heyo it suggests with roots and refuge farm I'm headed into my garden right now and I want to talk specifically today to you beginner gardeners those of you who really desire to grow your own food but you don't have any experience with it I grew up around gardening my mom was an avid gardener the process of growing things was never one that was foreign to me however I didn't successfully grow food until really the last few years had a lot of failures and I learned a lot of lessons honestly the hard way but I have a tendency to get really intimidated whenever I go into forums or shirt watching videos and there's a lot of basic information that's assumed now if you will just start gardening you will learn all these things but you'll have to learn by your failures now if you do tons of research and ask lots of questions you're still gonna have to learn by your failures but yeah from the front end you will embrace the mindset that this is a journey and a classroom that is going to mold you in the process of becoming a good and successful gardener you'll never feel like you failed even now I'm walking down these rows of tomato plants it's the end of July they're struggling pretty intensely I don't know how much longer they're gonna produce through the heat I'm gonna start a second round of tomatoes since I live here in the south and we have a long growing season so I'll get some more later this year and I'll get some more next year and I've put up everything that I could that I've already gotten out of these plants but I don't feel like a failure because these plants are dying these plants are dying because it's hot outside I've done the best I could and even in the mistakes that I've made I still learned I still grew so I didn't fail so my first piece of advice to you beginner gardeners is to go ahead and remove the pass/fail mentality from your mind if you'll go ahead and decide in your heart from the front end that you're gonna do this is a passion and a hobby and that you're gonna enjoy every step of the process it won't feel like a failure to you the fruit the harvest that's definitely a reward that is honestly what I'm sure motivates most everyone to vegetable garden is they're imagining the harvest they're imagining successfully growing their own food but if you keep your eyes on that you'll hate the season of planning and of sowing and of maintaining and pulling weeds and pruning and honestly the fruit consists of a very small portion of the process of gardening but if you'll put in your mind that the whole process is something that is going to be good for you that's gonna build character for you it's gonna teach you things it's going to aid you along the journey of becoming more self-sustaining and then it takes the pressure off the harvest and it means that you can gain so much more through the process of gardening now what spurred me to do this video is that I love to invite people into my garden and I've found that even for those who have not had a whole lot of experience with gardens they're still drawn to it they're still interested in it people who have no desire whatsoever to grow food can still appreciate walking through a garden like this and seeing food growing but I found that a lot of people asked questions that I thought were obvious now I don't feel like there are stupid questions I think that we have to learn and there should always be security and safety in order to ask things that we don't know but it did surprise me whenever people came into my garden and said things like oh wow I had no idea that vegetable plants had flowers on them the flowers are there to attract the pollinators that's an okra plant these little blossoms this is a tomato and every single one of these plants that is going to bear fruit it has flowers on it so just a really basic crash course in botany which is the study of plants now this is pretty surface level stuff but essentially a fruit is a structure in a plant that holds seeds so everything that you grow to eat that holds seeds is called a fruit like a pepper or a tomato you don't typically think of those as fruits but they are they hold seeds and all of those develop on plants that first put off a blossom the blossom attracts the pollinators like bees that's why bees are so important and that's why it's such a big deal that bees are falling prey to a lot of agricultural practices like spraying with harmful chemicals because if we don't have pollinators we don't get fruit once the pollen is mixed in that flower it begins developing the fruit that will hold the seats which is essentially like the ovary of that plant there are also what we would term vegetables which that in itself is not a term that holds a lot of weight in botany because this eventually when we're eating a vegetable we're just eating part of a plant now for instance if I grow a carrot I put a seed in the ground and it begins to develop the plant the root grows deep now that's the part of the plant that we're used to eating the root that's what a carrot is it puts off leaves and stems and if we don't pick that carrot and eat its root it will continue to grow as a plant and it will put off flowers and those flowers will then develop seeds now with a fruit we can pick the fruit and eat the fruit and the plant continues to grow and continues to put off fruit but with the vegetable whenever we pick that plant whenever we cut the stem off of chard to eat the stem and the leaves we have started to eat that plant with things like chard and kale and leafy greens lettuces you can pick some of it and leave enough for the plant to continue to live but if you're eating a root vegetable a radish or a turnip or a beet or a carrot when you pull that up you have ended the life of that plant and it will not go to seed none of that really matters in growing food I mean you can grow food without understanding that stuff but I'm of the mind that the more you understand about the nature of the things you're trying to grow the more success that you'll have in growing them the bottom line of that though is that plants need pollinators so keep that in mind whenever