Hi, James 👋. I enjoyed your videos. Your raised beds look very thick and durable. It seems you have used extra parts to strengthen them. Let’s say if I want a 12L x 4W x 1H raised beds. Could you please give me the specifications? (eg, dimensions of each part, including the thickness). Besides the four sides, what else do I need? I’d like to walk into the local hardware store and just give them a full list of everything I need to build it. Thank you!
Slight correction: Sepp Holzer's farm is in the _Austrian_ Alpes. Such farms have extensive (but often poor grounds), at the elevation of the farm dairy was the major share of their income. Additionally they could grow barley, potatoes, cabbage (conventional old fashioned farming in that region at that elevation, his father was reluctant to adopt new things). His son took over the farm at a very young age, 20 years. His mother had a vegetable garden near the house for plants that need more warmth, but the area that they used for grazing and wood goes up much higher, no one before Holzer tried to grow fruits, have wild pigs, or create ponds with fish higher up. It is anything but ideal, but that was the land, soil, weather, and slope he had to work with, and he created microclimate zones where he could even grow kiwi (near the house) all kinds of cherries (they have ongoing harvest as the earlier and later varieties ripe at different heights) - in a region that is called the Siberia of Austria. Lots of rain in summer (it can get wet and cold) and short growing season and lots of snow in the winter. and they are lucky in that region if they have mediocre meadows. There is plenty of trees there (depends how high you are) so that is the abundant material they could work with to create a mound (Huegel) that would also be warmer than soil, and drain better and also catch and keep rain better. Rotting wood is like a sponge. Grass - if there was any - was kept for the cows. Actually the farmers in that region (but also in Switzerland, South of Germany) had their cows and goats on the high meadows in summer (it is like summer camp for cows, there were one or two herders in a cabin that were responsible for the lifestock of many families and milked them and made butter and cheese. They would be visited once or twice per week so the products could be carried down into the valley. There is a saying: what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Same for the Alpine meadows - the herders were young unmarried milkmaids in most cases (cheap labor) and rumor has it that they (or one they often were alone) got male visitors. Normally it was not that easy to have a romance or one night stand - but that was too remote and no nosy neighbours anywhere near. Grass closer to the farm (think 1 hour) was cut and dried. All manual labor and with skythes, often with steep slopes. They stored that hay that they made in remote ares in provisory wooden sheds and went for it in winter - then transporting it with sledges, which was easier. And if a shed would burn down (hay that is not perfectly dry can self ignite) they did not lose all the fodder. Plus time was precious in the short growing season but in winter they had more time for such chores, plus the transport then was much easier with a sledge. Hard times for sure.
Hi James. You should know that I am grateful for you and your channel. Because of your inspirational and instructive videos, I now have two, 10' x 4' x30" raised beds and seven 30 gallon trash containers. All total, I have108 sq. ft. surface area to grow food and flowers. Since March, I have harvested more vegetables than I ever had in my 57 years of gardening, total. As an online teacher this entire school year, getting outside in the fresh air and sunshine is more imperative than ever. While it has cost a great deal of physical labor for this 60 year old, I am grateful to still be able to create this with very little help. It's my beautiful refuge from electronic devices. Thank you, and Tuck. 👍😎👍
Your knowledge, honesty, and enthusiasm has definitely earned a subscription from me. If I ever make friends who are into gardening, I'll share your channel. I've just been binging your videos and enjoying each one more than the last.
I came across his channel a few years ago and began binging his videos. Sometimes I still go back and re watch his old videos. I had never heard of a food forest until I watched one of his videos. Now I’m putting one in. I started planting mine in 2019.
I use vermiculite rather than perlite. Perlite eventually floats to the top, where vermiculite stays put and absorbs and releases huge amounts of water. Great video!
2:20 "hold all that excess waudder" I f'n love your videos and jersey accent, it makes me think of my old college buddies. Keep it up, and full disclosure I steal these ideas!
Love your videos James. As an Agronomist I would like to clarify one thing about plant survival, most of the gardeners pamper their plants a lot. As a matter of fact any plant has its own natural capability to stretch and insert its roots into any harder substances like hard soil or gravel or even rotting wood. So no need to worry about soil compaction, agronomically hard soil help the plant grow deeper and stronger roots which inturn makes plants healthier and Drought resistant. However when we have a choice to make our own soil it's not required to be worried of compaction. If we see any old abandoned houses we'll find plants and trees growing on concrete stretching their roots deep into the cemented structures. What I'm trying to say is never worry about the plant survival in terms of its physiological development...every plant has its own basic instincts and survival techniques. Thanks for the video.
I appreciate this comment so much. My husband and I have built about 14 raised beds. 4ft wide and about 2ft deep are longest bed is about 40ft. I have been so stressed about how and what to fill our beds with. The top soil we have out in kansas is mostly clay like. We have gone back and forth about getting several dump trucks delivered with a topsoil/compost mix-. This seems like the most effective way to fill the beds because of how large our beds are. But the compost matter isn’t great and the top soil is mostly clay. Our first bed we filled with wood/sticks - and realized we needed to do something to lighten up the clay like topsoil. So we spent a day or so mixing in peat moss and more compost. It’s finally getting to a consistency I like. Although in saying this, a couple years ago we had a friend make raised beds. Not sure what happened but all of her plants did not do well- the drainage was just terrible. She did not do her own mix and just brought in a dump truck of a garden bed mix from a big dirt n gravel place. Anywho- our friends ended up scratching their entire project because the beds were not draining right and the plants didn’t do well. We are finally at a place where we need to start filling our large beds- and I keep going back and forth with how to fill them! I do like the idea of making our own soil mix like here in the video. Although my husband says it will take so much time to do this because of the amount of soil we need brought it. Any thoughts, suggestions would be appreciated!!
@@jewlstime hi, to loosen the clay soil, adding river sand is the best option, and making it up nutrient rich add vermicompost. To naturally make the soil loose, then add earthworms into the beds may be a 1000 of worms in each bed, they naturally feed on the decaying matter and make the soil porous by burrowing channels in the soil. Hope I answered properly to your question. Happy Gardening
Good luck with the new raised beds! It is hard work and sometimes up-front costs can seem a lot, but when it lasts 10 years and you get outside and eat healthy vegetables, it is worth it!
