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What’s up I’m Ben Hale and this is the easy living yards podcast. Creating Beautiful Yard should be easy. Let’s jump in create the Dream Yard. You deserve, so you can enjoy more time doing what you love. Welcome to episode one hundred and five of the easy living yards podcast today. We’re talking about organic gardening basics. If you’re looking to get into gardening, organic gardening is a beautiful way to do it to provide nutritious food for your family, and in a way that you can feel safe about it. That’s the whole idea, right and so today I wanNA, share with you. What I feel are the bare essentials to get started in organic gardening. There’s a ton of gardening resources out there, but there’s not a whole lot that talks about just. How do you even get started right? What just the bear simplest stuff to get started so I? WanNa give you that in a nutshell in today’s episode Hey. I’m recording today from a beautiful May. Actually his June June welcome to June. It’s so beautiful. Summer is getting here quickly. It’s hot. It’s beautiful at sunny. Plants are thriving and I hope you’re enjoying the beautiful weather around us. If you’re listening soon after this shows recorded, a you know that life is still on Cova. Lockdown and Slowly starting to open up around here in south, west Western Ohio and life. Is You know life is good? So this is a wonderful time to really just focus inward on what we can do with our landscapes. What we can how we can refocus our lives, so hope you’re taking this as an opportunity to help, do some of that refocusing and internal You know introspection I guess right. Anyway so let’s get into today’s show. I have a ton of resources to share with you today. just the show outline itself helps you run through the bare essentials of what you need and you know some of these things are. Are Not you know, and then I go a little bit beyond that, of course, because they can’t contain my excitement, I love gardening, I love the idea of producing food in our own landscapes. Whether you have a pot, a balcony, patio or twenty acres. You can produce some food for yourselves. Gardening is a wonderful way to do so to get started. And and you know to do it. In that old fashioned classical way, this is something. People have been doing for thousands of years right, and so it’s time for you to get it on his action to. This is not something that’s outdated. There’s tons of new ways to do things as well of course but. Gardening is a beautiful way to provide sufficiency for yourself and your family, good healthy nutrition, and to also stick it to the man right. So. Gardening is a way where you can become reliable on yourself is basically what I’m saying. And of course you’re not gonNA generate all food overnight for your whole family. It’s not something that we do. We actually don’t generate a lot of food for ourselves, even though I aspire to but we do work to garden and produce healthy food for. To teach our kids how to do so as well so that’s really important to me. So. Let’s just jump right in so today. Basically what I’m talking about is a couple of categories of things so i. where are the goals of gardening? And more specifically, what are your goals for gardening? What should you focus on? What types of plants, of course, of course you’re wondering what types of plant I go probably, so we’re GONNA talk about plants We’re GONNA. Talk about specific amendments for your soil materials. You might need tools. You might need as well and then of course a bunch of resources as well that I’d love to share with you. So for today’s show, you can always check out. The show notes in your podcast feed there. You can also go over to easy living. Yards dot com slash episode, one, zero, five, one, zero five, and that will get you. All the show notes for this. I also have an awesome video to share with you in those show notes of on how To To create a self watering planter, so this is a planter with a reservoir of water in the bottom, so you only have to water like once every two weeks, which is awesome if you’re doing any sort of patio, gardening or balcony gardening, it’s pretty much an essential unless you’re going to be out there at least once a day to water your plants. So okay, so let’s start with the role goals of what you should. What you really I recommend you focus on when it comes to gardening. In the first thing is to get a yield all right. We talked about this in our permaculture. Show a few episodes ago. It’s one of the focuses of permaculture as well one of the principals, and and so getting a yield.

00:05:01 – 00:10:09

Basically what what I mean is get something out of it right? You got to focus on at least getting one thing out of gardening. We’re not out there just to enjoy being outdoors right? We’re out there actually to cultivate the soil to utilize the soil in water and Sun Right. To to actually produce something to to cultivate life through plants that can then return to was in the form of food, right? That’s awesome so. What we want to do is create that magic that magic that happens to actually get harvest right so we want to focus on getting a yield. That’s the first thing so really. One of the biggest cautions here is don’t go too big too fast. All right focused on just getting a small win first and then building upon that small one figure out what works for you your time available that you have your space available that you have in the plants that work while in your space, and to build a cooperation to to create a beautiful home for your plants that then create beautiful nutritious. Nutritious yields for you. Okay, so that leads into the next one is start small. So this is another principal I recommend is start with what you can manage. Because then you can do a good job on a small scale in replicate it in the future. Okay, so while we all want to have you know a boatload of produce tomorrow afternoon. It just in reality cannot happen that way, right? So start small with a small garden space. Make it work. Make it work good, and then expand. Okay, get good at what you can do with a small space I and you’ll be amazed at the amount of production. You can get over a small space. Start easy start with plants. You know you can manage. Start with things you see you with that. You can manage with your time as well so a small enough space to manage with your time for example, don’t Overdo it. Start easy start small. And Start Close, okay? This is another kind of thing that comes over from my background and permaculture. Start where you can easily access your garden. Often, we took our gardens in the back corner of our property if The land. Because sometimes you know, gardens can look a little untidier, whatever right and so people generally stick him in the back corner. Well. Often. Do you walk in that space? Even if you didn’t have a garden, they’re not often probably right, so start close where you can just take us to a few steps out the back door and cultivate your plants. Take care of them to them. You can see them out your window, so you can assess them easily from inside your home to see. Oh, it looks like they maybe need some water or oh, we’re dealing with pest issue, or maybe it needs a little bit of fertility or something like that right, so you can cultivate in manager plants in a way. That’s easy all right. It’s not it’s not as much of a task or burden. Okay so those are the basic principles that I recommend you start with and focus on these around these core principles of getty yield. Start Small, start easy and start close, okay? So, let’s talk about the basics of what plants need all right. When you think about plant, right in thinking about gardening, we kind of already touched on this is accessibility is very very important, okay? So. Can you access your plants easily right, but also this goes farther can. Access right resources, so think about it from the plant perspective. Do they have good access to water to son to soil and to the the person that helps take care of that plan right so that would be you right so. You’re plants need these resources to grow properly. Okay so. Make sure you can provide for your plants in a way that they can live and produce a yield and a benefit for you as well. Now. Let’s touch quickly on goals as well right, so we talked about the overarching goals that I recommend you focus on the principles. Maybe we should say, but let’s talk about your personal goals. What do you want out of garden? Why are you thinking about a garden? Or. Why should you think about a garden if you’re not? So focused on what a garden can do for you and how it can best fit in your life is time. A priority is some time you have something so little of, and that’s the limitation for why you haven’t grown a garden yet, or is it just you have no idea what to do right so? Let’s focus on what our goals are. You WanNA learn basically what to do to get started. Okay well. This show is a great starting point, right? If time is limiting factor. How can you build a garden whatever that means for you, and it’s in the amount of time that you are willing or able to a a lot for it, okay? Maybe, it’s something else.

