Sometimes projects end without being failures--they just conclude because their time and utility are done, and that's a success! You got a source of compost that better meets your needs where they are now, but the community compost project served you well when you needed it back when.
I get that you're reluctant to blame "the community" for the composting issues. But that doesn't mean you need to blame yourself either. Sometimes, things just aren't meant to be. You did well while you could, you moved on when you had to. Lesson learned, no harm done.
Yeah, I do get that. And I also think it is important to not slip into the habit of blaming the external factors, blaming some nebulous other, rather than looking at what I could have done differently, especially as the only thing I can effectively change is what I do.
@ I prefer thinking of that as analysis rather than blame. Sure, you could have done some things differently, but you only have so much time and resources. Making different choices would have meant different tradeoffs, and different outcomes. But can you be sure those outcomes would have been any better? Only you can say, and then only with some serious study. Everything you're doing with this project is an investment in time and experience. Your approach is fundamentally scientific, and science, like art, is filled with failed experiments, blind alleys, and the occasional deep insight. It's an ingenious experiment in my opinion, and regardless of the result of individual sub-projects within it, overall you're gaining more and more expertise as you go. There are other gardening channels I follow, but none of them I respect as much as this one. That's due to your systematic, inquisitive, and intelligent risk-taking. I think you're helping all of your viewers become better gardeners, as you help yourself do the same. So, in short... Thank You!
@ Wow, thank you for that encouraging reply. 😊 I don't mind taking blame for things, I see it as part of the learning process, and accepting failure as part of it. And being open to accepting blame, even when I can easily argue otherwise, has been part of my own journey of personal development. I guess the point I was trying to make in the video was how many people didn't seem to see that there were significant things that I could have done differently, and chose to focus on how people are bad/lazy and how community based things always fail, including the common comment about 'the tragedy of the commons'. I have been thinking about that a lot, about how we need to focus on designing solutions and adjusting methods so that they still work, even if people don't do what would make things better/easier.
Regarding your sprider mite issues: we use Amblyseius californicus as soon as we detect mites in our tunnels where we grow cucumbers. We combine them with Amblyseius cucumeris with good results. Greetings from Sweden.
Here in Ontario Canada 2024 we had the best gardening year I can remember. The only problem was mold on the grapes from more rain than we often get. Now we are buried in more snow than we've had in years. With over 2 feet of snow on the ground it's hard to believe we will ever see a garden again. The ground hog didn't see his shadow which mean spring is near but the fact he couldn't get up through the snow may have skewed his ability to predict the future.. 😁
If you can get access to purchasing a beneficial mite called "Phytoseiulus persimilis" and your polytunnel has temperatures of 15-30°C and relative humidity of above 60%, it'll be perfect and will eventually out breed the spider mites. Once they consume all the spider mites, they will feed on each other so once they've eradicated the spider mite, see if you can feed them spider mites from somewhere else (counter intuitive I know).
Yes saving seeds is hard ... I'm learning more and more each year but I got 'The Seed Farmer' book so can learn from it too! Thank you for your summary ... I always enjoy your 'take' on gardening!
I will be ordering in compost this year for my beds, as we are finding that I simply cannot create enough from the home to keep up with the demands of the garden. I loved your overview of how prolific everything decided to be with your new compost. And I learned about the onions, I had no idea before this that it would happen that way. Definitely good information :) Thank you! Happy Growing this 2025 season!
Lovely video!!! For part 3: EM will help convert the inorganic nitrogen into amino acids :) for 13: Maybe try to open the eggplant containers up on the bottom for your next trial, they probably will benefit from the water that they can get from the soil below. For 15: That makes so much sense! It is interesting to see what John Kempf has said to seemingly be true once again. Spider mites are eating the ammonia from the fertilizer you bought! I think with what I said at the beginning, EM could help here too (There is a great webinar about it on youtube). Thanks a lot for another awesome year of your observations.
Interesting thing about the spider mite and nitrogen issue, is I didn't use much of the amended composts in the polytunnels that had the spider mite issue.
@ The high temps in the polytunnel could induce photorespiration, then the ammonia is produced. But even small amounts can be enough for them to snack on the plants. :)
Great video, very worthwhile to listen to. I have a community meeting on Monday with the Parish Council to discuss community composting, so I am going in the opposite direction than you, but your lessons learnt are a great at grounding my expectations regarding possible problems.