@@rasmuschristian Pressure-treated can sometimes last 10+ years. Mine are about there now and still holding up pretty well. I screw in the corners, not nails. If you can put a barrier between the wood and soil, even longer. I have some lined with hard plastic. If you use non-treated wood, it will last maybe half as long before rotting. Redwood and cedar last much longer without being pressure-treated..
I just found you!! Love to learn & watch. I’m in my 60’s and unfortunately have had repeated shoulder injuries so while I do expect after gardening pain, I’m searching for easy ways for me to still garden. I’m in SS so I love economical solutions. I plan to find cheap containers that I can put in cinder blocks to eliminate bending. If you ever wanted to do a video for old ppl that have physical limits I’m sure there are lots of folks like me. Never managed to get myself off grid but I’m dedicated to growing & hopefully canning my own food. With the exception of years if growing flowers herbs & tomatoes, this is only my 3rd year gardening. It makes me 😊 happy! Thank you so much😘
Yes I can relate to the pain of having limitations. Both physical and $$. Most things take twice as long to do. Fortunately my 69 year old husband is stronger than most half his age.
I gather the newspaper and pizza boxes, over many weeks, cut in strips add to soil with horse manure leaves, sticks over winter! You can burn them to! Live in Florida, took one year using the above material AND WHITE SAND, and egg shells, coffee grounds! Turned into great soil
Just thought I'd share . . . I made a very large, raised veggie garden bed - 4ft wide, 20 ft long and 30 in high. I used very old wood logs to fill the bottom. The power company near my house has their used, old telephone poles available for free to the general public. But they cut them into 4 to 6 ft sections because they don't want anyone to use them as building material. It appears on most of the old power poles only the bottom 4 to 6 ft are covered in creosote. So I chose some of the top power pole pieces - the ones that seem to be 100 years or more older. They are very old, cracked, splitting, dry rotted, and almost act like sponges. Nobody wants those pieces so they just sit there in the pile year after year, rotting away. I believe they made a good bottom fill for my bed. Just a suggestion if you don't have other old, rotted wood to use as bottom fill.
Am in A journey of Starting my own homestead and I've been watching all your gardening videos and i have to say they're very helpful I haven't done anything yet except for starting a compost pile but watching your videos have made me feel like I know everything there is to know and for that I will always be thankful for your lessons
Make sure you only use this technique with ANNUALS. I made the mistake of doing something like this when money and time were tight and we couldn't get a load of soil when I needed it. We had half a load left from the year before so I added the spoiled hay and muck from the barn for the first foot or two and then topped it with soil. Then I planted the bare root berries (that couldn't wait any longer!) I knew it would decompose eventually, but by the end of the growing season, the soil level sunk over a foot. That would've been fine for vegetables or annual flowers, but...this spring meant lifting the berry bushes up and filling in a lot of soil. Lesson learned. The hard way.
I'm a new gardener and keep coming back to your videos! Thank you so much! Sometimes I'm temped to fast-forward, like when you're just filling up the raised bed, but I stop because now I know you're always giving tidbits of great information all the way through the process. Helpful stuff!
I think that you are the first I have come across who from the start tells a viewer WHERE he is gardening thus enabling a person to make comparisons....excellent. You also provide good content without the theatricals that some seem to think is essential in making such Videos.
People in my neighborhood bag up their yard waste and leaves and put them on the side of the road. I use them to 1/2 to 2/3 fill up a large pot or a new raised bed. Then water well and compact well until you fill the space 1/2 to 2/3rds full!
He is the star of the show!! Love and hugs to Tuck. Love your filler idea. It sure makes sense to not waste good soil for the entire bed. Thanks for bringing another great garden tip to us. Happy Gardening 🌷🌻🌷🌻
Great ideas for the raised bed. Was planning to build a new fence and went to Lowes and wow the price of lumber is like 4 times the price a year ago. The saw mills are the reason prices are so high. They are claiming it is supply and demand. There is no shortage of wood.
Smaller branches are fine, they have more nutrients. Muncipalities, electricity providers, landscapers that take down (sick) trees or prune them, I think even thorny brambles would work. these are all sources. Even carton and newspaper would work (it is carbon like wood).
Whew I'm glad I'm not the only person that has done that! We had a layer of that, a layer of aged sawdust, a layer of sand for plants that needed looser soil plus some perlite a layer of aged manure and finally our soil and compost.we raked it through to the saw dust. My horse radish never slowed down,my Jerusalem artichokes popped up super quick. I really didn't have a clue as to what to put in.
Yes! This is the best timing! I’m just about to build my first ever raised beds this month! Need to build them high as my dog jumps in all of my planters and digs everything up! 😱 I’ve been wondering how to get around spending so much on compost! Thanks James.
After you put down the logs, put down dirt/buffer/whatever before the sticks. Then sticks with the buffer. Don't create air pockets. Your bed will drop less, but more importantly you won't create pockets for unwanted bugs. This is a common problem with hugel raised beds.
I used just sticks b4 and it's fine. This year I made 2-22' long beds and used some oak logs from winter trimming. I then packed a lot of smaller twigs and leaves, straw and compost. I have heard that people who live in states with termites that hugalkulture is not a good practice close to the house. I will say in the stick bed that I had a friendly garden snake nesting underneath. So to pack or not pack--I would pack. I don't need drainage we are super dry and sandy.
Love your show! Love you & Tuck! You have no idea how much you truly help people with your positive attitude. 2020 was a very hard year for SO MANY people, myself included, but your videos and your lovely co-anchor Tuck have raised the soul/spirit and my mental health has skyrocketed! Seriously, thank you both! I would love it if you could either add your seed choices to the Amazon links, or do a segment on what brand you choose. I'm very interested in growing my own starters next year, but I'm uncertain where to obtain organic, non-gmo seeds. Thank you!
I really like the way you explain concepts and debunk some of the trends. It’s so easy to get caught up in a particular method that perhaps isn’t necessary or suitable. Really informative and loving the infectious enthusiasm. Thank you!
