Raised Bed Organic Vegetable Garden Tour | May 2024

A month of heavy winds and rain can do a number on a vegetable garden. Some good, and some not so good. How did it affect potatoes, onions, peppers, tomatoes, blackberries, etc?

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we’re going to head out to the Garden in a minute but I wanted to start in the grow room because I have some seeds that I need to stratify today and get soaking so that I can plant those later in the day so welcome to Gar preserve I’m Carter I’m so glad you’re here today all right we’re going to get to this I’m going to bring you down so you can watch what I’m doing there’s no great mystery to it but the theory is that it helps seeds to germinate a little bit faster seeds that have a hard shell on the outside to germinate a little bit faster so we’re going to Nick them and I just have some nail clippers to do that with and then I’m going to soak them in a little warm water for 3 4 5 hours kind of depends on the rain schedule today so I can get them in sometime this afternoon so as long as we’re down here for this I thought I’d give you a little tour of what I call the grow room it’s also a garden shed so it’s grow room behind me and garden shed behind you so we’ll just take a little take a little look it’s still a little discombobulated from planting season but just trust me when I say it is not nearly as insane as it was three or four weeks ago so I thought we would take this opportunity to do that before I get into fall seed starting which I’ll be starting here probably in in early July to get my brassas ready so that I have enough time to get them in and then put my garden to bed before winter this year last year it just kind of dragged on and on and on I kept waiting for things to get done so forget that my goal goal is to get that started at an appropriate time so that I can finish up wrap up the year and that I can take a break from the garden you know December January February okay so let’s get these seeds started off the right way and then we’ll do a little tour around around the room okay so the seeds that I want to do today and I had actually sewn some of these outside oh my goodness a month or so ago and then just after I planted them we had just crazy rains tons and tons and tons of rain we had hail we had all kinds of crazy stuff and then we dropped down to some lower than normal temperatures U especially my nighttime temperatures dropped down into the 50s and I know that my soil temperature lost some ground then so I planted them at a time where they did not have ideal germination circumstances and I don’t know I should have done a better job checking the weather I suppose but it felt hot to me so I thought we were good to go but we were not so I’m going to Reed some of these today I did end up with one winter squash a spaghetti squash germinating out there which I’ll show you when we go take the tour but I had planted I think I planted three seeds of each I was hoping for two plants of each so we’re going to see if we can do a little better with this today so let’s start with the little butternut squash seeds these are it’s 898 squash it’s a small like personal size butternut squash uh yeah so I saved the seeds outside on April 29th and then you know the heavens opened and it was just nothing but water after that so let’s see if if we can get some some better time they have I think three days coming up where there is no rain in the forecast um but I will have them near a little sprinkler head and make sure that they get some water but not you know for in just in 2 days so all I’m going to do here’s my little seed I’m going to Nick on this side just a little Nick I’m not going to go too far I don’t want to damage the little whatever it is embryo I guess that’s in there but I am going to give it a little neck so that the water let’s see if you can see this can soak in can get through that Derma so let’s see if you can see that you see that little neck that I have in there I think you can there you go maybe that’s better okay so I’m going to do that to three seeds and you want to do it on the side that would that’s not the pointy side right so this one’s a little harder to tell because it’s kind of a narrow looking seed but I’m going to do it on this side which is not the pointy side I’m not going to do it right at the tip I’m going to do it kind of off to the side there okay so there’s a little Nick in that one and a little Nick in this one and then I brought some warm water from upstairs not hot it’s just warm and I’m just going to soak them in some water and I like to give them you know 2 four 5 hours not much longer than that I don’t want to drown them but I do want to go ahead and give that water a chance to soak in just a little bit to tell the seed it is time to wake up the same thing with the Cucumbers all right so I want three seeds on the larger side so I don’t risk damaging the inside of the seed so let’s go with this one this one and this one look good so this is the bait Alpha cucumber I have not grown it before it is a gous cucumber which means that it has it produces only female flowers