Well we're hanging in there Razzle-dazzled and frazzled but we're here barely hanging in there. Hanging in there. We're hanging in there doing all we can It's yep been uhh It's been quite the ride. Yes it has and it ain't over with Yeah And for your folks out there that and I and I don't I don't this is not to mean to be boastful at all. But because I know a lot of people struggling out there but You know, imagine if you took a your small business a little bitty We just a little fish in the pond and then you all of a sudden ramped it up by several hundred Percent within trying to do that with the same amount of employees that's basically what we've been trying to do. It's been challenging but we've been thankful that we've been able to hang on and be able to be a service to folks because there's a lot Of people out there that ain't near as fortune is what we are. Right right and there's still some of us some of the other players out there that are can't ship or just uh, I know Johnny's restrict their self just to commercial orders so a lot of people out there are struggling to get them out. Yep, they are You know, it's across the board I was at a gun shop I ordered some ammunition from and they sent me it's been two weeks since I placed it and They sent me a video and they had where they was getting out thirty seven hundred orders a day they was backed up a hundred and eighty thousand orders. Wow that's hard to get caught up with that it's hard to get caught up but what we're seeing right now I don't know about I hadn't kept up the ammunition and gun thing but there's a run on the ammunition and gun just like they are every time there's a little bit of a problem There's all everybody sorta leans to that. But I'm gonna tell you something else there's a run on Gardening and chickens. Chickens, yeah, everybody now wants some chickens. I'm talking about people you ain't even think about talking about chickens cause My neighbor came over yesterday and says we think about getting some chickens. I said you you just now thinking about getting some chickens. But they everything the chicken business is fixing to skyrocket. Yeah cause everybody is thinking man I can get me some chickens have me some eggs all the time we've been doing that for years, but now they just starting to realize the importance of it. Them folks that got a a surplus egg-laying hens is going to get filthy rich here pretty quick and what we're seeing here in our business is were seeing a Lot of people call want advice and wanting a little bit of guidance New gardeners a lot of people gardening for the very first time in the last two three weeks they've decided they want to put a garden in I'm Assuming that they want to grow their own food because they see the importance of it but also their at home and they got plenty of time They want an activity for them to do at home and what better one is that then gardening. Yeah I was talking to a lady the other day We never got down to where she was actually from or at, but she lived in a suburban neighborhood It sounded like of course it was a homeowner's association there and she was trying to find a kit or something that Everybody and her homeowners association could purchase kind of as a whole Distribute those kits and so everybody in their neighborhood could grow their own food and when you start hearing stuff like that That's pretty enlightening to tell you like these people who have never grown a garden before or finding things important that they otherwise Well, they can't travel I mean their life's been turned upside down They can't do things and they're they're starting to reevaluate where they need to put their emphasis on and that's what we're seeing. Gardening I tell you something else small livestock Goats, and things like that you gonna see a resurgence of that. You don't remember I don't either but back in the day in World War 2 They talked the government had a campaign out called the Victory Garden. Yeah, well, they encourage people to grow a garden I'm not going to say we see that again We're gonna see within ourselves a rising up of people who want to grow a garden and be a little bit more self-sufficient it's two phase it's a process of wanting to know that you can grow your own food, but also it's a little bit of a Mindset of thinking that you know, I'm gonna be able to take care of myself a little bit instead of depending on others Yeah, and I don't think this is a short-lived thing. I think we're going to see this boom in interest in gardening. This thing's is going to stretch out several years. We saw a little bit that back on the tail end of the 2008 recession I think we're going to see even probably more of a Sustained interest here and hopefully we get a lot of new people learning how to grow their own food and they stick with it and keep growing. Yeah now by no means am I happy the way it happened I wouldn't for I wouldn't I don't wouldn't for nothing Wish that again I mean I wouldn't but I'm glad That people going back a little bit And finding out what's important instead of being a little too worldly bringing it on back down and and realizing what's important. Yeah It's terrible that had happened like this, it really is. Can't go to the gym but I can guarantee you can get plenty of exercise out there oh, yeah in the garden well I'm hungry I don't know about you. I am hungry been a long hard day. I'm hungry We bout to eat something right here. So this right here is my sauerkraut I made With the big ole gaudy cabbages and I had a fella call the other day He said he kind of was whispering like he was worried you was gonna hear him He said he said I won't let you know I grew some of them big old cabbages, too. Don't tell Greg So I I bought that 5-gallon big old fermenting crock because I tend to go overboard mmm And it this has been sittin in there about three weeks There wasn't no mold in there or anything I checked this morning All the liquid had kind of been reabsorbed or however that process works but there was a lot liquid in there one point and now, it's pretty Pretty much just cabbage. One question I've got for you people out there who have done this a lot. Now that I've