During the great depression, my grand parents knew it was going on. But it did not effect them whatsoever. They grew their own vegetables and grain. Grandma knew how to sew, cook, and take care of 8 children. Grandpa knew how to raise cattle, hunt, and fish. And take care of 8 children. They didn't only survive, they thrived.
They didn't "know" anything lmao they were products of nepotism. Regardless, knowing those things are useless without being given the land to do them on lmao.
That's great, but that means they had land to grow their vegetables and grains on. That meant they were better off than quite a few people in the great depression. I'm not diminishing what they accomplished, just that circumstantially it's not practical for everyone right now to grow their own food entirely.
First rule of vegetable gardening is to grow what you love. BUT if you're looking to save costs, grow veggies that are expensive to buy. Vegetables like lettuces, basil, parsley, coriander and other herbs and leafy greens which can be picked multiple times can yield a lot. I've harvested multiple kilos per square meter. And don't forget about succession crops: beetroot and radishes can be grown in a matter of weeks, so they can go before or after a crop, like your potato bed. Garlic doesn't need its own bed, they need so little space that they can be planted between other veggies, like fennel or carrots. Plant sprawling plants at the edges of your beds and let them trail across the ground or better yet, train them up your fence, where they'll stay out of the way and get extra warmth. Lastly, you can easily grow veggies through the winter, if you get them in by August or September. For next year: either top up with a healthy dose of compost or amend with fertiliser (chicken manure pellets are cheap and work just fine). You had a great start (onions are not that easy!) but you can definitely triple or quadruple your savings with a little more time investment and smart planting :)!
Another good rule is to grow things that are significantly better than what you can get at the grocery store: tomatoes and green beans are a good example. Onions and garlic, I'm not so sure about. Also, grow stuff you want to use but that's hard to find. For example, I love to cook Thai food and some of the ingredients are hard to find in stores, so I have a kaffir lime tree and I grow coriander mainly for the roots (which are not sold in stores here - the leaves are plentiful and cheap). Finally, any kinds of herbs are great. They are easy to grow in pots, and expensive in the stores.
Fertilizer does not replenish micronutrients such as boron, magnesium, molybdenum, copper, selenium and many many more, You just add nitrogen etc so that the plants can grow faster (as nitrogen is the building block of protein) but they lack proper health themselves and are not as healthy and tasty for consumers
I love Radishes, and they're expensive to buy a lot of, so, growing a lot of them myself, is a godsend. Oh and yeah, it all depends on what you want to grow, as one can grow things in the winter as well, leeks and onions are good to plant in the winter, so one can harvest their seeds later. And Lettuce and Kale can be grown in the winter as well. Potatoes need a lot of fertilizers, and a lot of CO2, well all of those plants needs a lot of CO2, trust me, if the air levels of CO2 were doubled or tripled, you'd see double or triple the yield. Oh and the more CO2 in the air, the less water your plants will use, because the process of converting CO2 and Water to Sugar via photosynthesis is solely dependent on CO2, and the plants just use water evaporating to trap CO2, and the more CO2 there is, the easier that process is. . . So having more CO2 is a bit hard to control, especially since there are too many doofuses that doesn't understand science screaming CO2 bad... ain't a farmer out there who'd ever say those words. But yeah, Ecolosers and Vegans are about the least intelligent sobs on the planet.
I'm a biologist. I know how it works...but growing plants is still like magic to me! The Royal Horticultural Society has some great tips to get buddy gardeners started and it's all free.
I live in Florida, and to me it seems like magic (or maybe something more sinister!) Except for sweet potatoes which are practically invasive and take over half the yard!
I was looking for this comment ! I can't imagine that any level of scientific education would chip away at the wonder of seeing a seed sprout and turn into a full plant.
@@lucasmoreel8126 sadly science is under attack right now. There's a lot of people who think they can change science to fit their own ideals rather than accepting it for what it is. The study of our natural world and all the wonder it brings. I like to think of science as artistic in some ways. There is beauty in form and function!
A handful (or two) of helpful hints to (possibly) turn "failures" into "success": . 1. Take the tomatoes that got eaten by the bugs and don't throw them away. You will notice they still have seeds in them, which will grow into next year's tomato crop. Spread the seeds out (along with their gelatinous insides) on a paper towel and dry them. Some people even cut a thin slice of tomato (with seeds inside) and plant it directly in the ground. The gelatin inside is food for the plants, but you can boost their startup, especially considering you have bees. When you start each tomato seed, surround it with a drop of honey and some cinnamon. That will give it the nourishing boost it needs in its critical first days of sprouting. . 2. To get rid of slugs, put out a saucer or soup bowl with beer in it. Slugs will get attracted to it, crawl inside, get drunk, and drown. If you don't put out all the beer, when the slugs are gone, you can celebrate and get drunk on the rest of it. . 3. Another culprit for tomatoes is the tobacco hornworm, which can grow as large as your thumb. When the plants are dry, dust them with food-grade diatomaceous earth. It's basically microscopic shards of silica glass that tears up the juicy bodies of the bugs and dehydrates them. Since rain rinses the dust off, reapply after storms (once the plants are dry again). . 4. If you find that not all of the tomato flowers are getting pollinated, help them out a bit. Take an electric toothbrush and touch the back of the flower. It will loosen the pollen and will increase your yield dramatically, as tomatoes are technically self-pollinating. . 5. Change which bed you plant the tomatoes in, each year, as they tend to strip the soil of a lot of the nutrients; it will give them the best chance of thriving. Also, use an old blender or food processor to chop up the tomato stalks and leaves and mulch the area with them. All of the vitamins and minerals that were trapped in the plants will get returned to the soil. . 6. Cut your seed potatoes into slips (chunks like you did when cooking them), making sure each slip has at least one eye. Each piece will grow into a full plant just as the whole potatoes did. . 7. Plant potatoes in expanding fabric barrels. Start out with the barrel folded down and put potato slips into 4 inches of soil. As the plant starts to grow, roll the fabric bag upwards and add more soil to cover all but the very top couple of leaves. All of the buried leaves will now sprout additional potatoes on them. Be sure to use the dark black fabric barrels, as potatoes are a hot weather crop that are also very intolerant of light (which causes the potatoes to discolor). The bags are available on Amazon for about $20 for 3 bags. This should grow enough potatoes to encompass the entire two rows you planted, but only take up the horizontal space of 3 plants. . 8. Practice "lasagna gardening" (look it up on Google). Dig into your soil and layer black and white newsprint sheets. They will decompose, loosen the soil and block the light so all the weed seeds will get cooked and not sprout. Also, when you put down a layer of newspaper, add any of last year's plant stuff as mulch, and wet the whole thing down. If possible, also spread a layer of earthworms in the garden, as they help to create mulch. And if you don't get into too much trouble with your environmental agencies, before you wet the newspaper, burn it it and it creates "bio-char" (or use the wood ash from your pizza oven). Note: If you smoke, don't touch the tomato plants with your bare hands. Tobacco mosaic virus will get to those plants, and if an infected plant rubs against a healthy one, it can transfer the virus. Also don't use cigarette ashes as mulch. As a top layer, use some black garden fabric or black plastic with small holes punched in it for water drainage. The sun will heat up the fabric and speed up the mulch/decomposition process. . 9. One more tomato suggestion: I noticed that you were very effective in pruning the non-fruit-bearing branches from your tomato plants. Try this trick: leave the very bottom branch (the sucker) attached and bury the middle part of it in the soil with just the top of it sticking out. It will root itself and become another entire tomato plant. . 10. Many root crops will sprout new plants by cutting off the leafy top portion and propping it up in a jar of water. Check out this article, which pertains to carrots: www.gardeningchannel.com/carrots-regrown-from-tops/ . I guess that's a couple handfuls (10 ideas = 10 fingers worth). Enjoy and best of luck in your garden. . 11. Ok, here's another one for good measure: Cucumbers can grow vertically quite easily. As the plant starts to spread along the ground, pick up the end of the plant and gently weave it into a trellis, which can be something as simple as 3-4 pieces of stick, tied together in a teepee formation, with additional twine wrapped around it. Keeping the cucumbers off the ground will help prevent them rotting. . 12. And here's one more to make an even dozen: Plant marigolds around your tomato plants. The essential oils in the plant help drive away the caterpillars and moths. . Ok, NOW you can enjoy! . George (gen81465)
A few pieces of unsolicited advice: 1. Tomatoes only like their toes to get wet, so water at the base. Try to keep water off the leaves, as this will contribute to blight. 2. Throw the blighted tomatoes in your garbage, not your compost. You don't want to spread any diseases or bad microbes back into your soil. 3. If the beer trick doesn't work for the slugs, try copper tape, broken eggs shells or straw. They don't like any of those. 4. Wait for the potato plants to turn yellow and fall over before harvesting. 5. When strawberries start emerging, place straw underneath the plant to keep slugs away and keep the fruit from dragging on the ground. (Hence the name "strawberries 🍓) 6. Larger courgettes (?) (we call them zucchini the U.S.) will drain the most energy from the plant so check your plants daily. However, it seems like there's always one that get away. The squash flowers are also edible. 7. I like to "hide" crops in my front yard, as well. Try mixing lettuces, green beans or peppers here and there. No one will notice but you. We have six blueberry bushes in our front yard. They look like regular landscape shrubs. 8. Most importantly, have fun with it! After a while you'll know what works and what doesn't.
And if you really want to care about things you'll learn the difference between the slug species as well so you focus on culling the invasive ones while relocating the native snails as they are very important decomposers who already struggle with the fact that the invasive snails will eat them. Keep your garden healthy by keeping your environment living.
The zuccvibi Might have had a fungus idk the englisch nsme but in german It is Mehltau wich is a fungus on the top side of the leave identifyable by the easy test if rubbing the leav if it is that fingus it will be rubbed off and its a white fuzzy coat
Recently I found out if you crush eggshells and sprinke them around your plants it will stop slugs and snails from going all over them. I had a similar issue last year.
Maybe I'm late, but here's some advice: Let the potato plant dry up at the end of the season for optimal yield. When it dries the plant makes the potatoes bigger to survive the hersh winter.
The literal cost of the vegetables you grew may have been only 64 pounds, but the feeling of happiness, self-satisfaction, and self-reliance were worth at least a million pounds, easily! Great job, my friend!
@@AndrewLighten There is a world of difference. Anybody who has never tasted an actual sun-ripened tomato has no idea what a tomato even really tastes like. We live in a state that has a large number of commercial tomato farms and we locals don't eat those tomatoes. We refer to them as "shipping tomatoes", not "eating tomatoes". They're designed to transport well, sit in a warehouse, then sit on the store shelf for a long time and still look pretty, that's all. Most big farms do have smaller patches of those good "eating" ones and they do sell them locally. Grow some yourself and you'll see the supermarket has been cheating you out of flavor all these years lol
I dont know what this guy is on but I grow about $2k of veggies in the same area as this guy and spend about $50-100 a year on materials. Im pretty certain if I sprinkled seeds in the ground and did absolutely nothing Id still grow more than $100 worth. This video just showed one guy who is absolutely useless at gardening.
I love how you added it all up and showed how much money you saved or didn't save, but the true value of this experience is your new knowledge and the joy of watching something grow from your own yard, free from chemicals and growth hormones. I would pay double for that, well done!!
While you didn't turn a profit, you created something you'll enjoy for years to come, and created something for millions to enjoy. I can really appreciate this type of video, something that takes a year to make is no small task. Keep doing what your doing.
It is not always about saving money. When it comes to food, it tastes just so much better to grow your own food than the stuff from the supermarket. Great video for sure.
Yeah, you won't be able to beat the professionals doing agriculture at scale with technology + proper investments. There's a reason why farming is most efficient at scale.
that's extremely subjective and dependent on so many factors that I don't think you should do gardening because "it tastes better", or you might be very disappointed
I heard some info that organic food from the stores are like 5% of what they used to be in terms of vitamins and minerals in them,one tomato today equals to around 1/20 of a tomato back in 1970s...