they do not need to be pollinated by a male flower which I swear seems to be half my problem that the male flowers are never out and around when the female flowers need them to be there so I’m hoping that this will help so again I’m going to take it I’m going to pick the nonoy side which is a little more difficult to tell with the Cucumber seat and I’m just going to if I can see I should have brought my glasses to do this barely Nick The Edge and then into the bowl same thing with this one barely Nick The Edge and same thing with this one I really should have brought my glasses down here old lady okay got a little warm water in here and now let’s do the spaghetti squash this again is a personal size spaghetti squash it is my favorite keto noodle if you will I love spaghetti squash David does not like it quite as much as I do but sometimes that’s what he gets okay so I have two I’m sorry I have one plant that germinated so I think I might only plant two more because I really just want to end up with two so that I have plenty of room on that trellis so let’s do two this one okay there you go you can really see the Nick on this one cuz it whoops came back a little bit well there you go perhaps I nicked a little more than I had intended on that one but at least you can see okay so I’m going to let those take for a little while until I’m ready to plant them this afternoon let’s take a quick little tour around here and then we will head outside I will warn you that the cicas are here it is loud outside but hopefully with my uh lavalier mic it’ll be okay and you’ll be able to hear me and not just the cicas all right all right we’re going to start with a grow rack area this is where I start all of my seedlings this is where I grow my micr greens my indoor lettuce or whatever other leafy greens I want to grow and it is where I dry my onions and potatoes now when I’m doing that I do not have these lights on so I just turn the lights on so you can see the racks I have heat mats couple up here this is generally the side where I start my seed Lanes this is where I generally do my micro greens and lettuce and whatever other leafy greens I want to do so right now you can see that I have my sweet potatoes here waiting to go out I think I’m going to give those another week or so we’ll talk about that when we’re out there I have some more sweet potato Poes that are starting to grow some slips these were the sweet potatoes I started with growing the slips however they didn’t do terribly well for me these are organic sweet potatoes from Trader Joe’s and while they look like they’re doing a good job now it has been four months and in the first four months I got these two slips that was it so I gave up and I ordered someu from hos tools which you know I’m glad I did it it’s both regard I can’t guarantee I can get that here and any kind of sweet potato from the grocery store but darn they’re expensive so I did it this year hopefully next year I’ll have my own sweet potatoes to grow my own slips from again I didn’t this year because I really had no sweet potato Harvest last year this is the basil that is still going strong from my micro greens video so that was oh my goodness well over a month ago I ended filming on that so that is I have to look at how how old that is I think I started it in February so March April 3 months old now and then just some lettuce and down here some of this is starting to bolt that’s okay we’re going to be out of town for a few days this week so I’ll start a new batch when we get back and I can take care of it scoot around just a bit and this again is my seed starting Supply area I like to use reuse as much as I can these plastic egg cartons from Costco so often I will use those to start seeds particularly lettuce seeds and I can just sew several and then I can upot them you know when it’s time so I have all of my covers I have my bricks for weighing down the micro greens have all my trays over here everything for potting over here this is my fan which is on when I’m not down here trying to talk to keep the air circulating and the seedlings as strong as possible okay we’re going to move over to the side of the room that I consider the garden shed see this first shelf on the left I keep all of my fertilizers and I do have a lot of fertilizers because I make a concerted effort to buy you know two three four bags whenever it’s on sale and it’s on sale fairly often on Amazon but I got caught in was it 2021 I think where fertilizer was really short and I got caught with none and was having a hard time sourcing it at a price that seemed reasonable to me we move over to the next shelf and I have my indoor potting soil which I use for all of my up potting I use the indoor soil because I don’t have to worry about the fungus net issue so much and it has had some nutrients added back in after it’s been sterilized and then I have my potting S I mean I’m sorry my seed starter mix up above that and some coconut quar and then above that I have things to attach so I have like trellis netting I have tomato clips I have uh bungee cords so I have all kinds of things like that and then the next shelf up