00:10:09 – 00:15:04

Maybe it’s you. Don’t you have the right space, right? So how can we fit a garden to the space? You have if it’s a shady balcony or a small patio or a giant acreage that you have no idea what to do with whatever it is. How can you get what you want from garden? And how can you fit it into your Space Space Okay and so that goes to the next pieces. What do you want out of a garden? Do you want a ton of produce? Do you want just a little bit to feed your family? Do you want it to be a resource to teach your kids? How to grow food or where food comes from or how this beautiful tomato is created? Whatever it is right? What are your goals? Because that will define how you create in line manager garden, so get clear on that. Okay so now. We got a couple other categories to go through for today’s show. Let’s talk about. Let’s see I’m looking at my my show outline here and I’m trying to figure out what’s next best. Okay, so let’s talk about maybe some. Maybe some tools, okay. Well actually before. Let’s just talk about the general process here. Maybe you have no idea what the general process of gardening and I think for a lot of gardening shows or TV shows, podcasts, articles, whatever is Kinda hard for the the person hosting that material to convey these very basics, and maybe myself included I grew up gardening. Okay, my family grew up. Growing a garden enough to. Hugely sustain a good bulk of of vegetables that we consumed throughout the year, so my family grew a garden in a old suburb of the Cincinnati area and. So you’d be surprised what you can do, just a small plot of land. We didn’t have huge acreage or anything, but we grew a ton of food. Mostly beans and tomatoes were huge bulk of our protest, but then we also had a lot of other stuff we did throughout the years to, and we can do a lot of that to preserve that produce to be used throughout the year so. I didn’t I didn’t even know what a store bought Ken of of. Spaghetti sauce ever tasted like until I was you know much older because we made all of our. Our own tomato based sauce is for the whole year enough to sustain ourselves throughout the year for a huge family and. And likewise for beans as well so green beans. I never fortunately I never knew what the taste of of commercially produced canned green beans tasted like or even frozen for that matter. Gras garden groomed produce is just tastes so much better? It’s amazingly better because those plants are happy, they’re healthy. They’re cared for in a way. That’s not just for the bottom line, but to actually produce healthy nutritious food. And, so how do you even just get started with the idea of doing this? This is a better way to start before we talk about tools. Of course, so let me take a step back. So once we’re clear on what you want from Your Garden. What are your goals? What’s your time available in what your space available all those things we really want to think about how to even get started right? So based on your spacer time. You might be considering doing a potted garden for for that. You definitely want to check out the the show. I the video I just made on how to make a self watering planter. I walked through step by step, the process, and actually create in front of you a very inexpensive self, watering plants, or where it has a reservoir in the bottom of water, and that water can wake up into a potting substrate, and you can grow healthy food. In that pot, and so you only have to water it like once a week, maybe once every two weeks depending on how quickly your plants growing, how quickly the water dried as those factors? But it’s super easy to do. It’s it’s. Super Inexpensive you can build a ton of these types of planters. There’s all sorts of different designs that you can modify this simple used a five gallon bucket in the video so you can modify it to fit whatever reservoir you need. People do this with giant plastic tubs. All sorts of containers you can do this. It’s easy to get started with something you have. Most people have a five gallon bucket, so check it out. It’s worth a watch. If you’re considering a container based garden to start with, so that’s great. If you have only a patio space, a balcony, whatever when my wife and I, soon after we got married, we lived in a Condo for a couple years and Had just had such an edge to to actually grow food I couldn’t help it.

