7 Must-Do Tasks for Self-Sufficiency in February 2024
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- Опубліковано 6 чер 2024
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Here is my "problem" with your videos, Huw ;) I can never finish them in one go, because one or two minutes into the video I get all excited about gardening and the advice you have, and then HAVE to get outside to potter around and try out your things, and before I know it, it is three hours later, I have accidentally built a hotbed, changed the layout of my garden two times, and my laptop is standing forgotten inside, waiting for me to finish your video ;)
That's a good problem to have 😊
Bahaha, I have that issue, especially with coffee in the mornings and new gardening videos. I try to take the phone and Bluetooth speaker/earbuds out with me.
😂 Same here - though i get lost in endless research when it's already dark outside...
yes! me2😅
😂😂 tip: move to the north, we have >50cm snow and -20°C 🥶. Can't do ANYTHING in the garden yet. Only dream 🥰.
I’m starting a new 300 sqft bed in my backyard this year. Started last summer by covering the ground in leaves and grass clippings and a tarp over top to kill the grass (mostly weeds, who am I kidding?…). I did a lite till a week ago to work in the decomposing leaves and grass. I’m in hard pan clay, so full no dig is impossible unless I’m doing a raised bed or using LOADS of compost. I sectioned it off into 5 rows this week. I’m going to be building a simple trellis system out of t-posts and conduit next week. I have my brassicas started inside. In a month I’ll be able to start my summer crops.
I have some varieties I’m really pumped about, so I feel a new sense of excitement I haven’t felt for gardening in a few years. Let’s go!
First year on my allotment, so all through winter I have been clearing , building raised beds and today I'm putting up nesting boxes, planting sun chokes and drinking coffee while the rain howls down 😊
I'm learning how to dehydrate foods as a way of preservation because my small freezer won't cope
My signed copy has just arrived. One day after my birthday. Can't wait to get started.. 🎉👍
I often experiment a bit too much with new varieties and don't focus on growing staples, so limiting my experimental crops to three is an excellent goal. I'm trying tomatoes from the dwarf tomato project in my annual garden this year, and I'm planting rhubarb and elderberry in my forest garden. The rest should hopefully just be reliable crops that give me a good harvest.
Yesterday I've been checking my seeds ✅ and weeding the whole day 🌱 not with a cake but with biscuits 😉 The hotbed is a great idea 👍
Biscuits absolutely count! Thanks so much for watching ☺️
It is one month TODAY until my pre-order book will ship - I cannot tell you how excited I am, thanks for this 'bridging' episode
Last year, my wife and I got into fermenting. There's even a collaboration going on each February called "Fermented February" that teaches about all different kinds of recipes. I'm also working on building a small greenhouse for the first time to start my seeds in. It's only an 8 ft by 8 ft base structure, but it's well big enough to do what I need it to do and more. Good luck with the 2024 growing season everyone and I hope you have a bountiful harvest this year.
With regard to trialling new crops, we received a pack of kohlrabi seeds with a magazine. We had never even tried eating kohlrabi, let alone growing it! But, as ed had the seeds we decided to give it a try! They grew easily and ended ax a nice big bulb! We found a recipe for kohlrabi coleslaw - and it was delicious! We now grow some each year and look forward to the coleslaw! 😋
Good Morning Huw. Exciting beginnings 🙂🌱
Good morning to you too!
I need to focus on creating my own liquid fertilizers. My compost is coming along nicely! It’s amazing how much compost can be made in a small garden.
I pre-ordered mine! It will be my 3rd book from you, Huw! ❤ sending gardening love from Vancouver Island, BC 🇨🇦
Ditto from Hestand, Kentucky USA
Thank you so much both!!☺️
thanks for mentioning storage tomatoes Huw! 💜 I had no idea such a thing existed and they sound wonderful! I'm ordering them right now!
Great advice, we are approaching exciting times, spring round the corner. Preplanning and your sowing timetable is something i try to be on top of
Just found your channel, what a blessing. We have moved from down south to mid Wales so I can have a much bigger garden. I have a digger coming in to clear the space as it is about 20 years overgrown. There is so much to start from scratch and I am very impatient!!! Your video's are clear and easy to follow for inspiration. I have just ordered your book too. So excited for this project and your enthusiasm is make me even more so. Brilliant stuff Huw xx
Great reminders Huw! I start with a garden goal list for the year and stick post it notes in my notebook when a new one comes up! I have some fermenting goals.. new varieties Im trying.. some preservation goals. Also trying winter sowing and indoor sowing with my new grow lights!
Tip for Yacon: Plant some in 40-60 Liter containers. Once the frost kills them, take the containers somewhere with no frost and you can harvest them all winter when you need them. That way they stay really fresh and crispy. After harvest, leave them in a bright and warm room for one week so they get sweet and tasty . They are so delicious. I love the texture of Yacon.
