"God knew what he was doing." Exactly! ❤ We til our new beds and make rows. Now the soil is nice and loose compost quality, deep color and very healthy. But had we not started with tilling we wouldn't even have a garden. I only use organic materials and trap plants and essential oils instead of chemicals. I want to feed my community and my family food the way God intended. I use the same strategy with my chickens. I don't get in the way, I just provide what they would naturally need if they were just wandering the world. Love your channel. God Bless you. :)
The garden looks great! I love your common sense approach to homesteading. I love how you use all the methods as they work for you, rather than being idealistic and hard and fast on specific rules.
Common sense and practical approach. It’s not so much about the method, but about the goal and what gets you there in the best efficient way. Great video
This is so nice! I would love to homestead but it's only me and I have no land. I love your videos and they come in handy even though I'm not a homesteader.
Thank you so much for sharing your progress in the garden, as someone who is still learning to garden (this is my second year) it really helps to be able to see what you are doing and learn from your experience and the wisdom that you share on this channel. Much appreciated!
I am no garden expert but I and my boyfriend grow a lot of veggies, flowers , fruits , one big mistake I did years ago involved asparagus so , what I did was research the crap out of it. I got the best jersey crowns , and with blood sweat and tears I dug trenches about a foot deep , two rows and what they tell you is to not pick even ONE spear for 3 yrs. This year will be our 3rd year and it was amazing how big and bushy it got. Point is you have to establish a great healthy root system . just to let you know its not easy and you have to be so patient. take care ..
I grow asparagus as well. I know they don't like the compete with weeds. I just thought I would throw that out there for anyone thinking about throwing them. They are definitely worth it to grow.
Put the chickens in there and that will be dirt in no time AND raspberries love the protein from the birds. It worked for me. Love your site. Thank you.
Sounds like you are going to do just what I did so I can't give any advice! LOL. Will you put solid borders to separate the beds from the pathways? (not talking raised beds) 15 years ago I tilled the garden for the last time. I laid down 3'X10' frames where the beds were to be and from then on I fluffed the beds with a digging fork (a broad fork would have made it much easier). I found the permanent beds fluffed with the fork to be much, much less work than tilling. Also, using the broad fork, you don't turn over the soil. So in spring and fall, you can broad fork, then walk along the bed, easily picking up the weeds as they will still be sitting on top (even the perennial weeds). They come out with the full root structure intact.
The garden looks wonderful! I totally agree on your approach to till/no till. Oh and the greenhouse is great. Gives me ideas for when I have one built😊. Looking forward to more videos!
Love the garden tour! Looking forward to the video of your garden progress! We have a urban garden here in Chatham Ontario and can always learn new things to try in ours! We did raised bed because we are older and find them easier! Had limited funds so started with cardboard and leaves with twigs then my compost bind and bought peat moss with reg soil on top! I even tried some egg shells dried and finally crushed then mixed with vinegar, strained and diluted : 1tbsp to 5 cups water for calcium for the tomatoes! Calcium is suppose to be readily available to the plants! We’ll see how that works! Thanks for your opinions! See you soon Nancy
Last year I started a new garden from lawn. I tilled the top 2-3" and removed the grass and then tilled down about 8" from there and loosened up the ground, added compost and some lime and sheep manure. The garden was not planted until the end of the first week in June(about 3 wks late) but we had an amazing production with the exception of peppers and corn. I don't plan on tilling this year at all, just compost and manure and work that into the top couple inches. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Josh , your gardens are taking shape and the prep work and progress is coming along nicely. Thanks for the tour my friend and the soil care advice is much appreciated 👍
It might work to plant some crimson clover around the raspberries after putting down the compost. Crimson clover has pretty deep roots, is great for fixing nitrogen, and it'll frost kill and become green manure.
Great video Josh. We are doing our raised bed garden again this year. A 4 foot by 16 foot. ( we do not have much of a yard here in Virginia Beach Virginia ) but we started by planting bell peppers, chards, Brussels sprouts, romaine lettuce and cucumbers. We were able to start planting about a month ago. Today I cut some romaine lettuce leaves and had a wonderful salad. Kind of gave me a thrill to be eating food from our own garden. Can't wait for cucumbers.
I am new to your channel . Hello from Wisconsin!!! I am expanding my urban garden to include more edibles. I planted fruit trees, some raspberry and blueberry bushes and asparagus root . I started a small strawberry patch this past year and rhubarb several years ago. I plan on freezing a lot this year and dehydrating as well. I have never canned before so I hope to add that to my skill set this year. I am getting back to the land to be less dependent on the grocery store and reducing my chemical exposure. Your place is amazing . What a blessing to have so many things in place already.
