if you're a new gardener and you've made
some mistakes maybe last year's garden
wasn't the best
and you really are a little discouraged
then this video is for you
kevin spirito here from epic gardening
where it's my goal to help you grow a
greener thumb
i think we had something like 16 to 18
million new gardeners in 2020 with all
signs pointing to even more
in 2021 and with new gardening i
remember my first time i mean i grew
hydroponic cucumbers and they tasted
absolutely awful
i think my brother actually said that he
almost threw up when he ate
them and so that's not a good sign
wasn't the best first crop for me
either which is why in today's video i'm
gonna go over
maybe nine or ten of the most common and
devastating
gardening mistakes that will prevent you
from having epic harvests
so you know what to do cultivate that
like button and i will personally give
you a money-back guarantee that you will
not have
any gardening mistakes by the way this
video is free so i'm sorry the money
back guarantee isn't really worth a
whole lot
but let's get into the video mistake
number one is putting your garden in an
inconvenient location it's very similar
to working out you know you don't want
to
make your gym bag really hard to get to
you want your meals ready to go
i could probably take some advice there
but in the garden i certainly have
mastered this and that's because my
gardens are
easy to access what you want to do is
make it accessible and easy to work in
low friction for me actually in my
raised bed garden at least that means a
tall raised bed
really helps me i'm quite tall and i
don't want to bend down as much save my
back again another easy thing to do
but these tiny little things this really
doesn't even have to do with any
gardening practice fertilizing watering
transplanting starting seeds it's just
where the garden is in the first place
it's a huge mistake that people can make
when they're starting out so make it
easy to access and you'll have a much
better time
mistake number two is planting in an
area that doesn't get enough sun
it's not a good location for planting so
i was hanging out behind my chimney
there
this is my north facing wall so this is
oriented north this one is oriented east
to west
and the sun of course rises in the east
sets in the west so the pattern of my
sun here on my property
it comes from about there in the winter
and ends right about
there what does that mean it doesn't get
high enough right now to crest over this
wall
and it also doesn't make it anywhere
over there and so what does that mean
in this bed i can't really plant much
that's going to
need a ton of sun and so a huge mistake
you can make as a beginner gardener
is planting things that don't match to
the sun
and light availability of an area the
best way to do that
is observation maybe 8 a.m 12 p.m
4 p.m go out and just kind of see where
the shadows fall and just remember
that this is actually going to change
based on the time of year so a really
good resource i'll leave down in the
description
it'll allow you to drag over the months
and it'll show you
how the sun will fall over your property
you can type in your exact address
but again remember planting is the most
important time
if you make a mistake in planting you've
locked that plant in stone unless you're
growing in a container which is another
great way
to mitigate some of these mistakes but
please remember do not plant in an area
that does not have enough sun for the
plant you're trying to grow mistake
number three
is planting too far from a water source
so i want to show you what i've had to
do i don't have irrigation set up here
at the epic garden
i actually have one outlet here for
water on the side of my house that's
really
inconveniently placed it's in the middle
of my house between the front and the
backyard
and so i've used a hose splitter here
and then i've split that
many times over of course i'm gonna get
irrigation but the reason why you don't
want to do this is because again it's
one of those laziness things if you're
going to have to lug water over
you might just decide not to do it that
day and then the day gets too hot the
plants die and you're in a big
world of hurt and you've again killed
some plants you don't want to do that so
let me show you what i've done again
this is not the best solution i'm still
getting irrigation set up here but
hey if it works it works if it lets me
access water
then i'm happy like i mentioned the
first thing i've done is split this so
we go to the front yard with one of the
hoses
now what you could do here is you could
just use a standard hose but
i've put this into a hose link which is
a hose bib
that has a retractable reel right here
so this one
can extend out about 82 feet and it can
go just about
anywhere in this front yard garden so
i've got perfect
access in the front yard the second hose
comes through right here
you're going to wind around the back
again if it works it works it's not the
most clean
setup but we've gone to another hose bib
right here with the hose link
and i can access everything in this
little temporary orchard
as well as all of the back garden back
there mistake number four when i admit i
