This May Be the Easiest Garden Crop Ever

The mission for today: we're planting our garlic. I'm asking for a lot because I have an important phone call at 10 o'clock. I'm not easily getting done till about 10 or 10:30 without a project these days. These days my business work after chores consists of two— one of two things. Either I'm working on the book The Rooted Life. Yay, my debut book, which by the way, thanks to you guys, our estimations, pre-sales are already at like 4,100, like over 4,000. The publisher's excited. It's more than they ever expected. Like I think our whole goal was pre-launch and launch 5,000. We're gonna blow that out of the water. So I meet with them at 4. 10 o'clock. The Rooted Life Master Class. So companion video course that will go in Abundance Plus. So either I'm working on my book or Abundance Plus. So this time we're talking to a graphics company about possibly doing graphics to illustrate points, like when I'm teaching the sections on how to put in a garden or how to move your chickens. It's kind of nice to have graphics as a visual. There's our griddle. I don't know if that's the right size. 6-inch spacer should be right there. Okay, pretty close. It's probably 6 and a half. We'll take it. We're gonna let Arun and the kids, uh, do the little animal chores, and I'm gonna get started on this. Tarp's come up a little bit, but looks like it's The weeds have stayed suppressed, so that's probably it right there. In the meantime, let's check our pepper and tomato garden. The animals can come in here soon. Got drip tape to get up, need to disconnect the tomatoes. We still have some tomatoes. I'm mucho. What do you think, Henry? We good? Yeah, they're getting all wrinkly. There's a good one. Some good peppers in here. Basically gotta come and take these plastic rings off. We should get our bean net out of here. How's Jonah's compost going? It's got some rabbit manure in there, some material. It's not, it's not nearly big enough. We're not gonna say that. He probably knows that. What's going on with your compost pile?

I'm waiting for the cows to get in there so I can get cow manure.

Ah, okay, so you just don't pause.

Yeah.

Okay, what's wrong with this rabbit manure?

Mom said it doesn't get hot enough. Okay, it's not that much.

I feel like kids, just like adults, learn best on their own, so I'm not going to intervene unless they ask. But that sounds like a good plan. You're gonna wait and get a hotter manure, like cow manure, when it's a lot closer, like right over there. What small animals did you do?

Just as doing—

you check their grit, you check their water, you fill up their feeders, you move the chickshaw, yes, you, you got— you, you check, make sure there's hay in the, in the nest box. Really? You did all that in 1 minute?

And I put— and I put the—

takes me 30 minutes to do all that. We have everything to plant this, save straw, but Erin's gonna go pick us up some straw tomorrow and get our straw organic. So it's a little bit of ways away. Are those onions?

They started growing again.

Wow, here on the edge they might have gotten a little light. You doing it? Yeah. Wait, are you, are you marking it? It's got to be marked. Okay, go ahead and stay straight as you can. This is marking where we can plant. This is a handy, handy tool. Wait, you don't have to—

this wheel isn't hitting the dirt.

We'll be able to see where the grid is and get it pretty close. Yeah, the outer, the outer one is not. You're right, it's too humped. That way you don't have to draw a line or draw a string. You just do one straight-ish line by walking it. And you can plant in the grid. See, it's giving us a grid mark so we know it's right there. And it didn't mark right here, but we can see about where that is. So we mark— we put one in there, Jonah, and then we put one in over there on the edge, 18 inches apart, 6 inches. So we're gonna do 2 rows, they're gonna be 18 inches apart, and inside that every 6 inches. All right, we're gonna take our garlics These are little tiny garlic seeds, if you will. Point it in up, root it in down. That's good. You're doing it so smart.

It's my auger attached to a jack.

Yeah. This needs to get covered. I think all that we're lacking to cover this is these sweet potatoes. What? Okay, I didn't think there were any sweet potatoes here. I thought we had a failure. Let's just dig it up real quick because that, that could be worth it if there's a bunch of those.

That might have just been a lucky one because see, yeah, see, there's nothing in this one.

