Hilary- love your video. Just a bit of advice from an "old" homesteader.... When using manure from cattle, horses, etc., check with the owner to see if the hay the animals consumed was treated with "graze-on". If so, don't use it because it will prohibit anything from growing. One other bit about manure, it needs to be composted for at least 6 months (a year is better) to allow the ammonia etc. to break down and not burn your plants. Rabbit poo can be used straight from the bunny. I compost my chicken poo on my compost pile for at least a year -- lots of ammonia. Happy growing!
@Homegrown_Hillary. I'm so glad Charlette already mentioned this! It's vicious, pernicious, and enduring. It's especially harmful to nightshades and deforms their cell structures. David the Good has a couple of videos explaining what it does, how to avoid it, and how to test unknown materials for its presence for anyone who wants to know more. I'm aware of people losing entire large-scale harvests because of it.
The axiom, "perfect is the enemy of good" came to mind when you talked about some of the famous gardeners. I nearly gave up on the idea of having a garden where I could grow some food on my imperfect acreage when I watched Charles Dowding.
I "grew" a garden for the first time last year, and I knew going into it that it was probably going to be more worthwhile from an experience standpoint than a produce standpoint, so I made a point to take a lot of notes. (Spoiler alert: I was right. I think I got three green beans and one bell pepper the size of a golf ball, and that was it 😅) I expect better things this year. It was worth the watch to find out about the existence of "lasagna gardening" (9:29). I don't really have a good yard for growing (my attempts last year were in containers), so this has the potential to be a game changer. Thanks!
I love watching your videos, Hillary! You are so animated!! I laugh when you make jokes (and you laugh at your own jokes or comments)! 😂 As a person who hasn’t done much gardening, it sounds like lots of fun…especially with my grandchildren!❤
such good tips! thank u. we just purchased a hoop house from amazon...it was 54$ and its 7x7x10. we got it up and now we need to put the cover on. i started 20 cabbage and 20 swiss chard plants in our window in the house. soon we are gonna move those to the hoop house. i dont have heat inside the hoop house but the frost will be kept off the plants. i save all my seeds from the fruit and veggies i buy from the store. i also use the potatoes i buy from the store. they get eyes on them and i plant them. i saved most all my seeds from my garden from last year. i am living in town and have about 1/3 acre. we have lots of deer but so far they have not ventured to the garden.we have a 6 ft chain link fence. thank goodness. its very fun to have a garden. we cant plant till mid june on hot weather plants.thank u.
I'm experimenting with gardening with sprouted produce and seeds saved from grocery store produce for the first time this year. (Mostly the first category). Do you have any tips or good websites you use as a reference? Congratulations on your seed saving🎉
At the end of the year I let the tomatoes go to rot and drop off and in the spring they pop back up in the same spot and I just transplant the wee plants where I want them to grow. I haven't bought tomatoes seeds in yrs, unless it's a new variety I want to try. Like this yr black cherry tomatoes. I'm excited
@@Homegrown_Hillary oh Sungold are very nice and sweet. I've grown them too, but the last 3 yrs I've been growing Yellow Pear tomatoes that I got from Burpee and those are hardy for South Alabama and gives me seeds every year. Very tasty too.
@melissasmith7069 Life got in the way of starting my tomatoes this year (NWFL), but my SIL (also an MG) just surprised me with a yellow pear transplant and a couple of others as well! I am so thankful and really looking forward to them fruiting.
I’m going to grow veggies for the first time ever this year. So excited!😆 However, I decided to start very low key: Only plant cabbage, carrots and a few herbs for the start, and only use things that I already have (planters etc.) to grow them. As I’m living in an apartment, the space on my balcony is very limited. But the coming years are for gaining experience in growing veggies before purchasing my own place with a garden. Thank you for your videos. I’m always enjoying your content. Warm regards from Germany🌷☀️
This was a very nice video and you are delightful as always. I have volunteer tomato plants that pop up various places in the yard and I move them back to the garden. I stuck them in pots for now because I need to clear out all the weeds first and be careful of the 3 that are actually in the garden. However, they TAKE OVER and little else grows. :)
You have such a delightful personality, I love your videos. Always informative and fun. I have a raised bed with 2 cherry tomato plants, basil and sage. So far. I used to grow a large and diverse garden, but now I’ve dialed it down considerably.