got all the sauerkraut made How do I keep it? How do I preserve it? I don't think you want to can it and and heat it up. But you just put it in the fridge in a jar How do I you know seal it up? And how long will it stay good for that? Yeah, how long will it stay in the fridge. So any of you out there, that's got some good ideas there let us know so we got Sauerkraut for some cabbage I grow. Okay, and then right here, we've got some hamburger buns now I grew these from transplants, did you back in January and I worried they wasn't gonna make it and kind of babied them along But there finally there we got some nice little buns there. Hmm and then And then some sausage here now this sausage I direct seeded this sausage And I really preferred to have a little Duke's mayonnaise but we make do with some mustard and ketchup I reckon mustard about that Open it with your teeth there. Yeah, we're just gonna have to do it this way for right now I like just mustard on mine. I guess that's the way I like mine now I was gonna get some bratwurst, but I couldn't find any that would've been the traditional thing to eat with uh With the sausages here and y'all just bear with us. We've been at it hard all day hungry and forgive that phone ring and it's been ringing off the hook we finally sometimes just have to walk away from I hate to say that but we just have to kind of walk and go down to The house or we'd be up here 24/7 yeah, when it's 5 clock we just have to kind of walk away. So I'm gonna get me some of this sauerkraut I did one error I made I didn't shred it up as much as I probably should have but them big ole cabbages though it's hard. It's hard to find a shredder that can handle that. Yeah Anywho, I'm gonna indulge can I borrow your fork there. I have sampled a little bit of this earlier day when he was in here bragging on it and I told him same thing he didn't shred it up enough but do you know after I ate it, it ain't bad to have texture like this it ain't bad at all. I have had some sauerkraut, that's kind of soggy before that right there. It's got a good crunch to it It's good a little sour to it. Got a little sour to it and we did three tablespoons per big old head of cabbage You ain't got to weigh it If you can grow them big old cabbages like that Do you three tablespoons per big ole head of cabbage. Three tablespoons of what? Salt. Salt. And you got to massage it in there good. This is my first batch of sauerkraut I made, I'm pretty happy with it. Not to say we can't do better, but I can live with that right there. That's pretty good, yeah, that's pretty good stuff. I can eat on that quite a bit. Alright We've got to say Hey everybody Hello everyone and welcome to the Row by Row Garden Show. I'm Travis and I'm Greg. We're glad to have you with us tonight We've got a really good show plan We're gonna be talking about some watermelons and a bit and this is your first time watching our show welcome Go ahead and hit that subscribe button down below and that bell button So you get notified every time we come out with a new video and if you're a frequent viewer of the show It's always good to have you back and for you new people out there This is the longest-running father-and-son gardening show on the Internet. Whoa, what you talking about? You know, we're getting close to episode 100. This is episode 96. Before we get into talking about watermelons a few other things. So my timing has been a little off this year with planting my garden just not on everything I did good on my beans. You know, my tater timing was off We had a video come out well if you want to eat a little bit I need to talk about that tater thing just a minute. Okay. Okay, I did wanna get another bite. Travis Uh posted a video this week a belly aching and squalling about his taters rotting in the ground. I wasn't bellyaching. Well, let me finish here And I watched that thing and I thought to myself the boy didn't listen to me if you'll go back about three episodes and watch us Talking about taters I kind of laid it out plain and some people evidently didn't listen to what I said So I'm gonna say it again tonight. You may want to get you a piece of paper and a pen out write this down for tater planting next year But this is what happens and this is the same thing Travis felt felt guilty of What happens is around the 10th of February everybody gets itching a little bit wanting to plant the potatoes Your brother-in-law or your neighbor down the road he's gonna plant his and he's gonna come up and rub it in a little bit He's gonna say well I got potatoes planted and he's gonna kind of stare up there in the sky He ain't gonna say nothin gonna be a Awkward moment of silence and what that does is puts pressure on you and it pressures you thinking man He's gonna have taters before I'm gonna have potatoes. So you jump out there right behind him just as quick as you can and get your taters in the ground and next thing you Know you kind of making a video of you a squalling and bellyaching about your taters, rotting what I'm fixing to lay on you Right now it's a little bit of wisdom that I have come up with over the period of years And I said this a couple weeks ago and I don't think nobody paid no attention to it. Don't get in a hurry planting your potatoes. We got a two to three window there we window there that is fine to plant your potatos You have to kind of play with that come what kind of year you having and what happens is if you'll notice we're in the 1st of March every year the wind starts blowing and them big old pines they Start swaying back and forth what that's doing is telling them pine trees to wake up It's time to come out of that winter nap and that that wood starts stretching and bending and it starts taking up that sap out of the ground and it sucks a lot of moisture up and It dries that ground out a lot so around the 1st of March what we see when that sap starts rising in them trees is our ground warms up a little bit is the moisture leaves the ground. So always wait till about the end of February plant my potatoes because if I do have a good rainy session or spell after that That sap rising will take care of my problem a lot of times. I've