you make choices about your pests and maintenance practices that if you began broadcasting harmful chemicals all over your garden you could kill your pollinators and therefore lose out on getting your fruit now let's talk about the very basic things that plants need to thrive they need nutrients in their soil they need water and they need Sun now this is pretty basic and you can get a lot more in-depth than this but I don't want to overwhelm you the first thing is healthy soil grows healthy plants you can do a lot of things right but if you don't address the issue of your soil you can end up with a really unsuccessful harvest there are a lot of opinions on how to go about this the most simple way to make sure you have good soil is build raised beds and bring the soil in now that is not the most cost effective way and truly I understand that not everybody has the capability to do that because it takes some sort of carpentry skill to put stuff together it does take a lot of manual labor to bring oil into the beds and it costs money I did multiple gardens in containers and in the ground my first really successful garden was raised beds now as you can see much of my garden is raised beds I've just started to branch out into planting in the ground again now that I know more about soil amendment now you can go to like your local big-box store home improvement store hardware store garden center and get a soil testing kit and it will essentially tell you the pH level of your soil and you can go into the depths of amending your soil to be exactly what it needs different plants thrive in different soil pH levels but if you want to keep it as simple as possible you need to know that soil needs lots of rich organic matter in order to be healthy for plants now you can have more success if you cater your soil to the specific needs of what you're planting in it that's absolutely true but if that is overwhelming to you and you need to know what is the baseline amend your soil with rich organic matter that is to say compost peat manure that has been aged anything that you buy at the store is going to be aged if you have animals of your own there are different requirements as far as the aging of manure you can put rabbit manure immediately on a garden and it won't burn your plants but a chicken manure has to be aged and composted for a certain amount of time before you put it on there I'm just going to tell you that if you want to use manure from your animals do a quick search it's easy to find out the composting requirement for different kinds of maneuvers for your plants I use a lot of composted animal manures and the beddings from their barns which typically end up with a lot of manure in it for amending my soil we have goats we have chickens and we have horses and so we use all of those as well as compost composting is not difficult you can start doing that but as I'm getting started right now if you do have to go purchase something it's pretty simple you can get all kinds of compost available at the store if you're trying to do a larger garden and you're bringing in soil for raised beds or amending soil in a large level check with local nurseries instead of going and buying stuff by the bag because a lot of times you can get things significantly cheaper if you can take a truck or a trailer and load it up at those nurseries that way you're not dealing with individual bags you'll have to use shovels and wheelbarrows but it can save you a lot of money so in a nutshell you're going to want to make sure your soil is rich in organic matter the rich organic matter helps that soil to drain well and to hold little pockets of air which your plants need to survive and you can add organic matter back into your soil with composted animal manures with composted vegetation with things like peat moss worm castings all of these different things are great amendments to go back into your soil make sure that is loose that it's aerated and that it is full of that dark rich matter that is going to help your plants thrive the next big step in soil health is mulch the soil is full of all kinds of living organisms things like worms and microbes and different insects and these are all very beneficial things soil that is full of life is healthy soil so one thing that can make a huge difference in the health of your garden is mulch now as you see here I use straw mulch that is what I've used for the last few years and it does pretty well I'm one of the downsides is sometimes you get some grass seeds in it but even with that the weeds are significantly less with the mulch that without it you can use other mulches like grass clippings shredded leaves that you have raked up from your yard and a very popular one is woodchips no we are actually going to be transitioning towards woodchips I can't really teach you a whole lot about the excrement done it yet however you definitely want to put some sort of covering down over your soil this cuts back significantly on the amount of weeds that you have to maintain it holds in moisture and it makes your waterings last longer in the rain lasts longer as far as keeping your soil moist and it helps from splash back whenever it does rain it it keeps the soil from splashing back up on the plants which can cause sickness in your plants if you are planting from transplants and you're putting plants directly in the ground then you can just mulch as soon as they're up there if you're planting from seed is what I do if there's mulch all ready down is I just make a little spot here this is some older mulch but I would just move it to the side this soil needs to be amended this is where we're about to start on our fall garden and we're going to start working on this soil but I just move the oil to the sides spread it out and plant my seed right there and as that seedling comes up and gets more sturdy then I'll mulch more around the next thing to know is that your garden needs Sun to grow vegetable garden you want to account for it having eight hours of direct Sun every day now if you'll notice right here I'm standing in the shade in my garden this little area of my