Love your videos, Liz. I appreciate the way you present information: Lots of relevant stuff and you don't say the same things over and over. And you're friendly. It's fun and I learn a lot. Thanks! :)
This is like what I call my "Bargain Aisle", a small bed I reserve until the end of the March to mid-June sowing season. I always have excess seeds that I collect in a jar, and when all my seeds are in the ground, I sow the mixed contents of my jar into the reserved bed, just very randomly strewing it out. None of them are for big plants like cabbages, etc., just the smaller stuff. I was going to sow that out tomorrow, but after watching your vid, I put my gardening shoes back on, went back out and sowed the seeds as living mulch instead. Great idea!! Nature won't allow bare spaces, and hence we have weeds, so living mulch helps cut that down (I always do a lot of interplanting for that very reason, but normally in a more planned way). Now I can use the "Bargain Aisle" to plant some more cabbages and fava beans instead. :)
Liz I find I feel closer to God when I’m in the garden, his creation. Yes it’s hot and sweaty but doesn’t that shower feel good after? It’s such a sense of peace and accomplishment. I love your videos and seeing all the areas of your garden. Thanks again!
Not that the turkeys were spoilt at all Huw, oh no, you never saw me taking them for a little walk around the garden and feeding them tidbits of this and that!
Liz, I am never disappointed by watching your videos. You are such a love. Wisdom, kindness, resilience, humor, and being in it together. So grateful that you are you, and that you keep us updated on what you are up to. Cheering you on!
Hi! I love Nigella too! Last year I had mix of white, pink and blue ones in my patio pots. I use seeds in bread baking, they bring very nice flavour to bread dough.
this is brilliant. I was watching videos on living mulch justbtgis morning. I'm definitely going to try this in my crazy corner of the garden, where I put all my plants I have left over. I accidentally germinated 80 cabbages and 40 tomatoes, so I put them there for natural selection type thing, if they grow then bonus, if the pigeons want them then so be it. chucked some lettuce seed in with them too. look forward to seeing the progress of this one.
What a lovely video to wake up to. Living mulch is one of my favorite things to grow but I typically only grow edible mulchers because of my limited space. It sounds like you’re going to have a beautiful array of flowers and edibles
cook irom tasting veg with a tied few sprigs of thyme. it makes the iron taste go away. i used to hate lentils until started adding thyme into the cooking. thyme is also a perfect cooking partner for carrots.
I’ve never heard of anyone doing this before but it certainly has peeked my interest. I might do it down the middle of my brassica/pole bean bed. Everything around the edges is thriving but there’s an enormous gap down the middle of these 4 foot wide beds where frost destroyed the lavender.
Hi Bettina, how are you? I was so excited when I saw this idea from Kt Shepherd, a permaculture practitioner, on Facebook. It's such a simple idea and fingers crossed that it will work really well.
Liz Zorab - Byther Farm I am well Liz even though I am a bit behind the 8 ball. I should think there is no reason it shouldn’t work. Even if it just works as a ground cover anything added that matures is a bonus!
Liked and suscribed Liz 😊,im in south west Scotland,midges and slugs kingdom😂😂😂,anyway im researching this living mulch idea,it sounds so good and i think would make a good looking garden aswell as a healthy one
Thank you Kit! I have a feeling it's either going to work really well or be a disaster with the weeds taking over! Fingers crossed that it's the first one.
I believe your climate isn't too dissimilar from mine, so maybe you can help me! For many years I've mulched my garden. This year I decided to hold off on putting straw down until after the rains slow down for the summer (it's still raining heavily most days here where I live in the Pacific Northwest of North America) just to see if it helps prevent damage from my garden's nemesis. My main problem is slugs. The ones that are pests here are invasive (mostly European) species. We have so many that some days you can't walk down the front path, because it's covered. I lose many a seedling to them, so I've been covering the plants with every spare plastic bottle I can scrounge from friends and family, until they outgrow it and I just hope they can survive a nibble. Covering them has its own drawbacks, as some of the plants just don't like it, and it still doesn't save all the plants, since some slugs burrow. Even my grown plants, especially my beans, leafy greens, and brassicas, all have holes. I don't mind an aesthetic problem, and I'll eat the holey leaves, but it does mean I am getting about half the harvest! Haha. Even without the straw, I underplanted radishes and baby greens under many of my larger vegetables earlier this spring, as a sort of living mulch. When I pulled up a bountiful crop of radishes, there were a least a hundred baby slugs hanging out in the cool, shaded microclimate under the leaves. In that particular bed, none of the beans I planted made it past just breaking the soil. I pulled every radish in that bed (and ate them!) and replanted beans. I'm still losing some, but not at least a few are surviving now. I'm not allowed to have ducks or chickens where I live (I have chickens but they don't live where this garden is; they are excellent slug hunters, especially the silkie). I don't use pesticides. Do you ever have slug problems? And if so, how do you deal with them, and how does mulch affect the situation? Your veggies look pristine compared to mine. Haha.