00:15:04 – 00:20:06

I I grew a container garden on our balcony and it did awesome. Of course until we left for like two weeks, and I didn’t have self watering planters at the time, and of course, everything shriveled up and kind of died, but it was awesome you can. You can produce a ton of food on a balcony for for very inexpensive. I don’t know if I said that right, but something like that right. You get the gist rate, so it’s very inexpensive to get started as what I’m saying in very easy. Okay, this doesn’t have to be a complicated process. You don’t need tons of fancy new tools. You don’t need tons of fancy new equipment or fancy. You know soil, fertilizers and stuff. The basics are super, easy and super impactful, so start with the basics. Okay, so if you have a balcony patio, think of that container gardening. If you have a patio, you can even consider building a raised bed on your patio. I’m not going to get into the details of building a raised bed right now. That may be a resource for future show or video but for now basically what a raised bed is is a you build just an above ground frame. Usually out of you know landscaping, timbers or something, and you fill it with soil mix that you can usually line it with something I like a landscape fabric, and then you put some soil mix in and you can plant directly into that, so you don’t have to worry about what conditions are soil. How good is the drainage and all that stuff you know that can be pretty complex, sometimes depending upon your conditions so so something on a patio. That’s something you consider as can consider as well as you could even build a small raised bed directly on your patio. That’s all the space you have even a Two Two foot by two foot raised bed. Planter can yield one of produce for you. Okay, you can plant Greens in there. You can plant large vegetable plants in there you. Can you know it’s super accessible too? So you can be out there managing it and cultivating it looking for pests, insects, and just you know instead of buying a bunch of chemicals imagine you can just Kinda like you know you spray or flicked those insects off when they’re causing issues, and that’s it all right, so when we go beyond that. If you want to actually have in ground garden bed, it’s not too difficult. Okay, here’s the reality. Pretty much everybody you talk to. Complains about the soil that they have you know you talked to somebody out in Phoenix Arizona, or whatever and they’re like oh my. Bazeley don’t have soil. It’s all sand it, you know. The water just drains right through right away. is horrible. I can’t even hold anything you talk to somebody around where I live in southern Ohio, and they complain about all we have. Is this dense clay? You can hardly even dig through it in the middle of August it cracks up and everything it. It doesn’t train at all. It’s horrible you know in. You know the people in Phoenix the people in Southern Ohio. They’re jealous of the people that live in the middle and middle of Iowa whatever all those people have you know perfect loan, or whatever, and and and whatever, but the reality is most of us that live in a homeowner development have degraded soils depleted soils. The topsoil has been scraped off. The rest of the soil is being compacted through development. And then there’s turf grass. Put over it. It’s it’s. Bear. You know this turf grasses are barely surviving, barely clinging on and and we don’t really have soil. That’s the reality for most places we would all love to have a better condition well, it’s actually not too difficult. Not Too bad to create a space can work for you. So I I WANNA, refer you to an episode a recent episode healthy soil in why you should care all right. That’s episode ninety six go over to easy living yards dot com slash episode nine six, and that’ll take you right to that episode. Of course there’s Lincoln the show notes to. That covers all the basics of really how to create healthy soil, but the super super condensed version of that whole episode is organic. Matter pretty much Solves Solves everything, and what do I mean by organic matter? Well, that’s Lee. Plant material plant material the grades and feeds your soil. Okay that all that organic matter what it does is helps improve drainage for dense soils, it helps retain water for loose soils like sandy soils and everything in between plants love organic matter, especially, especially vegetable garden plants, so providing good healthy organic matter, a two year garden to build up a new garden bed is. His really a wonderful way to start okay, also another episode here a couple episodes here so. One. How to start a new garden bed? Okay that’s a throwback to to episode ten so easy living yards dot com slash episode.

00:20:06 – 00:25:01

Ten takes you to a whole episode where I go through the basics of how to start a new garden bed whether you have a lawn or a weedy patch or whatever how to that patch into a garden bed. That can grow you food. Okay now this works the same process works for landscaping beds as well. Okay, and so that’s an awesome way to go. Check out. Learn how to do that, so we don’t spend too much time talking about it today, but again the basics our cover up. The previous stuff smothered out. Get it dead. Somehow. I prefer organic process for that. Go over to the show to check that out episode ten and then build up nutritious layer of of food for plants above that okay. One of those things is compost. Of course to compost is super awesome stuff. Having access to good healthy compost is is an amazing resource so go over to easy living yards dot com slash episode ninety seven, so episode ninety seven talks about how to compost all right, and that’s another amazing tool to help your garden now. You don’t have to get started with composting right now. Are All that mess? But the reality is if you live any anywhere close to urban area. There’s probably a resource Either Either a municipality or some sort of program that either sells composts or gives it away, and here’s the trick. Just do the basic smell test to see if you have good compass, if you can grab a handful of it and put it to your nose and smell it, and it doesn’t smell rotten or nasty, and it smells kind of either like kinda sweet or Humzi like rich soil or like a kind of. earthy like a forest floor if it smells like any of that, your compost is good enough, and you should so basically if it’s a kind of pleasant or earthy smell good to go, if it’s a kind of rotten, smell or putrid smell, don’t use that stuff. Okay, you can find begged compost and a lot of homestore’s I like to use organic mechanics brand stuff I’m not. I’m not funded by them or anything. but organic mechanics is as available on the northeast coast of the US and the surrounding areas out toward the Midwest as well. And they’re sold through whole foods a lot, too, so check them out if you live in that region but basically. Adding some composts to your to your garden bed, goes a long way and also if you have access to warm castings, it sounds gross, but basically warm poop is like supercharged nutrition for plants. Okay, so that’s awesome stuff to. If you can’t get access to compost, it’s a lot more expensive. A little bit goes a long way. All right and you can even like basically take what you have. Soak it in some water and spray That That water out all over the garden bed is a good way to distribute that nutrition as well. Okay so our I don’t WanNa, get too detailed here I’m trying to keep this show simple, but basically the idea is build up organic matter. Compost is organic matter that’s accessible to the plants pretty much from day one, and then also you can talk about other more organic matter like adding chemical-free lawn, clippings, and chopped up leaves. From, trees you know in the fall or whatever? Whatever organic material have some of it breaks faster than others, but I bill beautiful beautiful garden soil where we live right now. In about two years just by layering on good healthy composts and leaf litter, and a long clippings to take what basically I dug down on this, if you. Dig Down that soil right when I started the garden bed, it was. Bare Clay. There is nothing there. There’s about maybe a half inch of of Kinda like Dark Brown. I guess you call it. Top soil right at the edge of the turf, and then as soon as beyond that half inch, it was like orangey clay is dense clay, and now I can dig down about twelve inches and get deep black garden bed material it’s it’s full of rich Humzi earthy organic material, and it’s awesome for plants, so you can do that, too. I will put in one word of caution here, which is be careful of manure it’s it’s a age-old tradition to spread manure. composted manure in your garden bed. Be Super careful, because now there’s a lot of Hey, fields that are sprayed with a An herbicide that is persistent, and it stays on the plants, and it gets digested in passed through livestock, and the manure still carries that urbicide, and then when you spread that on your garden, it basically kills everything you and your garden. Guys have made this mistake I’ve dealt with it.

