(upbeat music)
- If you've been gardening for the last couple years
and you have some beds that maybe you've neglected,
in this video, I'm gonna show you how to reset, replant,
and re plan out beds for the season.
So grab your favorite garden helper,
(smoke ringing)
and let's get into the video.
So the first thing you wanna do
when you are re-looking at a garden space
that maybe you neglected a little bit,
or let go a little too long,
is just looking at the quality of the soil.
- Totally. - So yeah,
I mean, let's take our irrigation out,
and we'll talk about that at some point here on the channel
but that's not the point of this video.
So you just wanna get your irrigation out of the way,
if you have it, so let's reset that.
And what you're really looking for at the start
is think about it, if you've left your bed
to basically do nothing
and especially if it's been uncovered,
you wanna make sure that the soil
or the raised bed mix is still at least okay.
- Yeah, especially things like moisture,
and then like some of the fertility things
they wanna deal with.
- Yeah, so, I mean, really what I'm just gonna do
is take a quick look.
And obviously I've, oh, I found something I don't like
and I'm gonna touch it with my bare hands.
One of these grubs,
one of these gross grubs. - It's a bonus.
- And so this is something that it's actually important
to scan for, because if I plant directly into this bed,
knowing that I have these absolutely
disgusting creatures in here, what these guys do.
- So a lot of these will eat your roots.
- Yeah. - And specifically,
they'll eat your new seedling roots
and they'll just stunt your plant.
You'll be wondering why is my plant dying?
It's just sitting there.
Oftentimes it's grubs.
- If we're talking about not, you know, getting discouraged
and having a garden bed that gets reset,
it really is about this.
Make sure there's moisture in there.
Make sure there's no soil born pests.
(upbeat music)
We just went grub hunting, Babka helped out a little bit.
You do not wanna see what's in here.
It's actually quite gross,
Babka is disgusted. - She's outta here.
- But anyways, we've got the grubs out
which certainly might not be a problem in your area.
It is for us.
We've trouble shot the soil.
Now we wanna do some very basic amendment.
So we've got a couple things here.
I'll go over this one, this is just a Espoma's Garden-tone.
This is an organic, granular fertilizer.
I love using organics simply because
you kind of can't over fertilize.
- It's definitely harder to.
- Yeah, I mean, this is a slow release.
It's gonna break down over time.
And so I'm not stressed about the exact amount
I'm applying here, it's not a huge deal.
And then you've got something.
- Yeah, this is a Warm Gold, it's a mix of worm castings
with things like Azomite and kelp.
So the kelp is nice, 'cause it's like, a bio stimulant
which just means that plants like it.
- Yep. - And then the worm castings
are of course a nice little mix of nutrients,
but nothing like too heavy.
- Nothing too crazy,
and the soil we already know is okay, it's decent.
And this is a good time, if you're gonna do some amending
to also rehydrate the soil.
So what I like to do is mix it in just a little bit
and then Jacque will grab the hose here.
And especially if it's extremely dry,
what you kind of wanna do,
especially if you're using like a raise bag mix
that might have a little bit of peat in it.
Peat can sometimes be very hard to rehydrate
especially if you've let a bed go.
What you wanna do is kind of come through, pop it on,
and just break the surface a little bit and just work it in.
'Cause it'll take a while to rehydrate.
Oftentimes you need to water way more than you think
to get a bed wet initially. - Yeah, sometimes it feels
like it's actually getting watered
but then as soon as you scratch the surface, it's dry.
- It's completely dry.
- And so this is something we've both talked about.
(laughs) It's another one,
is you could also do the water in quick passes.
Come back to it, water in another pass,
eventually it'll permeate down.
You could just do that while you're working on other things
in the garden. - Totally.
Yeah, so I'm just gonna try to work some of this in here.
I see some earthworms in, I'm actually pretty excited
about the quality of this soil.
There's some earthworms in here.
- There's a bunch of 'em.
- But the whole point of what we're getting at
in this part of the reset, is just troubleshooting.
The only thing that's really going to feed your plants
which is the soil and the life within the soil.
So let's smooth this out here, Jacque.
- Yap. - And then we'll get it reset
and we'll start planting out.
(upbeat music)
The last thing before we get to planting
is if you've got a fully prepped bed,
well, it's actually a really great time
if you wanna install some kind of irrigation system,
to go ahead and do that.
Of course, we already have one installed on this bed
which we'll get into, like I said, in another video.
But also a trellis or something like that.
If you know you're gonna plant cucumbers or tomatoes,
or some sort of thing that needs some support,
well, it's a great time to actually just get that in
and then plants around it,
so that the plants can grow into it.
- Yeah, it's a lot easier
I could say from personal experience
to install irrigation in an empty bed.
- Yes. - Rather than one
full of plants, and also-
- We installed this one and then we installed it
into the radish bed, which we're going to next.
And this was a bit of a nightmare.
- It was a little more than - So, we didn't wanna disturb
- One garden. - The radishes.
So here we are in the radish bed here
that actually, Jacque, you sowed this
and why don't you explain the reason why you sowed it?
