From Pasture to Production
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- Опубликовано: 1 окт 2024
- In today's video I discuss some the ways in which people who grow food professionally start their gardens.
Some things I discuss: how to start a garden from scratch, how to turn over the soil, how to plow with a BCS, When to plow, how to start a no dig garden, how to start a no till garden, never till gardening, can you till before going no-till, mulching a garden, can you plant into compost, how professionals start gardens, using cover crops to start a garden, how to start a garden fast, how to start a garden right, etc..
Music: "Getting to Know" by Coffee and Cats
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Hey all - I usually try to take an hour or so on Mondays and answer everyone's comments but holy cow there are a lot of comments on this video already! I will try to get to more but I gotta get to work on the next video. Just know you all are awesome.
Your kind of channel is very upsetting. There is this modern myth that humans should subsist on sugar and sugar only (and insects.) This is evil.
Here is how humans go off grid. 1. grow grass. Pastures. 2. have your food eat grass until large. 3. Harvest your crop of fit for humans to eat food.
Plants are just sugar and sugar causes inflammation, diabetes, obesity. Heart disease and premature death.
Every single part of a plant is sugar in one form or another (and only two matter, sugar we can digest and sugar we can't.)
I would like to start the preparation to plant a garden on 1/2 archer. I live in Conroe Texas. I will start by tilling and using a tarp, then mulch, then give it until September. If all goes well I would like to plant Greens and Squash beginning September 15, 2022. Do you think this will work? Oh this is my first time to plant.
@@georgeyoung2990 Squash is a warm season crop and is frost sensitive, so unless your area doesn't receive freezing temperatures during the winter I would wait to plant squash until the soil warms up in the spring. The name "winter squash" can be confusing, it doesn't refer to squash that are grown over the winter. Instead it refers to squash that can be grown over the summer and stored through the winter. I hope this helps and good luck with your garden!
Sir, Can you please add Subtitles in Video
Plowing is good and injecting soil ammendments is effective especially when the soil is not at its best.
"Dogma is not going to help you in farming..." perfect advice. Great channel. Smart man.
What about dogpop?
You don't want to use carnivore manure on edibles. That increases your risk for disease.
Warning about straw: lately there are increasing numbers of gardeners who get hay/straw tainted with GrazeOn and other persistent chemicals that totally destroy gardens and orchards. Do your research and know your source!
I wasted so much energy last season pulling hay out of my beds after discovering that they seeded
@@stephenlonon4605and so grazeon is a good idea to you? The hay should've been rotted.
@@scholasticbookfair. it can persist even if digested and rooted for a fair fair while
Is this a Missouri problem???? I feel like not
@@codyprice6188 yes. They use it there a lot.
I have always been a very visual learner. So your videos coupled with your book helps it to sink in. Then applying cements the lesson. Thanks Jesse and thanks Hannah for sharing your soil nerd!
Oh awesome, Ron. We definitely wanted to create a dynamic array of content for everyone for that reason, so we're glad to hear that it's helpful that way!
"thanks Hannah for sharing your soil nerd!"
Love this, haha!
One of the most dense, no bs, educational channels out there. Keep it up y’all. And thank you for sharing all this hard earned knowledge!
Well just a little bs ing lol 😅
I totally agree love Jessie’s content and mannerisms as well. Lots of facts nearly no BS!!! My favorite Growers channel!
Thanks for your videos. Iwas born in a small village located around Cameroon 🇨🇲 and Nigeria 🇳🇬 border centre/west Africa. Growing up there was no Internet connection nor roads we had to trek for 3 hours to get to Nigeria or 9 hours to get to Cameroon, in other to see good roads or sell our crops, but trust me it was fund and it really made me stronger. My parents where small farmers till 2009 i lost my dad, we had to moved to Lagos Nigeria in 2011. I can remember in my small village my parents didn't have to go through a lot of stress because the land was very fertile and any crop they ever planted was doing extremely well, without fertiliser or watering the crops. 2 years ago I started watching alot of videos on how to farm, because prices of food stuffs in Lagos for the past 2 years has really been going up, and I realised how blessed my small village is lol. I'm happy because my dad's houses are still there. I'm 26 years old and I've been saving up, I can't wait to go back to my village and start up my farm with all this experience I've had in watching different videos and learning more about different virity of crops. I'm really greatful🙏
Wonderful!! I love that you appreciate how you were raised - eating like royalty!!
I'm from a small farm in Zimbabwe (I'm now in the UK). I didn't know how good I had it despite not having much.
Life is much more than having more and more stuff. I'm delighted you feel the way you do so young you could go back and make a real difference helping those around you with what you've learnt. 👏👏👏💪💪💪👌👍
One method I have had success with is using potatoes as a sort of cover/food crop to prepare new ground. You can disturb the soil or not. Potatoes love fresh decomposing sod, and they seem to attract such a plethora of microorganisms and earthworms that you get a decent tilth after they crop. I simply lay the potatoes out at a decent spacing, and I might make a slight hole and dig them into the sod, especially recently as the vole pressure has gotten out of hand, then cover with ideally a weed free mulch like straw or second cutting hay or compost, but usually I use a combination of compost and hay I can acquire cheaply. Hill the potatoes with hay or compost throughout the season, and after harvest the grass will be totally dead and worked up by critters, and the beds can be planted into a cover crop, or fall crop.
This is pretty much the ruth stout method of growing potatoes, and lends itself to breaking new ground while growing a crop.
First time garden. I took a 50 year old lawn, tilled it, spread 4 inches of manure/ mulch and tilled it again in the late fall. Planted garlic and now I have 60 of 70 sprouts growing well in February. I think this is going to work. Thanks Jesse.
Tilling is definitely not good
Ground was hard as a rock. High clay content. A shovel only dug in an inch with a good jump. I hope tilling in compost a couple of times gets matter into the soil so I can go no till. Farming on a rock is hard to do. Thanks though.
@@alliwantedisapepsi1492yeah that’s fair, it’ll take a year or two to do no till or no dig, I know this because my garden was crappy before I planted, and even after tilling and using a hoe to loosen up the dirt, my dirt settled and it filters horribly, I just started compost this year, so I hope that helps the next.