00:25:01 – 00:30:00

It’s no fun are so. A. Persistent an persistent herbicides that’s causing problems with manure and. From a resource of beautiful wonderful stinky, resource Into something that’s just basically waste now and a huge problem so. Be careful with manure, if unless you can. One hundred percent confirm that the the hey, that’s being eaten by the horses is not treated or cattle, or whatever right usually horse manure is something I’ve dealt with more than than cattle manure both of them. You really have to make sure you let them sit hot, you know the pilots get hot killing pathogens, and that sort of thing you know so old. Manure is usually a good to go or if it’s still got you know manure smell, you can compass just by turning it about once a week for a couple of weeks. okay, so just be super careful with that stuff all right Eric talked about You know I jumped forward to my amendment section already. But. I want to get back to again if we’re starting with a garden bed. Use the resources already available go to how to start a new garden bed episode ten. Healthy soil, and why you should care episode ninety six, and how to compost episode ninety seven. Even if you don’t plan to compost, it’s super important to understand what compost is how to find. Good quality composts so I I kinda go through all that and that episode those three resources will get you started on putting a new garden bed in the ground and get started. Okay, so those are the basic processes, no matter where you live of how to get started with gardening. Okay now you wondering probably okay. What kind of plants do I use that sort of thing. How often do water that sort of thing? Basically the plants will tell you okay. When it comes to watering, you need to have of course the right. Conditions for your plant, so most plants like full sun or mostly sunny conditions. If you don’t have that, don’t worry a ton of Greens. We will greatly extend the season of of Salad Greens. Those types of plants anything that grows foliage. In in shady conditions, so those things were awesome in more shaded areas. Of people no matter what conditions you have, there’s something that’s not perfect about it. Everybody has a complaint about their space. The the real thing is to get out there and get started and get trying and and grow the plants that are adaptable to the space. You have okay. All right so so beyond that we do need a couple of tools. We need a couple of materials and will need a couple of amendments to get started and the water piece I forgot okay so water. You basically you know if you have, it depends on the conditions right, so if it basically you just gotTa. Go out there. See how drier soil is about half inch below the surface Check for wilting on your leaves. Things like that that are indications of low water. You WanNa water deeply more than late. Watering ‘s frequently so deep watering will help you. Roots grow stronger and deeper and be more resilient to to stressed. Drought Conditions and So, you’ll have better stronger plants with deeper watering ‘s the grow better, and and you have to water less frequently that way okay so. Tools the very very basic starting small like recommend. You don’t even need a shovel, guys. You can start with a trowel if you want. Okay of course, a garden spade shovel is super helpful, but I’m just trying to bear this down as as simply as possible start small invest small grow from there. Okay, so a Trowel, a good sturdy quality trowel. I’ll have links to all. These in the show notes guys. Geyser affiliate links to two products. I Do Do recommend either I’ve used them or You know know that they’re good quality products. Okay, but I just want to let you know an affiliate. Link is basically where it’s at no cost to you. Get a small commission. If you click on the link and by all right, but you can still click on the Lincoln. Check it out if you don’t WanNa do that whole process. That’s totally fine all right. So basically a trowel. Would you want to look for is a a solid shank all right, so that means you don’t WanNa. Find those ones where it’s like. A plate curved plate that’s welded to the handle because the weld breaks or bends right at the weld. Okay, so don’t get those ones. Get a fool solid one. There’s one I have by corona. That’s an awesome shovel or travel. It’s aluminum, so it’s super. Lightweight has a nice molded group to it as well so that’s a great trial. You can actually the like, so that one’s like twelve or thirteen bucks. You can also get like super cheap ones. They have like these plastic resin ones that are like ninety seven cents, usually or two bucks, or whatever at your local home store, fisker is used to make a really nice cheap one to I.