Always great videos. Greetings from germany!
Preordered love to support you ❤
Thank you so much!
mixed up seed starter and started filling flats yesterday ;)
After watching one of your recent videos, I bought Jack's book. We had outfitted new wood raised bed as cold frames anyway, so I'm going to buy a few bales of straw and have those as base, then but the raised beds/cold frames on top of them. That way I can get the depth we need and the insulating cover with materials we mostly already have one hand. I've been testing smaller compost piles with bedding from the stable my own horse is at and I'm having no problem getting them heated up despite the wood products, even when it is near-freezing at night.
Thanks so much for this super video,I have started to sow early potatoes and broad beans and peas and cauliflower..some seeds are started in a small pot beside my solid fuel aga cooker.
Waiting on my Old Irish gpats to have their kids and covering some beds with straw as there might ve some snow tomorrow.
I follow John Seymour's book...
Have lots of fun..it is a challenge to keep my JRTs and hens out of my veg beds but I have put fences around the veg beds..Kind regards,Fiona
I grew a couple of yacon plants last year (also Zone 8, Staffordshire). The slugs got one. They ate all the way around the stem and killed it, but the other survived and produced lots of lovely tubers. They're now a firm favourite and I'm giving it another go this year, with a few more plants.
I'm trying a lot of veg and fruit this year as a new grower I'll have the staples but I'm trying Fartichokes, and travellers tomato, an hops.
I've started a small (6 trees) backyard orchard. Planeted them all this week and am focusing more on getting more fruit in my garden. Expanding my veg as well. Trying to do more no dig/permaculture as I expand. Keeping the outdoor cats out is my main frustration..
Your videos just keep getting better and more practical ❤
Thank you so much!
Just ordered the new book!🎉😊
Thank you so much April!!!
Hi Huw. Great fan and I am in the starting block to see things growing. I have a 30 sqm potager that I have been working on. But, hill health is catching up on me but gardening repairs my soul. I am going full on raised beds on one half and trellises the other half mobility starting to be an issue. I started last year in May 23. I was amazed and pleasantly surprised by what I harvested in one summer. Plus I tried exotic Vegs, seeds sent by my parents and was able to harvest those too. I have tried your method of making compost between the raised bed and it really works so I am using this to bulk up my beds. Due to my heavy clay soil, I am struggling a bit but I am listening to your videos and taking heed. Already started super hot chilli, aubergines and sweet peppers and germination in good progress. I cannot wait to get busier in the garden. Planning lots more perennial flowers too, a little bit of perma cult too. Thank you for your ideas.
Adore your videos, Huw! Always such great tips and reminders. Every year I'm even more excited, if that's possible, for the garden. Need that excitement to fuel me through shoveling an entire dump trunk's load of wood chips that was delivered in front of the curb (which they weren't supposed to do 🙄).
I'd love to hear your strategies for dealing with abundance, both on timeliness and how best to preserve different garden produce.
I tend to mark my years similar to that of the Chinese zodiac calendar, e.g. 2024 is Year of Abundance Preservation. Every year I forget just HOW MUCH FOOD ends up being produced and dealing with abundance gets really overwhelming. This year I'm really trying to make a solid plan beforehand. Something we trialled last year and I think will be an every-year thing now is wine! Plum wine, specifically. I think we'll rotate between pear and plum each year because our neighbor has two mature trees. Other items on my plan are canning, making kimchi, freezing, drying, and vinegar and alcohols. And I'm so gung-ho that I've even signed myself up as a volunteer for a local community educational orchard and will be guaranteed free fruit to take home during harvest season in exchange for volunteer hours, so I better have a good plan because I just might be regularly finding myself with 30 pounds of apples. Exciting and daunting. 😳
Ordered your book, we are changing from a forest garden to a neat, practical raised bed system, based on your kitchen garden.
Another great video!!!.I would like to hear your opinion about composite decking for raised beds ...i need to redesign my garden and nut sure if to go for composite decking or wood....
Eeeeeeek. So close to the start of the growing season, the anticipation is booming within! :) Just created my first hot bed which i'm super excited about and i've been collecting seaweed! One question i pondered - is the salt content in the seaweed not a problem?
Thanks for promoting She Grows Veg btw, very excited to try out many of their spectacular and often peculiar seed ranges. :) They're presentation is above the game by a far stretch too. Everything from their photography to their packets. Bravo.
Hi I love watching your video and love the way you grow your food I have always wanted to grow my own but life has been different however I have decided to start growing my own vegetables my only problem is my yard is fully covered in concrete and I was wondering if I could make raise beds on top and how deep would it have to be?
