She Planted 500 Seeds! In an Afternoon

Rebecca has called me down. You got all the plants back in?

Yes.

Had their sun bath for the day.

They did, and their wind bath.

So you didn't need me.

Yeah, so I ordered these because I thought that these were the same size as these. Oh, but they're not. Okay, so I'm like, they don't fit as nicely.

If you rip two off, they don't fit nice because that's what we did. We had to rip two off.

I know.

Well, hopefully, hopefully that's it. Hope that just solved your problem. They don't fit this way. They don't fit that way nicely like they did here. Because the bigger blocks are probably going to be better. I know, because you have more soil. Where—

what happened to the, um, trays that we had that didn't have sides? Did you go ahead and add sides to them? Because now I'm wondering if—

oh yeah, I should just—

I'm wondering now, will it sit?

You coming with this morning, Mom?

I am.

Oh my word, it's gonna be fun. Gideon! Teddy, Teddy, Teddy pooped and peed this morning, 5:30. Are you an early riser? Are you an early riser? Hey, Mr. Brown, let's go! Are you going with? Yes or no? All right, your snack's on the counter, bro. See you later, boys. We have the calf. But hey, for me, are you gonna bring him? You're gonna turn on the light? Yeah, because I saw him licking the cow manure yesterday over at the stanchion.

Were you licking the cow manure? You little nut, you.

And in his heart, he's— deep down, he's a dog. Although he thinks he's a human.

Look at his little tail.

He thinks he's a little baby. Are you a little human baby? All right, I got the kids their snack. Let's go, Mom. Uh, we gotta get the pig food again. Lots of food. All right, I'll meet you down there. I'll warm Sally up. We're gonna do things a little different. I just got so much going on right now. Prepping for the launch, prepping a free summit for you guys, How to Grow Your Own Groceries. So you're gonna get a bunch of free videos coming up real soon heading into our spring Do-It-Yourself Abundance launch. Let's head down. Got up early this morning to work on that and need to get the pigs done, milk, and then get back in on taking care of my members, editing. You can have some. Go ahead. You want some? Here, you like that chicken. There you go, Amazo. Hopefully we'll have time for that this afternoon. You know what, let's do the pretty thing. Move the bikes. That'll do. Where's our rubber mallet? I think Arun used it on his project yesterday. I thought there was another one right here. I know we have this. This is great for prying it off, not as good as for hammering it on. Oh well, maybe I can just do it by hand. It rained 2 inches yesterday. It's blanking. It needs fuel. I have time according to my clock, but I'd like to get it done before Beauty comes out. We haven't had Sally long, but it's definitely like, how did we not have Sally? I'll tell you one way Sally hasn't increased our production. Productivity. Oh, tenfold maybe. In that— here, can y'all hear me good out there? All right, so Sally has enabled us to move the cows and feed hay all over the farm, whereas last year I just put them in one field. And because I was wheelbarrowing hay Because I've gotten hay all over the farm, I've gotten manure all over the farm all winter. Organic matter, nitrogen. Come on, get in.

Come on, there's shoes out here.

Right there? You think they're wet?

What about these?

Have those ever dried out?

No, they're not.

Here, come wear your rain shoes. All right, let's hit it, guys. 15 till 8. We're doing good, doing it. Woo!

Good job, good job, Daddy! Good job, you peepeed outside!

Yay! Daddy, you stay here, okay? I'll tell you, he jumps. Just shut the Oh, will he jump out? Jenny, you want to stay with him?

He has jumped out when I was moving one.

Really? Even like that? Yeah.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

I was like, you're gonna tie him then?

I'm gonna tie him up.

This is absolutely beautiful. Fresh air, cool morning.

Oh, it's so nice.

It's the best. Glad to see the sun. Whoa, it's working. Fence is working. Oh, that's a bunch of banana peels.

Where's my chicken?

And it was just boulder and buttermilk. Oh yeah, they made this more penetrable for us so we can get in here and saw. I mean, they won't deal with these 2-inch trees, but they will make it where you can actually get in here with a chainsaw. So we're just walking around especially on a wet day. You don't want your net touching, it'll ground out Mega and that kills the battery, especially if it's cloudy and the solar isn't collecting sun and charging. Oh, you guys have got it made today. How's he doing?

He's doing good.

I have to get out.

It's Sally.

Woo! Oh, I went to go forward. It was in reverse. All right, here we go. As soon as we hit the pavement, we hear something dragging.

Wow, remember when we bottomed out? I bet that's what happened.

There's a hole that big in this poke pin. That was fun, wasn't it?

It was.