garden is shaded by this tree until about 11 o'clock in the morning at which point the Sun comes up above that tree and then this area gets direct Sun for the next nine hours a little bit of shade is not a bad thing especially if you live in a really hot area your plants will thank you for a break from the Sun you just need to be aware of where you're putting your garden just watch how the Sun goes over it every day take note of when it becomes indirect Sun and when it becomes shaded again and just make sure that you're giving it a full eight hours of Sun every day the next basic need of a plant is water this is where you need to get honest with yourself when it comes to planning where you're gonna put your garden you need to really ask yourself if I have to drag a hose or carry buckets of water back to the very back far corner of my yard every day will I actually do that set yourself up to do well in the beginning by being honest with what you're actually capable of or willing to do if you know you are the kind of person who will leave that garden back in the back corner of your yard to dry up and die while you think oh I got to get around to watering that don't put it there put it right by your house put it somewhere where it's easy set yourself up to do well by just being honest with yourself on the front end now you might not necessarily have to water your plants every single day some plants do best when they've been watered every third day however you are going to want to keep an eye on it and they will tell you whenever they need some water they start drooping if they start wilting they definitely need water at that point and you will find out for your region based on your temperatures and how much rainfall you're getting how much you need a water actually more common for beginning gardeners to overwater their plants than to under water them I mean it becomes very obvious when they're under water because they look like they're however over watering your plants watering them every single day or watering them a whole lot real regularly it can actually cause them to drown and they can shrink up get spots on their leaves they can get all kinds of sickness what I like to do is I like to wait about every two or three days no one's hot here where I live but I like to wait about every two or three days and then when my plants show the very very very first signs of needing water like their leaves begin curling up or they get the slightest bit wilted that's whenever I will water my plants some years it rains a whole lot or it rains very little you can't really control that at all so you kind of just have to go with the flow and understand that you're partnering with nature to keep these plants watered another thing to consider in your garden placement is the drainage if it is an area that is low-lying and a lot of water comes and sits you don't want to put your garden there plants can drown you need a well draining place in order to have a successful vegetable garden my next advice when you're planning your first vegetable garden is to grow what you eat I love to try new things I love to try new experiments and I have grown some things that I did not care to eat after I gave them a try and I didn't grow them again but when you are first getting started don't feel pressured by the seed catalogs or the beautiful pictures that you've seen on social media of other people's harvests if your family does not like certain things don't grow them I I love Tomatoes so that was where I really found my passion for gardening was growing tomatoes because whenever I went to the store the delicious heirloom tomatoes that I so enjoyed were five dollars a pound and I thought man this is really gonna alleviate my grocery bill to grow these things think about the ingredients for the things that you like to make if you eat a lot of salads our breakfast scrambles with bell peppers grow bell peppers if you make a lot of salsa grow tomatoes and jalapenos if your family really doesn't like something don't make that one of your first gardening adventures now later on down the road you might decide to try new things and you might decide that you like em we never ate radishes until I started growing them and now we roast them with a little oil and salt and pepper they're amazing and it's something that I now a ton of however when you're first getting started really stick to growing what you love one piece of advice that you were gonna find a few Google tips for beginning gardeners and it is pretty unanimously given is to not overwhelm yourself trying a bunch of varieties now I mostly agree with that I really do I mostly think that you ship you've never grown tomatoes before don't try to grow 20 different times because sometimes different varieties can be really tichy you don't really know and then you don't know if you've done something wrong or if it's just not a very easy variety to grow I do think that you should talk to other gardeners find out what grows in your region and grow some widely successful crop when you're first starting out but I think there should be a little wiggle room to try new things because I think the excitement of growing a variety that you've never seen or tasted before I think it is a great learning experience and honestly it's a huge reason of why I fell in love with gardening I love growing different heirlooms and different things that are not available in stores so while yes if you are planning on your first garden find a handful of varieties that you know are going to do well for you that are essentially foolproof varieties that are going to be kind to a beginning gardener but if you look in that seed catalog and you see something that completely stuns you and Wow's you and you really want to try it my encouragement is to do that just don't get carried away to a place where you're going to get overwhelmed or discouraged another widely given piece of advice is to keep it small and manageable and with that I do agree as I walk around this 10,000 square foot garden my first really successful gardening experience was in 2 raised 4 by 4 foot beds right outside my