For me it's season extension and plant propagation. I'm building a small polytunnel/big row cover, one of the main reasons for which is so I can move seedlings outside sooner - I don't have enough space indoors for the number of seedlings I want to grow. Plus I want to grow peppers and it would be nice to have a slightly warmer spot for growing greens etc. over winter.
Greetings from the Netherlands!
Hello!☺️
Assalamualaikum from Pakistan
I am very eager as well to get my book!
Tidy garden is not something I am after. I like mine wild and rather messy.
Regarding skills - making good compost is something that I need to work on. I'm good with the rest as I grew up on a smallholding.
I am really looking forward to your new book arriving in March. I ordered it months ago and keep checking the arrival date 😂
Ahhh thank you so much!! Less than a month to go!
I always grow yacon every year! Yacon is a superfood that everyone should have in their allotment. It’s so tasty, the leaves are edible, the flowers and roots and leaves can turn into a tea. It’s my must have❤
I am so excited to grow it properly this year!
I'm focusing on improving my grafting and propagating skills, and second is to start learning to can the harvest.
And that's just for the first half of the year 😂
Tidy the garden, listen to a podcast, bring a cup of coffee.. my ❤
Do you have any videos on your opinion of the best varieties of vegetables to grow for self sufficiency/reliability, thanks
Really wish your book was out sooner than May. :(
I am very excited for your new book, but will have to wait for the German translation. 😊How much time do you spend on average in the self sufficiency garden per week?
Planning is always best done in advance. Seeds are ordered, a particularly mild winter persists, most of the snow is gone in April. Every year the garden offers more.
It's not planning unless it's done in advance. Otherwise is called reacting.
i ordered your new book, however it won't be here before i need to start the first seeds, any chance of a video on which seeds to order and other things to prepare before then?
First! 🎉🎉 Greetings from Austria!
Absolutely love yacon! Had to order new starts though because mine rotted in all the rain that we had. Boohoo - and the plants were doing so well too - after I put sheep fleece around to stop the slugs and the wasps ate and slurped at the bases of the stems!
My starts just arrived yesterday! I am going to treat all my future Yacon with such love, care, and attention 😂
I kept them going from last year by lifting the whole roots, taking off the tubers - oh my so sweet - and just earthing them up in the greenhouse. Had lots of the little starts - enough to give some plants away and then I ended up with 9. eventually had 4 left to grow after the slugs. Wasps arrived late in the season. Little beasts!
I've ordered the book from Waterstones. I'm very keen to get seeds but really I need the list from the book as I'm quite a novice at veg growing. Is there anyway you can let me have this now. I have a bit of a block on planning and that is why the book had so much appeal to me. Plus you grow things I've never heard of I was this year (my 3rd) on my half allotment to be the best ever. Many thanks
A super helpful book for pruning (particularly if you are looking to keep trees smaller in a smaller yard setting) is Grow A Little Fruit Tree by Ann Ralph. We are growing approx 35 fruit trees on a small suburban lot using her pruning techniques.
I agree. I am 65 and have started this. I don't need to be climbing up on ladders pruning and harvesting in my retirement.
I bought this book last autumn😊
I am hoping to learn a lot from your channel as I just bought a homestead in rural Croatia. Greetings sir.
Huge congratulations with your new homestead!!!
Thanks, looking forward to implementing no dig garden methods. Just ordered woodchipper and got the neighbour who I can source the manure from. Time to make some compost first.@@HuwRichards
Oh I want to go out and tidy the garden!! Unfortunately it's -18°C outside atm, and there is a couple of cm:s of rock hard ice covered by 30cm:s of snow over all of it (the weather this winter has been nuts). 😭😭😭 We'll be into april before I can see the ground, nevermind digging into it. 💔
I really need to move.
Does the book address the differences between the northern and southern hemispheres? would any of it be relevant down here? thanks!
I am really interested in the hot beds as I have a short growing season. I don’t have access to leaves because I live in a conifer forest. I do have chicken manure, pine shavings, and I can also get horse manure. Is all that too hot? You are an inspiration. TeresaSue
You can use shredded cardboard, newspaper, brown paper bags or white office paper if you come up short on browns. Do try to find some leaves for the fungal contribution to your compost post- hot bed use.
Where are you based in wales? Loving your videos. I’m in Dinbych-y-pysgod really hard to grow veg due to the micro climate in Carmarthen bay
Excellent! Thank you for this. Can't wait for the new book arriving!😁👍🌱
I really appreciate that - thank you!!
Planning is not my forte. Clearly I need your book ❤️
Would love for you to test Bokashi anaerobic composting for plant based food wastes and see how you think it compares to other methods.