That's cool. I like getting that over with. Rebecca's about to put her seeds out, harden them off. You ready? The boy's got the cows. Teddy just farted. What do you mean?

I can hear the fart.

I can hear you. That's a first. Do we need to cover cabbage yet? Do we have insect pressure yet? No. Okay, I want us to get some good cabbages, you know what I'm saying?

No, I'm trying. I tried. I didn't have good— so this is the cabbage. I didn't have good germination rate with this one. This one and that one I did, so we're gonna have something.

Good job getting the cows in. We're getting up some spent hay for the compost pile. What's your vision?

I got sleep.

Okay, good. You're helping too. Oh wow. Hey, you stepped off, honey. When Flossie steps off, she just jumps right back on. Come on, come on, old lady. Come on, old lady. There you go. Good girl. Really? You just peed. Why are you peeing again? Are you over it? That's a lot of pee. Loads of hay, just in time. We need to build another compost pile. Hey. What are you doing? Good. Good. Yeah, how'd you recruit your mom?

Well, I had to borrow some coffee filters from her so I could germinate, and I can't just stand around and talk.

That's somebody you want to borrow something from. Borrow a coffee filter and then she starts sweeping.

Middle of the dirt.

Really?

What are you doing?

Really? All right, let me get this milk in and we'll talk to— looks like Randolph showed up. We hire Randolph from time to time to help us with the some construction projects. This time, guys, we're starting to make a permanent fence for our chickens in our chicken garden. I cannot wait for you guys to see this. It's going to be very special. Good morning, Randolph.

Good morning.

How are you?

All right, I reckon.

Good. I'm gonna try a little fence. Okay, good. What's going on?

And shut the door behind you.

You're gonna give him a bath? Yeah, he's gonna jump out. Mama said to. Mom said you could give him a bath? Yeah, the idea here is chickens and gardens really should always go together. They complement each other so well. Extra garden weeds go into the chickens. The chickens are on a deep run making compost. Compost goes into the gardens. It's a really good relationship. The chickens feed the garden and the gardens feed the chickens. Getting rid of the picket fence for a more farm-style fence. Maybe more practical, a cattle panel fence. And you're just— you just got enough today just to do this run right here? No, that's— that's enough to go all the way down through. Oh, okay, okay.

You're a good boy.

That's the P. Good job! It's gonna be deep and it's gonna be cold. Oh, it is colder.

Woo!

I missed that. How was it?

It was icy.

It was good today.

It was very icy.

Oh, I see a mucho garden in my future. Crazy garden lady.

That's right.

What are you planting?

All the things.

Okay, this is summer kraut you're going on now. Our spring— we've done the spring. It's not too late for people to grow spring, by the way. You got, you got lots of time, so no rush. Certainly not too late for summer crops like, like peppers and tomatoes and squashes and pumpkins and all those goodies. I've been working on the last few days on— we're going into a summit next year, next week, How to Grow Your Own Groceries. Here it is. And I've been working on how to teach you very clearly How to grow an instant garden. How to do it with chickens. How to do it if you don't have chickens. Just an easy 40-inch by 48-inch garden, or 40-inch by 8-foot garden. You can grow a lot in that if you go by the Square Foot Gardener spacing. Rebecca?

Yeah, babe?

And I want you guys to— I'm gonna do a demo for you guys. We're gonna do an instant chicken garden miracle. Whoa! Sorry about that, somehow caught on the honey. So Rebecca, would you mind planting me some seeds today? Yes, some spring crops. 56 spinach, spinach, 24 Swiss chard, 24 kale, and 24 lettuce. That's how many plants you can do. 40-inch by 8-foot garden bed, that's a lot of food. I know, a lot of food in just like an area bigger— less than this. Gideon, are you gonna fall asleep? Maybe. Oh, maybe. Well, he's tired if he's gonna admit to it. All right, Mom, will you take the blog fans when you go?

Yes.

Next week, how to plant an instant garden.

