Hey all - I usually try to take an hour or so on Mondays and answer everyone's comments but holy cow there are a lot of comments on this video already! I will try to get to more but I gotta get to work on the next video. Just know you all are awesome.
Your kind of channel is very upsetting. There is this modern myth that humans should subsist on sugar and sugar only (and insects.) This is evil. Here is how humans go off grid. 1. grow grass. Pastures. 2. have your food eat grass until large. 3. Harvest your crop of fit for humans to eat food. Plants are just sugar and sugar causes inflammation, diabetes, obesity. Heart disease and premature death. Every single part of a plant is sugar in one form or another (and only two matter, sugar we can digest and sugar we can't.)
I would like to start the preparation to plant a garden on 1/2 archer. I live in Conroe Texas. I will start by tilling and using a tarp, then mulch, then give it until September. If all goes well I would like to plant Greens and Squash beginning September 15, 2022. Do you think this will work? Oh this is my first time to plant.
@@georgeyoung2990 Squash is a warm season crop and is frost sensitive, so unless your area doesn't receive freezing temperatures during the winter I would wait to plant squash until the soil warms up in the spring. The name "winter squash" can be confusing, it doesn't refer to squash that are grown over the winter. Instead it refers to squash that can be grown over the summer and stored through the winter. I hope this helps and good luck with your garden!
Thanks for your videos. Iwas born in a small village located around Cameroon 🇨🇲 and Nigeria 🇳🇬 border centre/west Africa. Growing up there was no Internet connection nor roads we had to trek for 3 hours to get to Nigeria or 9 hours to get to Cameroon, in other to see good roads or sell our crops, but trust me it was fund and it really made me stronger. My parents where small farmers till 2009 i lost my dad, we had to moved to Lagos Nigeria in 2011. I can remember in my small village my parents didn't have to go through a lot of stress because the land was very fertile and any crop they ever planted was doing extremely well, without fertiliser or watering the crops. 2 years ago I started watching alot of videos on how to farm, because prices of food stuffs in Lagos for the past 2 years has really been going up, and I realised how blessed my small village is lol. I'm happy because my dad's houses are still there. I'm 26 years old and I've been saving up, I can't wait to go back to my village and start up my farm with all this experience I've had in watching different videos and learning more about different virity of crops. I'm really greatful🙏
I'm from a small farm in Zimbabwe (I'm now in the UK). I didn't know how good I had it despite not having much. Life is much more than having more and more stuff. I'm delighted you feel the way you do so young you could go back and make a real difference helping those around you with what you've learnt. 👏👏👏💪💪💪👌👍
It took me 2 weeks of intense manual labor to dig up a 12x12 area of my lawn for a tomato garden with a shovel & my hands. I moved about 30 wheelbarrows full of thick, heavy, compacted, clay soil. The soil had an insane number of rocks, which I used to line the garden for drainage. I recall ONE hole for one plant taking 10 minutes to dig! I thought I was escavating a rock the size of a massive bowling bowl at one point. I then moved many more wheelbarrows full of composted horse manure to use as topsoil & hand built tomato cages with old metal farm fence. Then tonight, I dug up a 10’x4’ area of sod to build another garden beside it & it took less than 2 hours! It’s amazing how different areas of the yard can be SO different to work with! We live on a huge hill & I can’t afford to buy the lumber to build raised beds for root crops. I find that growing potatoes in old chicken feed bags works amazingly well!
First time garden. I took a 50 year old lawn, tilled it, spread 4 inches of manure/ mulch and tilled it again in the late fall. Planted garlic and now I have 60 of 70 sprouts growing well in February. I think this is going to work. Thanks Jesse.
Ground was hard as a rock. High clay content. A shovel only dug in an inch with a good jump. I hope tilling in compost a couple of times gets matter into the soil so I can go no till. Farming on a rock is hard to do. Thanks though.
@@alliwantedisapepsi1492yeah that’s fair, it’ll take a year or two to do no till or no dig, I know this because my garden was crappy before I planted, and even after tilling and using a hoe to loosen up the dirt, my dirt settled and it filters horribly, I just started compost this year, so I hope that helps the next.
I'm an experienced flower gardener but completely new to veggies. Started my first two veggie beds this year. One is ridiculously slow-growing. The other is taking off. Almost double the growth in the second bed. Bed 1, the slow growing disappointment: Started with overgrown lawn that tended to flood, broke up the clay soil with a fork. Added bagged black earth (2-3 inches), built my raised bed frame on top of that and tossed in some yard waste and more bagged black earth. Planted immediately. Bed 2, the efficient success: Started with overgrown lawn directly beside bed 1 on a drier day. Mowed down the lawn, forked it, added 1-2 inches of yard waste, dug it in very slightly (I'm on clay soil working with hand tools), covered well with cardboard, soaked and let sit for a week, covering holes with more cardboard when a few small weeds made it through. I then brought in 4-5 inches of rich, living compost (filled with worms and other life) from my boss' manure heap. (Benefits of working at a stable, bonus that my boss grows his own hay, chemical-free). I let the bed sit for around a month before I planted into it at all. Bed 1 does not retain water well. At all. Seeds took forever to get true leaves, growth is slow and disappointing. Weeds aren't bad though, almost nothing came up through the soil, only what blew into the bed to remove. Definitely will need to amend the soil this fall though. Bed 2 holds consistent water levels without becoming flooded but does require a lot more weeding unfortunately but I just chop and drop the weeds for more organic material. Lots of dandelions so at least they're not competing too badly with what I have in there. My plan for this fall is to put in 1-2 more beds doing the slow method and redo the failed bed entirely. I definitely will not be using bagged soil for in ground growing or raised beds ever again. It's just dead dirt. I'll use fresh, living compost that I can source locally. Way cheaper too.
I would have liked more talk about the damage to soil micro organisms as a result of covering beds in plastic, and the damage to soil structure caused by even one till.
I fought to sign in to leave this comment. That compost is absolutely lovely. It looks very very healthy. I cannot lie, this does make me somewhat jealous. I thank my nan especially for showing me many gardening and agri techniques. Happy growing. Peace and Blissings
I have always been a very visual learner. So your videos coupled with your book helps it to sink in. Then applying cements the lesson. Thanks Jesse and thanks Hannah for sharing your soil nerd!
Oh awesome, Ron. We definitely wanted to create a dynamic array of content for everyone for that reason, so we're glad to hear that it's helpful that way!
I've experimented with 3 different types of beds thus far! The deep compost, beds built with native soil from around the farm, and then building beds in place with the soil that is there! I'm adamant about bringing my native soil to a standard that will grow any crops i want to grow and that crop be healthy!! So far I rather enjoy building the beds in place. Having 100 acres of farmland i am able to go i to the woods and gather leaves as well as leaf mold at will whenever I want. This is proving to be a great way to add organic matter and microbiology to the native soil i am turning into garden space!! I am also adamant about making my own liquid fertalizer and have been studying the jadam techniques alot. I think the inspector will be pleased when we finally do go to get our organic certification!!
Don’t worry take your time if people don’t understand that’s crazy there’s so many people asking questions a little bit at a time and you’ll get through it don’t go crazy because then you won’t like it now it’s enjoyable I’m enjoying watching you a little bit at a time we will all get our questions and answers so far. I’m enjoying you thank you very much Connie from Staten Island, New York.
Warning about straw: lately there are increasing numbers of gardeners who get hay/straw tainted with GrazeOn and other persistent chemicals that totally destroy gardens and orchards. Do your research and know your source!
One method I have had success with is using potatoes as a sort of cover/food crop to prepare new ground. You can disturb the soil or not. Potatoes love fresh decomposing sod, and they seem to attract such a plethora of microorganisms and earthworms that you get a decent tilth after they crop. I simply lay the potatoes out at a decent spacing, and I might make a slight hole and dig them into the sod, especially recently as the vole pressure has gotten out of hand, then cover with ideally a weed free mulch like straw or second cutting hay or compost, but usually I use a combination of compost and hay I can acquire cheaply. Hill the potatoes with hay or compost throughout the season, and after harvest the grass will be totally dead and worked up by critters, and the beds can be planted into a cover crop, or fall crop. This is pretty much the ruth stout method of growing potatoes, and lends itself to breaking new ground while growing a crop.
I really appreciate that you provide multiple methods, calling out the ideal, yet knowing things are not always ideal. I moved cross country and was able to put a garden in starting in June. Well, it has been a humbling experience. I went from lovely loam to yellow clay. I now realize much of my garden prowess was the soil I had. I expect I can get there again with a multi-year approach. Happy growing.
My wife is dissapointed with my garden, hard clay loads of weeds, last year i added all the fall leaves and this year it was better, but still quite sad, she is the drop a seed in and let it do its thing, everything that "succeeded" (lol) was container grown 20 tomatoes and 10 melons 20 cucumbers with 1 bag of ammendment $5. And some herbs. Its a multi year process.
