I've been growing my own veg, fruit and flowers for the past 65 years, unfortunately, due to health issues I can no longer bend or stand for very long but I still do what I can and copied your raised beds, which make life a little easier. Finding someone to help is nigh on impossible even though I've offered higher than minimum wage. Up till 10 years ago I worked on others and my own garden, no one is interested anymore. Keep up the good work educating folk, take care, Norfolk Ray
If I lived near you, I would absolutely come help you. Sadly, I live in Norway and I can't seem to find anyone here who would share the joy of having a garden with me 😢
My favourite 'intercropping' tip is to plant some lettuce or other salad greens inside a teepee that you're growing beans up in June/July. They'll appreciate the shade (and your rocket is less likely to bolt, Ben!)
For the last 2 years kale has volunteered to appear under the peas. Must be seed dormant in the soil but it really likes growing as companion to peas and beans.
I have mixed several herb varieties, lettuce and calendula in pots for decorating the front and sides of my urban home. It's so handy to just step out the front door while making dinner, to harvest salad and herbs. And the calendula is beautiful and lovely to look at, and wonderful for tea and salves.
I planted some poppies in a small raised bed. I had an envelope with stray seeds from last year, did not know what they were, but I threw them in with the poppies. Turned out to be lettuce and they totally overtook the poppies.
I've fallen in love with the wonders of pallet collars as cut-price raised beds thanks to Ben's videos - added a second layer to my potato bed last night to make earthing easier - such a great tip!
I love the thought of being self sufficient, gardening our own vegetables. I’m such a nerd. But every home grower of vegetables I’ve seen looks in such great shape and looks so healthy. I’m inspired. I’ve always had a green thumb but I want to take it further than plants and micro greens and I’m ready to start my own garden.
Start with just a few containers or a tall raised bed so everything is easy to reach. Start VERY small, it will grow a bit each year, and just do what you can on the days you can. You'll be delighted when you're eating a but if fresh food you just grew yourself!
I just recently discovered your channel, but you’re one of my favorite gardening channels on RUclips! I love your knowledge and enthusiasm of the subject matter.
This is my first year trying to grow veggies! I have found your videos the easiest for my brain to follow and actually take in the info so I just want to say a massive thank you! I only have 2 little beds and some pots atm as I don't want to overwhelm myself and fail and give up - I'm giving myself the best chance and your videos have been really really helpful! So thank you very much for making these I know they take a lot of work and I really appreciate them!
What helped me was to do all one type. I did potato and tomato and peppers. All nightshades so all behave the same. I did some swanky gooseberries as well that grow in little parcels, again it’s in the tomato family so behaves the same as all the others. Also liquid seaweed and tomato food for anything that looks a bit limp or is not fruiting 💕
Love the carrot + garlic idea! Here in southern BC Canada we are in a heat wave. Day 10 of 32 degrees! So my garden is being shaded by old lace curtains and bamboo blinds 😂
Your enthusiasm is exactly what we need more of these days! I love your videos and have recently planted my first-ever rhubarb plants! I can see how addictive growing edible plants is!
I just planted some seeds the other day, and totally forgot to plant carrots and beets so thank you for reminding me! I tell everyone about your channel, from great tips to multiple ways to garden or reusing materials- it's SO helpful! This is my third year growing my own food and I don't think my mom will ever accept store-bought lettuce ever again! I also grow only in containers or large pots- been so great!!
Very impressive to be only growing in pots. However you grow it, growing your own is always best. Thanks so much for recommending the channel - hugely appreciated!
Love this video, especially the part about intercropping carrots and garlic! I’d love to see more content on intercropping, and for the garden planner to provide suggestions on intercropping (like it does on companion plants) such as which plants, when (eg a few weeks before harvesting vs early on, etc), and how far apart to plant if you’re intending on intercropping. Thanks for all the great content!
Brassicas have always been the bane of my gardening experience due to the dreaded cabbage caterpillar. This year I have a mesh, Nasturtiums as a decoy and potted herbs to deter the swines. Fingers crossed.
I've been intersowing for a couple weeks. My garden is bursting with yum. I added 8 indeterminate potato bags this year, and love the extra space freed up in my garden beds. Miracles happen: two tiny apple trees are coming up after 9 years of planting crabapple seeds. Hurt foot keeping me from wandering the hillside to see if this is the Year of the Apple Trees!
Things slow in my garden. Our Irish weather not behaving itself as usual🙃Hopefully next week things will pick up and it will stop raining. Thank you for the tip of planting the carrots in between the garlic. That's now on my list of things to do next week. Keep up the good work.
With the wonky weather here in the Pacific Northwest, many seeds germinated but never grew much. Then we had super hot weather and still didn’t do well! Finally the onions look good, everything is flowering but too hot for lettuces. Tons of apples though, and pears and cherries, and raspberries are looking promising as well! Love your gardening tips, and I lust after your potting greenhouse!! More raised beds for me next year, love the look if your space!!
Less lusting, more coveting, please! Joking aside, this one is definitely for people with cool summers. Where I live all those cool season crops, if planted in June, would have to endure about fourteen weeks of temperatures from 85-100 degrees and would be lucky to see less than 80 at night. I have been playing with rhubarb from seed this year, and it looks lovely right now, but I'm anticipating it will all be dead by the end of summer, even with shade from taller plants as the season progresses.
The plank idea is interesting--I'll give it a try. Thanks for the inspiration. Yours is one of the very, very best gardening channels on the web, and I watch quite a few. Garden on!
This is my first season growing in a full raised bed garden, rather than pots, and it’s going very well so far. I started everything from seeds indoors, and I’m just really pleased that they are all still thriving! Thank you for another great video!
I added new Thai chilies in hanging pots in my East window, they are blooming already! They will produce for several years, all year long. They bloom indoors all winter long, so pretty. My old ones lasted several years, and I still have their dried chilies in my spices.
I can't get enough of being outside and digging. Since last week in March. Every week I spend over 20 hrs in the garden easily. 2-3 weeks til I get to relax and just water n pick. Rest of the season is streamlined n minimal time. Got 5 beds constantly changing it up and building new systems for future seasons to easy drop seed dirt fert and water. From beds to trellis systems to fencing to perennial fruits, easy going. Drop system to install this yr and mushroom buckets.
Hello. Garlic in the Pacific N W is about a month from harvest, so I'm going out today with lettuce sprouts and carrot seeds to grow between rows. Thanks for the idea.
Im in Delta British Columbia, I planted garlic in pots for the first time. I was wondering when it would be ready . So in about a month ? Waiting for the scapes. I planted radishes and beets also. Only one box of radishes are kinda growing. I had to discard 2 boxes and start over. Fingers crossed my beets will continue to grow
Great to hear the between-garlic tip is handy. I think it's a great way to overlap crops! I think my garlic is about a month away from harvest. Can't wait!
New allotment this year, its not been easy. Also had it vandalised seedlings stolen. Beds with seeds in dug up, strawberry plants stolen and dug into their bed. But to be fair, we are taking lettuce leaves home, brocoli is growing mad. Loving it
Started my first sungold tomato inside very early and put it in the garden bed outside like last week and I have one tomato almost ripe already soon I’ll get try my first ever tomato I grew myself! Wishing everyone abundant harvest and peaceful growing! One love
I just want to say your channel has really helped me improve my garden with companion planting. I am still only a few years into this gardening and each year I am getting better. Your channel is so informative. Thank you!
I’m just starting to really stick my hands into gardening for real! And really enjoying it! Thank you for all the great information! So far my kids and I have some lettuce, watermelon, jalapeños, cherry tomatoes, mammoth sunflowers, basil, spearmint, and sweet corn starting to grow! We have carrots cucumbers, spinach, sweet peppers, and celery started. The kids love watching them grow.
Nice one, Ben! Thanks to you and a few other RUclips gardeners I watch, I've learned to plant year-round.😃 Your garden is looking great!👍 I'm starting to see baby melons, cucumbers, and our popcorn is tasseling. We have harvested our first 2 plantings of potatoes and our onions. Our cheery tomatoes are ripening. We have sunflowers and other plants blooming throughout the garden. We have been getting one or 2 zucchinis from our two plants every few days...for over a month now. 👩🏾🌾 Hey to Rosie!😃
I'm on my second year of backyard mini-farming and loving it. I've gotten such a wealth of knowledge from great gardeners here on RUclips and corrected many mistakes from my first year. I've got around 60 varieties of fruit, veggies and flowers growing in 130 square feet. Thanks to no-dig and companion planting, it's low maintenance enough for me to keep up between attending full-time college and working. It's been an amazing experience and I'm excited to keep learning this season.
