THINNING BEETS -- Is It Really Necessary?!

so what do you say we spend a little time in  the garden today all right all right all right   today we're going to be working in this little  30 by 35 plot behind me here we're going to be   doing a little picking we're going to be doing a  little planting this plot was looking pretty rough   after that first frost we had towards the end of  november where it had all that ice on the leaves   but has since recovered kind of got acclimated to  these uh crazy south georgia winter temperatures   where it can be 40 in the morning and 70 out in  the afternoon it's gotten good and acclimated   everything's looking pretty good now gonna do  a little harvest in there gonna plant some open   spaces we have in there so let's take a look at  what we got and then get going so a couple videos   ago we scratched around in these two double rows  of carrots right here and saw that some of them   are getting close to being eaten size they're not  near the size they'll be when we harvest them all   finally but uh we can scratch around and pull  a few and eat some here and there but those are   kicking along good doing their thing and we've got  our blue ridge kale here we've been eating a good   bit of this just pulling off a couple leaves  of each plant at a time and uh this stuff here   is holding up really well seems to take the  frost really well since it's been acclimated   we've got our lacinato kale here took a little  bit of damage on a frost we had a week or so ago   probably need to come in and harvest this get  rid of some of those bad leaves and get the good   leaves off there time to gather a little bit of  that for a little side dish got our top bunch 2.0   collards we're going to pick a mess of those here  in a minute here we got our brussels sprouts our   jade cross and our catskill brussels sprouts and  we're starting to get some sprout formation here   you can see in there we've got some little sprouts  coming along still a ways to go on those guys   these brussels sprouts will certainly test your  patience well looks like we're gonna get a harvest   eventually here we have um what was our row of  herbs still got garlic chives man this cilantro   is looking awesome we've been picking some of this  but uh that's a heap of cilantro there just about   i don't know seven row feet or so and it's a lot  of it this stuff grows well down here this time of   year and um just really really nice to have that  in the garden here is a spot we're going to be   planting a little later where we had our basil  it didn't make it through the cold temps even   though we covered it so we're going to be putting  something else right there then right here we've   got our all top turnips that we transplanted and  these are hanging in there that's about all we   can say they're hanging in there they're not as  cold tolerant as some of that kale is and these   little uh frosts we get every couple weeks or so  will burn back some of those leaves but there are   some harvestable leaves in there probably need to  come in here and clean this up the next day or so   and then on the end here we've got another blank  spot we had direct seeded some rutabagas in here   and they came up but they didn't make it through  that first frost so we're gonna put something else   here and hope for a better look this time now i  don't know if this is just a southern thing or   not but around here on new year's day you always  gotta have collard greens and you always gotta   have black eyed peas i don't have any black eyed  peas growing in the garden but i got some collard   greens as i showed you so we want to make sure  we cook us a nice big old pot collard greens with   some hog jowls in there for new year's day and uh  let me know out there what are your new year's day   traditional foods to eat is the collard green  thing kind of across the country or is that just   a southern thing let me know what dishes you have  to have on new year's day now these leaves aren't   as big as they will get these is kind of like  harvesting baby collard greens so we're just going   to get the biggest ones off of here leave those  guys there on there i always want to leave a few   leaves at the top they can continue producing  we'll just get these big ones off the side   and it might not hurt to give these guys a little  fertilizer this afternoon after we get done doing   all we're going to do in this plot here we should  be able to give us a nice little decent mess for   my family at least for new year's all right so we  got two bags and a handful here which should be   plenty for us my kitchen is not really  conducive to filming it's kind of small   or i'll show you guys how i cook these things  but i can at least tell you so what we do is   uh we strip the stems off cut them up in  little slivers i'll give me a big casting   cast iron enamel pot put my hog gels or whatever  kind of pork you want to put in there get that   pot real hot put it in there and let some of that  grease kind of render out from that uh pork meat   there and then we'll just start adding these guys  in there and let them wilt down we don't add any   water initially we don't boil them initially kind  of like fry them initially let them all wilt down   in there and then once they're all wilted down in  the pot if we need to add a little bit of water   we will but uh i like to let the pork fat or bacon  grease or whatever i'm using kind of really impart   the flavor to these guys initially then we'll put  a little bit of water in there and just kind of   let them simmer to their tender all right so we  got the picking part done now it's time for the   planting part so as i showed you earlier we've  got these two little spots here to plant today   we've got probably two-thirds of a row here  where we had that italian basil and thai basil   i just came in here once those plants were  dead and just pulled them all up real quick   kind of shook the soil off of them so our  drip tape is still there it's still buried   and we're going to plant a double row we're going  to plant on both sides of that berry tape right   there and then this spot here where we had those  rutabaga seedlings that were just kind of stunted   we need a little bit of cultivation here because  i had a few little weeds popping up there so i   ripped up this entire line of tape or just pulled  it up really easy left it connected right there   came here with a wheel hoe made one pass through  there so we'll need to re-bury this line of tape   before we're planting that one over there is going  to be just fine now i mentioned to you earlier   that we are probably going to fertilize most of  this stuff later today i'm going to shoot some   20 20 20 and some micro boost to that drip system  but we certainly don't want to fertilize while   we're planting these seeds here so in order  to keep fertilizer from running through this   drip line here when i fertilize everything  else i'm