If you're interested in growing your own food, you're in the right place! I'm Jill and I garden in Arkansas, zone 7b. As a beginning gardener in 2013, I found it difficult to find the most basic information for beginning gardeners. Now with ten years of knowledge and experience from my 2500+ square foot garden (consisting of raised beds, ground beds, containers, and a greenhouse), I hope to help beginners find success in their own food gardens. Although I now grow most of the vegetables and herbs our family eats throughout the year, I am still learning, failing, and testing, and I share my ongoing garden journey here as well.
I’ve not had issues with blossom end rot with Roma or San Marzano. My number 1 issue is early blight that knocks all of my tomato varieties. Haven’t found a variety yet that triumphs . I have rotated crops around, tried preventative spraying with baking soda solution and a hydrogen peroxide solution, tried cleaning up leaves as soon as possible ( impossible!)
very valuable -especially the planting demonstration. Since we now live in a world of crazies who want to shut down small farms and even home gardens, you may wish to add that you are SEQUESTERING ATMOSPHERIC CARBON!
I probably shouldn’t comment anything because I don’t remember the name. I’m growing f1 tomatoes that have the thickest stalks I have ever seen, flowers everywhere, and all of them turn tomatoes, and the tomatoes are black. It’s trippy, they’re not better or worse tasting, but they’re black tomatoes.
Trying my first greenstalk and loving it so far. I'm a senior over 70 and finding an alternate way of gardening to save my back and knees. 😊 This helps me to keep active and provides healthy food and less supermarket trips.
Thank you for your videos. I have two questions. What do you amend your soil mix with at the start, and do you fertilize during their growth and production period?
question: Is it possible to have an allergic reaction to drinking an herbal tea if you are allergic to pollen, trees, mold, grass smut, rag weed, etc? I'm not allergic to any herbs but I am allergic to all of these other things. I am growing several herbs but I'm hesitant to make teas d/t these allergies. Allergic reaction to them is itching and hives. Thanks for any info on this.
I'm honestly not sure! My thought would be that if they were rinsed off well, the allergens wouldn't be present. But maybe Heidi can give some insight!
I love the voice over method of this video. You mention different varieties that you planted, can you list those and the vendor? I love you straight forward clear approach and the added plus is I am also in your zone.
I must be missing something. As the water table goes down, the soil is not in direct contact with the water so I assume wicking would cease. Other wicking bed systems have pockets or 'wicks' of soil or perlite... that go down deeper into the water well for that reason. I didn't see that you used anything like that. Perhaps since you have to water every week it remains quite full. I am thinking that instead of the river stone I could use upturned milk crates or bread trays or similar - anything that can hold the soil above the water. What do you think?
Overhead is great, too, but often it requires more to build/secure a structure and keep it from becoming a wind sail. I've tried it several ways and this is the quickest and easiest for me, especially for such a short term. The shade cloth did not touch my plants because of the hoops. So the cloth rested on the hoops.
Agreed -- I order bare roots from them in the spring (good results each time), but the plants in the fall were all I could find, and they are pretty high priced.
I just ordered more strawberry bare root stock from Hand Picked Nursery in Benson, NC. I want to fill my Green Stalk with everbearing plants (I have June bearing in a bed where the runners can bring me more plants). Had really good luck with them. Need to get them in the Green Stalk now so they can take hold before I move it in my Grow Room under grow lights for the winter. Had good luck with that last year!
You did an excellent job Jill of covering a lot of territory about strawberries. I have grown strawberries for about 20 years. I'm a backyard hobbyist and this is what I have found. I'm in zone 9b so summer temps range from 90F to 105F. I grow 6 varieties and in rows. This way I can compare the different varieties. My strawberries receiver 8 hrs of sun and then afternoon shade. They do slow down in the summer heat but the one that seems to bear from March to September is Albion, a day neutral. I fertilizer every 3 weeks in the growing season with an organic fertilizer except in Spring where I use a higher nitrogen fertilizer . I water daily to keep the strawberries moist but not really wet. Good soil is important and something like bark or straw to keep the soil cool. I purchased mine bear root which is cheaper and you can choose more varieties. I grow Sweet Charlie, Chandler, Charolette, Seascape, Ruby June, Albion. If you can find plugs to plant, that is the best option but more expensive.
Once I figured out what cover crops are, I realized that they’re readily available as bags of legumes and spice seeds at grocery stores and deer food plot mixes at farm/feed stores. Very inexpensive and readily available locally ✔️It’s a fun experiment!
Your information on varieties is interesting and I enjoyed your enthusiasm, keep up the great work and trials. Only one thing! you are making a mistake thinking heirlooms are always true to seed types. Heirlooms can be hybrids as well which are not true to seed types and can be any tomato that is 50 years old or older. The term open pollinated is the accurate term for having a precise offspring. I am in the heatwave alley of Southwest Florida zone 10. I had not grown Amish paste in 20 years but decided to put it in my trials this year so put out 1 in my Spring grow out this year. It actually did well in some intense upper 90's heat and the flavor was comparable in quality to some of my favorite and best Oxhearts like Wes, Sister Miriam, Mayo's Delight, and Mrs. Schlaubaugh's famous Strawberry. Have 8 under the grow lights now for my Oct 1st garden set out time. Good luck in your trials!
Year one of my learning about cover crops. I chose a mix of crimson clover, barley, and oats and out it in at the end of Aug. it has taken off beautifully and in 7B my frost date will be near the end of Nov. I’ll se how things go, but my plan is to mulch it with the mower in spring and let it decay in place. Part of what I am learning is the mix of plants have different root levels. They interact with the microbes to be more effective when combined tha when a mono crop.
Our local big box stores usually discount fruit plants by half this time of year. Whatever is left they’re trying to clear out. I picked up blackberries and blueberries.
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