Liz I just love this video!!!! You look fab!! I am always complaining about being sweaty when I'm gardening and I think I look atrocious! if i look as good as you I will be happy xxxxx
Whoever said gardening was easy certainly didn't grow their own vegetables and fruits! To get a good workout just do some double digging and weeding 😂 I love weeding, but say no to double digging... I leave that to the old timers and I have raised beds, much more manageable. Great video Liz, thanks for sharing 👍
I've been okay with most herbs, but I can't get marjoram or thyme to grow from seed, they simply die before the plants get large enough to transplant. Volunteer plants are fabulous, except the weeds in the driveway, I could do without those!
I’m going to do this on all the empty ground between my brassicas! What a great idea I traced back to your brassica tunnel video to buy one similar - the affiliate link is broken - would you like to upload it again here?
I love this idea of a mixed bed. 😁 Liz, I always look like the road after being in the garden and the other gardener always seems clean. 🤔😂You should see me in the winter months 😂😂🙈
Nice idea of mixed edible and ornamental ground cover. I must find a patch to try this with! I'm planning a herb garden, maybe it would be a good idea in there somewhere.
Hi Liz sound like a good idea you have there im still liking your brassica cage and the fun you and Mr j had of putting it up , if I may ask how tall is it as im 6.7 and some say as wide 😜 but joking aside I'd be interested in the dimensions . Stay safe Bill and Val
Hi Bill, the cage came from Gardening Naturally and it's great, but it isn't a walk-though from one end to the other cage, I can stand up in it, but I do have to duck down under the cross bars of each hoop (you could ask Val to harvest the veg from in it, but she'd still have to dip under the cross bars). I absolutely love this fruit/brassica cage, but I do wish it didn't need the cross braces.
Is there a video with the result? Couldn't find one but would be very interested! What is your experience with living mulch and slugs? Does it attract them or does it maybe help to divert them from the actual crop? I am trying to research more about living mulch but there is not a lot of info out there. Thank you for this video!
I never look glamorous gardening. I've long given up and I sweat way too much. I wear old T shirts and tatty leggings, or shorts. I hate my hair long because of the sweat so I cut it myself with the long thinning scissors and my hubbie cut the back. I use the neckline of my T shirts to pull up and wipe the sweat, so often have a really dirty front. You looked good compared to me. Lol
Hi Caroline, I haven't upgraded the camera, I have just changed the settings so that I now film in 4K. I couldn't do this before because my old laptop didn't have the capacity to edit 4K footage. I've been putting any monies earned into upgrading my computer so that I can bring you better quality videos. 😀
Hi Patty, I don't, I grow them both, but borage I find to be a bully in the garden and it swamps everything around it and calendula I grow as a crop and happily allow the self-sown, volunteer seedlings to grow almost wherever they spring up.
Thank you for your reply. You saved me from putting borage in my vegetable garden. I'll think I'll have a patch just for them and scatter calendula throughout the garden. Happy growing! 🌺
Hi, yes I'm growing salanova, I have a frizzy leaf one and it's great. So far it's been heat and cold tolerant and has nice crisp leaves. I plant to let one plant go to seed so that I can collect seeds for future years.
Lovely video, might try next year as it’s my first year gardening, so the few weeds with no dig I can spot at the moment if I see something growing out of place!
Finally,a gardener from UK ❤❤❤
Love your videos, Liz. I appreciate the way you present information: Lots of relevant stuff and you don't say the same things over and over. And you're friendly. It's fun and I learn a lot. Thanks! :)
Thank you Heather, that's very kind of you!
This is like what I call my "Bargain Aisle", a small bed I reserve until the end of the March to mid-June sowing season. I always have excess seeds that I collect in a jar, and when all my seeds are in the ground, I sow the mixed contents of my jar into the reserved bed, just very randomly strewing it out. None of them are for big plants like cabbages, etc., just the smaller stuff. I was going to sow that out tomorrow, but after watching your vid, I put my gardening shoes back on, went back out and sowed the seeds as living mulch instead. Great idea!! Nature won't allow bare spaces, and hence we have weeds, so living mulch helps cut that down (I always do a lot of interplanting for that very reason, but normally in a more planned way). Now I can use the "Bargain Aisle" to plant some more cabbages and fava beans instead. :)
Sweat from work is lovely. Bask in its beauty.