@brandontekahu4663 it is good and work for centuries
Oh damn I've heard all about those areas. Very sad sorry dude good for experience though.
I've started many gardens due to career moves. Those I started in the late summer early fall were always the best having 10 mos or so for worms, compost, covercrop & mulch to do its thing. I never had great success with gardens slammed together in the spring unless I was at least able to cover the area in deep mulch some months ahead.
Agreed .. was going to make my own comment post, but will just piggy back. This video is perfect timing for folks, as I am a big advocate for starting gardens in the fall, too. You mentioned one method that almost overlapped from fast/slow .. which was (depending on the native soil) layers of cardboard (3 at least for me, which will EVENTUALLY kill the grass below .. & actually I recommend cutting the grass as low as possible 1st, to map out your garden area), and then spreading many inches of compost on top (aged cow manure being best choice in my opinion). This way, you can plant fast if youd like, and will have a great garden waiting for you next spring, as the cardboard should be broken down.
I use tree leaves primarily for compost and milch and I use mostly oak , and other hard woods leaves along with rotted pine needles as they are an excellent addition to my compost and the old saying that they acidify your medium is just not true and studies made by several universities have debunked the old wives tale that they do . the reason nothing hardly grows under them is that they mat and dont allow air water or sunlight to penetrate over time . I also use them in my Isles as they are slow by themselves to breakdown and are easy to resource here in the South East where I'm at in N Eastern Georgia . I use dolimite , hybertite rock powders, Seaweed when I can get it , or any aquatic's when available as they all are great sources of potassium and nitrogen . the more diverse your compost the better off your medium.
I was on a big garden where we used humanure and urine. This issue issue is people contributing get sick. When they are sick you want a second place to put urine and manure where it will NOT get into compost. Always compost urine-manure, ideally in hot manure. Any temperature compost probably okay for most situations. There is a book on Humanure.
I'm noticing that country people seem much happier than City people, could this be? (I just moved out to the country from the City)
I'm an experienced flower gardener but completely new to veggies. Started my first two veggie beds this year. One is ridiculously slow-growing. The other is taking off. Almost double the growth in the second bed.
Bed 1, the slow growing disappointment:
Started with overgrown lawn that tended to flood, broke up the clay soil with a fork. Added bagged black earth (2-3 inches), built my raised bed frame on top of that and tossed in some yard waste and more bagged black earth. Planted immediately.
Bed 2, the efficient success:
Started with overgrown lawn directly beside bed 1 on a drier day. Mowed down the lawn, forked it, added 1-2 inches of yard waste, dug it in very slightly (I'm on clay soil working with hand tools), covered well with cardboard, soaked and let sit for a week, covering holes with more cardboard when a few small weeds made it through. I then brought in 4-5 inches of rich, living compost (filled with worms and other life) from my boss' manure heap. (Benefits of working at a stable, bonus that my boss grows his own hay, chemical-free). I let the bed sit for around a month before I planted into it at all.
Bed 1 does not retain water well. At all. Seeds took forever to get true leaves, growth is slow and disappointing. Weeds aren't bad though, almost nothing came up through the soil, only what blew into the bed to remove. Definitely will need to amend the soil this fall though.
Bed 2 holds consistent water levels without becoming flooded but does require a lot more weeding unfortunately but I just chop and drop the weeds for more organic material. Lots of dandelions so at least they're not competing too badly with what I have in there.
My plan for this fall is to put in 1-2 more beds doing the slow method and redo the failed bed entirely. I definitely will not be using bagged soil for in ground growing or raised beds ever again. It's just dead dirt. I'll use fresh, living compost that I can source locally. Way cheaper too.
Southpaw here, thank you for the inclusivity, the prejudice is unbearable, ahah! Nice video, thank you!
I would have liked more talk about the damage to soil micro organisms as a result of covering beds in plastic, and the damage to soil structure caused by even one till.
I've experimented with 3 different types of beds thus far! The deep compost, beds built with native soil from around the farm, and then building beds in place with the soil that is there! I'm adamant about bringing my native soil to a standard that will grow any crops i want to grow and that crop be healthy!! So far I rather enjoy building the beds in place.
Having 100 acres of farmland i am able to go i to the woods and gather leaves as well as leaf mold at will whenever I want. This is proving to be a great way to add organic matter and microbiology to the native soil i am turning into garden space!! I am also adamant about making my own liquid fertalizer and have been studying the jadam techniques alot. I think the inspector will be pleased when we finally do go to get our organic certification!!
gosh, your videos appear exactly when I need them. I am severely handicapped but determined to convert my quarter acre to a no-till permaculture garden.
A few days ago I laid down some painters plastic to solarize an area, just like you recommended it in a video. I'm so excited to watch this video because this land is super fertile, but has hard summer-compacted clay weed soil.
I think the soil is actually quite healthy, when it's slowly moistened with a soaker it smells great and clings to roots properly. But in the summer it's too hard to get a pickaxe through, so I wanted to do something to prepare it for the coming winter planting season.
Location -- Northern California/Sacramento valley
My mother is severally handicapped, too. She uses cardboard and/or mulch as weeding is not much of an option for her. She has a great garden every year. Good luck! 👍
I garden in Western KY on land that has laid fallow for years. Our "soil" is pretty much yellow clay and we got very poor results this year. I tried to dig up the few potaoes that actually grew and the shovel bounced of the surface. I just ordered your book and I will be applying your methods ASAP in order to get better production for next year.
Sounds like you got your hard work planned ahead. After the harvest, check out a few of the Chefs recipes.
Not sure how much land you got but it would probably help to add organic material, like compost or manure, it can be more expensive then chemical fertilizers but its probably what your land needs, even stuff like sticks and leaves or hay will help.
I would recommend leaf mulch. It's free and it will help you immensely. Gather a lot of leafs in the fall (as many bags as possible, but do some research since some leaves are not great) and then lay those leaves out on top of your soil. Keep doing this every year and your soil quality will improve. After your leaves have turned to soil, till it into the soil underneath.
