One thing I always caution people about that live in Cities and Towns where the grass clippings, brush and tree trimmings are all collected by their Municipality. Many places take all this "yard waste" to their local dump site and pile it up to decompose. They then allow the citizens to come get that "composted" material at a price per load in their pickup trucks or on trailers. The key here is what did the previous owners spray or put on their lawns to keep them pretty and green? What was sprayed or applied to their shrubbery, mulched areas to keep down weeds, etc. You want to be very careful as you may be loading up your raised beds or tilling into your garden soil actual Poison, Round-Up, etc. and who knows what else. Please be careful folks...
This is true. I worked in Solid waste for many years and although municipal compost programs mean well there is no quality control. Material is essentially collected at times by the same trucks that collect household waste. Many times After receiving compost from the giveback programs I observed bits of glass, plastic debris and who knows What else.
You are so very right! I got so called mulch from my town for the community garden and I'll tell you, we had literally bags of plastic bag pieces, bottle caps, wires and any number of inorganic things in the mix. It was awful!! I dread getting anything from them this year. Luckily we were just using it as ground cover, but still wasn't happy about it.
I'm in the suburbs in a near-treeless group of homes immediately around mine. My husband and I put in a raised bed a couple years ago. We couldn't afford to fill with potting soil, but our soil here is mostly clay. I saved shreds from our paper shredder for months as we installed our bed, digging down to put in vole-discouraging mesh a foot down. Any piece of paper we didn't want I shredded. I also saved all the coffee grounds, and got some free from a local Starbucks. The first year we didn't even try to fill the bed, just add a few inches of material and top with a few bags of soil. The garden didn't do super well, but we also started months too late (early June in IN) due to the time required in building it. Last year I added more coffee grounds, more paper shreds, and more soil. Garden did quite well. I also mulched part of it with paper shreds for weed control once the plants were growing. Lots of worms are very active in that bed! Can't wait to get started this year.
Good stuff. I have a small urban garden in London, UK, so don't have access to the vegetation you used. However, I soon discovered that it was too expensive buying bags of compost or top soil so bought a compost bin. We don't eat a lot of vegetables, however, the worms love my old teabags, egg shells, toilet rolls, newspapers, banana skins, odd dead bird, porous circulars, and a few dead leaves and all old plants that are not weeds. It never ceases to amaze me when after about 8 months two thirds of the bin is rich black lush soil full of happy worms! God is so clever!!
20 years ago as a young Tree worker, whom did not know anything compared to now. I explained this method to a manager whom was a ISA certified arborist for at least 22 at that time. He took a week of research to answer me that my years of trial and error this method is best. Thanks for proving my thoughts and experience are valid. Joe the tree guy.
I am one of those new gardeners since my wife had a stroke! I am fortunate to have woods near by and I also have a huge oak tree in my garden that sheds its leaves each oct/nov time here in Scotland. I built a cloche and then went into the wood with my barrow and dug up the rotten leaf mould that has been lying dormant for years, free compost/leaf mould. I also put any weeds I remove from my garden and let them rot in bucket of rain water, it can smell a bit, but it is good fertiliser feed when I mix it ten parts water! I have created my own leaf mould over 3 years and I have never bought compost, I did once for my family hanging baskets, but found it was burnt and had so many twigs etc added. If one digs deep enough in the woods/forest you can retrieve fine leaf mould which has been under there for centuries! Riddle it and create great compost! My wife is now trying to do a bit in HER garden which is now a joint effort! Great blog you have posted in letting folk know in how to make use of the earths material that surrounds us in life and that it can be used - freely!
Exactly what I do. :) Hugelkulture style. It's the best! I made 3 mounds as well as used this method in my own raised beds. I had 8 trees downed and used many of the larger limbs in the bottoms of everything. I then used the mid sized limbs to build the boxes of the raised beds in a log cabin style manner. I used a pair of wooden stakes (literally all I had to purchase for this project) for each corner to support the corners. I then used cardboard to line the bottom and up the sides to retain everything. I started filling in with the logs and largest limbs, added leaves, sawdust and straw to fill in as much space/gaps as possible, then added sticks and limbs (largest to smallest) then more sawdust and then leaves again. I topped it off with my own composted soil and wood chips atop that after planting what I needed. Best gardens I've ever had! Every yr I add a little composted soil to amend it and to fill in what had sunk a little. It's perfect! I built the Hugelmounds (as I call them) the same way. They are 3-4' wide by 24-25' long and waist high. Lots of room to plant. Not just on the top, but all around the sides as well. I just love them! As everything decomposes, I find I barely need to water them. Win. Win. Win.
We did a round shaped hugelkulture garden a few years ago with some success. Last year got the best strawberries growing there. Unfortunately the wild grassy weeds have grown into the mound and is choking out the berries.
@@dogslobbergardens6606 I have a weedy pasture that I'm hoping to garden in for the first time this year. Would you just add the cardboard, and weigh it down, or add other things with it? Then take off or add soil and plant over it?
I've tried it in my current apartment where I only can have containers... I've thrown pine cones into the mix because they are everywhere on the property, I didn't hear you mention it are they ok to use? I do put sticks in my containers it does seem to help with water retention
I figured this out the hard way. Five years ago I built a raised bed planter out of untreated douglas fir 2x4's, and filling it with quality soil would have been cost prohibitive. I just happen to live a short walk from the local parks department wood processing facility where they turn down trees and branches into various grades of mulch. So I collected several large garbage bags full of the finer mulch and mixed it into the soil I had along with some more that I bought, which filled the planter. Problem solved, right? Well, sort of. This filled the planter but, as you can guess, the crops that year didn't turn out that well, which I later found out was because the wood chips leached the nitrogen and other nutrients out of the soil, even though I supplemented with time release fertilizer pellets. So the next year I removed as much of the soil-mulch mix as I could and separated out most of the bigger pieces of mulch, with the smaller pieces having mostly decomposed by now. I then laid down a thick layer of fresh mulch along with the old mulch that I removed from the soil, added some organic fertilizer that had all sorts of garden-friendly bacteria and fungi, watered it, then put the soil back on top, mixing in some more organic fertilizer. With the smaller pieces of old mulch having decomposed and the soil having settled a bit, this brought the soil back to the correct level. I then proceeded to sow and transplant my plants. And what do you know, this time the plants flourished, and the kicker was that at the end of the growing season and after wintering, much of the mulch I lined the bottom of the planter with had decomposed, so I could mix it in with the soil after adding fresh mulch. I've been doing this every year since and have had great results. This year I'm fine-tuning things further by testing the soil and amending as needed.
One year we saved all the leaves from my trees as they fell in the Fall. I mulched every area of my garden and let them stay all winter. they were probably 3 feet high and I have a pretty large garden. After the snow and other dry times through winter they broke down and in spring I tilled the area and let me tell you...That was the best garden I ever had come spring. Everything grew like crazy. Leaves are the best for breaking down my sandy soil here in Connecticut. Don't ever get rid of your leaves. Also mow them into the lawn and you'll have the greenest grass in the neighborhood. I love your idea of doing things cheap or for free. We put a lot of money when we started 18 years ago. Now we get free skids and turn them into raised beds. We even got soap barrels from the car wash for free to use as planters. We cut them in half and make 2 planters out of them. It beats spending 30 bucks on big pots. Those I don't use for food though. I worry about the plastic leaching poison but they are great for a lot of sprawling flowers. There are so many things you can get for free. We get horse manure for free. Wood chips from a guy who cuts trees. I have 1 or 2 deliveries a year and a 20.00 tip for the driver. I love the Ikea bag idea but I worry about the "food grade" issue. Perhaps use them but line it with a cotton or some type of organic material. I do a lot of sewing and can make stuff but the burlap bags might be a good option for a liner. Anyway, love that I found your videos. I'm 70 and still learning. Thanks for all your shared ideas.
I started a compost pile in my small garden using grass clippings mulch leaves coffee grounds egg shells coffee filters. I move the pile every year and spread the compost pile around ,where I have had the pile everything in that area grows great.I only use blood meal and bone meal and wood ash for fertilizer . I don't spray any chemicals and the vegetables are great The Japanese Beetles are the biggest problem but I use a trap down wind from the garden and it keeps the damage to a minimum.
I recently was given half a steel pod, with the plastic removed inside. After watching one of your videos, i lined it with wire netting, then chinese cabbage palm hessian, (from my palm), and thick cardboard. I then filled the pod with leaves, straw, rotting branches and, left over cassava greens and stems from a cassava plant i had just chopped back. The top was 10 inches of soil and compost...the bottom of the pod i left exposed to the ground to let in worms etc. Well the vegies i planted are so healthy and happy! The bok choi is the biggest, crispy-est ive ever planted. The sunflowers are powering on and im looking forward to them flowering. Bonus: the cassava shot up through the soil (unexpectedly), so now i'll even get a summer cassava crop, as the winter vegies die down! Really happy with this technique. Mother nature knows best hey! And youre right, sooo much cheaper too. Thankyou, and cheers!
I did this with our raised veggies beds a few years ago. My husband thought I was crazy but our garden is gorgeous and it's great to see the material breaking up when digging around in the beds.
