I also have heavy clay soil. It has been mapped by the University of California as "Clear Lake Clay." Each year, I plant a cover crop of Bell Beans which send down a deep tap root that breaks up the soil. I used to have areas where water would pool after a rain. After a couple of years of Bell Beans, water drains much better. You might consider planting a cover crop in some area of your garden each year. Best wishes.
Everything is looking so Good!! #1 Burn off your Asparagus - where we live it grows lush and plenty on irrigation ditch banks - each year in early spring - March they burn off the ditch banks to clear and by mid April Beautiful Asparagus!😃 #2 My grandpa always burned his whole garden off each spring added cow manure and tilled it, made planting furrows. He had the best abundant garden in the whole valley!!
I would control the water by first putting a pond in, even a small pond will give you a place to send the extra water and give the water time to penetrate the soil and into the water table. Next I would bury ABS Drainage pipe a couple inches below grade in the walking paths, and have those pipes lead into the pond ! You can also add the soil from digging the pond into the garden beds building up their height. Just brain storming some ideas to help not criticize, of course you should do as you think is best at all times, I'm just a know it all trying to help !
Tomatoes in general don't love a very moist soil. They prefer a little drought from time to time to get really flavorful tomatoes. If you have a place that's sloping a bit, that would work much better. Just one comment about the seeds. Tiny seeds are always surface sown, medium ones get a bit of soil, and large ones a 1/2 inch to an inch, depending on their size. Once I figured this out, I never bothered reading the seed information again. Good luck with a new growing season! I love seeing the kids helping out, mine are more like city kids that are just not interested.
Always til my garden...between rows to control weeds, every fall, to till in manure and compost, etc. I have and incredibly successful garden and have plenty of microbes and organisms etc. Never had a desire to go "no-till".
We just cleared an acre behind our house for a no till garden. It's a little overwhelming. But so exciting and freeing at the same time. We are kindred spirits mama. Thank you for what you do. 🍃❤️🍃
It’s like a dream! I love watching your videos. I can learn so much about gardening, preserving. I also enjoy watching the work ethic you are teaching to your children. They look so happy and free! We are hoping to have a big garden in a couple of years.
I'm so glad you posted this and then frankly addressed the situation. Those of us that live in the South have CLAY to deal with (not a good planting medium). We may have to TILL the first few planting seasons in order to IMPROVE the soil with COMPOST. Understanding the 'lay of your land' (as you found out) is very important because of Water drainage problems and Soil erosion problems. And trying to do stuff _by hand when you have proper tools available_ just doesn't make sense, our ancestors were happy when they got those TRACTORS and other farm implements (my Grandfather initially used a PLOW & a MULE!) . Planting 'Cover crops' and then _covering the field with woven tarps_ to soften up your soil, get the nutrients & worms BACK into it might help also. Be blessed.
my understanding of a no till garden is you start by placing some kind of a border (similar to a raised bed) around your plot. Then your fill the border with a combination of soil and organic matter. After the garden has had a chance to settle a few months, you plant in it. At the end of the season, you do not pull out the plants instead your cut them at ground level. The plants are then laid on top of the bed and covered with mulch or compost. The plants over the off season will break down refreshing the soil for the next year. I have not personally used this method. I have a 4 ft x 16 ft x 2ft high raised bed that is filled completely with homemade compost. I have been lazy in the fall and pull the plants out in early spring. Those plants I lay on top and then throw the entire compost pile on top. Then wait a few weeks and plant.
I stumbled across your channel looking for ways to preserve tomatoes and now I'm finding myself planning a much bigger tiny home grown garden than initially planned, haha. Thank you for filming your process! It's super educational and has been an absolute blessing for researching how to grow one's own food.
Absolutely love your channel!! It is so lovely to see a young beautiful family - enjoying the good things in life and kids learning. Your joy in gardening and family is just wonderful!! 🥰🥰🥰
I don't think that moving aged material from your paths onto your beds - even using a BCS - is a compromise of no-till, it's actually a very common practice. Great that you found a way to deal with your drainage issue in a way that keeps building the soil in your beds.
Thanks! I actually agree, I’ve seen JM Fortier do the same thing to his market gardens when the beds settle. I felt like here on YT I had to explain because there are some seriously die hard no-till or “never till” growers out there that don’t quite understand. I appreciate your positive comment!
I'm also a pretty die hard no dig person. Nobody has all the answers, but it's possible the wood chips (or lack there of) might be a big part of your drainage problem. Back when you started, with higher swales and wood chips in the valleys, the chips may have been soaking up a whole lot of water during heavy rain. As the chips decomposed, they lost some of their ability to soak up water, and of course the raised beds flattened out at the same time. Raising the beds back up is a good idea, and putting down new wood chips to help soak up water might also help. Good luck this year!
