- In this video I'm gonna show you 10 different ways
to make your vegetable garden more productive
next year and beyond.
(calm acoustic guitar music)
Now if you want to grow more food
and save money at the same time,
then you're watching the right video.
And if you look down below in the video description,
I've actually created time stamps
for the 10 ways that you can make
your vegetable garden more productive.
So it's a bit easier for you to move around.
And maybe at the end of the video,
you might want to review a couple of the methods.
So just before we get into this video,
I'd like to thank today's sponsor,
which is First Tunnels.
Now they provide a whole range of polytunnel sizes
as well as mini polytunnels and fruit cages.
So if this interests you,
and you're looking to extend your season,
then go and check out their website
to see what they can offer you.
So the first way to make a more productive
vegetable garden next year
is by actually building soil over winter.
Now you may be able to see
over there to my right, which should be your left,
we've got some raised beds here.
And what we're doing here is
we've placed a layer of well-watered cow manure,
which is about four inches thick,
so that equates about 10 centimetres.
And the idea is that over winter
we're going to let the earthworms
and whatever microbes which are still alive
to work at breaking down and decomposing
the well-rotted cow manure.
Now this is really important because cow manure
is a fantastic source of nitrogen,
and if you're especially going to be growing
a leafy green in that bed next year,
then it's really important to put that source of nitrogen,
because leafy greens thrive off a good source of nitrogen.
Now I did make a video showing the whole tutorial of this,
so you might want to check it out.
It isn't as well-produced,
but I also have a video showing the results
of the healthy soil afterwards.
Secondly is to crack down on slugs
and other pests for that matter.
Now the thing about slugs,
especially if they hit you hard,
they actually eat a lot of your crop,
so you're losing productivity.
But luckily there are a couple of ways
that you can crack down on slugs
so you can reduce their collateral damage.
Now the first thing that you need to be doing
is going around to your garden
and remove any pots or any bits of wood
that are literally laying down on the ground,
because these make perfect habitats for slugs.
And what you wanna do is to make it
as de-slug friendly as possible,
where they don't have little crevices
and gaps to hide behind,
and more in the spring and summer what you need to do
is if you have any patches of long grass, to cut this,
just to reduce the amount of hiding places.
And secondly is to have a slug hunting party.
So kind of early-ish summer
you need to invite some of your friends over,
bring head torches and some buckets,
and literally you'll be able in the evening
to go out and pick bucket-loads of slugs,
and this is going to have a huge effect.
Now a really powerful way of creating
a more productive vegetable garden
is by creating and drawing up
a simple succession planting plan.
Now what I love about succession planting
is it really does utilise, maximise the space
that you have in your vegetable garden.
So especially for small spaces,
like we're fortunate enough to have the land
to have a big vegetable garden,
but if you just have a backyard,
then focus on creating a succession planting plan,
because it's all too easy,
especially for beginner vegetable gardeners,
to sow all your lettuce and radish seeds in one go.
But by spacing it out every week or two weeks,
you're then going to have a continuous harvest
which is going to last you more through the growing season,
rather than having everything at one go
and then chances are you will waste some food.
So just create a plan where you think,
"Okay I'm going to be harvesting carrots, say,
"in July, so after that
"I might want to plant some lettuces and radishes
"to make use of that space."
Now this is another tip about space,
but this is utilising the vertical space
that you have around your garden.
Now behind you, we don't really have anything there,
but you can see over here we've got a trellis.
And what we're doing is we're gradually
adding and incorporating trellises
around the perimeter of our vegetable garden.
And one thing that I think is underestimated quite a lot
is actually the power of perennial fruits and vegetables.
So what we're doing is almost creating a wall or a barrier
around our garden, which is both creating
a microclimate within it, which is keeping the heat,
but also gives us another element
where we can grow and produce more food,
such as blackberries and silvanberries
and pears and plums, and things like that.
Now if you haven't yet, you might want to consider
getting some sort of undercover growing,
because undercover growing is a worthy investment.
We have a solar tunnel here and we're gonna be
adding a mini greenhouse very soon,
but the thing about extending your growing season
is that you can start earlier on in the year,
and you can finish later.
Growing undercover makes it possible,
especially in the UK,
to grow winter salads.
And it's great having a fresh supply of winter salads
during the cold, dark days.
And it gives you vitamins like vitamin C and D,
which are harder to get in the winter
compared to summer and spring.
So if you wanna see an example of what's been doing well,
I recommend you check out Patrick Dolan's channel
over at OneYardRevolution.
As well as succession planting,
you have interplanting.
And I love interplanting because it created
a totally different aspect and element to growing food.
Now we did it earlier this year
where we grew radishes in the same bed as potatoes,
with the idea of utilising the ways
of fast growing vegetables
compared to slower growing vegetables.