I am doing it too, driving around picking bags of organics from our neighbors, my husband also thinks that I am crazy, he comments and complains (as if I actually spent money by doing so or did something wrong...). Just ridiculous.
If you're wondering where to get free cardboard boxes I have a suggestion. I work at a large chain drug store and we get our stock trucked in 2 to 3 times a week. We just throw out all of those cardboard boxes. Ask any stores around you when they are expecting their shipments and if you can take their boxes. It's a win for you and the landfill.
I really appreciate the video. I have several pots, buckets, reclaimed nursery containers, etc. that I grow in. I also ‘grow’ soil, by putting kitchen scraps, etc., in some of the containers. I sometimes put a few scraps directly into some pots that already have my plants in them. Another commenter said they grow potatoes in pots. I’m looking forward to trying that this year. I also plant the bottom part of store bought onions and celery. They grow like crazy! And this year, I’m going to designate one or two containers to grow dandelion greens in! Happy gardening everyone!
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I've covered my front lawn with about a million cardboard boxes topped with 5 inches of wood chips to kill the grass, and I've been waiting patiently for the last threat of frost to pass (I'm in Florida). But after watching this, I'm going to start building my beds now. I've collected a number of huge black plastic planters (used for trees), and I'm going to start filling them up with all the old wood my chipper can't handle, along with the oak leaves I'm mulching. Might as well let it all start marinating now!
Very nice. I started the same project in my community garden to get rid of the grass. Not a fun one but hopefully it works because only a couple of us kept the grass up and it's a task! Hope your project came out nicely!
I fill a 5 gallon bucket with wood chips and water and let those soak for several days. Then add it to the bottom of large pots. Garden waste and kitchen scraps are next. Finish with soil snd potting mix. As the soil dries it pulls water from the wood chips. Works for me.
If you have a catcher for your mower, look for places you can mow. I am fortunate to have many types of clover, grass, and green weeds here. So after I put some branches and leaves and horse manure in the bottom, I alternate layers of 1 catcher full of clover/grass/weeds and 1 layer of old hay I've used as bedding in the duck's overnight house. Last year a volunteer pumpkin came up in a bed that had no potting mix or soil at all in it. It produced two huge pumpkins without ever having any soil at all! So don't be afraid to use this method. It really does work. And those materials retain water and then release it as needed, making your plants less susceptible to drying out.
I started doing raised beds in 2016 using. rice brand , shrubs, coffee shells , rice straws and some branches of trees before adding top soil .This has worked well for me in setting up my vegetable garden to grow pepper and garden eggs on my farm is my village in Segbwema , Sierra Leone
Great video! I built a new concrete block bed last year with a fill area of 7x4.5'. So went around the yard and filled it with "clean up debris", branches, twigs, leaves (composed) and dirt from and very old leaf pile. Got the yard cleaned up and a new bed filled free (the asparagus and strawberries love their new home.)
Thank you for the reassurance on my plan! I have 5 acres of woods on my new off grid property, and I need tall raised beds when I can start gardening there. (I'm 64) Tons of leaves, tons of downed rotten limbs and trees and cost prohibitive to fill the larger boxes I want with soil, and my land is super rocky. I've even thought of putting some rocks in the bottom to take up space! Nice to see this process visually, so thank you! Might also make the wire wrapped ones you did, or make them with straw bales to start out. Blessings, Texas Deb 😁
Hey, from TX, too. We found a few shallow places which puddle. Using wall bricks, those ones with the edge. Brother and I built up 3 - 4.75 ft. edging. Then put clay bottles, urga(?) near the sides with the tops an inch over ground. He thought the wood chips would kill from nitrogen loss, so we used garden plants, food wastes and hay then two bags laid on top then opened for soil, when finally put a tree and small blooming vegetables around the edges. Its a shady place to relax and she'll corn or peas, and process other veggies and fruits. Blessings I hope this gives others encouragement.
I used cinder blocks and they worked great. This year I am expanding so I just need to add some to the end. Also planted a few things in the holes in the blocks.
@@carolgreenhill5684 I looked in Missouri. I love Texas, which has been home my whole life. Now I'm on a fixed income, wanted an off grid property without many restrictions, had 4 seasons, not 2, and was affordable. Missouri is freedom friendly and beautiful! I am now going to be on a mountain. Texas Deb ❤️
Great Gardening video Dan Especially helpful, my husband always rakes the leaves around our trees, and throws them away before I can stop join,, . Then I have to dig them out if the trash can to put in my gardens, he just think things look a mess with all that, but I explain to him, it’s organic fertilizer with powerful nutrients for the plants, and also keeps my weeds choked out, I’m getting old and weeding is not the thing I want to be doing at my age. So thank you 🙏🏻 very much I’m going to play this video again just fir him 💗💓💞💕💖💗💓💞💕❤️❤️💜
Thanks so much Dan. I'm sitting here in England working out my various ways to grow things without spending too much money. I really appreciate your tips especially on cardboard etc. Much love
I built mine last spring 18" deep. I started the fall before collecting bags of leafs set out to the trash and got close too 100 of them. Then in the spring I found someone on Craigslist giving away free organic hay that got rained on. It got about 30 bales. I filled them up as much as possible with this and my grass clippings and topped off with compost.
Used some hay bales to grow potatoes this year. Zone 7a. Now the remaining hay is compost-like...I always add mycelelial spores to all my plants and beds. Only need add spores once or twice as the mycelia spread like crazy throughout. I added spores 2-3 yrs ago and its everywhere . Helps everything out. I also use fish emulsion. In plantings and directly on my compost pile. Cant beat it, although wifey could beat me because she hates the smell!
You had me at "leaves." I have LOADS of them on my property. Thank you for easing my mind - I always worried I was being cheap - on using them. Subscribed :)
Thank you for this video! We moved out to 5 acres where the soil is dense and sandy but there are so many trees around leaving branches and leaves everywhere! I was thinking I'd have to go out and buy soil to start a raised bed but now I see that I have pretty much everything I need! Can't wait to get started.
OLD LEATHER SMITH here. Yes I agree with everything U said. I have 2 things 2 add. I use coffee grounds and schreaded paper. Since I only grow Hot Peppers and Lavender it works great. Thanks. GOD'S BLESSINGS ✝️⚾🙃
Thanks for sharing this great and simple method. Have used it for many years. Always works. Nothing is ever thrown away in my tiny foodforest. Recycle everything organic. Got a huge variety of plants growing happily together in peace and harmony and tons of worms. Nature teaches us everything, if we are just willing to slow down enough and listen. Happy gardening to everyone and lots of joy.🐝🐜🦋🕷🐸🦎🐸🐞
I built several raised beds last year using this hugelkultur technique….the lowest levels were large old rotten logs not good enough to use on the stove….and then filled with materials in descending order of size…it worked well and I had good crops…but do remember that as the materials break down the levels sink down so you do need to top up the bed levels in future years.😀😀😀 Jinxy
Such great info. Now I'm looking all around at the clippings, leaves, branches, etc I typically rake up and throw out. It's been years since I've gardened. The info on depths of layers is a game changer for me. Thank you! Most helpful info I've found.
Same here! I have a huge mulberry tree out front, and get rid of all of it every year, including leaves! Never again! That's going to be my prize ingredient! 🤗
We love using wood chips…we did this for almost 10 years at our house in CO and had super dark soil and will be doing it again at our homestead property in Arizona! We also had used logs and branches and leaves (Hugelkulture technique) and that’s great too! Great advice on using what you have….We love your channel!
I’m also in Arizona and have had a hard time growing much because of the heat. I’d love to hear your plan (or successes) to build and grow raised beds.
@@mesterak we are in southeast Arizona in the foothills, so we don’t get as hot as the Phoenix and Tucson areas do, although it does get hot here, just typically not over 100° we plan on building a greenhouse that will be attached to our home on the south east side and will have raised beds inside of it. We also have very rocky soil, so raise beds will be necessary because in some areas we can’t dig down to awfully deep because of those rocks we would highly recommend lots of mulch on whatever you plant whether it’s in the ground or in a raised bed. They say rocks are the best mulch for desert applications. We’ve been mulching with whatever we have around our property like sticks, grass, and rocks. There are also a couple of watering techniques that we’re going to try, one will be the 3 to 4 inch PVC pipe that is placed in to the ground very deep towards the roots Were you can water the roots more directly. We will also try the burying the clay pot method for watering, but I cannot recall the name of that method!
I also used cardboard which works amazing and turns into the earth into nothing in one season, over winter with leaves covering it is a great way to prep bed areas even on virgin ground or clay soil. You can even double up the cardboard which you can get free at any store usually. I use cardboard to fill up sloppy wet areas I dig up and pile in the cardboard. Works great! Just repeat as needed. Even designate an area you throw scraps top with cardboard and yard waste so it's not an eye sore and repeat. You'll build your own soil. Keep growing and bear one another's burdens joyfully, we all need you!!! ❄️💥❣️💪😃👍❣️💥✝️🙌🏻🙏😔🕯️📖🛐🦁🕊️🦅
I use this method in all my contaner plants. It works great, my mother-in-law brags about my gardening skills after planting her tomatoes last year lol. She thought I was nuts but the plant got twice as big and produced twice as much as usual. 😁
We built raised beds a few years ago and fill them like you suggested with limbs, bark etc. in the bottom and now the soil is quite a bit lower than when we started so this year we will beef them up with more limbs, chips etc. and then put back the soil to raise the level back up. Thanks for great videos.