had one crop of rotted potatoes as far back as I can remember And I kind of changed it around a little bit and I do this here and I've been successful ever since But you can't be worried about somebody making a tater a week or two before you do just kind of lay low get your plan together get a clear head on you And when the timing is right you want to go out and plant them and I'll have a pretty pretty crop of taters Gonna have to supply the whole family with taters cause Travis didn't make none. So you can't jump the gun and You can't let other people get you all up and bothered and make bad decisions You got to be focused and think straight and what I just laid on you There is a little bit of wisdom from a old man. So think about what I said and and for next year a tater time, I want you to really concentrate on that. Yeah The few tater plants I got look pretty good And I've seen yours and uh, we'll just have to compare what we've got I got about 30-row feet That made it. I got everyone I planted. I know you do, I know you do you got a lot You got a little more sandier soil drains a little better. I did get in a hurry I'll admit that lesson learned But I just feel like I have a little bit of a a bad look running this year on my timing planting As I was getting to before you had to go in your filibuster there. My sweet corn I planted my sweet corn and knew it was gonna come rain Planted my sweet corn yesterday got my uh oh Sammy's over here wanting some sausage. Got my sweet corn in the ground right before that rain came Which is always a good thing and if ain't struck off cool on me with that triple sweet corn needing some warmer soil temps and it didn't get up to about 55 today. You may still be okay on that. It may I ain't, warm back up It's gonna warm back up I think you're still gonna be alright on that. But but that's just kind of how I feel luck I'm having lately but. Anyway, I want to give a stock update on a few things we talked about. How busy we've been earlier. Had a few people get upset because they got they bought a wheel hoe and there wasn't no Hoss logo on the side of it Well, our stamping machine is tore up and With all this going on the chance of getting somebody out here to fix it is pretty rare We have to get somebody out of Jacksonville, Florida A technician because this is a specialized piece of equipment and I had called down there and scheduled it back before all this broke loose Of course, they just can't get it's not Qualified as essential so they can't get nobody up here. We have plans things get back normal. Get back get it back going. So we had two options We just don't ship any wheel hoes or We ship them without the logos on the handles and I didn't realize everybody really liked the logo on the handles that much But we apologize and I promise you they work just the same with or without the logo. Another thing Hortonova trellis we were running a little short on hortonova trellis We just got another truck load of that in that stuff has been flying We got plenty of that and plenty more on the way. We should be alright on that So you been needing to get some of that we got some. I'm gonna give Sammy one little bite you reckon that I'll mess up She might not be satisfied. That's what I'm thinking. The last thing the drip tape layer attachment a lot of people been asking about this thing So I'll let you give a little update on that I hope next week I've called begged and pleaded with people that's making my parts on that and And I'm hoping next week. I can't make any promises, but I'm hoping. Okay 15 mil irrigation tape we got that on backorder It was supposed to ship 26 which was last Thursday or Friday Thursday, something like that and we expecting it any day we had another shipment of Some chemical ship the same day out of California. They came in today. So my hope is tomorrow We get some 15 mil and get all them orders out. Last thing I wanna mention here before we talk about watermelons. Because I've been dealing with this on a few customer service calls I meant to bring one that little 12 psi pressure regulator. We use on the drip tape kit Had some people calling the Lines blowing out on the tape or different things happening and a lot of people think that it's a pressure issue I've never seen it be a pressure issue folks that little thing can handle up to 90 psi. I haven't seen a well that Does 90 psi most of them are a little below 50 like mine It's almost always a flow rate issue that little pressure regulator Can handle a flow rate of 0.5 to 8 gallons a minute if you're above 8 gallons a minute It's like the thing's not even there Because it's just a little ball valve basically now yes that company that singer that makes those Makes one that looks just pretty similar that goes up to 15 Gallons a minute flow rate, and we probably need to start carrying them at some point. You can find them online so if you have trouble with that filter regulator, you don't think it's reducing the pressure like it's supposed to it's probably because your flow rates too high you can measure that pretty easily with a bucket and Check that and most of the time that's the source of the problem. Yeah I have a fella called yesterday and he blew five he hit it up and blew it out five times and I said it I I Never I learned a long time ago I never say never 99% of time when you start blowing out your drip tape you got too much Pressure of volume out there. Too much flow most of the time. Whether it be one or the other you got too much on it and it's blowing out barely ever have we had any tape that went bad and because it it's just normally a application issue of some sort. Alright, so we're going to talk about watermelons this week, and I know The last few videos we've done we talked about staples and we talked about, you know, you got to grow Staples meat potatoes during this time, but I be dog if we hadn't been talking about doing a watermelon show for a while And we're just gonna talk about watermelon. Yeah, I love watermelons. Did I say I love, and you planted some watermelons. I did I planted them over the weekend and I like to look for years for years I planted Crimson sweets it was just