Well, I am here and I
already like what I see. I see a bunch of pollinator
attractants down here. I see actually a little plot of corn right
there. There's a fig tree over there. But let's go and see what's actually
going on. I see a sunflower. Ooh, ooh. Look who it is. Hi, Kev. What are you doing? Just doing some gardening. It's
always time to garden, you know. It's always time to garden. All right.
Let's take a look at this thing. All right, let's do it. So I'm here with my friend Airam
who I think I met in 2019. Correct. Probably on Instagram,
honestly. We did, yes. But she's local here in San
Diego and we got to talking. We figured out we had some other friends
in common. So you've been to my garden. I have. Once or twice. I
have not been to her garden. So here I am for the very
first time. It looks awesome! You're going to see it in a second.
Thank you. But I'm curious, first of all, how did you get into
gardening in the first place? I grew up in the garden. I grew
up with my dad being a gardener. We grew our own fruit, our own vegetables. My grandma was a huge
papaya grower. Really? Yes. So as a toddler, I
was always in the garden. I lost it for a bit as a teenager.
And now with me having two children, it was kind of important
for me to grow my own food. I know where it's coming from
and use the space that I have. So the space that I'm going to show you
right now, that all used to be grass. It used to be a tiny little grass
area, but now you see that it's all. And you'll see in a second,
there's a ton of beds in here. So it's another great
example, to me at least, it reminds me of my old garden
because it's a smaller space. It's actually probably two or
three times as big as I started. You packed it in as
well. Yeah. But I mean, you've really made good use
of this space. Thank you. What I'm curious about is how much
produce do you think you grow compared to what you used to buy at the grocery store? Vegetable-wise, 40-50% of our vegetables
come from the garden. I'm still not growing our own
fruit, which is a goal for me. Yeah. Which is also, it's harder. It is. It's
longer-term. Yeah. Right. Okay, cool. Well, let's take a look. Let's take
a look. All right. Here we are, baby. We are here in the, I suppose,
somewhat front yard garden here. Right? Yes, mid-yard. Okay.
Here, let me show you around. So you've got the arch coming
in right out of the gate. I. Do. I have the arch
trellises here. I did a, I usually do peas during
the fall and the winter. Right now we're going to do a little
bit of the sweet peas until it gets a little cooler. And then
I will do some peas. Let's talk for a second about
the directionality of the garden. So where's north, south,
east, west? Okay. So. We have south directly that way. Okay. So you get a little blockage from
this. From the casita, that's correct. So that's why I place everything that
needs to have direct sun more than eight hours, that way. Okay. And
this over here, will get it. As soon as the sun goes a little bit west,
then this will get it. So then maybe. 2:00-3:00 PM. Yeah, exactly. Okay, got it. So you can put some like semi-shade
tolerant stuff over there. That's correct, yeah. But I also do have most
of my peppers here, which love the sun. But they're
thriving, they're absolutely thriving. I have overwintered my mad hatter peppers.
Great pepper. Yes. I overwintered, yes. My daughters pick them
before school, take them to lunch. I overwintered my habanero, which
also went kind of crazy this year. Wow. Yeah. What I've noticed with
my peppers, have you noticed this? Is that yeah, they like sun but they actually
don't want like super mid-day heat. That's correct, yeah. So
that's why they're here. So right now they have zero sun, still
thriving. That must be a San Diego thing. I'm doing an early
overwinter for my jalapeno. It was struggling so that one's
going to go to bed until next year. So for you that's. Just cut it down two-thirds, take
all the foliage off. That's correct. I just don't want it to produce. I'm just going to let it
go into an early slumber. It's already trained to produce more
and I just keep snipping it off. So because in San Diego we're
going to have a very warm fall, I put a lemon squash here. Those grow really tall. So I'm just
going to put a support here for now. And then once it gets to
about this height, then I'll
stake it a little longer. Sure, sure. And the cool thing right here, since I figured out that it's
going to be a hot, very hot fall, I put two chayotes in there and. Now you see it peeping out of
the soil. There you go. Yeah. Chayote, interesting squash
because you bury the. Entire squash. That's correct. Yeah. I. Actually rooted it first
and then put it in the soil. I did the same. Did you really? I
did the same. Yeah, exactly. Awesome. Okay. Alrighty. Why don't we move on
down to that bed we started at over here. Let's take a look. So you're using what
- raised beds? I am. And grow bags. I am. Me and my husband built all of these raised
beds according to the space that I had. We couldn't really fit that
many if I made them bigger. So some of them are going to
be a little bit in the width, width-wise they're going to be smaller.