Depending on resourcefulness you can definitely cut down on the start up costs. There's videos of people making beds from wooden pallets, you can get seeds from other gardeners or the foods you eat, I even saw a video of someone making their own fertilizers. I think gardening is really beneficial physically and psychologically. Getting outside and moving and breathing the fresh air... watching something you have invested in grow and produce...it's an accomplishment. Theres also the mental stimulation from learning new skills.
Totally inspirational! I built my first raised bed last year and felt the same satisfaction as you growing tomatoes, onions, courgettes, spinach, red cabbage and parsnips. Also planted 15 fruit trees and I’m 68. I love feeling more self sufficient especially as there are shortages in the supermarket fruit and veg isles. Looking forward to year two. Congratulations!
It wasnt inspirational for me to watch someone completely fail at gardening. I could grow $100 of veggies in one window sill while spending under $1. In the same area I spend probably 50-100 and grow 2k of veggies without any problems. It would have been inspirational for him to actually do research and put a little more effort into gardening properly rather than making it look like a waste of time. I can replace my entire diet of produce with home grown organic fruits and veggies with little space and not a lot of effort which is obviously worth a lot more than $100.
@@ar007r Sounds great! Would love to see a video of someone grow $100 worth of veggies in a window sill while spending under $1. Although I rather doubt it.
@Michele H I don't know what you spend on seeds and dirt but they are practically free. The dude in this video has an entire garden bed and only grew 100 of produce. That's like a weeks worth where I'm from. So yes just grow a bunch of basil in a window and in one season you easily would be growing over $100 worth of basil. That's not even hard considering it costs $4-5 for a tiny pack of basil I could eat in one caprase salad. I'm pretty certain I could grow $100 of produce from one plant if harvested properly.
Example $2. One vanilla bean plant can produce enough vanilla to make hundreds of dollars of vanilla extract. Example 3. 1 tomato plant can produce several hundred tomatoes. That's another example of one plant making hundreds of dollars of produce. It's not rocket science but these comments and videos really show how dependent people are on the system. There is literally endless abundance and growing food is dead simple. You can make a 6 figure income (income not revenue) from a 1 acre property. It's not even a matter of chance. You can look up how to do it and simply make yourself that income. Like most things that require a tiny amount of hands on labor, you can easily make more than a doctor. The problem is people are lazy, reliant, and debt ridden.
I love the way you went about this. So many gardeners seem to be professionals who know all there is to know, rather intimidating. You give me courage to give it a try. Thank you!
I get what you mean. My father died in April 2021. My mother and me tried to keep up with the large garden he had. Trees and vegetables. We didn't know what to do so we got help most of the time. It's not worth it in money or time spent. But not everything in life is about money.
@@quercus8833 This is somewhat true. There are alot of products that when used improperly will cause plants to fail to produce or even die. Plants "do just grow" if the conditions are right. Growing outdoors you are restricted to growing plants that can thrive in your weather and season conditions. I know this because I've grown in Australia and in Sweden. It is a very different story.
ALL gardeners were beginners once upon a time. They just kept trying and keep notes as to what works & what doesn't in their areas. You can be great too, it will just take a little time.
Potatoes have turned out to be my favorite vegetable to grow, because I always assumed you needed a big farm to get a decent amount of potatoes, but I've grown them in grow bags and planter boxes, and they take no care at all, really. It does feel like magic, a bit, growing our own food.
You might have lost money growing your own but it looks pretty organic which is priceless. Save your good stock for another crop..overall you did well and I found the video inspiring!
One thing where you can really win at with home gardening is having fresh herbs like thyme, rosemary, basil, mint etc that you don't use in big quantities, but the moment you need them, you just go to your garden and take the freshest possible stuff you can get. This is also very nice when you have a few pots with herbs indoors during winter, and you still get fresh herbs (which is sometimes they don't sell in winter in some places).
Basil is easy to grow in a pot, just keep it pruned back. In summer I plant them outside, then start a new pot in the Fall. Starting to grow Chives now and Parsley in pots.
They also work as anti-pests in many harvestable plants. So if you plant them alongside they work together. Very nice to have some in your kitchen too.
I love the fact that my local supermarket has rosemary growing all through it's carpark as a landscaping feature, and also sells if for a few bucks for a packet of three short stalks. IF YOU WANT ROSMARY JUST WALK DOWN ANY STREET FOR A BIT AAAAGGGHHH!!! :)
sure. but sorry, i cant stop to imagine we get all our 'talents' back. a peace of land we are abel to grow our food ... isnt it our planet? or is it owned by old contracts people made which are already dead since a loooooooooooooooooooong time?!
Are you one of the people? you mean if people would farm few vegetables in their garden since they don't have kids to take care of and work 8h/day in order to contribute to society (like producing seeds, packing fertilized soil, making and selling gardening tools, ...) and make sure others like Alex have free time to follow their passion? Let's be humble for a minute, and not pretend we know better.
For larger potatoes, only leave 1 or 2 sprouts (chits) on each potato. You can even cut them into pieces with 1 or 2 chits on each to make them go further. If you cut them though, let them dry out for a few days before planting to avoid rotting before they sprout :)
Just some tips, my grandma used to step on the onion leafs,like right from the ground where the leaves pop out of the ground (bend them and not break them) , as in put the leafs on floor, at the time where the onions start to grow the flower stick, this way, the onion would stop producing flower and seeds and feed all the food in the bulb, she used to grow massive onions, also harvesting them was being done late summer, when the leaves were completely dry, also potatoes unless you want the summer potatoes that are easy to peel, she used to make potatoes for winter so she would only harvest them when the leaves and stems were dried out
Hi Alex, sorry just discovered you’ve got your own channel. A great first year of growing. A little advice if you don’t mind me giving it. Leave potatoes in the ground and harvest as you need them instead of digging them all up. The ground will keep them fresh and they will continue to grow. Unfortunately that does look like blight on your tomatoes which means it’ll keep coming back. Look for blight resistant toms and pots as they are the same family and are both susceptible to it. You courgettes need to be harvested a lot earlier if you want them to remain courgettes. After a certain size they become marrows. Keep up the great work.
Coppersulphate into the soil helps combat blight . Teaspoon per square metre ..... Not exactly scientific , Grandfather's remedy. Gypsum breaks up hard soil ( Gypsum walls boards ... the lime in it ) Thanks for reading
Did you know that you combine the potato bottoms with the tomato tops? Just cut them both in the middle of the stock get a tooth pick shove in down the potato stock until half the tooth pick is in the stock then just take the tomato top and stick it on the other part of the tooth pick til it meats the potato stock. It’s that simple 😊.
I appreciate a video that didn't go absolutely perfect. This was an actual representation of what someone could expect for their first time. Awesome job
your vids are top tier. what I love is your meter, in speaking, your excellent up close videography and pictures, your step by step processes, your humility, cheeky humor, and tenacity, and one of the best elements is your transparency; sharing with us your entire journey from beginning to end, including your successes and failures. you're a really intelligent, likeable guy to boot. you are helping me to plan and design sustainability in my life, and for my first new homestead, which I'll be moving into in the next couple months. new fan and following. thank you. lyn from new york
My tip for bigger and more potatoes is leave the plants in the ground as long as possible and slug patrol every night throughout October time. Be sure to ALWAYS PICK THE FLOWERS and if all the leaf matter above the surface has died off completely get them out the ground ASAP to stop the worms getting them, so long you keep the slugs off you're in for monsters - just hold your nerve and keep watering. Tomatoes do better in shelter and need regular tending from training to supporting - acquire some bamboo and willow and make some columns to support. If you can get them in the conservatory or greenhouse you've reduced the possibility of issues. Courgettes, try to avoid letting them get to that size - I've had some beasts but the speed of fruiting depletes after getting a big one. If you harvest them young the plant stays in a state of pumping out fruits and not forming seeds inside them. Cheers, you've inspired me to sort my seed trays out tomorrow - if you've not got a compost heap started yet, get your plant waste in a container of water and keep plant matter topped up and hydrated 1:2 ratio, allow 6 months of maturity before using the super juice that smells like poop so you know it's gonna work wonders. Avoid composting knotweed or seeding grasses, mix regularly to avoid plants from sprouting. I'm always learning and I've had fails but these have been my tried tips for success.
@@ADM-wt9cn yeah, biggest pot you can find, half barrel ideally. Stick 4 per pot in a wide triangle and a middle one but do not put the points to the very edge. Keep wet and fed and the secret to potatoes is ALWAYS PICK THE FLOWERS. Or if you're feeling super lazy use big compost bags with small holes at the bottom end and opened up the top. It's easy enough.
You can start Garlic and Onions in November for a spring harvest. You take them out, fertilize the ground and immediately replant with your next crop. Its basically a bonus crop. Also :> If your room mates say you only get to grow on your third of the garden, tell them they can only eat the veg grown on their third
Keep in mind that only works in areas with warm winters and no snow. We often have days with -15 to -20 deg and more than 1 meter of snow here in Austria, which makes growing winter crops quite impossible.
@@ivankontenski4396 It depends. Garlic can survive being berried under snow. and it can survive being under it for a longtime. If the cold weather starts with a rapid freeze though, that will kill it.
Compost is a great Fertilizer. Feed the dirt like in nature, such as a forest, forests use no fertilizers, just nature's compost. Buy or use cheaper cow or horse crap. Animal crap Must be at least several months old or it will burn the plants. Mix really good in the dirt. To prevent burning.
I really like your videos because most people just show their success and do it “on the first go” so seeing someone just start and try something out is really refreshing
A point that I want to make regarding the costs of the materials, compost, fruits and vegetables (general things) for people thinking of having their own garden: - The initial setup can be expensive. However, you will end up getting your money back over time, as all of the things you have planted will be able to be replanted using the leftover seeds (bulbs, cloves, etc.). Gardening and having your own patch to look after can seem like a gigantic investment, but as long as you put in the effort and work maintaining your garden and caring for your plant's needs. You will theoretically have an 'endless' supply of fruits and vegetables! And trust me and many other gardeners, even the best gardeners have killed the most plants because gardening is all trial and error! Happy gardening!
I feel so disconnected with reality sometimes living in a big city, that when I watch videos like these it brings a sense of warmth I cannot explain. Thank you for sharing this process. nature is truly a thing of beauty.
you can grow stuff even in a small space. Lettuce & some leafy greens will grow with minimal lighting & can be eaten as they grow to make them as space efficient as possible. A basic hydroponic light & an old fish tank or similar area for plants will likely give you all the leafy greens & herbs you eat. Sprouts, microgreens & mushrooms are also good options for apartment living
Guaranteed this guy also lives in an urban environment. You can live in a city and still have a small garden. You can also grow on a balcony. I recommend Her86m2, another UA-cam channel, for advice on balcony vegetable growing.
This reminds me when I had a chilli garden when I was in 3rd grade,it was just a small project we had to do for recycling so I decided to use some aluminum trays and planted some chili's in it. They sprouted once I took them to school and everyone was amazed. Soon they grew too big so I set up a garden bed in the ground and planted them. They lasted for about two years until my family had gotten into some trouble and I had to stay with another relative. When I got back they all were dead and that kinda hurt me a little since I raised em from when I was young. I'm planning to start another garden soon and it's happy to see other people getting into it.
I really appreciate the size of your garden and your beds. So many videos -- even those tagged "urban" -- feature yards much larger than what I have access to, so seeing what you can do in a really small space is heartening and inspiring. Thanks!
Glad I discovered this video 11 months after it was uploaded. I hope there's a part 2, where he shows how much he got this year. Growing in your own garden is perhaps not very good economywise, but as a passtime it's really great, because it rewards you with free and healthy food
I found this video in the suggested videos from this other video: ua-cam.com/video/sPWtKljdkUs/v-deo.html I think they're brothers, and brother No. 2 made a huge Koi pond in this same garden. Don't think there will be a part 2...
Not free... he paid for it with hard work! Thats the value and process most of us have forgotten or never learned. Once upon a time, there was no such thing as money.
