Thank you! I just about gave up on gardening a few years ago because of RU-vid gardening videos. I'm sitting on 25 acres of land, but i had my poor husband out building raised beds. I was crawling around on the ground laying down plastic weed suppressing fabric and trying to figure out how to get everything to grow vertically. I bought expensive bags of worm castings and lost an entire potato crop to potato bugs, which I was trying to kill with dish soap. I watched this woman planting in her raised beds while reciting poetry and teaching me how to use a black light at night to find and squish horn worms on tomatoes. I had planted enough seeds for a zillion acres of farm land, and I ended up with like four tomatoes, six beautiful asparagus spears and a gigantic parsley bush (which I never watered, weeded, or looked at). No food, no fun, and no poetry. Then I watched your videos, and I thought, "Hey, I'll just throw some seeds out, try to weed, and possibly fertilize with diluted urine. I'm STILL digging potatoes that I forgot I planted, sweet potatoes that I never weeded, and tons of other food, some of which we ate tonight. No kidding, you are a voice crying out in the wilderness, and you saved me from boutique gardening. And thank you for not caving to trends. Grow on, my brother!!!!
Go checkout Robbie and Gary on RU-vid . She grows in containers and she has several acres and she is successfully growing in totes without having to be on the ground. Here is a link to her chanbel ru-vid.com
There is a time and place for square foot gardens and a time and place for row gardening. SFG are good for kitchen and summer gardens, but if you want to store food to eat all winter, it probably won’t work. So After years of SFG, I bought more land to grow in rows. Rows provide more volume with less work and have a purpose. Especially good if you have that much land!
I agree Marie that there is a time and place for everything. Different methods meet different needs and resources. The soil patch is like a blank slate, we can make the layout and use any methods we want within it, to match our resources and to best suit our needs. We can also 'mix and match' ideas. For example, I can do 3 or more corn rows (or half-rows) side by side for wind pollination, and have one 'extra wide row' for things like my small flax patch. I grew up row gardening, but I am having fun trying out new methods and ideas in the garden.
I just subscribed to your channel. The reason I did that is because I feel that you approach things in a scientific manner. You experiment, you come to conclusions, I like the way you do things. A lot of what you do doesn't apply to my situation, but I like to see things well thought out and tested, and the whole grow food first thing is great. It's very inspirational. I'm trying to go strictly organic this year, and I want to get away from tilling in my vegetable garden. I think you have some great ideas and you have the science to back them up.
This is by far the funniest video we have watched you do yet! We love the serious face whilst balancing the turnips! And the outtakes were amazing! Thank you David!
im doing both, i have one 4x12 raised bed with beets, cat littler bucket containers with pickling cucumbers, and a small row garden with sweet corn, beans, squash, tomatoes, and a few pepper plants. My native clay soil is currently pretty poor, local farms usually grow wheat, beans, and corn here. we do what we can, and keep planting on lol
David, super fun and informative video! Sound advice, learn to grow food and worry about the rest of it later. Reminded me of my father when he took golf lessons..he asked the instructor about learning how to spin the ball like the pros did? Instructor looked at him and asked what his handicap was, my dad said 29, instructor shook his head and asked, why do you care? As if to say learn to hit the ball first and worry about the tricks later! Stay Warm !
You are crazy amazing I've been planting all year and honestly nothing looks as amazing as your plants... i wish i could figure this gardening thing out
If you've got space, single rows are fine and you can use the unused soil for a second crop. You are certainly on point here man. Big thumbs up to you. I only have a tiny space to grow so it needs to be way more intensive. But horses for courses. 👍
Hubby bought me that book of yours for Christmas! We just fork over the gifts. Too old to wait. Might now last that long. ;) Great book! And important.
Loved it! Where I'm at in my gardening journey is I plant in raised rows at about a foot and a half to two feet at most apart. And then I mulch in between them more so for water retention than weed suppressing( I still do a lot of weeding). For me I found its a good balance between traditional row cropping and more so permaculture ideas. I'm adding materials to try to add to, or at the very least, maintain the soil, all the while I keep the spacing closer to plant more in a smaller space and as the plants grow larger their shade also helps with water retention and choking out weeds to an extent. It's all a learning process. I don't think that there is an end to what you can learn while gardening.
Thanks! Always love your videos! If I don’t have the brains, you have. And I lend your brain with knowledge and try to do gardening over here in Stockholm.
more plants equals more water conservation. With exposed dirt, water evaporates much quicker. Companion planting helps tremendously. I leave no dirt exposed and my soil stays moist for a long time.
Yes and no. Plants are solar water pumps. More plants will shade soil so it doesn't evaporate as fast, but more plants are more water pumping from soil and evaporating through leaves.
@@krzysztofrudnicki5841 yes, you are right for total water conservation, but overall you get more plants with less water per plant. It becomes a concern if there is not enough water to grow more plants. Depending on the climate also, in a very humid area, the plants will attract water in the night and early morning. So, yes and no -- correct.
For me, it's simple: I'm looking to expand the garden to at least 1/4 acre, maybe up to a full acre in a few years... and filling that kind of square footage with raised beds would cost so much in materials/labor as to kill the entire project.
Genius. I'm so glad I found your channel. I thought though that bare soil is suppose to be a big no no. I have a tiny space and am doing slight raised garden beds covered with straw.
My hearing isnt so good, i watched the video several time and cannot make out the name of your wheeled weeding tool...if you could reply and let me know I would be so greatful...some months befire i can garden again ( here in NorthDakota) but i love to plan..thanx so much..positive waves to you and yours
I think on my sandy,slightly sloping garden I might have too much erosion,especially since we get a lot of rain,at least every other summer. This summer I think we’re in for an extra wet summer so I’m planning for heavy rains.