Hey James & Tuck, You both are a joy to watch! Great carpenter work on your beds! The world can see you love what you are growing! When it started spritzing lil Tuckster used you like an umbrella! ☔ He loves his daddy. Green thumbs up guys! 💚🐾
Hugelkultur is such a wonderful way to develop future soil and lessen the cost of filling raised beds. You are doing a fine job with your gardens and orchards. I commend you on your TH-cam presentations. You are a great teacher James.
I've tried small bits of gardening in my time and have typically failed 😕. I stumbled on your channel and really enjoy your energy, knowledge, and passion (and obvious love for Tuck). After watching your videos, I feel like I could do this! Thanks for doing what you do!
I made the mistake of using my native soil in the bottoms of my raised beds and found there was quack grass in it and it has grown up through everything and taken over my beds. Live and learn. I now put down cardboard and landscape cloth first then the beds. But I have to take out my first beds and start from scratch!
@@lyndabuchholz1216 Perhaps a thick layer of cardboard on the weedy soil and mulch/compost on top of that would work? Digging out the beds risks spreading small root pieces to new areas of your garden...
@@emmamemma4162 They are filled raised beds and I planned on taking that soil and fill in holes around the property. I don't mind the grass there since I can mow it and it doesn't crowd out my veges. I don't want it in the beds. It will be a lot of work but that is good for my soul. Oh I try to cover the rest of the garden with old carpets and cardboard so I don't have so many weeds to fight with.
One of the many things I love about your channel- you are always willing to learn new things and to teach us from what you learned. You taught about hugelkultur, and when you realized what it wasn’t, you took it down. I agree, great for a hillside. I used a similar method to fill my deep raised beds - sticks and rotted logs, then wood chips topped with well rotted manure, the. My good soil. Worked great and saved me a lot of money.
Many thanks I am not a gardener in any way, I'm lucky to grow grass. I'm making similar planter boxes for my wife and have a fair bit of tree trimmings, never expected them to be part of planter boxes! Many thanks again, I'll follow your method as close as I can 😎👍
Hubby and I built a 3 ft raised bed last fall and filled it the same way as you're showing. I've recently planted my seedlings and sowed some seeds into it and now, waiting to see how well it does . I'm pretty confident it will be awesome. Thanks to you and others for teaching me all I need to grow and garden . I'm so grateful I can watch your videos, you always teach me so much , thank you
James, would love to see the video on the soil ingredient specifics. Building our concrete block raised beds as we speak so the timing was tremendous. Hoping to get the specifics to help in the process!
💜💜💜this is the 2nd video of your's l watched & what you stand for & are building is exactly what l've been looking for, build my own raised bed cheaply & grow my own organic garden free of gmos, pesticide, fungicides, fertilizers etc. I can't Thank you enough! Learning a lot at the same time. 💜💜💜
Zepp's brilliant system turns a negative into a positive: his method closes a "waste' loop. He needed sunlight to hit the ground, so he cut the trees and used the tree trunks to make beds and filled the bottoms with slash that acts as a sponge to hold water and soil, effectively forming a terrace. In an alpine situation you have to do a lot of earthwork across the hill to stabilize soil. It's a great way to use tree trimmings. I use trimmed branches and twigs on the low side of my hilly blueberry/rhubarb/current patch. On the low side of a bush, I lay and weave twigs and branches into a kind of a 1/2 nest in the root zone of the berries building it up. It holds soil and moisture around the plant and keeps it from rolling down hill. Use what you have. Thanks, James and Tuck! I love your videos. Blessings Abound!
This video has an incredible amount of gold nuggets. I wish I’d seen it before I started 7 years ago. Now I’m needing to reconfigure (and restore) my beds. The terracing, the build up, the soil mix....I need to do this. I’ve got wood debris and have learned of a great garden center too to obtain that kind of mulch/compost supply. I had to chuckle because just this week I was calculating cubic space volumes and costs to budget. Thanks James 🧡 Tuck
James, I love your energy and it's a great motivator. Awesome Video. James, toss in a bag of Pine Bark Fines. Pine bark fines have more lignin (45%) than cellulose (25%) and tends to not tie up Nitrogen like wood chips and make a great soil amendment, don't break down too quickly, aid in aeration and proper drainage. Also, work in a 5 gallon bucket of Bio-Char to absorb and retain water and nutrients, and provide space for microbes to live. I hugelkultur in most of my raised beds, my main goal was not only to fill up the raised beds but for a self-fertilized garden with minimum irrigation. Bio-Char Quote From Proactive Agriculture: "Biochar's remarkable, huge internal surface areas boost soil Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC) to retain positive ions like Calcium, Sodium, Magnesium, Potassium, etc. But biochar has Anion Exchange Capacity (AEC) to capture negative ions, beginning with Nitrogen and Phosphorus ( N-P of N-P-K ). Biochar improves water quality by increasing retention of nutrients for plant and crop use -- more nutrients stay in soil rather than leach into groundwater or outgas."
Huge fan of your videos. They’re always inspiring me and keeping my pumped to start my garden. Thanks for clearing it up about the hugelkulture. I looked around and didn’t find anything showing that it was any more beneficial than regular garden beds
I use the hugelculture method also and it does work amazing well for soil moisture moderation. I have found that it breaks down pretty completely in about two years so then it needs to be added to in the fall.
That's the way I've always done deep raised beds a kind of Hugelkultur base. Always get good results and the logs twigs etc. break down over 2 or 3 years. I've dug out raised beds after 3 years and almost all the lower stuff has turned into nice soil. Good info my man! 👍
I wanted you to know I've already built my first 3 hoop houses thanks to your inspiration. I spend half my life at Home Depot, but I love it! Thanks James!!
I am in my eighties and have loved to garden most of my life. I live in the southwest arizona. I can no longer get up and down off the ground. My husband built me raised boxes about waist high. As we have lots of gophers here, he lined the boxes with aviary cloth to keep them out. Your filling them was a good way and thank you for all the information.
Great video. I did my first Hugelkultur garden last year, and had the most amazing tomato growth, and quantity of them produced,, then I have ever had before. I am in Ontario, Canada zone 3. It worked for me, this year all of my raised beds, will be layered and done this way.
thanks James. This all makes a lot of sense and will make it so much easier to fill my tall beds when I get them. Best tutorial I"ve seen on youtube on this topic.