Thank you for your videos. I learn from you and appreciate your advice. Looking forward to each video and the progress of your new property and your gardens.
God certainly blessed you with a place that will bless your family.. It is just lovely. So happy for you. I take the same approach as you do.. We do what the situation calls for. It is all hard work but very rewarding. Thanks for sharing your new beginnings..
Great video, ......and what a great place. By the way, .......an easy, no-tech fix on the shaky footage, is just to hold a stick in your camera hand, touching the ground. It stills all the up and down movement.
Thank you, this is all good advise, We have been busy also maintaining many beds, and doing some row planting for potatoes, and peas right now. We do gardening on a smaller scale. We only use hand tools which makes it interesting, and a good work out. I just laid down 30 ft. by 60 ft. of black plastic to prepare next years potato, and tomato garden area. I have got to keep expanding garden space to be able to rotate crops in at least a 3 year cycle. What a nice set up you have there. Someday I would like to build a green house just like yours.
Hey Josh ... I want to convert my back yard into a garden (Boise Idaho). There is enough room for about 6 raised beds which we can not afford this year. The back yard is mostly weeds and clay soil. I am in the process of putting down landscaping fabric (March 1, 2024) to kill as many weeds as possible before we make beds without structure. We have a good source of organic compost and made about 3 cu. yds. last year that I will use on the strawberry beds. What do you think of this plan and what changes would you suggest? I will bring pictures with me to the June 2024 Homesteading conference in Cd'A but want to get started now. Love you guys and looking forward to the conference and meeting you in person.
Hey Josh great video and good advice! By the way I think I have that same shirt by Weatherproof! haha. Anyway, I love you and your wife's videos and farmstead. I just started my PDC a couple months ago with Geoff Lawton. Can't wait to get moving toward a more sustainable way living. God Bless!
Really great information, I just love your greenhouse. I found I couldn't watch some of the video (when you were holding the camera towards you and talking). The constant shaking kind of made me nauseous, so I lowered the lid to my laptop and just listened to what you were talking about.
Thanks for sharing! We are also working on a new property and garden. We are tilling because we have lovely Georgia red clay 😊 but I’m hoping after a few years of amending the soil with compost & mulch it will get better. I’m so excited to follow along to see how you work your new space!
Our garden is not as large as yours, but my husband will not til. He says it kills the worms. Because he adds so much compost it stays fairly loose. He does turn the soil by hand with a shovel each year.
You may have mentioned this before but with your recent move where are you getting all of your compost? Were you able to bring some with you or are you having to buy it? If you're buying it what kind do you get?
Redcurrents fruit on older wood so I remove new wood and cordon a framework. Blackcurrents fruit on new wood so I harvest by pruning out the fruiting branch .
Fifty crowns in that bed? What are the dimensions of the asparagus bed? I was considering making one of my raised beds into an asparagus bed. But the spacing recommendations wouldn't be enough for the family in one bed. I have limited space.
What is the cardboard method. I've never gardened on a large scale, so my knowledge is limited to beds. And advice you could give me or info you could point me toward would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! Really enjoy your videos -- usually only watch the food ones, but it's that planting time of year! ;)
cardboard or newspaper is often used over the top of a weed/grass location and compost/manure and mulch added on top to create the soil for growing. Often takes 2 seasons for any real production. Great for shallow root items, just not carrots or parsnips where the root grows deep for the first year. Beets and radish likely ok, beans, corn, squash, tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, garlic, onions and the like.
Great video again Josh, please run your film through some stabilizing software... makes quality that much better... or maybe you can get one of your kids to edit the footage, they are so much smarter with computers then we are :P
There appears to be some pressure treated posts in your greenhouse soil and those outdoor beds appear to be framed with old railroad ties. The pressure treated wood contains arsenic and the ties contain creosote - both are toxic, will leach into the soil and into your plants. You'd want to separate your greenhouse soils from the posts and get rid of those ties before eating anything grown next to those items.
I have been taught that cardboard is so full of chemicals that it shouldn't be used to grow your food with. Even so there have been times I HAVE USED it, so what do you think. You must think we aren't leaching the cardboards chemicals into our soil and thus vegetables. I really would like to know.