I'm on the Colorado plains The ground basically is a brick when dry. I've actually started raised flower beds by digging out dirt and putting it on the border of the bed where it dries into hard border to hold in water and keep things like mulch from blowing away. I think it is like 'waffle gardening'. Than I add layers of whatever I can find. I'm not sure If I'd actually be able to grow anything on a bump row like you do (I guess I'm doing an 'innie' and you're doing an 'outie', lol. We also get hail and high winds. Do you think your row gardening method would work ok here? MIGARDENDER has mentioned core gardening where you bury a row of straw. Maybe that would help but I love your easy mounding idea since it doesnt require a lot of special things like peat moss or lumber.
That is some serious hard soil. I would try mounding soil in rows mixed with compost , or doing the "lasagna gardening" thing. But I'm not an expert on that climate. Definitely don't give up, but experiment like crazy in multiple spots and you'll soon know the best way. Also, you might want to research how natives and settlers grew food there, if they did.
I dont want to weed at all i have been trying some sort of organic mulch and cardboard. Takes a little longer to plant put and set up an area that big but seemed to work my first small run im expanding it by a bunch and try again. Next yr im going to try grass and leaves for mulch. But you have really got me thinking. About tip 1. Also the just learn to grow food is a great tip Welcome to bama i love it here finally am back but short term for work but the weather is nice today way better than home in missouri
So do you mix in the grass with a tiller and let that decompose first? We live in central Florida. Very sandy dirt. Love the videos we are learning a lot 💪🏼
How good do you think that wheel hoe will do in Tennessee where we have a lot of rocks. I wiuld like to have one if only it will work here. I love this channel
Is the ground covered in rocks, or just a lot of hidden stones that are fist sized or smaller that keep showing up? If it is the latter, that is 'good soil' locally in eastern WV, USA where I grew up. The cultivator will work fine. Just keep an eye on the row post marker to lessen the meandering, and go more than once if you want to straighten the row abit and/or plow deeper.
Awesome I was thinking the day that the key to Gardening/Life Balanced between lazy and energetic Lazy enough to think, there must be a easier/better way Energetic enough to actually try it. Your approach reminds of that :)
Wouldn’t you lose more water through unregulated evaporation, opposed to a plant regulating the amount of water going through the soil/shading the soil?
Thanks for this! Starting to create our row garden, and a subreddit is going crazy after me! But I like doing the sweaty work and like the old-school look. Whatever works for you, right?
@@davidthegood I see it behind you. Cut all the bushes and stuff. Anything can work. I also didnt want to buy mulch so I asked my neighbor who has a small woodworking bussiness and he throws away so much bark and stuff I covered a whole hectare with it in the fall.
everything you said is contradictive to all the other permaculture gurus ive watched so far (except for the howing reducing water loss due to cracking up the first layer. ive heared people refer to it as "dirt mulch" like in "the mulch thats the most available but with the least benefits") this keeps me wondering...its those two mind sets that both address the same questions yet contradict each other in the actions but they both seem to work... very confusing. thank you for the good videos, though. hope my questions find answers here
If it works to grow food and it doesn't require spraying poisons, I will try it. This worked well for me in a non-irrigated field in N FL so I'm doing it again. Test and see.
The lack of organic matter in the soil was driving me crazy initially, but when he explained his situation it made perfect sense. The point I took away: grow did in whatever way works for you now, in the space that you have, with the time and resources that are available to you. This worked.
I went to the local ethnic market and got some yams. I got yellow yams, name yams, and maybe? another one. So my question.... are Name and Discorea Alata the same? I have read legendary things about your Discorea Alata and can’t stand not having them. So I want to know if I have it dang it! Are you growing yams?
Hello! I just joined the channel because there is such a wealth of information here! Will Single Row gardening work in South Florida or is it better to stick with the Florida Food Forest Model?
My garden is being taken over by dollar weeds. What can I do about that? I let it get away from me. My whole yard and garden is getting overrun. Any advice will be appreciated.
Was wondering something. Im a new gardener who has been watching your channel. I made my own swamp fertilizer is it safe to pour on the top of the plants I'm asking bc I put urine in it or should I only put it in the soil around the base of the plant. Any info on this would be appreciated thanks
David I have read most of your books some of them 3 or 4 times. You seem to have changed your focus. Is this because this is being grown for a market garden?
Yes - and also poor soil, no irrigation, needing food fast and much more space than usual. Like I said, single rows are not my primary method but are a useful tool. I have only gardened this way once before, back in 2015 on some borrowed land without irrigation.
I was sarcastically thinking "OMG!!! Nooooo, he's not doing no till!!!!" ;-) I know that it is late fall, but it looks/seems relatively dry. What do you plan on growing in the spring/summer? Any plans for watermelon and cantaloupe? When I moved away from the bayou country, I really missed the watermelon and cantaloupe. Always enjoy your videos.
I am not an expert, but I suggest going along hill contours, not to plow straight from the top to the bottom of any notable hills. You can also keep a grass buffer zone between your garden and any ponds or streams, to help hold soil. If you have a long growing season, you may also have the option of planting ground cover crops.
Man, your info is not complete. As with most you tubers, it is moulded to fit a ideal that you can make a video with. And you don't seem to have a grip on history, and recent history. Our ancestors and even in my generation used horses or mules to plow and till the garden, thus the need for wide rows.
I love the prompt that comes onto the screen, right at the end....David is balancing a basket of veggies on his head, and the prompt is for a video about vertical gardening!!😂🪜🪴 Bev ❤🦘
