BUGS Destroy My Garden Despite My Best Effort

I still can't bend over. I crouch down because of my oral surgery on Friday, and I'm still being careful with the way I pick up things because of my back, which the back is feeling much better, but I don't want to jinx it, right? So we're gonna get the feeders out too, and we'll just put down a fresh bedding, a little bit of that. I'll feed up— I'll fill up the trays. Really tired and unmotivated this week. I think I'm getting like 10 hours of sleep. Yesterday I had to take a nap, and then when I am awake, still feeling tired and unmotivated. Do you ever feel like that? Sometimes it's what we've been calling a Lyme crash. Like, I'll crash and I'll finally figure out that I'm crashing. I'll say, okay, Jess, it's okay, you're gonna feel better the morning or the next day. Jolly Jess. Thank goodness we're going to see the, uh, the oral surgeon today. Checkup. Teddy escaped. Let your mom sleep. Free the birds. I love it. That goose will thank me by flapping her wings. Never mind. Are you gonna flap them? She usually always slaps them. We're gonna go ahead and pick up the old nets now. What's cool, we're actually gonna go ahead and set it up. Appointment's at 3. I don't know when I'll be back, but If we set it up, then all we gotta do is move the animals this afternoon. So I realized it yesterday and I said to Rebecca, "I think I've figured out what's wrong with me." She said, "What?" I said, "I just had surgery last Friday." Previous ones haven't been this bad. I guess that's what threw me off. It's time to move these ducks. Kinda sad. One last move move where we move the net. And this is the last day to feed them. The geese, we're raising 4 geese. Their day is not tomorrow, so we'll continue to raise them up, and we'll put the chicks out here also. There's one mineral missing out of the loose doors yesterday. Kelp. Oh, and Teddy came back. Teddy came out to me. I guess we didn't let him bark enough on the porch and he'll get bored and come back to me. Hey, any work we can do this morning when it's nice and cool, there's less work we have to do. The only thing about letting the goose in here, you definitely got to clean it out. See what I've done? Chickens were in here, we moved them over, we picked up the net. Now we grab the waterer and we put it where the cows are going today, and then we don't move this waterer for 3, 4 days. See that? Multiple waters. Set it up once, multiple species use it. I'm liking this new system so far. Got an experiment tomorrow because in this net we didn't leave them all the way to get back to the lane. We're going to try the road. We're going to use the road as a lane, because if we can eliminate our lanes, we eliminate them tracking over the same area. That gives us more pasture because we can use that area as pasture. Gives us easier access because there's no lane or perimeter fence to go through. We'd get rid of our perimeter fences too. I'm hoping this is going to work. Let's put it down here close to where the hose is gonna be. Wow, you look, you can see the changes, the fall changes, because it's like September 3rd. Things are changing. Fall is coming. Rest is coming. That's Arun over there in the old barn. He's, uh, getting our setup ready for the duck butchering tomorrow. Oh my gosh, this is crazy! They just leveled this. Grass has already come up. Oh my gosh, welcome to the temperate rainforest that is western North Carolina. This hasn't been bare but just a few days. It's already growing grass. That's not good because we want to grow a garden here. We need to get our tarp down. I want to talk to you real quick about my fall garden. I want this for you guys. I want— you know, you know what I want for you guys? I want this. Boom! Half a row of kale, 25 feet of kale, 25 feet of lettuce. It's not all, uh, unicorns farting rainbows. Let me show you. I talked to Casey about this problem. We have bugs. Have gotten in our bug net. I don't know how. I think maybe they were already in our plants because they were already starting to get some before we even started the bug net. Look at this. This is just— it's terrible. That's terrible because they're not going to make it. Oh boy, this is bad. I'm glad the beautiful one's only going to see this by a video. The next day, her heart will break. So my theory though is that we, we started these in the greenhouse and it all went well. Let's get the bags off first and then we'll get the netting off. So we started these and all was going good, and then we put them in the— we've started, uh, hardening them off, so we put them outside And I noticed they started getting the bugs, and so I started putting bug net over them, and it seemed like it helped, but it was time to transfer them not long after that. And what I'm thinking, my theory is that the bugs got embedded with the plants. Of course, they could be getting right through there. This row isn't that bad. We got