have made quite a bit especially in my
first few years of gardening
is not respecting the power of the mulch
we must respect the power of the mulch
this is just some bear potting mix right
here recently amended
and sure yeah i could plant right into
this and i i'm sure i would be okay
but i can reduce my watering needs
protect the soil
protect any sort of splash-upping
disease type of issues
with the use of some kind of mulch now
if you've been watching this channel a
while you know
i'm obsessed with this shredded straw
mulch from a company called garden straw
it's not available here in the u.s i
should have it available on my store
sometime around april 2021
but don't let the fact that you can't
get the exact straw that i use
prevent you from using mulch there's
plenty of different things that you can
use you can of course source straw in
your own area you can use grass
clippings
you can use shredded leaves fall leaves
if you're in an area
that gets a lot of leaf drop i'm jealous
i don't and fall leaves are a fantastic
cover now the couple things that you
want to keep in mind with mulch you want
to make sure that you lay down
a thick enough layer i would say at
least two inches or so
if possible and just because i'm in a
raised bed right here doesn't mean that
you should only mulch a raised bed you
should mulch your in-ground plantings
and you should also mulch even smaller
containers like some grow bags
or just some patio style containers with
something like a straw you can do it
it is so so beneficial it's going to
reduce the amount that you need to water
it's going to protect the surface of the
soil
and there's just a million and one
different ways that you
can do it i've got a whole video on
cheap sources of mulch that you should
check out
but remember to mulch your garden
mistake number five is
not preparing the soil not taking the
time to prepare the soil before you
plant now
if you're growing in a raised bed or a
container that just means selecting the
right container mix which i'll do a
video on
this spring but let's just take this bed
for example this is the no dig bed that
i did in collaboration with charles
doubting and
many of you who watch that video you'll
know that even during the making of that
video i was critiquing my own
process as compared to charles who is
the master of the no dig garden bed
and so i actually ended up making some
changes to this bed
based on some of the mistakes i thought
i made and then later knew i made in the
soil preparation so
what i did here is i added a bunch of
pumice to this to lighten it up
i was noticing that i was getting a
little stunted growth here in the no dig
bed
because i think the compost mixture was
just holding way too much water it's
just way too much
and so that was a soil preparation
mistake that if i didn't
know that and i had a couple years of
gardening under my belt
i would have just let that be and then
these cabbage plants would have just sat
here
doing nothing for three four months
because they have no ability
to actually take in nutrients and grow
so soil preparation now
if you're growing in ground the first
thing i recommend wholeheartedly it's a
little annoying to do is to get a soil
test you have to do this
to know what type of soil you're working
with i have a video on some diy soil
tests you can do
but nothing's going to beat hitting up
your local nursery and saying hey can
you put me in touch with someone who can
do a soil test
and they'll give you not only the
composition of your soil but the
nutritive qualities of your soil how
much organic matter's in the soil are
you deficient in any particular
macronutrient
as well as if you want it's probably a
little bit of extra money you can get a
heavy metal
and salt report as well just to see if
there's anything really funky going on
with your soil especially when you're
planting in ground
in a new space because you just don't
know what happened
in the decades before you lived in this
place so
soil preparation is a massive massive
mistake that you can avoid
of course by doing the preparation
mistake number six
and seven i'm gonna give you a
two-parter here in this exact bed
is planting things that you don't like
to eat so here i have some beets and
some kale
fortunately i have learned to like beets
a lot more i like to roast them up now
but kale i've always liked so these are
two things that i enjoy eating
now i think what a lot of beginners will
do is they might google
easiest plants to grow beginner
gardening suggestions things like that
and then they'll just grow whatever that
says without any regard for
if you like to eat that plant now
look i love growing weird plants unique
plants plants that maybe i don't even
like to eat so i do break this rule
for the love of the grow for the love of
the garden i want to see something
interesting and maybe i'll just give it
to someone else who does like it but
if you're trying to grow a garden for
your family and maybe some friends and
of course yourself
pick the things that you actually like
to eat it's a little silly to grow
something spend all this time and care
to never harvest it and even if you do
harvest it not use it it's just a little