00:30:00 – 00:35:00

Don’t know if it’s still available anymore, but those little composite ones are super inexpensive and they’re. They’re wonderfully effective, so each of our kids has little one. None of them have broken. They’re great hard. They’ve gotten stepped on. They’ve gotten, and you can imagine what little kids can do with with stuff so so get a trial. You WanNA watering can. It doesn’t need to be amazing or anything I do like my super durable watering can. It’s made of galvanized steel by a company called Barons Super Nice. It’s like a three gallon cans, so we usually don’t fill it all the way up because it gets super heavy, but But that way you can kind of go around your garden and do a lot of watering with on just one fill. You definitely want some garden gloves. These don’t have to be anything. Fancy are amazing again, but I do like those nyc trial clouded fabric gloves. They’re super nice, because if it’s a little wet out or working in the early spring or late fall when it’s a little cold they help. Keep your fingertips from getting super wet if you’re still doing stuff and also. They have a really good dexterity, so you can do weeding with them and and sorts of stuff, and it keeps you know the your fingernails from getting nasty and stuff or just being brown all the time and stuff and covered with dirt. So Super Nice to have. You, you know if you. If you live. Where here’s a good design tip? Put Your Garden where you can access it with a hose. So if if your garden is near a hose, you might WanNa hose. You Might WanNa hose. Okay, so get a hose, decent quality sprayer of links to to those as well The Jose linked to is actually a a rather expensive hose by I think the brand is Gilmore. You can buy cheaper hoses They just don’t last as long so a good quality hose takes you a long way. lasts a lot of years, but if you’re looking just to get started, a Cheapo hose can do the job of course I always try to avoid waste, too, so if I can pay a little bit more for quality and have it lasts a lot longer know that it’s not going To To landfill sooner, I usually choose that, but again. If if if you really budget limited, you can go cheaper and it works. It just doesn’t last as long usually likewise, you probably WANNA sprayer for that hose to hose. Inspire linked to a good one there as well Check that out you know. There’s little multi sprayers are pretty Nice I’ve had mixed success though with the ones you find at your local. Walmart or whatever because a lot of times, they just end up the gaskets fail or whatever so I’ve been linked to a good one in the show notes with all this stuff. There’s a link so. so these are not must haves, but kind of Nice to have hose, a shovel and a garden rake okay. That’ll get you through most of your gardening. Guys those tools right there, so we’re not talking about a major major investment if you’re talking about again if we’re talking about pot. Gardening in pots. Let’s put it that way if you’re if you’re looking at gardening in pots. Watering planters I’m talking about you. Don’t even need a shovel. Rake You can get away with glows. Watering can trial and that’s it all right and your set so. Don’t go overboard on. This guy’s I’m trying to keep this as minimalist as possible here so next. Let’s talk about some materials that are helpful again. Not Not all of these are necessary, so think about your condition. Think about what you’re doing. Think about your goals with the time savings. You might want to have so that’s kind of why list some of these things, but they’re not bare essentials. Okay, we, we just talked about the bare essentials, little bit of compost, little bit topsoil some trial, a trial watering can gloves some pots. That’s it or a raised bed. That’s it that’s all you need. And of course some seeds right or some plants. That’s it. Okay so these guys are a little bit bonus stuff so self watering pots. We’ve talked about ready. Check out the link to the Youtube video super helpful to go through that super easy. You can build these. You can collect all the materials all the tools you need to build it. And to actually build it and get a plant in the pot in in less than an hour. So that’s how easy these are to build. Gate you. Laying around your house from various projects like me, you probably have all these materials on hand as well and if you don’t see if you have anything that can do the job. That’s not the same exact materials I’m using all right, so so check out that video if you’re looking to to some gardening pots, okay, next thing. If you’re doing gardening in a garden bed or somewhere you want to consider a hose timer with a you know a tiny little sprinkler on it or something. We don’t want to go overboard with a crazy irrigation system at this point, but something with a host timer.

00:35:01 – 00:40:03

That does water your plants maybe. You know maybe once. Every couple of days or something. If you’re in super, high or super, dry, super hot, climate, or period in your season Maybe you could do daily but again just think about that. Host Heimer. I’ve never used one guys so You have a very successful garden without a hose time. My parents have never used when they’ve garden for for about forty years that I remember. and. so. You don’t need them, but they can make your life easier if you’re looking to save time and effort. Okay, but they can also wastewater to write and remember that pretty much. All of the US is on strained water resources. Especially, if you live in the arid west of the Mississippi but even here in the eastern US where we get over forty inches of rain a year we’re still stressing our water systems so that just keep that in mind with what you’re doing. Okay so next. Borders you you might want some borders around your garden beds so this if you’re making a raised bed, of course, you need to build it out something or even your garden itself. You want to prevent stuff from creeping into your garden You know all the turf grass and things like that fencing If you live in a heavy pest area where there’s larger pests like deer, possums, raccoons, skunks rabbits. Chipmunks, those types of critters squirrels. They will get into your garden. I usually try to as long as they’re not decimating my whole garden I. Try to share a little bit with them and just let it be but we do have a fence around our garden takes some effort to do. for now start small start easy You know a temporary fence for This This year is totally fine, you know, get a win first rate, but protect your win to right, so you don’t. You don’t need to wage warfare on the critters, but it’s the same time. Keep your keep your hard work valuable to yourself and make sure you get a yield out of it so if you need to put some sort of barrier around your stuff, do so okay. Plant. Markers are helpful to I. Always Forget where the plants are, but especially when we’re new, and we’re not sure what the plants that were growing exactly look like through all their life. Stages can be really tough to tell what the weed, and what’s not so some plant markets are super helpful. These don’t have to be crazy. Fancy we just We We just put a bunch out me and my kids They mark them all with the they made their own out of popsicle sticks, okay and tongue oppressors, so you can do it with just whatever you have around We have tons and tons of for crafts and stuff, so we just use them. It’s a renewable resource which is Super Nice and. So you can, you can get some online as well. There’s plastic ones. There’s aluminum ones where you can kinda like at your whatever you’re doing and then kind of flatten it out next season and re use it again. There’s a lot of different types. That just use basic plant marker. I’m not even GONNA provide linked to those I’ve never I’ve never bought a plant marker so I can’t recommend one specifically in stakes, stakes are are good as well especially given certain plants They need staking to grow properly so like tomatoes you can grow them where you just let them sprawl, but if you’re trying to maximize your space they need some sort of staking Structure Structure some things need like a trellis. You can just use stakes entwine to build those for certain things. Remember remember here. We’re keeping it simple, so let’s use the basics of what we need to get the job done. Okay, so those are materials. None of these are absolutely necessary, especially in all conditions so kind of as you learn about what specifically you plan to grow. Get the stuff you. You need and start with that. And you can always go out and get stuff later right so Now our economy is so accessible that you can have something delivered to your door. In a day or two. And it’s super easy to get so none of this is stuff. You need to go out and just binge by right now. Okay, so now let’s talk about amendments. We already got into this, but amendments are things that you add to your soil to improve it. Okay, so if you’re starting with a new garden bed, you might actually put in something called. Topsoil, so topsoil is usually stuff that scraped off of a development as developers are developing the development and I just wanted to see how many times can use that word in a sense so and in basely then stored at a our landscaping wholesaler. You can buy it and put it in your space. Now it it works. It’s not always the most in Tristesse stuff but it works, and you can use it as sometimes. You can’t have some weed issues with it. You know because there is a seed bank in the top soil sometimes, but it’s it’s workable it can get you started.

