Companion Planting the Vegetable Garden & Tomato Challenge Update

In this video I finally get to plant my #tomatochallenge2024 into the garden. I’m also planting all of my companion plants into the vegetable garden. I’ll show you what I’m planting with what and why.

MENTIONED LINKS
DONATE for Well building in South Sudan: CLICK THE LINK BELOW, THEN CLICK “DONATE TO THIS TEAM”
https://secure.givelively.org/teams/water-for-south-sudan-inc/iron-giraffe-challenge-2025/sage-oak-s-virtual-academy-water-well-fundraiser

My Book, “Companion Planting for Beginners”:https://amzn.to/4ardFYc

Join Our Tomato Challenge! #tomatochallenge2024
Chad’s Channel: https://www.youtube.com/downhomebackyardgardening
Rules:
At least two pictures showing the tomato growing on the vine and the same tomato on a digital scale with weight visible.
Email to brian@nextlevelgardening.tv or downhomebackyardgardening@hotmail.com

hey guys so I don’t know if I’ve ever started a homestead video where it wasn’t the morning it’s actually late afternoon right now and I’m getting ready to walk the perimeter of the pasture to make sure that it is safe for the Lambs to be released into the pasture hi Daisy there’s Bella way down there stretch stretch stretch so there are a couple of um holes that I know I need to fix right here under the gate Bella can get under there so obviously the Lambs can and then right here where the uh water comes down comes down the driveway and then ends up down here and goes out to the pure so I’ve got to fix that as well so this here I’m not sure Bella has gone through here she doesn’t anymore cuz it’s where I use the Beeper collar on her um but the Lambs might be able to get through there okay so other than right here in this area the rest of the perimeter is totally fine so we’ve got right here right there this will be the hardest and biggest part and there’s just a little bit up there at the end so I’m going to go ahead and start with the hardest biggest part first right Daisy’s checking out the work now eventually this is going to be a stream bed coming down into the pond that Daisy’s swimming in right now we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it it’s the next morning Emily and I have already fed all the animals I wanted to give you an update on what I finished yesterday so right here in the corner the wire was a little high off the ground and so I added more all the way around and kind of kind of crammed it into the ground and then the gate got that all closed in and then over here where the water comes down the wire goes all the way under all these rocks I’ll probably put rocks on the other side as well we’re going to be headed out to the nursery in a little bit to get some plants for uh the um School of traditional skills shoot which starts a week from today it’s a 3-day shoot it’s Tuesday Wednesday Thursday and I’ll try to take you along behind the scenes of that as much as I can it’s such a fun process I remember last year um or two years ago whenever that was uh I was so nervous I was literally um I had some anxiety issues that because of that lasted for so several months I don’t think I’ll be in that position this year um I’m much better with my anxiety as a whole right now at least um plus I realized it wasn’t a scary process it was a fun process it’s the same crew we had last time uh they were all so great I mean they made me feel so comfortable and I know people wonder how can I be nervous about it when I’m doing this for a living every single day well it’s different first of all right now the only people watching me I mean other than you know millions of you guys guys the only people watching me do this live unedited are the plants and the animals and they don’t care they don’t judge but when you have a crew of you know six seven people around you and three cameras pointed at you uh it goes up and and plus you want to do a good job right now this is just for me if I screw up it only affects me um but you know I want to do a good job for these people who trusted me enough to hire me for this and so many of you made me feel really good saying this is going to be fine you know some people said have them reschedule well flights have been booked so that’s not an option but I do think once we get everything looking neat and tidy in the garden I think it’ll be it’ll be great before we get on with today um I want to ask you to indulge me for just a minute uh so generally when you have a normal job and your kid is fundraising for school you go to your co-workers and you know ask them to donate um I tried that and Daisy olly Otis Bella they don’t have any money but my nephew is working really hard trying to earn money for such a great cause I am going to put a really quick video up here of him explaining what it is take it away Brady hi I’m Brady have you ever wondered what life would be like on this Earth with no water my old school say Jo charter school is reading a book called A Long Walk to Water while reading the this book I learned about how people and animals of Sudan are affected by the poor conditions they live in the main condition being the fact they have cont animated drinking water could you ever imagine having to walk Miles and Miles every day to