Outstanding James. I love your passion. It's inspired me to pick up this hobby of trying to develop a green thumb over a good portion of my available backyard. Thumbs up!
So good to see you doing video's again. I use a filler but only a filler I too don't like it too deep. Thanks from Upper Michigan. Hugs and prayers to you and Tuck and the family James.
I put wood in my garden and had fantastic results in less than a year. Ample watering and active composting in the center a shallow above ground bed and having the plants on the perimeter. bed was only 6 inches deep, but I had more wood in mine than you had in yours, and by the end of a year the wood was gone, broken down and used by the plants. If you are strategic about your composting and planting, and careful about your spacing, you can provide an active self feeding nutrient system without adding extra fertilizer. And without a deep bed. I know most gardeners will just dismiss my experience, but a little cunning and a little experimentation goes a long way in the gardening community, and I figured I'd share my results with your community, because it can help. Also, my garden was a 6 inch deep concrete and brick bed with no drainage that I built myself. I grew a bumper crop of peppers in it for three years harvesting every couple weeks. the wood was broken down after one.
Great video, one suggestion. After placing your layer of sticks and adding some soil, water thoroughly. Add some more soil, water more. Do this over and over. This will wash the soil down into most of the voids and prevent a lot of issues with sinkholes in the future.
Thanks. Was over here in zone 6 stressing about not having enough soil for my planter boxes. Got PLENTY of old rotting logs and sticks to fill up that space & Im GOOD!😀
Hey Team Tuck! I am so glad I waited for you closing advice on hugelkultur and some advice for those of us in warmer climes. Think globally, act locally! Cheers mate!
I really like your honesty and candor especially when you were talking about things that did not work so well for you the Hugel culture very impressed thank you for sharing all of your wonderful knowledge cheers Central Florida
Thanks James. I'm considering increasing the height of my raised beds to make it easy for my back, and been wondering if I need to add in so much soil it wouldn't be economically feasible! Tucker is cute as ever - please give him a nice little treat for me 🐾😉
Great idea ! I'm going to make a new raised bed this weekend 😊. I like your videos. They are so informative . I really like the way you explain things as you go . Thank you !
I built the same terraced beds in my garden and filling the bottom with chunks of wood....we're on the same page!! I appreciated the soil recipe and will definately try that...thanks!! Happy gardening from your fan in BC Canada 😊
Your intros make me roll my eyes, but everything after that my eyes are glued to the screen. Such great easy to understand and remember info and advice in your videos, I appreciate all the free shared teaching and life experiences gardening, thank you! I have my cheap easy hoop house over my raised bed thanks to you and still have great lettuce in November in New Hampshire, love that.
Your beds are beautiful. You made a good point about using hugelkultur where it provides benefits. I'm putting in a few hugelkultur beds because they make sense for me. I live in the desert, and the wood at the bottom of the beds can hold moisture from when we get our monsoon rains. If I was back home in the Ozarks, that wouldn't be a necessity; but here, I need things that will help hold the moisture in the garden.
I always learn so much by watching your videos! Thank you so much for making these super fun and informational videos its really appreciated! Cant wait to get started on my own backyard garden as well. Much love and thanks from South Georgia
→ Birdies Raised Beds: COUPON CODE: TUCK shop.epicgardening.com
Hi, James 👋. I enjoyed your videos. Your raised beds look very thick and durable. It seems you have used extra parts to strengthen them. Let’s say if I want a 12L x 4W x 1H raised beds. Could you please give me the specifications? (eg, dimensions of each part, including the thickness). Besides the four sides, what else do I need? I’d like to walk into the local hardware store and just give them a full list of everything I need to build it. Thank you!
Slight correction: Sepp Holzer's farm is in the _Austrian_ Alpes. Such farms have extensive (but often poor grounds), at the elevation of the farm dairy was the major share of their income. Additionally they could grow barley, potatoes, cabbage (conventional old fashioned farming in that region at that elevation, his father was reluctant to adopt new things). His son took over the farm at a very young age, 20 years.
His mother had a vegetable garden near the house for plants that need more warmth, but the area that they used for grazing and wood goes up much higher, no one before Holzer tried to grow fruits, have wild pigs, or create ponds with fish higher up.
It is anything but ideal, but that was the land, soil, weather, and slope he had to work with, and he created microclimate zones where he could even grow kiwi (near the house) all kinds of cherries (they have ongoing harvest as the earlier and later varieties ripe at different heights) - in a region that is called the Siberia of Austria. Lots of rain in summer (it can get wet and cold) and short growing season and lots of snow in the winter.
and they are lucky in that region if they have mediocre meadows. There is plenty of trees there (depends how high you are) so that is the abundant material they could work with to create a mound (Huegel) that would also be warmer than soil, and drain better and also catch and keep rain better. Rotting wood is like a sponge.
Grass - if there was any - was kept for the cows. Actually the farmers in that region (but also in Switzerland, South of Germany) had their cows and goats on the high meadows in summer (it is like summer camp for cows, there were one or two herders in a cabin that were responsible for the lifestock of many families and milked them and made butter and cheese. They would be visited once or twice per week so the products could be carried down into the valley.
There is a saying: what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Same for the Alpine meadows - the herders were young unmarried milkmaids in most cases (cheap labor) and rumor has it that they (or one they often were alone) got male visitors. Normally it was not that easy to have a romance or one night stand - but that was too remote and no nosy neighbours anywhere near.
Grass closer to the farm (think 1 hour) was cut and dried. All manual labor and with skythes, often with steep slopes. They stored that hay that they made in remote ares in provisory wooden sheds and went for it in winter - then transporting it with sledges, which was easier.
And if a shed would burn down (hay that is not perfectly dry can self ignite) they did not lose all the fodder. Plus time was precious in the short growing season but in winter they had more time for such chores, plus the transport then was much easier with a sledge.
Hard times for sure.
Wood sucks nitrogen from soil...not so sure about the logs.
Subscribing
FANTASTIC GUIDE BROTHER. LETS...GO!
Thanks bro! Hopefully it does as well as the veggies in the birdies bed are growing 😍
Let's GROW****
I love both of you ♥
Will you guys be touring each others garden? That would be so amazing to watch🤩
If the teacher started class the same way you did your videos, we would all pay attention
lol true
FACTS
Spot on
If someone talked to me like this in real life I'd punch em in the damn nose
you are right D
Is it just me or is his energy infectious? Love this fucking guy.. he's amazing. National treasure
Agreed.