Try reading about hugelkultur. It is basically the same,except you don't tear it down annually. You pile it high enough to feed your plantings more than one year.
I do this sort of thing too. Its wonderful. Once I concerned myself about all the volume of garden clippings and stalks and fronds and the fallen tree branches twigs and many leaves. It seemed I would end up with mountains of it. Since then now I know that those overgrown garden plants came from the soil that really desperately needed replenishing again and again year after year to grow more healthy plants So now I see my garden overgrowth and fallen debri as potentially future new rich garden soil about to happen with some gathering, patience and care. It feels good.
You reminded me of when the boys were younger and I would see them out the window in the compost “picking worms” ! They had access to 3 good fishing holes so at least I would know what their plans were for the day. We have access to most of these materials but my husband got fencing and even gates off Craig’s list for free so I Highly recommend checking regularly.
My brother works for a fairy in Devon, England. He got hold of 6 pallet collars for free, from some sort of heavy equiomrnt they had delivered. They were to be thrown away so he gave them to me. Ive treated the wood with tung oil to preserve it with a food safe preservative. But to put yhem out i to my vegetable patch will mean an awful lot of soil to fill them. I make my own compost, a mixture of the usual ingredients plus a lot of oak sawdust i get from a local saw mill, mixed with an abundance of grass clippings i take from a 2 acre field. I am also in the process of converting that to a meadow. Even so, i would use all my compost if i filled 6 raised beds with that, in fact i dont think i would have enough. I hate buying scompost in bags because of the plastic it is wrapped in. Watching this video has inspired me. I took a huge rotten tree trunk down last year, and have piles of huge slabs of slowly crumbling bark available. I think i will break this up into wmaller parts to fill the base of each raised bed, along with any leaves i can get from neighbours along with some more grass clippings, before i top off with own compost. Can't wait to get to it! Filling the beds and also using up waste that i might otherwise have burnt. Liked and subscribed!
THANK YOU for sharing what you've learned & what's working for you!🤗💖 I really appreciate it, for MANY reasons... but in this moment it's because you've just given me CONFIRMATION🌟 that what I felt would be beneficial to do ( & so I did ) IS ACTUALLY BENEFICIAL & WORKS! ...I'm not exactly sure if it was my Granddad Smith💖 coming through or simply an Inner Knowing, but I followed it... & it is a VERY COOL feeling getting to receive confirmation via your video!💖💖💖 (Add to the mix that although I feel VERY Connected with Nature, I've grown up in the city & haven't had any training or real experience with farming , so it just makes the feeling even BETTER!)😊💖 *THANK YOU* for being YOU & doing what you do! Wishing you CONTINUING BOUNTIFUL HARVESTS & HAPPINESS!💖💖💖
This is so helpful. I have raised beds that are sunken in and a lot of the nutrients are depleted from very heavy growers, like potatoes. I was stressing out about the cost of buying more soil! Thank you!
Just recently scored a bunch of free wood by noticing a sign on my bike ride. Noticed that they were taking down raised beds. Loaded up the wood then knocked on the door and asked about the soil and they didn't want it so I scored a bunch of free soil just by asking about it. Made a couple of nice long boxes to run along the driveway. After putting in some soil, I've been adding old food scraps and then I dug up some worms to start eating and start fertilizing my soil. Didn't have good soil, or worms, when I first moved in but covered the yard with wood chips. HUGE difference in my soil just by keeping it covered in wood chips. Scored a bunch of free wood chips on another bike ride by noticing they chopped down a bunch of trees and left piles of wood chips everywhere. Just went back and filled up my bag over and over again. Took about a year to transform my soil.
I amended the soil in my terraced garden every year with manure/compost, and used at least 4 inches of wood chips as mulch, which reduced over a southern summer to an inch or so. Every spring I turned my soil to a depth of 10-12 inches with a shovel. Also composted kitchen scraps, and my compost pile was also my worm farm.
I love this idea presented and I have seen this before. This concept has been used for years in Europe. Regardless it works so well for now and making rich soil for later. ❤❤❤
Great video💛 I use large old nursery pots for my garden area. We have a huge area up the back for grass clippings, leaves and logs. It gives a vital habitat for birds too. It’s their mansion as I like to call it. It also is pure gold as an endless supply of rich organic soil.
I built another 4' x 8' 18" high raised bed last year and I filled it with large dead limbs from our wild cherry tree. Didn't have the heart to let that wood go to waste and someone told me about the hugulture (spelling?), of filling a garden. We always have leaves and I like to dog holes and bury my kitchen scraps, eggshells, coffee grinds and filters directly in the garden.I have sweet potatoes growing now (planted late-last Oct), and they seem to be doing okay in the cold weather. Thanks much for making this video and for the excellent explanation. 😊😊😊
I'm in northwest Florida I have no dirt at all just white sand . I have raised beds I filled with old produce I got from the grocery store dumpsters grass clippings and chicken poop. The top soil is from a friend in Alabama I started with 1 yard . My soil is now black as tar. I am making 10 yards of soil every year now . Last year I had 6 jalapeno plants that were just over 9 feet high they produced about 900 peppers total.
Good advice. My three foot high raised bed, after five years, is now some 20" deep of lovely garden soil from an initial depth of 6-12" (I put the 6s on one side and the 12s on the other). I do little gardening in the fall, so by frost, my garden is pretty much done. Then I pull all the spent plants, level the soil and start adding goodies. For compostable waste, I dig a hole, drop the waste in and cover it with soil. A neighbor who does lawn work brings the leaves from people's yards to us and they go in. The spent plants go in. When we do yard cleanup, everything that will decompose goes in. No rhyme or reason. As I get things, I just toss them in. In the spring, I usually buy one bag of soil. As I plant, I simply move anything on top of the soil away with a trowel, dig a hole, put in some garden soil, plant the plant and fill in with the garden soil, then I can spread the top stuff that I moved back around the plant to "mulch" it. As time goes on my yields get better and better, since I started with red clay under the first layer.
I have been doing pretty much everything you have mentioned for years! A lot of fun and sweat. Love my raised beds and the produce thereof. Thank you for your encouragement, always nice to find a fellow traveler.
I learned a few hints today . Thank you ! I will be raking the front yard this evening here in south Texas . It’s too warm out there at the moment . Thank you !
For myself I use old straw bails and grass clippings. I also put a sprinkling of cow manure in between layers to help with the microbial fauna. You could look for an area that has been logged out, their would be Mounds of sawdust left behind. The older the better, the sawdust won't pull nitrogen from any dirt because it has had time to start the brake down process. Hope this helps any gardeners out there.
An elder coworker once told me this story, and his best friend that he grew up with confirmed it because he helped every fall. He, every fall, puts truck loads of leaves as deep as he can source to till in. He never uses feterlizer. When it rains, he says you can't get in the garden because it is so loamy. My first gardens were in very high clay soil. I tilled in sand, mushroom compost, a prepaired garden soil, regular compost, and leafs. I dug deep and tilled as much as i could afford the first three years. After this, mostly sometimes , I add commercially perpaired soil and all of the free leaves i could get. I lived there 18 years and transformed the clay into a great productive garden. I retired and moved. I'm working now with better dirt and am greatly amending it to create great soil by the same successful methods i used before. Leafs are king. I have been reading about people fermenting grass and weeds to extract the nutrients and then use the residues into the compost pile. Near Paris Tennessee.
Hi Dan, I've just subscribed. No idea how I was sent your site but you're interesting as are the commenters. I'm in Perth, Australia which is pure sand and Bentonite Clay is the go here for anything to grow. Wormeries are sold but the ferocious heat kills them I've found. I save every tea bag, coffee ground, cardboard box, egg shell, fruit, veg and even hair! I look forward to learning from you and your subscribers. Thank you 🇬🇧 🇦🇺 ❤
I have quite a bit of woodchips/sawdust I got 3 years ago from a woodworking shop that has just been bagged up and breaking down, and leaves that I raked up two years ago. (Last year, I got COVID so very little gardening for me!) I believe this will be the year I put them all to good use...AND I have a tree that needs to be pruned. I have a raised bed, three 30 gallon plastic totes, several 5 gallon buckets (those are for potatoes), and all sorts of plastic nursery pots I've rescued to grow in. I hope to have a lush garden this spring and summer.
Im going to be starting some raised beds this year, and this will definitely help to save costs on mine. Ive composted for a number of yeRs in the past, and have used the lasagna method of composti g wit success. I believe that this will lend itself beautifully to that method, and I am looking forward to seeing how it goes. I recently came across a bit of information about how to go about making a really good garden soil, and Im activity searching for the materials to use in making it. If all goes well, I should have the makings for a lush garden over the next few years.
I am so excited to see this! My instincts were right, I just needed them confirmed. Dirt is soooo expensive now!! I have lots of leaves, old tree limbs, grass trimmings, Live Oak tree droppings that act great as mulch, and stuff that I have been saving, thinking what a waste to throw away. I was going to have to do this whether it was correct or not, because of no funds. Thank you, sir for sharing. This is saving me and now I feel much better having confirmation on my common sense approach. So glad I found you!! Oh, and my raised beds are actually big black containers that you put cow feed in. Someone was selling them on facebook I found out from my neighbor a couple streets over. $5 each. They work great. I drilled some holes around the bottom for drainage.
