Our mission is to help you grow healthy food at home! We're two passionate gardeners growing a plethora of fruits and vegetables in small garden spaces to supplement our grocery-bought produce with homegrown veggies. We're scaling up our gardening ambitions with thousands of plants in a dense, urban garden. From tomatoes to melons to malabar and bush beans, we're doing out best to get a little better at growing food every season and share what we learn on RU-vid.
Every addition and modification to our garden is designed as an experiment, drawing on research from university extension offices, so that we can find and share best practices for a successful "homestead" garden in a small space.
We're located in Zone 9. More importantly for all the veggie growers out there, we have long, extremely hot Summers with little or no precipitation. Winter is mild with regular light frosts and night time temps remain cool into early Summer.
I appreciate the practical advice here, sometimes what you've always read *not* to do is actually what works best. Glad I found this just ahead of my first try at cucumbers, thanks!
Thank you for that! I think I'll revisit this topic next year perhaps. I've had a lot of luck this year avoiding the vast majority of BER. One change has been growing Granadero for our paste tomatoes - they are SO much less susceptible to BER than any of the other many varieties we've tried.
Im still not allowed to reply to comments, possibly these main posts stick. Im tired of the stupid so i wont bother checking, however now that ive let the thought cross my mind, there isn't a chance ill quit wondering before bed. 😉 p.s. the person who said you cut suckers and leaves off. Im interested in end results at ripen time, preferably if they were left to vine ripen. Ty 😊
Hiya. I'm not sure what you're asking here but happy to help! I do sometimes take a few days (... or even longer) to check all the comments but I try pretty hard to help when I can =) Cheers!
there is a sucker (that is not a sucker) that develops just below the 1st cluster of flowers this is the best stem to keep for double stem plant... this non-sucker is the most vigourous and performes the best regarding flowering latter on
I tried twice and they all died! They dry out too fast in the stacking planter. I watered daily bc our climate is hot. 😫 I'm not having success in these towers. I bought it specifically, like yours, for strawberries.
They really can dry out super fast! Sorry to hear it. If you want to try again (and I don't blame you if not!) you can try using more perlite and sphagnum peat moss to retain water.
Thank you for mentioning the bumble bee. Also for those gardeners in the USA (and also as far north as Ontario and Quebec you may have squash bees to pollinate. Honey bees are not capable of pollinating most squash species.
Whenever I need a quick, educated and concise answer to a plant dilemma, I pop on RU-vid and search through your channels for tips. Every time my girlfriend hears your voice coming from my laptop, she asks, "So what's your gardening guru have to say today?" She's not wrong.
New subscriber. Enjoyed vid. Thanx. Could you recommend seeds for redding CA. Very hot summers. I love idea of burp less and only female flowers and dont require pollination. You mentioned ???CORINTO? Other seed you rec and where can I buy these seeds?? Im doing well with started plants from nursery but with your tips I can feed other families next year. Thanx
I'm in a very hot, dry climate as well. We've had good luck with Corinto and Unagi from Johnny's. If you like the Japanese style cukes, we also like their Nokya line. Fair warning though - I haven't found any variety that really stands up well to 115 degrees and no rain. We have to try and swap in new plants as the old ones get beat up and less productive.
I’ve never grown eggplant….my husband went to a garden center sale at a nursery up in the mountains near us (odd we have never been but they grow wholesale and are only open to the public on Saturdays). They had veggies half off AND buy one get one free so he came home with some really big, nice, already flowering eggplant plants. Sigh We don’t even eat egg plant but in about to stick these in my already full garden just so he can see what they do lol.
I put my squash out early, bought clear plastic glasses put a hole in each side near the rim. Cover the new plant with the cup and insert wood screeners through the holes and into the dirt to keep them from blowing away. Also cut some slits in the top for air. So each seeding has its own greenhouse. No heavy rain can bother it no frost either. When is To big enough and weather better. Just uncover. I did this with my seedling tomato’s also.
I stumbled onto your site while looking into parthenocarpic cucumbers which I just found out about I especially liked the way you said to not just read the seed descriptions in the catalog. It’s so true that every variety is best tasting or last year favorites or sweetest and so on. Do you have a follow up video on your new seeds that you just planted?
I did make a full video on growing cucumbers! Our favorites right now are corinto and unagi. They don't hit every mark but are a great balance and have some wonderful traits!
Tips for beans? I started several types from different companies 7-8 weeks ago. The plants are finally 4-5 inches tall. I set them out weeks ago after last frost & they basically haven't grown, its probably too cold. 37-50 at night & 50-90 during the day back & forth. Theyve been fertilized, mulched, etc.
sooo my first time growing, and i have 4 better boy plants and i have some plants that have 2 extra thick stems coming from the lead at the very bottom with full leaves/no fruit. so do i cut it or leave them?