Here is a great article from Permaculture Research Institute about what is really IN newspapers and cardboard. permaculturenews.org/2016/03/14/is-newspaper-safe-for-your-garden/ The inks used now is soy based not lead and testing has indicated affects from glues or sealants is benign. Each of us needs to decide what we deem safe by a little research and not merely on hearsay. =)
We've had new neighbors say they like our garden. They tried the no till, produced very little and got frustrated. I offered to till or plow with my walk behind and they look horrified and tell me biospheres and mold spores and fungi. There are many place no till works great. Our clay/shale craptastic subdivision is not one of them. New neighbors move in across the street, I plow, then till for them. Amend and fert and they have wonderful results. Sometimes you can lead that horse to water....but ya' can't make them drink.
@@shellysmith1037 that’s very true. My soil isn’t that bad but up until a few years ago it was just grass. Tilling it helps even though it hurts the biosphere and all that. My folks tried the no till and it worked well enough but it was a small garden.
"God knew what he was doing." Exactly! ❤ We til our new beds and make rows. Now the soil is nice and loose compost quality, deep color and very healthy. But had we not started with tilling we wouldn't even have a garden. I only use organic materials and trap plants and essential oils instead of chemicals. I want to feed my community and my family food the way God intended. I use the same strategy with my chickens. I don't get in the way, I just provide what they would naturally need if they were just wandering the world. Love your channel. God Bless you. :)
The garden looks great! I love your common sense approach to homesteading. I love how you use all the methods as they work for you, rather than being idealistic and hard and fast on specific rules.
Thank you!!! This was very insightful and gave me a lot to think about.
Glad it was helpful!
Putting my garden to bed but looking forward to next spring. Increasing garden space for next year.
This is so helpful as we get ready to plant our first garden! Thanks
Your garden is a dream. I wish I had all that flat space to work with.
Common sense and practical approach. It’s not so much about the method, but about the goal and what gets you there in the best efficient way. Great video
I agree totally
You need to be flexible with gardening
This is so nice! I would love to homestead but it's only me and I have no land. I love your videos and they come in handy even though I'm not a homesteader.
Thank you so much for sharing your progress in the garden, as someone who is still learning to garden (this is my second year) it really helps to be able to see what you are doing and learn from your experience and the wisdom that you share on this channel. Much appreciated!
I am no garden expert but I and my boyfriend grow a lot of veggies, flowers , fruits , one big mistake I did years ago involved asparagus so , what I did was research the crap out of it. I got the best jersey crowns , and with blood sweat and tears I dug trenches about a foot deep , two rows and what they tell you is to not pick even ONE spear for 3 yrs. This year will be our 3rd year and it was amazing how big and bushy it got. Point is you have to establish a great healthy root system . just to let you know its not easy and you have to be so patient. take care ..
I grow asparagus as well. I know they don't like the compete with weeds. I just thought I would throw that out there for anyone thinking about throwing them. They are definitely worth it to grow.
Put the chickens in there and that will be dirt in no time AND raspberries love the protein from the birds. It worked for me. Love your site. Thank you.
Sounds like you are going to do just what I did so I can't give any advice! LOL.
Will you put solid borders to separate the beds from the pathways? (not talking raised beds)
15 years ago I tilled the garden for the last time. I laid down 3'X10' frames where the beds were to be and from then on I fluffed the beds with a digging fork (a broad fork would have made it much easier). I found the permanent beds fluffed with the fork to be much, much less work than tilling.
Also, using the broad fork, you don't turn over the soil. So in spring and fall, you can broad fork, then walk along the bed, easily picking up the weeds as they will still be sitting on top (even the perennial weeds). They come out with the full root structure intact.
Thank you so much for your generous time in teaching others how to make good soil with different alternatives. It is sure helping me!
The garden looks wonderful! I totally agree on your approach to till/no till. Oh and the greenhouse is great. Gives me ideas for when I have one built😊. Looking forward to more videos!
Love the garden tour! Looking forward to the video of your garden progress! We have a urban garden here in Chatham Ontario and can always learn new things to try in ours! We did raised bed because we are older and find them easier! Had limited funds so started with cardboard and leaves with twigs then my compost bind and bought peat moss with reg soil on top! I even tried some egg shells dried and finally crushed then mixed with vinegar, strained and diluted : 1tbsp to 5 cups water for calcium for the tomatoes! Calcium is suppose to be readily available to the plants! We’ll see how that works! Thanks for your opinions! See you soon Nancy
Last year I started a new garden from lawn. I tilled the top 2-3" and removed the grass and then tilled down about 8" from there and loosened up the ground, added compost and some lime and sheep manure. The garden was not planted until the end of the first week in June(about 3 wks late) but we had an amazing production with the exception of peppers and corn. I don't plan on tilling this year at all, just compost and manure and work that into the top couple inches. Thanks for sharing.