Love your blog - and your ending is so sweet - I never leave before I've heard you say it. Thanks for the cheer.
😊 thank you JoAnn!
I’ve interplanted cabbages with turnips, nasturtiums, Swiss chard as a living mulch and succession planting
Fabulous, I love nasturtiums!
Liz I find I feel closer to God when I’m in the garden, his creation. Yes it’s hot and sweaty but doesn’t that shower feel good after? It’s such a sense of peace and accomplishment. I love your videos and seeing all the areas of your garden. Thanks again!
Me too!! A gal after my own heart
Omg Liz you feed your turkeys tomatoes straight from the vine😮 Lucky things😂
Not that the turkeys were spoilt at all Huw, oh no, you never saw me taking them for a little walk around the garden and feeding them tidbits of this and that!
Liz, I am never disappointed by watching your videos. You are such a love. Wisdom, kindness, resilience, humor, and being in it together. So grateful that you are you, and that you keep us updated on what you are up to. Cheering you on!
Wow, thank you! That's so kind of you to say! 😊
Hi! I love Nigella too! Last year I had mix of white, pink and blue ones in my patio pots. I use seeds in bread baking, they bring very nice flavour to bread dough.
this is brilliant. I was watching videos on living mulch justbtgis morning. I'm definitely going to try this in my crazy corner of the garden, where I put all my plants I have left over. I accidentally germinated 80 cabbages and 40 tomatoes, so I put them there for natural selection type thing, if they grow then bonus, if the pigeons want them then so be it. chucked some lettuce seed in with them too. look forward to seeing the progress of this one.
Hi Emma, that sounds like a look combination of plants. Fingers crossed that the pigeons don't eat them all.
This is such a wonderful idea. I can’t wait to see the results. Please keep us posted. Have a nice day Liz and take care.
What a lovely video to wake up to. Living mulch is one of my favorite things to grow but I typically only grow edible mulchers because of my limited space. It sounds like you’re going to have a beautiful array of flowers and edibles
Glad you enjoyed it! So many people are already using a living mulch - I feel like I'm very late to the party!
cook irom tasting veg with a tied few sprigs of thyme. it makes the iron taste go away. i used to hate lentils until started adding thyme into the cooking.
thyme is also a perfect cooking partner for carrots.
Ooh, great tip, thank you! I'll give it a try.
I’ve never heard of anyone doing this before but it certainly has peeked my interest. I might do it down the middle of my brassica/pole bean bed. Everything around the edges is thriving but there’s an enormous gap down the middle of these 4 foot wide beds where frost destroyed the lavender.
I really love this idea Liz! I especially love that you just mixed all the seeds up.
Hi Bettina, how are you? I was so excited when I saw this idea from Kt Shepherd, a permaculture practitioner, on Facebook. It's such a simple idea and fingers crossed that it will work really well.
Liz Zorab - Byther Farm I am well Liz even though I am a bit behind the 8 ball. I should think there is no reason it shouldn’t work. Even if it just works as a ground cover anything added that matures is a bonus!
Love this idea! Growing taller veggies in a forest of edible dill/basil etc! Would smell AHHH-MAZING 😍
Fantastic idea. I’m going to try this in a couple of spots. 👍
Great video Liz, nothing like getting down and dirty, great gardening going on.
Thanks Lorraine, I'm really excited to see how this works out.
@@LizZorab it always does for you in some shape or form, and you enjoy the journey on the way to getting to your point of journey.
Living mulch is such a fantastic idea!💚
(I often tell myself that my tons of chickweed is a living mulch😅😂)
It is (it's not my idea, I'm just sharing with you). Chickweed has it's uses too - apparently!
Chickweed is indeed a living mulch ! And great feed for chickens !
Liked and suscribed Liz 😊,im in south west Scotland,midges and slugs kingdom😂😂😂,anyway im researching this living mulch idea,it sounds so good and i think would make a good looking garden aswell as a healthy one
Love your channel happened upon it and I am learning sooooooo much of your garden wisdom, thank you and stay blessed and well!
Thank you! That's so kind of you to say. Please share my channel with your friends and on social media to let more folks find it.
Great video Liz. Love your new hair style.
I so enjoy your style of gardening
Thank you Kim!
I love this idea, especially mixing the seeds all together. I might do this in my bare spot just to see what happens.
I like that idea
So practical and down to earth🤗👍🥳
Thank you!