front door I put it in a place that got plenty of Sun we brought in soil so that we had a really good healthy growing medium and it was right out my front door where I could easily water it it was right there so I couldn't forget about it I walked past it every time I walked out of my house and I only grew a handful of things the success in that garden was such an encouragement to me to keep going the next year I added twice as much space and then the next year we began building this really large garden that I so love to share with you all yes if you are brand new to gardening I don't think that trying a really huge space is what's best for you yet however I I want to encourage you it won't be very long I think one really solid garden experience of a handful of 4x4 foot beds you know a small six by ten foot plot one really good successful gardening year and by successful I don't necessarily even mean a ton of harvest I mean where you really learn a lot about how plants grow and what is required of them and what your capacity is I really think that really gives you a grip on what you're going to be able to handle next do a little research on the varieties that you're planting I get tagged a lot on places like Instagram where people are like help you know why are my peas doing so poorly and it's like July you know and it's really really hot sweet peas don't grow in the heat same thing with any sort of like root vegetables carrots or radishes or anything like that if you plant them and it's 100 degrees outside before they develop much of a root at all before you can actually eat them they're gonna sprout up a bunch of flowers and at that point you get no radishes there are different seasons for different things and it would be really difficult for me to try to sum that up in a nutshell because it is so dependent on what region you live in so what you do need to know is first off find out what zone you're in you can do a quick google search and type in what zone is your city or your zip code and you'll find out for instance I'm having Central Arkansas and I'm in zone 7b from there you can find out first frost dates for your viewers own I could type in first frost dates for 7b and it will tell me based on the averages for my area when it's going to get cold too cold to grow frost tender vegetable my first frost date of this year is going to be October 27th now I I don't know if it'll actually happen on that day but it'll be around then it's just an estimate for planning purposes and in the spring you can look up last frost date for zone 7b and typically our last frost date in this area is at the end of March and this is where you start your planning that's just when you know when you're gonna put things in the ground it's very important to adhere to these things and don't get hasty this year our last frost date was April 1st and it's slated on April 17th you have to watch the forecast you have to be aware of what's going on there's a reason why the old farmers used to they still do go in to feed stores and just immediately start talking about the weather that is not just a cliche for shallow conversation that's because to a farmer the weather is everything I know all the time at any point if we have rain forecasted I know what the highs are I know what the lows are I'm completely where I check the weather every single morning before I even get out of bed and then you need to learn the needs of certain plants this is something that you will learn with time and it's something that is probably going to take individual research based on the type of plant that you're trying to plant my last piece of gardening advice to you beginner gardener is very simple grow a garden just do it you're going to learn and you're going to get better and you can grow food this is not rocket science right now there are three tomato plants in the flower bed right next to my front door I did not plant them there I assumed a bird that was probably feasting down here on the plants that I did plant flew up there and less some seeds and some dropping tomato plants grow there every single year I do not plant them but I let them grow it's kind of silly to have tomato plants growing in my flower bed whenever I literally have a hundred and fifteen plants coming down in my garden you would think that I would take that space and plant something pretty however those tomato plants are a reminder to me that this stuff wants to grow and though it's odds are better with my help I don't ever want to come into the mindset that I really had a whole lot at all to do with this gardening is an incredible reminder that this is not our plan and although we can partner with the design of nature and we can partner with the fact that things do want to grow and we can build pretty garden beds and we can amend the soil and we can control most of the factors that these things grow honestly it's beyond us Gardens grow because seeds grow because they want to because they were designed to and so I want to encourage you don't overthink this don't be discouraged and if you plant something and it gets completely ravaged by insects do a little research and find out how to combat those things but don't give up I hope that by the end of our lives whenever we can look back and say that we've been gardening for 20 30 40 50 years maybe even longer if we're lucky that we can say men I really learned a lot but in that time at the end of our lives when we have been doing this for decades I hope that we have finally fully grasps the fact that we were fortunate enough to partner with this we never became super masters of it it's just something that we learned how to partner with so please please please if I teach you nothing else in this video let me teach you that you can grow food you can grow a garden get rid of the pass/fail mentality learn everything you can make the circumstances as ideal as possible but enjoy the process don't take it too seriously I do hope this helps you I hope that you will feel encouraged and brave enough to make an attempt at your first garden thank you so much for watching I bless you until next time