Really helpful!
Hi Josh , your gardens are taking shape and the prep work and progress is coming along nicely. Thanks for the tour my friend and the soil care advice is much appreciated 👍
Wow, you have made some great progress with the garden. Cant wait to see it all planted out. Thanks for the video xxx
It might work to plant some crimson clover around the raspberries after putting down the compost. Crimson clover has pretty deep roots, is great for fixing nitrogen, and it'll frost kill and become green manure.
Can you put this in as a garden cover at the end of the season or would it interfere with crops the next year?
Great video Josh. We are doing our raised bed garden again this year. A 4 foot by 16 foot. ( we do not have much of a yard here in Virginia Beach Virginia ) but we started by planting bell peppers, chards, Brussels sprouts, romaine lettuce and cucumbers. We were able to start planting about a month ago. Today I cut some romaine lettuce leaves and had a wonderful salad. Kind of gave me a thrill to be eating food from our own garden. Can't wait for cucumbers.
Learning so much looks like it will be a great garden when you finish it
I am new to your channel . Hello from Wisconsin!!! I am expanding my urban garden to include more edibles. I planted fruit trees, some raspberry and blueberry bushes and asparagus root . I started a small strawberry patch this past year and rhubarb several years ago. I plan on freezing a lot this year and dehydrating as well. I have never canned before so I hope to add that to my skill set this year. I am getting back to the land to be less dependent on the grocery store and reducing my chemical exposure. Your place is amazing . What a blessing to have so many things in place already.
Hi Josh. I follow permaculture principles too. One other thing I also learned was getting a soil analysis, then adding those extras if needed.
Thank you for your videos. I learn from you and appreciate your advice. Looking forward to each video and the progress of your new property and your gardens.
Really enjoy your videos! Love the updates! What a difference!
God certainly blessed you with a place that will bless your family.. It is just lovely. So happy for you. I take the same approach as you do.. We do what the situation calls for. It is all hard work but very rewarding. Thanks for sharing your new beginnings..
Great video, ......and what a great place. By the way, .......an easy, no-tech fix on the shaky footage, is just to hold a stick in your camera hand, touching the ground. It stills all the up and down movement.
Thank you, this is all good advise, We have been busy also maintaining many beds, and doing some row planting for potatoes, and peas right now. We do gardening on a smaller scale. We only use hand tools which makes it interesting, and a good work out. I just laid down 30 ft. by 60 ft. of black plastic to prepare next years potato, and tomato garden area. I have got to keep expanding garden space to be able to rotate crops in at least a 3 year cycle. What a nice set up you have there. Someday I would like to build a green house just like yours.
Hey Josh ... I want to convert my back yard into a garden (Boise Idaho). There is enough room for about 6 raised beds which we can not afford this year. The back yard is mostly weeds and clay soil. I am in the process of putting down landscaping fabric (March 1, 2024) to kill as many weeds as possible before we make beds without structure. We have a good source of organic compost and made about 3 cu. yds. last year that I will use on the strawberry beds. What do you think of this plan and what changes would you suggest? I will bring pictures with me to the June 2024 Homesteading conference in Cd'A but want to get started now. Love you guys and looking forward to the conference and meeting you in person.
What a beautiful start for a first year garden..that green house is amazing...Hope you have a wonderful garden season
Hey Josh great video and good advice! By the way I think I have that same shirt by Weatherproof! haha. Anyway, I love you and your wife's videos and farmstead. I just started my PDC a couple months ago with Geoff Lawton. Can't wait to get moving toward a more sustainable way living. God Bless!
Absolutely fantastic video, thanks for making me think a little
Really great information, I just love your greenhouse. I found I couldn't watch some of the video (when you were holding the camera towards you and talking). The constant shaking kind of made me nauseous, so I lowered the lid to my laptop and just listened to what you were talking about.
Good morning, I'm wondering how you are making those beds in the garden. What kind of machine you are using or do you make the rows by hand?
Thanks for sharing! We are also working on a new property and garden. We are tilling because we have lovely Georgia red clay 😊 but I’m hoping after a few years of amending the soil with compost & mulch it will get better. I’m so excited to follow along to see how you work your new space!
Can you plant crimson clover in your garden as a cover crop at the end of your vegetable season? Would this cause issues the next spring?
Wow you got that place looking really great. Are you for hire? 🤗
Our garden is not as large as yours, but my husband will not til. He says it kills the worms. Because he adds so much compost it stays fairly loose. He does turn the soil by hand with a shovel each year.