like clockwork. You couldn't talk me out of nothing else And I still love them. But since we got in the seed business, I felt like I need to try other things So every year I'm trying a new variety Excuse me, last year I grew Moon and Stars, but this year I'm growing Sangria. That just sounds good. It does doesn't it, I can't wait for some. So let's talk about watermelon varieties real quick, then we'll talk about techniques. So let's talk about the old kind of heirloom/ OP varieties first and you can, you can You know a lot more about watermelons than I do So I'll let you kind of add in what you like about each of these varieties here We'll talk about these then we'll talk about some of the hybrids like the sangria the one you're growing this year. So As far as the heirloom/OP's go let me get them in some kind of order here First one we got here is the Charleston Gray, which is more elongated watermelon. I'm guessing this one might have been popular up on the The Carolina coast a little bit. It was popular It was developed up that way Charleston But it was popular down here back in the 50s, 60s, 70s on up into the 80s This was the watermelon that was shipped by rail cart up north It has a very good shipping quality to it has a thicker rind It was developed to be able to ship and this watermelon was whole good and the man I can't I can remember them shipping by freight cart from around here up north watermelons Now they had to hold good bit of and it's a consistent smaller sized watermelon so it was back in that day It was one of the smaller watermelons, but it was always consistent. It was easy to pack and had a thick rind on there Okay, so that's our Charleston Gray. Now this one here is this Georgia Rattlesnake if I do remember correctly I think I could be getting confused with another variety but I think we sent Danny and Wanda, Deep South some of these because Danny said his daddy or somebody it was related to used to grow a heap of these back in the day and he kind of Wanted to try them again. It's real similar if it is not a variety that we know around here as Jubilee. Yeah. Looks just like now these different strains of the Jubilee and I think that's where the rattlesnake comes in at There's one called a Giant One that I had growed one year and boy them things get huge if you want to put it in the County Fair That was the one to grow. It's a giant and it looked just like that. It don't taste worth a hoot does it get so big you can't tote them out of the field we grow them I don't know how big and cut them they'll still be green. Yeah, the only thing they good for those big old giant ones is for the County Fair bragging rights But this rattlesnake here is real similar to the just Jubilee variety This was really popular with the market farmers everything back in the 80s early 90s It was probably the most sought-after variety back then. The Georgia rattlesnake and then we got the Moon and Stars which you grew last year and we got a Yellow and red; Moon and Stars. So if you like a yellow meated or They call it yellow meat I'll show you a true yellow meated one but the yellow meated Watermelons are kind of orangish a lot of times. Yeah, my memory serves me right this variety was released back around 1918 ohh way back in the day and in the early 1900s This was a staple now by the time the 70s and 80s come around This one had kind of fell out of flavor and was replaced with a lot of other varieties That maybe was bred a little more disease resistant, but you talking about a old heirloom variety That was the staple of the south back then That was it my granddaddy grew the red Moon and Stars and I had a fella ask me the other day He said he had guess he was wanting to grow them from market He wanted to know did every single watermelon have a moon and the stars on it And from our experience from growing last year they do there are some variation on how big the moon is But but everyone seems to have a big yellow spot one big yellow spot in a bunch of little yeah I have never seen one that didn't. Then we got The old sugar baby And I didn't realize this and we started carrying this variety this year, but this one here has quickly become our most popular OP variety and I don't know if it's just because it has a lot of name recognition Or people like the smaller size of them or what it is but this sugar baby is super super popular Yeah used to be in the supermarkets Back when I was coming up, especially up north you see a lot of these sugar babies more of a personal size watermelon, right. So a lot of people I've never grown one I've seen them all my life and I've never grown one, they got that dark rind almost black. Yeah it may be something I have to put on my list to do. That's one reason I don't grow a lot of watermelons is because I I Can't really put them in my vegetable bags as much as I like to eat watermelons I have to have some dual purpose crops And so if I did do one I might have to do one like this that was a little smaller. Yep Then we got this one here tender sweet orange I've had several people Call and order a heap of these seeds they're going to grow a bunch of them for market It's a pretty looking watermelon looks mighty mighty tasty. That's an OP variety there and then your favorite here The old Crimson Sweet, yep and they're on the cover is Travis's oldest from Abram and my donkey that's back when he was a little guy and my donkey Ringo or as the boys call them hubba hubba eating sharing one of my fine watermelons Yeah, now that's where we load them up right there if you can see that picture you can go on the website and see it too but load them up underneath that pecan tree and just go out there and eat you one everyday. So that's If you go see any of our older watermelon videos it is talking about Crimson sweet for the most part now let's get into our Hybrids and I talked about yellowing earlier We got this one here this hybrid called Baby Doll and I believe you gonna have to grow this from one of the years But it's a bright yellow meated watermelon pretty looking watermelon. I was gonna grow a off color yellow orange watermelon for market. I believe that's the one I'm gonna have to try