Turning our abandoned land into a self-sufficient home 

To see you and your mom enjoying a delicious meal in the shade is pure pleasure! It looks like paradise, but as I understand it, no one labors under the hot sun in paradise. You have created your own utopia through family cooperation, good sense, and the sweat of your brow.

That meal that you cooked for your mother looks absolutely delicious, Andrea. Omer must have been drooling watching you cook.

Working in a garden is a lot of sweat, especially now under the sun. It gives me pleasure to see your Mom doing it with you. Not all mothers are able to do that more than a few minutes. But your Mom looks very young, agile, and able. After hard work, the two of you enjoying a meal is so satisfying. Blessings and be well.

It looks like you have sprinkled a little straw around some of your plants as a mulch. Consider collecting the mown grass clippings as mulch. I pile the grass clippings about an inch to inch-and-a-half over every square inch of my gardens, and do very little weeding all summer. A thorough covering of thick-ish mulch helps the soil retain water.

The best therapy, gardening. I enjoy the moments in this little paradise.❤

Hello from California. So glad I came across your site. I am enjoying it very much. You are creating a beautiful home 😊

Just keep building your soil, don't forget to rotate crops, and as always. The more you grow the more you know. Keep at it.🤗

You'll have lots of chamomile for tea. I love it as tea, especially in winter. Put a little gravel at the bottom if the hole to help the water drain away from the roots. Lunch looks good! Save me some! Lol.

I really enjoyed this lovely, relaxing video in the garden! Thank you for taking us along and best wishes for a bountiful harvest! ❤

Love all your videos ❤

Those final shots of your mini panthers patrolling your garden were adorable, love "belly cat"! How nice to be able to tickle a floofy belly without coming away shredded! 💖🐈‍⬛🐈‍⬛💖

Love the music selection. Fits the mood and edit. Very good!

Good job ladies, I hope you’ll have a great harvest. ❤

What a lovely video. Your place is flourishing 🤗 Simon is a real treasure and he works like a machine.

Oh my gosh how relaxing. Love listening to you and your mum speaking your native language together.

You may need to fork some gypsum through that clay soil next winter. Corn needs to be planted in a block so the wind increases pollination. That straw will be great helping shade the soil. It would be worth making a compost heap using material off the block and from garden waste to eventually save on buying in compost. All the hard work in the garden is really showing.

Your garden looks lovely with all of that hard work you both should be proud. Love your channel, thanks for sharing! With love from Idaho, USA.

You said you didn’t know why your plants aren’t surviving. Your soil is too hard. My suggestion is to bit by bit convert to raised garden beds for two reasons. 1 is so your mum can continue to do the gardening as it gets harder as you get older to kneel down. 2 is you can build up your soil with lots of food scraps and anything else that will build up your soil. The bottom would be built up with building materials, old timber etc. just do one at a time and when that is ready to be used start another one. You could build it over top of the beds you have started. I have just pulled out lots and lots of tumeric and garlic from one of mine.

I learned that sunflowers emit a allelopathic chemical that inhibits growth of the other plants in the area. Next year I will move them a bit farther away. I can't wait to see if your loofa grows!!! I have one out of 10 seeds, the rest never sprouted. I have babied it for a few months and now finally planted it. Keep us posted on yours!

Ask your local grocers for cardboard boxes they get all thei stock in them then lay a big patch out with them with your soil on top and wood chips in between where you walk

Beautiful garden

If you put straw on youre soil, you keep the moist in and the temperature lower.

I love these moments...

Your garden is looking amazing! You have come a long way. Look into some of the raised garden beds like Vego. They would probably send them to you. It is easier on your knees and back. Thanks for sharing your life with us! See you next time.

Love seeing your garden grow. My zinnias (SE England) are approximately 2 cms tall 😂😂

Your gardens are looking great. YUM coming soon!

Lindo todo...well done Mami y Andrea 🪻🩷🌷💜🌷🩷🪻

Good video.

Beautiful video❤️

Awesome Vlog again Andrea. I know you miss Omar. You and your Mum do a wonderful job in the garden. I am looking forward to see everything bloom. Thoughts and Prayers.Thank you for sharing. Love and Blessings. Doris, Penrith 🇦🇺🦘

I really like your channel. I love how you have created a lovely space. A space where you’re mother can live and help and provide her wisdom. And also not interfere on your relationship. I love you’re logic. Space for us to live. Then mama. Then the main build. Respect y qué chévere.