going to need to put a valve right   let here pull that out so i'm going to use  one of our row start valves as opposed to   just a simple row start which lets everything pass  through there we're just going to change our drip   system up a little bit here put this row start  valve on there get that on there nice and tight stick that back into the main line  i'll turn that valve off there   and once we plant these seeds we'll just hand  water these two rows that we're going to be   putting seeds in and then the rest of these can be  fed by that fertilizer injector since these lines   are off it's nothing going to be going through  here so we did the same thing right here with   this other line that we have to re-bury we replace  that simple row start with a row start valve there   and i didn't turn that valve off yet  because i need to turn it on just for   a second to inflate that line to re-bury it  properly and then we'll turn that valve off get a little hot out here today i'm gonna have  to come up out this long-sleeve shirt here in   a minute it's uh mighty warm for about to be  new year's day here in south georgia but um   it's time to plant we got our drip tape buried  on that one row with our wheel hose there   we've got two little mini furrows  we can plant our double row on   for that other row where the tape was already  buried i just took my little triangle hoe kind   of scratched me out two little plant and furrows  there now normally i don't direct seed anything   in the middle of winter usually in the past if  i'm planting anything this time of year it's   planting it from transplants i work from home  a good bit now so i don't have access to dad's   greenhouse so i don't have any plants ready to go  on the ground so we're gonna go for direct seeding   we've got a little spell here forecast looks like  for the next three or four days supposed to be   relatively warm like it is today supposed to  get some rain so i think i can get these seeds   up so today we're gonna be planting some beets  and we're gonna be planting some spinach let's   talk about beets first so with beets almost all  beet varieties are what they call multi-germ   seeds and this means each seed that you plant  is going to produce two or three little plants   and as a result the beets kind of are crowded in  there when they grow up and mature now this is   not a big problem if you're not going for uniform  size now when we used to sell a lot of our beets   i wanted big uniformly sized beets i'll start them  off from transplants and in those trays i would   thin them out to one plant per cell plant them  that way and get nice real big uniform-sized beets   in this case since i'm not selling them anymore i  don't really care as much you know if i get little   beets that's fine some big beets that's fine i  kind of want to grow these to mainly pickle some   and so i'm not necessarily concerned about  having real big you know tennis ball sized   beets so i'm playing a variety called vulture  which is a new variety we added this year   and this is a cylindrical beat doesn't get quite  as long as a traditional salinger beet but it's   supposed to have better flavor than solyndra so  we're going to give that a try that's what we're   going to plant on this full row here we're going  to plant a double row of these vulture beets here   and uh then we're going to go with some  spinach plant a variety called avenger here   and i haven't grown spinach in a long long  time i think i grew some the first year we   were on this place this homestead here but i  haven't grown it since and i don't really know   why but i like to eat spinach and so we're gonna  give it a try and we're gonna plant this on that   little two-thirds of a row that we have now  what i do know about spinach is it doesn't like   warm soil temps as far as germination really  doesn't germinate well in anything above you   know 70 degrees so our temperature should be just  about right to get some pretty good germination   on its spinach here and that's why i am direct  seeding that i don't know of anybody maybe some   people transplant spinach out there but i  think this is something that probably does   better direct seeding all the time as far as  the beets go we've had really good success   transplanting beets in the past highly recommended  if you want big uniform beets but if that doesn't   matter as much you can direct seed them like we're  going to do today so i've got a quarter pound of   these vulture beets here i figured i was going to  need more than a seed packet which is 350 seeds   doubt i'll use the whole quarter pound we're just  gonna take these guys and kind of sprinkle them   kind of liberally a little bit we can always  thin them out if we have to on both sides of   that drip tape there and just kind of work our  way down the road same thing with the spinach   here i figured i was going to need more than just  a seed packet so i got a quarter pound here and   uh same thing as with the beets we got a double  row i'm just gonna plant them thick along there   i like a thick dense row here when i'm  planting double rows of stuff like this so   that foliage can kind of cover up  that gap right there get some nice   weed suppression in the middle then we'll just  take our rake lightly cover them up tamp them down and she'll be good to go and even though  we're supposed to get some rain in the   morning i'm gonna go ahead and water these  guys in a little bit kind of get them seeds   seeded in the soil well so if it does rain  abnormally hard doesn't wash everything away   really like this unit right here we carry  these on the site this little dram fan nozzle   works perfect for hand watering you know  just a row or two at a time like this   gives you a nice even water distribution so  we're gonna water these guys in and then uh   let the rain do its thing and let these next  few days of warm temps do their thing hopefully   and uh should get some decent germination  considering those factors so hopefully for all you   guys out there that have a winter garden planted  hopefully it's hanging in there well you're   getting some decent little harvest and nice little  new year's fare from your garden don't forget to   let me know out there what your favorite new  year's food is especially those that come right   from your garden i'll put some links below to all  the seeds and tools we use today so you can head   on over to the website and pick up some of those  if you enjoyed this video make sure to give me a   big thumbs up don't forget to hit that subscribe  button if you haven't already and ring that bell   so you get notified every time we come out with a  new video and if you did enjoy this one check out   these other two videos right here i think you'll  really enjoy those as well we'll see you next time

Channel: HOSS

Views: 35,806

Keywords:

Id: OJcwHLmghiM

Length: 13min 59sec (839 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 02 2021