I had a similar humbling experience trying to throw a quick wing-it garden together late spring in France with little water, a bit of manure, heavily compacted clay and weeds. Maybe more water would've given me some sort of harvest... I got a bunch of sprouts, some crops went as far as healthy seedlings, but the sprouts all got munched by these tiny black bugs that appeared in swarms and everything else couldn't make it with the lack of water. I had thrown in a bunch of cover crops hoping they'd sprout in unison and help each other get through the roughness but it just wasn't to be. I quickly realized after that the only way I would've had a chance was to throw a fat layer of manure and mulch to shape the beds, then put seedlings in and have at least one LARGE watering event plus a few decent rains. I went in with the idea of no till and absolutely minimal watering to naturally select the toughest plants from whatever seeds I planted. I realized some plowing and tilling to get started before a large application of manure/straw was key. I had put some solid hours into it. Sometimes, one learns the hard way 😅
I've started many gardens due to career moves. Those I started in the late summer early fall were always the best having 10 mos or so for worms, compost, covercrop & mulch to do its thing. I never had great success with gardens slammed together in the spring unless I was at least able to cover the area in deep mulch some months ahead.
Agreed .. was going to make my own comment post, but will just piggy back. This video is perfect timing for folks, as I am a big advocate for starting gardens in the fall, too. You mentioned one method that almost overlapped from fast/slow .. which was (depending on the native soil) layers of cardboard (3 at least for me, which will EVENTUALLY kill the grass below .. & actually I recommend cutting the grass as low as possible 1st, to map out your garden area), and then spreading many inches of compost on top (aged cow manure being best choice in my opinion). This way, you can plant fast if youd like, and will have a great garden waiting for you next spring, as the cardboard should be broken down.
I use tree leaves primarily for compost and milch and I use mostly oak , and other hard woods leaves along with rotted pine needles as they are an excellent addition to my compost and the old saying that they acidify your medium is just not true and studies made by several universities have debunked the old wives tale that they do . the reason nothing hardly grows under them is that they mat and dont allow air water or sunlight to penetrate over time . I also use them in my Isles as they are slow by themselves to breakdown and are easy to resource here in the South East where I'm at in N Eastern Georgia . I use dolimite , hybertite rock powders, Seaweed when I can get it , or any aquatic's when available as they all are great sources of potassium and nitrogen . the more diverse your compost the better off your medium.
I was on a big garden where we used humanure and urine. This issue issue is people contributing get sick. When they are sick you want a second place to put urine and manure where it will NOT get into compost. Always compost urine-manure, ideally in hot manure. Any temperature compost probably okay for most situations. There is a book on Humanure.
I dream of starting a no till farm one day and find inspiration and learn a lot from each No-Till Growers video! Thanks for all of your efforts. Really cannot be understated!
Amateur grower at 7,200' in Colorado here. Thank you for emphasizing location dependencies! For example, we laid some cardboard down in an attempt at a fast living pathway. Two years later, and you can still read the labels on what were the boxes. We just don't have the decomposition rate in the high desert for that to always pan out
I found it also harbors cockroaches. They really like the shade and dampness it provides here on the West Slope of CO in these blazing summers! One summer was enough for me with that experiment!
@@smas3256 For cockroaches? No, I use Borax and chickens for roach control. I've heard the beer works good for slugs, but those aren't a problem for me here in the desert. I had tried the cardboard for blocking weeds in paths with mulch between beds. Bind weed grows well under it too! I find the living pathways work better for me, using white clover.
My dad always had a huge gorgeous garden. Manure after the harvest, and tilled it in. Soil is everything. People used to pull over on the side of the road to ooh and ahh, as his plants were 3x the size of anyone else's.
This is my favorite gardening channel. Yep, I have an autographed copy of your book. I would like to see more cover cropping for idiots and the time-deprived type of content. Tarping tips and tricks. The different depths and levels of soil loosening and cultivating, and appropriate techniques. The pollinator/habitat rows, and keeping varmits off your crops. Troubleshooting mid-season. Living pathways updates.
"Cover Crops for Idiots". This is an excellent idea. I have no idea what to plant as a cover crop in my area. A few weeks ago, I put a 30x30 black plastic over an area to kill off my grass, and now I am thinking I will put cardboard and straw down (which goes first the cardboard?) then some mulch from a local farmer and a cover crop and let it sit all winter. Wish I knew what I was doing...
Man this is such a ripper of a video! Thankyou so much for putting this one up! Some of the best information I’ve come across in my years of gardening.
I do all my garden rows that way.. I dig ditches between rows .. I learned this from gardeners from other countries.. was worried about droughts.. plus most my property is down hill and washes away.. when I did get rain.. and man the amazing difference it made.. 💯❤
Love seeing the kiddos helping out. Our three-year-old granddaughter, who lives with us, helps me daily with planting, weeding, and eating the fruits of our labor. Great stuff!
No matter the amounts of views, I've found that you can always find different items that will give you a new outlook about doing gardening. Sir, we must be prepared to accept the information to benefit from your videos! Like I always said, ask a question 100 times until, the answer is understood by you! Have a great 2023 season! TY.
It's hard to believe how much great information is on TH-cam. Just discovered your channel and subscribed. I want to offer a humble addition: wet the cardboard! It starts the decomposition method quickly without relying on the damp compost or hoping for rain to come through.
Great video. In my four years of gardening I believe this video can help anyone from the backyard gardener like myself, to someone wanting to start a farm.
Coleman Shepard told me a method i'm going to try. he instructed me to mix a cup of molasses and a tablespoon of sea salt in a gallon of water (you might want to double or triple the recipe) spray that all over the grass that's growing where you want your garden to be, give it a good dousing. the tarp with an old bill board tarp (black backed tarps are best for this) leave it covered for 3 weeks to a month, when you remove your tarp all that will remain is mycelium; you can plant into that or spread a mulch and plant thru that.
I live in on a small homestead in Texas. How I start a new in-ground garden section is similar, before winter, typically in November or December, I choose the spot where I want a new section of garden to be. Then, I will broad fork it and turn the soil clumps upside down so the grass that was on the surface is now in the soil. I will then add about 2 inches of compost, a local compost company near me sells a mixture of composted manure, bark, cotton burrs, grass, and humate in bulk and thats what I use. Then, I will cover it all in about 4 inches of mulched autumn leaves and then let it sit all winter. Works great. Every time I do this, in Spring there are a tone of worms and the soil is dark black and airy.
Hi, great info. Glad to know I am on the right path. Started a new garden this spring on an overgrown field of brambles and grasses. Originally, I wanted to create a lasagna bed to plant in but couldn't find affordable supply of compost, so ended up getting the plot tilled. Had it rototilled twice about 1 week apart and then put in landscape fabric 4' wide/bare earth 4'/landscape fabric 4' repeat all the way across. I planted in the fabric with transplants and then in between the fabric rows for direct seeding. The fabric helps to keep the weed pressure down. I also planted lots of melons and squash this year so the plants are helping to keep the weed pressure down too. Its going good so far. At the end of the season I plan to add manure and cover with straw so it will be ready to plant next year without tilling again.
I followed your example on the cardboard method and it’s been a good first year so far. We just moved here around the first of the year so I mowed the grass down to the ground, used all our cardboard boxes from the move, and put a garden soil mix from the local landscape nursery on top of that. So far we are doing well and hopefully next year even better.
Funny enough, I'm looking to start a garden NEXT spring, and am doing research now in order to plan and make sure it had the best chance of success (as it's going to be a remote garden on a peice of land I own about 15 minutes from my house, and thus I can't be there EVERY day.) This is been a GREAT resource and I'll be Coming back through the next few months as I get stuff going!
Loved the longer video! I know it takes a lot of work to make so thank you! I have had luck with just a couple of layers of cardboard covered in compost and left to sit over the winter, by spring the cardboard is soft enough to plant right on top of.
I love your quick start method, because in my opinion, no matter what, second and third year gardens produce like crazy.....but you have to get the first year garden started! (I'm on my third year garden at the location!)
Thank you for this comment. As I was feeling like I was too late to start, since didn’t see this video in the fall when it was published. Just start! Great advice, thanks again!
Perfect timing for me. Great information and I like your presentation. I am a new gardener at 80. I wish I had started earlier but chasing the almighty dollar I lost out. I am in zone 6b and have a hard pan about 6” down so I am trying to overcome that issue. I already tilled 900 Sq ft. With a front tine tiller but had little success with that. I think I have found a tractor with a big tiller and was wondering if I could do this in spring and still have some success as I lready have a cover crop planted. I woul appreciate any help from other commenters since I know your busy. Thanks ahead. Y’all havagudun and God Bless.
Sending thanks and hoping for some new garden space feedback. We're experienced gardeners relocating to a new space. Every space we looked at, including the one we eventually chose, was infected with some model of rhizome forming grass such as Kentucky Bluegrass/Poa Annua or other similarly forming noxious invader. We're experienced with these coming from a maritime climate. We're considering several first steps, but the middle stage is always looking to be 2 - 3 months of solarization in what will be a warm summer here. Our new home is on the WA/ID border and has four seasons. My wife and I are knowledgeable and can wait for a season to reduce weeds. We'd planned to split our garden in half to allow solarization or to put chickens on half the space in alternating seasons, as hand pulling rhizomes in an irrigated space as we approach 60 doesn't appeal to us. Any feedback and guidance would be greatly appreciated. KP
It sounds like you're thinking about it the right way. The longer you can keep that under tarp, the lower the weed pressure will become. A year is often the recommendation, but I say as long as you can reasonably do. Heavy compost mulches would obviously help too. I find that most grass does not take well to that type of mulch and you could get that started right away. So you have options!
even rhizome grasses die eventually if you are more persisitent than the grass. I did a 6" deep tillage, raked off the grass & rhizome and put them in the compost heep. when I turned the compost after about 6 months or so ( lazy composting) I sifted it and pulled out any rhizomes that showed any sign of life... very few bit of grass popped back up the next year and very few pop up in the compost... my issue is the chick weed... I have yet to get my post hot enough to kill the seeds and too tiny to pull efficiently and I inevitably miss some, which then seed out again... uhg!