First cucumber picked yesterday, not bad for a hobby greenhouse in the Highlands! My first salad is ready and I have two successions in trays. Hoping for warmer weather though. Great video again Ben, 😊
@@GrowVeg I hope so, it was snowing in Fort William last week and we've had mostly grey and rainy days in Inverness. Send me a few degrees if you can please 🌤
Great video! I am a novice veg gardener and am very fortunate to have been gifted a good sized garden plot (20 feet x 20 feet) from my employer! I used your site to plan my space and have been enjoying your videos like a guilty pleasure! I have a bit more space in my garden yet, so I may try carrots in a few weeks as suggested. I am so deeply invested in this garden and have been so inspired by you Ben! Many thanks from St. Jacob's, Ontario :)
I grew fennel and harvested recently. I made a slaw from the bulb and it was delicious. I planted 8 broccoli early in spring. Covered them with a bug guard mesh which still allows sun and watering without removing. They turned out great! Cabbage is slow but probably due to the warmer temperatures.
When harvesting fennel, don't forget the root. Fennel is in the same plant family as carrots and has a similar long tap root. The roots taste very much like parsnips.
Here in hot Dallas, Texas USA I am harvesting tomatoes, green beans, last of my peas, cucumbers. These are all grown in fabric pots on my deck with an automated drip system. I’m growing lettuce inside under grow lights where it’s cooled by air conditioning
It always seems remarkable that you guys are harvesting summer stuff when we are only just planting them! Great idea to grow lettuce inside to combat the heat.
Spring planting of daicon and turnip almost finished. Onions, garlic and shallots coming along nicely. First flowers on the potatoes yesterday. Two rows of parsnip and carrots are up and away and red cabbage and cauliflower are just starting to 'head up'. Only got half the space to plant this year as the other half is tarped (going no dig). All the best.
I’m completely new to gardening having lived in a desert for 22 years. I bought a greenhouse in March and have planted way too much for my two raised beds but it is so much fun learning. A few rookie errors but I am enjoying learning from your channel and others too. By the look of this video, I should have waited to plant my purple sprouting broccoli and my fennel but no matter, these things can be done next year.
thank you for the encouragement as I fight grass and weeds here in florida of the USA. My garden has been a bit of a challenge this season as I have planted three times befor I realized my seeds were old and no good. I then started plants with new seeds in contaners and then put them in the garden and all is small and beautiful now. I will now satrt my fall plants as you have suggested and have a new found excitmeant due to your video. nanny
Fantastic video as usual Ben. I'm so so jealous as I have had to totally dismantle my garden and move everything due to my landlord evicting me. A section 21 notice which means I've done nothing wrong, but it means I simply cannot grow, anything at all, this year! Gut wrenching. Well, I'm glad to see your doing well my friend and with a bit of luck I will be back in full swing for next year until then I will, still, be watching all your video's as an avid fan and also wish you all the luck in the world for a totally bumper crop this year. Take care my friend Phil 👍👨🌾👨🌾
For everyone asking what zone he's in, etc, most of the UK is the equivalent of US hardiness zone 9. Remember that hardiness zones refer to minimum winter temperatures and the survivability of plants. Not to summer growing season temperatures. Lol. I'm zone 9B, central California, and my friends gardening in the UK have very different growing conditions from mine.
Yes, well explained. I'm actually in zone 8, and a lot of northern UK would be a lower zone. But much of this advice applies to a few zones either side.
Super informative and practical. I started last year with 75 m2 and have now moved to 300m2!!! It’s a bit busy lol! A tuinhouse with a greenhouse now being placed and trying to simply garden is proving a challenge. But I simply LOVE being there!!! Shame you can’t post pics here as I’m quite proud of my progress as a new gardener! THESE vlogs are a GREAT help👍👋🙏
@@GrowVeg wel. Not yet but in the coming few years I/ we hope. The house and greenhouse are a plus once they stand. Thx for the reaction. By the way. How big is your garden?
I'm a complete novice and caught the bug somewhat late in the year. So I'm here looking for things I can successfully get started given the warmer days. I've also found a regional university that posts monthly planners online for free to help. I would suggest many of you might check your local colleges that have an agricultural dept., as they too may post valuable info to help you avoid fees for online planners tailored to your specific zone. I've been watching a staggering number of video's from popular channels and Ben's gentle demeanor and genuine delight in his garden have made his one of my faves. It doesn't hurt to have an adorable sidekick alongside, as well! Thanks for your wisdom, Ben. A productive and peaceful 2023 to you and my like-minded neighbors out there. 🥬
That's so kind of you to say - thank you! Yes, definitely worth checking local colleges for their extension services - lots of great local advice to be gleaned from them. :-)
I have all my summer crops in and bro-in-law will have to watch them grow and pick the harvest because we are leaving in a couple of days on a trans-Atlantic cruise to Blighty and Norway and Ireland to visit relatives. Trip lasts 50 days and is our longest yet. Everything here on tiered drip irrigation so hopefully we will have some veggies in late July. Thanks Ben.
Wow! Enjoy your very long vacation. I hope your BIL can handle everything. I house sat for friends of a friend years ago in San Francisco during the summer for 6 weeks. They had a big established veggie garden and blackberry brambles. I was apartment dwelling at the time and missed having a garden. It worked out well for all of us.
My seeds took a long time to germinate this year - I haven't got the luxury of a glass greenhouse but I do have a plastic one up the side of the house. However, after a lot of moving them from the sunny porch to the front room and then out into the greenhouse, they're now starting to be ready to move outside gradually! I recently planted swede, turnips and parsnips outside (thanks to one of your videos), with radish and lettuces in between the rows. Really love all your videos and find them so informative - and inspiring, encouraging me to get up from in front of the telly and get planting! Best gardening channel on Social Media! 🤩
We've had a strange old April/May here, very warm April and very cold May, my tomatoes, peppers and aubergine were very small up until last week and they've just shot up. Great video once again!
i've ran out of room yet again! need to build a new raised bed first thing tomorrow and some climbing frames for cucumbers, squash etc... There is never enough room!!
I have done this with my lettuce cut and come again 😊👩🌾👍👍♥️ love it and now I still have even though temp is getting hot now thanks Ben nice to hear your voice again. I’m so tired coming home late from babysitting I can’t keep up with my gardening and watching videos. I cut my peas it was done blooming and giving me delicious sweet pea pods 😋😊👩🌾👍👍 I have harvested some yellow straight squash also thanks to you, take care.
Live how you call it dinosaur kale! 🦕 what a way to get my kids interested. Your videos are great as usual Dan, your enthusiasm and straightforward style are infectious
With lettuce I've heard it needs sunlight to germinate, so I just sprinkle lettuce seeds over the soil and keep it moist for a couple of days (i.e. water it myself or seed before rain). This tactic has never failed - I find salad one of the easiest plants to grow.
Last fall I built a 6 x 6 x15' hoop house with cattle panels (4, 1 cut in half) that I covered with an O-Grow 15' replacement cover. Best thing I ever did! I will permanently grow my spinach, kale, carrots, chard and sprouting broccoli in it in raised beds on either side. They have done beautifully! In anticipation of the cabbage loopers, etc, I've now stapled netting across the far end opening and have begun to build a door frame at the other with temporary netting covering that end until finished. I'm now setting up the beds where each is half full with a current mature crop and seeding the other half for continuity with a little room for radishes over the winter. I'll also try using a 55 gal drum to provide hot compost heat to just over freezing as my chard suffered this past season. Highly recommend this setup.
Thank you for this video - very useful. A great tip about rocket too - thanks - last year mine all bolted early on. My gardening seems to be going well this year. I have had a bit of a problem with slugs and snails eating young plants - I try to solve it by either keeping them in pots and bringing them in on a night or alternatively covering over the young seedlings with cut off pop bottles. That seems to work quite well. Early on I made the mistake of thinking my cold-frame would protect my plants but slugs and snails seem to get in there easily. Gardening is a great learning journey and it's so good to grow my own food, thanks again for your tips and encouragement.
It has finally started to warm up here in the central US and the garden is growing much better! I just bought tomato and pepper plants yesterday and will likely plant them tomorrow.
Thank you for a great lesson on garden continuum! You asked for comments, so here are ours. Our dinosaur kale became terribly infested due to only one or two cabbage butterflies depositing into them. Lesson learned: As you show near your video's end, we should have covered them with fine mesh screening to keep out those pests.
Due to injuries I can't really do my garden plot anymore so I started a whole bunch of containers, plus planted in my retaining. My first year growing garlic and it's doing amazing! I'll interplant now that you said to. Our weather here in the Midwest US was weird. It rollercoastered between freezing and hot until mid-May so I got a late start, due to waiting for the "freezes" to end. But, I'm already drying herbs and green onions, and foraged herbs for the winter.