Oh it's very good economywise! He is just still learning. Last year only my tomato harvest was like 40kg. Additionally, you get the benefit of vegetables, which actually have a taste instead of being like plastic + you know they are BIO....
@@Greenar88 how vegetables is not bio? I mean if you mean without pesticide or more chemicals stuff to increase the production or to preserve as much vegetables as possible, yes since you know what you put. (I think we can artificial creat vegetables but as far as I know it's still not massively produce and is still to expensive compared to cultivate yourself so we can stipulate that every vegetables are mostly and only bio)
Your one time costs need to be averaged over the useful time you will be using them. Also, now you have learned a lot. Can hardly waite to see what you do this year. BTW, when you harvest your first potatoes, do not harvest them in a row--harvest one plant, then skip a plant and harvest the next one. Only harvest the amount you will be eating immediately, at leaswt till the growing season is over. During non-grow months, try to put dead leaves and other organic materials on your grow plots. Try putting a few garlic in the ground in late September. Leave the carrots in the ground, pick them only as you use them.
This has gotten me so excited!! I can't wait to have gardens in the front & back... to can & jar things, to preserve. It's gonna be great, I can feel it.
Lookup companion planting. It’s especially useful if you have limited space. The idea is that you plant stuff together that helps each other. One of the more famous is the “three sisters” - corn, beans and squash. The corn stalk gives something for the beans to climb, the beans put nitrogen into the soil and the squash leaves shade the ground to hold in moisture. You will find all sorts of variations all with different benefits like soil fertilization and bug protection. You had mentioned chickens and I highly recommend them. Not sure what the laws are where you live, but backyard chickens are great! They eat bugs and even small rodents, they give you eggs and their waste is an extremely rich fertilizer. I think 3-6 is perfect size for a backyard flock. I have 20 chickens right now and in the winter I let them roam my garden. When I clean the coop I dump the litter in the garden during the winter. Also, lookup vertical planters. You could grow a ton of greens and strawberries in vertical planters. They take very little space and you can get extremely high yields. Also (sorry), for potatoes, lookup potato towers. With a tower, you could get 100 or more potatoes from a 3x3 tower. If you’re looking for a natural pesticide - boil hot peppers and save the liquid. Put it in a sprayer and add a couple of drops of oil of oregano and mint oil. It will keep most bugs off I’ve found. The downside is you will have to reapply after you water or it rains. And in my area, it seems to attract deer for some reason. The mint maybe. Great video!
Companion gardening, as a practice, is the act of planting plants together to form a guild. Usually that amounts to at least 2 annuals and one perennial. The idea is to get beneficial fungi to colonize the perennial that the yearly annuals can jack into every year. Fruit trees are usually a good choice for the perennial.
@@nikkivanzanen I don’t let my chickens in the garden during growing season. Some people do. I think you need to know what plants they’ll eat and put up barriers to keep them away. You have to protect sprouts too. The bonus is that the chickens eat bugs and slugs that would harm your plants. It’s a hassle but if you find a balance that works, can be great for the garden.
@@nikkivanzanen The squash plants have very prickly stalks and leaves, which extend out a couple feet. That keeps a lot of critters away from your beans and corn, although a really determined raccoon will still find a way to get to the corn.
You learned self sustainability and home grown crops are cleaner and more delicious. As a gardener it makes my heart happy to see a young man grow food.
When you trim hazel, you need to take the thinner trunks as they sprout from the base. The aim is to take what you need with minimal impact to its foliage spread.
Wonderful stuff! I love your willingness to learn and try new things- an ethic that will never fail you. Field to table fare surely teaches you to appreciate where your food originates. Again, keep up the fine learning and content creation!
Love your video, you can grow more in less space by using aqua ponics, fix some gutters to your fence, fill with small stone gravel and pump your fish pond water through the guttering on a timer. Plants use the fish waste as food, water gets cleaned And returns to the pond with all the harmful nitrates and nitrites removed. Turbo charges growth because of the aeration to roots. You can literally have a wall of herbs, veggies, strawberries, lettuce. 😉
@@just_alex Sounds cool, however there is a reason aquaponics haven't been implemented on a bigger scale. It's really hard to properly balance out. Most commercial farmers going that route as going belly up in less then five years. Even if they have experience on a smaller scale, it's hard to scale.
Why not just buy a "sonic bloom" box? Build the soil with cardboard and compost. In the end, you remove hours and hours of your time spent 'gardening'.
Growing as much of your own food as possible is very rewarding, plus it doesn't get any fresher. Alex, there's nothing disappointing in those small potatoes. Give them a good wash and they're perfect in with a pot roast or roasted chicken and vegetables.
What a great video, growing your own food seems difficult, but the pleasure you get out of cooking and eating your own food is amazing, great job for your first time.
Great job on this video. Captures the very essence of raised bed gardening. I laughed with you when you found the big Zuke! Haha. So many wonderful lessons learned when gardening. Everyone should give it a go.
When pricing up your produce you have to bear in mind yours are organic. In the supermarkets they are more expensive. I live in Malta and we suffer with alot of snails and slugs and we also use crushed up eggshells. We use mixtures of banana skins and coffee grounds which helps our crops alot . We have high temperatures so in the summer everything dries and the majority die off.
I remember my grandpa was always a man that kept a huge garden with tomatos potatos shallots onions everything you could think of, and yeah there was lots of work put into it but damn i could swear everything tasted so much better than even the most expensive product that i buy now in the so called "Green Supermarkets", such that I've made it a personal goal to build enough wealth so i can spend my years after 50 in the country side with a huge garden lots of pets and delicious fruits and vegies that i grow myself, videos like this one help enforce that goal 🙏😊
Wow, thanks for sharing your dream. I am living it myself and it's my main joy in life. I own 1/2 acre of land I've gardened on since I bought it (now own). Next month I'm semi retiring with Social Security and have even bigger plans for this year. I lost my partner of 33 years to lung cancer last summer so it's just me now. But by canning potatoes and also storing them down basement, tons of spaghetti sauce, sauerkraut, fermented pickles, hundreds of heads of garlic, lots of onions and plenty of frozen vacuum sealed peas and beans have given me so much food over this winter that will last well into late Spring. Gardening is food for the soul too, and in dreary cold winter days I plot and plan and garden in my head for the better weather on the way. Plant what you can even in five gallon buckets if that's all you can do. Heck, I even saved the clothes dryer drum to plant potatoes in this year and made all my raised beds for free from wooden pallets, even reused the nails. You can garden on the cheap if you’re crafty, it's worked well for me. Check into Korean Natural Farming (KNF) and master Cho here on YT. Homemade fertilizers from weeds, fish guts (awesome stuff) and soil boosting bacteria (Jadam JMS) very simply made from a handful of great forest soil, a cooked potato for microbe food and a five gallon bucket. It's all here on UA-cam and I just thrill to see us gardeners here like y'all sharing and gettin enthusiastic.
@@JackONeill497 True but i live in the city and i dont have any land of mine right now, hopefully saving for that but with multiple obligations right now for other family member its kinda hard to move in a spot for myself without hurting them financially, hopefully im alive and well, if not it was never meant to be anyways, im more happy to fix my family issues for now since dying without doing them would be a way more regretful death than any other for me :)
My dad built me a raised bed literally the weekend before the very first lockdown here in the UK. I grew beans, tomatoes and lettuces, among other things, and during that first lockdown I had fresh salad every day - wonderful during the heatwave we had! My garden has never since looked so good - or had quite as brilliant a yield of veggies. Mostly because our British weather - slugs are my nemesis! They go after all the tender shoots the moment they’ve started poking their heads above the soil.
There are a lot of things you missed in your configurations that make growing your own food more cost effective than you think. Also, here in the US you have regular food and organic food, your food would have to be compared to the Organic prices wich is way more expensive. I love seeing younger people taking such an interest in being more self sufficient and healthier, keep up the great work because the longer you do it, the more cost effective it becomes. Make sure you learn how to harvest your own seeds from your crops, it's a real money saver!
This video encourages people who would like to start planting their food. It's insane how much effort you have to put into this content, and I hope other UA-camrs will do the same. Thank you for giving us genuine and honest content.
Love the part where he said "I might need to get chickens" as a solution to deal with the slugs. My man, if he had ONE chicken it would absolutely murder every living thing on a 5 mile radius of his garden.
Don't also forget that your food would have been grown in a lot more organic way than anything store bought so much higher prices would be asked for it. Additionally, everything is energy and when you put love into growing and preparing your food it is a lot more nutricious. BTW, when you grow your own potatoes and don't use any nasty chemicals to do so, you can definitely eat the skins. They give baked and even cooked potatoes (with butter, yum) a lot more "potatoe" flavour and also there is a lot of extra nutrients in the skins. Same with carrots :-)
Just to let you know your channel has inspired me to do bee keeping and grow my own mushrooms and garden. I would like to thank you for making this stuff both informative and entertaining. You are great at what you do and so I say thanks,thanks for inspiring me to live a better more fulfilling life and I look forward to watching your channel in the future.
Im so proud of you and happy for you.I started and failed when I started my balcony garden last year. But knowing it was from a lack of knowledge and research as well as beginner's eagerness. I gave myself grace and mercy while learning to do better which I have. Though no matter how long you've been gardening every gardener learns something new all the time.
I love to imagine a day where we all grow our food and get back to the roots of nature. There is so much to learn from gardening, it’s almost like the language of the planet… a delicious language full of nutrients and hidden knowledge.
Absolutely. If we lived in areas where we shared land with others, I think growing food together would create a great sense of trust and bond. Food is a primal motivation; which can be what bonds us together, or pins us against each other. Depends on if we are in the hunt or in the harvest. Very fascinating
Yes, and also what the gardening does to our body and mind. We will gain healt from moving around outdoors. Fresh air, D-vitamin from the sun, inhailing the good bacterials from the soil and much more, makes it easier to keep up good healt. And if we choose to garden organic, we won't be eating chemicals.
I have been gardening on my small rocky estate since 2010. I have 5 6 x 12 raised bed gardens. I also grow potatoes and sweet potatoes in containers. The abundance of these gardens amazes everyone. Huge yields. I can greens, beans, salsa, pasta sauce, carrots and more. During the spring and early summer I eat mostly greens like lettuce, collards, turnip greens and cabbage. The health benefits are huge. This is what everybody who has land available needs to do.
Another thing is you don't have to put the entire potatoes into the ground for it to grow. Just cut the sprout region with a bit of potato flesh and then plant them directly into the ground. In this way you can eat the rest of the potato and turn the entire good gene of a big potato into multiple potato plants.
potatoes are so versatile it doesn't really matter although if you are going to cut them, you need to let them scab over for at least a few days otherwise it's like putting an open wound into the soil.
I discovered your channel a few days back and want you to know that your enthusiasm and curiosity gave me such a lift! It’s been so much fun watching you dive straight into some of the same rabbit holes i’ve explored in my 60 years and finding that your discoveries bring me as much joy as my own.
@@just_alex if you ever want to visit a temperate rain forest, I live in WA state, US and my partner and I own 20 acres of conserved old growth forest…We have tons of chanterelles and a creek that meanders through where salmon are beginning to spawn again. happy day to you!
That was great Alex. I did basically the same thing with posting it on youtube. I retired from a 35 year career at Verizon and spent my time and energy on a handicapped friendly raised bed garden as directly after retiring arthritis ended my ability to walk. The raised beds are high enough to work them from a wheelchair. I did not raise enough to have any impact on my grocery costs but it definitely fed my soul in ways unexpected. This year I’m going to add three more raised beds and raised furrow as long as my yard and about two feet wide. I’m in a wheel chair now but my garden still brings me vegetables and smiles. .
UA-cam does not have Section 230 protections as this video as been "randomly" suggested to everyone. I was watching someone react to YT videos on Twitch & this video came up on recommended. UA-cam is 100% an editor, this isn't even debatable
I love young people who discover the joy of growing their own food. You are an ideal young man, Alex, whose meaningful projects keep you doing wholesome activities and keep you out of stupid stuff. Keep it up! Also, next year wait until your potato leaves are all brown and collapsed to get the maximum yield.