@@NextdoorHomestead no worries. but theres the original stem, and then theres another maybe 2 stems growing from that one from the bottom(soil level). and the plant is just massive right now, but its growing flowers now. so do i leave them or cut them? i just noticed how every other gardeners plant is relativley not as "bushy" but covered in fruit. maybe im over thinking it lol
Uh oh. I have about 30 squash plants started and was hoping to grow several (maybe even most) in grow bags and I was aiming for 15 gallon size (budget and space considerations). 30 gallons for one was not on my radar whatsoever 😕 😬 😅
I have trouble with pillbugs chewing on the yellow squash that touches the ground. Have added wood mulch, hoping that helps. Maybe I need to put out some pill bug traps. Defeated the squash vine borers this year by injecting BT into the stems.
Interesting! I'm getting a lot of comments about pill bugs. The big thing for us is just not letting the area stay too wet. Generally predators will control populations that explode.
You are very welcome! I have found greenhouse megastore to have the best prices if they have what you need. Otherwise, no preferred brand yet - all the options I've tried have worked well thus far =)
Greetings from the Isle of Islay ( Scotland's West coast ). We use cloth bags and layer chopped raw seaweed we find on the coast , this retains a measured feed to the plants on a regular basis, I realise where you live may not accommodate this but if you can source this resource grab it , my family tree and history tells of this method being use as far back as the 16th century, all the best .
Well OK, that's about the coolest local strategy I've heard in a while! Kelp is a great food if you have the time for it to break down! I've long wanted to visit Islay for some hiking... and perhaps a bit of Scotch ;)
Thanks for the great video! You’ve just earned a new subscriber 🙌🏻 We have three joserberries that are over 6ft in height and need a good pruning. Any tips or video on how to prune them to get a robust crop next summer?
Hi. First time viewer, I liked & subscribed. Looking over your other videos I still don’t see planting instructions for the container soil mix that you’re using for growing tomatoes. I thought to ask you now. •are you just using container pro mix without aged compost & sand? Please explain to us viewers what is best for container tomatoes? Are you fertilizing with organics or otherwise? What is the fertilizing regime? Thanks in advance. I enjoyed this video and especially the links to Cornell University. ✨🪴✨
So glad you enjoyed it! The topic of potting mix for tomatoes is a big one =) If you like using pro-mix, it's a great choice. One of my favorites certainly. The only caveat with pro-mix is that you need to fertilize heavily right from the beginning (unless you're using one of their mixes with fertilizer pre-added) or you'll get horrible results. I also like to add some additional drainage components (like perlite) to promix but that's optional. I personally use a DIY mix most of the time and lean heavily on compost and aged manure because it's much cheaper. In terms of fertilizer, I generally do only use organic fertilizer to try and preserve the health of the soil (our grow bags are on top of our native soil) but you can get great results with synthetic fertilizers + an inert mix like pro-mix. Just depends on your priorities =)
Thank you so much for this! I just spontaneously bought a lavender plant from my local nursery this weekend, then got it home and realized I had no idea what to do with it!! This was super helpful!!
"You're not growing leaves. You're growing tomatoes." That line hooked me on your channel. It was the first time I ever heard it and had a great chuckle. It also happened to be the first time hubby and I decided to grow tomatoes; grow anything. He came out with 17 cubes of tiny plants. 😅 'big boys.' No info how to grow them, no cage or trellis, and no information sheet. I pull out two window size planters and was pleased as they started growing. Realized soon after that this 'project was going to be more than I thought. Three ten gallons later with three tomato plants later I was off buying more planters to repot leaving one or two plants in each. Thankfully, I found your channel and ran out excitedly with my pruner and away we went.😂😂😂
Hahaha love this! I'm a big fan of going big to start and learning as much as you can from it. I hope you end up swimming in tomatoes. Best of luck to you and your husband on the garden adventures!
Tell me about it. I don't know how folks get so many videos out! I started filming one last week and couldn't use the audio because a neighbor was doing work on their foundation.
Heya! It definitely has been looked at and there's a good little study in the video description. In this video I actually do advocate for two leaders =)
Thanks.,! Having a great beginning of a gardening season....no every day rain.. like last year...no slugs..!! Flowers on tomato plants, peppers,, my blueberry plant tripled in size..I bought that fertilizer you suggested...giving them another dose this week...!
Any advice for beds (and plants) that have been struck by Squash borers?..... I'm in south central TX where we plant early because it's hotter than heck already and I'm really suffering with these bugs and what they are doing to my soil for next year already.
Do you happen to know the variety? There are some very different looking varieties of chard out there. It may even be an entirely different plant depending on your region (plant naming can be a little confusing).
@@NextdoorHomestead Thank you for replying! I do have some rainbow chard (that is being eaten by something) but my squash borers are after (and have ravaged) my Black Beauty Zucchini. I have cut back and then attempted to salvage squash vines that have put down new roots. But I'd love to help the soil and try again next year watching more closely and possibly prevent another bad attack.