I smile when he does his intro lol
Tuck goes under your legs to get out of the rain at the end! What a fun little guy ❤
Great content, thank you!
It is unreal how much I have learned in the little time I have followed the channel. Thank u for existing!
Glad to hear that my friend, me and Tuck love hearing that you are getting value out of the videos 😁
Word
Hi James. You should know that I am grateful for you and your channel. Because of your inspirational and instructive videos, I now have two,
10' x 4' x30" raised beds and seven 30 gallon trash containers. All total, I have108 sq. ft. surface area to grow food and flowers. Since March, I have harvested more vegetables than I ever had in my 57 years of gardening, total. As an online teacher this entire school year, getting outside in the fresh air and sunshine is more imperative than ever. While it has cost a great deal of physical labor for this 60 year old, I am grateful to still be able to create this with very little help. It's my beautiful refuge from electronic devices. Thank you, and Tuck. 👍😎👍
Your knowledge, honesty, and enthusiasm has definitely earned a subscription from me. If I ever make friends who are into gardening, I'll share your channel. I've just been binging your videos and enjoying each one more than the last.
I came across his channel a few years ago and began binging his videos. Sometimes I still go back and re watch his old videos. I had never heard of a food forest until I watched one of his videos. Now I’m putting one in. I started planting mine in 2019.
I use vermiculite rather than perlite. Perlite eventually floats to the top, where vermiculite stays put and absorbs and releases huge amounts of water. Great video!
I wish I would of known this before I bought a giant bag of perlite recently.
2:20 "hold all that excess waudder" I f'n love your videos and jersey accent, it makes me think of my old college buddies. Keep it up, and full disclosure I steal these ideas!
Haha 🤦♂️
Do I want a video on how you make your soil? YES!
Love your videos James. As an Agronomist I would like to clarify one thing about plant survival, most of the gardeners pamper their plants a lot. As a matter of fact any plant has its own natural capability to stretch and insert its roots into any harder substances like hard soil or gravel or even rotting wood. So no need to worry about soil compaction, agronomically hard soil help the plant grow deeper and stronger roots which inturn makes plants healthier and Drought resistant. However when we have a choice to make our own soil it's not required to be worried of compaction. If we see any old abandoned houses we'll find plants and trees growing on concrete stretching their roots deep into the cemented structures. What I'm trying to say is never worry about the plant survival in terms of its physiological development...every plant has its own basic instincts and survival techniques.
Thanks for the video.
I appreciate this comment so much. My husband and I have built about 14 raised beds. 4ft wide and about 2ft deep are longest bed is about 40ft. I have been so stressed about how and what to fill our beds with. The top soil we have out in kansas is mostly clay like. We have gone back and forth about getting several dump trucks delivered with a topsoil/compost mix-. This seems like the most effective way to fill the beds because of how large our beds are. But the compost matter isn’t great and the top soil is mostly clay. Our first bed we filled with wood/sticks - and realized we needed to do something to lighten up the clay like topsoil. So we spent a day or so mixing in peat moss and more compost. It’s finally getting to a consistency I like.
Although in saying this, a couple years ago we had a friend make raised beds. Not sure what happened but all of her plants did not do well- the drainage was just terrible. She did not do her own mix and just brought in a dump truck of a garden bed mix from a big dirt n gravel place. Anywho- our friends ended up scratching their entire project because the beds were not draining right and the plants didn’t do well.
We are finally at a place where we need to start filling our large beds- and I keep going back and forth with how to fill them! I do like the idea of making our own soil mix like here in the video. Although my husband says it will take so much time to do this because of the amount of soil we need brought it. Any thoughts, suggestions would be appreciated!!
@@jewlstime hi, to loosen the clay soil, adding river sand is the best option, and making it up nutrient rich add vermicompost. To naturally make the soil loose, then add earthworms into the beds may be a 1000 of worms in each bed, they naturally feed on the decaying matter and make the soil porous by burrowing channels in the soil. Hope I answered properly to your question.
Happy Gardening
Good luck with the new raised beds!
It is hard work and sometimes up-front costs can seem a lot, but when it lasts 10 years and you get outside and eat healthy vegetables, it is worth it!
Hi, Can they really last 10 years? What wood can do this.
@@rasmuschristian Pressure-treated can sometimes last 10+ years. Mine are about there now and still holding up pretty well. I screw in the corners, not nails. If you can put a barrier between the wood and soil, even longer. I have some lined with hard plastic. If you use non-treated wood, it will last maybe half as long before rotting. Redwood and cedar last much longer without being pressure-treated..
@@kensearle4892 pressure treated wood leaches chemicals into your soil wouldn't recommend.
Thank you James! Give Tuck a scratch behind the ears for me ♥
Consider it done
I just found you!! Love to learn & watch. I’m in my 60’s and unfortunately have had repeated shoulder injuries so while I do expect after gardening pain, I’m searching for easy ways for me to still garden. I’m in SS so I love economical solutions. I plan to find cheap containers that I can put in cinder blocks to eliminate bending.
If you ever wanted to do a video for old ppl that have physical limits I’m sure there are lots of folks like me. Never managed to get myself off grid but I’m dedicated to growing & hopefully canning my own food. With the exception of years if growing flowers herbs & tomatoes, this is only my 3rd year gardening. It makes me 😊 happy!
Thank you so much😘
Yes I can relate to the pain of having limitations. Both physical and $$. Most things take twice as long to do. Fortunately my 69 year old husband is stronger than most half his age.
I love ❤️ your energy and of course Tuck the Adorable has my undying devotion 😘. This is just brilliant!!
Thanks Barbara ❤️
Yes... James is a tornado of energy - obviously loves gardening!
How do you make the bed top? The plastic and tubing part. I get grasshoppers and need to cover the beds.
I gather the newspaper and pizza boxes, over many weeks, cut in strips add to soil with horse manure leaves, sticks over winter!