Moving away from heavy rototilling. Listening to you Farmer Jesse is great and you sure are awesome!!!! Making compost and have garden divided in to 6, 4*12 ft beds,plus few larger areas. Bought my first broadfork this winter and excited to see how compacted the soil is.. thanks for your inspiration!
Just started watching you, and i feel like I hit the jackpot to what i needed, I've always always loved gardening and always wanted own farm. over the course of 4 years my father in law has introduced me to plants and crops and i've falling in love with it. I've been jotting notes down all day, looking forward to drowning myself in learning. Also really digging the cardboard method as well and can't make to start making my own compost tea
I find the double dig method, it's a form of plowing, but found that extremely effective especially when you have poor soil and are in a hurry. It's hard work without machinery but it works.
I'm currently trialling starting with a Ruth stout style garden for the first year where I can grow a potato crop. Within the first year, I add worms, worm eggs, and any sort of things I think will add good microbial life. In the second year, I add compost beds, and woodchip pathways and start the back to Eden style gardening.
I just doubled my garden space- tarped 500sqft (of compacted clay that's been bermuda lawn since the 80s) for the entire summer. Put my new broad fork to work then 6-8" of compost then a cover crop of like 9 or 10 species. Got your book from the library and totally nerded out over it. That cover crop is coming up waaaaaaaaaay better than anything I ever planted in the older half of my garden that I've been struggling in for 3 years. That half is getting revamped, too. Love your channel and your book!
This is certainly on a smaller scale, but has anyone discussed Hugelkulture? I have done a somewhat modified version of that in raised beds - some homemade using wood and roofing metal, some dozen more in 100-150 gallon livestock troughs. Both methods began with a layer of well rotting (old firewood) about 1/3 of the depth of the bed. Then we put in a mixture of 1 year old passively composted horse manure and bedding mixed with shredded paper, with the top 1/3 being well composted finished horse manure and bedding compost. Absolute black gold. The inground raised beds - vs the trough ones - began with a trench about 1 ft deep with walls about 24” on ground level around the trench. This still allowed the 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 layering. Each late fall after cutting the dead plants off at ground level leaving the roots, I topped the beds with finished compost and put down a bit of grass clipping mulch which meant the ground was ready for planting in the spring. Given that we are in Northern lower Michigan, our last frost date is typically Memorial weekend or the first week in June. We moved last winter and while we left a few of the homemade raised beds, we did build a few more at our new farm. We also moved, at great effort with only having a neighbor witha tractor available to load but no equipment here to UNload. 100-150 gallons of soil in a trough which already carries some weight are HEAVY. OMGosh heavy. Crazy for a 63 yr old significantly physically disabled person and her 73 yr old “I can do it!” husband to attempt. Which lead to 4 of the dozen+ troughs tipping before we got help and displaying the absolutely amazingly wonderful contents of gorgeous soil and the barely there remnants of the rotting wood. I will ALWAYS garden this way. Did I mention I get AMAZING yields too?
One grower you can look to is Briceland forest farm. We did a podcast episode together for The No-Till Market Garden Podcast that discusses hugelkulture on scale
I have a tiny backyard garden, and have attempted different methods over the years with mixed results. In early spring I bought a metal raised bed and filled it with rotted logs and branches, then filled the gaps with sawdust, leaves and compost. Topped it with a couple of inches of bagged garden soil. Then I planted Swiss chard and kale along the edges and the filled the center with tomatoes. I’m surprised how well the tomatoes are doing.
By the end of this summer, I will have had experience with multiple ways to start gardening. I have grown food in containers for the most part but this season will be my first in permanent raised beds. I put down cardboard straight on top of the lawn and filled the bottom with twigs, branches old compost material, then my bokashi mixed with bought compost. I have planted directly into this as well as sown directly. Also, I made a lasagna bed last season for my strawberry plants from runners, which really did well. This summer will be my first time having to dig a little since I'm putting in a plum tree and a blackberry bush. Again, into the lawn. I have also started a hot compost bin that I'll fill over the season. I use wood ash, urine, ground-up eggshells, bokashi liquid, nettle, and comfrey tea, and some leftover all-purpose pellet fertilizer to amend my beds. Not all at once but since it all went into my old compost of last year it all gets in there somehow. I'm super happy to have a record-sized growing space compared to before.
thank you for bringing so much attention to keeping plants in the soil. people need to understand cover cropping better, it's really the future of regenerative agriculture. a bare soil is a dead soil- after priming the lot, that soil should *never* be bare again otherwise you'll be losing life in the soil. weeds happen because the soil wants to be covered. if you keep plants in the soil that fix the nutrients both growing and chopped down to rot, you'll never need to amend your soil and all your costs go out the window. you're not just farming the plants, you're farming the microbiome that needs plants. you're farming the fungal network in the ground and trying to make it stronger instead of weaker with tilling or bare soil. cover crops feed that biome and when its chopped down and left to rot, it feeds and insulates the soil from the elements all winter. protect your soil!! after priming your lot, you shouldnt be seeing much of the soil ever again. if you do let it bake in the sun or freeze, you'll never fix the way water moves thru it and erodes compost away. bare soil = flooding, droughts, pests, killing the soil.
four years I lived twenty mins away from my garden nothing butnardwork and disappointment but we got moved into our cabin in June I can't wait for spring!
Started another 3x50 ft bed this year with just a 1" till and a bunch of grass clippings, planted right into it. Added 4 last year in the fall with free hay and a shallow cultivation till. Both are working great, expect both to only increase in fertility next year. Also I finally have compost finished--been using that for stuff I want to direct seed into (remove and compost the mulch, put down finished compost, plant). I love my living pathways btw, it's like I kept the utility/mobility of a yard, while turning the whole thing into gardens.
Thoughts on solarizing? I removed hoop house plastic last week and put it on the lawn to give it a rinse and wash it off. That was at noon. Forgot about it until the next day when my wife realized what I had done. By 2 o'clock on a bright sunny day in July it had totally cooked the grass in a perfect rectangle, killing it completely. I was pretty impressed by 26 hours of solarizing! I am now trying this on a couple of weedy garden beds, it probly won't do anything at all...
My garden is a slow and unmethodical version, because I'm not organized and I don't follow instructions well ,but it's getting there and don't stop digressing! you wear it well!
Agree 100% with use of compost. Last December I built a bed for 600 onions. 4” thick of compost, laid out 3 lines for drip, covered with black plastic. January 1st I planted the onions, poking holes In plastic. Never used any additional fertilizer and had consistent 4-4.5 inch onions. They were only watered 4 times the entire season. I’ve grown larger onions in traditional raised beds, organic fertilizers and almost daily watering but this was hands down the best method. My compost piles are large, long term and occasionally turned with tractor….leaves, hay the animals won’t eat, chicken manure and stable clean outs.
Perfect timing for this video, thanks! :) I am in the Southern Hemisphere (NZ) where we are in the depths of winter and I am planning an expansion, starting nowish to be ready for planting early summer (December).
Not to throw a fly into the ointment but be careful where you source your cardboard from. A lot of it is sprayed with chemicals that you may not want in your food gardens. Flowers or ornamentals may not be an issue. Great videos! My wife and I just purchased our future homestead and plan to start working it asap. Thank you for all the great advice.
Best gardening video by far! Thanks! Zone 8b here. We squared off our large garden with logs cut from our yard. That holds all ingredients in and keeps weeds out. Then, we cardboarded the area with thick layers, overlapping generously, found free chick and/or horse manure as a bottom layer. It was quite a stench for a while there, but worth it. 💩 After that, we covered it with about 12" of free mulch (branches, bushes, etc) from the county. We have done this twice now. When it sits over the winter, covered with a tarp, it is just right for spring and beyond and the soil is beautiful not to mention the behemoth worms and a couple of snake surprises. When we do this at spring time instead, the wood chips bind up too much of the nutrients before beginning to compost and the plants struggle to start off, sometimes becoming to an early demise, but most get there eventually. All the shoveling is worth it. Soil is great and weeding takes about 5 minutes per week.
I love using cover crops and compost in combination. Also I love the lasagna gardening method, all these things have built my soil health in a short period of time.
Another very good and easy way is to simply 1. chop and drop (or use drop as mulch at step 4 (depending on amount of weed seeds), 2. decompact (broadfork), 3. sheetmulch (Cardboard/ newspaper etc) and then 4. a thick layer of mulch (6inch +), ideally nitrogen rich mulch + carbon rich mulch on top. 5. Pull aside the mulch, 6. poke a hole in the cardboard, 7. add a handful or two of compost in the hole and 8. transplant into this.
