Are you still wasting your money on this? 

I am not a gardener or a survivalist. I just really like Lilly. She is so nice.

Great video, Lily. I've been following you for a while, but this might be my first comment. I'm a US citizen, but lived in Scotland for about 20 years. Even though I have acreage now, I didn't for a long time and prefer containers and raised beds. I had 2 donkeys for several years, and a couple cows. They made composting easy. But I did exactly what you're doing in a raised bed. I turned all my raised beds into a worm farm. I have rabbits now. They are perfect 'fertilizer', or compost. I went back to Scotland for 5 years and the guy on my farm, let it go to weeds. All my worms and my huge green house are gone. 12 years of work gone and I'm starting over. I'm old now, 67. But I know what I'm doing, which helps. Thank you for encouraging young people to do this. I appreciate you very much!

To make soil, I mulch up the leaves from my maple trees in the fall and pile them up on my raised beds. Over the winter I stir them up every once in a while and when spring comes my raised bed is full of nice rich mulch/ soil.

My wife started doing exactly that about 3 years ago and my soil looks and feels great. The worm population has doubled and my yield is as good if not better than when I used store bought compost

Lily there is a channel called Self Sufficient Me with a guy from Australia. He does this also and he even adds dead birds and things from around his property. He’s had amazing results. Thanks for the reminder! Trying to build a big compost pile in the suburbs is not easy. This is a great substitute.

We used to make Grandma juice. Cow or horse shit in a dust bin 1/3 full and 2/3 rain water, allow to marinate for a few weeks then use to water plants. Kitchen waste, grass cuttings, newspaper, leaves, fish etc in a separate compost bin. Ask your local council what free waste they have, grass cuttings from parks etc. Leave 1 bed empty for a season to allow it to rejuvenate itself. Rotate the veg in a different bed each year. Check soil ph levels. Some plants wont grow if certain other plants have been there the year before. It is important to nurture the soil just as much as the plants, treat it like another plant 😊

As a life-long herbalist, I know that finding a decaying log covered in moss in the woods provides excellent biomaterial for your soil. Such logs are rich in mycelium, which is beneficial for plant roots. You can break up the softer pieces and mix them with your soil. However, it's important to only harvest a maximum of half of the log, and only take one log out of every seven in the area to ensure that there will always be plenty for both your needs and nature.

I’ve done that for years. I call it “compost in place.” Sometimes I get amazing surprise crops: garlic, potatoes, tomatoes, arugula, and pumpkins. I’m in the US South.

Good to see old knowledge in the modern world. My grandfather used to dig a trench down his vegi garden, fill it with scraps, cover and leave that strip fallow for 6 months. He was doing this in the 1930's. Thanks for another great video Lilly!😀

Another good practice is to harvest stinging nettles and other green matter, put it into 5 gallon buckets, top it up with water and leave to sit, stirring occasionally for a few weeks. When ready, put the water into a watering can, dilute at a ratio of 10/1 ratio of water to liquid fertiliser you've made and supply to the soil. Stinging nettles are abundant around Europe and as we ell know, it spreads like wildfire...so never a problem to find it. Broken down to a fertiliser, it will put back so many great nutrients into the soil

Went offgrid and had to start from scratch literally in virgin forest land, bought garden soil ,3 truck loads but my garden was a disaster , very poor soil. So last winter I got rabbits , they're quiet, not smelly and their waste can go directly into the soil. What a different garden this year, it's booming! I even use the urine as a pesticide/fertilizer. 100 ℅ recommend them, they're cheap to feed too.

Add Fishbones to promote root growth😊 go to market where are fish are filleted and ask for the bones some people give them and some people sell them😊

I bought a few thousand tins of canned vegetables a while ago as it will be too hard to protect a vegetable garden when everyone else starts to go hungry 😢.

Smart move deciding to cancel the horse manure, given the horses weren't fed a natural/organic diet, and were also on medications. A lot of people would forget to take that into consideration, which is easy to overlook.