My garlic and strawberries are doing well, as are my potatoes in containers. I left 3 cut and come again lettuce in my raised bed over winter and they are growing well. Last week I planted a mixed variety of onion sets, peas, beets, beans, lettuce and corn. This week, now that all danger of frost is gone, I will plant out my seedlings: pumpkin, cantaloupe, peppers, tomatoes, and zinnias.
I have lettuce germinating in my pea bed... from last year's plants lol. I need to prune the lower pea leaves to let a little more light in... but they're good in salad too!
Hoping to plant more this week. Salad ,radishes. I use so much. Using lettuce and radishes daily. Carrots for the first time ever !!! I'm excited. Strawberries are happy as well. Can't wait for all the Abu dance of my work. I've been letting some wild greens grow near the garden and harvesting to mix in my lettuce as well. Dandilion, plantain, even some catnip and now some lambs quarter. We've had a very cool work g this year, so the greens are loving it. Happy planting g !!
I'm in the States (5b) so I basically have 12 trays of seedlings, acclimating and hoping to get planted this upcoming week (Denver has had May snow a couple of times). But once those are in the ground, I will be following your lead with planting more seeds: fall flowers, fennel, beets (you can never have too many!) and more salad greens. Thank you for the ongoing inspiration 😀
Me too, I got most of mine out today 5-20-23, I’m near you. The rain has been crazy. I still have several seed trays to go out in a couple weeks. Do you have any outside yet? I feel like all of my plants are small, my plants that I put outside earlier aren’t really doing anything, especially the lettuces and greens and early spring crops. Any suggestions?
Good morning, loved the garden show! Enjoyed the useful tips mentioned also the board over the seedlings, just to give them a fair chance! I've got very late tomatoes growing, I covered them over for the frost, just trusting they will survive but it will be a big IF. They are growing out in the open, some fruits have appeared and many more flowers and the plants look so beautiful, they are not staked therefore close to the ground. Wish me all the best, I know it is a risky adventure. I suppose that is what gardening is all about, trial and error. Happy gardening, happy days. Kind regards
I feel really inspired watching your videos. I have just moved, and getting better after a long period of stress, so I have not really plantet anything yet, besides my potatoes that have just been put in the ground. But I will try and sow a variety of things when I get my wild lawn enough in order to grow stuff in it and when I find my seed box among all the moving crates 😬😊
Great idea. I'm central California, 9B, which I know a lot of Florida is as well. We've been pushing 100 this last week. We had to do some pruning on trees recently and I've noticed part of the patio is getting full sun, or partially filtered, for 6 or more hours daily. Just yesterday I realized I can put some of my containers there.
I've had a fabulous crop of garlic and broad beans. Slugs have been on an insane rampage so I'm a bit behind on other stuff due to all the resowing. Thanks for the heads up on what to sow this month 😊
slowly getting there my grandad has just given me his allotment so slowly starting to transfer things outside each week fingers crossed some thing grows 😂😂
I noticed that snails in my garden didn't like rocket salad and lamb's lettuce so I'm growing more of these plants. ;) I'm fascinated by the beauty of rapeseed so I'm sowing more and harvest the leaves to use them in salads. These plants grow very well without much effort on my side :D
thanks for doing it 10 days sooner! ill try to get some, im getting alot of stuff though i had a hard time with the late summer, a few of my garlic plants started shooting , so had to harvest them too early, but just sewn some little gems roman lettuce in a bunch of pots and already harvested 2 iceberg heads!, tomatoes and bellpeppers are the slowest though... and my broccoli are getting attacked too much ... i need a way to protect them better but i have no idea what is eating it
When you say your garlic was shooting, do you mean producing garlic scapes? They are stems with a slightly arrow-shaped top that turn into the flower. They are produced by all hard neck garlic varieties and if you pull them or cut them it helps concentrate the energy into the bulb. Plus the scapes you harvest are super delicious bbq’d or stir fried, they are almost like leek flavor. (I grow mostly hard neck garlic so I get the scapes and the garlic!) In the PNW my common pests for broccoli are slugs and bunnies when they are young, and cabbage butterflies, which lay eggs on the underside of the broccoli leaves and the caterpillars that hatch are voracious! For young plants, I use cut plastic milk carton to make a protective circle enclosure. For the caterpillars, a net like the one Ben has in the video works well. Good luck!
Thanks so much for chipping in @janarhyu5664, some really helpful advice there. Here's a link to my video on brassica pests and how to stop them: ruclips.net/video/-NYVacngcXw/видео.html
Bad start this year. One minute all set for sowing in outdoor beds, but a weeks. Visit from my son and daughter in law and the seeds popped up like a n F6 Lightning scramble! Not those I was waiting to so, but Bitter Cress and rain so I could just stare at it and wish I’d mulched with sowing compost. But no respite, seeds from the bird feeder, grass of some sort sending roots down to a spade depth. This week , one bed per day (or more if I can) sow what I should have in May and brassicas and salads. I’ve bought compost from Aldi, very cheap, but I’ll bet I’ve not bought enough compost. On the bright side, for the last week I have a Robin picking up root eating caterpillar like things as I pick up weeds. He watches me so close just in case I dig up some thing that I might eat and he to quick to give me an opportunity. 😎
@@GrowVeg I’ve bought some cheap multi purpose compost from Aldi. I don’t know how good it is but it looks better than my compost which I’ll hose on a legumes bed, not on the surface but buried Nader a spade depth of soil then just plant my toilet roll ‘pots’ then peas onto the soil with my purchased compost. I’ve bought a roll of damp course plastic sheet to warm things up after watering and keep it from evaporating. All to keep paths weed free,' I hope.
My polytunnel greenhouse blew over in the high winds a few weeks ago. I had a load of seeds in plug trays. The tray were all over the allotment. I picked them up and directly planted them into my beds. No idea what’s growing but things are shooting up.
I enjoy watching your videos, especially sowing seeds later in the season like carrots next to almost ready to harvest garlic. Good suggestions and great quality videos! Thanks from South Carolina.
Thx for the reminder :) just bought more carrots & lettuce for more succession planting. 1st year gardener here, and loving not have to buy lettuces, only to have it go bad! (Not to mention saving all that plastic waste) thx for these vids- can’t wait to see your summer garden.