I'm glad you keep up doing great work (although in a differently organised setting. but as you say, we all have to adapt to changin' times). my garden is in Belgium at around 450 m above sea level, and I learn so much from you experiments. THANK YOU and keep it up! Best, David
I do enjoy the pleasant B-roll footage that you film outside or in the tunnels. but i have no objections to doing the recording and voiceover work indoors where its more convenient.
Spider mites are a major hassle for the citrus trees here in Goa. What works for us is to spray a dilute lime sulfur solution. The initial signs of an infestation are tiny little webs on the underside of fresh leaves.
I also battle RSM in the PT, the comments below are interesting as will what you come up with i'm sure! I think it's the worst pest for me as it's so small I can't see it and it's so prolific. The sound was much improved on this vid from the last thanks and I hope you escaped the recent storm without too much damage. I've seen many pics online of wrecked PTs in Ireland.
There was a bit additional damage to one polytunnel that had damage from the previous storm, but mostly ok. A good friend lost a polytunnel and a roof from their old barn. It is tough out there.
Always enjoy and appreciate the content you produce. I can’t recall if you have any dedicated pollinator plantings? We grow both cut flowers and vegetables along with about 25 various fruit trees and grapes in Colorado Zone 6a. Many cut flower only growers don’t really want to attract extra pollinators as pollination of cut flowers can reduce vase life. Our vegetable pollination rate is outstanding for all crops and I attribute the numbers of pollinators our combo flower/veggie garden attracts. Items that our pollinators go crazy for are: catnip, cleome, mustard We also put out saucers of water with rocks to encourage the wasp population and they are voracious predators of cabbage looper eggs and caterpillars. Thank you again for your work! I always learn and enjoy. Cheers for the 2025 growing season! Molly
I have started to use some pollinator plants. I have also been growing a lot of comfrey near the gardens, and when it flowers all the Beas are at the comfrey, and abandoned the job I wanted them to do int he gardens. So I cut back the comfrey while flowering to encourage the bees back into the gardens.
@ So interesting with the comfrey! We are doing a comfrey experiment with growing it at the base of a few of our fruit trees and then mulching them with it. I also feed it to my chickens as they love the greens.
how do you like to eat your kale? the overabundance reminds me of collard cabbage here in northern spain and from november to feburary its in nearly every dish. you can get quite creative with brassicas.
Kale chips, dehydrate and blend into kale powder, jerk kale, roasted kale,... And when it's really coming on, it freezes incredibly well after a quick massage and blanching to reduce volume. It's one of those things that I never get tired of eating.
While I don't know from my own experience, Danny of Deep South Homestead cuts off all the older leaves from his summer squash plants so that the bees can find the squash flowers. The video about this is several years old.
Would crop rotation help with the onion problem? Planting them in the beds you enriched last year (now depleted by the leafy greens growing there in 2024) might prevent the bulb splitting. After watching your video, UA-cam suddenly started suggesting I watch other channels' videos about turning human urine into nitrogen feed. Could this be a suitable future community project, or would that just taking the p...? 🤣
We've had a bad time recently with mites in our raspberries. Unfortunately, due to the insane hot weather we've had, we had to take the nuclear option. Spray with chemical, wait three days, spray with different chemical. Once we had the bulk of the problem under control, we were able to release some Persimilis and they have largely controlled the problem now. Normally we would try to control them entirely with the predators, but this time they got away on us.
I wholeheartedly disagree with you on the compost issue. I witnessed something similar to your problem at a local compost yard run by the county. The lot was a open self-service yard waste disposal site. The only real rule was to only dump organic material. People were dumping yard waste in plastic bags, Christmas trees with string of lights, and literal household trash. The county closed the lot. The county wasn't at fault, just like your not at fault. You offered a free service and people abused that privilege. I remember watching that video and how angry I got when I seen all the trash in your bins- total nonsense. All you need is a large tree and a decent size field to make great compost.
Yeah, I am glad I didn't have it that bad. Most of the people who added to my compost were quite conscious, and they had to walk it up to the compost pile from the road, so that might have prevented some potential dumping activity.
That is an interesting question. I did some math, based off the stated C:N ratio, and carbon content, and decided to add 2kg of nitrogen to the cubic meter bag of compost (though I think it might be better to add less). And apparently the average adult peas out about 4kg of nitrogen in a year (don't quote me on any of this stuff 😁). So 6 months of urine should do it, I guess.