The vast majority of us ingest fluoride through our toothpaste every day. Fluoride in fertilizer is mostly found in superphosphate, not the typical NPK garden fertilizer we use. This is just another in a long line of gardening panics that the internet pushes on us. Artificial fertilizers are GOOD for backyard gardens, when used in the proper, suggested amounts. If you can use ammonia to clean your house or bleach to clean your white clothing, you can handle using fertilizers properly. Don't be paranoid - it's not good for you.

Nice garden Lilly!🌸

I got giant zip ties and set together pallets into 6 big compost bins. I rotate thru filling and clearing them out. I have a small chicken flock & 3 rabbits. Our home made compost nourishes a huge productive garden. We buy no fertilizers. 💓 love your channel Lily. 👌

The tradition of growing a vegetable garden is still alive in Lithuania. My parents still grow potatoes.

Rabbit poo is good fertilizer, make your own compost and raise worms for the casings.

Thank you, Lilly! Your garden looks great, and very practical! ❤

I was buying compost in 2020 but not anymore ... I got chickens and harvest leaves and fir needles, shred wood etc I make my own compost. I made lots of biochar and then I found a burn pile already mixed with soil so just needs inoculating. I make garden beds by laying out cardboard and piling compost on -- then I use coffee bean bags for the edges and paths. We have very rocky soil because we live in the Rocky mountains in BC so cultivating is not easy. It's excellent soil but so many rocks. The neighbor said "At Harrogate we grow rocks" Thank you for the video --- excellent information!!!

I don't buy any mulch or fertilizer. I use livestock manure and compost on my vegetable garden. I also put the ashes from the fire pits on the vegetable garden and fruit trees. I only buy seeds. In my childhood, human urine and excrement were also driven into the field. You can use that up if you compost carefully for three years. I live in a 19th century house with a good cellar. The cellar holds all the food for the winter and the granary holds the grain. I can fish in summer and winter. We also hunt deer, among other things. I think we will survive here unless the government comes up with something to ban subsistence farming. I'm just about to go blueberry and mushroom picking in a nearby forest.

My grandfather was a vegetarian who grew almost all of his own food after retirement. He would allow the corn stalks and tomato plants to naturally decay, cover them with straw for the winter, then roto-till the organic matter into the garden. He would also burn the garden before winter i think he used kerosene. He also would get 2, 55 gallon metal drums with cow manure & compost and roto-till that into the garden before bringing the plants outside to plant them in the garden in the spring time. He would rotate the plot every 7 years to a new location on the property. According to the Bible this is God’s way of growing food plots.

Enjoyed your garden tour and showing the produce. Quick price update from the USA..Ky to be more exact. A bushel of green beans $70. dollars. Cans of green beans, corn and peas this spring were $.69 cents are now $.99 cents. Seeds are tripled in price. Many stores do not have them this year or the selection is poor. Canning jars are very expensive.

Put your kitchen waste in buckets with rain water. The waste water will be your fertilizer. Check out the viking gardener. Among others. It's so powerful that you'll have to dilute it. Also, egg shells ground up and mixed with vinegar and set aside for 2 weeks will become good calcium deposts mixed with water and used to water your plants. Etc.. charcoal is also good mixed with your liquid kitchen scrap fertilizer, will turn to biochar and help your vegetables to absorb the nutrients from the soil and liquid ferts.

I make my own compost too. What you buy is usually not decomposed enough. All you get is wood shavings or wood chips. Leaves are good to use as a ground cover and then till it in to the soil. One other thing . . . you always crack me up when you say, "it really sucks" I don't know why, just cracks me up.

Are you able to gather scraps from local restaurants? Also used coffee grinds from cafe's and coffee shoppes. Don't forget egg shells are great in the soil. Wood ash from your campfires will supply all the potash your garden would need. I gather mass amounts of wood ash from a local sawmill that burns their sawdust. Happy gathering!