- So I sowed the radishes because they just grow so fast
that I wanted something quick
so that the soil had some life in it.
- Yeah, we didn't quite know what we were gonna put in.
It was a weird shoulder season.
It was kind of winterish-springish.
- That's right. - And so radishes
worked perfectly 'cause they'll basically get you through
a season like that where you wanna get to spring.
And radishes grow in about 35 days.
And so, if you have a month left before your classic spring,
it's a great time to put in something like this,
but these need to come out now.
And I would say Jacque, it made total sense what you did,
but what we're seeing now.
- Yeah. - Is the fruits of that labor
and these fruits might be a little bit too juicy.
- (laughs) We have too many. - We have too many fruits.
- Yeah. - Because we're gonna pull out
I would say at least a hundred radishes here.
- I will say that when it comes to radishes,
these white kind of hakurei is one variety that I know of.
- Yeah, hakurei. - Are the only ones
that I actually like eating, they're like sweet and juicy.
They don't have like that very sharp
radish flavor drip (indistinct).
- So when it comes to planting your beds out
this is kind of a little trick you can do,
where you wanna make a list of.
It has a huge pool right there.
That's beautiful, that's like ready to go to market,
right there. - Yeah, there you go.
- But you can make a list of some quicker growing crops.
Radishes, turnips, beats, things like that.
That will get you through
to the season that you're actually trying to plant,
so in like spring.
And so, what we're doing now is just pulling these out.
And, you know, what we would do differently this time
is plant them on succession. - Yeah.
- Which we're gonna do with some beans
in this bed over here,
but also plan if you're gonna set an irrigation system up,
you probably wanna plant it along the irrigation lines,
and not crossing the irrigation lines.
Although this did perfectly fine.
- Yeah, it ended up working.
That's a really great thing about irrigation
is that when you install things like drip tape
or just drip tubing,
the nice thing is that it gives you a grid to plan off of.
You could do spacing off the emitters.
You could kinda have lines to plant into.
It just makes life a lot easier.
- Yeah, I mean these emitters for example
are around six inches.
If we had a plant like lettuce
that we wanted to plant every six,
you just put it right next to the emitter
and you're in a good spot.
- Perfect. - So, we're basically
where we were with the other bed.
So we're gonna snap our fingers here, reset this real quick
and then plant it out.
(smoke whooshing)
And there you go,
we have amended, actually no grubs in this one.
So now I wanna show you a technique for planning a bed
that avoids the radish problem we just ran into.
So Jacque, I'm gonna plant these beans out,
let's grab some beans seedlings and get into this.
- Great. - It's just a succession
sowing technique.
So here's how to think about this.
I want beans but I don't want the beans
all at the same time like I had the radishes.
I'd rather have them kind of spread out
throughout the spring and the summer.
So I've got rock or bush bean,
hopefully I pronounce that right,
and I also have contender, contender is a contender.
It is a fantastic bush bean.
You can direct sow half of a bed
and then just plant in with either transplants
that you've started yourself, or you know what,
it's not a crime to go to the nursery and get some seedlings
if it's gonna make your gardening a little bit easier.
So I'm just come in about an inch deep on these beans
and I'm just planting them on each emitter here,
but maybe four to six inch spacing is totally fine.
And the reason I'm starting in this corner
is because my sun pattern is coming from over there
and it's ending right about here.
So this section is gonna have more sun.
If I planted all the transplants here
and then the seedlings over here,
it would block them a little bit.
So I'm gonna put my transplants over here.
So all I'm just gonna do now is come in and drop in
as many bean seeds as I've got left in these packs.
And then we'll supplement the rest
with the direct transplanting.
(upbeat music)
When you are direct sowing bean seeds and not soaking them
like I just didn't soak,
then you do wanna make sure you hydrate that soil
'cause it has to get through that seed hole
before it's going to germinate.
So as long as temps are good in your area,
then you can do this
and just make sure that you get this nice and moist.
And while we're waiting on those bean seedlings,
I'll show you the final step to prepping a bed
and making sure that you don't have to waste water
when you're actually caring for these plants.
So the final step is to add some kind of mulch.
And that is really what's not only going to protect the soil
but protect the plants, the plant roots, all of that stuff.
And if you have drip, it also covers the drip
and makes it last a little bit longer as well.
So I'm using a shredded straw mulch.
This is Garden Straw, which is far and away
the best straw mulch I've ever used.
We actually carry it in our store.
But you can use micro bark,
you could use wood chips if you want.
I find for a raised bed,
you probably wanna use a more fine mulch
than something like wood chips.
Maybe if you have a garden bed with ornamentals,
use something like wood chips,
but for a raised bed I think a more fine one works.
You can even use fresh compost, you can use grass clippings,
whatever you have lying around.
I just like the reflectivity of the straw mulch.
It really helps keep the heat off of the surface
of the soil, and I live in a pretty hot climate.
So it's important for me to make sure
that I get this as cool as I can.
I'm going about two inches or so,
you can go about two or three inches.
That's all you really need.
And once we get our bean seedlings going,
we'll put the rest in this other side of the bed.
(upbeat music)
All right, we have our succession sown beans.