My garden soil is sandy, so my knowledge of gypsum as an amendment for clay soil is based on my mother's garden, where the soil was very heavy. I did a little research before replying re the recommended amount to use and hints for application (there is advice on line). What i discovered makes me think that lime may be a better amendment for your particular clay. Your local nursery or the agriculture department in your area should be able to advise you as to the particular type of clay on your property, where it sits on the ph scale and what ammendment to use along with the masses of compost and mulch that will help break down the clay so all the great nutrients in it are more available to your plants. You will soon be cutting all that grass again. Consider raking it up to make compost. Collect some leaf litter from under trees so your compost is a mix of green and brown, fork it over from time to time and add some water if it is drying out too fast. Add your coffee grounds and any garden waste. Unlike your clay, our sandy soil is impoverished, but over time compost and mulch has worked wonders. We mulch all our prunings and garden trimmings. I also have a worm farm for kitchen fruit and veg peelings (no onions or citrus in the worm farm, but you can add a little to compost. If you have an oak tree, the leaves in autumn make fantastic compost. Your no-dig garden needs far more soil and compost on top of the cardboard, which is really only smothering weeds. Given your hot, dry summer (like ours in southern Australia), you might consider some wick gardens for thirstier veg into the future to save on water. Think about investing in a garden fork for digging over beds, incorporating manure, turning compost etc. BTW that sunflower is going gangbusters! Good luck with your gardens.

Good job done! I always wonder the reason I don’t see people planting grass seed to choke out some of the weeds in pathways etc? Is it just too hot of climate for grass?

Do you have trouble at all with your cats pooping and peeing in the raised beds ? I have one raised bed and my neighbor’s cat feels that it is his personal toilet !

Well done ladies tge garden looks so full… I hope you have success with all you grow… Supper looked lovely and tasty… yrs Omar 13% in bc England I live here and I wld much rather live in Portugal ❤

Your food always looks so delicious. Great. Idea.

Nice, relaxing, simple video🫛🥒🌼🌱🌿🌻

Love your videos & what you do. Remember it is all new to us so it is very interesting for us whatever you are doing. Would love you to share more of your recipes with us although I realise you are on a short time lapse on all your projects. Is there any chance of seeing a recipe book I wonder. I am sure it would do well. Thank you for showing us your life & showing us all your progress. Cheers Joan.

Lovely video, thank you for sharing your day with us! 💛💙❤️

🌟👍👏🍀💐

Super!!!!! Mom is a great helper too.

When you do your planting, you need to put water in the hole and keep the plant’s ground level the same as it was in the pot. Don’t put the soil higher up the stem. If you just water after, dig down and you will see only the top inch is wet, and not the roots. We love your show and your Momma!❤️❤️

Your garden is looking lovely. Really productive space.

Is there a chance that planting under the cardboard is keeping water from reaching the roots. I understand there’s a balance between using the cardboard to curb weed growth and to build up topsoil. You have to weigh that with making sure the plants have room and access for space to develop deep roots. But I think you need to remove a small, 2” circle size of cardboard so that water can make its way to the lower level root. Otherwise build up your soil on top of the cardboard each year and keep your plants and their roots above that too.

great team, you and your mom. hope you have a nice harvest. like the dish too

I've fallen in love with your page looking forward to every new video I found your page a few days ago and watched all of your videos ❤❤❤

Awe! I wish i had a garden this year! Started PT on Monday. I go back on Friday. My neighbor cut my yard, which im thankful for. Now he's telling me what HE is going to do with My Projects. (That's why i dont like ppl doing things for me. I didn't ask him to cut my grass! They just know i can't right now. He is so anal retentive. Last year he ask me all the time, when are you going to cut your grass? My response, When I Feel Like It. He doesnt ask, like can i fix rhis or do that. He tells me what he is going to do! Thanks for letting me vent!! I told him if i didn't like it i was going to tear it up!!! Ok, i feel a little better! Tell Mum and Omar i said, hello! Oh, i plant, because my Dad did, my Marigolds with, beside my Tomatoes. They keep the bugs off! Just a suggestion. Now you know why i always write, just a suggestion!! 🤣🤣🤣🤣 ✝️🙏❤🇺🇸🇵🇹👣🍍🌻🌻🌻🌻🤗

Blessed are you to have your mother aside and blessed is she to have her beautiful daughters near her. And your husband is a gem of a person.

So beautiful you are been doing a great job, tão lindo vocês tem feito um bom trabalho😻

You guys are so awesome!! Garden looking so beautiful… Sending love n respect from Malaysia❤❤❤

Marigolds are a good companion plant for tomatoes. Native Americans plant the 3 sisters together: corn, squash, & climbing beans. The squash are shaded by the beans using the corn stalk as a trellis. You might use the shade under your cukes to plant lettuces.

It was good to see you back! What lovely fun to be working alongside your mum in the veg and flower garden. Takes me back to being a kid, very special times. Are you also drying chamomile flowers for tea?

So that’s why you are who you are too! You’re a chip off the block.

Never put more soil around a plant than the height the soil was - they suffocate. Hope all your hard work soon gives you a wonderful harvest.

El Jadin se ve presioso. ❤

when I had a space to garden I always did it alone, most gardeners do, your mom could do it for sure.