But they're going to be very long. Just try to pack it all in. Talk. To me about the construction. It looks
like a kind of a very classic design. Yeah. Yeah. I'm seeing like, you know,
2 by 6 or 2 by 10, 2 by 12's. Yes. We didn't do our research very well.
But when we started building the beds, we just did it ourselves
with a YouTube video. You might see that there's some cracks
and there's already some welting. That's because we bought the cheapest
wood we could find. Douglas fir? We probably did. We just went
to Home Depot and we said oh, that one looks good enough. Now we try and get redwood or we
try to get like something more, what is it called? What's the word, Kevin? That's the thing I always like when I
visit you or you visit me is you're always gardening. No matter what,
you can't stop pruning stuff. No, it's already going to bolt. So
I don't want it to go to flower. So I'm just gonna chop, drop. So. This bed over here, let's talk about it. It looks like you've got
some chard going on. Yes. This is more of like a kind
of a fallish look to me. Yes. I actually pulled some squash from here
and I was going to pull all of this, that you see the tomatoes. I was
going to make it into my fall. Add some tatsoi and shichimi,
some brassicas. But like I said, we're in zone 10a in San Diego.
And it's going to be very hot. Everything is going to go to bolt. So I'm going to do a second
round of summer crops and hope for the best, really.
Yeah, see what happens. Yeah. So I'm seeing something I
really like right behind you, which is this sort of celery
magical kingdom over here. Oh, yes. So let's talk about this because a lot
of people have problems growing celery. This is what happens actually.
It was a total complete accident. You just let one celery go to
flower and then you can see what happens over there. Are you saying that this went to flower
and seeded that. One of those went. To flower and seeded all of that. And this is one of the ones that
seeded and I let this one go to flower, just so I can do it again. And this is all just straight in the
ground over there, right? That's correct. I was going to build
another raised bed here. So I have my subpod here.
Right next to the subpod, I was going to just do a whole complete
long raised bed made out of wood. But then this happened and I don't
have the heart to actually get rid. Of it. And that's what it's about anyways.
We juice it. Yeah. We juice it a lot. I mean, if you get a gift like
this, you don't then destroy it. No, I don't have the
heart. And then, yeah. So here we are at the subpod, which a lot of people have or want
to know about. That's correct. And I've got one, but I'm curious
what you think about yours? I absolutely love my subpod.
The bed, you can fit quite. I mean, look at it. You can fit quite
a bit of stuff. I have my tomato here. I had another tomato there but then the
watermelon just is taking over and it's kind of swirling around it. So that's
going to be a watermelon tower. I have my chamomile, my
cucumbers, my okra, peanuts. They just love worm
castings. So yeah. Like. How have you been operating in here,
for those who don't know? Okay. So what you can see here is I have it double-lined because this is wherea
the worms are at right now. Okay, so this is your fill zone? That's correct. This is all complete worm castings
that I have to harvest. Let's. Take a look at it. I
mean, that looks pretty. Dang good to me. It's so good.There's
little worms in there too still. There's a lot. Yeah. There's
a lot. Nice. They all have. To move this way. This is what I
feed my food scraps. This side, the left-hand side is the food scraps.
And over here is finished product. I try and use a sifter to kind of
get the worms out before I place them elsewhere. Have. You noticed that the produce you're
growing in the bed the subpod is in, has performed better because how much
nutrition is being cycled through? Absolutely. My watermelon is going
absolutely insane. It's going everywhere, actually. If you see a
watermelon in every bed this way, it's just that one
watermelon. It's the same one. And it goes all the way through. It has six lateral branches this way. And then it has this long
branch going this way as well. This is actually the moon and star
watermelon. Oh, you're growing that? Yeah. Look at this guy. It's
beautiful. So this is on my list, I just have yet to grow it. Wow.