That has just a bright color to it. Pretty ain't it? Yep, contrasting. We've got that baby doll there if you wanted something different you could if you had one of them sliced open at a Market farmers stand you could truly draw some people there. Oh Yeah. Then we got these three here which are hybrids and they're called all sweet types so which means they're little sweeter than crimson sweet and we've got three different ones here and I kind of categorize these on size So you got the Dulce Fantasia, you got the Sangria, and you got the Jamboree. The Dulce Fantasia is gonna be your smallest Sangria is gonna be somewhere in the middle about 20-25 pounds and your Jamboree is gonna be your big honking 30 pound watermelon. Yeah days to maturity on some of these around 90 days Just like the baby doll at 70 days that's quite a difference there to maturity on that. Yeah So these are what they call the all sweet types I've had some people call and ask what all sweet means it's a I think there is a variety out there called all sweet but all sweet is just a general word for a certain type of hybrid Watermelon like a category. Yep. Alright, let's get into some planting and growing tips. You want to get your transplants out there. So you can direct seed watermelons Man here always likes to transplant watermelons. Those there look pretty pretty right to go. These are some ones I got mine planted this is what I had leftover and I'll keep these as you're plan B's, these are my plan B's in case we get Somebody like the dog run through out there and mess them up, then I'll go back and replant them But you see that root system there. That's exactly uhh ohh I dropped the microphone that's about where you want it to be now These things are a little tender so you have to be careful with them You don't want to break them off. But when you get ready to transplant them that's about a perfect size there putting those true leaves on there. That's not to root-bound but just about right and wanna plant them about root height There wherever the soil is where you want to put them back at of course I always use drip irrigation on my watermelons. I had a fella asking me the other day he was asking about growing winter squash transplants or Watermelon transplants in these 162 trays. He said man them cells just don't look like they big enough for winter squash or watermelon, but Yeah, it works perfect. Look a there ain't nothing wrong with That right there that's just where you want it to be. That's a pretty looking transplant. If you get a plant much bigger than this, it's going to go through too too much transplant shock and that's what happens Everybody wants to go to the big-box store and buy them big old plants now if you go up there even Bonnie says watermelon plants up there at the big-box stores and them ole plants starting to put runners on and they big And you buy that carry it home it's going to shock that plant too much this is the ideal stage right here Where you can put it in the ground go through very little shock get it caught back up and get it running on, this is where you want to be and Putting these on drip irrigation very very important because watermelons are cucurbit. They can be susceptible as you like to say to some of those fungal diseases. Yeah, so we want to minimize that leaf moisture if we can and plus you can put them underneath there You can get that water right there to them it don't take near as much as it does it overhead irrigation. Now if you grow them on drip tape, you can stack them in there a little thicker than you can if you're not can't you Yeah, I catch myself putting them about every two-foot apart and sometimes I'll put them every foot apart. Now my row spacing is liable to be I believe five or six foot Between my rows but my in line row I pack them in there pretty tight. Foot to two foot let them grow out that way instead of Yeah, if you got them on drip you can keep them all fed it ain't a big deal Yeah, and you can't be trouncing around out there When your vines start growing Trouncing around out there moving your sprinkler because you can be stepping all over everything And that's another reason that drip comes into play because you can just turn it on You don't have to be meddling around out there stepping on all your watermelon vine. Yeah, and you ain't gonna have to worry about a lot of weed pressure between the rows You ain't gonna have to be getting out there trouncing and weeding because trouncing that's our new word trouncing because you got your drip right there in the middle you ain't watering. Yeah, now watermelons are one of them plants that you need some pollinators on So if you ain't got pollinators you need to plan on getting you a beehive or two and putting out there make sure you got pollinators because if you don't you gonna be hurting a little bit on your yield That's right. That's right. So a foot to two-foot plant spacing on drip and then row spacing on out five feet or so Yeah, okay. Let's talk about pest and disease issues because if we have a real rainy year like We intend to have every now and then a real rainy spring that can cause some problems for watermelons the best disease control you can do on watermelons is rotation, and the best thing to do is plant them on new ground if Possible, but if you can't you def want to plant them somewhere where there ain't been a watermelon or cucurbits there for at least three or four years you Want to do a good rotation and that's gonna help you the mostess That's a new word too mostess. Mostess Did you have many bug problems on your watermelons I don't know I've never had any bug problems on my watermelons mildew I've had a little mildew if it turned off If it turns off when we start having a lot of you can get some mildew in there Yeah, you can get some anthracnose and some other things in there you can get some diseases in there You can't do nothing about so there ain't no use in worrying about a lot, but you can get a little mildew in there It don't hurt to keep them sprayed If you gonna have a few days of overcast rainy weather be nice to have a contact fungicide or systemic Fungicide on there put some liquid copper on there