My raised bins are 3ft high. I made false mesh bottoms, approx 18" down. My base layer is a mixture of dry leaves and shredded newspaper, then soil. Works very well.
Thank You I had a free fallen two years ago as it was causing problems with my plumbing and drainage of my home. To know this free can work for me is great.
I’ve been doing this since I bought my house, in a desert, 7 years ago. Quick hack: talk to landscaping companies that chip trees - many times they have to haul the chip to the dump and gives them an option to save some money - it’s a win for you and a win for them!
This is so timely for me. I'm upping my gardening game this year. I've needed to switch to raised beds and containers and find spaces where there is light in this 45 year old yard. We lost a tree and two major scaffolding branches from a Modesto Ash tree. At first I was sad and hauling it all off. Now I have more areas with sunlight, filler for new beds and big containers and open spaces to put new beds. Finding you last week was wonderful especially since I'm also in zone 9B. Thank you for all the great ideas!
@@dianacurry6248 I know that feeling! 🙋♀️ I came across a channel last week that is a 9B Florida gardener. I subscribed. If I can find them later I'll let you know the name. Having this sort of information is so helpful. Happy growing!
@@dianacurry6248 I'm not finding it. BUT, if you go into the UA-cam search↗️ up in the corner and put in zone 9B gardening there are lots. Also additional listings for 9B Arizona, California and Florida. They've got us covered girl!
Tip for building new raised beds: Lay hardware cloth (=galvanized steel wire screen with a mesh of 0.25 inch squares) on the ground FIRST to discourage rodents (moles, voles, others which like to eat plant roots) from tunneling up into the bed. Cut the wire mesh to be a few inches larger than the bed. Just a thought! Edit: Perhaps should have clarified why I watched this great video, because I put in 4 new 32”-high raised beds last fall.
Yes, I did precisely this with 8 raised beds and have never had a problem with tunneling critters. The wire is expensive but it lasts for years; 12 and counting for me. Voles were laying waste to my traditional garden and it is one of the reasons I went with raised beds.
@@vinlago I got mine at Home Depot. A hardware store would be the place to look. Or maybe a farm supply? It's made of metal, so the name is deceiving. It comes in a roll and is in the gardening section near chicken wire, etc.
Late to the video. I do a lot of what you have shown here and it really does work! I have 13 raised beds at this point with a couple at 32 inches tall. I have a large supply of used pine bedding and hay from my guinea pigs that I use as well. As I put my beds to sleep for the winter I start mixing it, veggy scraps, and lawn clippings into the soil to start a composting pile over winter and into early spring. By the time I am ready to plant it has become a nice soil. Like you mentioned, I also use comfrey leaves in the beds after I run them over with my electric lawn mower. Thanks for this video!
So happy to see this video! I’ve been doing this for years. I love on hard clay, and it has helped immeasurably. I did have to dig out some of my beds, but it was so worth it. Thank you for the info and Brightest Blessings💫✨
Yep your videos helpful I live in Oakhurst and I'm making the raised garden bed I've got buckets five gallon buckets and I'm making my garden raised garden with rounds of logs that had gave me ideas on how to fill it I got plenty of chips plenty of ash plenty of small logs and lots of leaves thank you
Thank you for your tips here. I put them to good use today while buzzing around the garden preparing for this year. Luckily, I had last autumns various tree branches in a pile... to think I was annoyed at myself for not burning it! Ha! Job done 🙌😄🕊
Great advice and you have given me some ideas on how to get rid of a mouldering wood pile that’s been sitting there all winter and I can now use starting my no dig vegetable garden from scratch.
Thank you - this helped a lot. So tired of having to purchase soil and out here in SW Arizona we HAVE TO purchase wood chips. We did have a source to go and load our pick-up with seasoned chips BUT being in our 70s it is difficult. We do have some stumps from 2 of those loads which I WILL USE. We will be getting a load of straw bales soon so we have to use that. Not many Autumn leaves in the Desert. We do have 2 compost piles from all our kitchen scraps - one is ready and the other one just started a day ago. Again, thank you for the suggestions. Judi
I just found your channel and I am such a fan already. It was that moment when you talked to some new starts you were transplanting that got me. I like to do that, too. God bless you!
I'm starting now and have been doing a lot of research and found a lot of UA-camrs you being one of my main ones so I'm hoping to avoid the sticker shock from the beginning thank you for your video for this is awesome help
Thanks for this great tip. After all costs were considered, last year's estimated tomatoes cost me $20 per pound to grow, using MGro garden soil + $4-$5 started plants. This year I'm taking a completely different route, start to finish. More work but I don't mind. Gardening is mind-calming. (A touch of sarcasm re costs but not really. 😉)
Hi Drool Bunny, In case you are planning to grow your own tomato starts from your own seeds next year, I found something out that may help you. Apparently, the tomato fruit part contains seed-growth inhibitors, and needs to be completely elminated to make germination possible. I had read that the tomatoes need to moulder over the winter, (and had read/ heard nothing else), so that is the route I took, to try & capitalize on my tomatoes' surviving of very challenging weather last year - very cold & rain, then unusual -high temps & drought. After a super-smelly number of months, I watched a UK gardener show a MUCH easier method -- wash the tomato seeds off very very well, before planting. I'd recommend the second route. 😕, 😀.
Thank you so much , you’re such a genuine character with honest guidance to gardening … I’ll get right to it !! I’m Suzi from South Australia by the way Take care
Just found this video coincidentally as I am about to put up my next garden bed. I had been planning to go to a landscaping shop to pick up a trailer full of soil.......now I am not! I am going to get some old cardboard, organic material from my yard and the wood scraps from last winters firewood pile and go for gold!! Thanks so very much, I really enjoyed this and will check out your other videos. I found this video to be so helpful, and so easy to watch and learn from, thanks so much! ♥
Thank you for sharing your knowledge. Your voice is very soothing and your ideas are very doable. Had a rough day today and found myself very much enjoying your video. Thanks again.
Yep, works like a dream. Had to start from a clean slate with1000 gallons of compost bought, but acquired/produced during the last 7 years around 2000 gallons of raised bed filling for free. No need to buy that expensive stuff any more. The weird thing is however, that the original raised beds with 60 percent sandy native crap and 40 percent compost, don't loose volume and the more "örganic" filled ones, loose volume. I suspect that not pulling and no digging keeps my soil level up when I adhere to my 60/40 percent mix.
One thing I always caution people about that live in Cities and Towns where the grass clippings, brush and tree trimmings are all collected by their Municipality. Many places take all this "yard waste" to their local dump site and pile it up to decompose. They then allow the citizens to come get that "composted" material at a price per load in their pickup trucks or on trailers.
The key here is what did the previous owners spray or put on their lawns to keep them pretty and green? What was sprayed or applied to their shrubbery, mulched areas to keep down weeds, etc. You want to be very careful as you may be loading up your raised beds or tilling into your garden soil actual Poison, Round-Up, etc. and who knows what else.
Please be careful folks...
Thanks for mentioning this. I was about to head to my dump for free compost tomorrow. Crud!
This is true. I worked in Solid waste for many years and although municipal compost programs mean well there is no quality control. Material is essentially collected at times by the same trucks that collect household waste. Many times
After receiving compost from the giveback programs I observed bits of glass, plastic debris and who knows
What else.
That is right here our dump gives it away for free but you risk of the pesticides
You are so very right! I got so called mulch from my town for the community garden and I'll tell you, we had literally bags of plastic bag pieces, bottle caps, wires and any number of inorganic things in the mix. It was awful!! I dread getting anything from them this year. Luckily we were just using it as ground cover, but still wasn't happy about it.
Yes! I got bindweed because I did that
I'm in the suburbs in a near-treeless group of homes immediately around mine. My husband and I put in a raised bed a couple years ago. We couldn't afford to fill with potting soil, but our soil here is mostly clay. I saved shreds from our paper shredder for months as we installed our bed, digging down to put in vole-discouraging mesh a foot down. Any piece of paper we didn't want I shredded. I also saved all the coffee grounds, and got some free from a local Starbucks. The first year we didn't even try to fill the bed, just add a few inches of material and top with a few bags of soil. The garden didn't do super well, but we also started months too late (early June in IN) due to the time required in building it. Last year I added more coffee grounds, more paper shreds, and more soil. Garden did quite well. I also mulched part of it with paper shreds for weed control once the plants were growing. Lots of worms are very active in that bed! Can't wait to get started this year.
You must rake leaves in the public parks... pretending to be a conscientious city employee.
@@jonothandoeser no thanks. I grow food in that raised bed, and I have no interest in leaves that have been sprayed with who knows what.
@@AuntNutmeg They spray your park trees?!! Is there an insect problem??