I live on an oversized city lot. The front of the house faces south where I have 4 beds. The roots of a tree destroyed my underground irrigation pipes, and I am temporarily using a variety of irrigation schemes. One front bed is my berry patch. The peach tree in the middle got bacterial gumosis and I cut it down. My graft onto the rootstock sucker failed. The gooseberry bush is bigger than ever, and I think I finally got the secret to thriving raspberries. The thornless blackberries are blossoming. The baby red current now has a riot of leaves. And all around, everywhere in nearly every bed, the elephant garlic flowers are about to burst open. The Chilean red garlic that I dug up years ago is still growing in a corner. The pomegranate tree is covered with feathery leaves, and everything is covered with black locust petals like snow. Behind the berry patch is a full sun bed I let lay fallow last winter. It also contains a peach tree, now covered with young fruits, and an Asian pear tree nestled behind the peach. I grafted 5 western pear varieties to the Asian pear, but only 2 grafts survived. I don't see any fruits on the grafted branches. Purple cornflowers also grow in the back of this bed. The bed is covered with more garlic of several varieties. Along the edge of the fallow bed are a series of irrigated pots growing kale, broccoli, thyme, and artichokes. As each potted plant reaches the end of its season, I rotate in a different newly transplanted plug in a different pot. That way, I am constantly invigorating the soil from old pots with chips, compost, organic fertilizer and some fresh commercial soil, then planting it with a start from my little greenhouse. Right now, I am putting out the newly transplanted potted cucumbers and eggplants. I planted 2 zucchinis in the front bed with corn starts. I cover each new transplant with an opaque plastic gallon jug with the bottom cut out to protect it from birds and slugs. I have a problem finding the right place for strawberries. Last year I retired my strawberry patch and constructed an irrigated strawberry tower out of a cylinder of wire fencing and some garden cloth. During the torrential rains this past winter, the strawberry tower fell over into the fallow bed and broke the irrigation lines. Yesterday, I purchased some terra cotta strawberry jars on sale half price; today I intend to transplant all the strawberries from the collapsed tower into the new terra cotta jars. I have irrigated pots half way along the east driveway where I have 3 plum trees. I love grafting, so I have many varieties of plums and a pluot growing on the branches of the 3 wild plums. When I replaced my toilets with low flush varieties, the old toilets became pots for planting. I drilled a hole at the bottom of the toilet bowl, but the tanks already had a hole. The other half of the east side driveway is planted with thornless blackberry. My next door neighbor grows English ivy. It is a bane on the east side of my property. I am forever pulling out ivy that threatens to strangulate my potted plants. I also have an asparagus patch along the sunny east side driveway, which is currently full of tall asparagus ferns in flower. In the shadier parts of the east driveway are flower gardens. The columbine are in flower. The Easter lilies are budding and the milkweed is rapidly rising. In a sunny corner on the north side of the property near the mulberry tree are some newer beds. There I have raspberries and goji berries surrounded by kale and cabbages. I also planted a zucchini there. Ivy is a perpetual pariah. On the other side of the mulberry tree is my pile of disintegrating chips. Also more artichokes growing in salvage grow-bags cast off by the MJ industry in this area. Also growing are potatoes, succhinis, and corn. My bee hive is located here because it gets lots of sun but is protected from the wind. In a few days, I will add a super to my thriving bee colony. I also ate the first ripe mulberry yesterday. The tree is covered with unripe berries. All along the north side retaining wall are irrigated raised beds and pots with blueberries, cabbages, artichokes, tomatoes, mugwort, and chard. I have failed time and again to grow carrots in those raised beds, so I recently removed the fallow soil from that bed and filled it with brand new commercial soil. I planted 2 rows of carrot seeds and 1 row of carrot starts from my greenhouse. I have planted nasturtium seeds in or near all the cucumbers and squashes; let's see if they sprout. All the lettuces, cilantro and peppers are still in my greenhouse, along with sprouting sunflower seeds that are intended for pest control (I'm allergic to sunflower seeds). I have a fenced in large pot and a grow bag with lettuces at the end of their time in the poultry area. Soon I will harvest the last 2 lettuces and amend the soil with compost, green sand, organic fertilizer and some commercial soil and transplant the summer squashes. A rickety old wooden ladder stands over this grow bag. I intend to train the squashes up the ladder. Last time, I used plastic grocery bags to gently tie the vines to the ladder. Then all the plastic bags exposed to the sun disintegrated into plastic powder that fell into my organic bed below! I had a difficult time extricating tiny pieces of plastic bag from my garden; it was impossible to get it all. The west side of my property is the egg farm. It provides me with plenty of soiled straw to use as mulch and to age into compost. The poultry clean up the snails, slugs, pill bugs, earwigs, ants, and other bugs while producing golden eggs for me and my neighbors. After harvest, I open the gates and allow the poultry a few weeks to clean up the excess bugs, then close the gates and plant again. The poultry love brassicas of any type. They will eat all the brassica leaves while cleaning up the bugs, if allowed. The poultry need to eat green leaves every day, and there is no meadow nearby. All excess leaves from my harvests, pulled weeds, grass clippings and weeds from around the neighborhood are gathered for them. Also found on the west side are 2 more wild plum trees, fig, cherries, persimmon and another peach. I prefer mission figs, so I grafted purple figs to my Kadota fig tree and the grafts are growing fruit this year. Last weekend, I draped a bird net over my Queen Anne cherry tree to attempt to protect what promises to be a bumper crop. Thanks for all your farming lessons. I have learned a lot from you and I really enjoy your enthusiasm and quick wit. One of these days, I will use your garden planner for improved placement next year.
Wow - what a productive plot you have - it sounds incredible! And great to have such a ready supply of poultry manured straw - those chickens are such a valuable addition to the garden! :-) Really appreciate you taking the time to share your garden - it sounds truly sublime. And thank you for your kind words about the channel. Happy gardening!
My raised beds & container garden is fabulous so far, lots of blooms appearing now. Can’t wait for harvest but grow time is just magical. Thank you Ben & Rosy for all of the helpful tips!
Good video. I'm in zone 10a/9b in west central Florida and I have grown arugula in partial shade in early Summer. I've just sown arugula in plug trays and have a new vertical planter that I want to try them out in. It will soon be close to 100 degrees in the sun midday, so even my cherry tomatoes need a bit of shade cloth. I have the best luck with east or south-facing plants here. I have large live oak trees to block the sun to get dappled light in the afternoon, so that helps.
Planted out my sweet potato’s this week ❤ added eggplants, tomatoes and poblano peppers along with the beans & honey & butter bush squash ❤ Still got a bit to go before I can harvest my garlic ❤
I've been growing my own veg, fruit and flowers for the past 65 years, unfortunately, due to health issues I can no longer bend or stand for very long but I still do what I can and copied your raised beds, which make life a little easier. Finding someone to help is nigh on impossible even though I've offered higher than minimum wage. Up till 10 years ago I worked on others and my own garden, no one is interested anymore. Keep up the good work educating folk, take care, Norfolk Ray
Shame you think someone would want to take you up on that
If I lived near you, I would absolutely come help you. Sadly, I live in Norway and I can't seem to find anyone here who would share the joy of having a garden with me 😢
Thats a shame, I think "new" gardners would want to learn from you! I'm in The Netherlands so can't help you. :(
Sorry to hear that Ray! Saying a prayer for you
I live in California, I would love to help you.
The way he's handling the seeds and dirt it's like he's the Bob Ross of vegetable gardening 😊
Wow, that's flattering! :) Love me some BR!
Thank you so much! :-)
I agree
Beautiful little seeds
Happy little seeds
My favourite 'intercropping' tip is to plant some lettuce or other salad greens inside a teepee that you're growing beans up in June/July. They'll appreciate the shade (and your rocket is less likely to bolt, Ben!)
What a great idea - will have to try this myself!
This is so true! I will try my spinach and red salads in my teepee
For the last 2 years kale has volunteered to appear under the peas. Must be seed dormant in the soil but it really likes growing as companion to peas and beans.
I have mixed several herb varieties, lettuce and calendula in pots for decorating the front and sides of my urban home. It's so handy to just step out the front door while making dinner, to harvest salad and herbs. And the calendula is beautiful and lovely to look at, and wonderful for tea and salves.
That's really super - lovely to have produce like that to hand. :-)
I planted some poppies in a small raised bed. I had an envelope with stray seeds from last year, did not know what they were, but I threw them in with the poppies. Turned out to be lettuce and they totally overtook the poppies.
I've fallen in love with the wonders of pallet collars as cut-price raised beds thanks to Ben's videos - added a second layer to my potato bed last night to make earthing easier - such a great tip!
They're so affordable too. Love 'em! :-)
I am loving the footwear. Glad to see I am not the only one who gardens like this😂
I have my garden crocs .. But thru the summer I’m usually in flip flops😊
Haha - yes indeed. They're a battered old pair, but my go-to gardening footwear!
I love the thought of being self sufficient, gardening our own vegetables. I’m such a nerd. But every home grower of vegetables I’ve seen looks in such great shape and looks so healthy. I’m inspired. I’ve always had a green thumb but I want to take it further than plants and micro greens and I’m ready to start my own garden.
So pleased you're ready to start your own garden. It's such a rewarding journey!
Start with just a few containers or a tall raised bed so everything is easy to reach. Start VERY small, it will grow a bit each year, and just do what you can on the days you can. You'll be delighted when you're eating a but if fresh food you just grew yourself!
Great tip to sow carrots among the almost done garlic. ;)
Very excited - the carrots are finally making an appearance! :-)
I just recently discovered your channel, but you’re one of my favorite gardening channels on RUclips! I love your knowledge and enthusiasm of the subject matter.
Same!
I've been gardening for decades, and I've learned so much from Ben for ... years, I don't know how many. I hope you have the same!
Thanks so much guys, that's really kind of you to say. Happy gardening! :-)
I don’t understand why he does not have a million subscribers.
I am in zone 9b does this planting list works for my region.
This is my first year trying to grow veggies! I have found your videos the easiest for my brain to follow and actually take in the info so I just want to say a massive thank you! I only have 2 little beds and some pots atm as I don't want to overwhelm myself and fail and give up - I'm giving myself the best chance and your videos have been really really helpful! So thank you very much for making these I know they take a lot of work and I really appreciate them!
I'm so pleased these videos have proved helpful! Happy gardening. :-)
What helped me was to do all one type. I did potato and tomato and peppers. All nightshades so all behave the same. I did some swanky gooseberries as well that grow in little parcels, again it’s in the tomato family so behaves the same as all the others. Also liquid seaweed and tomato food for anything that looks a bit limp or is not fruiting 💕
I just got a job as an organic kitchen gardener and this channel is a life saver, thank you!
Oh that's fantastic. What a superb job!
Love the carrot + garlic idea! Here in southern BC Canada we are in a heat wave. Day 10 of 32 degrees! So my garden is being shaded by old lace curtains and bamboo blinds 😂
smart! I didnt shade my garden and my choy bolted so quickly!