get money water in order to survive I mean come on my school is holding a fundraiser in hopes of earning enough of money to make a water well for the people in South Sudan if you want to save many lives and make a difference to this world just like I want to do please donate anything will help God bless you all that is actually um it was a different charity but same idea I was actually going to be doing a fundraiser 4 later in the year um in a different way but I think that because Brady’s involved it’s always the school that gets the most gets a special prize um I think that the guy who wrote the book They’re reading gets to come and talk to their school so only if you can and whatever you can I’m going to put a link in the video description to uh have your donation go straight to uh his school for this fundraiser Emily and I already donated um but like like I said if you have the means and uh can do that I’d appreciate it he’d appreciate it and I know lots of people in Sudan would appreciate it so from now until next Tuesday the Mantra is if it’s not where the cameras are going to be it’s not getting touched so basically that means The Cottage Garden and the vegetable garden and so I’m going to go around right now and make a list of things that need to be done uh so I can check that off over the next 6 seven days we filled the dumpster up but we’ve still got some stuff out here so we’re going to have them empty it and bring it back uh and start to fill it again we’ve still got some stuff in other areas that um can be put in there so we’ll probably fill up another one also in this video I’m going to finally be planting my tomato for the Tomato challenge 2024 it has been too cold but the tomatoes that I have out here are starting to grow now so um I was just hardening off those uh tomatoes for the challenge and I’m going to give get it planted and it’s a really good thing that we extended the dead deadline and for those of you in the north if you didn’t catch that video we extended the deadline out I’ll put the details down in the video description cuz I can’t even remember it right now we had it going through a certain period and then a lot of you in the north said our Tomatoes aren’t going to be ripe by then well guess what mine probably won’t be either so good thing we extended it so I’m going to head around take a inventory of what needs to be done get a list of plants that I need to get from the nursery and then Emily and I are headed to the nursery to get those see you in a bit we got lots of choices yesterday at the nursery still got my seedlings coming along the alysum starting to bloom uh we got some zenas basil uh another kind of Basil this is African blue basil this is Thai Basil which needs to be pinched back Cosmos Stevia spearm minint we got two reia goldstroms like this uh this look like blue basil magic blue some more basil some more zenas this this is basil pesto perpetua uh a eonia and a chocolate mint which smells so good and was so full I could not leave it on the shelf so we’re going to bring those over to the vegetable garden and um I’ll plant them and while I’m planting them I’ll let you know uh what I’m planting them next to and why of course we can’t forget the most important thing I don’t know whoever wrote this book but genius so the first one we’re going to work on is the pepper bed and there’s only a couple of peppers three bell peppers here at the end um I’ve got all the seedlings that I grew from seed ready to plant I mean it’s still overcast it’s still in the low 50s upper 40s at night but I’m just going to put them out anyway this can’t last that much longer so the nosters were here they just sewed themselves voluntarily uh as soon as the weather warms up though those are going to be gone so just pretend those aren’t there in terms of companion planting for Peppers so Peppers don’t really have a lot of pests aphids Leaf Miner uh those are the two main ones I can think of and so for those especially for leaf Miner you know Leaf miners are between the two outer layers of the leaf so even if you were to spray a pesticide it doesn’t get inside that leaf so it doesn’t touch the leaf Miner themselves so to get to a leaf Miner we will employ the services of a beneficial insect the parasitic wasp the parasitic wasp can actually find the leaf Miner in the leaf and stick its abdomen something into the leaf and actually lay an egg inside the actual Leaf Miner itself and that baby as it hatches will eat that leaf Miner from the inside and kill it so to attract parasitic wasps you want flowers that produce a lot of pollen like uh Umble flowers like dill or sweet alysum uh daisy flowers so in here with the peppers I’m going to put in some Cosmos and some zenas so I’ve already got a list them in here I think I’m going to put maybe a few zenas but I’m going to put uh some longer lived plants like the eonia and the rubia I’m going to plant the Yaro that I got from Cottage Garden here and that’s going to attract the parasitic wasps as well the alysum the Yaro we’ve got some basil the rubia all of this is going to attract all the great bugs that are going to take care of my Peppers which are going to be planted in here next door is my squash bed again the