Correct
@@AuntNutmeg is paper clean? Honest question
Good stuff. I have a small urban garden in London, UK, so don't have access to the vegetation you used. However, I soon discovered that it was too expensive buying bags of compost or top soil so bought a compost bin. We don't eat a lot of vegetables, however, the worms love my old teabags, egg shells, toilet rolls, newspapers, banana skins, odd dead bird, porous circulars, and a few dead leaves and all old plants that are not weeds. It never ceases to amaze me when after about 8 months two thirds of the bin is rich black lush soil full of happy worms! God is so clever!!
Love this!!!
20 years ago as a young Tree worker, whom did not know anything compared to now. I explained this method to a manager whom was a ISA certified arborist for at least 22 at that time. He took a week of research to answer me that my years of trial and error this method is best. Thanks for proving my thoughts and experience are valid. Joe the tree guy.
WOW! I said a prayer today for money to come so I could buy soil to start my food garden. You are a big answer to my prayer.
I say a prayer to the Algorithm every day
I am one of those new gardeners since my wife had a stroke! I am fortunate to have woods near by and I also have a huge oak tree in my garden that sheds its leaves each oct/nov time here in Scotland. I built a cloche and then went into the wood with my barrow and dug up the rotten leaf mould that has been lying dormant for years, free compost/leaf mould. I also put any weeds I remove from my garden and let them rot in bucket of rain water, it can smell a bit, but it is good fertiliser feed when I mix it ten parts water! I have created my own leaf mould over 3 years and I have never bought compost, I did once for my family hanging baskets, but found it was burnt and had so many twigs etc added. If one digs deep enough in the woods/forest you can retrieve fine leaf mould which has been under there for centuries! Riddle it and create great compost! My wife is now trying to do a bit in HER garden which is now a joint effort! Great blog you have posted in letting folk know in how to make use of the earths material that surrounds us in life and that it can be used - freely!
Exactly what I do. :) Hugelkulture style. It's the best! I made 3 mounds as well as used this method in my own raised beds. I had 8 trees downed and used many of the larger limbs in the bottoms of everything. I then used the mid sized limbs to build the boxes of the raised beds in a log cabin style manner. I used a pair of wooden stakes (literally all I had to purchase for this project) for each corner to support the corners. I then used cardboard to line the bottom and up the sides to retain everything. I started filling in with the logs and largest limbs, added leaves, sawdust and straw to fill in as much space/gaps as possible, then added sticks and limbs (largest to smallest) then more sawdust and then leaves again. I topped it off with my own composted soil and wood chips atop that after planting what I needed. Best gardens I've ever had! Every yr I add a little composted soil to amend it and to fill in what had sunk a little. It's perfect! I built the Hugelmounds (as I call them) the same way. They are 3-4' wide by 24-25' long and waist high. Lots of room to plant. Not just on the top, but all around the sides as well. I just love them! As everything decomposes, I find I barely need to water them. Win. Win.
Win.
Yes! This is what I’m doing to convert areas of pasture into garden and orchard
We did a round shaped hugelkulture garden a few years ago with some success. Last year got the best strawberries growing there. Unfortunately the wild grassy weeds have grown into the mound and is choking out the berries.
@@dogslobbergardens6606 I have a weedy pasture that I'm hoping to garden in for the first time this year. Would you just add the cardboard, and weigh it down, or add other things with it? Then take off or add soil and plant over it?
@@dogslobbergardens6606 thank you!!
I've tried it in my current apartment where I only can have containers... I've thrown pine cones into the mix because they are everywhere on the property, I didn't hear you mention it are they ok to use? I do put sticks in my containers it does seem to help with water retention
I figured this out the hard way. Five years ago I built a raised bed planter out of untreated douglas fir 2x4's, and filling it with quality soil would have been cost prohibitive. I just happen to live a short walk from the local parks department wood processing facility where they turn down trees and branches into various grades of mulch. So I collected several large garbage bags full of the finer mulch and mixed it into the soil I had along with some more that I bought, which filled the planter. Problem solved, right?
Well, sort of. This filled the planter but, as you can guess, the crops that year didn't turn out that well, which I later found out was because the wood chips leached the nitrogen and other nutrients out of the soil, even though I supplemented with time release fertilizer pellets.
So the next year I removed as much of the soil-mulch mix as I could and separated out most of the bigger pieces of mulch, with the smaller pieces having mostly decomposed by now. I then laid down a thick layer of fresh mulch along with the old mulch that I removed from the soil, added some organic fertilizer that had all sorts of garden-friendly bacteria and fungi, watered it, then put the soil back on top, mixing in some more organic fertilizer. With the smaller pieces of old mulch having decomposed and the soil having settled a bit, this brought the soil back to the correct level. I then proceeded to sow and transplant my plants.
And what do you know, this time the plants flourished, and the kicker was that at the end of the growing season and after wintering, much of the mulch I lined the bottom of the planter with had decomposed, so I could mix it in with the soil after adding fresh mulch. I've been doing this every year since and have had great results. This year I'm fine-tuning things further by testing the soil and amending as needed.
Thank you for information. I have to start raised bed and my entire garden over for 2022. This will make it more affordable.
One year we saved all the leaves from my trees as they fell in the Fall. I mulched every area of my garden and let them stay all winter. they were probably 3 feet high and I have a pretty large garden. After the snow and other dry times through winter they broke down and in spring I tilled the area and let me tell you...That was the best garden I ever had come spring. Everything grew like crazy. Leaves are the best for breaking down my sandy soil here in Connecticut. Don't ever get rid of your leaves. Also mow them into the lawn and you'll have the greenest grass in the neighborhood. I love your idea of doing things cheap or for free. We put a lot of money when we started 18 years ago. Now we get free skids and turn them into raised beds. We even got soap barrels from the car wash for free to use as planters. We cut them in half and make 2 planters out of them. It beats spending 30 bucks on big pots. Those I don't use for food though. I worry about the plastic leaching poison but they are great for a lot of sprawling flowers. There are so many things you can get for free. We get horse manure for free. Wood chips from a guy who cuts trees. I have 1 or 2 deliveries a year and a 20.00 tip for the driver. I love the Ikea bag idea but I worry about the "food grade" issue. Perhaps use them but line it with a cotton or some type of organic material. I do a lot of sewing and can make stuff but the burlap bags might be a good option for a liner. Anyway, love that I found your videos. I'm 70 and still learning. Thanks for all your shared ideas.
Calm voice, informative, concise. What's not to like?😃. I hit the like and subscribe.
Thank you! : )
Ditto!! New subscriber here too!
Same reason I did. 😀
Me too 😊
Absolutely
I started a compost pile in my small garden using grass clippings mulch leaves coffee grounds egg shells coffee filters. I move the pile every year and spread the compost pile around ,where I have had the pile everything in that area grows great.I only use blood meal and bone meal and wood ash for fertilizer .
I don't spray any chemicals and the vegetables are great
The Japanese Beetles are the biggest problem but I use a trap down wind from the garden and it keeps the damage to a minimum.
You work is being followed here in Portugal (Europe)
Please keep on doing that excellent work
Peace, Love, Unity and Respect
Thank you very much! Cheers!
I recently was given half a steel pod, with the plastic removed inside. After watching one of your videos, i lined it with wire netting, then chinese cabbage palm hessian, (from my palm), and thick cardboard. I then filled the pod with leaves, straw, rotting branches and, left over cassava greens and stems from a cassava plant i had just chopped back. The top was 10 inches of soil and compost...the bottom of the pod i left exposed to the ground to let in worms etc. Well the vegies i planted are so healthy and happy! The bok choi is the biggest, crispy-est ive ever planted. The sunflowers are powering on and im looking forward to them flowering. Bonus: the cassava shot up through the soil (unexpectedly), so now i'll even get a summer cassava crop, as the winter vegies die down! Really happy with this technique. Mother nature knows best hey! And youre right, sooo much cheaper too. Thankyou, and cheers!
I did this with our raised veggies beds a few years ago. My husband thought I was crazy but our garden is gorgeous and it's great to see the material breaking up when digging around in the beds.
I am doing it too, driving around picking bags of organics from our neighbors, my husband also thinks that I am crazy, he comments and complains (as if I actually spent money by doing so or did something wrong...). Just ridiculous.
If you're wondering where to get free cardboard boxes I have a suggestion. I work at a large chain drug store and we get our stock trucked in 2 to 3 times a week. We just throw out all of those cardboard boxes.
Ask any stores around you when they are expecting their shipments and if you can take their boxes.
It's a win for you and the landfill.
I really appreciate the video. I have several pots, buckets, reclaimed nursery containers, etc. that I grow in. I also ‘grow’ soil, by putting kitchen scraps, etc., in some of the containers. I sometimes put a few scraps directly into some pots that already have my plants in them. Another commenter said they grow potatoes in pots. I’m looking forward to trying that this year. I also plant the bottom part of store bought onions and celery. They grow like crazy! And this year, I’m going to designate one or two containers to grow dandelion greens in! Happy gardening everyone!
I gave tried many times to grow onions this way and have had no luck. What's the secret?
This vid changed my whole outlook on raised beds to include grow bags. Thanks.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I've covered my front lawn with about a million cardboard boxes topped with 5 inches of wood chips to kill the grass, and I've been waiting patiently for the last threat of frost to pass (I'm in Florida). But after watching this, I'm going to start building my beds now. I've collected a number of huge black plastic planters (used for trees), and I'm going to start filling them up with all the old wood my chipper can't handle, along with the oak leaves I'm mulching. Might as well let it all start marinating now!