That looks really good. Really good. I've harvested two and they were on the
younger side. I got ahead of myself. So we only got to eat just the center, but I learned my lesson and now we're
just gonna wait until this part is. A little brown. Sure, yeah. I just
harvested my first one yesterday. I did a second, a second
row. I mean, a second, help me out. Sowing. Sowing of corn. I've had such good luck in this bed
because it's direct sun the entire time. And I like to put my GrowOyas next
to it. They're very thirsty crops. So these are your sub-irrigated little
clay vessels, right? That's correct. Yeah. So you fill them up with water and
they release water very slowly as the plants need them. And being that corn is
very thirsty, that helps me out a lot. Because I don't water every day.
I water every three to four days. So that's been great for me. And so you're watering every three to
four days and it looks like you don't have a lot of mulch on the bed, right? I don't, not right now. Just because I just flipped this bed
and I just let the bed kind of settle in for two weeks. Now I have
to add more straw mulch. Got it. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. So what do
you got going on in this bed over here? This is a self sown. This is a volunteer Kuka mellon and I
don't have a trellis for it to grow on there. So I just bought one and put
that there and it's taking over already. So I have the Kuka melons. I have
some anise hyssop. I have some, it's a bell pepper red, no that
one's a yellow. And this is a, I believe a merlot. And I just added these strawberries
because it's not enough. The ones that I showed you
over there are not enough. So the girls wanted more
strawberries. I have some lettuce. I think this is called
the Nevada. They're high heat tolerant. Right. Yeah. For us in the
summer, in these high zones, you've got to have a high heat
tolerant or else you're done for. Yes. So the Sierra and the Nevada love heat. And I have my okra, which I am,
I don't know if you know this, but I absolutely love
it. Do you like okra? I like okra, but I heard
you like it straight up. I do. I enjoy it just raw, do you
not? Let's get the taste test. Crunch. All right, let me try. Honestly it's not bad. Yeah. It's
really sweet. I'm used to fried okra. Honestly, you just have to get
over that initial slimyness. Yeah. And it's a texture thing for most
people because it's very like furry. I enjoy it. I like the sweetness of it. I like what it does to
your digestive system. I feel like it's got to go down fast
for me cause the slime gets me. Yeah, most people do. This
tomato is on its way out, but I'm just going to let these two guys. It's the green tie-dye tomato.
Just let those last guys go? Yeah. Just let them
go. And then I'll just. Succession sow. Some
eggplants over here? I do. These are a green thai long
eggplant. Overwintered as well. And they have been producing so much. I actually give most of it away. Yeah. And something interesting
you guys might find, is that when an eggplant goes overripe,
it actually goes yellow like this. That's exactly it. Which
is really unique looking. So you kind of think you have
a weird variety. Actually, you just missed your harvest window
on your eggplant. I feel so bad. Like most of these. Are already, I need to harvest asap.
Worst case it goes into the worm compost. They do. Unfortunately they do. Okay.
So you've got some grow bags here. I do. And was this. Just because maybe you didn't have enough
space to slot in another raised bed? I didn't. Have enough space. I didn't have enough
time. What has been insane right now, so I didn't really want to put
my budget, my garden budget, into another raised bed. So I've been
doing these GroTech grow buckets. And I filled them in with some straw
just because of the high heat right now. Yeah. But yeah, they've been
loving it. I mean, look at that tomato. That's a yellow pear. Everything seems
to be really, really loving that area. And then we've. Got my favorite thing to see. Of all time. You gave me
these clippings. These are. So nice looking. So
you have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Flowers. Right. That's incredible. I. Had six and it was aborting one, so I
just clipped it off. Yeah. That one, I'm hoping that I did it correctly,
that I pollinated it correctly. Yeah. I think you did.
Yeah. Yeah. I think. You did. I mean, these
look really good. And. I'm not sure if you know what these
are. Oh, you got the Epic 6 cell trays. That's right, these need to
go in the ground asap. Yeah, what are you growing in here, sunflowers? I mean. A ton of sunflowers. I
wanted some fall sunflowers, but apparently now they're going
to be summer 2.0 sunflowers. Those. Are some, yeah. Those are a
little what we call stretched. Those are a little stretched
out. A little bit, yeah. So this is kind of your seeding
area over here. This is. It has nice sun all day. Nice. Something. Over here that was really interesting
is I saw that you have a banana. It's a Double Mahoi banana, yes. Okay. And so why is it in that container right. There? These containers right now, I'm
actually gonna move into the backyard. So they're, right now
they're taking a slumber. This used to be where I would raise
my monarchs. I took a break from it. So this was all milkweed?