I loved the camera on your silhouette while closing up your greenhouse. It was like you were tucking it up for the night. Beddie-bye. the night sky was so cool.
I am so happy you put out a video, I admire your strong dedication to your garden. I am trying to plant holy basil this year to help with my anxiety after watching your video. Thank you so much for all you do.
Hello from New Zealand! I really love your videos, my boyfriend and I are planning on homesteading ourselves one day and I love watching your videos to learn (I don't know a huge amount yet as I was raised in a city, so I'm still only just learning how to grow radishes and hyacinths from seed/bulbs!). You have such a wonderful family and are an inspiration in all that you're able to do on your homestead (and as a mother, your kids are gorgeous and seem so sweet!). God bless you.
I have heavy clay soil too. I’ve been researching no-till for about a year, actually after watching one of your videos where you mentioned Charles Dowding. Maybe you could do a couple of test plots where you try no-till and your new plan B to see which one works out better. I have 2 garden plots …. One I put down lots of manure and the other I worked in a lot of peat moss. The peat moss plots drains nicely and the water often sits on top of the soil in the other garden plot with manure compost. It’s a journey. Thanks for your inspiring videos. Many blessings to you and your family!
I wish I had been into gardening when I was homeschooling my son. He is 19. This has encouraged me to teach him some things while he’s still living at home.
Good morning Seasonal Homestead. The garden's looking lovely. Just like you I can't wait for the the planting season to get started. Thanks for all your gardening tips. 🌼🌹
Just one more thought: From Norway to South of Spain, people have always used those rocks and stones collected for walls. Lizards, interesting plants, whatever love it. I put them all into the middle of my hedges, looks good and attracts rare species.
Good for you. I've seen so many people fail because they put ideology before reality, you have to adjust to your circumstances and figure out what works for you, not what works in a different climate, different soil, different grower.
I love your farm. It reminds me of my childhood. I grew up in a small homestead and always enjoyed helping my parents outside wether it was with the garden or working with the ducks and horses.
Thanks for your perspective and experience on no till!! It’s so hard (as a beginner) when everyone does something different and swears their way is best.
I live in a big city - Toronto - with my partner - we drive an hour out of the city every weekend to walk the trails. We have a log cabin in the Algonquin area - where I have started a garden - it's not great terrain - sloped and rocky - and pretty short growing season. I just wanted to say that I love your channel, I just think you are so genuine - and have such a deep sense of self. Your children are so engaged in your lifestyle - which seams like such a lost thing. I just think you're great. It inspires me really..
I remember when you shared the video about your tomatoes. Devastating when it affected one of the most versatile crops. Seeing how hard you had to work to transplant the volunteers it’s good you did the work to prevent that happening again. I’m glad you still reiterated the importance of no-till and context. ❤
So happy to see a new video and so much fun watching how your children help out and making it fun in the process!! You are such a wonderful inspiration in how you do so much to make sure of a great harvest!! Can't wait for the arrival of the little bundle of joy!! Stay safe and know how much you are loved by so many out here!! Love from a friend afar!! D
I much enjoy that you have the honesty to explain what didn´t work well, why, and what you do next. Only way to move forward. I love how the kids seem to have fun, enjoy the challenge, work instead of "chilling with a dumbphone". I myself have pure clay ground here, next to the Alps, so same problem. Some humus layer on top, but will have to build that continuously with compost over the years. No-tilling may be a problem for me, too. When I see you toiling in month 5 or 6, I remember off-slope skiing with my brother and sister-in-law, she in month 7 at 6000 feet with us watching chamois from above. Chapeau to you!
Hi :) ! So, I have a little experience with no-till myself, and with gardening in general, and my husband knows a lot of general stuff. Between us, we have reason to guess that you have either a high water table as we once had on a property &/or a plow-pan. If you didn't seriously shatter a plow pan b4 plowing that time, then you definitely only aggravated it by plowing, besides seriously doing all the damage I'm assuming you know about, which plowing does to the soil life and structure, which time and doing things right can heal of course, but if it's a large area, and you totally up-ended the topsoil... may take awhile. And without a subsoiler, the soil life alone needs a lot of health, vigor, plant roots basically always in the ground feeding it, to gradually do the work to eventually break that up themselves. Planned grazing with herbivores or using a subsoiler/broadfork are the only ways I knew of to for sure do this fairly quickly. Which brings us to your mention of using the broadfork. I'm wondering if, once you had the soil mounded into raised beds basically, post-plowing, if your broadfork was able to get near that plow-pan (if indeed u do have one). IDK, just a guess and I don't mean to cause offense ! I would be curious if, digging a deep hole along the side of a row, u could see what's going on down there. A cut-away view like Richard Perkins has shown a time or 2 ( granted, he didn't have water filling his hole up !). Also, an Subsoiler "plow" like the key -line plow can be used, where broadfork isn't practical or as able, just fyi for those who've never heard of these. Again, maybe not able to really get down there, if held up by extra inches of mulch or mounded soil already in place... . IDK.