salvageable produce there. I think what happened is bugs got embedded And then— oh look, that's jamming, whatever that is. I don't know if we want to— oh, that's Swiss chard. Oh, it's doing good. I think that we can keep it covered. It's doing great. You guys see that? Oh yeah, even much better than our spring crop. Oh yeah. So I don't think this row has to be uncovered. So I think the bugs got embedded in there. They got embedded and then trapped. That's my idea. All right, so I asked my professional market gardener friend Casey Ostwich, Honey Tree Farm on YouTube. I said, what do I do? My instinct was uncover it, just go ahead and uncover it, because if I'm trapping things, I don't know. He said yeah, when, when the bugs get under the net, he just uncovers it. Here, I'm sorry, I'm getting this all tangled in you. I'm gonna set this up here to dry. Yeah, this row, they got some bugs, but they're not as interested. This row of turnips was already in a bad way. I don't think any of them made it, but there's more Swiss chard. You know, you win some, you lose some, guys. Our lettuce is jamming, our kale's jamming. Those— the kale didn't do that good this spring. Swiss chard is just— oh no, these are beets. Beets is doing great. Swiss chard is doing great. Whatever it is over there is still surviving. Uh, it's— that's either broccoli or cabbage. Homesteading is hard. These bug nets work great in the spring. In the fall, and we just repeated the same thing we did in the spring. Another thing, guys, we had lined up some pigs in for November, some breeding pigs, and they just had their first litter, and they just, they just didn't do well. They just failed miserably at their first litter. And so we're thinking, okay, we gotta hit the drawing board there. We gotta ask some of my friends, would you still take them? There's some conditions of maybe why that happened. What I'm saying is you have plans You do things, you might even repeat the same thing at a different time and it not be successful, like right here. Just saying it's hard. And that's— you know what, that's okay. I'm not ashamed of this. We failed here. There is a failure, but it's okay. I mean, it happens. There's more here. Than if I didn't do nothing. And it's not all— it's not all failure. Our Swiss chard, lettuce, kale, beets— so 4 out of the 6 are doing great. And I still don't think this is all for loss. I mean, you could come in here with an organic spray of some sort, some bug control, but honestly, we have so much going on, I kind of wonder if we'll get to it. I mean, it'd be great if we do, and okay if we don't. Gotta give yourself some mercy. These might make it, these might make it, and that's one whole row. But let's just call it a failure and let's say this is all failure right here. So 2 rows failed, 1, 2, 3 rows jammed. 3 rows jammed. That's a lot of food right here, guys. That's a lot of food. That's going to be greens until Christmas. So what I would do next time— and I'm not sure this was the problem— but I would put this bug net on the soil blocks even before it sprouted in the fall. Because when you start fall crops, brassicas, bug pressure is intense. The bug pressure is intense and they're little, and so it's hard. That's what I'll do next year and we'll see what happens. One thing I always say, gardening, fail a lot. Try to fail little but fail a lot. So guys, let's embrace this. Come fail with me. Come fail with me. I've actually written a white paper on how to do this, how to do fall and winter gardening. Links to this stuff. I'm not perfect. Things happen. That's why I say come fail with me, guys. No pressure. You're gonna— you can follow this white paper and it will, it will get you something. It will get you more than nothing. That, that I can guarantee you, at least experience. So come join me. So I've written a white paper, I want to give it to you. It's in my Growing Groceries Quick Start. You can go to growinggroceriesquickstart.com, or you can go to the link down in the description. It's free. You get my white paper on, on how to do a winter garden, fall garden. It's not too late, guys. What is it? September, in 2 months. Well, you got to add 3 weeks this time of year, we don't have as much light. So 2 and a half, 3-ish months, you can have quick-growing greens like kale, lettuce, Swiss chard. And by the way, those things are a lot easier to grow and aren't going to have the bug pressure as cabbages and broccolis. That's what got got, though, guys. Those are hard. Those are hard. So anyway, join me. Join me in some failures. Just get up and do something, even if it's wrong, as Joel would say. Let's have Christmas dinner from the farm. You guys can do it. You can do it. I'll teach you how. Link down in the description or growinggroceriesquickstart.com. I don't know, Teddy, you're a wet mess. I'm gonna get a towel for you, buddy. You're okay. I'm gonna go get you a towel, okay? I'll get you a towel.