You can burn them to! Live in Florida, took one year using the above material AND WHITE SAND, and egg shells, coffee grounds! Turned into great soil
You inspired me to do a food forest in my yard! Excellent content here👍
He inspired me too. My backyard is a food forest too and my neighbors are now doing the same.
Let's Gooo Michael!
Just thought I'd share . . . I made a very large, raised veggie garden bed - 4ft wide, 20 ft long and 30 in high. I used very old wood logs to fill the bottom. The power company near my house has their used, old telephone poles available for free to the general public. But they cut them into 4 to 6 ft sections because they don't want anyone to use them as building material. It appears on most of the old power poles only the bottom 4 to 6 ft are covered in creosote. So I chose some of the top power pole pieces - the ones that seem to be 100 years or more older. They are very old, cracked, splitting, dry rotted, and almost act like sponges. Nobody wants those pieces so they just sit there in the pile year after year, rotting away. I believe they made a good bottom fill for my bed. Just a suggestion if you don't have other old, rotted wood to use as bottom fill.
I put up my first, 14 inch deep, bed. I filled the bottom third with pieces of a hedge I cut down. Saved some $ and didn't waste the hedge.
Am in A journey of Starting my own homestead and I've been watching all your gardening videos and i have to say they're very helpful I haven't done anything yet except for starting a compost pile but watching your videos have made me feel like I know everything there is to know and for that I will always be thankful for your lessons
Make sure you only use this technique with ANNUALS. I made the mistake of doing something like this when money and time were tight and we couldn't get a load of soil when I needed it. We had half a load left from the year before so I added the spoiled hay and muck from the barn for the first foot or two and then topped it with soil. Then I planted the bare root berries (that couldn't wait any longer!) I knew it would decompose eventually, but by the end of the growing season, the soil level sunk over a foot. That would've been fine for vegetables or annual flowers, but...this spring meant lifting the berry bushes up and filling in a lot of soil. Lesson learned. The hard way.
Yes please teach us all about how you build your soil 💪👍👏
Let’s Goooo!!!
I'm a new gardener and keep coming back to your videos! Thank you so much! Sometimes I'm temped to fast-forward, like when you're just filling up the raised bed, but I stop because now I know you're always giving tidbits of great information all the way through the process. Helpful stuff!
Always a joy to see you and Tuck! ♥♡♥♡ from Canada. I'm currently doing this to my new raised beds.
I think that you are the first I have come across who from the start tells a viewer WHERE he is gardening thus enabling a person to make comparisons....excellent.
You also provide good content without the theatricals that some seem to think is essential in making such Videos.
People in my neighborhood bag up their yard waste and leaves and put them on the side of the road. I use them to 1/2 to 2/3 fill up a large pot or a new raised bed. Then water well and compact well until you fill the space 1/2 to 2/3rds full!
My man! Look forward to these every weekend. Give tucky a pet for me!
Just did! I appreciate you watching. Tuck says hi! 😁
Tuck follows you all the time, he is really attached to you!
Yeah he’s a loyal guy
He is the star of the show!! Love and hugs to Tuck. Love your filler idea. It sure makes sense to not waste good soil for the entire bed. Thanks for bringing another great garden tip to us. Happy Gardening 🌷🌻🌷🌻
Great ideas for the raised bed. Was planning to build a new fence and went to Lowes and wow the price of lumber is like 4 times the price a year ago. The saw mills are the reason prices are so high. They are claiming it is supply and demand. There is no shortage of wood.
maybe NAFTA new and shiny and other quotas for Canadian timber ?
Smaller branches are fine, they have more nutrients. Muncipalities, electricity providers, landscapers that take down (sick) trees or prune them, I think even thorny brambles would work. these are all sources. Even carton and newspaper would work (it is carbon like wood).
James, just had to tell you how much I learn and enjoy your videos. Please keep them coming! Love how easy and calm you explain things.
Whew I'm glad I'm not the only person that has done that! We had a layer of that, a layer of aged sawdust, a layer of sand for plants that needed looser soil plus some perlite a layer of aged manure and finally our soil and compost.we raked it through to the saw dust. My horse radish never slowed down,my Jerusalem artichokes popped up super quick. I really didn't have a clue as to what to put in.
Yes! This is the best timing! I’m just about to build my first ever raised beds this month! Need to build them high as my dog jumps in all of my planters and digs everything up! 😱 I’ve been wondering how to get around spending so much on compost! Thanks James.
Glad to hear the timing was right. Haha gotta love dogs 😂
Thank you for clearing up the hugelkulture issue. And about deep bed prep.
After you put down the logs, put down dirt/buffer/whatever before the sticks. Then sticks with the buffer. Don't create air pockets. Your bed will drop less, but more importantly you won't create pockets for unwanted bugs. This is a common problem with hugel raised beds.
Would it be better if he had cut the sticks into small pieces before he filled that in?
But he said you don’t want to make it so dense that it won’t drain very well either
Makes sense to put a little dirt down first though, true about air pockets attracting bugs
I used just sticks b4 and it's fine. This year I made 2-22' long beds and used some oak logs from winter trimming. I then packed a lot of smaller twigs and leaves, straw and compost. I have heard that people who live in states with termites that hugalkulture is not a good practice close to the house. I will say in the stick bed that I had a friendly garden snake nesting underneath. So to pack or not pack--I would pack. I don't need drainage we are super dry and sandy.
Great point, but he already addressed filling air space .. look at 4:40 and 6:30
Love your show! Love you & Tuck!
You have no idea how much you truly help people with your positive attitude.
2020 was a very hard year for SO MANY people, myself included, but your videos and your lovely co-anchor Tuck have raised the soul/spirit and my mental health has skyrocketed!
Seriously, thank you both!
I would love it if you could either add your seed choices to the Amazon links, or do a segment on what brand you choose. I'm very interested in growing my own starters next year, but I'm uncertain where to obtain organic, non-gmo seeds. Thank you!
I really like the way you explain concepts and debunk some of the trends. It’s so easy to get caught up in a particular method that perhaps isn’t necessary or suitable. Really informative and loving the infectious enthusiasm. Thank you!