Yeah. All right, let's see. Measly little sweet potato harvest compared to last year. Hey, but it's something. We got a dinner. Hey, this reminds me, since we planted this sweet potato patch for my Dad last year. They're very sweet potatoes I'm holding, and the COVID of my book is a memory. It's a— it's in honor of my dad, really, the COVID shot of The Rooted Life. We planted those because he wanted to plant sweet potatoes if he got better, and he never did, so we planted them for him. And these— this reminds me because he died today 2 years ago. Gideon's telling me to wait. You ready? Yeah, I think I have enough in my hands, don't you? All right, you got this?

Yes.

Okay, why you want to go with me?

Because everybody else going.

Okay, I think we're gonna go. They want to show me their little bike trail they made yesterday down my old mountain board course. I'm glad I quit professional mountain boarding because And my kids would be doing that crazy stuff and I'd be a nervous wreck. Put these in here, hopefully they'll cure. That's neat, a little tribute. Little dirt on my hands for boots. Doing it for boots, as my cousin JD would say. What?

Watch this.

Okay, I'm gonna water the grass. Nice. Maybe a roon will come get me. All right, the kids want to show me this. They've been working hard. They've got a trail down my old track. Uh, where y'all gonna start? Way up there at the— yeah, the net way up there. They're gonna come over the tabletop, down through the berm, through that berm, through the rhythm section, and on down. I'm gonna follow you with the drone too, and you've got the GoPro. 1, 2, 2 and a half gallons. More coming. I had to quit for this phone call. I gotta get on in 10 minutes. Uh, but I bet you there might be another— there's at least another half gallon, if not another gallon. Indian Wednesday, thanks to Arun. That looks good.

That looks delicious.

Yeah, everybody likes it. Everybody's favorite. I got off the phone call, ended up being— you know what we decided?

What?

We could get— do graphics for the Rooted Life Master Class. Fancy, like, illustrated graphics. Or Ben thought of it while we were on the phone, we could do like a clear chalkboard, a clear glass, and the camera will be right there and we'll have the glass up, right? And I can draw and they can see me, and I can draw that, and it's like $1,500, so like 10 times cheaper.

It's like way cheaper.

I think we'll do that.

It is something that we can use over and over.

I think we'll do that, and we can use the that budget to create more content. Yes, right? I think that's what everybody would rather have. Scale down the quality just a hair. Maybe, maybe it's even better with the glass though.

I don't know, but then we might even have some good discussions on more content.

Yeah, so that we spoil it? No, we're not gonna spoil it.

I don't like spoiling.

We're not spoiling it. We've got a whole new show.

I don't know.

Idea.

It's not rooted stuff we talked about. May not happen, but it might.

Rooted season 1. Well, Rooted's ending at season 1. It was a great run. It was good. We got a whole nother show idea. I'll give you this hint: we're not the focus, which we love.

This tree is really frog high.

Really? So I should say that, like, can I give that a minute? Oh my gosh, come on! We got a guy choking, a guy falling. What's next?

Me breaking my leg.

So we're not the focus. Abundance Plus is not the Justin Rhodes Show. So we're happy to take the focus off of us and put it on other people, get it on other people. So a lot of cool stuff coming down the line. In other news, thank you guys for signing up for the Great American Farm Tour showing. This is my plate. I just got a text from one of the members. He's hosting in Boone. They have— they had 30 people sign up. They outdid their house. They decided to rent a gymnasium. They have 50 people now.

That's exciting.

So this— that's so cool. The Great America Farm Tour is showing across the country coming November 13th. Sign up for that is already over. You guys can still watch online if you missed that. And because this seems to be so successful this year, we're— we, we got to do it again.

Well, I like the idea of maybe just— they can either just get together and have a barbecue or or a potluck, or they could watch a show. Yeah, yeah, Unrooted.

The Great American Farm Tour is just the excuse. Yeah, next year it could be that, or it could be a different documentary or a show, or their choice, or not even a show. I mean, it's, it's, it's kind of fun to get together and watch something. You can have discussion like we've been doing with Rooted. Yeah, but it's good to have an excuse. And some people aren't just doing pot— they're like cooking for it. Oh wow. Or catering it. Wow. Depends on the host. So it's gonna be neat. Yeah.