Just "discovered" your videos Jeffrey, and enjoyed each one! Even tho I have tractors/tillers, my "go-to" tool for starting a new bed is my ol' Gravely walk-behind rotary plow. Engine speed determines how far it throws the soil, and amendments can be incorporated at that time (automatically burying 'em). Since our local lime is Dolomitic, Mg levels can become elevated over time, so Gypsum can help. Cover crops are Iron/Clay Peas and/or weeds/grass clippings. If grass clippings are picked up in a timely fashion, and piled high enough, they'll go through a heat and break down much faster than if you let them dry out in the (Fl.) sun before collection. Ideally, pick 'em up within a few hours of mowing and after a good rain---the bio-activity a hay producer dreads and prevents to the best of his abilities are the very ones the gardener appreciates. About the Gravely walk-behind tractor; that plow is spinning well out in front of the machine, not right in front of your feet. (I have a BCS 715 early model with roto-tiller and sickle-bar mower, but seldom use it---that tiller grinding away just inches in front of where I step is intimidating....) The Gravely roto-tiller (not plow) almost has to be used in reverse due to serious wheel/tire ruts. but the rotary plow throws to the side, so tracks aren't much of a problem. About once every five years or so I'll drop the 4' tractor-mounted tiller on a "resting" bed just to kinda introduce whatever is on the surface into the soil. I have sandy soils over yellow clay so occasional application of gypsum seems to help (especially with blossom-end rot in tomatoes) but elephant garlic is my main crop (and it's not "finicky" at all...) The gypsum isn't needed for soil flocculation just for Ca and S. I "religiously" broadcast "split-pea" Sulfur (over new areas, especially...). I don't think it does quite the same thing as calcium sulphate dihydrate. Keep up the good work! (It looks like I have about roughly a hundred videos to watch....) btw, where'd you get the Caturday shirt? I want one!
Did my quickest garden this year..im 60 and was given small plants unexpectedly and late in spring...more like start of summer..mowed on shortest setting..then sprayed weeds with trimic waited 3 days and used drill auger and plated..not best garden ever but doing pretty well..and I used fish emulsion after 2 weeks from start..i love that stuff
I garden in Western KY on land that has laid fallow for years. Our "soil" is pretty much yellow clay and we got very poor results this year. I tried to dig up the few potaoes that actually grew and the shovel bounced of the surface. I just ordered your book and I will be applying your methods ASAP in order to get better production for next year.
Not sure how much land you got but it would probably help to add organic material, like compost or manure, it can be more expensive then chemical fertilizers but its probably what your land needs, even stuff like sticks and leaves or hay will help.
I would recommend leaf mulch. It's free and it will help you immensely. Gather a lot of leafs in the fall (as many bags as possible, but do some research since some leaves are not great) and then lay those leaves out on top of your soil. Keep doing this every year and your soil quality will improve. After your leaves have turned to soil, till it into the soil underneath.
My kids and I did a garden bed for them which was compost on brown packing paper with woodchips on cardboard for paths. It worked really well in the same season. Need plenty of water
I just wanted to say thank you guys for the knowledge and expertise when it comes to no till growing. I can’t believe I just found your account, I’ve been nonstop catching up on all the vids I’m behind on haha!
gosh, your videos appear exactly when I need them. I am severely handicapped but determined to convert my quarter acre to a no-till permaculture garden. A few days ago I laid down some painters plastic to solarize an area, just like you recommended it in a video. I'm so excited to watch this video because this land is super fertile, but has hard summer-compacted clay weed soil. I think the soil is actually quite healthy, when it's slowly moistened with a soaker it smells great and clings to roots properly. But in the summer it's too hard to get a pickaxe through, so I wanted to do something to prepare it for the coming winter planting season. Location -- Northern California/Sacramento valley
My mother is severally handicapped, too. She uses cardboard and/or mulch as weeding is not much of an option for her. She has a great garden every year. Good luck! 👍
Jessie I’ve been watching for the last two years (subscribing on patreon too) and I just wanted to say thank you for the time and effort you put into your videos. I appreciate you and your team. 🧡
I have a 860 sqms garden in rural Hungary with a small country house on the property. I bought it in July 2021. The garden was not used for years, it was full of small acacia trees and huge grass. We cleaned it and I got a quite big compost pile from the greens what I used as mulch last year.
I like your approaches, the most I like that you are not saying that there is only one 'right' way to get it done... and that you are telling the 'reasoning' behind it... people learn to understand soil this way
Great video! Another option to get a garden set up quick in a turf covered lot without tillage is to use a sod cutter. It can also get out some of the bad weeds right off the bat and you’re not inverting any soil. Generally you’ll need compost after if you want raised beds though. Thanks for all your videos, tons of great information!
I'm loving your helping videos. Full of knowledge. Chickens adopted me 3 years ago which lead to composting to gardening. I am now thinking of my 1 acre back behind the chicken yard, to begin row gardening. I will tarp it asap. I'm 8a and will going at this slowly as I am learning still. I just need more chickens lol for more black gold. I think I will use their back yard gate to set a poultry netting up, for their guidance in the future, after my cover crop has grown. I'm excited. Ty 4 your helpful videos.
I'm so glad to find this video! We're hopefully closing on a large property and I'm moving from my raised bed gardens in the city. The new property has a giant field of hay that I want to use a portion of for a big garden, and a grassy area I want to start a smaller kitchen garden in. I'll be starting with the late summer-fall crops. This is a helpful video for me.
Love your channel. Great content, and very, very relevant. I've always agreed with the notion of no-till. Your experience helps folks like me understand the "whys and wherefores" when it comes to getting the details nailed down.
Last small front yard garden I made was in a yard. I put cardboard down, then kitchen scraps and yard trimmings (in fall/late summer) then another layer of cardboard and watered until it started raining. In the spring it was ready to plant. I did something similar with tomatoes. Cardboard, then homemade well aged compost. I planted tomatoes. I actually cut through the cardboard. For the tomatoes. It worked great. We are moving onto our forever homestead this week. My plan is to till the garden and plant cover crop that will die back on winter. This is the first time I've ever tried cover crop. 🤞
While I do appreciate your no-till methods (I've watched most, if not all, your videos), I really had no option but to till the first couple of years when starting my garden. My soil predominantly grows rocks, and I hauled a couple of tons out the first two years of working the soil with my tiller, just to get around 6 inches of loose soil. If I had fewer rocks to contend with, I'd love to try no-till farming. In the meantime, I love your videos because you are one of the best organic gardening narrators I've seen, and your style appeals to the nerdy side of me. Keep up the great work, sir!
I had a newngarden area picked on when we moved to new home. The soil is clay, so I layed dark tarps down at end of summer, left on til spring. I applied compost and mulch, and used raised beds for some crops and planted directly into soil for others. It worked great! I continue to add leaf mold to level.area and the soil is much improved.
Great content.....thanks!!! My gardens have been built using these types of methods. As a resource I have used Charles Dowding as well as you guys.... all to great success. And BTW...."digressions", Keep them to a maximum. I always get a kick out of your quick witted twists and turns. Cheers.
I started March of 2021 to make my new garden for 2022. The first step I did was run my chicken tractor over the lawn where the garden was going to be located. I had green "racing stripes" 6 feet wide all summer from where the chickens had laid down a layer of manure. In late summer I picked a hot day and cut the grass as short as possible after letting it grow an extra few days. The grass clippings acted as my mulch for crimson clover, that choked out most of the grass, followed by cereal rye over the winter(zone8). I tilled in manure compost this spring in half of the area and did straw compost mix on the other half. Both are working great but the straw compost has more bug and pest issues.
Hey all - I usually try to take an hour or so on Mondays and answer everyone's comments but holy cow there are a lot of comments on this video already! I will try to get to more but I gotta get to work on the next video. Just know you all are awesome.
Your kind of channel is very upsetting. There is this modern myth that humans should subsist on sugar and sugar only (and insects.) This is evil.
Here is how humans go off grid. 1. grow grass. Pastures. 2. have your food eat grass until large. 3. Harvest your crop of fit for humans to eat food.
Plants are just sugar and sugar causes inflammation, diabetes, obesity. Heart disease and premature death.
Every single part of a plant is sugar in one form or another (and only two matter, sugar we can digest and sugar we can't.)
I would like to start the preparation to plant a garden on 1/2 archer. I live in Conroe Texas. I will start by tilling and using a tarp, then mulch, then give it until September. If all goes well I would like to plant Greens and Squash beginning September 15, 2022. Do you think this will work? Oh this is my first time to plant.
@@georgeyoung2990 Squash is a warm season crop and is frost sensitive, so unless your area doesn't receive freezing temperatures during the winter I would wait to plant squash until the soil warms up in the spring. The name "winter squash" can be confusing, it doesn't refer to squash that are grown over the winter. Instead it refers to squash that can be grown over the summer and stored through the winter. I hope this helps and good luck with your garden!
Sir, Can you please add Subtitles in Video
Plowing is good and injecting soil ammendments is effective especially when the soil is not at its best.
Thanks for your videos. Iwas born in a small village located around Cameroon 🇨🇲 and Nigeria 🇳🇬 border centre/west Africa. Growing up there was no Internet connection nor roads we had to trek for 3 hours to get to Nigeria or 9 hours to get to Cameroon, in other to see good roads or sell our crops, but trust me it was fund and it really made me stronger. My parents where small farmers till 2009 i lost my dad, we had to moved to Lagos Nigeria in 2011. I can remember in my small village my parents didn't have to go through a lot of stress because the land was very fertile and any crop they ever planted was doing extremely well, without fertiliser or watering the crops. 2 years ago I started watching alot of videos on how to farm, because prices of food stuffs in Lagos for the past 2 years has really been going up, and I realised how blessed my small village is lol. I'm happy because my dad's houses are still there. I'm 26 years old and I've been saving up, I can't wait to go back to my village and start up my farm with all this experience I've had in watching different videos and learning more about different virity of crops. I'm really greatful🙏
Wonderful!! I love that you appreciate how you were raised - eating like royalty!!