Can’t wait to see how this goes. Thanks for sharing your plant mix with us! Lovely video.
Thank you Kit! I have a feeling it's either going to work really well or be a disaster with the weeds taking over! Fingers crossed that it's the first one.
I believe your climate isn't too dissimilar from mine, so maybe you can help me! For many years I've mulched my garden. This year I decided to hold off on putting straw down until after the rains slow down for the summer (it's still raining heavily most days here where I live in the Pacific Northwest of North America) just to see if it helps prevent damage from my garden's nemesis.
My main problem is slugs. The ones that are pests here are invasive (mostly European) species. We have so many that some days you can't walk down the front path, because it's covered.
I lose many a seedling to them, so I've been covering the plants with every spare plastic bottle I can scrounge from friends and family, until they outgrow it and I just hope they can survive a nibble. Covering them has its own drawbacks, as some of the plants just don't like it, and it still doesn't save all the plants, since some slugs burrow. Even my grown plants, especially my beans, leafy greens, and brassicas, all have holes. I don't mind an aesthetic problem, and I'll eat the holey leaves, but it does mean I am getting about half the harvest! Haha.
Even without the straw, I underplanted radishes and baby greens under many of my larger vegetables earlier this spring, as a sort of living mulch. When I pulled up a bountiful crop of radishes, there were a least a hundred baby slugs hanging out in the cool, shaded microclimate under the leaves. In that particular bed, none of the beans I planted made it past just breaking the soil. I pulled every radish in that bed (and ate them!) and replanted beans. I'm still losing some, but not at least a few are surviving now.
I'm not allowed to have ducks or chickens where I live (I have chickens but they don't live where this garden is; they are excellent slug hunters, especially the silkie). I don't use pesticides.
Do you ever have slug problems? And if so, how do you deal with them, and how does mulch affect the situation? Your veggies look pristine compared to mine. Haha.
New to being in the soil,wondered about living mulch. Great passion and video. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and Joy. Oh Yeah, and honesty.
Liz I just love this video!!!! You look fab!! I am always complaining about being sweaty when I'm gardening and I think I look atrocious! if i look as good as you I will be happy xxxxx
Thank you Rebecca! It's a fine line between showing the truth about how hot and sweaty I get when gardening and just plain offending people! LOL
@@LizZorab lol!!!!!!
Hi. That is a very interesting way to plant ground cover. I will be waiting with anticipation to see the results. Thanks for the Idea.
What a great idea. Do you have any videos of a living mulch for lasting through the winter?
Hi Annie, this is the first time I've used a thick living mulch like this, if it's successful during the summer, I will do soem more in winter.
@@LizZorab Keep us posted! Thanks!
What a great idea Liz 👌 can’t wait to see how this goes!
Love your videos, thank you x
Thanks so much! 😊
Love your content. Thanks for doing this i learn such a lot from you 🙂
What a great idea! If I ever find a bed for my poor brassicas I will be copying this! Elizabeth.
Bung the brassicas in with other veg and use the other things as the ground cover!
Yay! I was waiting for this one :) Thank you!
Great video Liz-thank you!
Thank you so much for the videos- I really appreciate you and love the kindness and knowledge you share. Please keep the videos coming!
Thank you Carole! Your kind words are much appreciated.
I certainly don't look glamorous when i come in from the garden, far from it lol. I love the mix of edibles and flowers together.
I suspect that if we look glamorous after gardening, we aren't doing it right!
Whoever said gardening was easy certainly didn't grow their own vegetables and fruits! To get a good workout just do some double digging and weeding 😂 I love weeding, but say no to double digging... I leave that to the old timers and I have raised beds, much more manageable. Great video Liz, thanks for sharing 👍
Hi Mary, I haven't done any digging for years, changing over to a no dig system was the best gardening decision I ever made.
@@LizZorab I agree Liz, can't think of anything that would put people off from growing their own food than digging 😂
Looking forward to the progress updates Liz 🙂
I'm really looking forward to seeing how this works too.
I've never been very good at sowing herbs! Don't you just love volunteer plants!
I've been okay with most herbs, but I can't get marjoram or thyme to grow from seed, they simply die before the plants get large enough to transplant. Volunteer plants are fabulous, except the weeds in the driveway, I could do without those!
Look forward to updates! I never seem to have much success with direct sowing at this time of year. What's the secret?
Loved this Liz - although I don't think I've got any gaps left! I'll look forward to seeing how they do.
Thanks Jane! Wow, that storm certainly brought us some rain, it's still raining now! Did you have spectacular thunderstorms?
