How to turn your backyard into a productive vegetable garden: Zone 7

Hello friends welcome back today is a
great day I am in my neighbor’s yard
because I’m going to be taking over her
garden my neighbor and I have a great
relationship and last year I helped her
set up this little race bed garden here
and she did pretty good with it but it
was a lot of work for her this year she
offered for me to take it all on and she
said I can use as much as the backyard
as I want but I’m going to start small
this year Well smallish I’m about to
measure that area over there but it’s
going to be a square that is about 20 ft
x 20 ft and I’m going to be using this
area to grow anything that loves full
sun because as you can see there’s a lot
of sun over here right now my back
Orchard is right behind that fence and
it’s beautiful because I’m going to be
able to keep that area clean and make
sure that the weeds are not coming into
my yard so this is a perfect Arrangement
all that she has asked for in return is
green bell peppers and cilantro can you
believe that what a great deal my
neighbor has been watching me grow all
my food in my front lawn and my entire
yard and she’s actually pretty excited
that I’m taking on this project in her
yard so this is my goal my goal is to
inspire you all to grow more food in
your backyard and how cool is it that
I’m able to grow food in my neighbor’s
yard hopefully if this goes really well
and I maintain it really pretty for her
maybe I can start using even more of
this yard as the years come by and I can
grow even more food how crazy is that so
this is new ground is grass so I have a
tiller that I am using right now is an
electric tiller and I’m tilling the
first go here last year we till that
area over there and we had a lot of weed
pressure I love tilling the first time
but then after my first initial till I
do not till anymore and if this was my
yard I would let lay a lot of wood chips
but she told me I don’t she doesn’t want
me to use wood chips so I’m not going to
be using wood chips here so I’m going to
have to come up with ways to keep the
Wheats down a little bit better I have a
saage tarp it’s a big black tarp that
farmers use to keep weeds out so what
I’m going to do today is finish tilling
this area and then I’m going to lay down
my black tarp that keeps the weeds
pressure down the saage tarp solariz the
soil it basically gets heated up so the
seeds germinate but since it’s so black
and dark it does not allow them to grow
and then they wither and die so that
allows you to kill all the wheat seeds
that are in that top inch of top soil
when you do the tillage like this it
disturbs the seed banks meaning all the
seeds that have dropped are there just
dormant and when you till the soil you
bring them to the surface and they
sprout so doing this actually creates
more work because it allows more seeds
more wheat seeds to come up but if you
know how to control them with a tarp or
with mulch or wood chips you can contain
the weeds really easily so I just took
my tape measure and I measured how big
this space is going to be it is going to
be 15 ft this way and 19 ft all the way
to the fence and the sun exposure is is
east to west here so I’m going to make
rose going up and down here so I don’t
cast The Shadow into too many of the
things so today I have already been
working on this ground a lot I’ve been
tilling it for 2 days now and I’ve been
getting all the Rocks all the little
microplastics that are in here and you
can see over there I have a pile of crab
grass that’s what’s here right now and
that gra crab grass is terrible because
it grows into your space quite
annoyingly
last year she brought in a lot of this
mulch from the county and it is pretty
nice but I think it had this weed right
here this weed right here is called
Penny Crest and it sends out a root and
it spreads like a wild weed and then
this is like Sage grass or something
like that you can see that little nut
there is really hard to kill I already
came in here and I cleared out all the
ones that I could see but today I’m
going to have to go in take these out
and I’m going to take all of these and
put them on that cement pad and let them
solarize get baked in the Sun and once
they’re baked in the sun I might be able
to put them back into a compost pile but
not before they are solarized real good
as you can see I already have planted
some potatoes in this and I put some
peas in the ground maybe two weeks ago
they took forever to come up so I’m
going to build a trellis right here the
potatoes are going to be there and then
in this area over here I’m going to be
growing a lot of different crops so I
have planned to put in here lots of
peppers eggplant plants I’m also going
to be putting in here some cool things
like sesame seeds peanuts and a cool a
few other cool things because this soil
right here is nice and tender very soft
but this one right here is the native
soil we have not amended this one with
anything so this is Virginia clay soil
really high in nutrients but not very uh
porous so I’m going to work on this a
little bit she used to have a compost
pile right here I till that up and I’m
going to be spreading whatever remaining
of the compost is here all over this
side over here so we’ll call this space
15x 20 ft hopefully it is easy to
maintain and hopefully I plant it I am
going to plant it very densely so that
the weeds don’t have a chance I mean I’m
definitely going to be weeding it often
but it’s so easy because my house is
right here so I can just come across the
front and then I come to the backyard
here and I have my secondary plot of
plants over here how cool is that but
I’m going to do a little bit of tillage
and I’ll show you how I do
that if I had more time and this was the
fall what I would do instead of tilling
is I would put a lot of cardboard down
and then I would lay a mulch on top like
fallen leaves leave that for the entire
winter months that kills all the grass
and all the weeds and then in the
springtime you can just make a little
hole in between the in between the
leaves and then you can put your plants
in there but since I am in a crunch of
time today is April 23rd and I don’t
have a lot of time before I need to
plant all my summer crops so I am
tilling and that’s okay I just got to do
a little bit more work during the summer
ones making sure that the Wheats Don’t
Take Over the Garden after doing a
little tilling you want to get yourself
a rake this is one of those Leaf rakes
and you want to gently rake the top inch
of the soil to to get all the roots out
of all the Wheats that you just uprooted
and make a pile over there just like
that and lay it in the Sun so that they
burn away and baked away and they don’t
come
[Applause]
back in order to keep the weeds growing
from the grass into the garden I’m going
to be using this fabric to keep the
weeds from coming I’m going to fold it
in half so it has even more power let’s
kind of see through so so I’m going to
fold it in half and then I’m going to
create a perimeter with just potted
plants so the fabric is just going to
have the pots on top and that should
allow me to keep this area mostly
clean a Three Sisters Garden is corn
beans and squash grown together you
plant the corn first a week later you
plant the beans and last maybe in the
third week you plant a Vining type of
squash I have some climbing beans that I
have and I’m going to do Flint corn so I
can make tortillas again so stay tuned
for that video and make sure that you’re
subscribed to the channel so you can see
the progress of this brand new Garden
that I have acquired this year since I
have the space in the garden right now
and I have my seedlings she wants
Peppers I’m also going to be putting
airplants in here I’m going to plant
those right now in this first row
I’m planting cayenne peppers right now
over here these are spicy so it’s
perfect to plant them here because Luna
is not going to be able to come in here
un unattended and she cannot eat them
you can see this is pure native soil and
it’s red really rich in minerals what
I’ll do is I’ll add compost on the very
top and I’ll probably add a layer of
composted leaves on the very top to keep
the weeds down and give it a little bit
more
nutrition if you have any questions on
how to set up a new garden please leave
them in the comments down below I’ll do
my best to answer them for you and thank
you so much for supporting my channel I
appreciate you see you on the next one