That was all milkweed. Then that's why it looks like that. Yeah. So now what I'm doing is I
needed this Double Mahoi to root. So I'm using this raised bed for it
to root and then I will cut it out, put it into a large container
and then get some nanas. I like the idea of having like a small
bed like this that you use as a cutting rooting zone that you can then just
transplant out into somewhere else. Instead of. Having a bunch of little pots
everywhere, which I also do have that. But I wanted to use the space that I
already have soil in and it's really good soil. Yeah. I like it, really cool. All right. I'm seeing a couple more grow bags
and some interesting stuff. Actually, let's talk about this right
here. Alright. This is a cool, like if you're a small apartment gardener, this type of approach might
make a lot of sense, right? Because you have these little separators. So what we do for business is we have
an estate sale company and a lot of the things that don't sell, I
try to use them up, right? So I took a dresser and just
took the drawers out and put soil in it. And it's now
my pollinator island. So I continuously switch
up the flowers in it, but it's always filled with flowers. So this just used to be legitimately
an old dresser. A dresser, yes. And so you've got all sorts
of stuff going on here. So this is kind of like the approach
that I'll do at my place with my GreenStalk. Cause I'll just fill that
up with pollinators and let it be. So you have this sort of spot right here
that you'll let, I see a watermelon. In there actually. There is a watermelon
in there. Just a random one. I. Ran out of space. I was like,
hmm oh, right behind you. Yeah. Oh yeah. All right. Well,
let's take a look then. So we're kind of going
around the perimeter. So let's finish that off and talk
about this little grow bag here. These. Are, well, let me show you. I built these cages for
my indeterminate tomatoes, but when I am not using them I've
been just trialing them with beans, with peas, with et cetera. And that's
just cattle panel in a roll, right? And three zip ties. It's super easy to make and the beans
are loving it. Look at that. Yeah. These are fantastic looking. You
should taste them. They're incredible! No real issues with
having them climb at all? No real issues, but they do
run out of growing space. So then I pull them downward and they
just continue to grow down. Yeah. Yeah. Let's take a look, it looks like you've got another one
of these oya type of things down here, but it looks a little
different, huh? Yes, that's. Like a Mexican, like a
cup. Mexican oya cup.Okay. And I have a friend who said, okay, I don't have the money for the
real thing, the GrowOyas. Yeah. So let me try and do it yourself,
right? So that's what she came up with. She gave me a few. Works the same. Really, all an oya is is just
a clay vessel with a top. So that's the same thing
as an oya to me. The only. Thing is that for my beds, I do want the
GrowOya because they are much larger. And I want the circumference to cover. I don't want to put like a
million of these in a raised bed. So the GrowOyas actually work best for
me in my raised bed. The grow bags, I like these. The GrowOyas in my
raised beds. It just covers more space. Gotcha. Yeah. Rounding out the perimeter of
Airam's garden here, what've we got? I have a gold bar squash here
that I'm growing vertically. I should have used something
more sturdy than this, but I like to use what I got. So I.
Talk to me about this because most. People don't grow a
squash like that. Right? Where they'll pull it up a
trellis or a stake. Well, it's. All about learning about the varieties
that you grow. So, lemon squash, they grow vertically. Goldbar
squash, they grow vertically. So when you know the
variety that you're growing, then it's easier for you
instead of letting it just
kind of droop down the bed, which I don't want to do since I
already have such limited space. You grow it upward. Yeah. Yeah. And. This one you can tell, cause
it's got the tendrils on it, which hopefully we can see right there.
So you'll know it grows vertically. It's very, it almost looks like a
little squash tree. It's kind of cool. It's a little. Squash tree, little palm tree.