I'm from a small farm in Zimbabwe (I'm now in the UK). I didn't know how good I had it despite not having much.
Life is much more than having more and more stuff. I'm delighted you feel the way you do so young you could go back and make a real difference helping those around you with what you've learnt. 👏👏👏💪💪💪👌👍
"Dogma is not going to help you in farming..." perfect advice. Great channel. Smart man.
What about dogpop?
You don't want to use carnivore manure on edibles. That increases your risk for disease.
One of the most dense, no bs, educational channels out there. Keep it up y’all. And thank you for sharing all this hard earned knowledge!
Well just a little bs ing lol 😅
I totally agree love Jessie’s content and mannerisms as well. Lots of facts nearly no BS!!! My favorite Growers channel!
It took me 2 weeks of intense manual labor to dig up a 12x12 area of my lawn for a tomato garden with a shovel & my hands. I moved about 30 wheelbarrows full of thick, heavy, compacted, clay soil. The soil had an insane number of rocks, which I used to line the garden for drainage. I recall ONE hole for one plant taking 10 minutes to dig! I thought I was escavating a rock the size of a massive bowling bowl at one point. I then moved many more wheelbarrows full of composted horse manure to use as topsoil & hand built tomato cages with old metal farm fence. Then tonight, I dug up a 10’x4’ area of sod to build another garden beside it & it took less than 2 hours! It’s amazing how different areas of the yard can be SO different to work with! We live on a huge hill & I can’t afford to buy the lumber to build raised beds for root crops. I find that growing potatoes in old chicken feed bags works amazingly well!
First time garden. I took a 50 year old lawn, tilled it, spread 4 inches of manure/ mulch and tilled it again in the late fall. Planted garlic and now I have 60 of 70 sprouts growing well in February. I think this is going to work. Thanks Jesse.
Tilling is definitely not good
Ground was hard as a rock. High clay content. A shovel only dug in an inch with a good jump. I hope tilling in compost a couple of times gets matter into the soil so I can go no till. Farming on a rock is hard to do. Thanks though.
@@alliwantedisapepsi1492yeah that’s fair, it’ll take a year or two to do no till or no dig, I know this because my garden was crappy before I planted, and even after tilling and using a hoe to loosen up the dirt, my dirt settled and it filters horribly, I just started compost this year, so I hope that helps the next.
@brandontekahu4663 it is good and work for centuries
Oh damn I've heard all about those areas. Very sad sorry dude good for experience though.
I'm an experienced flower gardener but completely new to veggies. Started my first two veggie beds this year. One is ridiculously slow-growing. The other is taking off. Almost double the growth in the second bed.
Bed 1, the slow growing disappointment:
Started with overgrown lawn that tended to flood, broke up the clay soil with a fork. Added bagged black earth (2-3 inches), built my raised bed frame on top of that and tossed in some yard waste and more bagged black earth. Planted immediately.
Bed 2, the efficient success:
Started with overgrown lawn directly beside bed 1 on a drier day. Mowed down the lawn, forked it, added 1-2 inches of yard waste, dug it in very slightly (I'm on clay soil working with hand tools), covered well with cardboard, soaked and let sit for a week, covering holes with more cardboard when a few small weeds made it through. I then brought in 4-5 inches of rich, living compost (filled with worms and other life) from my boss' manure heap. (Benefits of working at a stable, bonus that my boss grows his own hay, chemical-free). I let the bed sit for around a month before I planted into it at all.
Bed 1 does not retain water well. At all. Seeds took forever to get true leaves, growth is slow and disappointing. Weeds aren't bad though, almost nothing came up through the soil, only what blew into the bed to remove. Definitely will need to amend the soil this fall though.
Bed 2 holds consistent water levels without becoming flooded but does require a lot more weeding unfortunately but I just chop and drop the weeds for more organic material. Lots of dandelions so at least they're not competing too badly with what I have in there.
My plan for this fall is to put in 1-2 more beds doing the slow method and redo the failed bed entirely. I definitely will not be using bagged soil for in ground growing or raised beds ever again. It's just dead dirt. I'll use fresh, living compost that I can source locally. Way cheaper too.
I would have liked more talk about the damage to soil micro organisms as a result of covering beds in plastic, and the damage to soil structure caused by even one till.
I fought to sign in to leave this comment.
That compost is absolutely lovely. It looks very very healthy. I cannot lie, this does make me somewhat jealous. I thank my nan especially for showing me many gardening and agri techniques.
Happy growing.
Peace and Blissings
I have always been a very visual learner. So your videos coupled with your book helps it to sink in. Then applying cements the lesson. Thanks Jesse and thanks Hannah for sharing your soil nerd!
Oh awesome, Ron. We definitely wanted to create a dynamic array of content for everyone for that reason, so we're glad to hear that it's helpful that way!
"thanks Hannah for sharing your soil nerd!"
Love this, haha!
No question…Farmer Jesse is addictive to listen to. Always enjoy and learn and am motivated
I've experimented with 3 different types of beds thus far! The deep compost, beds built with native soil from around the farm, and then building beds in place with the soil that is there! I'm adamant about bringing my native soil to a standard that will grow any crops i want to grow and that crop be healthy!! So far I rather enjoy building the beds in place.
Having 100 acres of farmland i am able to go i to the woods and gather leaves as well as leaf mold at will whenever I want. This is proving to be a great way to add organic matter and microbiology to the native soil i am turning into garden space!! I am also adamant about making my own liquid fertalizer and have been studying the jadam techniques alot. I think the inspector will be pleased when we finally do go to get our organic certification!!
Don’t worry take your time if people don’t understand that’s crazy there’s so many people asking questions a little bit at a time and you’ll get through it don’t go crazy because then you won’t like it now it’s enjoyable I’m enjoying watching you a little bit at a time we will all get our questions and answers so far. I’m enjoying you thank you very much Connie from Staten Island, New York.
Warning about straw: lately there are increasing numbers of gardeners who get hay/straw tainted with GrazeOn and other persistent chemicals that totally destroy gardens and orchards. Do your research and know your source!
I wasted so much energy last season pulling hay out of my beds after discovering that they seeded
@@stephenlonon4605and so grazeon is a good idea to you? The hay should've been rotted.
@@scholasticbookfair. it can persist even if digested and rooted for a fair fair while
Is this a Missouri problem???? I feel like not
@@codyprice6188 yes. They use it there a lot.
One method I have had success with is using potatoes as a sort of cover/food crop to prepare new ground. You can disturb the soil or not. Potatoes love fresh decomposing sod, and they seem to attract such a plethora of microorganisms and earthworms that you get a decent tilth after they crop. I simply lay the potatoes out at a decent spacing, and I might make a slight hole and dig them into the sod, especially recently as the vole pressure has gotten out of hand, then cover with ideally a weed free mulch like straw or second cutting hay or compost, but usually I use a combination of compost and hay I can acquire cheaply. Hill the potatoes with hay or compost throughout the season, and after harvest the grass will be totally dead and worked up by critters, and the beds can be planted into a cover crop, or fall crop.
This is pretty much the ruth stout method of growing potatoes, and lends itself to breaking new ground while growing a crop.
I really appreciate that you provide multiple methods, calling out the ideal, yet knowing things are not always ideal. I moved cross country and was able to put a garden in starting in June. Well, it has been a humbling experience. I went from lovely loam to yellow clay. I now realize much of my garden prowess was the soil I had. I expect I can get there again with a multi-year approach. Happy growing.
My wife is dissapointed with my garden, hard clay loads of weeds, last year i added all the fall leaves and this year it was better, but still quite sad, she is the drop a seed in and let it do its thing, everything that "succeeded" (lol) was container grown 20 tomatoes and 10 melons 20 cucumbers with 1 bag of ammendment $5. And some herbs. Its a multi year process.
I had a similar humbling experience trying to throw a quick wing-it garden together late spring in France with little water, a bit of manure, heavily compacted clay and weeds. Maybe more water would've given me some sort of harvest... I got a bunch of sprouts, some crops went as far as healthy seedlings, but the sprouts all got munched by these tiny black bugs that appeared in swarms and everything else couldn't make it with the lack of water. I had thrown in a bunch of cover crops hoping they'd sprout in unison and help each other get through the roughness but it just wasn't to be. I quickly realized after that the only way I would've had a chance was to throw a fat layer of manure and mulch to shape the beds, then put seedlings in and have at least one LARGE watering event plus a few decent rains. I went in with the idea of no till and absolutely minimal watering to naturally select the toughest plants from whatever seeds I planted. I realized some plowing and tilling to get started before a large application of manure/straw was key. I had put some solid hours into it. Sometimes, one learns the hard way 😅
I've started many gardens due to career moves. Those I started in the late summer early fall were always the best having 10 mos or so for worms, compost, covercrop & mulch to do its thing. I never had great success with gardens slammed together in the spring unless I was at least able to cover the area in deep mulch some months ahead.
Agreed .. was going to make my own comment post, but will just piggy back. This video is perfect timing for folks, as I am a big advocate for starting gardens in the fall, too. You mentioned one method that almost overlapped from fast/slow .. which was (depending on the native soil) layers of cardboard (3 at least for me, which will EVENTUALLY kill the grass below .. & actually I recommend cutting the grass as low as possible 1st, to map out your garden area), and then spreading many inches of compost on top (aged cow manure being best choice in my opinion). This way, you can plant fast if youd like, and will have a great garden waiting for you next spring, as the cardboard should be broken down.