Vitamin Pee. Works amazing. 10-2-4 npk PLUS lots of other super important minerals.

In my town (USA) in the Autumn, people put their leaves in bags and it goes out for leaf collection. I ask if I can have the leaves; and in the summer, I get grass clippings from a lawn mowing company. The mower fella knows I don't want chemicals in the grass.... And no one sprays their maple, oaks and other trees... so; with both of those, I'm able to make compost. I also use the wood chipper, and chip up all my privet, lilac and other understory branches; and that is added in as well. I flip my compost bi-weekly. It breaks down very fast. I built a 2 bin compost system so the compost is contained. I also use the BOKASHI system. All my "wet" kitchen scraps go in the bokashi bin. I keep a spot in my garden just for burying bokashi. Once the bokashi is ready to be dumped, I put it in the spot deemed for bokashi; the dirt is BLACK GOLD after the worms and other great microbes eat up the bokashi. I use Bokashi tea (diluted) to water my garden. The left over "tea" goes in my pond, where MY maple leaves "fester" from fall to spring. I have a great system here. I have very little food waste; We make correct portions for our meals; and rarely have leftovers. If its 'organic' its composted, and returned to earth.

Compost in place. You can ask your local fish monger for trash fish guts, scales, heads, and bones. You can also ask your butcher for bones, guts, etc. Since you regularly camp in the woods, gather a load of dried leaves. Leaves gathered from the forest floor are the best. Gather rotten tree branches when you can find them. Pack the remains of your campfire (burnt wood and ashes) and/or buy charcoal. Dig deep enough in your beds so it doesn't smell. Put tree branches down first, then the leaves, then the fish/animal guts, then the charcoal/ashes/burnt wood, then leaves, then animal parts, then charcoal, then leaves, then soil. If you can get grass clippings that will be a fantastic addition too. Top with soil and let it all decompose for at least a month.

Good tip for compost in raised bed , thanks . I like your garden Lilly !

You can always ask neighbors for their kitchen scraps as well. Esp. if they don't garden - if you give them a bucket, they may be happy to share.

Hi lily from Australia I live in Tasmania so colder climate than on Mainland my Husband and I made a small solar heater for our greenhouse so in winter we keep it going and it just stops frost and keeps the beds warm enough to still grow. Also do what you do we put scraps in but also have containers we put scraps in has some soil in it to help and when warm we make it a liquid manure and put back into new compost we make. We now make most of our own soil by doing this and going to farmer next door hehe and getting horse manure we keep three laying chickens which helps too.

1) Keep a couple of rabbits and chickens for their droppings.

Greetings from Illinois USA! Thank you for sharing your wisdom and experience!

My wife is a teacher, and the schools are now broken up for summer. This is the time the school renews the things in the playground. I’ve just dismantled a couple of huts that were about to be skipped, all good wood. I have enough wood now to make at least 8, 4x4 raised beds, and many, many more planters, and bird and bat houses. I’m sure I’m creating more CO2 though doing this up cycling. I don’t know, what do you think about it me lovely?

That's exactly how I compost at times. I tried it as an experiment many years ago and was surprised at how fast it broke down.

Composting in place it wonderful

In the autumn, go to the forest and rake up fallen leaves. They are totally organic. Cover your raised beds with a deep layer of leaves. Maple leaves are the best because the worms love them, but any leaves will work. In the spring, move the leaves aside and plant your vegetables. When your plants are small, surround them with the remaining leaves, just don't cover the stems. This will keep the ground moist, suppress weeds, and feed the worms and soil biota. You will be delighted with the results. Sometimes, a farmer will let you haul away spoiled hay. It got rained on, and the cows won't eat it, but the worms will. Of course, it may not be organic.

I have a composter and save all my kitchen scraps too! Egg shells, coffee grounds and scraps from fruits and vegetables are all great for the garden. I also add the ash from my wood stove too! I also relocate earthworms I find in the driveway and place them in my raised beds.