How don't you have a million subscribers? Your content is great👍
This is my favorite gardening channel. Yep, I have an autographed copy of your book. I would like to see more cover cropping for idiots and the time-deprived type of content. Tarping tips and tricks. The different depths and levels of soil loosening and cultivating, and appropriate techniques. The pollinator/habitat rows, and keeping varmits off your crops. Troubleshooting mid-season. Living pathways updates.
All good ideas! Thank you!
"Cover Crops for Idiots". This is an excellent idea. I have no idea what to plant as a cover crop in my area. A few weeks ago, I put a 30x30 black plastic over an area to kill off my grass, and now I am thinking I will put cardboard and straw down (which goes first the cardboard?) then some mulch from a local farmer and a cover crop and let it sit all winter. Wish I knew what I was doing...
Cardboard first. Look at me. I know something 😂
@@boysrus61 cardboard, mulch/compost & I use red clover for cover crop
Another very good and easy way is to simply 1. chop and drop (or use drop as mulch at step 4 (depending on amount of weed seeds), 2. decompact (broadfork), 3. sheetmulch (Cardboard/ newspaper etc) and then 4. a thick layer of mulch (6inch +), ideally nitrogen rich mulch + carbon rich mulch on top. 5. Pull aside the mulch, 6. poke a hole in the cardboard, 7. add a handful or two of compost in the hole and 8. transplant into this.
Thank you for this, i will do it to my backyard mini farm 😊
Loved the longer video! I know it takes a lot of work to make so thank you! I have had luck with just a couple of layers of cardboard covered in compost and left to sit over the winter, by spring the cardboard is soft enough to plant right on top of.
Man this is such a ripper of a video! Thankyou so much for putting this one up! Some of the best information I’ve come across in my years of gardening.
Nice use if the word "ripper".
Great video! Another option to get a garden set up quick in a turf covered lot without tillage is to use a sod cutter. It can also get out some of the bad weeds right off the bat and you’re not inverting any soil. Generally you’ll need compost after if you want raised beds though. Thanks for all your videos, tons of great information!
Cut the sod and invert it as the first layer in a "lasagna" garden. We're all about losing the lawn here in drought stricken California.
I herd that doesn't work with rhizome grass
Bermuda is not a fun one.
Watch epic gardening
Thoughts on solarizing?
I removed hoop house plastic last week and put it on the lawn to give it a rinse and wash it off.
That was at noon.
Forgot about it until the next day when my wife realized what I had done.
By 2 o'clock on a bright sunny day in July it had totally cooked the grass in a perfect rectangle, killing it completely.
I was pretty impressed by 26 hours of solarizing!
I am now trying this on a couple of weedy garden beds, it probly won't do anything at all...
Did you ever try it? I'm trying to decide if clear or black tarp would be better for killing grass.
I really appreciate that you provide multiple methods, calling out the ideal, yet knowing things are not always ideal. I moved cross country and was able to put a garden in starting in June. Well, it has been a humbling experience. I went from lovely loam to yellow clay. I now realize much of my garden prowess was the soil I had. I expect I can get there again with a multi-year approach. Happy growing.
My wife is dissapointed with my garden, hard clay loads of weeds, last year i added all the fall leaves and this year it was better, but still quite sad, she is the drop a seed in and let it do its thing, everything that "succeeded" (lol) was container grown 20 tomatoes and 10 melons 20 cucumbers with 1 bag of ammendment $5. And some herbs. Its a multi year process.
I had a similar humbling experience trying to throw a quick wing-it garden together late spring in France with little water, a bit of manure, heavily compacted clay and weeds. Maybe more water would've given me some sort of harvest... I got a bunch of sprouts, some crops went as far as healthy seedlings, but the sprouts all got munched by these tiny black bugs that appeared in swarms and everything else couldn't make it with the lack of water. I had thrown in a bunch of cover crops hoping they'd sprout in unison and help each other get through the roughness but it just wasn't to be. I quickly realized after that the only way I would've had a chance was to throw a fat layer of manure and mulch to shape the beds, then put seedlings in and have at least one LARGE watering event plus a few decent rains. I went in with the idea of no till and absolutely minimal watering to naturally select the toughest plants from whatever seeds I planted. I realized some plowing and tilling to get started before a large application of manure/straw was key. I had put some solid hours into it. Sometimes, one learns the hard way 😅
It took me 2 weeks of intense manual labor to dig up a 12x12 area of my lawn for a tomato garden with a shovel & my hands. I moved about 30 wheelbarrows full of thick, heavy, compacted, clay soil. The soil had an insane number of rocks, which I used to line the garden for drainage. I recall ONE hole for one plant taking 10 minutes to dig! I thought I was escavating a rock the size of a massive bowling bowl at one point. I then moved many more wheelbarrows full of composted horse manure to use as topsoil & hand built tomato cages with old metal farm fence. Then tonight, I dug up a 10’x4’ area of sod to build another garden beside it & it took less than 2 hours! It’s amazing how different areas of the yard can be SO different to work with! We live on a huge hill & I can’t afford to buy the lumber to build raised beds for root crops. I find that growing potatoes in old chicken feed bags works amazingly well!
I love your quick start method, because in my opinion, no matter what, second and third year gardens produce like crazy.....but you have to get the first year garden started! (I'm on my third year garden at the location!)
Thank you for this comment. As I was feeling like I was too late to start, since didn’t see this video in the fall when it was published. Just start! Great advice, thanks again!
I quit my job to become a market gardener a month ago, took out small loans for living expenses and starting the gardens. I am doing the quick risky method of no-till-->paper-->compost-->seed in midwinter Zone 7b. Sod was mostly eaten down by horses, manured, and had years worth of oak leaf grounds on the surface, full of earthworms. I laid down two layers of builder's paper, and built beds 4 ft wide with 4 inches aged horse manure/bedding compost that my neighbor cooks up in huge piles. I would be more apprehensive if it was hydrophobic mulchy stuff, as I had hell trying to grow in that stuff before. This specific horse compost is some of the most friable I have ever seen. It almost never loses moisture and drains well. I then immediately broadcast a "cover crop" polyculture of mustards, carrots, turnips, beets, radishes, chard. I am starting indoors heading brassicas, cilantro, lettuces, peas, green onions, spinach to plant into the polyculture after thinning. I admit this method will be difficult for predicting yields/quick harvesting, but my hope is that the reward will outweigh the risks/cons. Will report back in a month.