So I have a bunch of okra, tomatoes and just sun-loving
varieties in this bed. I have a little bit of cannabis
going on here. I'm a newbie, but I like to try new things. So grow bags only so far it looks
like for your cannibis. So far. I mean it's alive. It's not flowering yet, but I'm going to try different
places. For now, grow bag. Maybe next year I'll do a
bed just for that. Got it. And then I see a bunch of sort of little
containers and such strewn about here. Yeah. So. The, sunflowers that I'm growing
in the six, what are they called? Epic six cells. Epic six cells.
I ran out of space over there, so I put them here and I'm
gonna start to gift them. I have some fruit trees that
I propagated a long time ago. It's been about six months and
they're ready to go into a bigger pot. This is a guava, pomegranate
and a striped fig. Nice. Yeah. Awesome. Well,
now we've got to kind. Of see the the main show, which is this
archway that you've got going on. Ta da! So here's the showstopper, I
would say, of Airam's garden. Let's talk about how
you built this archway. My husband and I actually used galvanized
welded wire and we just double layered it for reasons being
that I grow Tromboncinos, butternut squash, a lot of heavy stuff
and we didn't want it to warp down. So when you say double layer, you just mean you bought two of
them and put them both there? Well, I didn't buy two. I bought one roll, but we just cut two pieces and just kind
of layered them on top of each other. That's a good, cheap way to avoid
using super heavy-duty cattle panel. We wanted cattle panel, but we didn't
have transportation. So we went with this. And it's much cheaper, that's true. And
then T-posts right here, to connect. Four T-posts per corner. That's correct. How much you think the whole thing cost? 60 Bucks. That's not bad. That's not. Bad. So you've got them connected down
in these raised beds. We actually. Staple gunned them to the raised
beds, to the wood. Okay. Yeah. I'm growing luffa, Kuka
melons, beans, Tromboncinos, you name it. Anything that vines
up I'm growing, I'm growing it. I'm just trying to cover it up. So here we have the cukes. How have
you found growing these Kuka melons? What is your thought on them? I know that
they were popular for a while and now? I. Personally love them. We, my family,
we love them. We pickle them. We use them in salads. We actually
even cook them in stir frys. We can't get enough of them. Actually,I
wish we had more. I have to start more. We, I actually overwintered
these two. This is only two. I overwintered them. They woke up in the spring and now
they're taking over again. Amazing. Yeah. The Kuka melons, they
kind of produce tubers. So if you leave them
underground and there's no, here in San Diego there's no frost, they
wake up in the spring. There you go. It's pretty neat. So here in the back it looks like
you've got a little stuff going on. What do you got here? Yeah. So I'm pretty much making little
pots that have herbs that I use constantly while cooking. So I
have my thyme, my basil, my chives, my oregano. I have more oregano here. I started more cilantro and
this parsley has already lived its life. It's a two year old parsley and that's
pretty much like their lifespan. So I have to pull it out and
put something else there. What. I like is that it's all right
next to the kitchen. Right. Next to the kitchen. So this is my
entryway to go inside of my house. I also have a bigger herb bed that I
could show you. Let's take a look. Okay. This is like the last bit of garden
here at the place, right? Yes. This is a melon cucumber. But this
is my Birdies bed, my pride and joy. I'm slowly turning it
into my main herb bed. As soon as these tomatoes die out,
it has still a lot of fruit in it. I'm just going to start adding
more like flowers and tea herbs and herbs for culinary purposes.
But I have a lot of my thyme, creeping thyme, my tricolor sage. This beautiful basil. Yeah, that's
a columnar basil right? It is. Yeah. That one's insane. It is insane. I have to chop it down so it's less
leggy and it comes outward more. But I have my Stevia, my
epazote. I have my, you know, herbs just so when we get
sick - teas and for cooking, et cetera. So Airam. Has packed a lot into a small space. It's a more or less standard
suburban home. That's correct. Right? You're growing half your own produce,
at least your own vegetables. If someone's starting out and they
do have pretty much this space, what would you say are a couple things
that really helped you at the start? Try following people in your own zone. Use what you already have and start very small, one bed at a time. Then throughout the year
you can start building more. There you go. Yeah. Awesome. Well,
hey, thanks for having me come by. Thanks for coming. We will see you
guys on another tour pretty soon. Maybe I'll do a tour around the
country. Who knows? Who knows? We'll see what happens. Until next time, good luck in the garden
and keep on growing.