is all sprinkler stuff that I need for outside so over on this shelf I have all of my like insect netting I have tarps I have shade cloth I have what I’m going to be using to hopefully prevent the birds from eating all of my blackberries this year so that’s that roll of black twah up on the top and then over here I have sort of my garden Amendment section I’m going to scoot down there around around this so I have some for mulite which honestly I completely forgot about it was still in the box so I meant to put that in the beds this year didn’t make it into the beds but it will this coming year I have some straw if I need it obviously here’s my asite my Alfalfa palettes and my biochar I keep those right here and then we’ll move around here this is my right by the door kind of grab and go for harvesting my open bags of fertilizer my sprayer this is my you know all of my buckets for Gathering stuff gloves tools everything I need to just open the door and grab here so I’ll step back just a little bit so you can see my workspace this is gosh an old outdoor table that I’ve probably had for 15 years looks pretty weathered as you can see my little stool that I got for Christmas A couple of years ago this is where I keep my potting soil so I have seeds already mixed in one of the bins and potting indoor potty mix in the other bin this is where my spent plants go I just pulled out some bolted lettuce this morning so that’s in there and then you’ll see I have some kind of jewelry rigged Plumbing going on here for which I am extremely grateful I was having to go get the hose on the other side of the house and drag it around and come in here and it was just it was a little crazy it was okay it worked it did just fine for 2 and half three years but this is so much nicer to have so I’m very grateful to my husband for having that put in so you can see up top on my two shelf racks I do have the little yellow stickies because I do have a door right here and little little gats and things can come in but that is it all right let’s move on outside I’m going to start on this side today these are my blackberries you may remember from maybe the last Garden Tour David had just built this trellis and they seem to be doing pretty well and staying reasonably contained and see just how many berries I have coming up I’m so excited about this that I have to be able to protect them from the birds and the squirrels this year so I have that black TW I pointed out and it’s now may I don’t think I’m going to have any blackberries until I don’t know of June beginning of July I’m not exactly sure when they started last year but I will get the TW on probably when I get back from my trip so we have blackberries all along down here you can see just how many they coming up those are some nice big ones look at that they’re starting to color up too you I’ll have to get the toall on just as soon as I get back because once they turn red the birds start eyeing them and the bunnies too I have a bunny who has been living on strawberry cilantro and spinach in my garden so here’s a little apple tree I have more blackberries on this side this is a different variety they’re all thornless but I had a hard time with the company I ordered my blackberries from originally they sent me the wrong variety and then I had to order and then they were saying that they weren’t going to come in this or that year so I don’t know anyway I have three different varieties in here now and at this point I’m not sure I’m not sure which variety is which so I have worked very hard you see this little container right here I’ve worked very hard to contain my mint to that one little container it was all over my herb gardens and David and I spent a couple of days really churning through this and trying to make sure that we had gotten all of the mint out of here these containers obviously aren’t going to last too much longer they’re looking kind of kind of crazy and they’re falling apart and rotting out but I can definitely get one more year out of them so I have mint and I have uh Savory and this is Stevia I’ve never grown Stevia before this is Sage basil obviously and then I have thyme over here so I’m pretty happy to have all of these herbs going and I have another herb bin over on the other side so we’re going to walk this is all here we go here’s here’s the mess in my Carden this is all mint and spent Blackberry canes that we’ve been pulling out you can see now the mint is starting to root in the ground but I I wanted all of it to die before I put it in the compost bed so I may just end putting it in the lawn waist trash bag and let the trash guys take it so these are all hot peppers you can see I have Peppers they’re off to a great start this year those that are producing the yellowish Peppers over there that is Santa Fe Grand this is a blazing banana right here this long skinny thing supposed to be a very hot banana pepper so this is an early Wonder tomato I had intended to plant a couple of those in the garden and I ended up giving them away instead so I did have a couple little Tomatoes starting there so that’s terrific but the plant is looking a little malnourished