nerum will be gone soon if you live in a place that has squash Vine boore or squash bugs we don’t have those here don’t hate me but you can plant uh all the same plants we just put with the peppers to attract those um parasitic wasps because the squash Vine boore especially uh lays its eggs right there on the stem the larvae gets inside the plant and the the uh parasitic wasps can take care of that for you you should also think of planting a trap crop of hubard squash blue hubard squash about 15 ft away they actually like that better than all other types of squash so hopefully they’ll go get on those and not your actual crop that you want to eat for me the biggest thing with squash plants is pollination I want to make sure all those flowers get pollinated and with the decline in the bee activity and the bee population around the country and the world I want to pull in as many bees as possible so I want to plant a lot of brightly colored flowers with open centers that have lots of pollen showing for me that’s going to be eona Cosmos and zenas so I’ve already got some Cosmos planted I’ll plant a couple more of those with the zenas and eonia now these zenas being this tall um typically I would actually pinch out the tip the flower that’s getting ready to bloom but because that’s the only flower on these right now because they’re so new and I need them I need them to be flowering next week for filming um I’m going to leave them and then I’ll pinch them back after the camera crew is gone all right so in this bed more than any you can see the variety of plants that we’ve got growing in here we’ve got chives fennel Dill nsts Cosmos zenas eonia and all the squash varieties so I’ve got two different onion beds these onions here are actually almost mature and ready to harvest um in fact I saw one actually flopped over right there uh which means it’s ready to harvest um I have some Cosmos in here some alysum the main pest for onions here is snails and I haven’t yet found a good companion plant for those down here on the next Terrace we’ve got another onion bed these are red onions um they grew so big and tall that you can’t even see the the plants in between them that’s okay uh this is my garlic bed which I am absolutely just annoyed with I think what I’m going to do is just take this entire bed out all the stuff that’s in it um they wanted to do a planting on camera so I think this is going to be the bed for that I’ll just start with a blank canvas yeah just not happy with this garlic at all this bed next to it is kind of in transition under the shade we’ve got uh a couple of cabbages that are still not ready yet and then we’ve got cabbage that I’ve harvested that I let go to flour and then next to that we’ve got two eggplants with some Chinese mustard eggplants uh tend to get attacked a lot by flea beetles and so if you can plant Chinese mustard around your eggplants as a trap crop or radishes those work too um those are going to lure the flea beetles to that and let them leave your for the most part leave your eggplant alone barchanoid wasps are actually a natural predator of flea beetles and those are attracted by alysum so I’m going to move the alysum from the garlic bed over to that bed now alysum does not transplant well once it’s large like this so I’m going to go ahead and water this in now uh and actually while I’m at it I’ll probably go and water everything that I’ve put in so far and I’ll be right back now I’ll probably get the question on the hubard squash you said plant 10 to 15 ft away for a trap crop and now you see me planting these trap crops literally next to the crops they’re protecting that’s because flea beetles don’t travel very far they’re not going to find it 10 to 15 ft away you got to put it right where they are the asparagus beds I trimmed them up a little bit but I’m going to leave them as they are I had carrots growing in them that I planted last fall and I’ve let them go to flower these are more of those Umble flowers that are going to attract the lace Wings the um parasite uh parasitic wasps um ladybugs hover flies so those are staying to not only help out the garden but as an example for the video shoot my two potato beds are doing great as you can see they’re full I’ve got dill and Camo and Yaro and marold and down under the The netting I’ve got some bush beans and the reason for that and you guys I don’t remember this stuff I really don’t I have a horrible memory so I’m using my book and that’s my biggest fear because I have to do a couple of live presentations for the school of traditional skills as well one’s June 5th I think I’ll let you know about this those are free I believe they were last time but the live one scare me because they open it up for q& A’s at the end and so I’m going to have to make a cheat sheet because I cannot I wrote all this three years ago and I use it but I only use it once in the spring once in the fall and then I let it do its thing I don’t constantly I haven’t been doing this for 50 years and remembering all this remember when they asked me to write this book I thought companion planting was a joke so ironic so anyway for potatoes now if you have Colorado potato beetle uh we don’t have those here but if you do that’s