How did it go?
@@13Kiki31it was very good! I ended up getting a job in the city after the summer heat and grasshoppers killed everything. I had a great customer base at the farmers market but it just wasnt meant to be.
Very good video with a lot of great info. I've switched from hay to straw because of the seeds issue, it's made a big difference. Just had to up inputs a bit to compensate. It's good to see someone talking about tillage to make no-till beds, we need more of that!
Perfect timing for this video, thanks! :) I am in the Southern Hemisphere (NZ) where we are in the depths of winter and I am planning an expansion, starting nowish to be ready for planting early summer (December).
Hi fellow Kiwi. I'm starting a few shared community plots here in Matapouri.
Jessie I’ve been watching for the last two years (subscribing on patreon too) and I just wanted to say thank you for the time and effort you put into your videos. I appreciate you and your team. 🧡
I like your videos,Jessy,keep doing the great job👍
Perfect timing for me. Great information and I like your presentation. I am a new gardener at 80. I wish I had started earlier but chasing the almighty dollar I lost out. I am in zone 6b and have a hard pan about 6” down so I am trying to overcome that issue. I already tilled 900 Sq ft. With a front tine tiller but had little success with that. I think I have found a tractor with a big tiller and was wondering if I could do this in spring and still have some success as I lready have a cover crop planted. I woul appreciate any help from other commenters since I know your busy. Thanks ahead. Y’all havagudun and God Bless.
Amateur grower at 7,200' in Colorado here. Thank you for emphasizing location dependencies! For example, we laid some cardboard down in an attempt at a fast living pathway. Two years later, and you can still read the labels on what were the boxes. We just don't have the decomposition rate in the high desert for that to always pan out
I found it also harbors cockroaches. They really like the shade and dampness it provides here on the West Slope of CO in these blazing summers! One summer was enough for me with that experiment!
I have found that weeds enjoy the cool relief as well
@@smas3256 For cockroaches? No, I use Borax and chickens for roach control. I've heard the beer works good for slugs, but those aren't a problem for me here in the desert. I had tried the cardboard for blocking weeds in paths with mulch between beds. Bind weed grows well under it too! I find the living pathways work better for me, using white clover.
I find the double dig method, it's a form of plowing, but found that extremely effective especially when you have poor soil and are in a hurry. It's hard work without machinery but it works.
Started another 3x50 ft bed this year with just a 1" till and a bunch of grass clippings, planted right into it. Added 4 last year in the fall with free hay and a shallow cultivation till. Both are working great, expect both to only increase in fertility next year. Also I finally have compost finished--been using that for stuff I want to direct seed into (remove and compost the mulch, put down finished compost, plant). I love my living pathways btw, it's like I kept the utility/mobility of a yard, while turning the whole thing into gardens.
Nice--love to hear that about the living pathways!
I followed your example on the cardboard method and it’s been a good first year so far. We just moved here around the first of the year so I mowed the grass down to the ground, used all our cardboard boxes from the move, and put a garden soil mix from the local landscape nursery on top of that. So far we are doing well and hopefully next year even better.
Coleman Shepard told me a method i'm going to try. he instructed me to mix a cup of molasses and a tablespoon of sea salt in a gallon of water (you might want to double or triple the recipe) spray that all over the grass that's growing where you want your garden to be, give it a good dousing. the tarp with an old bill board tarp (black backed tarps are best for this) leave it covered for 3 weeks to a month, when you remove your tarp all that will remain is mycelium; you can plant into that or spread a mulch and plant thru that.
17:57 What's your success rate with hand sowing a cover crop? Especially with some mulch material overtop? Do you do anything to get soil contact or cover the seeds?
This is certainly on a smaller scale, but has anyone discussed Hugelkulture? I have done a somewhat modified version of that in raised beds - some homemade using wood and roofing metal, some dozen more in 100-150 gallon livestock troughs.
Both methods began with a layer of well rotting (old firewood) about 1/3 of the depth of the bed. Then we put in a mixture of 1 year old passively composted horse manure and bedding mixed with shredded paper, with the top 1/3 being well composted finished horse manure and bedding compost. Absolute black gold.
The inground raised beds - vs the trough ones - began with a trench about 1 ft deep with walls about 24” on ground level around the trench. This still allowed the 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 layering.
Each late fall after cutting the dead plants off at ground level leaving the roots, I topped the beds with finished compost and put down a bit of grass clipping mulch which meant the ground was ready for planting in the spring. Given that we are in Northern lower Michigan, our last frost date is typically Memorial weekend or the first week in June.
We moved last winter and while we left a few of the homemade raised beds, we did build a few more at our new farm. We also moved, at great effort with only having a neighbor witha tractor available to load but no equipment here to UNload. 100-150 gallons of soil in a trough which already carries some weight are HEAVY. OMGosh heavy. Crazy for a 63 yr old significantly physically disabled person and her 73 yr old “I can do it!” husband to attempt. Which lead to 4 of the dozen+ troughs tipping before we got help and displaying the absolutely amazingly wonderful contents of gorgeous soil and the barely there remnants of the rotting wood.
I will ALWAYS garden this way.
Did I mention I get AMAZING yields too?
One grower you can look to is Briceland forest farm. We did a podcast episode together for The No-Till Market Garden Podcast that discusses hugelkulture on scale
I have a tiny backyard garden, and have attempted different methods over the years with mixed results. In early spring I bought a metal raised bed and filled it with rotted logs and branches, then filled the gaps with sawdust, leaves and compost. Topped it with a couple of inches of bagged garden soil. Then I planted Swiss chard and kale along the edges and the filled the center with tomatoes. I’m surprised how well the tomatoes are doing.
Hello Shelley where are you from?
Hi from internationally! Mid winter here in Australia. And of course, garden expanding is under way. Is there ever enough space?! Thank you for sharing your knowledge. It's so very appreciated 😊
Hi Tahliel where are you from?