liquid copper some complete disease control something like that now if you get too much rain You can also have what they call you walk out there in the watermelons and one blowed up on you. Yeah, they'll do that everynow and then, but you know what happens a lot of times when a watermelon blows up too much fertilizer at the wrong time. Uh oh Yep. I learned that years ago pop to it too much at the wrong time when that watermelon starts forming and getting lots right here you got to be careful throwing that fertilizer to it You want to do most you're fertilizing before it starts maturing that fruit so early, early on you want to grow that just like an onion you want to grow that vine and when it starts setting Fruit you want to back off up just a little bit. That's good to know. That's good to know. Now let's talk about when to harvest You when you're harvesting your watermelon, you'll hear people talk about thumping it listening to it looking at the underside of it whatever but the main thing you wanna look at is that Tendril or you call that curlicue the first ones that come off you need to let that Curlicue dry-out real good because they're gonna be a little bit on the green side and that vine is still growing Well, it's gonna take them a little bit harder to get ripe so the very first ones I do it every year I always cook first one and it's still green when I cut it and I get mad at Myself kick something dogs something's up there kick something stomp around a little bit and I get back at my business but that first one is gonna be you you just hard to wait let that curlicue dry all the way it real good maybe give it an extra day or two after that when those things those vines start maturing after that when that curlicue dries up You can go out and clip them and have pretty good confidence some of them gonna be ripe, but that first couple of them will get you every year. Now as far as storing the watermelons that they seem like they hold for a couple weeks for you At least I put them on a big old pecan tree. Big ole pecan tree every now and then we'll put one in the house If it'll fit the frigerator ain't nothing them cold watermelons is real good now growing up what we did if you've got your air vents Where I live now there in the roof, but if you got air vents in the floor You can set your watermelon on top of that air vent right there it'll cool it off a little bit. It would be nice fo you folks that live up north where you got them cold streams We used to put them in that we went on vacation every now and then let them stay in there a few hours and that'll cool them off too. Find you a little nook between some rocks where you know, it ain't gonna go nowhere set it in there. Yep. I pile them up underneath the pecan tree and I take me a break about every two Hours two and a half hours and I go out there and sit by myself and let's say somebody wants go with me and I'll sit there And eat me a watermelon It's a good thing you plant a heap of them this year because if things keep going the way it is your watermelon eating quota is gonna be Yep, elevated I feel like. Yep, it's kind of a stress time for me I go out there and talk to the watermelon me and the dog go out there and he'll sit down with me, ole tank, and we'll eat watermelon. Now I don't get greedy and eat it all the way down to the rine I'll throw it over to the horses old ringo my donkey he likes it and bell she's my big old Percheron she likes it too. So I'll give him a little bit share with them, I eat the heart out of them pretty much and go on if I want another one I'll buss me another one up and eat I'll eat them till had me enough. Ain't no point in fighting around them seeds to much is it? Nope. I eat me a belly full if I want to eat two if I wanna eat three however many I want to eat and I get up and come on back to work. Alright That's good stuff there So if you have any more questions about watermelons that we didn't get into get into or if you got some good watermelon stories out there some good varieties That you'd like to see us carry put those in the comments below we'll be glad to get to them on next week's show. We got some questions from last week's show here and if we do answer your question on the show, send us an email to custserv@hosstools.com and we'll send you a nice little prize. Did I tell you that sauerkraut was good? That's pretty good stuff. You did alright on that. I'm proud of myself, you should be that's good. That's one thing I will confess that I ain't that great at is the food preservation Fermenting all that kind of stuff. I just your maw's kinda got that figured out I don't know much about it. I don't know much about but I'm proud of myself. You did good, I'm proud of you too. Proud of you bringing it today. Where I could partak in it. Our first question is from Mike Henderson he says Travis When did y'all sow your onions seed last fall? So I Started I sowed some as early as I wanna say late August - early September And then I sowed some kind of all the way through October there and what I found was that I can almost succession plant my onions and it's worked really good for me because I had Especially for my market farmer operation I can pull some of those big green onions right now And I've still got some others coming along that I count on and let them dry off so I'd say anytime between Because I planted some as early as October last year and they did fine so you could start them late August any time through September those 338 trays we got now work awesome for onions work really good for them and I'm a firm believer now in growing my own onion plants and getting them things in the ground early Early you get them in the ground the bigger the onions you gonna have sooner in the spring and That's just how I feel about it. Yep. I planted an onion bed in the ground I did a little experiment with that and I did fine got my plants out of there The problem I had was weeds it's hard to control weeds in an onion bed You can grow a heap of in a 338 tray you know 338 onion plants that's a lot of them, that's a row yeah, it's a long row long row or a short double row. Alright number two is from Sheila Fade and she