These will come up, these are gonna grow much faster.
Let's swap on over here
and talk about some other stuff you can plant this spring.
So we're in our final bed that we're going to rehab
at least for this video,
and kind of show you how to get things back in order
for the season.
And this really just is a classic,
cannot go wrong combination of tomatoes, basil,
and actually alyssum,
which is a pick that I learned from you Jacque, last year.
- Yep. - As an interplant.
There's actually a lot of different plants
that work well inter planting with tomatoes,
which we'll do a full video on pretty soon.
There's some really counterintuitive ones,
like cucumbers work really well.
So I don't think you've seen that much
but we'll do that in a separate video.
In this one, just showing you a basic layout here.
Now the thing to remember is these are determinate tomatoes.
- Yep, so determinant tomatoes means that they're determined
to grow to a certain point and stop.
Basically. - Yeah.
No, it really means yeah, their height is determined.
- Yeah. - And their terminal bud
is a flower bud, which means that it cannot produce
any more leafy growth, that's the end.
With raised beds especially raised beds that are this tall,
this is about 30 inches tall,
it's our tall 6-IN-1 model.
If you're growing it indeterminate.
I mean, I'm a tall guy, I'm not really looking to grow
an eight foot tall tomato in this bed.
So you wanna grow a determinate
and let's just talk about spacing real quick.
It's roughly 18 inches to 24 inches.
- Yeah, 18 inches is like a safe minimum.
- Yeah. - Especially for determinants
you're totally safe to do that.
- So what we're doing here is,
and everyone's got their way of planting tomatoes.
In my personal opinion,
I think a lot of people over complicate.
Bury an egg, bury a fish.
You can definitely do that, I'm not saying you can't
but also I'm just saying it's a tomato,
it's a pretty vigorous plant.
You kind of can't go wrong
unless you just bury it really high.
The one thing I like to do is bury them deep.
So you can see what Jacque's doing here.
Kinda wanna excavate a decent chunk of soil.
- [Jacques] And for determinants it's,
I guess a little less important to go deep
just 'cause they have that determined height.
But at some point you could slow 'em down a little.
I mean, not like, you should still bury 'em deep
but you don't have to worry about it as much.
- Yeah, you can see what I did on mine, Jacque
as I went a little lower.
- Yeah, actually this is great.
We'll have our comparison. - I turned off.
Yeah, so we have a little comparison here,
but honestly your tomato will produce either way.
I wouldn't really stress - Don't worry about it
too much. - about this too much.
So let's get the other two in.
These varieties, if you're curious,
we have Roma tomatoes in the front, two Romas
and then two Celebrity tomatoes.
So when you're growing,
another thing that as a gardener you learn over time
is respecting variety. - Right.
- [Kevin] And making sure you're growing varieties
that work for your zone
instead of just whatever looks cool on the internet,
because that is a path to getting discouraged.
- I've done it before. - Yeah, so have I.
I mean you grow something
that you think is really interesting,
and turns out it doesn't well and then it dies,
and then you get very sad and maybe you give up on gardening
and that's not what we want, right?
- Of course not. - So, these guys go in.
- The cool thing too about determinants
is that they'll tend to set all their fruit
at a similar time.
So it's fantastic for doing like tomato sauces salsas,
where you want like a nice big batch of something.
This is the tomato you really wanna grow.
- Yap, good point.
Okay, why don't you share a little bit about alyssum
because you have a little more experience there.
- So, I'm gonna go upfront with the alyssum.
It tends to grow kind of short and bushy
but all these little flowers are great
for attracting the Brackonid wasp,
which is a kind of wasp that parasitizes tomato hornworms.
They also just smell really nice and they look really nice.
So, I just like growing 'em for that reason alone.
- So I'm taking and we're doing a very classic
tomato interplant here with basil, but Genovese basil.
So almost the most classic one.
This is some basil that we started a little bit ago.
Now starting seeds of course we've done a bunch of videos on
but basil can be a little more of a challenging start.
It tends to be a slower germinator,
and I mean, this basil here is probably 20 ish days old.
And so it's not looking big but then I think you guys know
that once you get basil going, it really starts going.
You could even put things like onions in here.
There's some very classic combinations pizza garden style,
but this one's gonna work really well for us.
It's just a good way to get back in,
like put something in you know you're gonna love.
I'm for sure gonna love making sauces and slicing tomatoes.
So, I know this is gonna be a success for me this year.
- [Jacques] Where do you wanna put this last guy in?
- [Kevin] Let's pop him right there.
- Perfect. - So spacing wise,
we threw tomato in four,
and then we threw a row of basil through the middle.
And if we had another alyssum,
we actually could probably put one right there too.
- Absolutely. - But, we might start
some seeds and do that.
So the only thing left to do now is just mulch and water.
That's really all there is to it guys.
It is getting back out in the garden,
getting excited about it again, amending your bed,
fixing it up, planning on succession,
making sure you don't have everything all at once
so it's really overwhelming.
And then just planting some classic stuff
that you actually love and are excited to grow.
So that's it, good luck in the garden,
and keep on growing.
(upbeat music)