Haha I was totally wondering what the laser eyed cat was. Another great video. As a back yard gardener I am impatient, so I go with the fast method. If I fail or run into issue, then I live and learn. Always still fun regardless.
Hey guys, just finding your channel. I’ve noticed that you used hay as a mulch. If you are purchasing the hay from a local farmer, are you concerned about Grazon contamination?
It happened to me last year. I’m still dealing with this issue. Lesson learned!
Thanks for the video! I’ve learned some things!
I'm pretty sure that a load of compost I bought from a local greenhouse was contaminated with Grazon. Everything I planted in it is stunted and mutated-looking. Not happy, as compost is very hard to come by around here for some reason.
@@mrknittle532 From what I’ve heard and the RUclips videos I’ve seen, it can take years to rid our gardens from Grazon contamination.
I had to learn about it the hard way! We lost our entire garden last year! Wish it was talked about more to help educate gardeners about this issue! I hope your garden recovers quickly!
I had to travel about 2 hours away to pick up organic round bales of hay because our hay mower guy was actually spraying that hideous poison AGAINST OUR WISHES on our hay field, so we can't use it for 3-5 years. 🥵 I'm so thankful we are back home and we can take care of it ourselves now!!
Thanks for this informative video. Do you have any suggestion on dealing with moles/voles? I've always had some, but this past year I seem to have an invasion. My entire yard is like walking on sponge because of their tunnels & I had to keep filling in the voids around the blueberry bush roots during the summer. I've tried a number of techniques to no avail. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks so much.
Have you tried Juicy Fruit gum? I have used it twice. First time, about 6 years ago. Last year, they went crazy, under the hay. I figured out, they were after all the earthworms. A few sticks of gum later, I've had no more moles. I don't know about voles, I don't think we have those. Good luck!
@@ginaeaton6680 Thank you
Well I’ve subscribed for his humour, been laughing the whole way through, and learning! Brilliant 😊
Thank you so much, I learn't so much! + Happy New Year (new subscriber across the pond)
July is a great time to do a pop up no dig garden for a fall crop. It's a perfect time put together a hoop house too to get ready for the fall and winter. Also i tried reading those choose your own adventure books straight through. It's SO disorienting lol
Not to throw a fly into the ointment but be careful where you source your cardboard from. A lot of it is sprayed with chemicals that you may not want in your food gardens. Flowers or ornamentals may not be an issue.
Great videos! My wife and I just purchased our future homestead and plan to start working it asap. Thank you for all the great advice.
Same with the compost . Sometimes there are herbicides in the commercial compost.
So, I’m rewatching this because what I did in regards to squelching Johnson grass didn’t work. We did raised beds with cardboard (lots of layers) underneath, then almost 12 inches of good quality soil. We still had Johnson grass come up in the beds and around them. It also came up in my high tunnel beds through our weed barrier cloth. Any tips would be appreciated besides move where the Johnson grass doesn’t grow. 🤪
Chicken runs?
@@TheRainHarvester So far, our chickens haven’t squelched the Johnson grass, yet. It’s like hay grazer or corn stalks… but rhizomes like Bermuda grass. 🤦♀️ I wish they could do something about it - we have a lot of chickens.
Moving away from heavy rototilling. Listening to you Farmer Jesse is great and you sure are awesome!!!! Making compost and have garden divided in to 6, 4*12 ft beds,plus few larger areas. Bought my first broadfork this winter and excited to see how compacted the soil is.. thanks for your inspiration!
The slow method - plowing, tilling, mulching, tarping, composting, cover cropping seeding, cover crop killing, composting, planting (or some version of those steps) - is actually very similar to a prep method I had conceived at one point but never tried. I feel better about the idea having more expert advice suggesting something basically on the same lines - especially the cultivation of a cover crop before veggies. Thanks!
Have you had a problem with overhead wobbler irrigation with straw over the garden? I don't want to use plastic mulch/ landscape fabric, because of drip tape.
Great question! I feel like irrigation with deep mulches is something that is not talked about enough. Unfortunately drip is almost always going to be better with straw unless you run your overhead for long enough for it to penetrate, which won't be super water efficient. Perhaps someone else has some better ideas for irrigating in mulch as well--most of our hay-mulched areas are dry farmed because we get such heavy, generally consistent rain here
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That compost is absolutely lovely. It looks very very healthy. I cannot lie, this does make me somewhat jealous. I thank my nan especially for showing me many gardening and agri techniques.
Happy growing.
Peace and Blissings
Love seeing the kiddos helping out. Our three-year-old granddaughter, who lives with us, helps me daily with planting, weeding, and eating the fruits of our labor. Great stuff!
Love your channel. Great content, and very, very relevant. I've always agreed with the notion of no-till. Your experience helps folks like me understand the "whys and wherefores" when it comes to getting the details nailed down.
Hi, great info. Glad to know I am on the right path. Started a new garden this spring on an overgrown field of brambles and grasses. Originally, I wanted to create a lasagna bed to plant in but couldn't find affordable supply of compost, so ended up getting the plot tilled. Had it rototilled twice about 1 week apart and then put in landscape fabric 4' wide/bare earth 4'/landscape fabric 4' repeat all the way across. I planted in the fabric with transplants and then in between the fabric rows for direct seeding. The fabric helps to keep the weed pressure down. I also planted lots of melons and squash this year so the plants are helping to keep the weed pressure down too. Its going good so far. At the end of the season I plan to add manure and cover with straw so it will be ready to plant next year without tilling again.
Looking forward to this one!
Just started watching you, and i feel like I hit the jackpot to what i needed, I've always always loved gardening and always wanted own farm. over the course of 4 years my father in law has introduced me to plants and crops and i've falling in love with it. I've been jotting notes down all day, looking forward to drowning myself in learning.
Also really digging the cardboard method as well and can't make to start making my own compost tea
Fantastic video! I learned about weed seeds the hard way this year, also in KY:
I plowed an old fallow clay filled pasture that was overgrazed and I wanted half an acre of corn. What I got was a half acre of cockleburrs and spent weeks mowing it to try and keep a field of it from going to seed!
This fall I want to cover crop the whole thing in winter wheat.