More gardening videos please!

Hi Lilly! Love your garden/green house😊! Could you do a future video on how you harvest various crops that you are growing?

Good to see your garden. Still struggling with mine. My Jersualem Atrichokes (Sunchoke) are mostly in 5 gallon and are quite tall. My first year. If you want to make tomato sauce you likely want a paste tomato like Roma-style. They have more meat. You can dehydrate them and have your own "sun dried" tomatos. Also I do freeze dry my excess and the powder can be used for many things depending on how much water you add. It is a shame my (adult) daughter has such a strong allergy.

Thank you Lily! Great video. I also put some really old wood at the bottom of my raised beds, which acts as a sponge to hold rainwater for a long time. And I compost my own manure, which is normal. People think it's strange, but it isn't. I have read about this practice, how to do it safely, and done my research. It's amazing, easy, and a winner for the planet and my garden. Next for me will be rabbits and chickens. Love to you from the Chicago area. -Robert

Hi Lilly- beautiful garden! I used shredded deciduous leaves as a base for my beds. Good Work!☮️&🌱

Hi Lilly, nice garden and video. I love those new little potatoes any way ya want to fix them. Anyone can make a small garden. Go on line and there is lots of sites to get ideas from. Its not as much work as most people think. I tell them ya don't have to plant a garden the size of an acre to get lots of great food. I always leave pea shells, vines and such to dissolve back into the soil over the winter. Now I'm letting my seed peas dry so I'll be ready for next year. Thanks for the video. 🙂

I make my own fertilizer (compost teas) (comfrey, fish, microorganisms, nettle) and I have chickens now. You can take the chicken manure and put it in water for a few days and add it to your plants, ratio 1/50. Even my own urine goes into the composter. It is rich in phosphorus, nitrogen, potassium etc. On Saturday I get a trailer full of horse manure from a friend. They only feed organic straw and hay. I will give it to the chickens first so they can pick out the insects, larvae and seeds. I highly recommend "Garden Like A Viking" and "David The Good".

Nice garden Lilly. I have 4 acres in Alaska that I grow all our fruit and vegetables on. I built raised beds inside our 70'x32' foot high tunnel or hoop house. Not sure what you call them in Austria. Right now, I have 36 tomato plants, 24 pepper plants, 52 asparagus plants, 12 cucumber plants, 10 summer squash plants, 10 pie pumpkin plants, 2 horseradish plants, lots of garlic, potatoes, onions, celery, strawberries, apple trees, haskap and raspberries. Every summer I catch a couple hundred wild pacific salmon. I use the salmon carcasses to make compost, along with rabbit and chicken manure. I have a 20-foot shipping container buried into the side of a hill for long term storage of the crops and canned food.

I have done this 3 years ago and then planted tomatos in there - it was a great harvest. I added some leafs in the fall. and horse manure from a neighbor. Zucchini and cucumber shouldn't be planted together in a raised bed

Lilly, what about having bees, butterflies and pollinators around? In your greenhouse, with tomatoes and strawberries etc.? Thanks for the tour!

Thank you for this. My wife has been composting kitchen scraps for a while. I am sharing this with her. She uses a lot of grow bags because our soil still sucks.

Fantastic, thank you Lilly. Have a small balcony bed, and window setup's, it's great growing food, even in a small space, you make the most of things .. great job.

Your gardens look nice.

Hi @survival Lilly I also bury kitchen scraps in my garden. But I also started removing the weeds that sprout in my garden and bury the weed plants too. I usually pu the weeds out before they go to seed.

You have a very beautiful garden. Glad it produces well for you. I have always done conventional gardening, tilling or discing the earth, making rows or mounds, etc. , but I will start making some raised beds similar to yours and making a good soil. I always used the dirt in my field, some crops do well but i haven't had good luck with crops like carrots, onions and garlic.