As a little girl I wanted to grow vegetables. My mum told me to try growing potatoes under my window sill where the ground was really hard. She said they would turn the soil to gold. She wasn’t far off. Hard, rocky dirt was turned into lush brown soil that produced a beautiful crop of 30 or so potatoes:-)
I took 1"copper water pipes and scratched them up with sandpaper, cut them to 4' lengths and pushed one each down 2' into the middle of each garden. The slugs hate it! Great video and fabulous gardens.
The initial outlay always means that you are running at a loss, but does get cheaper especially if you have contact with other growers who can pass seeds/plants, on to you and if you produce your own compost etc. However, I am sure that all of your produce tasted much better than produce purchased from the supermarket.
Agreed. Year after year, if you save your own seeds and make your own compost from kitchen waste and yard waste, the cost in subsequent years is near zero. He could have saved even a fraction of the smaller potatoes and regrown them the next year for a larger and larger harvest year after year with no monetary outlay. When I first started I put about $30 out in tomato seeds alone, to get a large selection of heritage breeds. It's now 15 years later and I haven't bought seeds again since. Just keep saving seeds from my best tomatoes, fermenting them, drying them, plant again next year.
Agreed. I have very little costs year to year anymore. Save seeds (stored in faulty mason jars that can no longer be used for heat processing), compost (3-bin system made from scrounged pallets, plus it diverts about 50-60% of our household waste), tools (had for years or bought at yard sales), water collection (1000L x 2 tanks that collect rainwater from gutters, paid $100 years ago for them, paid for themselves after a season or two of not needing city water). I did invest in grow lights for starting plants, they took 2 seasons to pay off vs buying started plants. We also spent like $35 a few years ago on an rv pump that we hooked up to an old battery and a scrounged solar panel and charger to make watering easier/faster. We also have lots of perennial crops, like rhubarb, apples, raspberries, gooseberries, strawberries, chives & garlic chives, oregano, walking onions etc. They require very little care besides getting cut back/trimmed (they will take over otherwise!). Our next project isn't the gardens but in the house and create a proper cold room. Right now, we compost several hundred pounds of apples a year because we don't have a space to store them properly and I can't process/can/dry them fast enough! That's on top of what we give away (our 2 tress are very productive and are at least 20 years old, probably older).
Here’s a tip for anyone planning to garden every year: switch up where you planted the vegetables because the spot you had the first year has nutrients that is great for other plants and vice versa.
It’s good for the soul to garden. You’ve gained a lot of knowledge from your experiences, and that is priceless. I enjoyed your video. I just found your channel and really enjoyed it. Happy gardening
It saves more money the longer you do it. I can't wait to be able to do this when I get a home. I love seeing how small yours is and how much you were able to get from it. I hope your crops grow better each year!
I did a similar thing at my last house and turned my front yard (full sun) in to raised garden beds. I had 3 8ftx4ft boxes that were 2.5ft tall. I did the math and in Canada I produced about $500 in produce per box, per year. The trick is to grow what you love, but also great producers like Snow Peas, Sugar Snap Peas, Kales, Cherry Tomatoes, Smaller cucumbers, etc. I also grew a lot of varieties you can't find in the grocery store, a huge herb garden etc. You can't put a price on the education from mother earth, and those meals made with your own hard work! I was so satisfied watching your harvest, and you've only grown since this 2 year old video! Thumbs up from your fellow green thumb!
This is great. I grew up on a farm until I was 15 and was a market gardener for 15 years before I retired. You are doing it right Alex. Don't worry about the startup costs as they will amortize over 10-15 years. Good luck.
the fact that you got that good of a harvest your first year is amazing. even if you didn't make money or break even. keep doing it and with in another year or two you'll be on top of it. great job. also i would like to see an update video
If you are frugal about growing a garden you might save money but it truly is an indescribable feeling watching a garden grow that represents all your hard work.
Look into companion planting! Like flowers that help with pollination and pollinators- I’m still breaking out into gardening myself so I’m still learning but from what I’ve heard, they help with your crops! And the flowers are pretty to look at 🥰
Hello Alex I did my first garden patch last year was great fun and tasty food. Little tip for the slugs. Break up old egg shells and scatter them around the base of the plants/beds stops them getting too it as they don’t like sharpness. Good luck next season 🙌🏼 .
I would have loved to see you do a second year of your vegetable garden and the crop productions and learnings you made from that. Best crops to grow with biggest yield etc, pest control.
I feel the same about planting seeds, miraculously new plants then most miraculously produce vegetables, fruits, and or flowers. Very rewarding. I'm in the process of raising mine as you are here.
Loved your video. It was real. Another little tip is if I buy spring onions I plant one. Leave it in the ground like forever and I have an ongoing crop of scallions. Gorgeous in egg sandwichs and salads. Happy growing Alex. Thank you.
Every new gardener will discover that there's (usually) a net loss (financially) in start up but in harvesting, we know we're getting nourished, it's fresh, it's organic (if we go that way, which I do) we feel accomplished, _and_ nourishing the soil (if organically grown) to produce for our next plantings. Good luck in the future and I look forward to seeing more of what you do!
When calculating your input and harvest costs don't forget the amount of pleasure and enjoent you have gained from your exploits. That in my opinion is priceless! I'm sure you'll agree that your home grown produce tasted far better than what you've been used to from the supermarket!
That's how I feel with my garden I'm just winging it and hoping for the best. Is now 2 years since we moved to Florida and it just felt right to start a garden in hopes that I didn't have to do much watering and saving money that way but like you mention every year will be more saving
Hi Alex! This is just brilliant. I have seen so many gardening videos in past 5 years and yet I think the simplicity and honesty wrapped up in so professionnal video making (looks like a BBC documentary!) is an inspiration. Thanks Alex! Keep up the good work.
I dug over about 3 square feet of my front garden over 5 years ago. I then planted some seed potatoes around the space. There really is nothing better than watching them grow, then harvesting and eating them. The great thing is though, after that first year I didn't do anything to the space and yet every Summer since, I have had a crop of fresh potatoes. Alex, although the initial outlay was probably costly, it will pay for itself over time. But the best thing is, food you grow yourself, always tastes better than the stuff you buy in supermarkets. You got another subby cos of this vlog mate. Keep up the good work and remember, learning is what life is all about......
Great journey thanks for sharing! Gardening isn't really ever cost effective compared to buying into a local CSA/crop share, or if you just do it in huge rows in the ground instead of perfect raised beds. But, it's so rewarding and healthy. Especially if you can and preserve your food so you can enjoy it in the winter!
Very well done. I am impressed that you two recommended me this channel to be quite frank. I am very proud of you Alex, that is definitely one of my lifelong dreams.
I just stumbled upon your channel and this was the first video i saw and honestly there's something so pure in the way you're excited about growing your own plants and vegetables, considering the fact you're not even some professional but just a lad who decided to try this. It actually made me happy and also determined to try it myself this year. Subscribed because your content and your genuine personality really got me. Thank you
Nice job. I am right there with you. I discovered how many tomatoes 15 plants produced, and found myself turning them into tomato paste! It was toooo many tomatoes but the paste condensed them and I discovered that I Love tomato paste! I never appreciated it before and homemade tomato paste is frickin delicious compared to store bought. So much flavor that you can eat it with anyyyyything. Combined with that pizza oven be very flavorful paste produced.
Lots of folks do winter sowing. There's a youtube channel that shows all about it! Then when your weather is FINALLY cooperating, your seedings are more than ready!
During the great depression, my grand parents knew it was going on. But it did not effect them whatsoever. They grew their own vegetables and grain. Grandma knew how to sew, cook, and take care of 8 children. Grandpa knew how to raise cattle, hunt, and fish. And take care of 8 children. They didn't only survive, they thrived.
They didn't "know" anything lmao they were products of nepotism. Regardless, knowing those things are useless without being given the land to do them on lmao.
That's great, but that means they had land to grow their vegetables and grains on. That meant they were better off than quite a few people in the great depression. I'm not diminishing what they accomplished, just that circumstantially it's not practical for everyone right now to grow their own food entirely.
@@sixupsprite5501 Like the many who had their farms taken by for the war effort.
The great depression ey? If I was FDR, I'd have issued one giant pill called the great zoloft
You should make a portable pizza oven. I just saw it on here the other day. Look it up.
First rule of vegetable gardening is to grow what you love. BUT if you're looking to save costs, grow veggies that are expensive to buy. Vegetables like lettuces, basil, parsley, coriander and other herbs and leafy greens which can be picked multiple times can yield a lot. I've harvested multiple kilos per square meter. And don't forget about succession crops: beetroot and radishes can be grown in a matter of weeks, so they can go before or after a crop, like your potato bed. Garlic doesn't need its own bed, they need so little space that they can be planted between other veggies, like fennel or carrots. Plant sprawling plants at the edges of your beds and let them trail across the ground or better yet, train them up your fence, where they'll stay out of the way and get extra warmth. Lastly, you can easily grow veggies through the winter, if you get them in by August or September. For next year: either top up with a healthy dose of compost or amend with fertiliser (chicken manure pellets are cheap and work just fine). You had a great start (onions are not that easy!) but you can definitely triple or quadruple your savings with a little more time investment and smart planting :)!
Another good rule is to grow things that are significantly better than what you can get at the grocery store: tomatoes and green beans are a good example. Onions and garlic, I'm not so sure about. Also, grow stuff you want to use but that's hard to find. For example, I love to cook Thai food and some of the ingredients are hard to find in stores, so I have a kaffir lime tree and I grow coriander mainly for the roots (which are not sold in stores here - the leaves are plentiful and cheap). Finally, any kinds of herbs are great. They are easy to grow in pots, and expensive in the stores.
@@noodlegawd excellent points! I grow perennial kales, choggia beets and several pumpkins that are hard to come by. It makes it a fun hobby :)!
Damn this is a lot of really good sounding advice.
Fertilizer does not replenish micronutrients such as boron, magnesium, molybdenum, copper, selenium and many many more,
You just add nitrogen etc so that the plants can grow faster (as nitrogen is the building block of protein) but they lack proper health themselves and are not as healthy and tasty for consumers
I love Radishes, and they're expensive to buy a lot of, so, growing a lot of them myself, is a godsend.
Oh and yeah, it all depends on what you want to grow, as one can grow things in the winter as well, leeks and onions are good to plant in the winter, so one can harvest their seeds later. And Lettuce and Kale can be grown in the winter as well.
Potatoes need a lot of fertilizers, and a lot of CO2, well all of those plants needs a lot of CO2, trust me, if the air levels of CO2 were doubled or tripled, you'd see double or triple the yield. Oh and the more CO2 in the air, the less water your plants will use, because the process of converting CO2 and Water to Sugar via photosynthesis is solely dependent on CO2, and the plants just use water evaporating to trap CO2, and the more CO2 there is, the easier that process is. . . So having more CO2 is a bit hard to control, especially since there are too many doofuses that doesn't understand science screaming CO2 bad... ain't a farmer out there who'd ever say those words. But yeah, Ecolosers and Vegans are about the least intelligent sobs on the planet.
UA-camrs really out here breaking their comfort zones and routine for one whole year for a 20 minute video. I love it.
They make roughly 4k per million views, his view count is 4.7 million.
Cool video, but his dad has greenhouse, so kinda doubt he's too far out of comfort zone.
@@martinmoore6971 where do you get that math from ? I"ve been doing YT for 14 years. you get $1,000 per 1 mill
@@goodluck when have you ever gotten a million views dawg?
@@hr6703 my other account is damodder100hd
I'm a biologist. I know how it works...but growing plants is still like magic to me! The Royal Horticultural Society has some great tips to get buddy gardeners started and it's all free.
I live in Florida, and to me it seems like magic (or maybe something more sinister!) Except for sweet potatoes which are practically invasive and take over half the yard!
