A4C Prepper Dan March 2023
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
144.65706
Summary
It's mid-march here in eastern Canada! This is the time of year where we start making our maple syrup, it's also the time we start some indoor seedlings. It's amazing what you can grow with just a little bit of plastic!
Transcript
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This is mid-march here in eastern Canada. This is the time of year where we start making our
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maple syrup. It's also the time of year where we start some indoor seedlings. It's been a productive
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winter in the greenhouse and it's amazing what you can grow with just a little bit of plastic.
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But we're gonna go inside in just a few minutes. We're gonna start some seedlings. We're gonna
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have fun doing it. It's a great time of year. So let's go inside and let's have some fun.
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Okay the first thing we're going to do today is we're going to plant some seeds because it's the
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middle of March here in eastern Canada. If you live in the west, bonus, because you've got extra
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growing season. So what we're gonna do here in the east, we're gonna start some seedlings here,
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especially some tomatoes. We make our own sauces here. So we're gonna plant especially some Romas
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and some beefsteak. And here we have some heirloom, what are these now? Some magnificent Manitoba tomatoes.
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We're also gonna plant some peppers and some, I call them jalapenos, but some jalapeno peppers,
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as well as a few little flowers. The tiny tims, I'm the only one in the family that eats a little tiny
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tims, as well as some of these wonderful little yellow pear-shaped tomatoes. So we're gonna plant
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these in some of these little peat pots here that we're gonna use. And what we're also gonna do today
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is I've got a few leeks that I have started about a month or so, well a few weeks ago, and we're gonna
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transplant these into these little pots here. Now it's important to have all of your seeds available.
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Now what I did a few months ago is I ordered some seeds for this coming year, and I've always got a
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really good stock of seed here. As you can see I've got, well quite a bit, my beans for the summer,
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my peas, as well as my squash, all of that family here. Vegetables, I've got some leftover from last
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year, but I also saved my seeds as well, and I put them in these little yellow packets here. My
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scarlet runner beans, pole beans, peas, cucumbers, and more peppers here. Vegetables and herbs as well,
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some of these are leftover from last year, as well as catnip for the cat, different types of lettuces as
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well. And flowers, we've got all kinds, I grow a lot of sunflowers, different kinds of sunflowers,
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lupins, all kinds of basket type flowers, and those are in here, and flowers, and more sunflowers,
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sunflowers, sunflowers, sunflowers, and we have a lot of birds here, and they love them. And I grow
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giant Russian, I grow multi-headed sunflowers, as well as nice colorful red ones. So let the fun begin,
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Okay, next we're going to take some of these leeks that I planted about three weeks ago,
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and we're going to transplant them into these little, uh, little planters. I recycle these,
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they usually last me a couple of years or so. And I always use these, um, recycled, uh, mushroom
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containers. Sometimes I plant in these directly, but I poke holes in them first. These ones don't
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have holes, and these fit in there just nicely. And then once these leeks are transplanted in here,
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they'll stay in here for about, uh, three weeks. And then I'm going to move them into my greenhouse
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for another month or so before I put them out in the garden. I always use some really good, uh, potting
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soil. And, um, the stuff I'm going to be putting them into it here is, um, has got some, uh, compost in
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it as well. So it's going to give them a good, uh, a good chance to, to get some really good growth
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here. So these again, this is, uh, recycled as well. This is what you get your full chicken in at
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Superstore. So this is the bottom. It comes with a plastic lid. And when I start these,
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I put the plastic lid on top and I have, uh, I'll show you after I've got some heat mats that these
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go under. And so this really helps to germinate quite a bit too. So, uh, these are old leek seeds
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here. So some of them didn't take too well, but what you want to do with these leeks here is really
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get, um, get it so, so that the roots are a little bit deeper in these containers. And you want to keep
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building the soil up around them. So usually what I do is I take two and I, I put them in fairly deep
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and then I'm going to keep adding more soil to them. So we're going to do this until all of our leeks are
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in their new homes for the next few weeks. So nice and simple. And I'm going to reuse this container
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here and I'm going to plant this full of marigolds because marigolds are good for the garden.
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We love marigolds. Again, I grow different types of marigolds. I have some marigolds that grow four
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feet tall. They're a special heirloom variety. And, uh, not too many people around here grow those.
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Again, I save my own seed from those as well. Now these ones here are a little tricky because
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they're a little short. So, yeah, I'll have to be careful with these ones here.
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Nothing like getting your hands dirty in the springtime.
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And we'll continue this until the other package is full as well.
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And we'll continue this until the other package is full as well.
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Well, we're going to take a quick look inside the greenhouse.
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This is the 21st of March, 22nd of March, I think. Right now it's saying it's two degrees outside.
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Feels like minus four and it's beautiful out. We still have snow on the ground here,
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but inside this greenhouse, things have been growing for the last couple of months.
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Let's go inside and take a look. Things have shifted a little bit.
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Oh, does it ever smell nice in here? And let's see. We're fogging up.
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23 degrees in here already. Yeah, we've taken a little bit of a hit here with our turnip,
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but things have survived. There's been no heat at all in the winter here,
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and we've gone down to 20, 22, 24 degrees below. Our carrots are doing okay.