Yeah, a lot of things are not sustainable. It is possible to grow without all the stuff derived from fossil fuels, but it can be really tough. So much to change.
Hmm. I guess you expected me to be a purist. I think you will find that many of us who have been growing for many years end up realising that the purist ideas that we started with can sometimes get in the way of effectively growing food for people.
@ Perhaps I did miss your point. It seemed to me that you perhaps thought I was letting the 'side' down by talking about using hybrids and conventional fertilisers. Or that you expected me to share your opinions about those things. I am not a homesteader, or focused on exploring one method or approach to growing food. I am running a research project where I explore many things, all to try to help people grow more of their own food. And a lot of people struggle with only having a small space in which they need to maximise their yield, and hybrids can help with that some situations. And a lot of people struggle with not being able to get enough high quality compost to grow a productive vegetable garden, so in some cases amending low quality compost can be a solution. these are things I explore, among a lot of other stuff, and try to open up the possibilities and options for people.
Sometimes projects end without being failures--they just conclude because their time and utility are done, and that's a success! You got a source of compost that better meets your needs where they are now, but the community compost project served you well when you needed it back when.
I get that you're reluctant to blame "the community" for the composting issues. But that doesn't mean you need to blame yourself either. Sometimes, things just aren't meant to be. You did well while you could, you moved on when you had to. Lesson learned, no harm done.
Tragedy of the commons.
Yeah, I do get that. And I also think it is important to not slip into the habit of blaming the external factors, blaming some nebulous other, rather than looking at what I could have done differently, especially as the only thing I can effectively change is what I do.
It's just about learning and taking responsibilty for our own actions and decisions. It's about reflection and personal learning
@ I prefer thinking of that as analysis rather than blame. Sure, you could have done some things differently, but you only have so much time and resources. Making different choices would have meant different tradeoffs, and different outcomes. But can you be sure those outcomes would have been any better? Only you can say, and then only with some serious study. Everything you're doing with this project is an investment in time and experience. Your approach is fundamentally scientific, and science, like art, is filled with failed experiments, blind alleys, and the occasional deep insight. It's an ingenious experiment in my opinion, and regardless of the result of individual sub-projects within it, overall you're gaining more and more expertise as you go. There are other gardening channels I follow, but none of them I respect as much as this one. That's due to your systematic, inquisitive, and intelligent risk-taking. I think you're helping all of your viewers become better gardeners, as you help yourself do the same. So, in short... Thank You!
@ Wow, thank you for that encouraging reply. 😊
I don't mind taking blame for things, I see it as part of the learning process, and accepting failure as part of it. And being open to accepting blame, even when I can easily argue otherwise, has been part of my own journey of personal development. I guess the point I was trying to make in the video was how many people didn't seem to see that there were significant things that I could have done differently, and chose to focus on how people are bad/lazy and how community based things always fail, including the common comment about 'the tragedy of the commons'. I have been thinking about that a lot, about how we need to focus on designing solutions and adjusting methods so that they still work, even if people don't do what would make things better/easier.
Regarding your sprider mite issues: we use Amblyseius californicus as soon as we detect mites in our tunnels where we grow cucumbers. We combine them with Amblyseius cucumeris with good results. Greetings from Sweden.
Thanks for the recommendation.
Always looking forward for this videos
😁
Valuable content as always. Thank you.
😁
Here in Ontario Canada 2024 we had the best gardening year I can remember. The only problem was mold on the grapes from more rain than we often get. Now we are buried in more snow than we've had in years. With over 2 feet of snow on the ground it's hard to believe we will ever see a garden again. The ground hog didn't see his shadow which mean spring is near but the fact he couldn't get up through the snow may have skewed his ability to predict the future.. 😁
If you can get access to purchasing a beneficial mite called "Phytoseiulus persimilis" and your polytunnel has temperatures of 15-30°C and relative humidity of above 60%, it'll be perfect and will eventually out breed the spider mites. Once they consume all the spider mites, they will feed on each other so once they've eradicated the spider mite, see if you can feed them spider mites from somewhere else (counter intuitive I know).
Thanks for the info!
Yes saving seeds is hard ... I'm learning more and more each year but I got 'The Seed Farmer' book so can learn from it too!
Thank you for your summary ... I always enjoy your 'take' on gardening!