Smart move with the shading. That seems very hot very early for BC. Hope it cools off soon.
Do you have problems with lettuces bolting? In Sweden our days are so long that the lettuces and spinach bolt by June.
Your enthusiasm is exactly what we need more of these days! I love your videos and have recently planted my first-ever rhubarb plants! I can see how addictive growing edible plants is!
So pleased to hear you have planted some rhubarb. Such a fantastic plant to grow. Enjoy! :-)
I just planted some seeds the other day, and totally forgot to plant carrots and beets so thank you for reminding me!
I tell everyone about your channel, from great tips to multiple ways to garden or reusing materials- it's SO helpful!
This is my third year growing my own food and I don't think my mom will ever accept store-bought lettuce ever again! I also grow only in containers or large pots- been so great!!
Very impressive to be only growing in pots. However you grow it, growing your own is always best. Thanks so much for recommending the channel - hugely appreciated!
😊o kk😊😊😊😊
😊😊
Oplo😊😊 pp
L look
Love this video, especially the part about intercropping carrots and garlic! I’d love to see more content on intercropping, and for the garden planner to provide suggestions on intercropping (like it does on companion plants) such as which plants, when (eg a few weeks before harvesting vs early on, etc), and how far apart to plant if you’re intending on intercropping. Thanks for all the great content!
Thanks for the encouraging words - and excellent suggestions, which I'll forward on to the team. :-)
Great video Ben, Im sure we have all forgotten to label at some point
Absolutely Tony - I should really pay heed to my own advice more often! :-)
Brassicas have always been the bane of my gardening experience due to the dreaded cabbage caterpillar. This year I have a mesh, Nasturtiums as a decoy and potted herbs to deter the swines. Fingers crossed.
Keeping them crossed for you!
Bacillus thurengensis.
I've been intersowing for a couple weeks. My garden is bursting with yum. I added 8 indeterminate potato bags this year, and love the extra space freed up in my garden beds.
Miracles happen: two tiny apple trees are coming up after 9 years of planting crabapple seeds. Hurt foot keeping me from wandering the hillside to see if this is the Year of the Apple Trees!
So pleased your garden is doing great things Rebecca! And very exciting to be starting hugelkultur beds - what a superb project! :-)
Things slow in my garden. Our Irish weather not behaving itself as usual🙃Hopefully next week things will pick up and it will stop raining. Thank you for the tip of planting the carrots in between the garlic. That's now on my list of things to do next week. Keep up the good work.
Thanks so much. I imagine you'll be getting drier weather soon - it's certainly dried out this side of the Celtic Sea.
With the wonky weather here in the Pacific Northwest, many seeds germinated but never grew much. Then we had super hot weather and still didn’t do well! Finally the onions look good, everything is flowering but too hot for lettuces. Tons of apples though, and pears and cherries, and raspberries are looking promising as well! Love your gardening tips, and I lust after your potting greenhouse!! More raised beds for me next year, love the look if your space!!
Less lusting, more coveting, please! Joking aside, this one is definitely for people with cool summers. Where I live all those cool season crops, if planted in June, would have to endure about fourteen weeks of temperatures from 85-100 degrees and would be lucky to see less than 80 at night. I have been playing with rhubarb from seed this year, and it looks lovely right now, but I'm anticipating it will all be dead by the end of summer, even with shade from taller plants as the season progresses.
@@bobbun9630 put a full shade cover over that rhubarb. Blessings everyone.
Oh dear, sorry to hear it's a wonky season already. But sounds like you have some truly superb pickings waiting in the wings. :-)
The plank idea is interesting--I'll give it a try. Thanks for the inspiration. Yours is one of the very, very best gardening channels on the web, and I watch quite a few. Garden on!
And you! Happy gardening!
Could you do a video about blackberris and alpine strawberris ?
Thanks for the suggestion. I have done a video on blackberries. More here: ruclips.net/video/cqmv46j8E7w/видео.html
The monster worm / snake unraveling at 6:13 unlocked some childhood fear I didn't remember having.... Anyway, love your channel!
Cheers Peter! :-)
This is my first season growing in a full raised bed garden, rather than pots, and it’s going very well so far. I started everything from seeds indoors, and I’m just really pleased that they are all still thriving! Thank you for another great video!
That’s awesome! Enjoy
Nice work Amy! :-)
I added new Thai chilies in hanging pots in my East window, they are blooming already! They will produce for several years, all year long. They bloom indoors all winter long, so pretty. My old ones lasted several years, and I still have their dried chilies in my spices.
I can't get enough of being outside and digging. Since last week in March. Every week I spend over 20 hrs in the garden easily. 2-3 weeks til I get to relax and just water n pick. Rest of the season is streamlined n minimal time. Got 5 beds constantly changing it up and building new systems for future seasons to easy drop seed dirt fert and water. From beds to trellis systems to fencing to perennial fruits, easy going. Drop system to install this yr and mushroom buckets.
Sounds like you're keeping very busy but happy! :-)
Hello. Garlic in the Pacific N W is about a month from harvest, so I'm going out today with lettuce sprouts and carrot seeds to grow between rows. Thanks for the idea.
Ditto. Fellow PNW gardener :-)
Im in Delta British Columbia, I planted garlic in pots for the first time. I was wondering when it would be ready . So in about a month ? Waiting for the scapes. I planted radishes and beets also. Only one box of radishes are kinda growing. I had to discard 2 boxes and start over. Fingers crossed my beets will continue to grow
Great to hear the between-garlic tip is handy. I think it's a great way to overlap crops! I think my garlic is about a month away from harvest. Can't wait!
I LOVE this time of year🥳👍💞!
Same!
Definitely!
New allotment this year, its not been easy. Also had it vandalised seedlings stolen. Beds with seeds in dug up, strawberry plants stolen and dug into their bed.
But to be fair, we are taking lettuce leaves home, brocoli is growing mad.
Loving it
Oh wow - that's a determined vandal. So sorry to hear this. Hope things have recovered since.
Started my first sungold tomato inside very early and put it in the garden bed outside like last week and I have one tomato almost ripe already soon I’ll get try my first ever tomato I grew myself! Wishing everyone abundant harvest and peaceful growing! One love
That's really wonderful! Happy pickings! :-)
Congratulation! So wonderful~ I started a few sungold from seeds, as well strawberry tomatoes, and sweet millions. Enjoy!
I just want to say your channel has really helped me improve my garden with companion planting. I am still only a few years into this gardening and each year I am getting better. Your channel is so informative. Thank you!
This is a joy to hear! :-)
I’m just starting to really stick my hands into gardening for real! And really enjoying it! Thank you for all the great information! So far my kids and I have some lettuce, watermelon, jalapeños, cherry tomatoes, mammoth sunflowers, basil, spearmint, and sweet corn starting to grow! We have carrots cucumbers, spinach, sweet peppers, and celery started. The kids love watching them grow.
Wow - you guys are already off to a superb start. Top work! :-)
Nice to know why my rocket bolted so fast 😂 thank you!! Also good to know I can try again this year, great tips, thank you!
I love this guy.
Thanks so much! :-)
I sowed Kale late winter/early spring and it simply doesn't give up, ive harvested an endless amount of it, more Kale than I've ever even seen
That's wonderful to hear - it's a superb veggie!
Nice one, Ben! Thanks to you and a few other RUclips gardeners I watch, I've learned to plant year-round.😃
Your garden is looking great!👍
I'm starting to see baby melons, cucumbers, and our popcorn is tasseling. We have harvested our first 2 plantings of potatoes and our onions. Our cheery tomatoes are ripening. We have sunflowers and other plants blooming throughout the garden. We have been getting one or 2 zucchinis from our two plants every few days...for over a month now. 👩🏾🌾
Hey to Rosie!😃
You are so dedicated well done I do follow you thanks
Nice work there Valorie. Lots to be looking forward to already. :-)
Your garden looks so tidy. I like the sow and come again. Especially for lettuce.
Thank you. :-) Cut-and-come-again is really fab.
I'm on my second year of backyard mini-farming and loving it. I've gotten such a wealth of knowledge from great gardeners here on RUclips and corrected many mistakes from my first year.
I've got around 60 varieties of fruit, veggies and flowers growing in 130 square feet. Thanks to no-dig and companion planting, it's low maintenance enough for me to keep up between attending full-time college and working. It's been an amazing experience and I'm excited to keep learning this season.
So pleased to hear this! :-)
First cucumber picked yesterday, not bad for a hobby greenhouse in the Highlands!
My first salad is ready and I have two successions in trays.