says how long can you store your seeds with all these new gardeners out there Got smaller garden a lot of people been asking well, I don't need 50 tomato seeds or 50 cucumber seeds What can I do with these seeds? Can I keep them, will they store the next year? Yeah, that's a pretty good question. You know it is Different seeds you got different answers for different seeds I start out with how you store your seed it's seeds do not like extreme So you don't want a store a seed underneath your carport. Where it could get a 100 degrees or it could get down to 30 degrees later on and you have those large Extremes in there you want them to be at a constant temperature or constant environment put them in the frigerator There's nothing wrong with that We in our seed room the rule of thumb on commercial seed storage is is to keep your humidity plus your temperature if you put the two together you keep them below 100 and we keep our Seed room at 60 degrees and 40% humidity we got a couple big units back there. It's pretty sophisticated electronics takes care of all that so as long as you keep a low humidity and a constant temperature room temperature Is fine just keeping a lot of people don't think so but you can keep your house at 70 degrees all the time There's nothing, that's a hot house, 70 degress well I can't afford to keep it down where you can kill hogs in there. If you keep those at a constant temperature you can be okay You just don't want to go to extreme Now that being said some seeds store better then others brassicas for instance store real good from year to year No problem whatsoever peas on the other hand do not carry over very well. Field peas You buy some zippers from us you better plant them this year because they germs gonna go way down on them next year. Onion seeds Also don't keep very well right certain seeds store real well certain seeds don't so there you have it. This is And I'm not just saying this because I won't People to have to rebuy seeds every year if you've got some heirloom variety, you're trying to preserve put them in the freezer freezer So they stay good and you can keep your seed stock up. I wouldn't buy seeds to save for the next Year and plan to if you bought a pack of cucumber seeds and you just gonna plant half of them Share them with your neighbor. Give them somebody who can use them those seeds are gonna do a lot better for you when they're fresh When they've been germ tested recently, you know what you're getting there. So that's kind of my two cents. Yeah, I agree Let us do the storing for you And we run through enough seed we can have new seeds for you next year, fresh fresh Alright Mr. James Billingsley Says I have six beehives and want to know if spinosad will have an adverse effect on bees? Not if you spray it at the right time and do it right you want to be spraying your spinosad right at dark Right before dark right at dark I even spray it after dark Sometimes I put my backpack spray on with a headlamp and I go out there and spray after dark. You don't want to spray it when those bees are out there pollinating That's pretty much rule with anything Yeah, it's a good good and a lot you because a lot of chemicals like you neem some other stuff It'll burn that plant if you put it on when it's hot. So as long as you spray it late in the evening I've got a beehive right outside my garden I've been spraying spinosad awhile I haven't ever killed any bees with it or noticed any decline in my bees. So as long as you spray it responsibly once the bees have gone to bed, you'll be fine Number four is a From a ASL Havard Homestead and he says what do you mean by h-e-a-l Potatoes? Now I've been getting this question a lot lately Especially people who are new to the channel they watch that HOA collab video we did and they was worried I was gonna cure some taters. I was gonna heal them up. Well healing potatoes in our language means When you get ready to plant them about three or four days before then you want to cut them up A lot of people will lay them out dry them I don't do that I just put them in a five-gallon bucket, but you want to cut those potatoes a get you three or four goods pieces now they talking about Healing so heal that's e-a-l I know let me clarify something so when people here are talking about hilling potatoes like we gonna hill I see where you at now, this is where it confusion comes in. Yeah. Okay, cause I asked my wife the other night I said I Said the word hill, h-i-l-l and the word heal, h-e-a-l, I said say that she her accent ain't as bad as mine I said say both them words, are they supposed to sound the same? And she said yeah I said Okay, but I'm not doing too much wrong there People hear that word I'm a hill potatoes and they think you gonna cure them or something like you gonna heal the coronavirus. I gotcha, I gotcha. They don't realize we're talking about Throwing dirt I'm picking up what your putting down now I don't know how to say that word and healing healing I guess is that ain't no better That ain't no better anyhow What we mean is throwing soil or dirt to it and bat mounting it on up is what we mean when we talking about that Yeah, you hill corn people will hill beans sometimes. Yeah. Don't means we lay no mojo on them that means I just put the dirt on them. Alright. Alright Bootstrap Garden He says how can you oh not how, can I mix BT and spinosad? You could mix B.t. and spinosad But I don't really know why you'd want too those two things those two products kind of target the same species or the same pests Spinosad is a little more kick it up a notch than B.t. is But they pretty much target worms and stuff like that spinosad has a little wider range of what it can target but you wouldn't want to mix those two because They both do pretty much the same thing use one or the other if you don't want to use spinosad You could always just use BT and if your problem gets real bad you can come in there with the spinosad. Yeah, let me add a little bit to this You could mix, I could see where it could be beneficial to mix B.t. and Neem or B.t. in Pyrethrum together or I mix spinosad and liquid copper. Yeah. Yeah There is some some benefit to doing some