😀 Thanks for the recommendation
I will be ordering in compost this year for my beds, as we are finding that I simply cannot create enough from the home to keep up with the demands of the garden. I loved your overview of how prolific everything decided to be with your new compost. And I learned about the onions, I had no idea before this that it would happen that way. Definitely good information :) Thank you! Happy Growing this 2025 season!
So glad it was useful to you! Hope you have a great growing season!
Good title for the video, what I learned, not all the mistakes and problems I had.
😁
Thanks for Your work.🙂
😁
Lovely video!!! For part 3: EM will help convert the inorganic nitrogen into amino acids :) for 13: Maybe try to open the eggplant containers up on the bottom for your next trial, they probably will benefit from the water that they can get from the soil below. For 15: That makes so much sense! It is interesting to see what John Kempf has said to seemingly be true once again. Spider mites are eating the ammonia from the fertilizer you bought! I think with what I said at the beginning, EM could help here too (There is a great webinar about it on youtube). Thanks a lot for another awesome year of your observations.
EM?
@@lksf9820 Effective Microoranisms! :) Lactobacilli, brewers yeast and purple non sulfurous bacteria. There are big quality differences!
Interesting thing about the spider mite and nitrogen issue, is I didn't use much of the amended composts in the polytunnels that had the spider mite issue.
@ The high temps in the polytunnel could induce photorespiration, then the ammonia is produced. But even small amounts can be enough for them to snack on the plants. :)
Great video, very worthwhile to listen to. I have a community meeting on Monday with the Parish Council to discuss community composting, so I am going in the opposite direction than you, but your lessons learnt are a great at grounding my expectations regarding possible problems.
Good luck with it!
Keep the soil and air moist against spider mite.
I'm glad you keep up doing great work (although in a differently organised setting. but as you say, we all have to adapt to changin' times). my garden is in Belgium at around 450 m above sea level, and I learn so much from you experiments. THANK YOU and keep it up! Best, David
Nice grapes!
😁
Thank you for your work comrade
😀
I do enjoy the pleasant B-roll footage that you film outside or in the tunnels. but i have no objections to doing the recording and voiceover work indoors where its more convenient.
Thanks.
That's very generous of you. Lol
Spider mites are a major hassle for the citrus trees here in Goa. What works for us is to spray a dilute lime sulfur solution. The initial signs of an infestation are tiny little webs on the underside of fresh leaves.
thank you for your continuous efforts!
😁
Thankyou for all your efforts! Hello from South Australia!
I also battle RSM in the PT, the comments below are interesting as will what you come up with i'm sure! I think it's the worst pest for me as it's so small I can't see it and it's so prolific.
The sound was much improved on this vid from the last thanks and I hope you escaped the recent storm without too much damage. I've seen many pics online of wrecked PTs in Ireland.
There was a bit additional damage to one polytunnel that had damage from the previous storm, but mostly ok. A good friend lost a polytunnel and a roof from their old barn. It is tough out there.
Super interesting updates as always. Good luck with the year ahead! 🍀
Always enjoy and appreciate the content you produce.
I can’t recall if you have any dedicated pollinator plantings?
We grow both cut flowers and vegetables along with about 25 various fruit trees and grapes in Colorado Zone 6a.
Many cut flower only growers don’t really want to attract extra pollinators as pollination of cut flowers can reduce vase life.
Our vegetable pollination rate is outstanding for all crops and I attribute the numbers of pollinators our combo flower/veggie garden attracts.
Items that our pollinators go crazy for are: catnip, cleome, mustard
We also put out saucers of water with rocks to encourage the wasp population and they are voracious predators of cabbage looper eggs and caterpillars.
Thank you again for your work! I always learn and enjoy.
Cheers for the 2025 growing season!
Molly
I have started to use some pollinator plants. I have also been growing a lot of comfrey near the gardens, and when it flowers all the Beas are at the comfrey, and abandoned the job I wanted them to do int he gardens. So I cut back the comfrey while flowering to encourage the bees back into the gardens.
@ So interesting with the comfrey! We are doing a comfrey experiment with growing it at the base of a few of our fruit trees and then mulching them with it. I also feed it to my chickens as they love the greens.
how do you like to eat your kale? the overabundance reminds me of collard cabbage here in northern spain and from november to feburary its in nearly every dish. you can get quite creative with brassicas.
Kale chips, dehydrate and blend into kale powder, jerk kale, roasted kale,... And when it's really coming on, it freezes incredibly well after a quick massage and blanching to reduce volume.