Hoping for warmer weather though. Great video again Ben, 😊
Well done Amanda
Nice work Amanda! It's turned warm-to-hot down south, with more to come. I imagine the warm weather will soon reach the Highlands. :-)
@@GrowVeg I hope so, it was snowing in Fort William last week and we've had mostly grey and rainy days in Inverness. Send me a few degrees if you can please 🌤
I have this beautiful plant growing wild in my yard here in Greece
You have to love those gorgeously beautiful arugula blooms though!!
They are beautiful!
Thanks for these great tips!! I'm gardening in the Bay Area (CA) this year and it's been wonderful!! I'm so glad I came across this video.
Glad you're getting a good year so far. :-)
You make gardening look so easy and it’s one of the hardest things I have ever done 😩but I love gardening regardless.
Gardening is one of those areas where there's always more to learn - so much more! But the most important thing is to enjoy the journey. :-)
Great video! I am a novice veg gardener and am very fortunate to have been gifted a good sized garden plot (20 feet x 20 feet) from my employer! I used your site to plan my space and have been enjoying your videos like a guilty pleasure! I have a bit more space in my garden yet, so I may try carrots in a few weeks as suggested. I am so deeply invested in this garden and have been so inspired by you Ben! Many thanks from St. Jacob's, Ontario :)
That is really lovely to hear! I hope you have a really productive years. :-)
I grew fennel and harvested recently. I made a slaw from the bulb and it was delicious. I planted 8 broccoli early in spring. Covered them with a bug guard mesh which still allows sun and watering without removing. They turned out great! Cabbage is slow but probably due to the warmer temperatures.
When harvesting fennel, don't forget the root. Fennel is in the same plant family as carrots and has a similar long tap root. The roots taste very much like parsnips.
Great to be growing so much already - and harvesting. Great tip on the fennel root @zone4garlicfarm
❤ thank you for the reminder
Here in hot Dallas, Texas USA I am harvesting tomatoes, green beans, last of my peas, cucumbers. These are all grown in fabric pots on my deck with an automated drip system. I’m growing lettuce inside under grow lights where it’s cooled by air conditioning
It always seems remarkable that you guys are harvesting summer stuff when we are only just planting them! Great idea to grow lettuce inside to combat the heat.
So grateful you showed how plants can grow in pots, too.👍
This was exactly the information I needed! Thank you.
I subbed because of your tomato and rhubarb tutorials and i dont think im going to regret it
Top stuff! Thanks so much for the sub! Welcome! :-)
Thansk for opening lots of language subtitles...
Wonderful! Thank you Ben!
Awesome thank you!
Spring planting of daicon and turnip almost finished. Onions, garlic and shallots coming along nicely. First flowers on the potatoes yesterday. Two rows of parsnip and carrots are up and away and red cabbage and cauliflower are just starting to 'head up'. Only got half the space to plant this year as the other half is tarped (going no dig). All the best.
Sounds like you're well ahead - nice work!
I’m completely new to gardening having lived in a desert for 22 years. I bought a greenhouse in March and have planted way too much for my two raised beds but it is so much fun learning. A few rookie errors but I am enjoying learning from your channel and others too. By the look of this video, I should have waited to plant my purple sprouting broccoli and my fennel but no matter, these things can be done next year.
Absolutely. Gardening is always a learning experience. :-)
Thank you for reminding me that we can continue planting throughout the season!!!
I am working on 3 more raised hugelkultur beds, yay!
thank you for the encouragement as I fight grass and weeds here in florida of the USA. My garden has been a bit of a challenge this season as I have planted three times befor I realized my seeds were old and no good. I then started plants with new seeds in contaners and then put them in the garden and all is small and beautiful now. I will now satrt my fall plants as you have suggested and have a new found excitmeant due to your video. nanny
Great to be getting things underway. I hope you get some splendid harvests. :-)
Fantastic video as usual Ben. I'm so so jealous as I have had to totally dismantle my garden and move everything due to my landlord evicting me. A section 21 notice which means I've done nothing wrong, but it means I simply cannot grow, anything at all, this year! Gut wrenching.
Well, I'm glad to see your doing well my friend and with a bit of luck I will be back in full swing for next year until then I will, still, be watching all your video's as an avid fan and also wish you all the luck in the world for a totally bumper crop this year.
Take care my friend
Phil 👍👨🌾👨🌾
So sorry to hear of your situation. I do hope you find a fantastic new home and get to start a new garden soon. :-)
For everyone asking what zone he's in, etc, most of the UK is the equivalent of US hardiness zone 9. Remember that hardiness zones refer to minimum winter temperatures and the survivability of plants. Not to summer growing season temperatures. Lol. I'm zone 9B, central California, and my friends gardening in the UK have very different growing conditions from mine.
Yes, well explained. I'm actually in zone 8, and a lot of northern UK would be a lower zone. But much of this advice applies to a few zones either side.
Super informative and practical. I started last year with 75 m2 and have now moved to 300m2!!! It’s a bit busy lol! A tuinhouse with a greenhouse now being placed and trying to simply garden is proving a challenge. But I simply LOVE being there!!! Shame you can’t post pics here as I’m quite proud of my progress as a new gardener! THESE vlogs are a GREAT help👍👋🙏
Wow, that's quite an expansion - but well done! I bet your garden looks stunning. :-)
@@GrowVeg wel. Not yet but in the coming few years I/ we hope. The house and greenhouse are a plus once they stand. Thx for the reaction. By the way. How big is your garden?
I'm a complete novice and caught the bug somewhat late in the year. So I'm here looking for things I can successfully get started given the warmer days. I've also found a regional university that posts monthly planners online for free to help. I would suggest many of you might check your local colleges that have an agricultural dept., as they too may post valuable info to help you avoid fees for online planners tailored to your specific zone. I've been watching a staggering number of video's from popular channels and Ben's gentle demeanor and genuine delight in his garden have made his one of my faves. It doesn't hurt to have an adorable sidekick alongside, as well! Thanks for your wisdom, Ben. A productive and peaceful 2023 to you and my like-minded neighbors out there. 🥬
That's so kind of you to say - thank you! Yes, definitely worth checking local colleges for their extension services - lots of great local advice to be gleaned from them. :-)
I have all my summer crops in and bro-in-law will have to watch them grow and pick the harvest because we are leaving in a couple of days on a trans-Atlantic cruise to Blighty and Norway and Ireland to visit relatives. Trip lasts 50 days and is our longest yet. Everything here on tiered drip irrigation so hopefully we will have some veggies in late July. Thanks Ben.
Wow! Enjoy your very long vacation. I hope your BIL can handle everything. I house sat for friends of a friend years ago in San Francisco during the summer for 6 weeks. They had a big established veggie garden and blackberry brambles. I was apartment dwelling at the time and missed having a garden. It worked out well for all of us.
@@renel7303 Thanks, a great community here on Bens channel. Good info and good vibes always.
Enjoy your trip Stephen. I'm sure your bro-in-law will do a good job - incentivised by all the lovely fresh produce you've planted. Save travels! :-)
My seeds took a long time to germinate this year - I haven't got the luxury of a glass greenhouse but I do have a plastic one up the side of the house. However, after a lot of moving them from the sunny porch to the front room and then out into the greenhouse, they're now starting to be ready to move outside gradually! I recently planted swede, turnips and parsnips outside (thanks to one of your videos), with radish and lettuces in between the rows. Really love all your videos and find them so informative - and inspiring, encouraging me to get up from in front of the telly and get planting! Best gardening channel on Social Media! 🤩
Thanks so much - that's high praise indeed. Happy gardening! :-)
We've had a strange old April/May here, very warm April and very cold May, my tomatoes, peppers and aubergine were very small up until last week and they've just shot up. Great video once again!
Glad they've started to grow fast!
i've ran out of room yet again! need to build a new raised bed first thing tomorrow and some climbing frames for cucumbers, squash etc... There is never enough room!!
Tell me about it! :-)
I have done this with my lettuce cut and come again 😊👩🌾👍👍♥️ love it and now I still have even though temp is getting hot now thanks Ben nice to hear your voice again. I’m so tired coming home late from babysitting I can’t keep up with my gardening and watching videos. I cut my peas it was done blooming and giving me delicious sweet pea pods 😋😊👩🌾👍👍 I have harvested some yellow straight squash also thanks to you, take care.
That's really lovely to hear. Hope you get plenty of time in the garden. :-)
that is a lovely seed box!
Live how you call it dinosaur kale! 🦕 what a way to get my kids interested. Your videos are great as usual Dan, your enthusiasm and straightforward style are infectious
Thanks so much! Yes indeed - a great way to get the children curious! :-)
His name is Ben 😊
With lettuce I've heard it needs sunlight to germinate, so I just sprinkle lettuce seeds over the soil and keep it moist for a couple of days (i.e. water it myself or seed before rain). This tactic has never failed - I find salad one of the easiest plants to grow.