00:40:03 – 00:45:02

Okay, secondly you might actually buy something called garden soil, which is usually a mixture of top soil and sand and compost, so it’s a little bit more. For the plants kind of ready to go in the sand helps improve drainage so you can get that stuff, too. You can use what you have and talk about the in. Do the layering process. I talked about just recently so plenty ways to get their guys. amendments are things at once. We have our garden bed in place. These are things we can add to it to aid in the nutrition throughout the growing season. The first and the absolute Goto I use if I use anything is compost. Compost is such a wonderful resource. It solves so many problems that really. I rarely have to go beyond that okay. Worm, castings already mentioned to. It’s basically think of it as like hyper compost, it’s full of both compost. Healthy compost and worm castings are fool of biological life, and also nutrition, and so they’re awesome. Awesome, awesome resources for plants. Beyond that. Of course I also mentioned grass and leaf clippings. These are also super resourceful not only in adding to the organic content of your garden, usually something that doesn’t help in the immediate future from that standpoint, but it’ll help next year as it starts to break down, okay, but it does help with the life and also as a march. If you put it, you know a mixture of grass and leaf clippings or Basically if you do too much grass by itself, it gets Kinda Funky and nasty, and it’s not great, but if you have some sort of dry material along with the grass, it works awesome. Basically what you’re doing is you’re adding a light mulch layer that prevents weeds from from Popping up in your garden. It also helps with moisture retention, and so it’s an amazing thing. for multiple levels all right, so think about that. Also if you need just a super super nutrient boost that still kind of like organic. And Natural Base you can consider a seaweed or kelp. the so you can find a bottle of this. It’s called like liquid seaweed liquid kelp. Kelp you can get as granular like a kelp meal to so these are helpful for. Providing good accessible nutrition to your plans while of a lot of different nutrients so all right? That’s a amendments in a nutshell. Are you really don’t go beyond that guys So sticks with simple stick with easy and your plans will take care of themselves. Plans have been growing for thousands or millions of years right? We gotta get with our global timelines here so anyway all right, so let’s talk about plants all right. This is the last segment here is plants. You’re probably wondering. Okay Ben this is great with all this garden stuff, but really I just wanted to like what plants to grow. Okay well. I can’t give you clear answer here. That’s the short net show. It depends of course on what you want. What conditions you have! And also Well. Let’s just get into it all right all right. Let’s just get it, so I we want to select the right plans for our space, so we talked about accessibility, right? What are plants need to be accessible to? Water Son Soil in you right. They need to be accessible to all those things you need to be able to cultivate it. The soil needs defeated. The son needs to feed it to. Get that whole photosynthesis thing going and water needs to help it drink, right. That’s it all right. That’s that’s what plants need. So make sure you have the right plant for your space where your space provides the appropriate conditions for the plant, okay? Next we went easy disease resistant plants, okay. This is really important. Guys something you already okay. You don’t WanNa. Go Out and buy a bunch of Kohlrabi because it sounds cool, and you’ve never heard of it, but you don’t know how the heck you’re going to actually eat this stuff. You don’t WanNa go Bhai turnips. If you never eat a turnip all right so by something, you actually eat. You know you’ll eat your family. Wait okay, start with that You You can always expand later and experiment later, but you want to start with the basics with things you know something that will provide you a yield right. We talked about that. Get a yield. If you grow Kohlrabi and you plant your your family decides US discussing you decided discussing. You have no idea how to prepare it I have no idea how to prepare it. You don’t get a yield right. You don’t get something from Your Garden. So that’s the whole idea here right, so stick with that. So. Let’s talk about some plants. The easiest the category that’s easiest to me is herbs. If you’re into herbs at all.