Very nice. I started the same project in my community garden to get rid of the grass. Not a fun one but hopefully it works because only a couple of us kept the grass up and it's a task! Hope your project came out nicely!
Wonderful idea. I may join you.
I fill a 5 gallon bucket with wood chips and water and let those soak for several days. Then add it to the bottom of large pots. Garden waste and kitchen scraps are next. Finish with soil snd potting mix. As the soil dries it pulls water from the wood chips. Works for me.
If you have a catcher for your mower, look for places you can mow. I am fortunate to have many types of clover, grass, and green weeds here. So after I put some branches and leaves and horse manure in the bottom, I alternate layers of 1 catcher full of clover/grass/weeds and 1 layer of old hay I've used as bedding in the duck's overnight house.
Last year a volunteer pumpkin came up in a bed that had no potting mix or soil at all in it. It produced two huge pumpkins without ever having any soil at all! So don't be afraid to use this method. It really does work. And those materials retain water and then release it as needed, making your plants less susceptible to drying out.
I started doing raised beds in 2016 using. rice brand , shrubs, coffee shells , rice straws and some branches of trees before adding top soil .This has worked well for me in setting up my vegetable garden to grow pepper and garden eggs on my farm is my village in Segbwema , Sierra Leone
Great video!
I built a new concrete block bed last year with a fill area of 7x4.5'. So went around the yard and filled it with "clean up debris", branches, twigs, leaves (composed) and dirt from and very old leaf pile. Got the yard cleaned up and a new bed filled free (the asparagus and strawberries love their new home.)
Thank you for the reassurance on my plan! I have 5 acres of woods on my new off grid property, and I need tall raised beds when I can start gardening there. (I'm 64) Tons of leaves, tons of downed rotten limbs and trees and cost prohibitive to fill the larger boxes I want with soil, and my land is super rocky. I've even thought of putting some rocks in the bottom to take up space! Nice to see this process visually, so thank you! Might also make the wire wrapped ones you did, or make them with straw bales to start out. Blessings, Texas Deb 😁
Hey, from TX, too. We found a few shallow places which puddle. Using wall bricks, those ones with the edge. Brother and I built up 3 - 4.75 ft. edging. Then put clay bottles, urga(?) near the sides with the tops an inch over ground. He thought the wood chips would kill from nitrogen loss, so we used garden plants, food wastes and hay then two bags laid on top then opened for soil, when finally put a tree and small blooming vegetables around the edges.
Its a shady place to relax and she'll corn or peas, and process other veggies and fruits. Blessings I hope this gives others encouragement.
I used cinder blocks and they worked great. This year I am expanding so I just need to add some to the end. Also planted a few things in the holes in the blocks.
What area did you find a good off grid property in Texas? I'm in Texas and have been searching for years
@@carolgreenhill5684 I looked in Missouri. I love Texas, which has been home my whole life. Now I'm on a fixed income, wanted an off grid property without many restrictions, had 4 seasons, not 2, and was affordable. Missouri is freedom friendly and beautiful! I am now going to be on a mountain. Texas Deb ❤️
Good video what about banana tree leaves are they good I have lots of them
Great Gardening video Dan
Especially helpful, my husband always rakes the leaves around our trees, and throws them away before I can stop join,, . Then I have to dig them out if the trash can to put in my gardens, he just think things look a mess with all that, but I explain to him, it’s organic fertilizer with powerful nutrients for the plants, and also keeps my weeds choked out, I’m getting old and weeding is not the thing I want to be doing at my age. So thank you 🙏🏻 very much I’m going to play this video again just fir him 💗💓💞💕💖💗💓💞💕❤️❤️💜
This is genius..... ❤ I have nothing but clay and rocks here. I'll try raised with this method.
Thanks so much Dan. I'm sitting here in England working out my various ways to grow things without spending too much money. I really appreciate your tips especially on cardboard etc. Much love
plez do not use card board around food as it has glues and chemicals to hold it together!!!!!
That's exactly how I started my raised beds and as Dan said, they have continued to perform and are completely organic.
I built mine last spring 18" deep. I started the fall before collecting bags of leafs set out to the trash and got close too 100 of them. Then in the spring I found someone on Craigslist giving away free organic hay that got rained on. It got about 30 bales. I filled them up as much as possible with this and my grass clippings and topped off with compost.
Used some hay bales to grow potatoes this year. Zone 7a.
Now the remaining hay is compost-like...I always add mycelelial spores to all my plants and beds. Only need add spores once or twice as the mycelia spread like crazy throughout. I added spores 2-3 yrs ago and its everywhere .
Helps everything out.
I also use fish emulsion. In plantings and directly on my compost pile. Cant beat it, although wifey could beat me because she hates the smell!
You had me at "leaves." I have LOADS of them on my property. Thank you for easing my mind - I always worried I was being cheap - on using them. Subscribed :)
No doubt that your method is the best!...and the cheapest! Thank you..I will put it into practice
I keep my broken branches and leaves … and just made my first raised beds with your suggestions. Thank you ! Looking forward to seeing how it grows.
Thank you for this video! We moved out to 5 acres where the soil is dense and sandy but there are so many trees around leaving branches and leaves everywhere! I was thinking I'd have to go out and buy soil to start a raised bed but now I see that I have pretty much everything I need! Can't wait to get started.
Been using hugelkultur techniques within my raised beds. Sounds very close to this. ❤
OLD LEATHER SMITH here. Yes I agree with everything U said. I have 2 things 2 add. I use coffee grounds and schreaded paper. Since I only grow Hot Peppers and Lavender it works great. Thanks. GOD'S BLESSINGS ✝️⚾🙃
I have this stuff in abundance in my wild and crazy backyard. No excuses now.
Thanks for sharing this great and simple method. Have used it for many years. Always works. Nothing is ever thrown away in my tiny foodforest. Recycle everything organic. Got a huge variety of plants growing happily together in peace and harmony and tons of worms. Nature teaches us everything, if we are just willing to slow down enough and listen. Happy gardening to everyone and lots of joy.🐝🐜🦋🕷🐸🦎🐸🐞
Ive got heaps of rotting logs and branches down the bottom of my property.. what a great idea.. thanks.
I built several raised beds last year using this hugelkultur technique….the lowest levels were large old rotten logs not good enough to use on the stove….and then filled with materials in descending order of size…it worked well and I had good crops…but do remember that as the materials break down the levels sink down so you do need to top up the bed levels in future years.😀😀😀 Jinxy
In the last 3 years, I save $$$ from buying soil bags by doing the same methods.. and no bugs interfering my greens...Thanks👏👍💞💖💞🙏
Such great info. Now I'm looking all around at the clippings, leaves, branches, etc I typically rake up and throw out. It's been years since I've gardened. The info on depths of layers is a game changer for me. Thank you! Most helpful info I've found.
Same, normally I would have thrown cuttings in my green waste bin, now I cut it up into smaller pieces and throw it in a raised bed or compost heap
How can I keep ants from coming into my containers from the bottom?
@@ronniedianefowler7648 good question
Same here! I have a huge mulberry tree out front, and get rid of all of it every year, including leaves! Never again! That's going to be my prize ingredient! 🤗
We love using wood chips…we did this for almost 10 years at our house in CO and had super dark soil and will be doing it again at our homestead property in Arizona! We also had used logs and branches and leaves (Hugelkulture technique) and that’s great too! Great advice on using what you have….We love your channel!
I’m also in Arizona and have had a hard time growing much because of the heat. I’d love to hear your plan (or successes) to build and grow raised beds.
@@mesterak we are in southeast Arizona in the foothills, so we don’t get as hot as the Phoenix and Tucson areas do, although it does get hot here, just typically not over 100° we plan on building a greenhouse that will be attached to our home on the south east side and will have raised beds inside of it. We also have very rocky soil, so raise beds will be necessary because in some areas we can’t dig down to awfully deep because of those rocks we would highly recommend lots of mulch on whatever you plant whether it’s in the ground or in a raised bed. They say rocks are the best mulch for desert applications. We’ve been mulching with whatever we have around our property like sticks, grass, and rocks. There are also a couple of watering techniques that we’re going to try, one will be the 3 to 4 inch PVC pipe that is placed in to the ground very deep towards the roots Were you can water the roots more directly. We will also try the burying the clay pot method for watering, but I cannot recall the name of that method!
I also used cardboard which works amazing and turns into the earth into nothing in one season, over winter with leaves covering it is a great way to prep bed areas even on virgin ground or clay soil. You can even double up the cardboard which you can get free at any store usually. I use cardboard to fill up sloppy wet areas I dig up and pile in the cardboard. Works great! Just repeat as needed. Even designate an area you throw scraps top with cardboard and yard waste so it's not an eye sore and repeat. You'll build your own soil.
Keep growing and bear one another's burdens joyfully, we all need you!!! ❄️💥❣️💪😃👍❣️💥✝️🙌🏻🙏😔🕯️📖🛐🦁🕊️🦅
I use this method in all my contaner plants. It works great, my mother-in-law brags about my gardening skills after planting her tomatoes last year lol. She thought I was nuts but the plant got twice as big and produced twice as much as usual. 😁
We built raised beds a few years ago and fill them like you suggested with limbs, bark etc. in the bottom and now the soil is quite a bit lower than when we started so this year we will beef them up with more limbs, chips etc. and then put back the soil to raise the level back up. Thanks for great videos.