Last fall I built a 6 x 6 x15' hoop house with cattle panels (4, 1 cut in half) that I covered with an O-Grow 15' replacement cover. Best thing I ever did! I will permanently grow my spinach, kale, carrots, chard and sprouting broccoli in it in raised beds on either side. They have done beautifully! In anticipation of the cabbage loopers, etc, I've now stapled netting across the far end opening and have begun to build a door frame at the other with temporary netting covering that end until finished. I'm now setting up the beds where each is half full with a current mature crop and seeding the other half for continuity with a little room for radishes over the winter. I'll also try using a 55 gal drum to provide hot compost heat to just over freezing as my chard suffered this past season. Highly recommend this setup.
What is superb set up. It sounds absolutely incredible! Good job. :-)
Love your film. I'm going to sow second showings today! You've reenergised me.
That's lovely to hear - happy sowing!
Thank you for this video - very useful. A great tip about rocket too - thanks - last year mine all bolted early on. My gardening seems to be going well this year. I have had a bit of a problem with slugs and snails eating young plants - I try to solve it by either keeping them in pots and bringing them in on a night or alternatively covering over the young seedlings with cut off pop bottles. That seems to work quite well. Early on I made the mistake of thinking my cold-frame would protect my plants but slugs and snails seem to get in there easily.
Gardening is a great learning journey and it's so good to grow my own food, thanks again for your tips and encouragement.
It really is a long journey! And those slugs can be very determined! :-)
It has finally started to warm up here in the central US and the garden is growing much better! I just bought tomato and pepper plants yesterday and will likely plant them tomorrow.
Exciting times ahead! :-)
Same here. Boise has been so cold this year I'm only just now sowing seeds for the warm weather crops.
My purple kale survived winter here In northern Michigan zone 5 since we had a mild winter this year
Thank you for a great lesson on garden continuum! You asked for comments, so here are ours. Our dinosaur kale became terribly infested due to only one or two cabbage butterflies depositing into them. Lesson learned: As you show near your video's end, we should have covered them with fine mesh screening to keep out those pests.
Yes, those butterflies can wreak havoc very quickly!
Due to injuries I can't really do my garden plot anymore so I started a whole bunch of containers, plus planted in my retaining. My first year growing garlic and it's doing amazing! I'll interplant now that you said to. Our weather here in the Midwest US was weird. It rollercoastered between freezing and hot until mid-May so I got a late start, due to waiting for the "freezes" to end. But, I'm already drying herbs and green onions, and foraged herbs for the winter.
Drying herbs and green onions already - that's well ahead. :-)
@@GrowVeg I'm so happy!
My garlic and strawberries are doing well, as are my potatoes in containers. I left 3 cut and come again lettuce in my raised bed over winter and they are growing well. Last week I planted a mixed variety of onion sets, peas, beets, beans, lettuce and corn. This week, now that all danger of frost is gone, I will plant out my seedlings: pumpkin, cantaloupe, peppers, tomatoes, and zinnias.
Sounds like you've got so much to look forward to there!
My babbington leeks are growing. Looking forward to having them pop up year after year
They take a year or two to really establish fully - but so worth it once they have!
I have lettuce germinating in my pea bed... from last year's plants lol.
I need to prune the lower pea leaves to let a little more light in... but they're good in salad too!
They absolutely are. :-)
Hoping to plant more this week. Salad ,radishes. I use so much.
Using lettuce and radishes daily. Carrots for the first time ever !!! I'm excited.
Strawberries are happy as well. Can't wait for all the Abu dance of my work. I've been letting some wild greens grow near the garden and harvesting to mix in my lettuce as well. Dandilion, plantain, even some catnip and now some lambs quarter.
We've had a very cool work g this year, so the greens are loving it.
Happy planting g !!
And happy planting to you too Tonie. Lots going on in your garden already! :-)
I'm in the States (5b) so I basically have 12 trays of seedlings, acclimating and hoping to get planted this upcoming week (Denver has had May snow a couple of times). But once those are in the ground, I will be following your lead with planting more seeds: fall flowers, fennel, beets (you can never have too many!) and more salad greens. Thank you for the ongoing inspiration 😀
Me too, I got most of mine out today 5-20-23, I’m near you. The rain has been crazy. I still have several seed trays to go out in a couple weeks. Do you have any outside yet? I feel like all of my plants are small, my plants that I put outside earlier aren’t really doing anything, especially the lettuces and greens and early spring crops. Any suggestions?
Great to have more seedlings waiting in the wings to keep the harvests coming. :-)
Good morning, loved the garden show! Enjoyed the useful tips mentioned also the board over the seedlings, just to give them a fair chance! I've got very late tomatoes growing, I covered them over for the frost, just trusting they will survive but it will be a big IF. They are growing out in the open, some fruits have appeared and many more flowers and the plants look so beautiful, they are not staked therefore close to the ground. Wish me all the best, I know it is a risky adventure. I suppose that is what gardening is all about, trial and error. Happy gardening, happy days. Kind regards
Hope your tomatoes work out well. Very best of luck - gardening really is all trial and error. :-)
I feel really inspired watching your videos. I have just moved, and getting better after a long period of stress, so I have not really plantet anything yet, besides my potatoes that have just been put in the ground. But I will try and sow a variety of things when I get my wild lawn enough in order to grow stuff in it and when I find my seed box among all the moving crates 😬😊
You'll soon catch up! :-)
It's too hot here in Florida for most seed planting. I'm using grow bag's to grow on my patio.
Great idea. I'm central California, 9B, which I know a lot of Florida is as well. We've been pushing 100 this last week. We had to do some pruning on trees recently and I've noticed part of the patio is getting full sun, or partially filtered, for 6 or more hours daily. Just yesterday I realized I can put some of my containers there.
So sorry it's got so hot already. That's tough.
your channel made me build 2 area for growing, currently in the soil is Squash, soft garlic, charred and carrots ^^
Great stuff! :-)
Chard.
I've had a fabulous crop of garlic and broad beans. Slugs have been on an insane rampage so I'm a bit behind on other stuff due to all the resowing. Thanks for the heads up on what to sow this month 😊
slowly getting there my grandad has just given me his allotment so slowly starting to transfer things outside each week fingers crossed some thing grows 😂😂
Hope you enjoy working on the allotment and get a great first harvest Anthony. :-)
Best year for spinach, kale, and lettuce. Thank you for your spritz bottle idea and for your info on using garden space well.
From NY
It certainly is. Thanks for watching. :-)
I noticed that snails in my garden didn't like rocket salad and lamb's lettuce so I'm growing more of these plants. ;) I'm fascinated by the beauty of rapeseed so I'm sowing more and harvest the leaves to use them in salads. These plants grow very well without much effort on my side :D
Great to find plants that work to avoid pests!
thanks for doing it 10 days sooner! ill try to get some, im getting alot of stuff though i had a hard time with the late summer, a few of my garlic plants started shooting , so had to harvest them too early, but just sewn some little gems roman lettuce in a bunch of pots and already harvested 2 iceberg heads!, tomatoes and bellpeppers are the slowest though... and my broccoli are getting attacked too much ... i need a way to protect them better but i have no idea what is eating it
When you say your garlic was shooting, do you mean producing garlic scapes? They are stems with a slightly arrow-shaped top that turn into the flower. They are produced by all hard neck garlic varieties and if you pull them or cut them it helps concentrate the energy into the bulb. Plus the scapes you harvest are super delicious bbq’d or stir fried, they are almost like leek flavor. (I grow mostly hard neck garlic so I get the scapes and the garlic!)
In the PNW my common pests for broccoli are slugs and bunnies when they are young, and cabbage butterflies, which lay eggs on the underside of the broccoli leaves and the caterpillars that hatch are voracious! For young plants, I use cut plastic milk carton to make a protective circle enclosure. For the caterpillars, a net like the one Ben has in the video works well. Good luck!
Thanks so much for chipping in @janarhyu5664, some really helpful advice there. Here's a link to my video on brassica pests and how to stop them: ruclips.net/video/-NYVacngcXw/видео.html
Bad start this year. One minute all set for sowing in outdoor beds, but a weeks. Visit from my son and daughter in law and the seeds popped up like a n F6 Lightning scramble!
Not those I was waiting to so, but Bitter Cress and rain so I could just stare at it and wish I’d mulched with sowing compost. But no respite, seeds from the bird feeder, grass of some sort sending roots down to a spade depth.
This week , one bed per day (or more if I can) sow what I should have in May and brassicas and salads.
I’ve bought compost from Aldi, very cheap, but I’ll bet I’ve not bought enough compost.