I use tree leaves primarily for compost and milch and I use mostly oak , and other hard woods leaves along with rotted pine needles as they are an excellent addition to my compost and the old saying that they acidify your medium is just not true and studies made by several universities have debunked the old wives tale that they do . the reason nothing hardly grows under them is that they mat and dont allow air water or sunlight to penetrate over time . I also use them in my Isles as they are slow by themselves to breakdown and are easy to resource here in the South East where I'm at in N Eastern Georgia . I use dolimite , hybertite rock powders, Seaweed when I can get it , or any aquatic's when available as they all are great sources of potassium and nitrogen . the more diverse your compost the better off your medium.
I was on a big garden where we used humanure and urine. This issue issue is people contributing get sick. When they are sick you want a second place to put urine and manure where it will NOT get into compost. Always compost urine-manure, ideally in hot manure. Any temperature compost probably okay for most situations. There is a book on Humanure.
I dream of starting a no till farm one day and find inspiration and learn a lot from each No-Till Growers video! Thanks for all of your efforts. Really cannot be understated!
amazing, thank you!
Well I’ve subscribed for his humour, been laughing the whole way through, and learning! Brilliant 😊
Amateur grower at 7,200' in Colorado here. Thank you for emphasizing location dependencies! For example, we laid some cardboard down in an attempt at a fast living pathway. Two years later, and you can still read the labels on what were the boxes. We just don't have the decomposition rate in the high desert for that to always pan out
I found it also harbors cockroaches. They really like the shade and dampness it provides here on the West Slope of CO in these blazing summers! One summer was enough for me with that experiment!
I have found that weeds enjoy the cool relief as well
@@smas3256 For cockroaches? No, I use Borax and chickens for roach control. I've heard the beer works good for slugs, but those aren't a problem for me here in the desert. I had tried the cardboard for blocking weeds in paths with mulch between beds. Bind weed grows well under it too! I find the living pathways work better for me, using white clover.
Thank you for spreading the word on the importance of regenerative farming!
My dad always had a huge gorgeous garden. Manure after the harvest, and tilled it in. Soil is everything. People used to pull over on the side of the road to ooh and ahh, as his plants were 3x the size of anyone else's.
This channel is truly a great resource for anyone wanting to learn about organic farming!
This is my favorite gardening channel. Yep, I have an autographed copy of your book. I would like to see more cover cropping for idiots and the time-deprived type of content. Tarping tips and tricks. The different depths and levels of soil loosening and cultivating, and appropriate techniques. The pollinator/habitat rows, and keeping varmits off your crops. Troubleshooting mid-season. Living pathways updates.
All good ideas! Thank you!
"Cover Crops for Idiots". This is an excellent idea. I have no idea what to plant as a cover crop in my area. A few weeks ago, I put a 30x30 black plastic over an area to kill off my grass, and now I am thinking I will put cardboard and straw down (which goes first the cardboard?) then some mulch from a local farmer and a cover crop and let it sit all winter. Wish I knew what I was doing...
Cardboard first. Look at me. I know something 😂
@@boysrus61 cardboard, mulch/compost & I use red clover for cover crop
Man this is such a ripper of a video! Thankyou so much for putting this one up! Some of the best information I’ve come across in my years of gardening.
Nice use if the word "ripper".
I do all my garden rows that way.. I dig ditches between rows .. I learned this from gardeners from other countries.. was worried about droughts.. plus most my property is down hill and washes away.. when I did get rain.. and man the amazing difference it made.. 💯❤
Love seeing the kiddos helping out. Our three-year-old granddaughter, who lives with us, helps me daily with planting, weeding, and eating the fruits of our labor. Great stuff!
No matter the amounts of views, I've found that you can always find different items that will give you a new outlook about doing gardening.
Sir, we must be prepared to accept the information to benefit from your videos!
Like I always said, ask a question 100 times until, the answer is understood by you!
Have a great 2023 season! TY.
Wish i could like this twice, just came back to watch a second time and learned even more. Thank you!
It's hard to believe how much great information is on TH-cam. Just discovered your channel and subscribed. I want to offer a humble addition: wet the cardboard! It starts the decomposition method quickly without relying on the damp compost or hoping for rain to come through.
Great video. In my four years of gardening I believe this video can help anyone from the backyard gardener like myself, to someone wanting to start a farm.
Coleman Shepard told me a method i'm going to try. he instructed me to mix a cup of molasses and a tablespoon of sea salt in a gallon of water (you might want to double or triple the recipe) spray that all over the grass that's growing where you want your garden to be, give it a good dousing. the tarp with an old bill board tarp (black backed tarps are best for this) leave it covered for 3 weeks to a month, when you remove your tarp all that will remain is mycelium; you can plant into that or spread a mulch and plant thru that.
How don't you have a million subscribers? Your content is great👍
I live in on a small homestead in Texas. How I start a new in-ground garden section is similar, before winter, typically in November or December, I choose the spot where I want a new section of garden to be. Then, I will broad fork it and turn the soil clumps upside down so the grass that was on the surface is now in the soil. I will then add about 2 inches of compost, a local compost company near me sells a mixture of composted manure, bark, cotton burrs, grass, and humate in bulk and thats what I use. Then, I will cover it all in about 4 inches of mulched autumn leaves and then let it sit all winter. Works great. Every time I do this, in Spring there are a tone of worms and the soil is dark black and airy.
Hi, great info. Glad to know I am on the right path. Started a new garden this spring on an overgrown field of brambles and grasses. Originally, I wanted to create a lasagna bed to plant in but couldn't find affordable supply of compost, so ended up getting the plot tilled. Had it rototilled twice about 1 week apart and then put in landscape fabric 4' wide/bare earth 4'/landscape fabric 4' repeat all the way across. I planted in the fabric with transplants and then in between the fabric rows for direct seeding. The fabric helps to keep the weed pressure down. I also planted lots of melons and squash this year so the plants are helping to keep the weed pressure down too. Its going good so far. At the end of the season I plan to add manure and cover with straw so it will be ready to plant next year without tilling again.
Endlich mal jemand der das super erklärt, ich weiß das zwar alles schon, aber einigen ist das bestimmt eine große hilfe.🤠🙏
I followed your example on the cardboard method and it’s been a good first year so far. We just moved here around the first of the year so I mowed the grass down to the ground, used all our cardboard boxes from the move, and put a garden soil mix from the local landscape nursery on top of that. So far we are doing well and hopefully next year even better.
Funny enough, I'm looking to start a garden NEXT spring, and am doing research now in order to plan and make sure it had the best chance of success (as it's going to be a remote garden on a peice of land I own about 15 minutes from my house, and thus I can't be there EVERY day.)
This is been a GREAT resource and I'll be Coming back through the next few months as I get stuff going!
How did the first summer go?
Loved the longer video! I know it takes a lot of work to make so thank you! I have had luck with just a couple of layers of cardboard covered in compost and left to sit over the winter, by spring the cardboard is soft enough to plant right on top of.
I love your quick start method, because in my opinion, no matter what, second and third year gardens produce like crazy.....but you have to get the first year garden started! (I'm on my third year garden at the location!)
Thank you for this comment. As I was feeling like I was too late to start, since didn’t see this video in the fall when it was published. Just start! Great advice, thanks again!
Perfect timing for me. Great information and I like your presentation. I am a new gardener at 80. I wish I had started earlier but chasing the almighty dollar I lost out. I am in zone 6b and have a hard pan about 6” down so I am trying to overcome that issue. I already tilled 900 Sq ft. With a front tine tiller but had little success with that. I think I have found a tractor with a big tiller and was wondering if I could do this in spring and still have some success as I lready have a cover crop planted. I woul appreciate any help from other commenters since I know your busy. Thanks ahead. Y’all havagudun and God Bless.
Sending thanks and hoping for some new garden space feedback.
We're experienced gardeners relocating to a new space. Every space we looked at, including the one we eventually chose, was infected with some model of rhizome forming grass such as Kentucky Bluegrass/Poa Annua or other similarly forming noxious invader. We're experienced with these coming from a maritime climate.
We're considering several first steps, but the middle stage is always looking to be 2 - 3 months of solarization in what will be a warm summer here. Our new home is on the WA/ID border and has four seasons.
My wife and I are knowledgeable and can wait for a season to reduce weeds. We'd planned to split our garden in half to allow solarization or to put chickens on half the space in alternating seasons, as hand pulling rhizomes in an irrigated space as we approach 60 doesn't appeal to us.
Any feedback and guidance would be greatly appreciated.
KP
It sounds like you're thinking about it the right way. The longer you can keep that under tarp, the lower the weed pressure will become. A year is often the recommendation, but I say as long as you can reasonably do. Heavy compost mulches would obviously help too. I find that most grass does not take well to that type of mulch and you could get that started right away. So you have options!
even rhizome grasses die eventually if you are more persisitent than the grass. I did a 6" deep tillage, raked off the grass & rhizome and put them in the compost heep. when I turned the compost after about 6 months or so ( lazy composting) I sifted it and pulled out any rhizomes that showed any sign of life... very few bit of grass popped back up the next year and very few pop up in the compost... my issue is the chick weed... I have yet to get my post hot enough to kill the seeds and too tiny to pull efficiently and I inevitably miss some, which then seed out again... uhg!