Try reading about hugelkultur. It is basically the same,except you don't tear it down annually. You pile it high enough to feed your plantings more than one year.
I filled mine at the bottom up to 50% with pool tubes. Worked awesome and the sponge-like tubes held moisture😊
I do this sort of thing too. Its wonderful. Once I concerned myself about all the volume of garden clippings and stalks and fronds and the fallen tree branches twigs and many leaves. It seemed I would end up with mountains of it. Since then now I know that those overgrown garden plants came from the soil that really desperately needed replenishing again and again year after year to grow more healthy plants So now I see my garden overgrowth and fallen debri as potentially future new rich garden soil about to happen with some gathering, patience and care. It feels good.
Perfect. You have the best ever advice on UA-cam and it works 100%.
Thank you for your honestly advising 😊❤❤
You reminded me of when the boys were younger and I would see them out the window in the compost “picking worms” ! They had access to 3 good fishing holes so at least I would know what their plans were for the day. We have access to most of these materials but my husband got fencing and even gates off Craig’s list for free so I
Highly recommend checking regularly.
My brother works for a fairy in Devon, England. He got hold of 6 pallet collars for free, from some sort of heavy equiomrnt they had delivered. They were to be thrown away so he gave them to me. Ive treated the wood with tung oil to preserve it with a food safe preservative. But to put yhem out i to my vegetable patch will mean an awful lot of soil to fill them.
I make my own compost, a mixture of the usual ingredients plus a lot of oak sawdust i get from a local saw mill, mixed with an abundance of grass clippings i take from a 2 acre field. I am also in the process of converting that to a meadow.
Even so, i would use all my compost if i filled 6 raised beds with that, in fact i dont think i would have enough. I hate buying scompost in bags because of the plastic it is wrapped in.
Watching this video has inspired me. I took a huge rotten tree trunk down last year, and have piles of huge slabs of slowly crumbling bark available. I think i will break this up into wmaller parts to fill the base of each raised bed, along with any leaves i can get from neighbours along with some more grass clippings, before i top off with own compost.
Can't wait to get to it! Filling the beds and also using up waste that i might otherwise have burnt.
Liked and subscribed!
THANK YOU for sharing what you've learned & what's working for you!🤗💖 I really appreciate it, for MANY reasons... but in this moment it's because you've just given me CONFIRMATION🌟 that what I felt would be beneficial to do ( & so I did ) IS ACTUALLY BENEFICIAL & WORKS! ...I'm not exactly sure if it was my Granddad Smith💖 coming through or simply an Inner Knowing, but I followed it... & it is a VERY COOL feeling getting to receive confirmation via your video!💖💖💖
(Add to the mix that although I feel VERY Connected with Nature, I've grown up in the city & haven't had any training or real experience with farming , so it just makes the feeling even BETTER!)😊💖
*THANK YOU* for being YOU & doing what you do!
Wishing you CONTINUING BOUNTIFUL HARVESTS & HAPPINESS!💖💖💖
I learn something...and dude has a comforting voice, too 😁
Visual learning as you demonstrated is the best way to get others to understand how to do something
Ive been watching your videos for years now and As always great info Dan. Appreciate you.
I appreciate that!
Great tip! I have bagged up a heap of leaves and twigs and wood waiting to find a place to dump it, now i have a use for it!!!😀😃😄
This is so helpful. I have raised beds that are sunken in and a lot of the nutrients are depleted from very heavy growers, like potatoes. I was stressing out about the cost of buying more soil! Thank you!
Just recently scored a bunch of free wood by noticing a sign on my bike ride. Noticed that they were taking down raised beds. Loaded up the wood then knocked on the door and asked about the soil and they didn't want it so I scored a bunch of free soil just by asking about it. Made a couple of nice long boxes to run along the driveway. After putting in some soil, I've been adding old food scraps and then I dug up some worms to start eating and start fertilizing my soil.
Didn't have good soil, or worms, when I first moved in but covered the yard with wood chips. HUGE difference in my soil just by keeping it covered in wood chips. Scored a bunch of free wood chips on another bike ride by noticing they chopped down a bunch of trees and left piles of wood chips everywhere. Just went back and filled up my bag over and over again. Took about a year to transform my soil.
I amended the soil in my terraced garden every year with manure/compost, and used at least 4 inches of wood chips as mulch, which reduced over a southern summer to an inch or so. Every spring I turned my soil to a depth of 10-12 inches with a shovel. Also composted kitchen scraps, and my compost pile was also my worm farm.
I love this idea presented and I have seen this before. This concept has been used for years in Europe. Regardless it works so well for now and making rich soil for later. ❤❤❤
Great video💛 I use large old nursery pots for my garden area. We have a huge area up the back for grass clippings, leaves and logs. It gives a vital habitat for birds too. It’s their mansion as I like to call it. It also is pure gold as an endless supply of rich organic soil.
I’m a follower!
Dan is a teacher with a step by step,process,that is EASY to see, and a delivery that is EASY to understand,in your ‘minds eye’
I built another 4' x 8' 18" high raised bed last year and I filled it with large dead limbs from our wild cherry tree. Didn't have the heart to let that wood go to waste and someone told me about the hugulture (spelling?), of filling a garden.
We always have leaves and I like to dog holes and bury my kitchen scraps, eggshells, coffee grinds and filters directly in the garden.I have sweet potatoes growing now (planted late-last Oct), and they seem to be doing okay in the cold weather.
Thanks much for making this video and for the excellent explanation. 😊😊😊
I'm in northwest Florida I have no dirt at all just white sand . I have raised beds I filled with old produce I got from the grocery store dumpsters grass clippings and chicken poop. The top soil is from a friend in Alabama I started with 1 yard . My soil is now black as tar. I am making 10 yards of soil every year now . Last year I had 6 jalapeno plants that were just over 9 feet high they produced about 900 peppers total.
I live in a small town in Ontario Canada near lots of woods...going collecting soon as spring is a couple weeks away..
I wanna thank you for putting that 🔥 back inside me about gardening
🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩
I throw in grass clippings, leaf litter, kitchen scraps, paper. Chip bark, small twigs and sticks. Top with soil mix. Works for me
Exactly. Work with what you're given and work with mother nature, not against her. 🤗👍
Good advice. My three foot high raised bed, after five years, is now some 20" deep of lovely garden soil from an initial depth of 6-12" (I put the 6s on one side and the 12s on the other). I do little gardening in the fall, so by frost, my garden is pretty much done. Then I pull all the spent plants, level the soil and start adding goodies. For compostable waste, I dig a hole, drop the waste in and cover it with soil. A neighbor who does lawn work brings the leaves from people's yards to us and they go in. The spent plants go in. When we do yard cleanup, everything that will decompose goes in. No rhyme or reason. As I get things, I just toss them in. In the spring, I usually buy one bag of soil. As I plant, I simply move anything on top of the soil away with a trowel, dig a hole, put in some garden soil, plant the plant and fill in with the garden soil, then I can spread the top stuff that I moved back around the plant to "mulch" it. As time goes on my yields get better and better, since I started with red clay under the first layer.
I have been doing pretty much everything you have mentioned for years! A lot of fun and sweat. Love my raised beds and the produce thereof. Thank you for your encouragement, always nice to find a fellow traveler.
I learned a few hints today . Thank you ! I will be raking the front yard this evening here in south Texas . It’s too warm out there at the moment . Thank you !
For myself I use old straw bails and grass clippings. I also put a sprinkling of cow manure in between layers to help with the microbial fauna. You could look for an area that has been logged out, their would be Mounds of sawdust left behind. The older the better, the sawdust won't pull nitrogen from any dirt because it has had time to start the brake down process. Hope this helps any gardeners out there.
An elder coworker once told me this story, and his best friend that he grew up with confirmed it because he helped every fall.
He, every fall, puts truck loads of leaves as deep as he can source to till in. He never uses feterlizer. When it rains, he says you can't get in the garden because it is so loamy.
My first gardens were in very high clay soil. I tilled in sand, mushroom compost, a prepaired garden soil, regular compost, and leafs. I dug deep and tilled as much as i could afford the first three years. After this, mostly sometimes , I add commercially perpaired soil and all of the free leaves i could get. I lived there 18 years and transformed the clay into a great productive garden. I retired and moved.
I'm working now with better dirt and am greatly amending it to create great soil by the same successful methods i used before.
Leafs are king. I have been reading about people fermenting grass and weeds to extract the nutrients and then use the residues into the compost pile. Near Paris Tennessee.
Dude, you gave me so many ideas for getting rid of the grass in my backyard with raised beds. and the different methods. Thanks!