Hope you don't mind me interjecting... I tried the bokashi method last year but tbh, i found it to be revolting. Smelly and with little content of use at the end of the process. Ended up giving up and burying it under the compost heap. Give me a compost pile any day. 🤷♂
Ok I’m a desk top mechanic. Bath room silicon isn’t great around cars. U cannot put it on and metal parts as it’s corrosive ur better using auto motive sealant. All my aspiration of buying a land rover are gone you have convinced me to buy a Toyota lol. Great video and very enjoyable watching on a sunday.
Hi Huw!.. I am planning on buying your book and try to follow your monthly tasks. However I live in Montreal, Qc Canada and I normally start planting late May early June. My tomatoes are normally planted June 1st. In comparison what is your planting date for tomatoes? Thanks
Hi! Mine is around the 15th of May🍅
I definitely need to crack on making my liquid fertilisers. Have all the stuff. Just need to put it all together 😅
You can do it!
Many thanks for the video. I haven't made a hotbed before, being wary of potential contamination of horse manure but we live close to the West Wales coast so it will be easy to get the leaves and seaweed for your hotbed mix. I'm planning to put the bed in a polytunnel - how big should it be to create enough heat to boost seedling development please?
seedling development:
1.5x1.5 40cm deep = 1month heat
60-70cm deep = 2 month heat
90cm deep = 3 months heat
@@HuwRichardsthank you!
skills I’m attempting to develop? to edit sharply the types and varieties of seeds started and veg planted down to those that have proven to grow well in my zone and not devote so much space to trials and experiments.
Huw . do you offer services that help clients organize their gardens?
Absolutely! Send an email to consult@regenerative.media 🌿
I have a question for your dad! Which rootstock are his fruit trees on, and what kind of spacing does he leave between the trees? I'm planting a small home orchard next autumn and I am stumped with regards to spacing. 4-5 meters looks HUGE when you plant small trees, but I worry that I will end up crowding my plants...
Of course! My dad says: MM106 - size trees will ultimately reach dependant on many factors - many of ours at 180m elevation and 150cm of annual rainfall are larger than I expected. 5 metres leaves almost a closed canopy - so recommend 6 as a minimum if you want some space between trees to let more light in
@@HuwRichards Thanks!
I love learning new skills..I’ll be looking at learning how to preserve what I grow and fermentation instead of trying to incorporate my harvests into every meal now I have a new larger Allotment Plot for 2024. There is only so much courgette you can ask the family to eat!
"Bring a cake" top advice . I go for muffins
Can't beat a blueberry or lemon curd muffin
@@HuwRichards stop it
Oh to live in the UK and be able to garden in Feb 😂
* wistfully stares out window at frozen snow buried Canadian garden *
I'd rather snow right now to be honest with you!
Is there a way to grow cucumbers & peppers & tomatoes without a greenhouse? I’m based in Gloucestershire England
Yes! Cucumber the variety marketmore is great outside! For tomatoes look for outdoor varieties to grow in a sunny spot like outdoor girl, and for peppers grow them in hoop beds ☺️
I am ok at pruning tree fruit on my own trees as they have been pruned since I bought them, however there were some mature trees in the garden and I haven 't a clue. Likewise my soft fruit. I have made an attempt to prune old blackcurrants and gooseberries that were here, but really am unsure if I am doing it right, and have no one to show me. I have no idea how to teach myself as without someone stood next to me, for me to ask questions about a particular plant etc I am useless. I can't learn from you tube or reading as the plant someone is working on or is illustrated never seems to look like my own plant. We did ask a tree surgeon who was taking down an old and dangerous tree in our garden. He looked at my apple tree and said it looks like you are doing a good job there, but I am unsure. The tree is getting bigger and spreading further and making more shade than it used to. I am confused about where I can prune it back to as it is also a tip bearer, I think. No idea of its' variety but the cooking apples it produces are gorgeous. Happy gardening
Compost! I chuck stuff in a pallet bin but never make any compost 🤦♀️
Could I make a hot bed out of leaves and chicken manure? and honestly, will it work if I have no efficient way to shred the leaves and just put them in the way they are or should I really really really try to shred those leaves?
Yes it will heat up! Regarding leaves you don't need to shred them for a hot bed - I didn't for both of mine last year. Best of luck☺️
@@HuwRichards awesome. Thank you!
I miss seeing your dog.
I world add at least starting some sort of germination testing for certain seeds.
One big problem for the amateur gardener is starting seeds and waiting... waiting...waiting...
Rats 😭😭rats like to live in hotbeds & then you plant things & hey presto dinner for rats ..so you get ahead of the slugs but rats move in ! You just can't win sometimes 😢