Growing Food in the DESERT Our New Massive Garden

This week on OSRL. So and the only way we can foster them is to make sure all the dogs can get along so. This is a really big push to start growing some food out here. It's been a long time coming and that's how you plant a tree. But I feel like this is an important investment in our future. How's it going everyone and welcome back to the domestead. Now if you're new here my wife and I were building our own home off-grid here in the Arizona desert and if you could do me a big favor definitely give this video a big thumbs up and definitely subscribe because you'll want to see all the things that are going on out here. Now if you caught our last video you know we got some big things going on out here. Jeez we got some big things going on out here and one of those being we got flies everywhere. They're absolutely terrible. Real aggressive this year but we got big things going on. So Jess is out here working like a maniac getting this garden prepped. Look at this. You can almost get a whole idea of her garden plan right here with these stones. Man you have been doing a lot of work out here. You've been getting ready right. You got trees coming in so you are hustling. You want to get these trees in the ground ASAP right? Yes. So I'm going to leave you alone because I don't want to get in your way. I don't want to get trampled in. If you've seen some of our previous videos you know I didn't quite get all the trenches that we had out here filled in. So I've been working like a dog kind of getting a bunch of dirt moved over here and getting some of these trenches filled in. You can see some of the loose dirt over here but I got this all filled in over here. We're all filled in all the way over here and I actually still have a little bit more work to do over here. I'm going to have to get the shovel and the wheelbarrow out. There's still a little bit over here that I got to bring some dirt in and I got to remove these weeds. This is a really big push to start growing some food out here. It's been a long time coming. I'm excited. I know Jess is excited. Jess you're doing a fantastic job. But that's not all we got going on. Again we talked about in our previous video but we have actually got some dogs that we're trying to rehome. We got three dogs we're trying to rehome and this is for a neighbor that recently passed away. We got lucky one of those dogs has been, we have found a home for him and I think I think that's going to turn out real nice for Larry. But there are still two dogs that we are looking to get homes for. Now if worse comes to worse if we need to we're thinking maybe we can bring those two dogs here at least to live with us temporarily while we still look for homes. So part of that will be to see if UVIA can get along with them. But just in case we do bring them in here if it works out. I absolutely have, there's an absolute mess underneath this roof of just materials that we've been collecting for the home. So I think I can just clean this area up underneath the roof and maybe we could possibly use this as an area for the to kind of house the dogs for a little bit. So we're going to see if that works. So I might just kind of clean this area up. You know it needs to get cleaned up anyway regardless of dogs or not. So I'm probably going to work on that as well. And on top of all that I still got to finish up the laundry room, the walls of the laundry room. So we've been so busy with the dogs that it's been tough getting out here. I mean the dogs have definitely been a big priority. I do want to get that taken care of. So I haven't made much progress on these walls. So we still got this level right here. I need to get some wood over here and then we can start building up on here. I don't think it'll take too much more to finish this off. So I'm really excited to try and get this room closed off. We'll get some vents up here on the wall and I'm hoping we can find out how well those earth tubes work sooner rather than later. Like summer is really coming along pretty quickly. If I can get this room closed up we can find out the temperature difference with those earth tubes in this room compared to some of these other areas where it's getting blasted by the greenhouse. So let's see. All right so before I start moving some more dirt out here. Just needs help over here. We got a whole bunch of compost that we put out here. But now it's in Jess's way. We thought this would be a good spot for it. But we got a lot of plant material here. A lot of compost. So I need to get all this moved. It's also surrounded by just a ton of weeds. Look at this. You enjoying the garden? Enjoying hanging out in the garden? You gonna help daddy? You gonna help daddy? I need to get it out of here. So I'm gonna shovel up all this compost. It's all buried in between the weeds. And I'm gonna move it off to the side. Somewhere where it's out of the way. So we can keep on moving on. I already got animals digging in my garden. All right so I got a lot of that compost picked up. Just some scraps but that'll be fine. Got a bunch of the weeds. Got all that removed. And I'm gonna fill in the rest of this trench here with dirt. And that should be the last of the trench that I have to fill in. So Jess should be pretty much set. Well you know she still has a lot to work out here to do herself. But she'll be that much closer to being done. So I'm gonna do my part. All right so compost moved. Got some weeding