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Our Swiss chard died, but it's coming back. A few of them there.
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We have parsnips are coming up. Our beets took a bit of a beating too, but yeah, look at that. I mean,
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stuff is coming up. Another month or so, we should be able to harvest all this before we put
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some of the spring crops in here. So, and even some of our herbs are coming back and some of our
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planters that will be going outside. And last year, this right to the ceiling goes to, it's about
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eight feet tall, nine feet tall. Everything was growing right to the ceiling. So, all of this
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plastic will be coming off in about a month's time or so, and it'll get really, really warm in here.
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And yeah, look at that. It's like summer in here, 24 degrees, and it feels like minus four degrees
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outside. Again, no heat whatsoever in here. So, wonderful little invention, these greenhouses.
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Again, I'm fortunate that I have my own sawmill, so I was able to build this for relatively cheap,
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but if you can find somebody that's got a sawmill that can mill something like this for you,
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we have to have this because we're literally up in a gravel pit here. But,
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and this little thing is only eight by 12, and it really has done us well.
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So, I am really fortunate that because I have some livestock, I'm able to get some really good
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poop and make my own, my own fertilized watering stuff for them, some good manure tea. So, we have
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some chickens here that want to say hello. Say hi, girls. Say hi to the camera.
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Say hi to everybody, girls. These girls give us good eggs every day. But we also have some bunnies,
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and the thing with rabbits is you can use the manure fresh. You don't have to compost it at all.
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So, let's take a little trip to rabbit town. Yeah. So, this is what we use right here.
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This is the good stuff. And what we're going to do with that is we're going to take some of that stuff,
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and I'll show you real quick as we go over to Bunnyville, because in Bunnyville is where we're
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going to get some stuff. We're going to take a five gallon bucket, and we're going to take some of
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that stuff, put it in here, and put water in here, dilute it, and then we're going to mix that,
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and in our watering cans, once a week, we're going to water our seedlings with that, and poof,
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Okay, a quick wrap up, here we have all of our peppers planted, again in our mushroom
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recycled containers, here I've got them in an old jiffy pot container with a lid on top,
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underneath I have a heat pad, now this one here has a controller, I know it's upside down but
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it's a controller with a, I can control the temperature of the heat pad, I do have another
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heat pad underneath this one here that's just automatically set and it keeps this whole
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contraption fairly warm and I've just put the this one on top of the heat pad and this whole top here
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will get nice and condensed and all kind of foggy inside but this really helps with the germination
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so tomatoes peppers usually within a week to 10 days I should have some nice little plants in here
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I had some lettuce seed left over the other day from the tower garden I threw them in here
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this is about I'm going to say two weeks old so I just threw this in here and I'll probably end up
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giving these away and a little bit of wheat grass that we grow for the chickens just cut this off and
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throw this at them and again two extra trays that I had from rotisserie chickens and I just threw some
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seed in here uh three different kinds of marigolds and so in a couple of weeks we'll come back and
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I'll show you the the end product of this so just a few things to wrap up some grow lights as well that
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I got off amazon these ones they don't have anymore but there's all kinds of them usually for a set of
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they come in a set of six and I have these on a timer they come on at six o'clock in the morning
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and they go off at about 11 o'clock at night so a few things just to go over with you
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this is a wonderful time of year I trust maybe you've gotten your seed catalogs already
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but with the price of food what it is these days what a joy it is to be able to grow your own fruits
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or your vegetables anyhow we don't grow we do grow some fruit here we have an abundance of blueberries
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here in our own land blackberries and we forage as well we have strawberry farms not too far away
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but vegetables for sure we have a greenhouse on our property for an added long season this year
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I'm probably doubling if not tripling our raised bed gardens as I've said earlier we live in a gravel
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pit here but I'm also building more raised beds with covers on them so I can extend my growing
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season by two weeks in the spring and maybe as long as a month in the fall so one thing to remember
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as well I mentioned doing a manure tea if you don't have your own bunnies or your own chickens to make
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your own manure tea you can buy a bag of compost or a bag of manure at superstore Canadian Tire wherever
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they sell that stuff you can make your own get yourself a bucket put the fresh manure in there with
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the manure in there put water in it let it seep for about a week and then just get the
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water the the the manure tea out of that and all you're doing is in a watering can you put about
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10 percent of your manure tea in there the rest with water one thing to remember don't water just
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that your freshly planted seeds in there they don't need it but wait until your plants are well established
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a few inches high then you start giving them that manure to you about once a week and I always use the
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miracle grow seed seed starter soil when I plant my seeds go with a good soil and just as a tip
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I usually buy buy about five to six bags of that stuff when it goes on sale in the fall that way I'm
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sure to have it because a lot of places they don't open until later in the spring and you want to have
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it this time of year so I hope this is helpful we're going to come back in a few weeks you're going to see
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some stuff having grown already stuff in the greenhouse should be a lot bigger and we'll have
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some more tips and by that time we'll be planting some more stuff all right that's it god bless you