of the mixing. The B.t. and spinosad you don't gain a lot of mixing those two together use those and a rotation to mix some other things together like a Pyrethrin, had a brain cramp there pyrethrin, neem, or fungicide or some of your fungicides. Yeah. Yeah You can rotate them to keep the pests on the game But I wouldn't mix them cuz you just ain't doing a whole lot there number six there is from William Reese He lives in Zone B in Central Florida Says he don't have a frost date wants to know about aphids says he's been eat up with them Since the weather warmed up, he's used Neem Oil and other organic options can't seem to get rid of them Can you recommend a treatment whether it's organic or not? Well sounds like he's going after them in the right way One of the things about aphids you got to stay after them now, they will crash as we say They'll go through a generation or two They'll crash on their own and you will actually see a period of time there Where you don't have aphid problem what's happened is they have crashed on their own it breeds so much and then there just crash out staying after them with Pyrethrin, or either neem either one stay after them pretty heavy the key There is getting good coverage when you spray spray that plant down good and just keep them monitored See where your at, aphids don't do a lot of damage unless the population gets real high So if you got a couple of three, I don't worry about it a whole lot They'll take care of thereself but if you do get a build up of them go out there and try to help them along Take care take their selves out and hit them good with some of that neem or pyrethrin. Those aphids are easy to kill it's just the point to getting on them their soft body insect And they're easy to take care of So any of that I've even seen people use Dawn dishwasher detergent to kill them Anything will just about kill them if you get it on them. You know, ladybugs help with aphids Oh, yeah big time and I didn't do this on purpose But about three years ago I had a big problem with aphids On some field peas. I was growing and then I quit growing the field peas And I've had a lot when I'm not put them out there now I grow my flowers to attract You know beneficial bugs and stuff but I've had a lot more ladybug Presence in my garden last few years, and I've noticed a lot fewer aphids now I know you can go online and buy ladybugs and turn them loose a lot of people do that in the greenhouses so if you can figure out a way to Boost that ladybug population it'll help out with your aphids Oh, yeah. I wanna go over a new product We got in real quick oh I forgot about that. Yep, so we got this complete Organic fertilizer I don't wanna say complete it don't say complete on their no where it's an organic fertilizer, that's what it's called online Okay it's called complete organic fertilizer Well, we've had this in 3.5 pound bag But we got it in a 10-pound bag and I've done some pretty extensive work with this particular product right here And this is a pelletized Hen manure which means it has calcium. It does have loads of calcium in it and it really works Well what I want to show you right now is a leek That Mrs. Hoss grew in her garden if gonna have to work with Mrs. Hoss on her leeks and the only thing she put on it was this This fertilizer here now she needed to bury them further up to get the white on it we got that. Yeah, but I want you to look at it that's is a nice nice leek right there And the only thing I had on there was this product now one thing that I have noticed with working with this You really got to get those microbes feeding and going for this stuff to work it is full Capacity or potential I like to incorporate this into the soil about a week before I plant Mm-hmm And then I like to come back about two weeks after my plant gets up and side dress along to it what you'll see with This product here is the release of the nitrogen and phosphorus and potassium will spike come back down and it will level off and later own it'll spike again. So by adding those 2 to 3 applications 2 to 3 weeks apart, you can pretty much get you little bumps, but it levels out along man It'll make you look like a hero Yeah, I wasn't gonna I was gonna keep this under wraps, but my carrots that finally kind of come through You know for me This was about a month or so ago I went in there and I put pretty heavy dose of this right here Down the side of them and I did it with some rutabagas to and didn't get as much greenery which is I was going for more big rutabagas and grew some really big rutabagas with this stuff and folks don't let that 5-4-3 analysis, fool you I mean this stuff right here packs a punch and And does jam up. So don't think oh, well, you usually recommend 20 20 20, this is 1/4 of the potency there for whatever reason because it's organic and whatever this stuff I won't say it's as equally potent as 20 20 20, but it It unloads on that plant pretty good. Yeah, and the healthier your ecosystem is within your Soil the better this work, if you got dead high salt content soils this isn't gonna work very well for you But if you got a good healthy soil system this stuff here works wonderful because it's got to go through that process there And that's what your after anyway. You're after a good soil system there I think the rate on that is about a cup, cup and a half per 10 square feet or so Yeah, a cup and a half per 10 square feet. There's enough there to do a good bit. Yeah, you can do I used A bag or two of this per one of my thousand square-foot plots so We got to, that's a big ole leek. Y'all got to hill them leeks I know but still that's a big ole leek anyway get you some of that we got it three and a half ten pound I also have a 30 pound option if you want 3, 10 pound bags You can save a little bit by getting some of those so we got that there Hope everybody enjoyed the show tonight And if you did check out these two videos right here one is where Greg is showing when to harvest a watermelon and another one there showing how you plant your Watermelons on drip tape so more good watermelon stuff there check that out and we will see you guys next week. Take stay safe and stay good.