bit of a waste now number seven the
twofer here is
this is a pretty densely packed bed now
that it's grown in
but i will confess that when things were
getting a little busy here
at epic gardening i was not spending as
much time in this particular bed as i
would have wanted to
and so i have the beets that i direct
sowed as well as the kale that i direct
sowed
but i usually put a couple different
plants in per hole a couple
different seeds just to guarantee that
something germinates now with beets
you don't need to do that beets actually
have a compound seed of sorts and
one what looks like a seed actually has
multiple seeds within it
but still you have to thin that out so
you can plant number one you can plant
too
densely seed to seed so you can actually
just plant them too close together
but number two you cannot thin them out
after they've germinated so what
happened in this particular bed and of
course now it looks really good and i'm
really excited
no disease beautiful structure on the
beets and the kale
but what was happening before was i had
two three plants
right here two three plants right here
two three right there
the beets had a couple different beets
all trying to grow next to each other
and you can do it they're just going to
be a lot smaller and that's what
happened they were just a little bit
small still healthy but small and as
soon as i thinned them out and gave them
some room to breathe they all
blew up in size so while small space
gardening is where i came from
and i love cramming plants in small
spaces you still have to respect
there is a certain limit upon which you
can cram things in
mistake number eight is planting things
at the wrong time of year and i think
this hits
warmer climate gardeners more than
colder climate gardeners because colder
climate gardeners you have a true
beginning and
end to your season with your first and
last frost dates and you can plant
things a little early
a little late sure but you're not gonna
walk outside in the middle of the snow
and be like oh it's a great time to grow
tomatoes it's just not gonna happen
whereas
in the higher zones zones 9 10 11
you can get tricked because it's really
not too cold at
any point in time i would say maybe
about 40 degrees
fahrenheit at the absolute lowest in
some of these zones and so it looks like
a time that you could plant just about
anything and so i'll get questions from
people saying oh i planted my tomatoes
i planted my you know my cucumbers and
it's november are they gonna do okay and
the answer is
technically yes they're not gonna just
immediately die because they know it's
the wrong time to be planted
but they're not going to thrive and so
you have to respect
the time of year that a plant wants to
grow
a summer crop like a tomato or cucumber
of course is going to be
best done in late spring through summer
maybe you can get a second planting of
that if you're in a warmer zone
but you really do have to respect this
and for me in my warmer zone i need to
respect that there's certain plants that
like it colder that i just can't grow in
the summer
i'm going to struggle to grow cilantro
for example i'm going gonna struggle to
grow
leaf lettuce in full sun in the summer
of course so
right now in spring it's the perfect
time for me to grow some of those crops
and either preserve them although maybe
not for the lettuce and cilantro but
just respect the season and you'll have
a lot more success and if you want to
know how to do that
what i suggest is watching my video on
hardiness zones explained that will kind
of give you the primer on that
and then honestly ask experienced
gardeners which leads us to our final
tip our final mistake
is to not lean on the experience of
others gardening is a craft that's been
passed down generation after generation
after generation
all cultures around the world and
they're guaranteed our people alive
right now probably within a mile of you
that know a lot more
than you may ever know about gardening
because they've been doing it since they
were
15 and they're 80 now and so ask them
how they do things
and lean on them there's a couple
different ways you can do this number
one if you have someone in your
neighborhood
that you know gardens knock on their
door i guarantee you a gardener is going
to want to talk about gardening with you
until they're blue in the face
number two you can go to a local county
extension office
just google your city and then extension
office and it should show up
you can call them you can email them
they're literally volunteers
master gardeners that their whole job is
to help you succeed in your climate and
in your area
and then third engage with the gardening
community i actually created a discord
server
for epic gardening we have about 3000
people in there right now sharing based
on where
they are in the world based on the type
of crop that they're growing
and it's basically just like an online
chat room so check it out i created it
we're having a lot of fun in there right
now
so i highly recommend you check that out
but until next time
hopefully these tips helped you avoid
some mistakes in your upcoming season of
gardening
good luck in the garden and keep on
growing