Looking at your situation there is another option for you. Tile your garden area towards the river or what ever that is out the back. Tile is actually a drainage tube that helps water away from your farm or garden area.
Thanks for the idea. We have a pond behind the garden, granted it is fairly far away. I believe the cost would be too much right now, not to mention we have so many other projects in the works 😅
Dad would have me cover the garden with grass clippings, shredded leaves, and kitchen scraps for the winter. In the spring we would rack off the compost and pile it up at the top of the garden (was on an incline). Know the feeling concerning the soil, grew up in Rockland county and then moved to Orange county. It took between 5 - 7 years before the garden soil became "good" and then unfortunately we would move.
All of that organic debris would probably burn well and then the ashes could return to the soil. beautiful space and you guys do such an excellent job of maintaining it. Thank you for sharing the process. Really good reality check for those of us swooned by the idea of growing all of our food even if we don't realize how much goes into it!
This videos make me so happy! I don´t have a garden but i´m a nutritionist and seeing a family harvesting and doing everything as naturally as it can be done, it warms my heart. regards from Uruguay
Hello from Texas! My husband and I absolutely love your videos! We have a garden and have been struggling with the topic of till versus no till. We appreciate this video and the info on the BCS. This is definitely something we've been needing and were not aware of it before your video. Trying to research which model will be best for us. Any tips at all are appreciated. It's quite the investment but looks like it will be well worth it.
I still love no-till, but I think it’s easy to become a little too particular about it. Nature is the real teacher. Even after I fixed my walking paths, my soil was still teeming with earth worms both in the paths and in the beds. I’m still not a fan of yearly plowing and love that no-till makes weeds fewer and fewer each year.
True master gardeners learn from failures by questioning, experimenting, and avoiding rigid dogmatism. No till has benefits, and drawbacks. One of the biggest problems for my garden in western Oregon is slugs. We have tiny slugs that live in the soil and every wood chip, leaf, etc. is their home, and no-till methods increase slug populations dramatically. After trying every control method out there (baits, traps, diotomaceous earth, etc.) the populations were only increasing every year. Finally, I found the best remedy is to rototill in my winter cover crop right before planting. This kills the slugs and saves time, money, and pesticide use, etc. I love that you are showing there is a place for tillage, and no-tillage methods, depending on your crop, climate, garden size, soil type, etc.
Hi! I was intrigued with the fact that you use the Corelle Abundance ware from 1991. My grandparents had that at their house growing up, and I wanted a set of my own for nostalgic reasons. In search of a set for myself, I discovered that anything from Corelle before 2005 contains high levels of LEAD. Corelle released statements saying this for reference, too. I love watching you and your family and needed to let you know asap!!
Interesting! I hadn't heard that, it was a Corelle set my Mom passed down to me. I just googled and looks to be true. I guess I'll be investing in a new set soon!
This is really good to know! We have drainage issues with our soil as well, and watching how you're remedying your drainage issues really helps give me an idea of things we can/should do to improve our garden!
Thank you so much for sharing all of the things that you learn and do wrong instead of only making things look like life is perfect. That means a lot! Thank you also for raising your kids as hard workers! That will bless them in the future so much!
Wither but a yard sale push lawn mower or use what you have and run all the brush under that mower to mulch it and it will break down far faster into good compost. Also make sure you add some soil to your compost to get the good bacteria started and get it up to temp around 120*f for pasteurization so it will kill any weed seeds before you use it in your garden!