I’m going to do this on all the empty ground between my brassicas! What a great idea
I traced back to your brassica tunnel video to buy one similar - the affiliate link is broken - would you like to upload it again here?
I love this idea of a mixed bed. 😁 Liz, I always look like the road after being in the garden and the other gardener always seems clean. 🤔😂You should see me in the winter months 😂😂🙈
@John Baxter HA HA I am glad to know that I'm not the only one with twigs in my hair!
Nice idea of mixed edible and ornamental ground cover. I must find a patch to try this with! I'm planning a herb garden, maybe it would be a good idea in there somewhere.
Perhaps use even more herbs as ground cover. Thyme and marjoram spread really nicely and form a thick mat in a relatively short time.
Great idea, I'll do that. I want the herb garden to look cottage-y. That would definitely add to the effect and so practical! Thanks! 🙂
Such a nice idea to mix the seeds :-) l will copy that soon.
Ganz lieben dank
Please come back and tell me how they get on!
love the idear of your mulch
Hi Liz sound like a good idea you have there im still liking your brassica cage and the fun you and Mr j had of putting it up , if I may ask how tall is it as im 6.7 and some say as wide 😜 but joking aside I'd be interested in the dimensions . Stay safe Bill and Val
Hi Bill, the cage came from Gardening Naturally and it's great, but it isn't a walk-though from one end to the other cage, I can stand up in it, but I do have to duck down under the cross bars of each hoop (you could ask Val to harvest the veg from in it, but she'd still have to dip under the cross bars). I absolutely love this fruit/brassica cage, but I do wish it didn't need the cross braces.
Is there a video with the result? Couldn't find one but would be very interested! What is your experience with living mulch and slugs? Does it attract them or does it maybe help to divert them from the actual crop?
I am trying to research more about living mulch but there is not a lot of info out there. Thank you for this video!
I never look glamorous gardening. I've long given up and I sweat way too much. I wear old T shirts and tatty leggings, or shorts. I hate my hair long because of the sweat so I cut it myself with the long thinning scissors and my hubbie cut the back. I use the neckline of my T shirts to pull up and wipe the sweat, so often have a really dirty front. You looked good compared to me. Lol
You should be fine with the 2017 seeds. I have gotten some good germination with my 2015 and 2016 seeds this summer :D
Have you upgraded your camera Liz? This video quality looks amazing! 🌄😍
Hi Caroline, I haven't upgraded the camera, I have just changed the settings so that I now film in 4K. I couldn't do this before because my old laptop didn't have the capacity to edit 4K footage. I've been putting any monies earned into upgrading my computer so that I can bring you better quality videos. 😀
Do slugs and snails hide in the living mulch?
Inevitably, here in Wales with a damp climate, the slugs hide everywhere!
Great video! Do you use borage and calendula as a living mulch as well?
Hi Patty, I don't, I grow them both, but borage I find to be a bully in the garden and it swamps everything around it and calendula I grow as a crop and happily allow the self-sown, volunteer seedlings to grow almost wherever they spring up.
Thank you for your reply. You saved me from putting borage in my vegetable garden. I'll think I'll have a patch just for them and scatter calendula throughout the garden. Happy growing! 🌺
Liz Zorab - Byther Farm Hahaha I always call borage a bully also.
Did you try salon ova lettuce yet. I bought one from uk . 20 seeds £5-6 . Look like oak leaves. I did not find big difference from other lettuce yet.
Hi, yes I'm growing salanova, I have a frizzy leaf one and it's great. So far it's been heat and cold tolerant and has nice crisp leaves. I plant to let one plant go to seed so that I can collect seeds for future years.
my living mulch ended up a slug and snail magnet. I need to pick things they don't like.
There is that risk, I'll have to monitor it as I go along and see whether everything is getting munched.
Ducks will take care of that problem for you. :)
How did the living mulch do?
Thanks for another interesting video 👍
Glad you enjoyed it, I think it's worth trying new things every now and then 😃
What zone/s is this compatible with??
It'll work with any zone as long as you sown the seeds once all risk of frost is past.
I cringed the whole time you were mixing the seed...I could just see that container going head over turkey. So glad you got through unscathed.
Normally I would end up knocking over things, but I guess it was my lucky day!
Great stuff
Thank you!
Good stuff!
Thank you!
😊👍
Thanks for dropping by Pete.
Lovely video, might try next year as it’s my first year gardening, so the few weeds with no dig I can spot at the moment if I see something growing out of place!
Hi Andrea, glad that you enjoyed it!
Thank you : )
You are welcome! Glad that it was useful/interesting/entertaining (delete as necessary)!