhelming 'cause you have to throw
away half of what you bought. But the beautiful thing
about the garden is that is as you plant it, you can just pick exactly what you want whenever you need it. So it's really a wonderful thing. I highly recommend everybody
start an herb garden and let me tell you, I've got
a whole bunch of herb seeds 'cause I love trying new herbs, but if I was going to choose a favorite, I would highly recommend
you guys try savory. This is summer savory and I personally like it a lot because in Bulgaria, it's the primary sort of
seasoning herb of choice. There's also winter savory which is a lot heartier and in our zone it's
actually perennial year-round giving us fresh herbs year-round. So herbs don't sleep on the herb garden and if you haven't, definitely
try out summer savory. - As much as I'd love to
grow beef steak tomatoes where I live, the growing
season is sometimes cut short by cold springs or early fall conditions. So cherry and currant sized
tomatoes are my best bet. There are two cherry varieties which are kind of my favorites and they're actually quite similar, black cherry and chocolate cherry. Both of them have this
dark brownish red skin and flavor wise, they're sweet, smokey and syrupy so they're very, very delicious and what I love about
the plants themselves is that the fruit are born
on these large trusses. So not only is it easy to keep track of the fruit on the vine, but at the end of the season, when I do need to collect the
unripe fruit off the plant, I can snip the entire truss off, take it inside and it's
a lot easier to manage than having individual fruit that you're trying to ripen indoors. I also like growing
currant or wild tomatoes. Yes, the plants do get
kind of big and sprawly but the fruit is quite unique and flavorful. I've grown Cheese Mania which is a lovely yellow one and this is new to me. This is an heirloom Canadian
variety called Petite Moynote. - So there you have it,
nine different crops we think here at epic garden that we absolutely love and
should be in everyone's garden and a little quick bonus
for you, Calendula, this can be used in the garden, beautifully, in the kitchen, incredibly and actually the chicken's like it a lot, it darkens their yolk so a little bonus for you but if there's something
you think we missed, let me know down in the comments, what is a must grow in your garden? And until next time, good luck in the garden
and keep on growing.