Thank you for your honesty about a practice that works for many people. I, too, read and heard all kinds of good things about a gardening practice called mulching. I have gardened for 50 years and obviously, still have much to learn. I mulched more heavily and all over my garden more than ever before. Granted there was much less watering and way fewer weeds, however, I had the worst infestation of moles and gophers I have ever had. I used pounds of mole/vole/gopher organic repellent numerous times. They still devoured my beautiful Dr. Wyche tomatoes, my early girl tomatoes, (even ones that were caged up) , my cantaloupe, my watermelons, and my potatoes. I used smoke bombs in gopher holes and they were smart enough to throw dirt on the bomb and move to a spot 5 to 10 feet away. I put hoses in their holes and backed my truck up and put exhaust fumes in their holes while covering escape routes. I put hoses in their holes and ran gallons of water in them, all with very little success in curbing the problem animals...oh, and as gross as it sounds, I even tromped on one of them with my shoe on my foot and another stupid one that looked up at me that I bludgeoned with my walking cane. So, will I mulch again? Probably, but with much less depth, (or maybe not at all...still unsure). I would love some suggestions...please advise in any way that I have not done. Thanks
Mulching is great for controlling weeds and keeping healthy soil but like you said every garden practice has pros and cons. Sounds like your getting overrun by the animals! I’m not an expert at that. We get our fair share of voles. But traps seem to work for me along with the owls. I hope they leave your garden alone soon!
Thank you for responding...I have owls, hawks, and feral cats around but many neighbors don't do anything to stop the critters so the predators have plenty of food. I will set traps this year. Do you recommend any specific type of trap?
Keith Silva has given some good advice, my advice would also be similar. One thing to do is to plant hardy native plants that do a good job at breaking soils with their root systems or annuals which also break up soil well... Dandelions are one natures way of breaking up soil which is why you see lots of dandelions growing in places like hill sides and highway ditches, etc because they grow in compact soils and work on breaking it up with their deep tap roots... and then there is another method here to consider as well and that is massive lasagna gardening your rows... This is a great method to because you use up lots of compost and mulch and build your planting rows up about 4ft - 6ft high and do so in sections of cardboard, green manures and then brown manures and top it off with top soil you can plant things in right away on the top of the piles or just wait its up to you but every year it will break down quite quickly and that should build 6" - 1' of top soil and then you just keep adding a good portion of compost and mulch ever year to your rows with your plants and you will always build good fresh soil doing more for the environment as you grow your food... Top soil is on the decline big time globally so creating more is always a smart move..
Totally agree about no digging it has pro s and con s. Have tried the daisy chain method of tidying up crop covers AMAZING 👏👏👏👏👏👏 thank you 👍👍👍 Love from the UK x
So good to hear from you Becky! Your garden and caterpillar tunnel look so nice. Thank you so much for the tour of your beautiful new home. I had wondered if you were going to do one but didn’t want to pry. And by the way, you are looking absolutely fabulous! Take care. ❤❤
Love watching your content! I work in vegetable research and we have a 60x100 foot patch of asparagus and the best way we have to knock the old growth is a weed eater with hard plastic blades (eye protection, long pants/sleeves, hat, and gloves is a must). Because of you all I started soil blocking this year, today is my first day doing it and I think it is working well. My husband and I finalize a purchase of 20 acres next week. I can't wait to transition the land to regenerative practices. I grew up on a large conventional farm but vegetable farming (yes I know corn and soybeans are vegetables lol I hope you get what I mean) always intrigued me more. Keep up the good work and I can't wait to see more videos, they help motivate me! :)
Awesome, thank you for sharing!! We have just started uploading videos on our channel. Doug ( Off grid with Doug and Stacy ) blessed us on 02-17-23. We had many conversations and days after his visit my husband and I decided we would start RU-vid and share our farm life with y’all! I love watching others starting or continuing their self sufficiency journey. It’s so wonderful for all of us to share and learn from each other. Have a blessed day!
If you use a pancake-esque method and create several layers of sediment, it will greatly increase your drainage, especially if you make the pancake on an incline. On the lower elevation, you could make a drainage pond and grow plenty of stuff there too. Plus ducks are also on the table at this point. Of course, this would likely take a season or two to accomplish, which you may not be able to grow. In which cass you could stagger your efforts amd parcel the land. Also, E. angustifolia is much more temperamental to germinate, if that is the species you are using (the most potent one.) Sunlight seems assist in germination but not a requirement in my experiences.
Here is someone with much more experience in Earthworks than I, I have personally found him a wealth of knowledge. Maybe you may find your own insights as well. m.ru-vid.com
Also, keep in mind that soil flora are strong creatures and shouldnt be underestimated. Yes, wounding the earth disrupts everything and should be avoided * unless necessary * for a better system to be established. If you dont have a well thought out system established when you start no-till, you will constantly be in an uphill battle for the sake of no-till gardening. Sometimes it can be good to take a step back, re-evaluate and potentially redo if errors of ineffeciencies are present. Dont carry mistakes forward on a crusade for no-till because it's * good *; the errors will take away all the good you do with no-till unless you address them, amounting to little or nothing. Appologies for my poor English, I am not a native speaker for some time now. I wish you the best for your ventures, its not an easy one, but well worth it.
