Prepping in the Waiting Room: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyYCYOvmuEU&t=1416s
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Fast Growing Food: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4R4k2EzpSIg&t=815s
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Natalie’s channel on starting a Worm Farm: https://youtu.be/buKms5BT8kM
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Excellent as always! Sooo..growing beans, pole vs Bush? Do both need trellises?
Thank you!
On the same note of not throwing things away, COMPOST, COMPOST, COMPOST! Plants need good soil to grow in, and if you cant buy it, learn how to make it! Find your local horse, cow, and poultry farmers they are always looking for ways to get rid of the poop without having to pay to have it removed. Also Epsom salt is a great fertilizer, it contains magnesium and sulfur, and is super cheap! With good compost and some Epsom salt you will never need to buy fertilizer!
I saved seeds from a squash from Tuscany. But if I were to grow indoors I live in Connecticut, I have no green house but am new to this home.
THANK YOU! I have successfully grown plenty of food from 12 year old seed. Keep them clean and dry and at a relatively stable temperature. I would NEVER throw away seed, ever.
Let nature decide. Either the birds will eat it or they will rot in place but I will always give them a chance.
For those who don’t have a space to garden. Lots of towns have community gardens. Best wishes.
I have a lot of seeds in my collection something like 10 1 gallong bags worth on hand and i have probably another 10 in the basement of a friends house although those may have been destroyed but i am saving seeds for myself and family and friends and their families (more than 200 people) so my collection will be quite large. i live in a rental home that only has a small garden area and thats all the owner will permit growing in so over the winter i am getting a lot of large pots and i will be doing a large chunk of my gardening next string in pots
For the most part, the smaller the seed the less food it has to survive and also germinate. However, in the wild the correct circumstances for that particular plant may not come along every year. So if a seed won't last for more than a year the plant may die out. It is my opinion that most of the germination problems we have with seeds (including lasting only a year) are because of breeding choices for plants that have been domesticated for a long time.
To help with this, I sow my oldest seeds and get seeds from them, reinforcing the genes that allow for seed survival over a longer period.
Being a newbie to growing food in my garden I made a big goof up. I had several packages of seeds that were open from previous years and was afraid I would lose the seeds from. So I took each kind and put them into empty medication bottles for storing them and put a label on of what they were. My problem is that I have no idea exactly what type of tomatoes, carrots etc. that they are or how long they take to grow because I threw out the packages. Because I don't know how long they take to grow I don't know if I need to replant since I am not getting any plants growing (I planted toward the end of August and middle of September). I purchased new garden soil like I usually do this year but have only had a couple of things pop up, corn and garlic mainly, although I am starting to see some carrots, but my radishes, onion and beets and other stuff have done nothing. I was told it could be the soil I bought but I have no idea what I need to do to help it. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
When covid hit I decided I would not buy any seeds. The stores were crowded and mail order was 8 weeks behind. I tested a lot of old seed and some I only had a few of. Got lucky and found some packs of seed my son bought 5 yrs. ago but never planted. I still had a full garden and nothing was missing. I'm now saving more seed so I never have to do that again. Can't believe how many gardeners give away seed packets they can't use that year or just throw them out.
The one crop that it is important to keep from cross pollinating is corn. It shows in the first generation. Popcorn and dent corn are always dominate to sweet corn, so if you want to save seed for sweet corn, don't grow any other corn near it.
The best tomato I grew this year was a volunteer that was a hybrid created from last years garden.
I have vacuum sealed extra seeds, labeled with date and type/ variety in tiny pouches that I can cut apart. They are stored in a coffee tin in my deep freezer. I have not found anything online about vacuum sealing and freezing seeds, so I don’t know what, if anything will germinate. My thoughts are that by vacuum sealing them will prevent ice buildup on them. Since freezing, I have checked them and there is no ice or “frost” in or on the packages. I try to freeze seeds that I have left over from the summer/ fall plantings while keeping in mind of what and how much I plan to plant the following year. Anyone else vacuum seal their seeds?
I have watched you for quite a while now. I just wanted to say thank you! Just from your content that you put into the world you can tell how much you care about others and are so passionate about what you do. I am so excited to watch these "classroom" lessons and pray that we all learn from you and each other. ❤️
One underestimated resource is libraries! My local library has a seed library and I knew that the seeds in those drawers were varieties already acclimated/able to grow in my area because they had been saved by my neighbors. That's how I started my seed collection and I now save from my own garden and donate back to the seed library.
This year I grew okra for the 5th summer from seeds from ‘Mr. D’s’ dry okra pods he gave me for the seeds. What a pleasure to carry over buckets of okra to him as he did not garden this year❤️
I have watched you for years, along with epic gardener, Charles Downing, Stefan Sobkowiak – The Permaculture Orchard, Simple Living Alaska, Canadian Permaculture Legacy, Urban Farmer, Deep South Homestead, it all started with a rabbit hole and finding the Ruth Stout method, I found a video from a channel called back to reality that was about 4 years ago… those reviews you used to do on seeds, I used to watch them just because I find you and your families channel humble and genuine. Even if they didn’t work for me, I never have thought I got bad information because you were trying to sell something to gain a profit for yourself. To me your attitude in adversity, is a breath of fresh air. You will have challenges that you will have to sort out based on your location, soil, water, etc… I have been blessed and there is something special about growing your own food.
I have seeds in my freezer from my dad's collection. 30 yrs old
Awesome video! Thank you for sharing your knowledge,experience and wisdom.
Ya I tried to isolate one of my favorite that was handed down heirloom and unfortunately the isolated ones grew a tomato but did top late in the season and well didnt get ripe tomato but did save wjat were ripe so hopefully I didn't ruin those seeds for years of seed saving
A friend gave me good advice, if you have "old" seeds , you put them on a paper plate, between a paper towel, add water and see which ones are good.
1. Buy heirloom seeds or seeds that are able to produce seed.
2. Learn to leave 2 plants in your row to go to seed and do not harvest them until you can harvests the seeds. There are plenty of youtube videos to teach you how.
3. Seeds you buy have been packaged that year. But if they were not stored properly the viability can not germinate. A shadow box or a dark box they can last 100 years.
4. You can save your seeds in envelops in a dark dry place in a box that was not sprayed with chemicals. My grandmother did this during the great depression in Idaho and had seeds that were viable up to 12 years but she never had any left to test if seeds lasted longer since she would run out before then on her test seeds.
5. Learn to grow complementary plants together like the 3 sisters.
6. The taste of produce of any kind soil and nutrients used and when as well as the weather conditions.
7. My grandma kept her seeds in a shoebox in envelopes and stored them in a closet where it would not get hot or wet.
Thank you for being so encouraging and genuinely helpful. These are Actionable suggestions for anyone, no matter where they are at in their self sufficiency journey. The feeling I get from many preppers and steaders these days is that they are almost gloating about how prepared they are and if you aren't where they're at, well that sucks for you and you're in trouble. It's so discouraging, especially when many of us want to be self sufficient but are still in the early days of that process.
I bought a bag of dried black-eyed peas from the grocery store that was meant to be cooked & planted them. I canned tons of black-eyed peas off of a handful.
Don't forget Jess has a book out too!!! The First Time Gardener Growing Vegetables. It is available on Amazon and in bookstores.
Thanks for speaking truth Jess!! I was SO stressed out with saving seeds for the first time but it doesn't always have to be that complicated. You can save any seeds if you want. I appreciate it.