what the dill is for lace wings and damsel bugs uh help control the the Beetle and actually the bush beans are there for a reason because of the Colorado potato beetle and again I don’t have it but I’m planting this an as an example for those who do because it h it confuses the potato beetle it makes it feel like like kind of like basil does with the uh the horn worms for for tomatoes marold the same thing the scent the strong scent confuses the potato beetle and Y there uh just as a perennial because I plant potatoes uh twice a year and so that Yara will stay there and serve the same purpose as the dill which comes and goes all right the last thing we’re going to plant is my favorite companion plant of all and that is because it pairs so nicely with tomatoes both in the kitchen and in the garden and that’s basil basil as I alluded to uh has a very strong scent and the moth that lays the eggs that become the tomato hornworm um they are attracted to the tomato plant by smell they smell that tomato plant and if you can put something strong around them I use basil uh it confuses them and I’ve been doing this for I don’t know 7 years or so putting basil around my tomatoes and not one time have I had tomato hornworm except for last year when there was a spot or two years ago when there was a spot up there um that I forgot to plant basil by the tomatoes and those Tomatoes had hornworm so my tomato bed runs the way along here and so I’m going to put a row of Basil all the way along the front here and you want on the sunny side of the tomatoes so that the tomatoes don’t shade them because Basils really love sun and Heat all right now it’s finally time to plant the Tomato for the Tomato challenge 2024 so I’ve got two here I’m only allowed to plant one for the challenge so I’m going to go with the one that looks healthier which is this one this one’s a little taller but it’s got some discolored leaves and the stem is skinnier the stem is fatter on this one I mean you never know but this is the one I’m going with so I’m going to plant it right here in the corner of the newer uh tomato bed and I’m going to use this tomato ring now I used it last year late in the season and they did pretty good uh I got to say the ones that I grew in this seemed to do better even though it was later in the year so this year I’ll be able to tell a little bit more I’m going to do some more plants in these the idea behind these is that tomatoes have two different kinds of roots they’ve got water roots and feeding Roots the water Roots grow deep into the ground and the the feeding Roots stay at the surface which makes sense because in the wild they’re going to get their feed from the decaying matter on top of the soil so it makes it makes sense that way so what you do is you plant this you bury this in the ground up to the rim here you fill the soil up in the middle you plant the Tomato here as deep as you can uh this higher raised area is going to give more uh soil for them to grow roots from their stem because that makes them stronger supposedly I’m testing that theory out over in the other bed and then this you leave empty and this is where you water so you fill this outer ring up with water and it’s got these little holes that slowly emit it into the soil and anytime you fertilize you fertilize here in this Center ring now these aren’t cheap um at all I was quite shocked I can’t remember how much they were I bought them last uh summer but what we’re going to do they have shown promise already and so what I’d like to do if they show promise again this year is to uh Source out an affordable version and then bring them into our website the same way we did the tomato hooks I think we have the best tomato hooks for the best price out there so buy them in bulk and then pass them on and distribute them to you guys through our website but before I do that I just want to use them for one more year to make sure that it’s something I believe in as strongly as the Tomato hooks because you know we only have one product on our website uh and that are that’s those are the hooks and that’s cuz I’ve been using them for years believe in them you guys love them so maybe this will be the same thing so remember the main competition is between me and Chad over at downhome backyard gardening I’ll leave a link to his channel down below and then all of you can participate uh as well and I’ll leave uh the information on how to do that down below Also let’s check out the root system on this guy nice uh I don’t remember the name of this I’ll put it on the screen but it’s supposed to grow huge tomatoes so we’ll see I’m just going to bring the soil up on that stem as high as I can just leaving a little bit of room to feed in here in the center ring and I want to make sure I get all the soil out of the outer ring all right now all we do is baby it to death and hope it produces the largest tomato and it will I’m coming for you Chad well that’s it for this video guys on the next one uh we’re going to be finishing the work here probably in the vegetable garden mulching just getting it nice and SPI and span and ready um we’re also going to be letting the Lambs out in the pasture for the first time so that should be fun I’ll see you then