Proving once again there is no universal right way to garden. It depends on your soil, light and weather, your goals and the tradeoffs you choose (spend $$ vs labor with hand tools, chemicals vs weed pulling vs weed barriers etc..) There are so many differences from garden to garden. One inch on either side of a fence could have different light and wind conditions for example. I'm starting my 4th year of of gardening and still learning about my little piece of land.
Love your videos and have learned a lot. Would it be possible to do a video on your seed starting set up and what you use? I’m new to seed starting and want to learn all I can. Thanks for all the time you all put into sharing with us. So inspiring.
I don’t have a tutorial video, but I do have a some very detailed information on my blog. Here’s one about outdoor seed starting: www.theseasonalhomestead.com/starting-seeds-outdoors-in-containers-or-soil-blocks/ and here is one with information on indoor seed starting www.theseasonalhomestead.com/indoor-seed-starting-guide-what-no-one-tells-you/
Thanks you for discussing the no till/drainage problem. We are in the process of setting up our vegetable garden and we have more or less the same drainage problem as you. My husband wanted to till everything, but I not so much. The garlic I planned in november already drowned. So now I know what I can do to combat the problem somewhat without tillling everything. Thank you
Hello! :) First of all thank you for so many wonderful, informative videos for a future homesteader(me!) to learn from. Im not sure how your soil is exactly and what kind of grass you have but based on my personal experience, I would recommend LAWN AERATION. More specifically, CORE/PLUG aeration. Among other things, it helps with drainage! Working for two years in southern Ontario, Canada in lawn maintenance, we would aerate peoples lawns twice a year. Once in spring to "open up" the lawn before fertilizing and planting grass seeds. In autumn before it got too cold, we would repeat the same process. Now your location may need you to modify the time and, density of the holes, however, I highly recommend you consider this option. How confident am I with lawn aeration you ask? Well, despite not working in that business anymore, I still aerate my own lawn twice a year. Hope this will help with your flooding! :)
Totally agree! We add compost twice a year. The only time I wasn’t able to add a lot was in the initial set up the first year. It was during the pandemic shutdown and unavailable, I really wish I could have mixed it in then.
I've been gardening on raised beds on 40 inch centers for 40 yrs, because IF we get much rain (usually in May-June) my garden patch turns into a swamp. For crops that grow wide I plant on the middle bed and leave one on each side unplanted. By the end of gardening season my beds are always almost flat. Keep an eye on your emerging plants and transplants. Since you've done a lot of research you know those wood chips may tie up your nitrogen. I've never used wood chips, but I have used wheat straw. THINK SPRING!
I think you have discovered a best practice betwen no-till and yearly cultivation. Plants defintely prefer loose (aerated) and rich soil and soil willl become more compacted over time with no-till methods. So, maybe cultivation every three years with the addition of organics and minerals might be the best solution for the best production. Grading the land to slope to a central collection will also help to reduce saturation. The excess can be stored and used to irrigate in dry seasons. Observation is the best tool to achieve optimal results in any endeavor.
OH NO! thats so bad! sadly nothing is perfect! I remember watching the video where you lost all your toms. what a nightmare! its terrable. I rememeber when I lost all my toms to blight which was rubbish but when is something like this its worst :) wishing you all the best ❤❤❤
I think you are supposed to be adding a thick layer of compost to the beds every Autumn. That would keep the beds raised above the paths. At least that is what Charles Dowding does. I've been doing this over the last 2 yrs but on a much much smaller scale than your beautiful homestead.
@@TheSeasonalHomestead hmm interesting, could you plow a ditch to one? My garden is in a drain area and I dug a small ditch/trench to funnel water out. Lined with rocks taken from my garden :) Might work in your application. Or possibly dig a small holding pond closer to the garden. Putting water loving plants in it could work to use up the water faster too. Essentially making a small wetland. Issue would be additional mosquitoes but a scope or two of fathead minnows helps. Also I harvest duck weed out of mine for a great fertilizer and/or chicken feed.
@@KDOGGER11 The closest pond is maybe 400 ft away. The ditch might be doable but probably not something I would be able to tackle right away. I love that idea though. Garden is on a gentle slope already, but just not sloped enough to combat the massive rainfall amounts we get each spring and summer.
It seems that a lot of the farmland has been degraded over the last 100 years due to our traditional practices. It will be up to the next generation of farmers to repair the damage done by those before us. Drainage issues can only be repaired by more organic matter in the soil.