@@micheleh5269 bruh free sweet potatoes
I was looking for this comment ! I can't imagine that any level of scientific education would chip away at the wonder of seeing a seed sprout and turn into a full plant.
@@lucasmoreel8126 sadly science is under attack right now. There's a lot of people who think they can change science to fit their own ideals rather than accepting it for what it is. The study of our natural world and all the wonder it brings. I like to think of science as artistic in some ways. There is beauty in form and function!
It's a miracle but the human eyes have gotten so used to it :)
A handful (or two) of helpful hints to (possibly) turn "failures" into "success":
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1. Take the tomatoes that got eaten by the bugs and don't throw them away. You will notice they still have seeds in them, which will grow into next year's tomato crop. Spread the seeds out (along with their gelatinous insides) on a paper towel and dry them. Some people even cut a thin slice of tomato (with seeds inside) and plant it directly in the ground. The gelatin inside is food for the plants, but you can boost their startup, especially considering you have bees. When you start each tomato seed, surround it with a drop of honey and some cinnamon. That will give it the nourishing boost it needs in its critical first days of sprouting.
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2. To get rid of slugs, put out a saucer or soup bowl with beer in it. Slugs will get attracted to it, crawl inside, get drunk, and drown. If you don't put out all the beer, when the slugs are gone, you can celebrate and get drunk on the rest of it.
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3. Another culprit for tomatoes is the tobacco hornworm, which can grow as large as your thumb. When the plants are dry, dust them with food-grade diatomaceous earth. It's basically microscopic shards of silica glass that tears up the juicy bodies of the bugs and dehydrates them. Since rain rinses the dust off, reapply after storms (once the plants are dry again).
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4. If you find that not all of the tomato flowers are getting pollinated, help them out a bit. Take an electric toothbrush and touch the back of the flower. It will loosen the pollen and will increase your yield dramatically, as tomatoes are technically self-pollinating.
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5. Change which bed you plant the tomatoes in, each year, as they tend to strip the soil of a lot of the nutrients; it will give them the best chance of thriving. Also, use an old blender or food processor to chop up the tomato stalks and leaves and mulch the area with them. All of the vitamins and minerals that were trapped in the plants will get returned to the soil.
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6. Cut your seed potatoes into slips (chunks like you did when cooking them), making sure each slip has at least one eye. Each piece will grow into a full plant just as the whole potatoes did.
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7. Plant potatoes in expanding fabric barrels. Start out with the barrel folded down and put potato slips into 4 inches of soil. As the plant starts to grow, roll the fabric bag upwards and add more soil to cover all but the very top couple of leaves. All of the buried leaves will now sprout additional potatoes on them. Be sure to use the dark black fabric barrels, as potatoes are a hot weather crop that are also very intolerant of light (which causes the potatoes to discolor). The bags are available on Amazon for about $20 for 3 bags. This should grow enough potatoes to encompass the entire two rows you planted, but only take up the horizontal space of 3 plants.
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8. Practice "lasagna gardening" (look it up on Google). Dig into your soil and layer black and white newsprint sheets. They will decompose, loosen the soil and block the light so all the weed seeds will get cooked and not sprout. Also, when you put down a layer of newspaper, add any of last year's plant stuff as mulch, and wet the whole thing down. If possible, also spread a layer of earthworms in the garden, as they help to create mulch. And if you don't get into too much trouble with your environmental agencies, before you wet the newspaper, burn it it and it creates "bio-char" (or use the wood ash from your pizza oven). Note: If you smoke, don't touch the tomato plants with your bare hands. Tobacco mosaic virus will get to those plants, and if an infected plant rubs against a healthy one, it can transfer the virus. Also don't use cigarette ashes as mulch. As a top layer, use some black garden fabric or black plastic with small holes punched in it for water drainage. The sun will heat up the fabric and speed up the mulch/decomposition process.
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9. One more tomato suggestion: I noticed that you were very effective in pruning the non-fruit-bearing branches from your tomato plants. Try this trick: leave the very bottom branch (the sucker) attached and bury the middle part of it in the soil with just the top of it sticking out. It will root itself and become another entire tomato plant.
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10. Many root crops will sprout new plants by cutting off the leafy top portion and propping it up in a jar of water. Check out this article, which pertains to carrots: www.gardeningchannel.com/carrots-regrown-from-tops/
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I guess that's a couple handfuls (10 ideas = 10 fingers worth). Enjoy and best of luck in your garden.
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11. Ok, here's another one for good measure: Cucumbers can grow vertically quite easily. As the plant starts to spread along the ground, pick up the end of the plant and gently weave it into a trellis, which can be something as simple as 3-4 pieces of stick, tied together in a teepee formation, with additional twine wrapped around it. Keeping the cucumbers off the ground will help prevent them rotting.
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12. And here's one more to make an even dozen: Plant marigolds around your tomato plants. The essential oils in the plant help drive away the caterpillars and moths.
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Ok, NOW you can enjoy!
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George (gen81465)
Thank you
You're awesome..... wow.... thank you so much for all this info!!!
Saving this for when I actually have my own place and can use this information... thanks!
Wow! You’re amazing, love all your tips! Thank you! 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
This guy plants.
A few pieces of unsolicited advice:
1. Tomatoes only like their toes to get wet, so water at the base. Try to keep water off the leaves, as this will contribute to blight.
2. Throw the blighted tomatoes in your garbage, not your compost. You don't want to spread any diseases or bad microbes back into your soil.
3. If the beer trick doesn't work for the slugs, try copper tape, broken eggs shells or straw. They don't like any of those.
4. Wait for the potato plants to turn yellow and fall over before harvesting.
5. When strawberries start emerging, place straw underneath the plant to keep slugs away and keep the fruit from dragging on the ground. (Hence the name "strawberries 🍓)
6. Larger courgettes (?) (we call them zucchini the U.S.) will drain the most energy from the plant so check your plants daily. However, it seems like there's always one that get away.
The squash flowers are also edible.
7. I like to "hide" crops in my front yard, as well. Try mixing lettuces, green beans or peppers here and there. No one will notice but you.
We have six blueberry bushes in our front yard. They look like regular landscape shrubs.
8. Most importantly, have fun with it! After a while you'll know what works and what doesn't.
And if you really want to care about things you'll learn the difference between the slug species as well so you focus on culling the invasive ones while relocating the native snails as they are very important decomposers who already struggle with the fact that the invasive snails will eat them. Keep your garden healthy by keeping your environment living.
i want to start doing basic crop gardening, ill keep this in mind. thank you for the tips
@@dead1097 I agree. That's why I'd rather use things like broken egg shells and straw.
This is such solid advice.
The zuccvibi Might have had a fungus idk the englisch nsme but in german It is Mehltau wich is a fungus on the top side of the leave identifyable by the easy test if rubbing the leav if it is that fingus it will be rubbed off and its a white fuzzy coat
Recently I found out if you crush eggshells and sprinke them around your plants it will stop slugs and snails from going all over them. I had a similar issue last year.
Why do snails hate eggs?
Its like walking on glass to them@@40watt53
@@40watt53 It’s more that the sharp edges of the crushed shells damage them and act as a deterrent.
@@jeng9927dam 😂, why not just use razor blades then
Copper tape is wonderful! 😊
Maybe I'm late, but here's some advice:
Let the potato plant dry up at the end of the season for optimal yield. When it dries the plant makes the potatoes bigger to survive the hersh winter.
Yep these are young potatos he harvested they cant be storaged for long.
I have heard that you should wait for the potatoes leafs to turn yellow, and that’s when you know they are ready to be harvested. Maybe it’s connected
The potatoes grow as long as the leaves are green. So if you wait until the leaves will have been gone brown, the potatoes would have grown bigger.
did you see his new video on another channel? He completely removed the garden and turned it into an awesome koi pond!
@@Max_Gao I feel a garden is a lot better
Yeah but at the same time baby spuds washed, but not skined steamed and butter... YUM
@@Max_Gao I bet you enjoy telling children about Father Christmas too! 😠
@@Max_Gao Its not Him. Its from his brother
The literal cost of the vegetables you grew may have been only 64 pounds, but the feeling of happiness, self-satisfaction, and self-reliance were worth at least a million pounds, easily! Great job, my friend!
For everything else, there's MasterCard™.
Not to forget his vegetables are also (probably) organic. If he would incorporate that aswell he will see that he made more than he thought
And the taste. Home grown tomatoes are so, so much nicer than mass produced shop tomatoes.
@@AndrewLighten There is a world of difference. Anybody who has never tasted an actual sun-ripened tomato has no idea what a tomato even really tastes like. We live in a state that has a large number of commercial tomato farms and we locals don't eat those tomatoes. We refer to them as "shipping tomatoes", not "eating tomatoes". They're designed to transport well, sit in a warehouse, then sit on the store shelf for a long time and still look pretty, that's all. Most big farms do have smaller patches of those good "eating" ones and they do sell them locally. Grow some yourself and you'll see the supermarket has been cheating you out of flavor all these years lol
I dont know what this guy is on but I grow about $2k of veggies in the same area as this guy and spend about $50-100 a year on materials. Im pretty certain if I sprinkled seeds in the ground and did absolutely nothing Id still grow more than $100 worth. This video just showed one guy who is absolutely useless at gardening.
I love how you added it all up and showed how much money you saved or didn't save, but the true value of this experience is your new knowledge and the joy of watching something grow from your own yard, free from chemicals and growth hormones. I would pay double for that, well done!!
While you didn't turn a profit, you created something you'll enjoy for years to come, and created something for millions to enjoy. I can really appreciate this type of video, something that takes a year to make is no small task. Keep doing what your doing.
It is not always about saving money. When it comes to food, it tastes just so much better to grow your own food than the stuff from the supermarket. Great video for sure.
👍
Yeah, you won't be able to beat the professionals doing agriculture at scale with technology + proper investments. There's a reason why farming is most efficient at scale.
that's extremely subjective and dependent on so many factors that I don't think you should do gardening because "it tastes better", or you might be very disappointed
@@Khaztr
it tastes better 99% of the time - it's more fresh and not picked green. Store bought tomatoes are not even comparable to home grown.
I heard some info that organic food from the stores are like 5% of what they used to be in terms of vitamins and minerals in them,one tomato today equals to around 1/20 of a tomato back in 1970s...
The most valuable thing here isn't the vegetables, but the knowledge gained, and the peace of mind that you can survive on your own if you had to.
wrong it's the power drill and the knife 😛
@@ton1 You cant eat a drill my friend!
@@Lindisfarne666 not with that attitude
Till the garden bandits come
@@Lindisfarne666 If you can, and do, what will you do for your next meal?
Depending on resourcefulness you can definitely cut down on the start up costs. There's videos of people making beds from wooden pallets, you can get seeds from other gardeners or the foods you eat, I even saw a video of someone making their own fertilizers. I think gardening is really beneficial physically and psychologically. Getting outside and moving and breathing the fresh air... watching something you have invested in grow and produce...it's an accomplishment. Theres also the mental stimulation from learning new skills.
With all that clay, those garden boxes could have been free.
Totally inspirational! I built my first raised bed last year and felt the same satisfaction as you growing tomatoes, onions, courgettes, spinach, red cabbage and parsnips. Also planted 15 fruit trees and I’m 68. I love feeling more self sufficient especially as there are shortages in the supermarket fruit and veg isles. Looking forward to year two. Congratulations!
It wasnt inspirational for me to watch someone completely fail at gardening. I could grow $100 of veggies in one window sill while spending under $1. In the same area I spend probably 50-100 and grow 2k of veggies without any problems. It would have been inspirational for him to actually do research and put a little more effort into gardening properly rather than making it look like a waste of time. I can replace my entire diet of produce with home grown organic fruits and veggies with little space and not a lot of effort which is obviously worth a lot more than $100.
@@ar007r Sounds great! Would love to see a video of someone grow $100 worth of veggies in a window sill while spending under $1. Although I rather doubt it.