You are already aware compost is nothing more than reclaimed fibers and vegetable/grain food scraps, except not meats, or fats. If you want to move from direct composting to constant composting you will want to buy 5 gallon buckets with lids, or something like that you have available locally. Each day you have table scraps to compost, put it in the bucket and cover with the lid. After a day, or two, you want to put some dry materials, which can be dried grass clippings, tree leaves, or pretty much anything ready to compost as the "brown" (dry fiber) component. The purpose of the brown component is to help control the wet parts, which is normally your kitchen scraps. If you are doing this each day whenever the wet parts are available, by the next spring you have compost ready to feed new seedlings. You may even want to add lots of water to make a soup, but smell can be an issue. It will likely take more than a month for the smell to be controlled to a pleasing degree. Add the compost soup between the plants since it isn't the soup the plants feed from, but what the soil critters leave behind after consuming the compost soup. Just be careful not to drown the critters, so too much rain/watering can delay progress.

On your advice, Lily, I planted tiger nuts this year. I haven’t harvested any yet, but they are thriving in two patches, which look like ornamental grasses, in my front yard.

Greetings again Lilly. My wife watched this, really liked it, and wanted me to comment on what she has done that REALLY helped with cucumbers. After getting marginal results for a few years, this year she has occasionally sprayed a baking soda and water solution on them, and poured any extra in their grow-bags. They have been much more prolific, and she is getting a lot of cucumbers for her salads now. I hope you find this helpful.

In Hi dear, your garden is beautifully done ! When winter comes, you can cover the top of the soil with collected dried weeds if you don’t have pile of hay or straws. It keeps generating heat for the compost worms to be active even in cold winter. (& Could cover with tarp or card boards over the dried weeds too)

Another thing to consider about using animal manures is if the pastures have been treated with an herbicide called Grazon. If it is used, then the animals eat the grass and weeds and pass it into the manure and then that is passed into your gardens and then your plants will not grow properly or at all in many cases.

Hello from Virginia USA zone 7a! At the end of growing season, you could try a cover crop of cold hardy clover for nitrogen or some other cold hardy vegis covered by straw or fall leaves. Then just cut and chop them into the soil and let it feed the worms! Good job! Looks great!

I wonder why you do not have an old-fashioned compost heap? I have two side-by-side: one I build up with kitchen scraps, grass clippings (often contains soil because of molde hills), leaves. The other one is ripe compost from the year before and I use for the raised beds. Then I cover the current heap with a fine-meshed insect net (it is under an oak, so the acorns do not fall into the compost) and I fill the empty container for next year. This works very well and it costs nothing.

Chickens, high nitrogen crap, less composting time, chickens eat garbage and produce eggs.

I have made several attempts to start growing my own food in my garden in London over recent years and for now I have simply given up. I note that Lily has not covered her raised beds. Urban gardens have a concentration of animals that are harmful to your food crops in various ways and the plants will need to be protected under glass all year round. You should not be eating produce grown in mouse, rat, cat, fox and even dog urine and faeces. This is very different to the farm manure that has been set aside for two years allowing harmful bacteria time to break down. I spent some time preparing a border covering it with a compost heap all along it and was horrified to find a large mound of dog faeces on it one day. I found out the neighbour had acquired a large dog which was able to get through a narrow gap at the end of the fence that I would have thought was far too small for the size of the dog but I saw the proof when I watched it squeeze through. I spoke to the neighbour that it was their responsiblity to keep their dog in their garden and not use mine as a toilet but they just treated the issue as a joke saying the dog would "always find a way through ha ha ha". Consider also that an urban garden used for food produce is also visible to a number of neighbours and in a real SHTF scenario would probably just get raided anyway. This is the level of stupidity you are surrounded by in a city. Move to the country if you want to grow your own food or don't bother. Food grown indoors by a window will be destroyed by aphids who will find that microclimate perfect and free of predatory insects that would control them outdoors.

Great video, Lily. I've been composting in my beds for years here in Texas. You have a wonderful garden!