and I I have a couple of them that look like that I assume that is because we had so much rain but I will get some more fertilizer down and try to take care of that we’ll move oh while we’re here so see that little thing with the eyes it’s a solar charged I don’t know I don’t know what you would call it a face with with red glowing eyes but it keeps the deer away so at night those little eyes flash red and it has been the best thing I have found to keep the deer out of my garden say this bed here I have onions along the front and then determinate Tomatoes these are determinate slicing tomatoes right here just behind them on this side of the panel I don’t see any well yeah there’s a little fruit forming there so we’re starting to make some progress on the other side of this bed we have my indeterminate tomatoes those are looking good I’m trying to double stem those this year last year I was not super on top of keeping them to two stems this year I am trying although it looks like this one is trying to go to a third stem we’ll see that’s pretty far along I try to get to them before that stage got another one that looks like it’s going to a third stem there okay maybe we cut off The Limited three stems we’ll see and then I have some flowers down here I tried to do a better job with some flowers this year is nice to have them I’m not sure I did a great mix of colors I seem to be fixated on Orange and I really wanted more pink but we’ll see how that goes so these two on this side of the trellis are uh cherry tomatoes and I have several tomatoes on one of them I have two cherry tomatoes on this side of the trellis as well and this is my potato bed which as you’ll recall from the last Garden Tour it was all standing straight up and looking great and super healthy and then we had crazy winds I mean just just crazy C winds and then we had all that rain and parts of it has stood back up again parts of it just haven’t and it is too early I think for these potatoes to be saying yeah we’re nearly done but you do see I have some yellowing down there some that are not looking like they have much left to give but I’m going to let them go as long as I can I have a whole bed full of uh potatoes in there so I am excited for that go over and take a look at this bed this is kind of a mix of leftovers bed so these are some couple of Roma tomatoes and a couple of uh indeter or I’m sorry determinant slicing tomatoes in here along with my Swiss chard you can see all my spinach has become bunny food every single one every single plant of spinach has been eaten by the Buddy which you know it is what it is he’s cute he doesn’t eat too much but he does like spinach cilantro and strawberry so I’ve gotten very few uh of any of that so I see some fruits forming over there this is great kale has been great we’ve been eating a lot of kale salads so this is some garlic and some elephant garlic and you know I have to tell you it’s been kind of looking kind of rough this year again I don’t know whether it’s all the rain that we had whether it was we got hot soon and then we went back to cold I don’t know what’s going on there but I’m not incredibly optimistic about the garlic this year the first time I’ve grown elephant garlic so we’ll see I also have some music garlic in there my regular hard deck I’ve gotten some skates not a ton of scates here’s one starting can see that one starting there and then this bed is onions and shallots and garlic again I pulled out some of my multiplying shallots yesterday those were the ones you saw drying in the grow room I need to take care of the rest of these as well they’ve been going gang busters again my garlic is not looking fantastic elephant garlic not looking fantastic these are shallots in here I have not grown shallots before so I don’t know if those look good or not and then my onions look terrible I think they got blown over and then they got the Heavy Rain I am not terribly optimistic that I’m going to have a fantastic on your year this year but I am trying so we’re at 14 hours of daylight now the bulbing process should start soon but my onions I don’t expect them to be ready until July so we have some time so I am I remain hopeful but that’s how that looks right now see it looks looks kind of rough in that glic and shallot patch there doesn’t it all right let’s head over to the other side all right we’ll start with this pitiful bed here this was my Brasa bed harvested all of that except two cabbages down here and I this was my potato bed last year as you could tell we left some in the ground really thought we had canvas that’s whole thing and we’re looking good and but I have already harvested a few new potatoes and they were fantastic so kind of a happy accident there I have these cabbages they’re pretty badly eaten but they are heading up so I think I’ll just give them a little while and see what happens this is going to be the sweet potato bed this is the only bad in the garden that has not been amended and topped off so I’ll be doing that probably when I get back from being out of town and then I’ll get the sweet potato slips in there I do have more cherry tomatoes here and