@Michele H I don't know what you spend on seeds and dirt but they are practically free. The dude in this video has an entire garden bed and only grew 100 of produce. That's like a weeks worth where I'm from. So yes just grow a bunch of basil in a window and in one season you easily would be growing over $100 worth of basil. That's not even hard considering it costs $4-5 for a tiny pack of basil I could eat in one caprase salad. I'm pretty certain I could grow $100 of produce from one plant if harvested properly.
Example $2. One vanilla bean plant can produce enough vanilla to make hundreds of dollars of vanilla extract. Example 3. 1 tomato plant can produce several hundred tomatoes. That's another example of one plant making hundreds of dollars of produce. It's not rocket science but these comments and videos really show how dependent people are on the system. There is literally endless abundance and growing food is dead simple. You can make a 6 figure income (income not revenue) from a 1 acre property. It's not even a matter of chance. You can look up how to do it and simply make yourself that income. Like most things that require a tiny amount of hands on labor, you can easily make more than a doctor. The problem is people are lazy, reliant, and debt ridden.
@@ar007r why don't we encourage young people instead of bringing them down. I don't get the point of your comment about such an inoffensive video.
5 am watching a man grow his knowledge as he grows his crops, you've more than earned a sub mate. Cant wait to see more
Same here
Damn you got me beat im here at 3:00am lol
fk.. same for me lmao. tho it's around 3 am and ye also watched he grow his knowledge
You people who are awake at 3:00 am, you are probably deficient in Progesterone. See a hormone specialist.
9:46 PM. Reasonable bed time gang.
I love the way you went about this. So many gardeners seem to be professionals who know all there is to know, rather intimidating. You give me courage to give it a try. Thank you!
same here
A very human story for sure, one of us.
I get what you mean.
My father died in April 2021. My mother and me tried to keep up with the large garden he had. Trees and vegetables. We didn't know what to do so we got help most of the time.
It's not worth it in money or time spent. But not everything in life is about money.
@@quercus8833 This is somewhat true. There are alot of products that when used improperly will cause plants to fail to produce or even die.
Plants "do just grow" if the conditions are right. Growing outdoors you are restricted to growing plants that can thrive in your weather and season conditions. I know this because I've grown in Australia and in Sweden. It is a very different story.
ALL gardeners were beginners once upon a time. They just kept trying and keep notes as to what works & what doesn't in their areas. You can be great too, it will just take a little time.
Potatoes have turned out to be my favorite vegetable to grow, because I always assumed you needed a big farm to get a decent amount of potatoes, but I've grown them in grow bags and planter boxes, and they take no care at all, really. It does feel like magic, a bit, growing our own food.
You might have lost money growing your own but it looks pretty organic which is priceless. Save your good stock for another crop..overall you did well and I found the video inspiring!
If you travel to the supermarket by car, there is a cost in fuel, so the losses are reduced if you don’t do that as often by having g a home garden!
One thing where you can really win at with home gardening is having fresh herbs like thyme, rosemary, basil, mint etc that you don't use in big quantities, but the moment you need them, you just go to your garden and take the freshest possible stuff you can get. This is also very nice when you have a few pots with herbs indoors during winter, and you still get fresh herbs (which is sometimes they don't sell in winter in some places).
Basil is easy to grow in a pot, just keep it pruned back. In summer I plant them outside, then start a new pot in the Fall. Starting to grow Chives now and Parsley in pots.
Also, herbs are very easy to dry in a low heat 150F oven. Once dried, crumble them up and store in jars. You'll have herbs all year long.
add plants like garlic & onions in a similar way, cause their foliage can be used to create the same flavours while they are growing
They also work as anti-pests in many harvestable plants. So if you plant them alongside they work together. Very nice to have some in your kitchen too.
I love the fact that my local supermarket has rosemary growing all through it's carpark as a landscaping feature, and also sells if for a few bucks for a packet of three short stalks. IF YOU WANT ROSMARY JUST WALK DOWN ANY STREET FOR A BIT AAAAGGGHHH!!! :)
Can you all imagine how much better the world would be if we had more people like Alex, What an absolute treasure you are pal
sure.
but sorry, i cant stop to imagine we get all our 'talents' back.
a peace of land we are abel to grow our food ...
isnt it our planet? or is it owned by old contracts people made which are already dead since a loooooooooooooooooooong time?!
oh yeah, remember how great thr middle ages were? when everything was organic and ppl plabted their own crops?
yeah, great times
Are you one of the people?
you mean if people would farm few vegetables in their garden since they don't have kids to take care of and work 8h/day in order to contribute to society (like producing seeds, packing fertilized soil, making and selling gardening tools, ...) and make sure others like Alex have free time to follow their passion?
Let's be humble for a minute, and not pretend we know better.
@@videojeroki Right lol, imagine being from a family thats well off and not having to work for your things.
We will be forced to do it one day. Own piece of land is a treasure.
For larger potatoes, only leave 1 or 2 sprouts (chits) on each potato. You can even cut them into pieces with 1 or 2 chits on each to make them go further. If you cut them though, let them dry out for a few days before planting to avoid rotting before they sprout :)
Just some tips, my grandma used to step on the onion leafs,like right from the ground where the leaves pop out of the ground (bend them and not break them) , as in put the leafs on floor, at the time where the onions start to grow the flower stick, this way, the onion would stop producing flower and seeds and feed all the food in the bulb, she used to grow massive onions, also harvesting them was being done late summer, when the leaves were completely dry, also potatoes unless you want the summer potatoes that are easy to peel, she used to make potatoes for winter so she would only harvest them when the leaves and stems were dried out
Hi Alex, sorry just discovered you’ve got your own channel. A great first year of growing. A little advice if you don’t mind me giving it. Leave potatoes in the ground and harvest as you need them instead of digging them all up. The ground will keep them fresh and they will continue to grow. Unfortunately that does look like blight on your tomatoes which means it’ll keep coming back. Look for blight resistant toms and pots as they are the same family and are both susceptible to it. You courgettes need to be harvested a lot earlier if you want them to remain courgettes. After a certain size they become marrows. Keep up the great work.
if you do get marrow , remove the seeds , and sometimes the skin if its tough. you can bake or boil it , I like it with cheese sauce or white sauce .
Get out of here with that french nonsense.
Coppersulphate into the soil helps combat blight .
Teaspoon per square metre .....
Not exactly scientific , Grandfather's remedy.
Gypsum breaks up hard soil ( Gypsum walls boards ... the lime in it )
Thanks for reading
Did you know that you combine the potato bottoms with the tomato tops? Just cut them both in the middle of the stock get a tooth pick shove in down the potato stock until half the tooth pick is in the stock then just take the tomato top and stick it on the other part of the tooth pick til it meats the potato stock. It’s that simple 😊.
@@charizardsniper5064 Hahaha No.
I appreciate a video that didn't go absolutely perfect. This was an actual representation of what someone could expect for their first time. Awesome job
As a Canadian, it was quite funny to see you being annoyed about snow in February. We don't really have spring where I live
your vids are top tier. what I love is your meter, in speaking, your excellent up close videography and pictures, your step by step processes, your humility, cheeky humor, and tenacity, and one of the best elements is your transparency; sharing with us your entire journey from beginning to end, including your successes and failures. you're a really intelligent, likeable guy to boot. you are helping me to plan and design sustainability in my life, and for my first new homestead, which I'll be moving into in the next couple months. new fan and following. thank you. lyn from new york
My tip for bigger and more potatoes is leave the plants in the ground as long as possible and slug patrol every night throughout October time. Be sure to ALWAYS PICK THE FLOWERS and if all the leaf matter above the surface has died off completely get them out the ground ASAP to stop the worms getting them, so long you keep the slugs off you're in for monsters - just hold your nerve and keep watering.
Tomatoes do better in shelter and need regular tending from training to supporting - acquire some bamboo and willow and make some columns to support. If you can get them in the conservatory or greenhouse you've reduced the possibility of issues.
Courgettes, try to avoid letting them get to that size - I've had some beasts but the speed of fruiting depletes after getting a big one. If you harvest them young the plant stays in a state of pumping out fruits and not forming seeds inside them.
Cheers, you've inspired me to sort my seed trays out tomorrow - if you've not got a compost heap started yet, get your plant waste in a container of water and keep plant matter topped up and hydrated 1:2 ratio, allow 6 months of maturity before using the super juice that smells like poop so you know it's gonna work wonders. Avoid composting knotweed or seeding grasses, mix regularly to avoid plants from sprouting.
I'm always learning and I've had fails but these have been my tried tips for success.
Can you do potatoes in a green house to avoid the slugs al together?
@@ADM-wt9cn yeah, biggest pot you can find, half barrel ideally. Stick 4 per pot in a wide triangle and a middle one but do not put the points to the very edge. Keep wet and fed and the secret to potatoes is ALWAYS PICK THE FLOWERS.
Or if you're feeling super lazy use big compost bags with small holes at the bottom end and opened up the top. It's easy enough.
During oktober either use copper around the sides or get slug grains for anti slug uses
@@ADM-wt9cn Green house helps a lot, but it also needs resources and time to build (light, heating, watering systems installed etc.)....
@@ADM-wt9cn I have a greenhouse here in Idaho, and I still get slugs.
You can start Garlic and Onions in November for a spring harvest. You take them out, fertilize the ground and immediately replant with your next crop. Its basically a bonus crop.
Also :> If your room mates say you only get to grow on your third of the garden, tell them they can only eat the veg grown on their third
The garlic can be also planted near the root of the tomatoes, they both grew up well together and let you save a little space for something else
Keep in mind that only works in areas with warm winters and no snow. We often have days with -15 to -20 deg and more than 1 meter of snow here in Austria, which makes growing winter crops quite impossible.
@@ivankontenski4396 It depends. Garlic can survive being berried under snow. and it can survive being under it for a longtime. If the cold weather starts with a rapid freeze though, that will kill it.
Compost is a great Fertilizer. Feed the dirt like in nature, such as a forest, forests use no fertilizers, just nature's compost. Buy or use cheaper cow or horse crap.
Animal crap Must be at least several months old or it will burn the plants. Mix really good in the dirt. To prevent burning.
@@ivankontenski4396
Things like snap Peas, Spinach can survive winters plant in fall
I really like your videos because most people just show their success and do it “on the first go” so seeing someone just start and try something out is really refreshing
A point that I want to make regarding the costs of the materials, compost, fruits and vegetables (general things) for people thinking of having their own garden:
- The initial setup can be expensive. However, you will end up getting your money back over time, as all of the things you have planted will be able to be replanted using the leftover seeds (bulbs, cloves, etc.). Gardening and having your own patch to look after can seem like a gigantic investment, but as long as you put in the effort and work maintaining your garden and caring for your plant's needs. You will theoretically have an 'endless' supply of fruits and vegetables! And trust me and many other gardeners, even the best gardeners have killed the most plants because gardening is all trial and error! Happy gardening!
I feel so disconnected with reality sometimes living in a big city, that when I watch videos like these it brings a sense of warmth I cannot explain. Thank you for sharing this process. nature is truly a thing of beauty.
you can grow stuff even in a small space. Lettuce & some leafy greens will grow with minimal lighting & can be eaten as they grow to make them as space efficient as possible. A basic hydroponic light & an old fish tank or similar area for plants will likely give you all the leafy greens & herbs you eat. Sprouts, microgreens & mushrooms are also good options for apartment living
You can always move somewhere else.
Guaranteed this guy also lives in an urban environment. You can live in a city and still have a small garden. You can also grow on a balcony. I recommend Her86m2, another UA-cam channel, for advice on balcony vegetable growing.
This reminds me when I had a chilli garden when I was in 3rd grade,it was just a small project we had to do for recycling so I decided to use some aluminum trays and planted some chili's in it. They sprouted once I took them to school and everyone was amazed. Soon they grew too big so I set up a garden bed in the ground and planted them. They lasted for about two years until my family had gotten into some trouble and I had to stay with another relative. When I got back they all were dead and that kinda hurt me a little since I raised em from when I was young. I'm planning to start another garden soon and it's happy to see other people getting into it.