You are so inspiring! ❤ thanks Lilly! Jerusalem artichokes I will try and grow them! California here blessings to you! 🙏🏻🕊🧂😇💕. Stay safe and strong

Next year try the strawberries outside as they do well and bring your cucumbers under glass, they work better in the greenhouse

I love you girl! You are so intelligent about actual real life and living. Thank you 👍🏻

Comfrey is a good option as a fertilizer as well as alpaca poop. Some people also collect their weeds and put them in a bucket with some rain water for a few weeks and use it as well.

Great info !. Liked the videos on solar as well .. You're thinking outside the prepper box .. Bushcraft skill are great and everyone does those but you're providing great info outside the box .. Anyway you really are providing good info and its presented well.. You do a great job .. Thanks ..

You could grom some oil hemp. Excelent for tea and green powder to use in smoothies fow example. Helthy seed's. Natural cbd. High plant so it will not take a lot of space. You can grow some thing underneath it. Finola is a Finish oil hemp that is grown on feilds too.

Even with compost we have to be careful now and it becomes expensif 🙄 Now with the start of the Olympic Games, in some supermarkets people can now pay with their palm hands at the cash registrer. These supermarkets are part of the compagnie Carrefour, Carrefour is testing this new way of paiement in some of its supermarkets. And if it works well then this new way of paiement could be applied in the other supermarkets owned by Carrefour. And Carrefour is like Lidl or Aldi in France

Loved seeing all of your garden! Thanks to one of your previous videos I started growing Jerusalem artichokes and tiger nuts. I wanted to share a photo of my garden here but not sure how.

This is a great video. Thanks for your efforts from Alaska

Lilly I leave my tiny tomatoes go wild I don’t take any pruning off just leave and string up all branches and they produce heaps. Learnt this over the years. Looks a bit messy but worth it. But does need some room.

🌸 I always enjoy your Videos Lilly 💕 Thank you ! Keep Them Coming👍

I plant my Jerusalem artichokes in dedicated rows and they are awesome. Very tasty. Always grow back - providing an endless supply of food. I have compost bins but the way you do it in the beds is excellent.

We bought 32 gallon black plastic garbage bins with lids. My hubby drilled about a 2” hole around them and that’s what we put our scraps in. He only leaves them for a month or so, then works them into our raised beds. We also rinse and save all our egg shells, mince them fine and add them to our beds. We buy back yard chicken eggs from friends, bought two 5 gallon buckets for them to put the chicken compost into and we spread them into our beds. I have two 10’ long beds that are three boards high, X 4’ wide, two 10’ long three board high X 2’ wide beds, two 10’x 2 boards high X 2’ high, and 2 10’ long X 1 board high. We must be doing “something” right, because I planted 10 pounds of organic potatoes and got 80 pounds back. lol We just finished the 1 board high beds for our tomatoes next year. This year, I had them in the 3 board high gardens and I needed a 4’ step ladder to “step” into the garden so I could tie them up, and now I’m not tall enough. In truth, I have “sequoia” tomato plants in my garden, you can’t even believe how tall they are or how much they’ve produced. I’ve got my garlic ready for fall planting, and have two beds ready for these. He put rocks in the bottom of our gardens to help reduce the amount of dirt required to fill them, and then just had dirt delivered through the company he works for. I had to pay the delivery guys in my homemade bread. lol As far as fertilizer, we just use some organic stuff he mixes up, but we only use it a couple of times a season. Weeds aren’t much, so lucky there. And maybe because they’re so high, bugs aren’t too bad either. Good luck to everyone … IF someone would have told me I’d have a huge garden, and that I’d be canning the food I do in my retirement, I’d have sent them for a mental health evaluation, yet here I am living that life. We also sign off on 5 acres with a creek on it this Friday, so if this debacle comes off the tracks we have property to build on and move too. I’m so over ALL OF IT! Good luck, God bless, pray and prep. ❤️❤️❤️

Great minds think alike. Same here with the organic soil, then disappointing compost from a local farm that was off the charts alkaline. I just compost directly in the beds now, in pieces, and add chopped up banana peels and dried leaves. I have soul test strips and those help. Your garden looks great!