Hi Dan, I've just subscribed. No idea how I was sent your site but you're interesting as are the commenters. I'm in Perth, Australia which is pure sand and Bentonite Clay is the go here for anything to grow. Wormeries are sold but the ferocious heat kills them I've found. I save every tea bag, coffee ground, cardboard box, egg shell, fruit, veg and even hair! I look forward to learning from you and your subscribers. Thank you 🇬🇧 🇦🇺 ❤
I have quite a bit of woodchips/sawdust I got 3 years ago from a woodworking shop that has just been bagged up and breaking down, and leaves that I raked up two years ago. (Last year, I got COVID so very little gardening for me!) I believe this will be the year I put them all to good use...AND I have a tree that needs to be pruned.
I have a raised bed, three 30 gallon plastic totes, several 5 gallon buckets (those are for potatoes), and all sorts of plastic nursery pots I've rescued to grow in. I hope to have a lush garden this spring and summer.
Im going to be starting some raised beds this year, and this will definitely help to save costs on mine. Ive composted for a number of yeRs in the past, and have used the lasagna method of composti g wit success. I believe that this will lend itself beautifully to that method, and I am looking forward to seeing how it goes. I recently came across a bit of information about how to go about making a really good garden soil, and Im activity searching for the materials to use in making it. If all goes well, I should have the makings for a lush garden over the next few years.
So glad you beat the Covid, and can get back to activity.
@@kauaitulum28 Well...sort of. I still experience some long COVID symptoms, but am trying to work past them.
I am so excited to see this! My instincts were right, I just needed them confirmed. Dirt is soooo expensive now!! I have lots of leaves, old tree limbs, grass trimmings, Live Oak tree droppings that act great as mulch, and stuff that I have been saving, thinking what a waste to throw away. I was going to have to do this whether it was correct or not, because of no funds. Thank you, sir for sharing. This is saving me and now I feel much better having confirmation on my common sense approach. So glad I found you!! Oh, and my raised beds are actually big black containers that you put cow feed in. Someone was selling them on facebook I found out from my neighbor a couple streets over. $5 each. They work great. I drilled some holes around the bottom for drainage.
My raised bins are 3ft high.
I made false mesh bottoms, approx 18" down.
My base layer is a mixture of dry leaves and shredded newspaper, then soil.
Works very well.
Thank You I had a free fallen two years ago as it was causing problems with my plumbing and drainage of my home. To know this free can work for me is great.
I’ve been doing this since I bought my house, in a desert, 7 years ago. Quick hack: talk to landscaping companies that chip trees - many times they have to haul the chip to the dump and gives them an option to save some money - it’s a win for you and a win for them!
Have a bed that has been on direct dirt letting weeds die out with cardboard and I saw this which is perfect for what I have been collecting. Thanks
This is so timely for me. I'm upping my gardening game this year. I've needed to switch to raised beds and containers and find spaces where there is light in this 45 year old yard. We lost a tree and two major scaffolding branches from a Modesto Ash tree. At first I was sad and hauling it all off. Now I have more areas with sunlight, filler for new beds and big containers and open spaces to put new beds. Finding you last week was wonderful especially since I'm also in zone 9B. Thank you for all the great ideas!
I'm in 9b (CA), too. Very dry here, north of Sacramento. I'm trying t figure this all out.
I am Florida 9b and am in the process of making raised beds. Came across this today and am tottaly excited!
@@dianacurry6248 I know that feeling! 🙋♀️ I came across a channel last week that is a 9B Florida gardener. I subscribed. If I can find them later I'll let you know the name. Having this sort of information is so helpful. Happy growing!
@@renel7303 thank you do very much!
@@dianacurry6248 I'm not finding it. BUT, if you go into the UA-cam search↗️ up in the corner and put in zone 9B gardening there are lots. Also additional listings for 9B Arizona, California and Florida. They've got us covered girl!
Dan, I appreciate you and your channel so much! The knowledge you share is invaluable. Your voice is so smooth! God bless you!
Tip for building new raised beds: Lay hardware cloth (=galvanized steel wire screen with a mesh of 0.25 inch squares) on the ground FIRST to discourage rodents (moles, voles, others which like to eat plant roots) from tunneling up into the bed. Cut the wire mesh to be a few inches larger than the bed. Just a thought!
Edit: Perhaps should have clarified why I watched this great video, because I put in 4 new 32”-high raised beds last fall.
Yes, I did precisely this with 8 raised beds and have never had a problem with tunneling critters. The wire is expensive but it lasts for years; 12 and counting for me. Voles were laying waste to my traditional garden and it is one of the reasons I went with raised beds.
@@smbrooksus voles are cute until you try gardening around them! We used the mesh as well.
Great idea! I did the same thing to keep out the pocket gophers.
Where is a good place to find this? We live in a rural area. Not much in the way of supplies nearby but moles are eating our beds up.
@@vinlago I got mine at Home Depot. A hardware store would be the place to look. Or maybe a farm supply? It's made of metal, so the name is deceiving. It comes in a roll and is in the gardening section near chicken wire, etc.
Late to the video. I do a lot of what you have shown here and it really does work! I have 13 raised beds at this point with a couple at 32 inches tall.
I have a large supply of used pine bedding and hay from my guinea pigs that I use as well. As I put my beds to sleep for the winter I start mixing it, veggy scraps, and lawn clippings into the soil to start a composting pile over winter and into early spring. By the time I am ready to plant it has become a nice soil. Like you mentioned, I also use comfrey leaves in the beds after I run them over with my electric lawn mower. Thanks for this video!
So happy to see this video! I’ve been doing this for years. I love on hard clay, and it has helped immeasurably. I did have to dig out some of my beds, but it was so worth it. Thank you for the info and Brightest Blessings💫✨
Yep your videos helpful I live in Oakhurst and I'm making the raised garden bed I've got buckets five gallon buckets and I'm making my garden raised garden with rounds of logs that had gave me ideas on how to fill it I got plenty of chips plenty of ash plenty of small logs and lots of leaves thank you
Thank you for your tips here. I put them to good use today while buzzing around the garden preparing for this year. Luckily, I had last autumns various tree branches in a pile... to think I was annoyed at myself for not burning it! Ha!
Job done 🙌😄🕊
Yeah! This is my marvelous! I have ALL of this kind of stuff! Great! Great info!!! from Northern Minnesota 🙋🏼♀️🌹
What a great help, dan. Thankyou! I was doing some of this but didn't know I could do it to that extent. I'm excited. All the best to you.
Great advice and you have given me some ideas on how to get rid of a mouldering wood pile that’s been sitting there all winter and I can now use starting my no dig vegetable garden from scratch.
Thank you - this helped a lot. So tired of having to purchase soil and out here in SW Arizona we HAVE TO purchase wood chips. We did have a source to go and load our pick-up with seasoned chips BUT being in our 70s it is difficult. We do have some stumps from 2 of those loads which I WILL USE. We will be getting a load of straw bales soon so we have to use that. Not many Autumn leaves in the Desert. We do have 2 compost piles from all our kitchen scraps - one is ready and the other one just started a day ago. Again, thank you for the suggestions. Judi
I just found your channel and I am such a fan already. It was that moment when you talked to some new starts you were transplanting that got me. I like to do that, too. God bless you!
Thank you kindly : )
WOW! I can’t wait to get started thank you so much.
I'm starting now and have been doing a lot of research and found a lot of UA-camrs you being one of my main ones so I'm hoping to avoid the sticker shock from the beginning thank you for your video for this is awesome help
Thanks for this great tip. After all costs were considered, last year's estimated tomatoes cost me $20 per pound to grow, using MGro garden soil + $4-$5 started plants. This year I'm taking a completely different route, start to finish. More work but I don't mind. Gardening is mind-calming. (A touch of sarcasm re costs but not really. 😉)
Hi Drool Bunny, In case you are planning to grow your own tomato starts from your own seeds next year, I found something out that may help you. Apparently, the tomato fruit part contains seed-growth inhibitors, and needs to be completely elminated to make germination possible.
I had read that the tomatoes need to moulder over the winter, (and had read/ heard nothing else), so that is the route I took, to try & capitalize on my tomatoes' surviving of very challenging weather last year - very cold & rain, then unusual -high temps & drought.
After a super-smelly number of months, I watched a UK gardener show a MUCH easier method -- wash the tomato seeds off very very well, before planting. I'd recommend the second route. 😕, 😀.
Thank you so much , you’re such a genuine character with honest guidance to gardening … I’ll get right to it !!
I’m Suzi from South Australia by the way
Take care
Just found this video coincidentally as I am about to put up my next garden bed. I had been planning to go to a landscaping shop to pick up a trailer full of soil.......now I am not! I am going to get some old cardboard, organic material from my yard and the wood scraps from last winters firewood pile and go for gold!! Thanks so very much, I really enjoyed this and will check out your other videos. I found this video to be so helpful, and so easy to watch and learn from, thanks so much! ♥
Thank you for sharing your knowledge. Your voice is very soothing and your ideas are very doable. Had a rough day today and found myself very much enjoying your video. Thanks again.
Yep, works like a dream. Had to start from a clean slate with1000 gallons of compost bought, but acquired/produced during the last 7 years around 2000 gallons of raised bed filling for free. No need to buy that expensive stuff any more. The weird thing is however, that the original raised beds with 60 percent sandy native crap and 40 percent compost, don't loose volume and the more "örganic" filled ones, loose volume. I suspect that not pulling and no digging keeps my soil level up when I adhere to my 60/40 percent mix.