Hey guys, my name is Brijette with San Diego Seed Company and today on the Kellogg Garden
Youtube Channel, I'm going to be discussing how we broke brand new ground here on our farm. So,
if you like the content of our previous videos, make sure you hit subscribe so that you can always
be notified when we have new content. Now, let's jump into it. Today, I'm going to be talking about
what we did to start this new piece of property, the methods that we chose and why, and I'm going
to talk a little bit about the challenges of breaking new ground and the things that
you need to do to be a really successful grower. So, let's get started. All right, so you can see
that luckily the soil's not too bad. Pretty dusty, very dry, we're here in Southern California,
we don't really get rain past May, if we're lucky, we might get rain in may.
So, this is a very dry area, and when we started it it looked just like what you're seeing here.
Basically, a lot of invasive grasses that have been growing on this property for years.
This area probably hasn't been touched in about 40 years or so,
and so what are the methods that we use to to get the soil ready for planting?
First thing you have to do when you're starting brand new soil,
is you have to be able to break up the soil particles. All of this was rock hard soil,
dusty dirt, and tons of weeds. So, we needed a way to break up that soil so that we can incorporate
tons and tons of organic matter. And we did that by tilling. Now, I know, I don't even like to say
the word tilling because, you know, rightfully so a lot of people believe in no-till method,
and so do I. On our farm up top, where the soil is a lot better and we've put years of compost in the
soil, we don't till, in fact we barely disturb the soil. But, this brand new ground, we have to have
a way to get in the nutrients and the compost into the soil so that we're not waiting five,
ten years to grow. So, the first thing we did is we went through with a pretty large tiller,
and we broke up all of the the roots of the weeds, pulled out big chunks of rocks,
anything that was disturbing the soil, and then we added tons and tons of compost.
You can see that we haven't watered yet, but to give you an idea,
look at the color difference. So, this is our compost that we brought in,
and this is the native soil. Now, for those of you who have watched my other youtube videos,
you'll see that the soil at the top of our farm is amazing and it started out just like this.
It was no different. After years, and years, and years of adding
really good compost, tons of mulch to keep the moisture in, and just practicing really good
garden practices, not over tilling, adding tons of worm castings, and getting the worm population
up and going. The soil is now incredible. We intend to do the exact same thing down here.
So, what are my next steps? I've tilled, I've brought in tons of compost, and I'm going to
bring in tons of more compost. This is just the beginning. The next thing that I need to do is
water really heavily and really deeply. Why? This soil is bone dry and compost, especially
compost that's made in really large facilities, is going to be hydrophobic. What does that mean
it means? It's going to repel water at first, and it's also very hot it's still decomposing, and
so it's actually hot to the touch a lot of times. So, I'm going to run our drip irrigation down here
for one maybe even two weeks prior to planting, to make sure that I've saturated the area and all the
soil particles are moist. Then I'll go in and I'll build my beds and it'll be time for us to plant.
I don't expect the first season to be incredibly successful, the soil is not great,
it needs time to mature, but with a little bit of organic fertilizer and good gardening practices,
I know I'll be able to get a really good crop out of here in years to come. So, those are some of my
tips for breaking new ground and starting a new garden, and just in review the big points are;
Make sure that you remove as much weeds and rocks as you can. If you have to till the first
season to incorporate your organic matter, I recommend it. And lastly, make sure that
if it's really dry land, make sure you irrigate heavily in those first few weeks before planting.
Lastly, organic fertilizer goes a really long way. This area down here has never been planted before.
Like I said, the last time I think anybody even came down here was probably 40 years ago. And so,
it's going to need a little bit of help in the beginning to get started. And,
soil is an incredible thing. Once it's happy and all the microbiology is working in the soil, it'll
do the rest for you. So again, if you like the content of this video hit subscribe, check out our
other videos and follow us for tips and tricks on how to garden in an urban space or a larger space.