Moving away from heavy rototilling. Listening to you Farmer Jesse is great and you sure are awesome!!!! Making compost and have garden divided in to 6, 4*12 ft beds,plus few larger areas. Bought my first broadfork this winter and excited to see how compacted the soil is.. thanks for your inspiration!
Just started watching you, and i feel like I hit the jackpot to what i needed, I've always always loved gardening and always wanted own farm. over the course of 4 years my father in law has introduced me to plants and crops and i've falling in love with it. I've been jotting notes down all day, looking forward to drowning myself in learning.
Also really digging the cardboard method as well and can't make to start making my own compost tea
I find the double dig method, it's a form of plowing, but found that extremely effective especially when you have poor soil and are in a hurry. It's hard work without machinery but it works.
I'm currently trialling starting with a Ruth stout style garden for the first year where I can grow a potato crop. Within the first year, I add worms, worm eggs, and any sort of things I think will add good microbial life.
In the second year, I add compost beds, and woodchip pathways and start the back to Eden style gardening.
Where u get your wood chips
@@TupeloHoney_77 in my local landscape supplies place, there is this stuff called hardwood chip. It's quite cheap and doesn't attract termites.
I just doubled my garden space- tarped 500sqft (of compacted clay that's been bermuda lawn since the 80s) for the entire summer. Put my new broad fork to work then 6-8" of compost then a cover crop of like 9 or 10 species. Got your book from the library and totally nerded out over it. That cover crop is coming up waaaaaaaaaay better than anything I ever planted in the older half of my garden that I've been struggling in for 3 years. That half is getting revamped, too. Love your channel and your book!
What tarp? Clear or black?
@@simd510 Black
This is certainly on a smaller scale, but has anyone discussed Hugelkulture? I have done a somewhat modified version of that in raised beds - some homemade using wood and roofing metal, some dozen more in 100-150 gallon livestock troughs.
Both methods began with a layer of well rotting (old firewood) about 1/3 of the depth of the bed. Then we put in a mixture of 1 year old passively composted horse manure and bedding mixed with shredded paper, with the top 1/3 being well composted finished horse manure and bedding compost. Absolute black gold.
The inground raised beds - vs the trough ones - began with a trench about 1 ft deep with walls about 24” on ground level around the trench. This still allowed the 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 layering.
Each late fall after cutting the dead plants off at ground level leaving the roots, I topped the beds with finished compost and put down a bit of grass clipping mulch which meant the ground was ready for planting in the spring. Given that we are in Northern lower Michigan, our last frost date is typically Memorial weekend or the first week in June.
We moved last winter and while we left a few of the homemade raised beds, we did build a few more at our new farm. We also moved, at great effort with only having a neighbor witha tractor available to load but no equipment here to UNload. 100-150 gallons of soil in a trough which already carries some weight are HEAVY. OMGosh heavy. Crazy for a 63 yr old significantly physically disabled person and her 73 yr old “I can do it!” husband to attempt. Which lead to 4 of the dozen+ troughs tipping before we got help and displaying the absolutely amazingly wonderful contents of gorgeous soil and the barely there remnants of the rotting wood.
I will ALWAYS garden this way.
Did I mention I get AMAZING yields too?
One grower you can look to is Briceland forest farm. We did a podcast episode together for The No-Till Market Garden Podcast that discusses hugelkulture on scale
I have a tiny backyard garden, and have attempted different methods over the years with mixed results. In early spring I bought a metal raised bed and filled it with rotted logs and branches, then filled the gaps with sawdust, leaves and compost. Topped it with a couple of inches of bagged garden soil. Then I planted Swiss chard and kale along the edges and the filled the center with tomatoes. I’m surprised how well the tomatoes are doing.
Hello Shelley where are you from?
By the end of this summer, I will have had experience with multiple ways to start gardening. I have grown food in containers for the most part but this season will be my first in permanent raised beds. I put down cardboard straight on top of the lawn and filled the bottom with twigs, branches old compost material, then my bokashi mixed with bought compost. I have planted directly into this as well as sown directly. Also, I made a lasagna bed last season for my strawberry plants from runners, which really did well. This summer will be my first time having to dig a little since I'm putting in a plum tree and a blackberry bush. Again, into the lawn. I have also started a hot compost bin that I'll fill over the season. I use wood ash, urine, ground-up eggshells, bokashi liquid, nettle, and comfrey tea, and some leftover all-purpose pellet fertilizer to amend my beds. Not all at once but since it all went into my old compost of last year it all gets in there somehow. I'm super happy to have a record-sized growing space compared to before.
thank you for bringing so much attention to keeping plants in the soil. people need to understand cover cropping better, it's really the future of regenerative agriculture. a bare soil is a dead soil- after priming the lot, that soil should *never* be bare again otherwise you'll be losing life in the soil. weeds happen because the soil wants to be covered. if you keep plants in the soil that fix the nutrients both growing and chopped down to rot, you'll never need to amend your soil and all your costs go out the window. you're not just farming the plants, you're farming the microbiome that needs plants. you're farming the fungal network in the ground and trying to make it stronger instead of weaker with tilling or bare soil. cover crops feed that biome and when its chopped down and left to rot, it feeds and insulates the soil from the elements all winter. protect your soil!! after priming your lot, you shouldnt be seeing much of the soil ever again. if you do let it bake in the sun or freeze, you'll never fix the way water moves thru it and erodes compost away. bare soil = flooding, droughts, pests, killing the soil.
four years I lived twenty mins away from my garden nothing butnardwork and disappointment but we got moved into our cabin in June I can't wait for spring!
Started another 3x50 ft bed this year with just a 1" till and a bunch of grass clippings, planted right into it. Added 4 last year in the fall with free hay and a shallow cultivation till. Both are working great, expect both to only increase in fertility next year. Also I finally have compost finished--been using that for stuff I want to direct seed into (remove and compost the mulch, put down finished compost, plant). I love my living pathways btw, it's like I kept the utility/mobility of a yard, while turning the whole thing into gardens.
Nice--love to hear that about the living pathways!
Thoughts on solarizing?
I removed hoop house plastic last week and put it on the lawn to give it a rinse and wash it off.
That was at noon.
Forgot about it until the next day when my wife realized what I had done.
By 2 o'clock on a bright sunny day in July it had totally cooked the grass in a perfect rectangle, killing it completely.
I was pretty impressed by 26 hours of solarizing!
I am now trying this on a couple of weedy garden beds, it probly won't do anything at all...
Did you ever try it? I'm trying to decide if clear or black tarp would be better for killing grass.
Loved the information and the since of humor. I will definitely be watching more videos.
My favorite gardeners! You guys make the absolute best videos for no till. Great content, thank you for sharing 😊
My garden is a slow and unmethodical version, because I'm not organized and I don't follow instructions well ,but it's getting there and don't stop digressing! you wear it well!
Agree 100% with use of compost.
Last December I built a bed for 600 onions. 4” thick of compost, laid out 3 lines for drip, covered with black plastic. January 1st I planted the onions, poking holes In plastic. Never used any additional fertilizer and had consistent 4-4.5 inch onions. They were only watered 4 times the entire season. I’ve grown larger onions in traditional raised beds, organic fertilizers and almost daily watering but this was hands down the best method.
My compost piles are large, long term and occasionally turned with tractor….leaves, hay the animals won’t eat, chicken manure and stable clean outs.
Perfect timing for this video, thanks! :) I am in the Southern Hemisphere (NZ) where we are in the depths of winter and I am planning an expansion, starting nowish to be ready for planting early summer (December).
Hi fellow Kiwi. I'm starting a few shared community plots here in Matapouri.
Thank you! So excited to start my garden!
Thanks! This is my very first time homesteading and just threw stuff in the ground in the spring. I will start working on my beds for next year!
It just hit spring here. Perfect timing. Great advice.
Not to throw a fly into the ointment but be careful where you source your cardboard from. A lot of it is sprayed with chemicals that you may not want in your food gardens. Flowers or ornamentals may not be an issue.
Great videos! My wife and I just purchased our future homestead and plan to start working it asap. Thank you for all the great advice.
Same with the compost . Sometimes there are herbicides in the commercial compost.
growing at 8500' in Colorado, 20 years and loving it !!!
Best gardening video by far! Thanks! Zone 8b here. We squared off our large garden with logs cut from our yard. That holds all ingredients in and keeps weeds out. Then, we cardboarded the area with thick layers, overlapping generously, found free chick and/or horse manure as a bottom layer. It was quite a stench for a while there, but worth it. 💩 After that, we covered it with about 12" of free mulch (branches, bushes, etc) from the county. We have done this twice now. When it sits over the winter, covered with a tarp, it is just right for spring and beyond and the soil is beautiful not to mention the behemoth worms and a couple of snake surprises. When we do this at spring time instead, the wood chips bind up too much of the nutrients before beginning to compost and the plants struggle to start off, sometimes becoming to an early demise, but most get there eventually. All the shoveling is worth it. Soil is great and weeding takes about 5 minutes per week.
I love using cover crops and compost in combination. Also I love the lasagna gardening method, all these things have built my soil health in a short period of time.
Another very good and easy way is to simply 1. chop and drop (or use drop as mulch at step 4 (depending on amount of weed seeds), 2. decompact (broadfork), 3. sheetmulch (Cardboard/ newspaper etc) and then 4. a thick layer of mulch (6inch +), ideally nitrogen rich mulch + carbon rich mulch on top. 5. Pull aside the mulch, 6. poke a hole in the cardboard, 7. add a handful or two of compost in the hole and 8. transplant into this.