Hey James & Tuck, You both are a joy to watch! Great carpenter work on your beds! The world can see you love what you are growing! When it started spritzing lil Tuckster used you like an umbrella! ☔ He loves his daddy. Green thumbs up guys! 💚🐾
The best raised bed filler on TH-cam by far. Tuck is the best
Hugelkultur is such a wonderful way to develop future soil and lessen the cost of filling raised beds. You are doing a fine job with your gardens and orchards. I commend you on your TH-cam presentations. You are a great teacher James.
You can create a variety of microclimates using hugelkultur. I think there is a ton of exploration that has yet to be tapped.
Good day James. It really takes hardwork and perseverance to build such a nice garden.god bless you james and tuck.
I've tried small bits of gardening in my time and have typically failed 😕. I stumbled on your channel and really enjoy your energy, knowledge, and passion (and obvious love for Tuck). After watching your videos, I feel like I could do this! Thanks for doing what you do!
I made the mistake of using my native soil in the bottoms of my raised beds and found there was quack grass in it and it has grown up through everything and taken over my beds. Live and learn. I now put down cardboard and landscape cloth first then the beds. But I have to take out my first beds and start from scratch!
That sounds like a lot of work to take out your first beds..!! X-(. But im hopeful for happy planting in your re-vamped bed!!!
Bummer! That grass is so insane. It is my nemesis.
@@willow9719 I am dreading taking them out but I can't waste the space growing quack grass.
@@lyndabuchholz1216 Perhaps a thick layer of cardboard on the weedy soil and mulch/compost on top of that would work? Digging out the beds risks spreading small root pieces to new areas of your garden...
@@emmamemma4162 They are filled raised beds and I planned on taking that soil and fill in holes around the property. I don't mind the grass there since I can mow it and it doesn't crowd out my veges. I don't want it in the beds. It will be a lot of work but that is good for my soul. Oh I try to cover the rest of the garden with old carpets and cardboard so I don't have so many weeds to fight with.
Thank you for the tutorial! Love watching you and Tuck gardening and harvesting!
One of the many things I love about your channel- you are always willing to learn new things and to teach us from what you learned. You taught about hugelkultur, and when you realized what it wasn’t, you took it down. I agree, great for a hillside.
I used a similar method to fill my deep raised beds - sticks and rotted logs, then wood chips topped with well rotted manure, the. My good soil. Worked great and saved me a lot of money.
Many thanks
I am not a gardener in any way, I'm lucky to grow grass. I'm making similar planter boxes for my wife and have a fair bit of tree trimmings, never expected them to be part of planter boxes! Many thanks again, I'll follow your method as close as I can
😎👍
I also have a mocking bird that visits my garden. Can hear him singing in the background of this video.
Hubby and I built a 3 ft raised bed last fall and filled it the same way as you're showing. I've recently planted my seedlings and sowed some seeds into it and now, waiting to see how well it does . I'm pretty confident it will be awesome. Thanks to you and others for teaching me all I need to grow and garden . I'm so grateful I can watch your videos, you always teach me so much , thank you
I always double tab and loop the intro to hear "what's going on" more than once. Great video as always.
Love Tuck!
Thank you. Your videos never let me down. Such great info.
James, would love to see the video on the soil ingredient specifics. Building our concrete block raised beds as we speak so the timing was tremendous. Hoping to get the specifics to help in the process!
💜💜💜this is the 2nd video of your's l watched & what you stand for & are building is exactly what l've been looking for, build my own raised bed cheaply & grow my own organic garden free of gmos, pesticide, fungicides, fertilizers etc. I can't Thank you enough! Learning a lot at the same time. 💜💜💜
I did exactly that in my 10ft raised bed, glad to know I did it correctly.
Love all your tips and tricks in the garden! And love your integrity!!!
Zepp's brilliant system turns a negative into a positive: his method closes a "waste' loop. He needed sunlight to hit the ground, so he cut the trees and used the tree trunks to make beds and filled the bottoms with slash that acts as a sponge to hold water and soil, effectively forming a terrace. In an alpine situation you have to do a lot of earthwork across the hill to stabilize soil. It's a great way to use tree trimmings. I use trimmed branches and twigs on the low side of my hilly blueberry/rhubarb/current patch. On the low side of a bush, I lay and weave twigs and branches into a kind of a 1/2 nest in the root zone of the berries building it up. It holds soil and moisture around the plant and keeps it from rolling down hill. Use what you have. Thanks, James and Tuck! I love your videos. Blessings Abound!
Thanks for a great video. Motivates me to start gardening this Spring. Please continue to post up your gardening projects.
The weather looks awesome in the background. As always great video, thanks for sharing the knowledge.
Perfect! That's exactly what I did and I am seeing great results. Thanks for sharing!
This video has an incredible amount of gold nuggets. I wish I’d seen it before I started 7 years ago. Now I’m needing to reconfigure (and restore) my beds. The terracing, the build up, the soil mix....I need to do this. I’ve got wood debris and have learned of a great garden center too to obtain that kind of mulch/compost supply. I had to chuckle because just this week I was calculating cubic space volumes and costs to budget. Thanks James 🧡 Tuck
James, I love your energy and it's a great motivator. Awesome Video.
James, toss in a bag of Pine Bark Fines. Pine bark fines have more lignin (45%) than cellulose (25%) and tends to not tie up Nitrogen like wood chips and make a great soil amendment, don't break down too quickly, aid in aeration and proper drainage.
Also, work in a 5 gallon bucket of Bio-Char to absorb and retain water and nutrients, and provide space for microbes to live.
I hugelkultur in most of my raised beds, my main goal was not only to fill up the raised beds but for a self-fertilized garden with minimum irrigation.
Bio-Char Quote From Proactive Agriculture:
"Biochar's remarkable, huge internal surface areas boost soil Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC) to retain positive ions like Calcium, Sodium, Magnesium, Potassium, etc. But biochar has Anion Exchange Capacity (AEC) to capture negative ions, beginning with Nitrogen and Phosphorus ( N-P of N-P-K ). Biochar improves water quality by increasing retention of nutrients for plant and crop use -- more nutrients stay in soil rather than leach into groundwater or outgas."
Huge fan of your videos. They’re always inspiring me and keeping my pumped to start my garden. Thanks for clearing it up about the hugelkulture. I looked around and didn’t find anything showing that it was any more beneficial than regular garden beds
I use the hugelculture method also and it does work amazing well for soil moisture moderation. I have found that it breaks down pretty completely in about two years so then it needs to be added to in the fall.