On the bright side, for the last week I have a Robin picking up root eating caterpillar like things as I pick up weeds. He watches me so close just in case I dig up some thing that I might eat and he to quick to give me an opportunity. 😎
Hope you manage to get on top of things. Great to have a robin on hand to help!
@@GrowVeg I’ve bought some cheap multi purpose compost from Aldi. I don’t know how good it is but it looks better than my compost which I’ll hose on a legumes bed, not on the surface but buried Nader a spade depth of soil then just plant my toilet roll ‘pots’ then peas onto the soil with my purchased compost. I’ve bought a roll of damp course plastic sheet to warm things up after watering and keep it from evaporating.
All to keep paths weed free,' I hope.
My polytunnel greenhouse blew over in the high winds a few weeks ago. I had a load of seeds in plug trays. The tray were all over the allotment. I picked them up and directly planted them into my beds. No idea what’s growing but things are shooting up.
Good luck!
@@trumpetingangel I’m gonna need it lol
Best of luck ❤
@@tracycrider7778 it’s going to be pot luck what pops up. I hope it’s not just Brussel sprouts for dinner every night
Hey - I hope you manage to enjoy a bountiful harvest and have plenty to pick despite the setback. :-)
I enjoy watching your videos, especially sowing seeds later in the season like carrots next to almost ready to harvest garlic. Good suggestions and great quality videos! Thanks from South Carolina.
Thanks for watching Alan.
Thx for the reminder :) just bought more carrots & lettuce for more succession planting. 1st year gardener here, and loving not have to buy lettuces, only to have it go bad! (Not to mention saving all that plastic waste) thx for these vids- can’t wait to see your summer garden.
Hope you are enjoying your first year gardening. That's really super to hear. I'm hoping to do a summer tour of the garden soon, so keep watching. :-)
I live on an oversized city lot. The front of the house faces south where I have 4 beds. The roots of a tree destroyed my underground irrigation pipes, and I am temporarily using a variety of irrigation schemes. One front bed is my berry patch. The peach tree in the middle got bacterial gumosis and I cut it down. My graft onto the rootstock sucker failed. The gooseberry bush is bigger than ever, and I think I finally got the secret to thriving raspberries. The thornless blackberries are blossoming. The baby red current now has a riot of leaves. And all around, everywhere in nearly every bed, the elephant garlic flowers are about to burst open. The Chilean red garlic that I dug up years ago is still growing in a corner. The pomegranate tree is covered with feathery leaves, and everything is covered with black locust petals like snow.
Behind the berry patch is a full sun bed I let lay fallow last winter. It also contains a peach tree, now covered with young fruits, and an Asian pear tree nestled behind the peach. I grafted 5 western pear varieties to the Asian pear, but only 2 grafts survived. I don't see any fruits on the grafted branches. Purple cornflowers also grow in the back of this bed. The bed is covered with more garlic of several varieties. Along the edge of the fallow bed are a series of irrigated pots growing kale, broccoli, thyme, and artichokes. As each potted plant reaches the end of its season, I rotate in a different newly transplanted plug in a different pot. That way, I am constantly invigorating the soil from old pots with chips, compost, organic fertilizer and some fresh commercial soil, then planting it with a start from my little greenhouse. Right now, I am putting out the newly transplanted potted cucumbers and eggplants. I planted 2 zucchinis in the front bed with corn starts. I cover each new transplant with an opaque plastic gallon jug with the bottom cut out to protect it from birds and slugs.
I have a problem finding the right place for strawberries. Last year I retired my strawberry patch and constructed an irrigated strawberry tower out of a cylinder of wire fencing and some garden cloth. During the torrential rains this past winter, the strawberry tower fell over into the fallow bed and broke the irrigation lines. Yesterday, I purchased some terra cotta strawberry jars on sale half price; today I intend to transplant all the strawberries from the collapsed tower into the new terra cotta jars.
I have irrigated pots half way along the east driveway where I have 3 plum trees. I love grafting, so I have many varieties of plums and a pluot growing on the branches of the 3 wild plums. When I replaced my toilets with low flush varieties, the old toilets became pots for planting. I drilled a hole at the bottom of the toilet bowl, but the tanks already had a hole. The other half of the east side driveway is planted with thornless blackberry. My next door neighbor grows English ivy. It is a bane on the east side of my property. I am forever pulling out ivy that threatens to strangulate my potted plants. I also have an asparagus patch along the sunny east side driveway, which is currently full of tall asparagus ferns in flower. In the shadier parts of the east driveway are flower gardens. The columbine are in flower. The Easter lilies are budding and the milkweed is rapidly rising.
In a sunny corner on the north side of the property near the mulberry tree are some newer beds. There I have raspberries and goji berries surrounded by kale and cabbages. I also planted a zucchini there. Ivy is a perpetual pariah. On the other side of the mulberry tree is my pile of disintegrating chips. Also more artichokes growing in salvage grow-bags cast off by the MJ industry in this area. Also growing are potatoes, succhinis, and corn. My bee hive is located here because it gets lots of sun but is protected from the wind. In a few days, I will add a super to my thriving bee colony. I also ate the first ripe mulberry yesterday. The tree is covered with unripe berries.
All along the north side retaining wall are irrigated raised beds and pots with blueberries, cabbages, artichokes, tomatoes, mugwort, and chard. I have failed time and again to grow carrots in those raised beds, so I recently removed the fallow soil from that bed and filled it with brand new commercial soil. I planted 2 rows of carrot seeds and 1 row of carrot starts from my greenhouse. I have planted nasturtium seeds in or near all the cucumbers and squashes; let's see if they sprout.
All the lettuces, cilantro and peppers are still in my greenhouse, along with sprouting sunflower seeds that are intended for pest control (I'm allergic to sunflower seeds). I have a fenced in large pot and a grow bag with lettuces at the end of their time in the poultry area. Soon I will harvest the last 2 lettuces and amend the soil with compost, green sand, organic fertilizer and some commercial soil and transplant the summer squashes. A rickety old wooden ladder stands over this grow bag. I intend to train the squashes up the ladder. Last time, I used plastic grocery bags to gently tie the vines to the ladder. Then all the plastic bags exposed to the sun disintegrated into plastic powder that fell into my organic bed below! I had a difficult time extricating tiny pieces of plastic bag from my garden; it was impossible to get it all.
The west side of my property is the egg farm. It provides me with plenty of soiled straw to use as mulch and to age into compost. The poultry clean up the snails, slugs, pill bugs, earwigs, ants, and other bugs while producing golden eggs for me and my neighbors. After harvest, I open the gates and allow the poultry a few weeks to clean up the excess bugs, then close the gates and plant again. The poultry love brassicas of any type. They will eat all the brassica leaves while cleaning up the bugs, if allowed. The poultry need to eat green leaves every day, and there is no meadow nearby. All excess leaves from my harvests, pulled weeds, grass clippings and weeds from around the neighborhood are gathered for them. Also found on the west side are 2 more wild plum trees, fig, cherries, persimmon and another peach. I prefer mission figs, so I grafted purple figs to my Kadota fig tree and the grafts are growing fruit this year. Last weekend, I draped a bird net over my Queen Anne cherry tree to attempt to protect what promises to be a bumper crop.
Thanks for all your farming lessons. I have learned a lot from you and I really enjoy your enthusiasm and quick wit. One of these days, I will use your garden planner for improved placement next year.
Wow - what a productive plot you have - it sounds incredible! And great to have such a ready supply of poultry manured straw - those chickens are such a valuable addition to the garden! :-) Really appreciate you taking the time to share your garden - it sounds truly sublime. And thank you for your kind words about the channel. Happy gardening!
I picked some peas today the pods were delicious and I also saw a mulberry tree and picked some mulberries
Great stuff! :-)
My raised beds & container garden is fabulous so far, lots of blooms appearing now. Can’t wait for harvest but grow time is just magical. Thank you Ben & Rosy for all of the helpful tips!
So pleased it's all looking good! :-)
Good video. I'm in zone 10a/9b in west central Florida and I have grown arugula in partial shade in early Summer. I've just sown arugula in plug trays and have a new vertical planter that I want to try them out in. It will soon be close to 100 degrees in the sun midday, so even my cherry tomatoes need a bit of shade cloth. I have the best luck with east or south-facing plants here. I have large live oak trees to block the sun to get dappled light in the afternoon, so that helps.
Great that you have shady areas to help. Hope your arugula does well. :-)
Planted out my sweet potato’s this week ❤ added eggplants, tomatoes and poblano peppers along with the beans & honey & butter bush squash ❤
Still got a bit to go before I can harvest my garlic ❤
I just did my sweet potato slips too!
@@hihosilver1234❤
Nice work! :-)