you can see I’m getting a lot of fruit on some of these let’s see around here starting to pop up all over the place and I’m so excited this is Sun Peach great producer for me and our favorite cherry tomato last year this is my sun sugar is starting to fruit up as well lots of fruiting happening on this one that’s another Sun Peach I think I ended up planting three of those you may or may not have noticed that I did not show you a loofah plant because I did not plant lofas that was based with extra cherry tomato plants and I just couldn’t stop myself so that’s that’s what I did on all all my all my arches so this is a Mexican sunflower he’s looking pretty good I think he’s supposed to get to be about 3T tall so we’ll see this is some other variety of sunflower that I was expecting to get to be about 6 ft tall but again we will see go into the hot peppers I’ve got some of this was originally weather damage but now it looks like I’m getting clearly somebody is munch ing on my plants now so we’ve had so much rain I haven’t been able to put any spin aside or anything on them but maybe today so this is PIM this is a jalapeno like pepper I I have real Peppers there already so I’m pretty excited by that one this is the garden salsa which I expected to be a jalapeno like pepper and you’ll see the shape is much different than what I was expecting so we’ll see about that one here my old standby jalapenos not doing a whole lot yet the Jedi there has three or four fruit underway the H ofo doesn’t have much going on right now and again here is another thee so look at all the Peppers that’s just crazy I think that may be my star performer this year but wait till you see the uh sugar brush Peach so more sunflowers here this is the netting that you saw us put up this is where I want those squash and cucumber seeds that we just uh started soaking to go I have planted some and this is my only one that came up with the crazy weather so that’s a spaghetti squash so I’ll try to get another one one of those and then two of each of the others going we’ll start over here with this back bed this is my primary Roma bed paste tomato bed three different types no I’m sorry four different types of Romas so got some sunflowers in there I’ve never grown the big sunflower so I’m hoping that’s going to be really pretty sticking its head up and above the tomatoes have more pepper and this bin and these are some sweet peppers this is my second herb bed look at a little ready these are the ones that were the older plants so I separated out chunks of the oregano I separated out the sage separated out the thy so everything is a little annoyed at this point but hopefully that’s going to spring back and look terrific here my Sugar Rush Peach plants look at all those Peppers they’re just everywhere everywhere so I have three of those I really wasn’t expecting much based on how many I got the last time I grew them but these have just gone crazy so Peach barbecue sauce I’m thinking this year this my out of control Strawberry Patch I have strawberries in the green stock a couple years ago and they were not happy there under my care I think I did not water them as often as they should have David kept pushing them under the shade I kept pushing them into the sun they weren’t getting turned properly look at this my plant just turning yellow that’s all that water just washing the nutrients right out I’m going to have to take care of that right away so I sweet peppers on this side and down the center [Music] go on the front here I have another row of onions and then I have some more hot peppers lots of jalapeno type peppers I was really thinking I was doing better job at diversifying but not so much the other side the other uh sugar brush Peach pepper so right on Queue there as I was finishing that last bed my camera said M too hot out here we are done go inside so here I am coming in to tell you thank you so much for being with me in the Garden today it is really feeling like a summer garden to me now that my tomatoes and peppers are in once I get the squash the cucumbers and the sweet potatoes going it’ll it’s it’s full on summer from there you may have noticed I don’t have any zucchini out there now I don’t have any green beans out there now I kind of missed my my window in terms of how our Heat’s going to go for the green beans so I may do some in the fall we’ll see how that goes I’ve never had tremendous success in the fall but I might try just just in case I can and the summer squash I will do once I pull out probably my onion beds really hoping to miss some squash bugs here but you know I don’t know we’ll see live and learn G squash in a new area I had a terrible time with squash bugs the first year I did it just completely laid off last year didn’t even try so I don’t know we’ll see we’ll fight that together and and maybe commiserate I hope not I hope you don’t have the same issues with squash bugs that I have so next time I will see you probably back in the kitchen I hope your Gardens are looking terrific and I hope you’re as excited about this garden and preservation season as I am I will see you next week thank you so much bye-bye