done. Got this trench all filled in. Looks really nice. So I think we're pretty good now. I think I got Jess set up for a little bit. We'll see if she has anything else she needs me to do out here. But in the meantime, until she lets me know, I'm going to I'm going to do some cleanup. All right it's time to start doing some cleaning. Jeez we just got a crazy amount of grasshoppers everywhere out here. It's crazy. It's wild. So first off I'm going to get pick up some of these doors. And I'm going to bring those into the house. I got a bunch of lumber. I'm going to bring that into the house. And then we'll go from there. All right what do you got here? Is this a Christmas morning for you? Yeah. Now you were expecting a lot more boxes right? Yes. But we just got this one box. But it looks like maybe all your trees came in there. You're like oh I'm going to eat this. You might want to put these in someplace safe. You gotta wait until the blueberries grow. Are these uh bare root trees? Yes. I can see what you mean. They uh go on the ground like yes. All right it's a brand new day. And we're hustling out here on the garden. In fact Jess pulled me off of cleaning duty again because she wanted some help out here. But she's still rocking and rolling out here quite literally. So yesterday I was doing some weeding. Get some of that out. I've been collecting rocks for her because she's in constant need of rocks. I mean it's a rock village going out here. I mean look at this. Look at this. It's like the ruins of an ancient civilization. It's wild. Yeah it's kind of an art piece you're creating out here. It'd be a shame to ruin it with a garden. Um so yeah how's it going? I mean you were really tired yesterday. You burnt yourself out eh? Yeah well I mean it's hard hauling rocks around. It's a lot of work. Pitching to the choir. I don't know like it's the best way I can think of to mark the spaces. We have like marking paint but that would take a lot of paint. Yeah. I don't know how many cans we would need. Rocks are free. Rocks are free. We got lots of them. Maybe I could just even like leave them in the garden to kind of line the garden beds. Yeah Jess is hard at work. She's going to be moving forward with that. Uh you want me to get some more supplies for you. We're going to be uh plant putting some trees in the ground today right? Yeah. So I'm going to be getting making some stakes for her and getting some wire to protect it and we'll go from that right? All right keep that you're doing good. Amazing I should say. All right so uh what tree are we doing? This is Buckeye Gala. Okay. And it looks like a dead stick but it is not. It's a tree. And a little something to top it off huh? Mulch soak up the water. All right next tree what do we got uh what do we got this time? Honeycrisp. Can't get enough of that Honeycrisp. And that's how you plant a tree. All right guys another day another dollar. So we are back out here. Jess has been working furiously out here. Measuring placing rocks. You know uh by the end of yesterday we got two more of these bare root trees and we got two more to go. And I think they got to get into they got to get in today. So they got to get in the ground today. How are you holding up? It's not even lunchtime yet. Uh but I can see you're covering up and protecting yourself from the sun. You got the hat, the sunglasses, long sleeve shirt. Nice nice. Uh while Jess has been busting her butt out here I have been bringing rocks to keep her going. So you know I got a decent pile of rocks here but she will probably go through this. How long do you think you'd go through this pile right here? An hour? Maybe two? So this should hold her for a little bit. But I've been getting them from that pile over here. Finding some good rocks over there. Bringing them over here. So we are moving right along out here with this garden. This massive garden growing space. But uh let me show you what else I've been doing. All right so work continues cleaning up over here and I'm making real good progress. I got to get these pallets out of here. I got to get some of this used up wood. A lot of this is just old lumber that I've been trying to find a use for over time. And then a bunch of stuff over here yet. So I still have a long way to go but uh hopefully we get this tied up here in the next day or two. Is that enough for a little bit? Yeah. All right well this is a big day. Uh you know we uh in our previous video we talked about those uh other Anatolians that uh you know we're trying to rehome. And uh we haven't had much luck so far. Um but you know we're still trying. But uh we might have to find someplace while we're rehoming them. And so we're looking at possibly fostering them if we need to. So and the only way we can foster them is to make sure all the dogs can get along. So this is our attempt our first attempt to trying to get these dogs together and we'll just see how this works out. Hey puppy. Hey. Oh that's a good girl. That's a good girl. Good job. That's a good girl. That's a good girl. You want a treat? You want a treat? Good job. So the last meeting didn't go so well. Well the first meeting didn't go so well. But we're going to keep trying and uh kind of get this together a little slower. Just a little slowly and uh try and yeah it might take a little time for the dogs to get used to each other. But you know maybe the more we get them in contact and less stressful situations they'll be cool with each other. But so far