Any suggestions on getting the winter wheat to germinate and keep weeds down till the wheat comes to term? My plan was to grow the field to maturity in may and then chop the straw in place as a mulch barrier as I try and add organic matter back into that poor soil!
but how do you frame your farm? chalk likes? how do you make it straight, and not crooked?
I’ve seen him measure out sticks and run twine between them
@@benfeldman8361 but how to you frame it so that it's straight?
It's hard to believe how much great information is on RUclips. Just discovered your channel and subscribed. I want to offer a humble addition: wet the cardboard! It starts the decomposition method quickly without relying on the damp compost or hoping for rain to come through.
I had to soak my garden area for two days before I could till it. The tiller would just pounce off the ground
I have experienced hard ground tilling. I have better success in thinking of a tiller as a mixer. What I do on small plots, is use a shovle and turn the whole area over one spade deep. Turn a trench over the width of the plot, and go row by row on the width. Once you get the first row done the others are not so bad. These spade turnovers become large chunks. After this run the tiller through two times to bust up the large chunks. I have been much more satisfied with my tiller sense using this method. The tiller is not strong enough to be like a plow. Once I had a new garden area plowed first, then busted up the large clods with the tiller, different method to start, same end results. It takes a little elbow greese to get started this way, but the end results are worth it.
Nice video :-) I am getting ready to put in 4 new beds 100 feet each. I use a ripper to rip my clay soil. I mix in some 40-year-old manure out of the barn and Sand from my friend sandpit. Then I will top it for the winter with organic wheat straw. I somewhat lasagna some straw and grass. Or whatever I have around. Pulling back the straw in the spring and planting into it works well. This year I will be trying some bio char from One of our local feedlot. And the other three rows will be a surprise :-)
Endlich mal jemand der das super erklärt, ich weiß das zwar alles schon, aber einigen ist das bestimmt eine große hilfe.🤠🙏
Funny enough, I'm looking to start a garden NEXT spring, and am doing research now in order to plan and make sure it had the best chance of success (as it's going to be a remote garden on a peice of land I own about 15 minutes from my house, and thus I can't be there EVERY day.)
This is been a GREAT resource and I'll be Coming back through the next few months as I get stuff going!
How did the first summer go?
our tree nursery beds cover 1/4 acre of mowed grass, in 3' x 25' rows, made over the lawn with cardboard, six inches of a bulk trucked in black soil, mulched with kind of composted wood chips. The native soil here is 99% sand 1% clay with just 1/2" of top soil. compost is almost impossible to find by the yard but old wood chips are around. After we empty beds this fall and heel in the trees, thinking about broad forking and adding horse manure, hay supplier says he doesn't use any of the lingering herbicides. Biggest issue we've had is some beds didn't have enough layers of cardboard and the quack grass is taking over, weeding it is a losing battle. Thinking about re-cardboarding over top and adding the manure in the fall. Any other good way to kill quack grass a bed without tarping it for half a season?
I was just recommended this video, and it was a very timely recommendation. I'm getting ready to "degrassify" two very large portions of my yard for gardening next year. My issue is I can't keep up with the compost demand for these gardens. I'm a family of one and compost everything I can get my hands on: my duck bedding, kitchen scraps, mowing clippings, weeds, algae from my pond, neighbors' grass clippings, and I still can't keep up. I purchased some pretty expensive compost from a local greenhouse this spring, and it was contaminated with lambs quarters, nightshade, purslane (which I'm not that upset about
If u didnt digress... then I would be disappointed. INFACT ... the thing I LOVE most is that u cant stay on topic... it adds a little "something something" to ur videos.. but I digress....
Nice round-up of methods. I have used all methods but lasagna (probably used "modified lasagna"), including the once-preferred double-dig method, but as I get older (I'm in my sixth decade) I pretty much use no-till, laying down cardboard and then purchased soil or donated wood chips or whatever and then a thick layer of compost. It's pretty hit and miss as far as soil nutrients, which means a new garden takes a few years to hit full production. In 2022 I started over with yet another new property, hauled in soil, it was bad soil, and ended up with extremely low production. I'm now putting in more no-till beds in another area over winter, trying to do it on a budget, but for the first time in years am seriously considering hiring someone to till...anyway, your video was a useful summary of pros and cons, so thanks!
I live in Texas, have raised beds that started with a double dig then compost and peat moss. Still dealing with tons of grass that comes up. I have another in groud garden so I'm willing to let the raised bed sit out a season to try to get rid of the grass. Would putting a tarp over the raised beds, and therefore covering all the grass, be the best long term method of killing all the grass seeds? Recommendations?
Did you do the tarp? Did it get rid of the grass?
Just "discovered" your videos Jeffrey, and enjoyed each one! Even tho I have tractors/tillers, my "go-to" tool for starting a new bed is my ol' Gravely walk-behind rotary plow. Engine speed determines how far it throws the soil, and amendments can be incorporated at that time (automatically burying 'em). Since our local lime is Dolomitic, Mg levels can become elevated over time, so Gypsum can help. Cover crops are Iron/Clay Peas and/or weeds/grass clippings. If grass clippings are picked up in a timely fashion, and piled high enough, they'll go through a heat and break down much faster than if you let them dry out in the (Fl.) sun before collection. Ideally, pick 'em up within a few hours of mowing and after a good rain---the bio-activity a hay producer dreads and prevents to the best of his abilities are the very ones the gardener appreciates.
About the Gravely walk-behind tractor; that plow is spinning well out in front of the machine, not right in front of your feet. (I have a BCS 715 early model with roto-tiller and sickle-bar mower, but seldom use it---that tiller grinding away just inches in front of where I step is intimidating....) The Gravely roto-tiller (not plow) almost has to be used in reverse due to serious wheel/tire ruts. but the rotary plow throws to the side, so tracks aren't much of a problem.
About once every five years or so I'll drop the 4' tractor-mounted tiller on a "resting" bed just to kinda introduce whatever is on the surface into the soil. I have sandy soils over yellow clay so occasional application of gypsum seems to help (especially with blossom-end rot in tomatoes) but elephant garlic is my main crop (and it's not "finicky" at all...) The gypsum isn't needed for soil flocculation just for Ca and S. I "religiously" broadcast "split-pea" Sulfur (over new areas, especially...). I don't think it does quite the same thing as calcium sulphate dihydrate.