That's a really sweet story. I hope your gardening goes well!
Start again it's never to late
I really appreciate the size of your garden and your beds. So many videos -- even those tagged "urban" -- feature yards much larger than what I have access to, so seeing what you can do in a really small space is heartening and inspiring. Thanks!
I appreciate you being quite candid about your experience. I started my garden in 2021 and made a loss as well but I do endeavor to not stop
Glad I discovered this video 11 months after it was uploaded. I hope there's a part 2, where he shows how much he got this year. Growing in your own garden is perhaps not very good economywise, but as a passtime it's really great, because it rewards you with free and healthy food
I found this video in the suggested videos from this other video: ua-cam.com/video/sPWtKljdkUs/v-deo.html
I think they're brothers, and brother No. 2 made a huge Koi pond in this same garden. Don't think there will be a part 2...
@@redlion145 LOL! Well, I decided to subscribe to this channel anyway. The travelling videos on here are pretty good
Not free... he paid for it with hard work! Thats the value and process most of us have forgotten or never learned. Once upon a time, there was no such thing as money.
Oh it's very good economywise! He is just still learning. Last year only my tomato harvest was like 40kg. Additionally, you get the benefit of vegetables, which actually have a taste instead of being like plastic + you know they are BIO....
@@Greenar88 how vegetables is not bio?
I mean if you mean without pesticide or more chemicals stuff to increase the production or to preserve as much vegetables as possible, yes since you know what you put.
(I think we can artificial creat vegetables but as far as I know it's still not massively produce and is still to expensive compared to cultivate yourself so we can stipulate that every vegetables are mostly and only bio)
Your one time costs need to be averaged over the useful time you will be using them. Also, now you have learned a lot. Can hardly waite to see what you do this year. BTW, when you harvest your first potatoes, do not harvest them in a row--harvest one plant, then skip a plant and harvest the next one. Only harvest the amount you will be eating immediately, at leaswt till the growing season is over.
During non-grow months, try to put dead leaves and other organic materials on your grow plots. Try putting a few garlic in the ground in late September. Leave the carrots in the ground, pick them only as you use them.
That or learn to store your potatoes individually, wrapping them in newspaper and keeping them cool tends to work well
This has gotten me so excited!! I can't wait to have gardens in the front & back... to can & jar things, to preserve. It's gonna be great, I can feel it.
What a truly fantastic video on how to grow your own veg and to see this harvest especially for your first year is truly brilliant
Good on ya 👏🏻
Lookup companion planting. It’s especially useful if you have limited space. The idea is that you plant stuff together that helps each other. One of the more famous is the “three sisters” - corn, beans and squash. The corn stalk gives something for the beans to climb, the beans put nitrogen into the soil and the squash leaves shade the ground to hold in moisture. You will find all sorts of variations all with different benefits like soil fertilization and bug protection.
You had mentioned chickens and I highly recommend them. Not sure what the laws are where you live, but backyard chickens are great! They eat bugs and even small rodents, they give you eggs and their waste is an extremely rich fertilizer. I think 3-6 is perfect size for a backyard flock. I have 20 chickens right now and in the winter I let them roam my garden. When I clean the coop I dump the litter in the garden during the winter.
Also, lookup vertical planters. You could grow a ton of greens and strawberries in vertical planters. They take very little space and you can get extremely high yields.
Also (sorry), for potatoes, lookup potato towers. With a tower, you could get 100 or more potatoes from a 3x3 tower.
If you’re looking for a natural pesticide - boil hot peppers and save the liquid. Put it in a sprayer and add a couple of drops of oil of oregano and mint oil. It will keep most bugs off I’ve found. The downside is you will have to reapply after you water or it rains. And in my area, it seems to attract deer for some reason. The mint maybe.
Great video!
Companion gardening, as a practice, is the act of planting plants together to form a guild. Usually that amounts to at least 2 annuals and one perennial. The idea is to get beneficial fungi to colonize the perennial that the yearly annuals can jack into every year.
Fruit trees are usually a good choice for the perennial.
Won't the chickens eat your plants and seeds?
@@nikkivanzanen I don’t let my chickens in the garden during growing season. Some people do. I think you need to know what plants they’ll eat and put up barriers to keep them away. You have to protect sprouts too. The bonus is that the chickens eat bugs and slugs that would harm your plants. It’s a hassle but if you find a balance that works, can be great for the garden.
Rhubarb and strawberries grow well together too. 😁
@@nikkivanzanen The squash plants have very prickly stalks and leaves, which extend out a couple feet. That keeps a lot of critters away from your beans and corn, although a really determined raccoon will still find a way to get to the corn.
You learned self sustainability and home grown crops are cleaner and more delicious. As a gardener it makes my heart happy to see a young man grow food.
When you trim hazel, you need to take the thinner trunks as they sprout from the base. The aim is to take what you need with minimal impact to its foliage spread.
Wonderful stuff! I love your willingness to learn and try new things- an ethic that will never fail you. Field to table fare surely teaches you to appreciate where your food originates. Again, keep up the fine learning and content creation!
Love your video, you can grow more in less space by using aqua ponics, fix some gutters to your fence, fill with small stone gravel and pump your fish pond water through the guttering on a timer. Plants use the fish waste as food, water gets cleaned And returns to the pond with all the harmful nitrates and nitrites removed. Turbo charges growth because of the aeration to roots. You can literally have a wall of herbs, veggies, strawberries, lettuce. 😉
Sounds pretty cool!
Strawberries for sure love it so much XD I aim for vertical farming
@@just_alex Sounds cool, however there is a reason aquaponics haven't been implemented on a bigger scale. It's really hard to properly balance out. Most commercial farmers going that route as going belly up in less then five years. Even if they have experience on a smaller scale, it's hard to scale.
@@patrickd9551 it depends because thete are places in Africa and Colombia doing Aquaphonics in grand scale successfully for over 10 years.
Why not just buy a "sonic bloom" box? Build the soil with cardboard and compost. In the end, you remove hours and hours of your time spent 'gardening'.
Growing as much of your own food as possible is very rewarding, plus it doesn't get any fresher. Alex, there's nothing disappointing in those small potatoes. Give them a good wash and they're perfect in with a pot roast or roasted chicken and vegetables.
What a great video, growing your own food seems difficult, but the pleasure you get out of cooking and eating your own food is amazing, great job for your first time.
Great job on this video. Captures the very essence of raised bed gardening. I laughed with you when you found the big Zuke! Haha. So many wonderful lessons learned when gardening. Everyone should give it a go.
When pricing up your produce you have to bear in mind yours are organic. In the supermarkets they are more expensive. I live in Malta and we suffer with alot of snails and slugs and we also use crushed up eggshells. We use mixtures of banana skins and coffee grounds which helps our crops alot . We have high temperatures so in the summer everything dries and the majority die off.
It's only truly organic if the soil is also organic. Not all soil and soil additives are organic.
Hum, try leaving out beer in a bowl or pie dish, snails and slugs crawl in and not back out (not sure if drown or just drunk)
@@jcus300 nah they know where is the best to spend their retirement
to get rid of snails…. you can pour garlic water on the ground, too. this is a tip from the first episode of the irish series “greatest gardens.”
@@jcus300 If you pour a beer in a dish outside, you'll have me hanging around and it won't solve your slug problem :D
I remember my grandpa was always a man that kept a huge garden with tomatos potatos shallots onions everything you could think of, and yeah there was lots of work put into it but damn i could swear everything tasted so much better than even the most expensive product that i buy now in the so called "Green Supermarkets", such that I've made it a personal goal to build enough wealth so i can spend my years after 50 in the country side with a huge garden lots of pets and delicious fruits and vegies that i grow myself, videos like this one help enforce that goal 🙏😊
Yes! We share the same vision. Much love to you, I know we will get there.
@@hannahwillis9838 thank you, cheers to us getting there 🥂🙏
My honest advice is you shouldn’t wait. Grow small today. What if you don’t make it to 50?
Wow, thanks for sharing your dream. I am living it myself and it's my main joy in life. I own 1/2 acre of land I've gardened on since I bought it (now own). Next month I'm semi retiring with Social Security and have even bigger plans for this year. I lost my partner of 33 years to lung cancer last summer so it's just me now. But by canning potatoes and also storing them down basement, tons of spaghetti sauce, sauerkraut, fermented pickles, hundreds of heads of garlic, lots of onions and plenty of frozen vacuum sealed peas and beans have given me so much food over this winter that will last well into late Spring. Gardening is food for the soul too, and in dreary cold winter days I plot and plan and garden in my head for the better weather on the way. Plant what you can even in five gallon buckets if that's all you can do. Heck, I even saved the clothes dryer drum to plant potatoes in this year and made all my raised beds for free from wooden pallets, even reused the nails. You can garden on the cheap if you’re crafty, it's worked well for me. Check into Korean Natural Farming (KNF) and master Cho here on YT. Homemade fertilizers from weeds, fish guts (awesome stuff) and soil boosting bacteria (Jadam JMS) very simply made from a handful of great forest soil, a cooked potato for microbe food and a five gallon bucket. It's all here on UA-cam and I just thrill to see us gardeners here like y'all sharing and gettin enthusiastic.
@@JackONeill497 True but i live in the city and i dont have any land of mine right now, hopefully saving for that but with multiple obligations right now for other family member its kinda hard to move in a spot for myself without hurting them financially, hopefully im alive and well, if not it was never meant to be anyways, im more happy to fix my family issues for now since dying without doing them would be a way more regretful death than any other for me :)
My dad built me a raised bed literally the weekend before the very first lockdown here in the UK. I grew beans, tomatoes and lettuces, among other things, and during that first lockdown I had fresh salad every day - wonderful during the heatwave we had! My garden has never since looked so good - or had quite as brilliant a yield of veggies. Mostly because our British weather - slugs are my nemesis! They go after all the tender shoots the moment they’ve started poking their heads above the soil.
Thank you very much for getting me with yaa on your road, it was quite refreshing and inspiring!
There are a lot of things you missed in your configurations that make growing your own food more cost effective than you think. Also, here in the US you have regular food and organic food, your food would have to be compared to the Organic prices wich is way more expensive. I love seeing younger people taking such an interest in being more self sufficient and healthier, keep up the great work because the longer you do it, the more cost effective it becomes. Make sure you learn how to harvest your own seeds from your crops, it's a real money saver!
Organic food is a thing in the UK too
This video encourages people who would like to start planting their food. It's insane how much effort you have to put into this content, and I hope other UA-camrs will do the same. Thank you for giving us genuine and honest content.
Thank you for being honest with your numbers and cost comparisons. You didn't boast or exaggerate and kept it simple. And, good job!
Your storytelling ability is incredible. Thanks for sharing your stories.
Love the part where he said "I might need to get chickens" as a solution to deal with the slugs.
My man, if he had ONE chicken it would absolutely murder every living thing on a 5 mile radius of his garden.
expect for slugs. He need ducks for that
he wouldnt habe plants to save hhhhhhhhhh
He's gotta get a duck, way less destructive
Would always destroy his garden
@@lmaChromaI agree wholeheartedly, ducks leave plants alone mostly but you can’t trust them around strawberries in my experience
Don't also forget that your food would have been grown in a lot more organic way than anything store bought so much higher prices would be asked for it.
Additionally, everything is energy and when you put love into growing and preparing your food it is a lot more nutricious.
BTW, when you grow your own potatoes and don't use any nasty chemicals to do so, you can definitely eat the skins. They give baked and even cooked potatoes (with butter, yum) a lot more "potatoe" flavour and also there is a lot of extra nutrients in the skins. Same with carrots :-)
Just to let you know your channel has inspired me to do bee keeping and grow my own mushrooms and garden. I would like to thank you for making this stuff both informative and entertaining. You are great at what you do and so I say thanks,thanks for inspiring me to live a better more fulfilling life and I look forward to watching your channel in the future.