00:45:02 – 00:50:03

If you cook with herbs, consider growing these quick win one of the easiest. It’s an annual. Is Basil all right? Get some basil either already started from your local garden centre, or get some seed, and you’ll be amazed at how well gross same Cilantro. For some reason is when I first started planting Sondra I. Never get it to grow, but then it would pop up the next year. So for some reason I didn’t have the right conditions. The first year the seed survived through the winter and grew the next year, and they have salon everywhere and just pop the ball over the garden now all right so sometimes. What seems like a failure can turn into a huge success. So Basil is awesome for all these where you actually eat the foliage, guys, I really recommend trying organic getting organically grown plants. Most garden centers do not have organically grown produce plants, and you never know what you’re eating on those leaves. Okay. Some chemistries that are in herbicides and pesticides are incredibly incredibly persistent or break down into things that aren’t wonderful by the themselves either And And so you want to really be sure what you’re putting in your mouth. Okay, so if you’re getting pre started plants, not not starting with seeds. You WanNa get something healthy, so go organic. It’s really hard to find some organic stuff. the local whole foods around us does sell organic garden plants to start with so check there if you have like a health food store around you. Okay so herbs, Time Basil Rosemary Sage Oregano. Chives garlic. Let me go through it again time, Basil, Rosemary Sage Oregano, mints Chives and Garlic. All of these are super easy to grow. They do require slightly different conditions. So when you get the plant. Read the Little Plant Tag. Give it what it wants. All right or you know use that thing called the Internet look, which of these fits your conditions okay, get clear on what conditions you have first, so you can then narrow down what plants you can grow easily. Okay, that’s what we want to do here, so. Time Rosemary Sage Oregano, they all like pretty. They actually really thrive in pretty tough conditions, and that’s actually how they get their stronger flavor. Isn’t that those tougher conditions, so they do awesome in in a lot of situations. Mints I just want to warn you. Are notorious for running all over the garden, so so make sure they’re in a contain spot, or where a place where they can run wild and free once you get them establish, but there’s all sorts of wonderful mints out there. You can use for teas and all sorts of you know to. Bruce up your dishes salads that sort of thing, as well so check out all those herbs herbs are wonderful, easy way to get a yield and get a success out of your guard. Okay, Greens Greens are another awesome way. When it’s too hot, it can be tough for a lot of Greens. charges one. That does well all season round. If you like to eat Greens you’ll probably like something like charred to. So Lettuce Spinach Kale Chard and beets are the ones I listed as easy once, okay. Beets are awesome because you can eat the tops and the bottoms the whole plant. Basically so you see a lot of these red beets that people serve in whatever pickled beets. pickled beets are great. I never liked him growing up but the the Greens. Themselves are amazing as well. Okay so even if you don’t like the roots and you don’t Wanna eat the roots there a wonderful way to to enhance the drainage of your garden and De compactor garden soil, so even they even though you’re not getting a yield from the root if you don’t want to, you can still use them to build the nutrition of your soil and You You can still yield the Greens so beet Greens are really good. Chart is really good again. If you’re not gonNA eat them, don’t grow okay, but they’ll. They have a longer season. than say your lettuce, so lettuce is a good early season in late son like basically early to mid late spring, and then late summer through fall grow lettuce grow spinach. Kale is a good cool season crop. Some Kale’s especially depending on the climate you live, you can get a harvest of Kale all winter long. Okay, so check out the plants that you will eat that you can grow in your space. Greens are an awesome way to get a yield and get it quick all right you can. You can start harvesting lettuces if if you grow throughout the if you can get you know little starts and stuff. Or start the the doors transplant outside you can, you can get a yield of micro Greens lettuce all season long as well. Just harvest is super early when the leaves our young, and you’ll still get a harvest, and it’ll still be awesome.

00:50:03 – 00:55:11

Okay now, the downside with lettuces and spinach and stuff is in the heat. They they go to see because that’s their natural habit, and and that’s their life cycle. So that’s why they don’t do well in the heat. If you have a shady garden, the lasts a lot longer through the season there. Okay so Greens awesome. Herbs even awesome are. VEGGIES. Let’s talk about edges so super easy veggies radishes. You can spread the seat out pop up Just keep it moist to germinate, and you’ll get radishes growing your garden. They’re quick to harvest. is you’re taking care of the space though grow all right, so radishes only again only if these guys right, but radishes are easy, beans are are super easy guys, beans or something pretty much. Anybody can plant from seed as long as the garden state, a little bit moist while they’re germinating, and you keep the plants a little bit moist While While they’re growing You’re pretty much set i. mean you do have to manage for pests here and there and stuff but get some Bush beans. If you don’t have like a trellis instructor for them to climb on, get some Bush beans, and they can up a space and give you a ton of beans as a yield and it’s awesome, so if you eat green beans, check them out. If you eat other beans, check them out all right so gross and beans. They also help feed the soil which is awesome because they’re nitrogen fixers. They’re great plants. Zucchini is another one guys grow some. Zucchini. DOOKIE and grow couple plants. They’ll take a lot of space, but they give you a ton of yield for each plant. Okay, so Zucchinis awesome you can make. Out of them as keen lasagna, just eat them is like grilled, roasted Zucchinis or put them in. You know fresh dishes with like tomatoes and basaltic stuff I. Don’t WanNa get into recipes here. I’m not actually a great chef. But. But I wanted to just point out zucchinis pretty versatile stuff all right, and it’s healthy all right so so Zucchini or summer squash like your yellow squash as well those do pretty well also so just get him going. Keep them watered, and they’ll be happy all right. squashes in general also can grow very prolifically in could be very easy now. I WanNa say that Zucchini and squashes are tough to transplant so usually you wanna plant those from seed We’re talking about early June right now. This is the time to plant your squashes. It’s warm enough. They’ll be happy. Get them going. And you’ll get a yield. Excuse me and next I want to say for veggies. Another super easy one. If you like them, his sweet potatoes, so for each of these guys don’t rely on me right now. For All the details of the just because already. This episode is Super Long But go out if any of these plants sounds good to you, it’s something. Eat something. You like something your family likes. Research it learn how to grow it and grow it all right, guys. That’s what this episodes about. I wanted to give you the bare basics of how to start a garden all right so for. Let’s go through these plans again. I I miss perennials to I. Love Perennial Plants. Guys, so I can’t help. Highlight a couple of perennial plants, super easy ones. Blackberries make sure you get a thorn list and. Not A thorn list variety also not running variety. Okay, something that’s not going to go all over your garden, but the thorn ones are Super Nice. Blackberries are super nutritious, as well in their super easy to grow, so if that sounds something, delicious and wonderful to you gross some blackberries, though keep producing for you. They’re all awesome Strawberries likewise you’ll get yield out of strawberries for a couple years before you know, you can also look into how to keep them. Keep a bed going if you WANNA do that, but but just to start. Get some strawberries in the ground. You’ll get a couple. Years yield out of them with without doing anything except providing good quality soil for them in good moisture consistently. Rhubarb Rhubarb is something I’ve never grown, but I do know it’s super, easy or super easy. Perennial to grow comes back year after year. be careful because the leaves are poisonous. The stocks are not You still have to cook them, so be careful If you grow rhubarb, just be careful, but some people love it, and it’s a super easy perennial to grow okay. ASPARAGUS ASPARAGUS is also very easy once you get it established, this is not something you will get a yield until about two years in at least all right so basically you prepare a bed for asparagus you plant. The crowns these kinds of route groupings of your spare. Plant couple of crowns. You let it grow this year. Let it get happy next year. You let it grow, you let it get happy again. You might be able to harvest a few shoots in the spring, and then the following years when you really get a good harvest, and it will produce for years and years after that some people have sperry spreads that are Super Super Old and they love it so if you.