Keep up the good work! (It looks like I have about roughly a hundred videos to watch....) btw, where'd you get the Caturday shirt? I want one!
Hey there! This year gardening I tried my best to no till, I found the most loose soil was where my cannabis and purple beans grew! Not sure if it was the amount of water they got or the root systems they made
What do you recommend for high altitude gardening where we have massive colonies of prairie dogs? If I plant a cover crop, are they just going to eat it? (They eat plants from roots up)
I come for the awesome knowledge, but the garden porn is what really gets me motivated! I dream of someday getting my little parcel to look as organized and productive as what you show.
love what you've been sharing, been watching for a few years now and have gleaned a ton, so We just moved too from a 10 acre property where we had gotten a 1 acre farm going, the new property is heavily wooded except for about and acre and a half, weve gotten a good 1/2 acre deep compost going after a light tilling and about 8in thick compost beds for a quick start up which has done very well now after the cold heavy rain spring, but now we are going to start clearing the pine and fur trees out to really get the farm rolling and wondering what and how I should proceed with native pine and fur forest soils to prep for growing?? I know Im looking at acidity and other deficiencies .... and help would be Awesome !
A method that is good if you don't have machinery is to hand dig with a shovel. Yes stone age technology. Then plant potatoes. As you hill the spuds through the summer weeds are killed and you can pick out the rocks. When you dog the spuds in the fall you are deep digging which loosens the soil for the next year. This method allows the grass to rot and gives you a pretty good garden for any crops the 2nd year. If you want to up the productivity of the spuds you can apply a bit (not much if it's chemical) fertilizer near the spud plants just before you hill.
As a farmer what are your thoughts on the protests beginning in Sri Lanka and the Netherlands?
2nd that
"Best thing you can do for your soil is health is keep it covered with growing plants of some kind." "Your first cover crop on a new bed can expose soil deficiency like compaction." At very end he discusses hay vs straw as mulch.
Great content.....thanks!!! My gardens have been built using these types of methods. As a resource I have used Charles Dowding as well as you guys.... all to great success. And BTW...."digressions", Keep them to a maximum. I always get a kick out of your quick witted twists and turns. Cheers.
Super informative video, thanks so much! 👍 we are trying our hand at growing plenty this coming spring-i use my hens manure and spilled feed with the used straw and pine shavings for compost material. I find it amazing.
I just wanted to say thank you guys for the knowledge and expertise when it comes to no till growing. I can’t believe I just found your account, I’ve been nonstop catching up on all the vids I’m behind on haha!
I live in the suburbs and I tried to convert an area next to our home that had been covered by a concrete slab (RV parking) for 25 years into a garden. After breaking out the concrete, I mixed in quite a bit of peat-moss and steer manure. The garden isn't doing great. I will have to do a soil test and see what I need to add to the soil.
I'm so glad to find this video! We're hopefully closing on a large property and I'm moving from my raised bed gardens in the city. The new property has a giant field of hay that I want to use a portion of for a big garden, and a grassy area I want to start a smaller kitchen garden in. I'll be starting with the late summer-fall crops. This is a helpful video for me.
Have you tried physically working the straw/hay to help it break down faster?
-Expand Garden; this is my To Do list for today!
What's the cool celosia flower growing in the background?
Oh I don't know, my wife plants a bunch of different celosia/ amaranth flowers around! Love them tho
I have found that Charles Dowding's oft used quote " One year's digging, 7 years weeding" to be basically true. That I've regretted starting a new garden by plowing & tilling. Granted, I'd also been too impatient and having not enough dry spring weather, and on clay-ey soils usually, so, made myself worse problems in general from that too (... it was before I knew much about all that 😁). But I have had great going on any most kind of soil using very minimal compost and which wasn't exactly true compost ( everything from too-sandy of, and containing some fresher cow-pies than it twas advertised as, cowyard dirt to some soil from behind the house where the previous owner had dumped fall leaves for years). It just depends on the thing. It was also suddenly hot n sunny and already getting into June the one time ( had moved in in early May) so I found I needed to have mulched my beets and carrots a lot more immediately than I did... the beets recovered pretty well though. I didn't plant everything, like broccoli cuz I have little experience with it or peas cuz too late, and the tomatoes were in a spot that turned out to be extra compacted and sour...and I didn't have a broadfork or anything at the time. Everything else did from fine to great ! And I'd used MINIMAL compost ( this was the time it was from the old leaf-pile area, but that had been years ago by then, and there was a lot of weeds n stuff in what my hubby brought up to me w the tractor...I just plucked out the obvious weeds and quack grass and made it work ! I am a Christian and do pray over my garden, so, I'm sure God did unknown amount of blessing this/it/us ...). I had just a big handful or 2 for each corn plant ( it was Green Oaxacan, & my 1st time w it), on top of where I'd had the most decent cardboard layer on the lawn, and I was worried it wouldn't break down fast enough, let the roots through and that all my corn would fall over in the wind. I wouldn't risk it again, cuz some of that cardboard was really tough, but shockingly it handled storms etc. fine all season. I love that corn variety !!! The birds love it too, as you're trying to let it ripen fully .... be advised ;). Beans, squash, peppers, cukes, all did super well too. Tomatoes had issues but we still made out ok. Potatoes were where someone had tilled the previous year or 2, & though they looked good, they didn't produce well and I think it may have been due to them being way more shaded than I'd predicted, by some trees & shrubs to the north and west sides of them. Plus something started eaten em in the ground right away that fall, too. I'd never really dealt with that b4, I grew up leaving potatoes until the plants were totally dead & dry.