Stay.

All right, what do you need, Arun? Need me to move the tractor?

Can I sit on your lap?

Sure. Now you need some help getting tables out? Yeah, somewhere. All right, Jonah and Arun, you guys are gonna set it up? Yeah, I'm gonna go milk. I think I'll put a time lapse on you guys because this doesn't happen every day. Milking happens every day. Oh, look who's feeling good several days in a row. What you making?

French toast because I want it.

It's kind of one-hit wonders though with you. Yeah, you want something again. All you want pregnancy is French toast, but you're gonna want this today and then it's gonna be over.

Well, I've been wanting this for a couple days. I forgot actually. I was like, I think I'm gonna make myself French toast the other day and then I forgot. Forgot to make it for myself. It was yesterday because remember when I was like, I don't want to eat anything? Yeah, it was French toast I wanted to eat, but I forgot.

Becky's done with the French toast. I'm done with the eggs, the bacon. French toast and eggs and bacon, that's pretty classic.

Yeah, pretty yummy.

Yeah, the kids are gonna eat out on the porch. That means you and I get a breakfast date, darling. And I'm just gonna eat some leftover eggs from last night with some ham, fresh eggs. Mmm. It's 11:30, our appointment's at— we have to leave here at 1?

1:30-ish, a little bit before.

Alright, hopefully I can get in in 2 hours. Hey, I'm, uh, been editing, getting a little hungry. What does a carnivore do for snacks? Well, this is one idea. Roamsticks. One in pineapple, one in bacon flavor. Let's try bacon flavor. You want to try it with me, Jonah? These Roamsticks saved us on the Great American Farm Tour. Healthy, pure meat, no nitrate, none of that junk. You want to try it?

Sure. Which one is that?

Let's try the pineapple. It's funny because I think they like the pineapple, but Mom's usually right. Try this one.

Okay.

See, I bet that one has sugar in it. Which one do you like better? Yeah, no sugar. No sugar in the bacon one. And we got some, uh, beef sticks. Back to the grind.

Oh well, we'll just give this one a whirl.

I got editing done except for the music. Just in time, it's time to go. Bye. They're staying. Everybody's gonna pitch it for us. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. And that's us leaving the oral surgeon. So I have a— like, you can see that temporary, uh, mesh in holding the bone that they've built up. They've, uh, to make my jaw wider to handle posts for implants. Is that what you call them? Yes. And you can see the wire mesh. We were concerned. They're not concerned. They said it's only a 16th of it. They are hoping the gums will grow over it and the mesh will stay. So we just got to make sure the mesh— that I don't get an infection or it doesn't go through, mesh doesn't go loose and want to come out. I want to keep it in there for a good— well, they're going to see us again in 4 weeks. So they're hoping for 6 weeks.

At least 6 weeks to have the mesh in there. I saw online, because I did a little research, because I have to know, and they said that they want it to be in there 6 to 10 weeks is the best.

Yeah. So it's been in there 2 weeks almost.

It's been in there, yeah, a week and a half.

All right. Well, we're gonna hope for the best. It is feeling better today. I did not have a flare-up last night. Yeah. So I think we're doing good.