Thank you for this, i will do it to my backyard mini farm 😊
Just "discovered" your videos Jeffrey, and enjoyed each one! Even tho I have tractors/tillers, my "go-to" tool for starting a new bed is my ol' Gravely walk-behind rotary plow. Engine speed determines how far it throws the soil, and amendments can be incorporated at that time (automatically burying 'em). Since our local lime is Dolomitic, Mg levels can become elevated over time, so Gypsum can help. Cover crops are Iron/Clay Peas and/or weeds/grass clippings. If grass clippings are picked up in a timely fashion, and piled high enough, they'll go through a heat and break down much faster than if you let them dry out in the (Fl.) sun before collection. Ideally, pick 'em up within a few hours of mowing and after a good rain---the bio-activity a hay producer dreads and prevents to the best of his abilities are the very ones the gardener appreciates.
About the Gravely walk-behind tractor; that plow is spinning well out in front of the machine, not right in front of your feet. (I have a BCS 715 early model with roto-tiller and sickle-bar mower, but seldom use it---that tiller grinding away just inches in front of where I step is intimidating....) The Gravely roto-tiller (not plow) almost has to be used in reverse due to serious wheel/tire ruts. but the rotary plow throws to the side, so tracks aren't much of a problem.
About once every five years or so I'll drop the 4' tractor-mounted tiller on a "resting" bed just to kinda introduce whatever is on the surface into the soil. I have sandy soils over yellow clay so occasional application of gypsum seems to help (especially with blossom-end rot in tomatoes) but elephant garlic is my main crop (and it's not "finicky" at all...) The gypsum isn't needed for soil flocculation just for Ca and S. I "religiously" broadcast "split-pea" Sulfur (over new areas, especially...). I don't think it does quite the same thing as calcium sulphate dihydrate.
Keep up the good work! (It looks like I have about roughly a hundred videos to watch....) btw, where'd you get the Caturday shirt? I want one!
Did my quickest garden this year..im 60 and was given small plants unexpectedly and late in spring...more like start of summer..mowed on shortest setting..then sprayed weeds with trimic waited 3 days and used drill auger and plated..not best garden ever but doing pretty well..and I used fish emulsion after 2 weeks from start..i love that stuff
You grow it and your neighbors take it. Chaos is just around the corner. Lead Up Fred
Thanks!
🙌
This is perfect timing :-)
We have cut our last hay today, baling in about a week and then, veg beds prep :-)
The video is very good and creative. I really liked the part at 13:25, thank you!
I garden in Western KY on land that has laid fallow for years. Our "soil" is pretty much yellow clay and we got very poor results this year. I tried to dig up the few potaoes that actually grew and the shovel bounced of the surface. I just ordered your book and I will be applying your methods ASAP in order to get better production for next year.
Sounds like you got your hard work planned ahead. After the harvest, check out a few of the Chefs recipes.
Not sure how much land you got but it would probably help to add organic material, like compost or manure, it can be more expensive then chemical fertilizers but its probably what your land needs, even stuff like sticks and leaves or hay will help.
I would recommend leaf mulch. It's free and it will help you immensely. Gather a lot of leafs in the fall (as many bags as possible, but do some research since some leaves are not great) and then lay those leaves out on top of your soil. Keep doing this every year and your soil quality will improve. After your leaves have turned to soil, till it into the soil underneath.
My kids and I did a garden bed for them which was compost on brown packing paper with woodchips on cardboard for paths. It worked really well in the same season. Need plenty of water
I just wanted to say thank you guys for the knowledge and expertise when it comes to no till growing. I can’t believe I just found your account, I’ve been nonstop catching up on all the vids I’m behind on haha!
It’s amazing how small changes in farming can lead to huge environmental benefits. Who else is passionate about sustainable living this year?
The DIY project at 3:05 is brilliant-definitely going to try that on my farm! 🔨
gosh, your videos appear exactly when I need them. I am severely handicapped but determined to convert my quarter acre to a no-till permaculture garden.
A few days ago I laid down some painters plastic to solarize an area, just like you recommended it in a video. I'm so excited to watch this video because this land is super fertile, but has hard summer-compacted clay weed soil.
I think the soil is actually quite healthy, when it's slowly moistened with a soaker it smells great and clings to roots properly. But in the summer it's too hard to get a pickaxe through, so I wanted to do something to prepare it for the coming winter planting season.
Location -- Northern California/Sacramento valley
My mother is severally handicapped, too. She uses cardboard and/or mulch as weeding is not much of an option for her. She has a great garden every year. Good luck! 👍
I Like your humor, I learnt heaps great info and I am experienced in garedning. KEEP THESE UP PLEASE
Excellent video! My mind is blown absorbing so much information and the possibilities! 🙌👏
Hi Debbie where are you from?
Jessie I’ve been watching for the last two years (subscribing on patreon too) and I just wanted to say thank you for the time and effort you put into your videos. I appreciate you and your team. 🧡
I like your videos,Jessy,keep doing the great job👍
I have a 860 sqms garden in rural Hungary with a small country house on the property. I bought it in July 2021. The garden was not used for years, it was full of small acacia trees and huge grass. We cleaned it and I got a quite big compost pile from the greens what I used as mulch last year.
OMG! Where have you been all of my gardening life?!? Love your videos!
Hello How are you doing today
I like your approaches, the most I like that you are not saying that there is only one 'right' way to get it done... and that you are telling the 'reasoning' behind it... people learn to understand soil this way
Great video! Another option to get a garden set up quick in a turf covered lot without tillage is to use a sod cutter. It can also get out some of the bad weeds right off the bat and you’re not inverting any soil. Generally you’ll need compost after if you want raised beds though. Thanks for all your videos, tons of great information!
Cut the sod and invert it as the first layer in a "lasagna" garden. We're all about losing the lawn here in drought stricken California.
I herd that doesn't work with rhizome grass
Bermuda is not a fun one.
Watch epic gardening
I'm loving your helping videos. Full of knowledge. Chickens adopted me 3 years ago which lead to composting to gardening. I am now thinking of my 1 acre back behind the chicken yard, to begin row gardening. I will tarp it asap. I'm 8a and will going at this slowly as I am learning still. I just need more chickens lol for more black gold. I think I will use their back yard gate to set a poultry netting up, for their guidance in the future, after my cover crop has grown. I'm excited. Ty 4 your helpful videos.
I'm so glad to find this video! We're hopefully closing on a large property and I'm moving from my raised bed gardens in the city. The new property has a giant field of hay that I want to use a portion of for a big garden, and a grassy area I want to start a smaller kitchen garden in. I'll be starting with the late summer-fall crops. This is a helpful video for me.
I would love to hear you talk about no-till gardening... that's what caught my eye about your channel.
Love your channel. Great content, and very, very relevant. I've always agreed with the notion of no-till. Your experience helps folks like me understand the "whys and wherefores" when it comes to getting the details nailed down.
Excellent garden. Perfect timing!!
I totally agree. I just open my back door and I have on my back deck all my herbs, so I just grab some basil, some possibly some mint and that’s it.
Superb Video!! Thank you so much for sharing. You are a wealth of Garden knowledge.
Last small front yard garden I made was in a yard. I put cardboard down, then kitchen scraps and yard trimmings (in fall/late summer) then another layer of cardboard and watered until it started raining. In the spring it was ready to plant.
I did something similar with tomatoes. Cardboard, then homemade well aged compost. I planted tomatoes. I actually cut through the cardboard. For the tomatoes. It worked great.
We are moving onto our forever homestead this week. My plan is to till the garden and plant cover crop that will die back on winter. This is the first time I've ever tried cover crop. 🤞
While I do appreciate your no-till methods (I've watched most, if not all, your videos), I really had no option but to till the first couple of years when starting my garden. My soil predominantly grows rocks, and I hauled a couple of tons out the first two years of working the soil with my tiller, just to get around 6 inches of loose soil. If I had fewer rocks to contend with, I'd love to try no-till farming. In the meantime, I love your videos because you are one of the best organic gardening narrators I've seen, and your style appeals to the nerdy side of me. Keep up the great work, sir!
I had a newngarden area picked on when we moved to new home. The soil is clay, so I layed dark tarps down at end of summer, left on til spring. I applied compost and mulch, and used raised beds for some crops and planted directly into soil for others. It worked great! I continue to add leaf mold to level.area and the soil is much improved.
jessi it is your digressions that make you you plz dont stop
Fellow Kentuckian..... glad to see growing content in my local region. Hardin county checking in.👊🇺🇲
Great content.....thanks!!! My gardens have been built using these types of methods. As a resource I have used Charles Dowding as well as you guys.... all to great success. And BTW...."digressions", Keep them to a maximum. I always get a kick out of your quick witted twists and turns. Cheers.
Thanks for the chuckles, and for the good information.
I started March of 2021 to make my new garden for 2022. The first step I did was run my chicken tractor over the lawn where the garden was going to be located. I had green "racing stripes" 6 feet wide all summer from where the chickens had laid down a layer of manure. In late summer I picked a hot day and cut the grass as short as possible after letting it grow an extra few days. The grass clippings acted as my mulch for crimson clover, that choked out most of the grass, followed by cereal rye over the winter(zone8). I tilled in manure compost this spring in half of the area and did straw compost mix on the other half. Both are working great but the straw compost has more bug and pest issues.