❤ your garden looks great. I would suggest that all of your vegetable scraps to be put in a food processor and and ground vup before tossing in the garde.

Lilly I just love your videos. I am always interested in what is going on in Europe since the news really tells us nothing. Thank you for keeping us updated and for this great gardening video.

Your garden looks great. Before i moved i had two 4x8 raised beds.

It’s a great technic as long as you do not have badgers nearby that will tear up your beds in search of the scraps. So a great ideain a more urban setting.

Super kool. Impressive. Looks fun too. I have 1 4x4 raised bed this is first year gardening. Tried my first cherry tomato yesterday.

Great job also I cover with straw that way the rain doesn’t wash away the good stuff in soil ! Also stops weeds plus keeps moisture also turns into compost ! One rule I have, never leave my soil open to the elements ! Grow something or mulch it.

Great idea! I just start a compost heap - put in grass cuttings, vegetable / kitchen scraps, the leftovers from my garlic harvesting, and the leaves that drop in autumn, bits of cardboard(with the cello tape removed) broken egg shells and all the remnants of tomato plans/other vegetable plants that have done their cycle. Nothing is wasted. left for a year or so :)

My cucumbers are starting looking like that but they are still pumping out cucumbers. They are my favorite. Planting way more next year. 😊

Thanks Lilly! You have made a really inspirational and positivity promoting video! ❤

I really enjoy your gardening videos, and the others too...thanks for sharing

Could you please do a video on winter green house gardening in the winter? How do you keep it warm? Ty

Wahta coincidence, just watched your adventure on Naked and Afraid. Great job out there, I am from an area about 100 miles north of where you were and its very much same climate. The heat, terrain, weather, and the challenges are no joke. You guys did awesome!

Iv tried many styles of gardening and found that mulching is the most important thing soil and the wee buddies in it dontt like to be naked or dry - layer what ever you got back onto the garden chop and drop old plants grassclipings-( in fine layers) are great, leaves, kitchen scraps, small sticks, wood chips, this composting style is easy - and it means you dont have to weed and also you dont disturb the microbes to much - i used to dig over my garden but now to airate i just fork the soil and lift the soil a fraction just to loosen slightly and let air in other than that i just mulch and liquid feed -sea weed , comfry, nettle , grass clipings , manures and even weed teas what ever you got avalible ,all work great and are easy just dump a load of what ever material you got in to a bin and cover then full with water - i start useing after two weeks i dilute it in my watering can till it looks like a nice cup of tea colour then feed to my garden every two weeks.

we make are own compost out of our food waste, whatever comes out of the garden just gets chopped back up and suck back in there but put a lot of earthworms in with it and it helps you grow faster

That’s what I’m going to do when I move to my off grid cabin the raised beds and a greenhouse like yours my land is all virgin land never gardened before it’s on a mountain top too I already have blackberries everywhere and I think with a little topsoil it will be fine 😀

Rakes leaves are perfecr chicken bedding. When scooped out of the hen boxes into coop they grind them up too. We mix this leaf poop mixture into soil for garden. Free.

Where do you/neighbors get rid of lawn cuttings after mowing? I mulch my plants with my grass cuttings to keep weeds down, then till into the soil in the spring. This way, I don't have to pay the garbage man to haul away. Saves money plus fertilizes my soil and helps break down the clay soil.

Long time fan here Lilly from Texas!! ❤ You’re awesome!!!

Very pretty garden❤

Perhaps you already grow comfrey Lily, I don’t know as you didn’t say, but if you don’t have it, comfrey is a first class medicinal plant and it makes INCREDIBLY good NPK fertiliser too. :)

Kudos to you! ❤🎉 I find gardening hard. So much to learn and remember. Not to mention the physical work. You are such an impressive person!