Thank you! Great info!
Garden looks beautiful! Keep sharing your progress!
Thank you for sharing your knowledge I really appreciate it
Love the info you're sharing. Thank you.
You may have mentioned this before but with your recent move where are you getting all of your compost? Were you able to bring some with you or are you having to buy it? If you're buying it what kind do you get?
Makes sense to me!!! TY
10:35 - of the list you mentioned, you did not mention "no dig". See Charles Dowding's channel on no dig gardening.
Redcurrents fruit on older wood so I remove new wood and cordon a framework. Blackcurrents fruit on new wood so I harvest by pruning out the fruiting branch .
Hey Josh, is your south wall insulated sheetrock, or a plastic with insulating value? (Hubby and I have differing opinions!) Thanks!
Fifty crowns in that bed? What are the dimensions of the asparagus bed? I was considering making one of my raised beds into an asparagus bed. But the spacing recommendations wouldn't be enough for the family in one bed. I have limited space.
Looks good
Great video
Thanks. ✌
Josh, just curious to see if you have tried hugelkultur yet?
Given diff types of rapsberrys need diff pruning, some right to the ground.. Do you know what species you have there?
I just experiment with all of them in one way or another as well. Because sometimes it's worth tilling, sometimes it's not.
I know this was a year ago. I wonder what seed starting medium he is using. It appears to be putting soil. Just wondering what he used.
Do you eat your aspergus green or white? White could work slightly earlier.
We have a lot of clay, what can we do to amend the soil in a permaculture way.
What is the cardboard method. I've never gardened on a large scale, so my knowledge is limited to beds. And advice you could give me or info you could point me toward would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! Really enjoy your videos -- usually only watch the food ones, but it's that planting time of year! ;)
cardboard or newspaper is often used over the top of a weed/grass location and compost/manure and mulch added on top to create the soil for growing. Often takes 2 seasons for any real production. Great for shallow root items, just not carrots or parsnips where the root grows deep for the first year. Beets and radish likely ok, beans, corn, squash, tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, garlic, onions and the like.
Look up the lasagna method he mentioned earlier.
@@clippersncurls Thanks! That sounds do-able. ;)
@@katkameo6413 I'll do that. Thanks!
I like these videos better than sitting in the pantry talking.
we found termites in our garden. Any advice?
We have a problem with termites as well. Would love to hear someone's advice.
Do you orient your rows north and south?
Great video again Josh, please run your film through some stabilizing software... makes quality that much better... or maybe you can get one of your kids to edit the footage, they are so much smarter with computers then we are :P
There appears to be some pressure treated posts in your greenhouse soil and those outdoor beds appear to be framed with old railroad ties. The pressure treated wood contains arsenic and the ties contain creosote - both are toxic, will leach into the soil and into your plants. You'd want to separate your greenhouse soils from the posts and get rid of those ties before eating anything grown next to those items.
I have been taught that cardboard is so full of chemicals that it shouldn't be used to grow your food with. Even so there have been times I HAVE USED it, so what do you think. You must think we aren't leaching the cardboards chemicals into our soil and thus vegetables. I really would like to know.
Most inks on boxes are soy ink, read ur cardboard
Here is a great article from Permaculture Research Institute about what is really IN newspapers and cardboard. permaculturenews.org/2016/03/14/is-newspaper-safe-for-your-garden/ The inks used now is soy based not lead and testing has indicated affects from glues or sealants is benign. Each of us needs to decide what we deem safe by a little research and not merely on hearsay. =)
thank you. I was not referring to the ink but to the process used in the making of cardbrd and that was answered to and I thank you both.
Where about are you located?
Troy Reid of the You Tube channel "the do it yourself world" is an expert gardener, you should get in touch with him for expert advice.
A wise man once told me. "If you got a rototiller, why wouldn't you use it? If you dont...the shovel is cheaper".
We've had new neighbors say they like our garden. They tried the no till, produced very little and got frustrated. I offered to till or plow with my walk behind and they look horrified and tell me biospheres and mold spores and fungi.
There are many place no till works great. Our clay/shale craptastic subdivision is not one of them. New neighbors move in across the street, I plow, then till for them. Amend and fert and they have wonderful results. Sometimes you can lead that horse to water....but ya' can't make them drink.
@@shellysmith1037 that’s very true. My soil isn’t that bad but up until a few years ago it was just grass. Tilling it helps even though it hurts the biosphere and all that. My folks tried the no till and it worked well enough but it was a small garden.