I did another new garden last spring, totally no-till but this time I had a broadfork, and it needed it ! Concrete-like sand with narry a sign of soil life in sight ! This was the time I got the cowyard dirt which turned out to be too sandy, not much for spilled hay or anything decomposed in it like I was hoping... ( it was from an OG-practice farm, and being new to the area, I don't know what else I coulda got without risking persistent herbicides, anyways). It was also nearly a record dry summer here, so I did have to water a lot more than I usually do, which is as little as possible. I'd used the contractors paper this time ( finally found out what that is and where to find it ! ) on about half, and black plastic on some, and nothing but mounded cow-yard-dirt rows for the potatoes, soon mulched over and between with hay and later more in between as needed ( where I'd skimped w the hay), woodchips I'd finally gotten more of. Paid too much for a little load early on, finally found some free, later. It was full of green twig chips and leaves and smelled fantastic ! Pulled back plastic except under the big squash plants and mulched with it. Again, not everything was great, mainly because I'd moved in May again ( 😕) and it was too hot by the time I'd sorted everything and tried carrots ( the ones in the pots under dappled share did ok though). Everything else did well to REALLY well, to superb ! Everything but the potatoes and tomatoes had again, quite minimal compost and not all of it - by any means - ended up on a board forked area and it ALL needed it. Always put your squash on your worst area. Just give it that decent hold, a few handfuls of compost,( I add a handful of tobacco to deter pests for my squashes & cukes, it works), and mulch the hole a bit but not too-up-against the stem of course. Cover the area in plastic or, preferably, woodchips or grass clippings, whatever. By next year you may be able to grow other things there.
What I grew & a 1 to 5 of how well it did. (The peppers, some tomatoes and 1 of the Cantaloupe I'd bought, rest I started myself). The hot, dry year stressed some things, esp. those on and next to the black plastic when I wasn't watering much yet, trying to wait for rain a little, like I normally do... .
Cucumbers : 5
Tomatoes: 4-5
Peppers : 5 (!!!)
Golden Bantam HL corn : 3 ( I think I waited too long to get watering it more, lotta the cobs were devoid of normal kernals).
Beets : 5
Broccoli: 3
Pole Beans : 4
Winter squash : 4
Pumpkins ( Lady Godiva) : 5
Potatoes : 4
Green onions : 3
Cilantro, dill, sage : 5, 3, 5
Summ. squash : 5 :)
Lettuce : 2 ( struggled w conditions all summer then my fault w a water catastrophe and other issues all fall)
Swiss Chard : 4 - 5
Cabbage : 1 ( tried a fall crop, just never took off. Was out of room except for the most unimproved spots).
Kohlrabi : 3
Radishes : 4
Tobacco: 4 ( " Native" variety, from Pinetree. Tryin to grow my own for the above use :) )
Watermelon: 5
Cantaloupe : 5 and then some. Did ya know you can freeze it ? I dislike it, plant it for hubby, but I LOVE it in a smoothie, fresh or cubed and frozen, with some orange juice ( I used a few spoonfuls of concentrate) and a milk or yogurt ( & I add a splash of vanilla :) ) !!!!
- I'd grown Mn Midget from seed, and bought a Hale's best. This yr I'm tryin these and am SO excited : Petit Gris de Rennes & Emerald Gem. ( !!!!). I'd used a low trellis btw, and places fruits on the ground on bricks I had. Helped a LOT to prevent rot.
So, maybe not a lot of the usual popular market veg., but still a lot of food !!
I agree about the dogma, one's context and everything else you're sayin ! Just sharing what worked for me... .
Don't forget to give your first fruits/harvest as offering to the Lord. One gentleman brought the first fruit from his lemon tree and dropped it in the offerings, and his lemons have been HUGE and bountiful every year.
I do all my garden rows that way.. I dig ditches between rows .. I learned this from gardeners from other countries.. was worried about droughts.. plus most my property is down hill and washes away.. when I did get rain.. and man the amazing difference it made.. 💯❤
I have so many rock in my Kentucky ground it's hard to find a good spot for a garden. Also wanting to start selling at Farmers Market so love this no till way. New sub here.
Thank you! So excited to start my garden!
is it okay to use wheat straw ( conventionally grown ) for Organic growing as mulch ?
you have to be REALLY careful with conventionally grown straw, it's often grown using persistent herbicides that will remain for several years. The persistent herbicides will kill any broadleaf plants (dicots like tomatoes, lettuce, squash) while allowing grasses (monocots like grass and corn) to grow. How persistent? These herbicides remain even after the straw/hay has been eaten by horses and cattle meaning using the manure will harm your garden for several seasons. Most hay farmers use these herbicides to easily keep their fields free from weeds like pigweed and every hay farmer around me uses it. Unless you can ask the grower what they herbicides they use, don't use it on your garden. Only use organic straw or straw you KNOW for certain doesn't have persistent herbicides in it. Straw is a FANTASTIC mulch and I'm really bummed I can't source any safe straw near me.
@@Hazel_Dazel Thank you Very much for taking the time to respond to my question. That is a really helpful answer.
This might be irrelevant as your grass was really short, but generally when you mow, you should start in the middle and work out, to drive the wildlife to the edge, rather than work from the outside in, driving the wildlife into an ever shrinking island of death
This is perfect timing :-)
We have cut our last hay today, baling in about a week and then, veg beds prep :-)
Your videos are extremely informative. Thank you so much. Keep up the amazing work 😊
first view of the channel, always great to find people who know what they are doing to teach me how im skrewing up hahaha....i see you guys are a bigger farm but do you have any videos on square foot gardening/buddy planting crops in close proximity to one another?
I have done a lot of videos on interplanting and I write extensively about that in the book. That may be helpful?
@@notillgrowers awesome ill take a look thanks
No question…Farmer Jesse is addictive to listen to. Always enjoy and learn and am motivated
This video is going to make me feel bad about myself lol
Por favor, traduce con subtitulos al Español, gracias 🙂
What’s your opinion on the Back to Eden composting method of just using leftovers from wood chipping?
I think as long as you have adequate compost layered in there, it's probably fine.
Is it possible to grow directly in compost?
I'm currently trialling starting with a Ruth stout style garden for the first year where I can grow a potato crop. Within the first year, I add worms, worm eggs, and any sort of things I think will add good microbial life.
In the second year, I add compost beds, and woodchip pathways and start the back to Eden style gardening.
Where u get your wood chips
@@elvisAronPresleybyRusty in my local landscape supplies place, there is this stuff called hardwood chip. It's quite cheap and doesn't attract termites.
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