It's one of those things that I never get tired of eating.
While I don't know from my own experience, Danny of Deep South Homestead cuts off all the older leaves from his summer squash plants so that the bees can find the squash flowers. The video about this is several years old.
Thanks
Keep up the good work, thanks
Try to get the Palava grape variety / it is really fungus-resistant!
Thanks for the recommendation.
Have you considered thinning grape clusters? Im thinking of expirementing this year as in wet climates these issues are common.
Yes, I want to try that.
Would crop rotation help with the onion problem? Planting them in the beds you enriched last year (now depleted by the leafy greens growing there in 2024) might prevent the bulb splitting.
After watching your video, UA-cam suddenly started suggesting I watch other channels' videos about turning human urine into nitrogen feed. Could this be a suitable future community project, or would that just taking the p...? 🤣
Yes, I think that would help. All in favour of using urine! 😂
2022 was the last year I tried to garden. After 2 years off, I might have a small patch.
Hope you have some success with it.
spider mites hate a breeze. i put a solar powered fan in my greenhouse and reduced the spider mites by over 90%
Oh, that is an interesting option! Thanks.
We've had a bad time recently with mites in our raspberries. Unfortunately, due to the insane hot weather we've had, we had to take the nuclear option. Spray with chemical, wait three days, spray with different chemical. Once we had the bulk of the problem under control, we were able to release some Persimilis and they have largely controlled the problem now. Normally we would try to control them entirely with the predators, but this time they got away on us.
That is tough. Yeah, sometimes we need to bring in tough stuff.
sound quality inside seems fine to me
🗣
I am bothered by the echo. This video was ok, but a few previous ones had issues I think.
Anyone have solution for spider mites in dry climate?
Spider mite theres talk of growing chives to keep them away ??
OOOOOO: letsgo
😁
In 2 they are eggplants not pepper plants
Against Spider mites use Neem-oil
Plenty video how to do
Yeah, I put in a note on screen clarifying that.
Why are you describing my growing efforts 😅
sorry
I hate spider mites the most
I think I am joining that club!
I wholeheartedly disagree with you on the compost issue. I witnessed something similar to your problem at a local compost yard run by the county. The lot was a open self-service yard waste disposal site. The only real rule was to only dump organic material. People were dumping yard waste in plastic bags, Christmas trees with string of lights, and literal household trash. The county closed the lot. The county wasn't at fault, just like your not at fault. You offered a free service and people abused that privilege. I remember watching that video and how angry I got when I seen all the trash in your bins- total nonsense.
All you need is a large tree and a decent size field to make great compost.
Yeah, I am glad I didn't have it that bad. Most of the people who added to my compost were quite conscious, and they had to walk it up to the compost pile from the road, so that might have prevented some potential dumping activity.
save your pee all year and add it to the compost, wonder if it would be enough, would have to do the math
That is an interesting question. I did some math, based off the stated C:N ratio, and carbon content, and decided to add 2kg of nitrogen to the cubic meter bag of compost (though I think it might be better to add less). And apparently the average adult peas out about 4kg of nitrogen in a year (don't quote me on any of this stuff 😁). So 6 months of urine should do it, I guess.
@@REDGardens liquid gold!
But not sustainable. Natural Gas (used to make the fertilizer) is finite.
Yeah, a lot of things are not sustainable. It is possible to grow without all the stuff derived from fossil fuels, but it can be really tough. So much to change.
“Hybrid variety”, “fertiliser”…. I’m really disappointed about you….
Hmm. I guess you expected me to be a purist. I think you will find that many of us who have been growing for many years end up realising that the purist ideas that we started with can sometimes get in the way of effectively growing food for people.
@ You even talking like very fancy company manager right there… that’s sounds exactly like simple greed if you missed my point…..
@ Perhaps I did miss your point. It seemed to me that you perhaps thought I was letting the 'side' down by talking about using hybrids and conventional fertilisers. Or that you expected me to share your opinions about those things. I am not a homesteader, or focused on exploring one method or approach to growing food. I am running a research project where I explore many things, all to try to help people grow more of their own food. And a lot of people struggle with only having a small space in which they need to maximise their yield, and hybrids can help with that some situations. And a lot of people struggle with not being able to get enough high quality compost to grow a productive vegetable garden, so in some cases amending low quality compost can be a solution. these are things I explore, among a lot of other stuff, and try to open up the possibilities and options for people.