So what we did with the radishes,
we planted those at the same time as the seed potatoes,
but the radishes had matured
just as the leaves of the potatoes
were covering the raised bed.
So here, instead of having two different areas
where you're growing radishes in one raised bed,
and growing potatoes in another raised bed,
we're actually growing the two together.
So that's freeing up vital space to grow other things,
and as a result, you're making
your vegetable garden more productive.
And another common method for this
is a growing method where you literally
are growing sweet corn,
and then you can plant at the bottom
a squash, or some peas,
and the peas can grow up and around the sweet corn,
and the squash can be at the bottom,
or you can even grow lettuces.
But again, you're just looking at how you can
make the most of the space you have
by adding two different or three different crops
in one area, rather than having them in different areas.
Something similar to interplanting
is square foot gardening,
and this is almost pushed the boundaries
and the rules of traditional vegetable gardening,
where you have general spacings,
but in square foot gardening
you can throw those spacings out the window,
and you grow a lot more concentrated,
and it's a very intense way of growing vegetables.
And it does take a little bit more effort
to sort it all out,
but you will get a lot more harvest.
So there is a book that I've read
and I recommend you read,
which is The Square Foot Gardening,
and it's really really interesting.
So if you wanna look at that,
and I'll be doing some videos, hopefully next year
about that as well, so make sure you're subscribed.
When I say this method, you might think,
"Why didn't I think of that?"
But the thing is, if you grow more
of what grows well in your area
compared to what maybe doesn't quite grow so well
and you get so-so results,
by growing more of what grows well
and you kind of succession plant it out,
then in that sense you'll actually create
higher productivity.
Now things that grow well with us are Swiss chard,
beetroot, a lot of cabbages,
and also peas.
Now if you do have a lot more of a certain vegetable,
such as, say, Swiss chard or beetroot,
then the thing is you might want to look
at how you can preserve it.
So we've been looking at lactofermentation
and how we can ferment and store and preserve
our vegetables.
So by growing more of what grows well in your area,
the idea is you'll have a bigger yield.
So you may not have such a diversity
of what you're growing,
but the thing is you're gonna have more,
and especially if your sole purpose of growing food
is to save money,
then you might want to greatly consider this.
Use free fertilisers.
Fertilisers are very very very important,
but not ones that you buy from shops.
All you need to do is make the most
of your natural surroundings,
or even grow your own fertiliser, such as comfrey.
Now I did a video about the growing power of comfrey
for permaculture vegetable gardens,
which you can take a look at,
and I do actually recommend you take a look at.
Because I teach you how to make
a comfrey and nettle compost tea,
which you can use on your garden
to provide very very useful nutrients.
But also you can use comfrey,
add it to place on your compost,
and apply a sprinkle of compost around your plants
just to replenish the soil with some nutrients,
especially during the early stages of growing.
But also even just use it as a mulch,
especially when tomatoes are beginning to ripen.
You can add these nutrients and use the comfrey as mulch.
So use free fertilisers.
You can use manure, comfrey,
leaves use these as leaf mulch,
grass clippings, these are kind of mulches now,
but you can use that to both build soil
and retain moisture and other things like that.
And finally, moving on with the mulch idea
is how to reduce and crack down on weeds.
Now we've already talked about cracking down on slugs,
and you can crack down on other pests such as mice
by growing peas in rain gutters,
but by cracking down on weeds,
now weeds are something,
especially organic vegetable gardeners all have to face,
and it's all part of the truthful experience
of growing your own food.
But when weeds get the upper hand,
then it can be quite demoralising.
So by using and applying thick layers of mulch,
and I'm a great advocate of using mulch,
then by using mulch and using the layers
around your vegetables,
then this is going to stop and hinder
the growth of weeds.
And you might need to do a couple of layers,
or a couple of spreadings, every growing season,
but this is just gonna help reduce the need to weed.
And if you do see any weeds
where it might not be possible to mulch,
then you need to strike them early
before they get out of hand.
And at the end of the day,
if you think about it,
weeds not only take nutrients away from your soil,
but what they also do is take away
valuable growing space.
So thank you very much for watching this video,
and I hope this has given you some more ideas
on how you can create a more productive vegetable garden.
Now if you have any questions
about any of the methods that I outlined,
then don't hesitate to ask me down below
in the comments section,
or you can contact me directly on Snapchat,
and there'll be a link available for that.
Now I do invite you to share this video
with your friends who also grow food,
just so they can maybe get some new ideas as well
so they can create a more productive vegetable garden.
So I hope you enjoyed it.
Don't forget to rate
whether you did like or didn't like this video,
and I'll see you again very soon.
Goodbye.