That's the way I've always done deep raised beds a kind of Hugelkultur base.
Always get good results and the logs twigs etc. break down over 2 or 3 years.
I've dug out raised beds after 3 years and almost all the lower stuff has turned into nice soil.
Good info my man! 👍
I wanted you to know I've already built my first 3 hoop houses thanks to your inspiration. I spend half my life at Home Depot, but I love it! Thanks James!!
I am in my eighties and have loved to garden most of my life. I live in the southwest arizona. I can no longer get up and down off the ground. My husband built me raised boxes about waist high. As we have lots of gophers here, he lined the boxes with aviary cloth to keep them out. Your filling them was a good way and thank you for all the information.
Great info for filling raised bed gardens & building the soil! Wish you were my neighbor & I enjoy Tuck in your videos!
Great video. I did my first Hugelkultur garden last year, and had the most amazing tomato growth, and quantity of them produced,, then I have ever had before. I am in Ontario, Canada zone 3. It worked for me, this year all of my raised beds, will be layered and done this way.
You are always so positive. Appreciate your videos, thanks!
thanks James. This all makes a lot of sense and will make it so much easier to fill my tall beds when I get them. Best tutorial I"ve seen on youtube on this topic.
Love your channel; your energy and your knowledge encourage others to begin to grow their food. Kudos!
Great info. I'm at the age where I would like my beds double high for easier access. This is a great way to fill higher beds. Thanks.
Yes, please do a video on your soil recipe specifics. Great job, interesting.
Love how you can fill beds with the logs first. That saves a lot of money on soil. Waves to Tuck!
Outstanding James. I love your passion. It's inspired me to pick up this hobby of trying to develop a green thumb over a good portion of my available backyard. Thumbs up!
So good to see you doing video's again. I use a filler but only a filler I too don't like it too deep. Thanks from Upper Michigan. Hugs and prayers to you and Tuck and the family James.
I put wood in my garden and had fantastic results in less than a year. Ample watering and active composting in the center a shallow above ground bed and having the plants on the perimeter. bed was only 6 inches deep, but I had more wood in mine than you had in yours, and by the end of a year the wood was gone, broken down and used by the plants. If you are strategic about your composting and planting, and careful about your spacing, you can provide an active self feeding nutrient system without adding extra fertilizer. And without a deep bed. I know most gardeners will just dismiss my experience, but a little cunning and a little experimentation goes a long way in the gardening community, and I figured I'd share my results with your community, because it can help. Also, my garden was a 6 inch deep concrete and brick bed with no drainage that I built myself. I grew a bumper crop of peppers in it for three years harvesting every couple weeks. the wood was broken down after one.
Tuck is awesome! Thanks for all these good gardening tips!! You don't waste time BS'ing you get right to it! I'm a fan!
Great video, one suggestion. After placing your layer of sticks and adding some soil, water thoroughly. Add some more soil, water more. Do this over and over. This will wash the soil down into most of the voids and prevent a lot of issues with sinkholes in the future.
He did that in the video! Might’ve missed it if you skipped around.
another successful early crop of yours: lots of birdsong ripening already 🎶 sounds beautiful, James! Best of luck this growing season.
Awe I just love Tucker 🤗 I've always wondered who is filming. They do a good job.
James You are a Cool dude !
Thanks, you’re a cool dude John!
@@jamesprigioni thanks james you are Incredibly inspiring
Thanks. Was over here in zone 6 stressing about not having enough soil for my planter boxes. Got PLENTY of old rotting logs and sticks to fill up that space & Im GOOD!😀
Every time I watch a video "boom", I learn something! Thank you!
It’s so fun building a new fresh raised bed. Well done - more space for more food growing plants.
Hey Team Tuck! I am so glad I waited for you closing advice on hugelkultur and some advice for those of us in warmer climes. Think globally, act locally! Cheers mate!
So happy to have y'all back!
You work beds like we do here on the west coast. Great minds think alike. Love your channel brother. Beautiful food forest you have!!
Glad to hear that, and thank you for the kind words my friend
I really like your honesty and candor especially when you were talking about things that did not work so well for you the Hugel culture very impressed thank you for sharing all of your wonderful knowledge cheers Central Florida
Thanks James. I'm considering increasing the height of my raised beds to make it easy for my back, and been wondering if I need to add in so much soil it wouldn't be economically feasible! Tucker is cute as ever - please give him a nice little treat for me 🐾😉
Great idea ! I'm going to make a new raised bed this weekend 😊. I like your videos. They are so informative . I really like the way you explain things as you go . Thank you !
Great timing! We just built 5 new beds today
Nice work Charlie Hoos !!, May you have an a amazing harvest this year !!
I built the same terraced beds in my garden and filling the bottom with chunks of wood....we're on the same page!! I appreciated the soil recipe and will definately try that...thanks!!
Happy gardening from your fan in BC Canada 😊
Your intros make me roll my eyes, but everything after that my eyes are glued to the screen. Such great easy to understand and remember info and advice in your videos, I appreciate all the free shared teaching and life experiences gardening, thank you! I have my cheap easy hoop house over my raised bed thanks to you and still have great lettuce in November in New Hampshire, love that.
I clicked on that as fast as tuck pulls out his 🥕.
I see what you did there 😎☝️
@@jamesprigioni When are you going to do that grape pruning video? I really need it.
As usual, James, excellent ideas and content. Very clear methods to utilize raised beds for growing. Thank you!!
very new to gardening . James you're alway super informative and your spirit is a bonus. thanks for guiding us newbies
Your beds are beautiful. You made a good point about using hugelkultur where it provides benefits. I'm putting in a few hugelkultur beds because they make sense for me. I live in the desert, and the wood at the bottom of the beds can hold moisture from when we get our monsoon rains. If I was back home in the Ozarks, that wouldn't be a necessity; but here, I need things that will help hold the moisture in the garden.
I'm ready!! Going out to the shed to make my soil!!! Thank you 😊
I always learn so much by watching your videos! Thank you so much for making these super fun and informational videos its really appreciated! Cant wait to get started on my own backyard garden as well. Much love and thanks from South Georgia