we haven't been contacted by anyone interested in any of the dogs. So I'm a little bummed out about that. But we'll keep trying. Uh it's going to be difficult. I feel like in these financial times people have less and less money. So to ask them to take uh to ask them to take on a whole other animal is uh kind of tough. I know there's already so many animals looking for homes up there. It's kind of sad. But just being on these pages so many animals and shelters that have been there forever and they're not getting adopted. So you know if you're looking for a dog I highly recommend uh going to those shelters before any kind of breeders or anything like that. But uh definitely pick up one of our dogs first. All right good morning. Um so I am almost done clearing out these sections underneath our roof. Again with the dogs I don't know if we're going to be able to get have them get along with Yuvia. Yuvia is a pretty independent dog. But uh we'll see. We'll see if we can sort of get them together. Maybe they can become a pack. It might just take a little time. But uh we're going to give it a shot for sure. Because you know time moves quickly. So you know if we're not constantly hustling trying to find them homes. Yeah I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen. So hopefully we can give them some extra time here. Uh again we don't mind fostering them at least at least temporarily. But uh it feels so much nicer over here. Uh it's nice having this space utilized before you really couldn't do anything. It's just too too crowded with stuff. All right so we have been doing a lot of work on the garden. Not dealing with the dogs. But also we have we still have a house to build. And I am getting to that. So I'm working on this wall. But it's a smaller wall than these past ones. So I want to get back to it. I want to see how much of this wall I can get done. Maybe I can get this uh completed today. That would be nice. So we're still pushing on with the house. Let's get this done y'all. All right so we're moving this board on up. Of course we got to be careful here because we're uh it's uh right over the edge for to get to the root cellar. All right so I got a lift done. Got the boards in place. And usually I'd have to stop right here because I'd have to let this sit for a bit and let it set. But I have idea. Nice. I'm gonna take these boards up. I figured I got a couple boards up here. Take these off and I can keep on building. Nice. All right so I didn't have any more time tonight to do any more cop. But I got everything in place. We got that board in place down there. I got all my blocking in. I got all the nails in. So tomorrow I can come right out start with the cob and start hammering away. It should just be um a few more mixes and I'm done. And by a few I mean like probably like maybe four or maybe five. But big mixes. Bigger than the ones I've been doing. So four or five big mixes and I should be done with this wall. All right well I am almost done with this wall. Unfortunately I gotta dig a little bit more dirt. That means I gotta go out there and uh fill that wheelbarrow up. And man it is it's not frightening out there. Just uh the winds are just terrible today. I guess the uh the winds are supposed to be like 25 to 35 miles an hour regularly. With gusts like 45 to 55. It's crazy. So I gotta head out there get some more dirt. But these winds are insane. Whoa that looks like a smorgasbord. For worms. A smorgasbord for worms. Apples and wheat bran. I feel like I could eat that. So is the wheat bran the bedding? Yeah it's bedding and food. Now that's the kind of bed I want. Wake up and you're sleeping on the floor after you had a crazy dream that you were at a buffet. How much apples do the bugs get and how much apple do you get? Um probably split it 50-50. I knew it. I get the apple core. All righty family's out. Family's all here. So yeah wow what tremendous progress. That laundry room is almost uh fully closed up. But uh I was glad to help you make all your progress. Well I had to really move because we got some trees delivered and a bunch of them were bare root trees so I needed to get those in the ground as soon as possible. But uh it's not just the trees that uh that's motivating you with this garden right? I mean we've been wanting to grow our own food for a long time and I feel like this year is the year we need to really get going with that. That's one of the big sort of markers of independence you know if you could start growing all your own food that's going to be huge and I'm really excited about it. But I can't wait until people find out what you actually have planned growing because that's going to be really wild. Yeah I mean the trees are a big thing but that's kind of a long-term investment. But you know once I get some of the kind of annual plants planted then we'll really get going. Absolutely. But I feel like this is an important investment in our future you know and it provides the kind of security that you can't really get from a lot of other kinds of investments. You know this is about real security of basic needs. All right y'all well thanks so much for watching. We really appreciate you joining us on this journey. I'm really excited for this next step with this big old garden. I can't wait to see all that come together. I know you can't either so definitely keep following us along because you'll want to see how that all comes together. All right we'll catch you in the next video y'all. Bye!