My brother has been a fan of Square Foot Gardening for years. He put in a couple of years working at a nursery when he was in college. If I were to plant something, I guess it’s about time, but I don’t seem to have inherited the gardening bug that the rest of my family has. My father (93) is still planting a few tomatoes and cucumbers each year, and does keep notes on how his plants did … (I at least inherited his notes gene. 😄)
Dollar Tree seeds have been amazing for me. They are 25 cents a package, so you can afford to get a lot of packages of one kind to make up for there only being a few in a package. There are only basic varieties, but they are tried and true. These seeds are from the Ferry-Morse company. I also have been winter sowing in milk jugs. It really works
I have that book, along with many others! We have a huge garden every year and I can/freeze/dehydrate a lot. HOSS seeds is my go-to. Small seed quantities are not a bad thing if you cannot stop planting until the row ends. We start our plants under grow lights.
Thank you, Hillary, for sharing your gardening knowledge with us! I love your very practical approach to this topic. I’d love to see more gardening videos from you!
You have a lot of nice tips here, but may I add one? If you live near or going to a county fairgrounds, you can usually pick up maure for free. Best to call and make sure, though .
Be careful- we got horse manure last year that we figured out was poisoned bc the hay they ate was sprayed with herbicides 😢 ruined my garden space and I’m now trying to figure out how to fix my soil!
@@loribethartist6353 i very much appreciate the caution! I've gotten manure this way for many years and had no issues, but I'll keep an eye out. The manure i get goes into the compost pile for a full year, but I've no way to tell if that diminishes any problems or not.
@@nadajaklic3069 we’ve used the same from a farmer we’ve known for years… they switched last year, worth it to ask them about the hay they feed their horses. I’m making no dig beds on top of the ground this year, hopefully the land will heal itself in a couple years 🤞🏻🤞🏻 good luck with your 2024 garden 🪴
Grow things you’ll eat, yes. But also grow the ‘expensive’ vegetables in the store. For example, asparagus, also it comes back year after year after planting once. Then there’s raspberries, blueberries and strawberries, also expensive at the store, the bushes for raspberries and blueberries can produce berries year after year. Tomatoes, of course, taste better when home grown.
Great book on raised bed intensive garderning - John Jeavons "How to Grow More Vegetables: And Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains and Other Crops Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine" continuously in print since 1974 (newer version includes fruit, nuts, etc).
Love your badge❤ Wear it with pride🏆 I live in Sydney Australia and try as I might, I cannot grow raspberries, blueberries and strawberries. WHAT IS YOUR SECRET! Sorry to shout but I'm desperate and jealous much!😊
At least for the raspberries, I made sure to plant mine where they’re safe from the wind. I’m unfamiliar with the specific climate of Sydney, but here it gets quite cold (zone 5a) and all my berries get a solid season of hibernation. Plus lots of fertilizer/compost, and mulch since they don’t compete well with weeds!
@@Homegrown_Hillary Hmmmm very hot and humid in Sydney. Warm winters. I will try again. Guilty of not fertilizing. I will look into that. Thankyou you have been a big help.
@barbarabruce7648 I thought I recalled that Sydney has a similar enough climate to Florida to suggest that you try to find a blueberry cultivar similar to the ones we are able to grow here (9a-Rabbiteye). So, I went to verify your planting zone and learned from a very interesting article from the Australian National Botanic Gardens' research team (1991) that there isn't a direct equivalent in AUS to our growing zones. However, Dawson, the author, proposed an adjusted scale (with caveats), which places Sydney in a rough equivalent to our 9a-10b depending on additional factors (coastal proximity, etc.). In the proposed AUSBG scale at that time, you would be in 3a-4b. FL just shifted upward in the most recent adjusted zones to US 8b - 11b. Nearly all US blueberries available in the grocery are actually from Maine where Hillary lives (aka The Blueberry State) since most varieties require longer chill hours than we have. Also, blueberries generally need to be planted in pairs for pollination and may not bear fruit for the first couple of years. Hope that helps in some small way and good luck!
I think the biggest concern I’d have is all the microplastics from synthetic fabrics. If you knew the lint was 100% cotton/wool/linen/etc I think it’d be fine. But I’ve never researched it in depth!
I haven’t, but I’ve seen others do them! I think the biggest downside is just that they’ll break down over time, and faster than a wooden raised bed. But I bet they are cheaper!