Im so proud of you and happy for you.I started and failed when I started my balcony garden last year. But knowing it was from a lack of knowledge and research as well as beginner's eagerness. I gave myself grace and mercy while learning to do better which I have. Though no matter how long you've been gardening every gardener learns something new all the time.
I love to imagine a day where we all grow our food and get back to the roots of nature.
There is so much to learn from gardening, it’s almost like the language of the planet… a delicious language full of nutrients and hidden knowledge.
Absolutely. If we lived in areas where we shared land with others, I think growing food together would create a great sense of trust and bond. Food is a primal motivation; which can be what bonds us together, or pins us against each other. Depends on if we are in the hunt or in the harvest. Very fascinating
Yes, and also what the gardening does to our body and mind. We will gain healt from moving around outdoors. Fresh air, D-vitamin from the sun, inhailing the good bacterials from the soil and much more, makes it easier to keep up good healt. And if we choose to garden organic, we won't be eating chemicals.
Hunting is natural, not eating random man-made plants.
@@Leon.Stanic you may be missing some crucial context and information in your statement, depending on what you are talking about.
Keep in mind these vegetables aren't found in nature. They were "made" by humans, for human consumption
I have been gardening on my small rocky estate since 2010. I have 5 6 x 12 raised bed gardens. I also grow potatoes and sweet potatoes in containers. The abundance of these gardens amazes everyone. Huge yields. I can greens, beans, salsa, pasta sauce, carrots and more.
During the spring and early summer I eat mostly greens like lettuce, collards, turnip greens and cabbage. The health benefits are huge.
This is what everybody who has land available needs to do.
When you go to the store, you spend 3 times as much because you end up buying splurge items. Plus, there’s no price on home grown organic food.
Another thing is you don't have to put the entire potatoes into the ground for it to grow.
Just cut the sprout region with a bit of potato flesh and then plant them directly into the ground.
In this way you can eat the rest of the potato and turn the entire good gene of a big potato into multiple potato plants.
potatoes are so versatile it doesn't really matter
although if you are going to cut them, you need to let them scab over for at least a few days otherwise it's like putting an open wound into the soil.
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I discovered your channel a few days back and want you to know that your enthusiasm and curiosity gave me such a lift! It’s been so much fun watching you dive straight into some of the same rabbit holes i’ve explored in my 60 years and finding that your discoveries bring me as much joy as my own.
This comment makes me very happy. Thank you for taking the time to write it. I’m glad you found the videos! 😊
@@just_alex if you ever want to visit a temperate rain forest, I live in WA state, US and my partner and I own 20 acres of conserved old growth forest…We have tons of chanterelles and a creek that meanders through where salmon are beginning to spawn again. happy day to you!
That was great Alex. I did basically the same thing with posting it on youtube. I retired from a 35 year career at Verizon and spent my time and energy on a handicapped friendly raised bed garden as directly after retiring arthritis ended my ability to walk. The raised beds are high enough to work them from a wheelchair. I did not raise enough to have any impact on my grocery costs but it definitely fed my soul in ways unexpected. This year I’m going to add three more raised beds and raised furrow as long as my yard and about two feet wide. I’m in a wheel chair now but my garden still brings me vegetables and smiles.
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UA-cam does not have Section 230 protections as this video as been "randomly" suggested to everyone. I was watching someone react to YT videos on Twitch & this video came up on recommended. UA-cam is 100% an editor, this isn't even debatable
This is so amazing! It’s like what every beginner gardener hopes for! Congrats you did amazing
I really appreciate you sharing the costs at the end. Thank you!
I love young people who discover the joy of growing their own food. You are an ideal young man, Alex, whose meaningful projects keep you doing wholesome activities and keep you out of stupid stuff. Keep it up! Also, next year wait until your potato leaves are all brown and collapsed to get the maximum yield.
As a little girl I wanted to grow vegetables. My mum told me to try growing potatoes under my window sill where the ground was really hard. She said they would turn the soil to gold. She wasn’t far off. Hard, rocky dirt was turned into lush brown soil that produced a beautiful crop of 30 or so potatoes:-)
This actually inspired me to get a small garden next year! Shame the summer is ending and I need to wait.
I took 1"copper water pipes and scratched them up with sandpaper, cut them to 4' lengths and pushed one each down 2' into the middle of each garden. The slugs hate it! Great video and fabulous gardens.
The initial outlay always means that you are running at a loss, but does get cheaper especially if you have contact with other growers who can pass seeds/plants, on to you and if you produce your own compost etc. However, I am sure that all of your produce tasted much better than produce purchased from the supermarket.
Agreed. Year after year, if you save your own seeds and make your own compost from kitchen waste and yard waste, the cost in subsequent years is near zero. He could have saved even a fraction of the smaller potatoes and regrown them the next year for a larger and larger harvest year after year with no monetary outlay. When I first started I put about $30 out in tomato seeds alone, to get a large selection of heritage breeds. It's now 15 years later and I haven't bought seeds again since. Just keep saving seeds from my best tomatoes, fermenting them, drying them, plant again next year.
Agreed. I have very little costs year to year anymore. Save seeds (stored in faulty mason jars that can no longer be used for heat processing), compost (3-bin system made from scrounged pallets, plus it diverts about 50-60% of our household waste), tools (had for years or bought at yard sales), water collection (1000L x 2 tanks that collect rainwater from gutters, paid $100 years ago for them, paid for themselves after a season or two of not needing city water). I did invest in grow lights for starting plants, they took 2 seasons to pay off vs buying started plants. We also spent like $35 a few years ago on an rv pump that we hooked up to an old battery and a scrounged solar panel and charger to make watering easier/faster. We also have lots of perennial crops, like rhubarb, apples, raspberries, gooseberries, strawberries, chives & garlic chives, oregano, walking onions etc. They require very little care besides getting cut back/trimmed (they will take over otherwise!). Our next project isn't the gardens but in the house and create a proper cold room. Right now, we compost several hundred pounds of apples a year because we don't have a space to store them properly and I can't process/can/dry them fast enough! That's on top of what we give away (our 2 tress are very productive and are at least 20 years old, probably older).
Here’s a tip for anyone planning to garden every year: switch up where you planted the vegetables because the spot you had the first year has nutrients that is great for other plants and vice versa.
Rot cropation
It’s good for the soul to garden. You’ve gained a lot of knowledge from your experiences, and that is priceless. I enjoyed your video. I just found your channel and really enjoyed it. Happy gardening
That was absolutely beautiful to watch! I enjoyed a lot watching you grow your garden.... Well done! 👍👍👍
I loved your excitement at growing your own food and the miracle of plant growing.
I feel exactly the same in my garden.
It saves more money the longer you do it. I can't wait to be able to do this when I get a home. I love seeing how small yours is and how much you were able to get from it. I hope your crops grow better each year!
Wow it‘s so nice to watch you getting more and more interested into gardening during the video. 😊👍
I did a similar thing at my last house and turned my front yard (full sun) in to raised garden beds. I had 3 8ftx4ft boxes that were 2.5ft tall. I did the math and in Canada I produced about $500 in produce per box, per year. The trick is to grow what you love, but also great producers like Snow Peas, Sugar Snap Peas, Kales, Cherry Tomatoes, Smaller cucumbers, etc. I also grew a lot of varieties you can't find in the grocery store, a huge herb garden etc. You can't put a price on the education from mother earth, and those meals made with your own hard work! I was so satisfied watching your harvest, and you've only grown since this 2 year old video! Thumbs up from your fellow green thumb!
This is great. I grew up on a farm until I was 15 and was a market gardener for 15 years before I retired. You are doing it right Alex. Don't worry about the startup costs as they will amortize over 10-15 years. Good luck.
He removed the garden and put in a koi pond. Check his latest video :(
the fact that you got that good of a harvest your first year is amazing. even if you didn't make money or break even. keep doing it and with in another year or two you'll be on top of it. great job. also i would like to see an update video
If you are frugal about growing a garden you might save money but it truly is an indescribable feeling watching a garden grow that represents all your hard work.
Look into companion planting! Like flowers that help with pollination and pollinators- I’m still breaking out into gardening myself so I’m still learning but from what I’ve heard, they help with your crops! And the flowers are pretty to look at 🥰
Hello Alex I did my first garden patch last year was great fun and tasty food. Little tip for the slugs. Break up old egg shells and scatter them around the base of the plants/beds stops them getting too it as they don’t like sharpness. Good luck next season 🙌🏼 .
I would have loved to see you do a second year of your vegetable garden and the crop productions and learnings you made from that. Best crops to grow with biggest yield etc, pest control.
I feel the same about planting seeds, miraculously new plants then most miraculously produce vegetables, fruits, and or flowers.
Very rewarding. I'm in the process of raising mine as you are here.
Loved your video. It was real. Another little tip is if I buy spring onions I plant one. Leave it in the ground like forever and I have an ongoing crop of scallions. Gorgeous in egg sandwichs and salads. Happy growing Alex. Thank you.
beginner here; don't you pull it up to harvest it? How is it an ongoing crop? Thanks
Every new gardener will discover that there's (usually) a net loss (financially) in start up but in harvesting, we know we're getting nourished, it's fresh, it's organic (if we go that way, which I do) we feel accomplished, _and_ nourishing the soil (if organically grown) to produce for our next plantings. Good luck in the future and I look forward to seeing more of what you do!
When calculating your input and harvest costs don't forget the amount of pleasure and enjoent you have gained from your exploits. That in my opinion is priceless!
I'm sure you'll agree that your home grown produce tasted far better than what you've been used to from the supermarket!
That's how I feel with my garden I'm just winging it and hoping for the best. Is now 2 years since we moved to Florida and it just felt right to start a garden in hopes that I didn't have to do much watering and saving money that way but like you mention every year will be more saving
What a nice job you did ! I wish I could have a yard to plant some stuff. Best regards from Brazil 🇧🇷
Hi Alex! This is just brilliant. I have seen so many gardening videos in past 5 years and yet I think the simplicity and honesty wrapped up in so professionnal video making (looks like a BBC documentary!) is an inspiration. Thanks Alex! Keep up the good work.
I dug over about 3 square feet of my front garden over 5 years ago. I then planted some seed potatoes around the space. There really is nothing better than watching them grow, then harvesting and eating them.
The great thing is though, after that first year I didn't do anything to the space and yet every Summer since, I have had a crop of fresh potatoes.
Alex, although the initial outlay was probably costly, it will pay for itself over time. But the best thing is, food you grow yourself, always tastes better than the stuff you buy in supermarkets.
You got another subby cos of this vlog mate. Keep up the good work and remember, learning is what life is all about......
Great journey thanks for sharing! Gardening isn't really ever cost effective compared to buying into a local CSA/crop share, or if you just do it in huge rows in the ground instead of perfect raised beds. But, it's so rewarding and healthy. Especially if you can and preserve your food so you can enjoy it in the winter!
Very well done. I am impressed that you two recommended me this channel to be quite frank. I am very proud of you Alex, that is definitely one of my lifelong dreams.
I just stumbled upon your channel and this was the first video i saw and honestly there's something so pure in the way you're excited about growing your own plants and vegetables, considering the fact you're not even some professional but just a lad who decided to try this. It actually made me happy and also determined to try it myself this year. Subscribed because your content and your genuine personality really got me. Thank you
Nice job. I am right there with you. I discovered how many tomatoes 15 plants produced, and found myself turning them into tomato paste! It was toooo many tomatoes but the paste condensed them and I discovered that I Love tomato paste!
I never appreciated it before and homemade tomato paste is frickin delicious compared to store bought. So much flavor that you can eat it with anyyyyything. Combined with that pizza oven be very flavorful paste produced.
Really is, when the farmers market has discounts I try to buy some extra pounds to make my own paste. Good with everything.
Lots of folks do winter sowing. There's a youtube channel that shows all about it! Then when your weather is FINALLY cooperating, your seedings are more than ready!
I love how you say 15C sunny and “warm”. That is a typical winters day temperature where I live. High of 12-16C low of 2-8At night.