I am down here at the greenhouse. I've got all my seedlings. They have been out for— since when did I put them out? Like 8 o'clock this morning, and it's around 12:30. So because the sun is so harsh, I might let him stay out for 30 more minutes and then put him back in because I don't want to— I don't want to do too much too soon. I did it on— today's Wednesday— I did it on Monday for like 3 hours in the afternoon, but it was super overcast. This is definitely a lot more than they got the day before, but I am going to start a ton of seeds, um, today. I want to get my stuff going, get my, um, seedlings going. I'm gonna start tomatoes and peppers, like all my summer stuff. I'm probably a little bit behind, but that's okay. Better late than never. So last year I germinated some of my tomatoes tomatoes and peppers with like in coffee filter— I didn't do coffee filters because I didn't have coffee filters, but, um, I did it in paper towels and I had some success. But I, I've researched a little bit more about how to do that method, so I'm gonna try it again and see what happens. Hopefully I will have more success. If not, I'll just buy my tomatoes and peppers. I mean, obviously I had some success because I grew some of my own tomatoes, So yeah, and I am gonna plant Justin's stuff too. I've done several of these. Um, so basically what I'm doing is I am taking a coffee filter and wetting it, then laying it out, putting my seeds on it, and then labeling it and putting it in here. The directions that I read online were to use a plastic bag. I'm just really trying to not use plastic. Just in general, so the lady who was writing the blog said to blow the bag up with a straw and then close it, and I thought, well, what about a jar? And then I don't have to use plastic and and it's reusable and all of those things. So I don't know. I don't know if it's gonna work, but I thought that it's gonna create a greenhouse in the jar. It's already like sweating. So it's great, you know, it's a greenhouse within the greenhouse and we're just gonna see how this rolls. Okay, so wind is getting crazy. So I want to get these in before they before they blow away. So I'm just gonna start taking them in. You gonna help me get them? All right, got them in. I'm gonna water them real nice. Jonah and I think that there's probably like 500 plants in here, so that's pretty awesome. I have a bunch of things that like don't matter, like flowers. Like, they're nice, they're beautiful, but like in the grand scheme of things, we would really want food. So I'm going to do a little bit of flowers. I have a bunch of herbs to do. I got some seeds from Sow the Land from their Christmas gift.

Rebecca has called me down. You got all the plants back in?

Yes.

Had their sun bath for the day.

Now I'm wondering if maybe I should just— I'm wondering now—

Will it sit? I think it would sit. Okay.

Lily and I have been working hard. She did about half of these, and then I started doing soil blocks just because I'm— I want to get a good test of the difference and if I like them. Right now I think I'm leaning more towards soil blocks, which is kind of crazy. I'm done for today as far as like doing this. We only have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7 trays left anyways. So, um, we're gonna get started on planting. I'm excited about that. So this— these that we're gonna plant right here, Lily, are for Papa. The ones that he— he had some specific ones that he wanted me to plant for him, so we're gonna do that. I'm gonna get you started. Start to do seeds. So I'll have a really long time to go swimming.

I have like probably about half hour, you think?

Yeah, I think you'll have some time to swim.

I've been clanking away editing. Apparently Randolph has a first draft, huh? What? That's hardcore. It's plenty high. I'm wondering if we can go lower. He could lower it to be this hot. Lower it 3 inches.

Okay, but then what will the top look like?

It'll look just— it'll look the same. I'm just— I'll cut the posts off 3 inches.

Oh, okay, I get it.

The whole thing. Yeah, it'll still be level.

Yeah, then do that.

Yeah, I think that looks good, Beck.

Yeah, yeah, I think it's nice.

That's fun.

I wish I would have had this idea when we put the picket fence on.

Hey, it's a sunk cost.

It's gonna be what we need. This is more fun.

It's farming. This is more— that's for the city.

It is for the city, and we ain't city here. No offense to people who have picket fences, it just doesn't work for us.

Hey, get back over there pulling, buddy. Come on, hurry before breakfast. All right, my assistant in the business is here. I gave her our seeds that we're shipping out to members and you want in on that, it's coming up like the week after next. What do you think about that puppy, Heather? He's cute. I might steal him. What do you think, kids? Doesn't he look like a little Chewie? Chewbacca?

He looks like—

he does. That's funny. So this is the book. This is kind of like my first ever printed book. Look at that. Intro to Permaculture: Design Your Best Homestead Ever. A whopping, a whopping 42 pages. That's because it's straight and to the point. Just get it done. Just plant. Go and do it. It's going to be available like physical book along with Attainable Sustainable, that big nice book. First time ever shipping a book with the member area. Offered it, offered this to my member, my current members this week. This is going out to new members next week. Stay tuned. Look at what Anna has made, man. I've got more done today than I did the whole entire week. You too.

Oh yeah, I got so much done.

How many plants did you plant?

A lot. And we have, we have, we have like 500 plants. Well, I'm gonna get some.

Yep.

Grandma's, y'all, I'm gonna get some.

Yep. Our beef and the spaghetti.

I think it's pork.

Oh, it's pork spaghetti. Yay. Like, that's not almond flour, that's something else.

I think it's cassava flour.

I'm gonna—

Ooh, the crust is actually crunchy.

So Grandma, would you rather him read a book or play Sudoku?

Oh, it doesn't matter.

She won't say to put it on record. I'm trying to get her on record. She won't do it. She won't do it.