00:55:11 – 00:59:48

You love asparagus. It’s worth getting started once it started a super easy all right. You have to manage for pests here and there make sure it keeps enough for Tilleke, but other than that guys. ASPARAGUS is great stuff. Okay, so all right, so let’s run through this list again. So for plants make sure it’s the right plan for your space. They’re easy and disease, resistant, and very very importantly. Something you already eat and you like okay. So for herbs. Time Basil. Rosemary Sage Oregano mince chives garlic. For Greens Lettuce Spinach, Kale Chard and beats. For veggies, radishes, beans, Zucchini, squash, sweet potatoes for perennials. BLACKBERRIES STRAWBERRIES RHUBARB SPIRITUS GUYS I. Hope this is a great start for you I hope. You really are psyched to get something growing. There’s. you know this is the basics we can get more complex after this I’m always here to answer questions. You can always ask me a question. You just go over to easy living yards dot com slash. Ask and asked me a question. Guys and I’m helping happy to help you with the detailed question. You have okay. You notice that I did not list tomatoes today? Everybody wants to grow. Tomatoes seems a tomatoes are awesome I want to grow tomatoes. We have tons of tomatoes growing this year. I actually WANNA. Make sauce out of our tomatoes just like when we grew up This This year and the reason I didn’t is because tomatoes they they are. They are a little tougher. They’re not as easy alright. Celery is one of the toughest garden plants that I know of but tomatoes can be tough to to get started they require a lot of nutrition. They require a lot of moisture. They require a lot of Sun all right. That’s what tomatoes need. and it’s a little bit tougher to manage them into. Get them growing her, and I will say if you’re if you’re just dead. Set on tomatoes and you gotTA grow grow couple. See how they do also. What seems to always work are the little cherry tomatoes. So few loved his little solid cherry tomatoes, and that’s it and you’re happy with him. Grow those they always seem to produce. They produce in produce and produce produce all right. They’re awesome. Little plants so if you’re set on, tomatoes, consider that you can also just go one or two of the other ones and and see how they do, and you know you might. You might be successful with it right, so but just don’t go overboard. That’s that’s my biggest caution here. Don’t go overboard. Don’t burn yourself out this year. You want to get a win just like with landscaping. That’s what I talk about. Get a small win. I build off that win. That’s the same with gardening here. Okay so again, check out! I’m going to wrap up here finally. Right so this show is supposed to be your go to resource for getting started in gardening, so listen back to take notes. If you need to reach out to me if you have a specific question, easy living yards dot com slash, ask. You can also go guys every single episode. If you click on the link to go to my site, there’s a comment section. You can comment right there, too. I see those comments as well so you can always comment. They’re asked me a question. Guys all right so again. Run through all the resources for today’s show. a self watering planter video I just posted on Youtube If you’re looking for a Patio Gardner, balcony garden checkout that video for sure, super, helpful, resource, super, cheap and easy way to get started. With being low maintenance on your garden as well how to start a new garden bed episode ten. Gift ideas for guys actually didn’t talk about this one. During the show gift ideas for gardeners I just went through this whole awesome list of gift ideas for Gardeners and homeowners this past holiday season. These are tools. I use on a frequent basis that are. Tested, and they’re durable there they they do. They’re not cheap, basically, right? I don’t like cheap stuff. It’s just a waste. And waste of energy waste resources fills up the landfill waste of money guys so. Good resources. You’re looking to expand beyond the basic list I listened today. Go out and check out that show easy living yards episode ninety four also video there for that as well. If you WANNA, see them in person. How to build healthy soil, and why you should care episode ninety six how to compost episode ninety seven guys. All these resources in the show notes check him out. Of course, thanks for tuning in happy gardening. Make tomorrow better than today.

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