What 6 Weeks Did to My Backyard Garden: Before & After

You asked and now it’s here! Today I’m sharing and update of my spring garden that we started a mere 6 weeks ago! Since then there has been so much growth. In today’s video I’ll give you a tour of my Texas garden complete with before and after footage and I’ll share gardening tips, and do a few garden chores along the way.

Got a idea you’d like to suggest for a future video? Let me know in the comments…I love hearing from you!

***WHAT TO WATCH NEXT***

***VIDEO TIME STAMPS***
0:00 Intro
1:39 Squash Growing Tips & Common Pests
3:34 Squash & Beans Before & After
4:26 Pepper Plants Before & After
5:27 Corn & Lettuce Before & After
5:49 Tomato Plants Before & After
6:50 Growing Blackberries
7:59 Protecting Plants from Birds
8:55 DIY Trellis
11:47 Netting Blueberries
12:30 Planting Roselle Hibiscus
15:30 It’s All Worth It!
16:44 More Before & After Footage

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PRODUCTS I USE
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The below includes affiliate links in which I may earn a small commission, at no added cost to you.

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Y’all, I cannot believe it has been six weeks, a little over six weeks actually, since I brought y’all along and we planted my spring garden. And you all have been asking for an update and it is officially here in the form of this video. Things are feeling lush and abundant and green. And quite frankly, over the next month or so, this is probably like peak time before we get into the summer and the Texas sun starts to incinerate all life in my garden. As a reminder, I’m here off the Texas G Coast in the Houston metro area on the border of zones 9A and 8B. And so, I’m going to give y’all a tour. And, you know, it’s also going to be sort of like um a working walkabout because I also have some chores I need to do. I’ve got to plant my rosel habiscus as well as I need to create a a trellis for my blackberries. So, I’ll show you how to do that. Everyone loves a good before and after. So, I’ll show you some footage of some of my beds before of when we first planted them, and you’ll see just how much they’ve grown in a short span of time. And, you know, along the way, we’ll probably harvest a few things and do whatever else, you know, just needs to be done along the way. And as always, I will always drop the tea and share with you all helpful tips to ensure you have an abundant and thriving growing season. Not only this season, but for seasons to come. Let’s go. There’s a bee just chilling. Not even pollinating, just chilling. I know that’s right, Mr. Bee. I feel you. I feel that. This is my bed with my squash, y’all. And I just have to say like the bees are out today in droves. Every like flower I peek into like the bees are at work. In growing squash there are several pests that are the bane of most squash growers existence and that’s the squash vonbore, squash bugs, leafooted bugs and the cucumber beetle. Convors are inconsiderate pests because what the females will do as opposed to having the decency to lay their eggs in clusters like squash bugs do do, they lay a single egg in random spots of your plant. And when this hatches, it will actually bore holes into your squash plants and eat them from the inside out, therefore killing your plants. If you don’t want to squish squash this with like your fingers, I a lot of times will come out here with some tape and just tape them off that way and get rid of them like that. In an effort to mitigate pest damage for any of those naughty pests I mentioned, it’s really important to come out and inspect the stems, the leaves, especially the underside of the leaves, as well as the blooms for any of these pests. They are far easier to control and get rid of when they are eggs or even in their nymph stage as opposed to when they are adults. However, when they are adults, I do still treat them with my good old soapy water. Squash is also very susceptible to something called powdery mildew. As with most fungal issues, airflow is key. So, I will come out and make sure that I prune the bottom leaves that are maybe touching the ground, as well as prune back any leaves that have died back or look a little funky, either from insect damage or as a plant ages, the bottom leaves will naturally start to die back. [Music] So, this pepper I think actually has too many peppers on them and it’s actually stunting the growth of the plant. If you can see, these were the exact same variety. They were planted around the same time, but I’ve done a little bit a better job of thinning out some of the blooms compared to this one. And as you can see, the fruits are a lot smaller. So, I’m going to go ahead and harvest majority of these and then some of the flowers out a bit. [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] This is one of the rows of my blackberries and baby they are showing out this year. If you are considering growing blackberries, it’s important to note there are two main types, floricanes and primacanes. All of these blackberries here are primacanes and these are the prime arc freedoms I believe. And what does that mean exactly? So a a primacaane simply means that the plant is going to produce fruit on its first year cane. And this is the cane here. And that means you can literally buy a primacaane um blackberry and if you take fabulous care of it and it produces canes you could technically get fruit within that same season as opposed to these here that I’ve done a poor job in trellising cuz they are actually not trellis. These are floricanes and floricanees produces fruit on its second year cane. So, this means that this plant put out this cane last year and this year you’re you’re seeing that it’s starting to flower and it is fruing. So, we have two chores for our blackberries today. One, one of the most annoying pests for blackberries and really any berries or any fruit are birds. And so, last year I did a very poor job at netting my berries. Therefore, I got hardly any berries. And so this year I am prepared and so I’m going to be netting my blackberries. The second thing I need to do is I need to put the floricanes on a trellis and I will show you how I set that up. There are some that avoid using netting because of the potential risk of birds getting entangled in it and possibly dying. However, I have never had that happen. But I do keep a close watch on it and so I wanted to call that out. So, for my blackberry trellis, as much as I love the design, I cannot take credit for it. I did not come up with it. I’ve seen it online a few times, so I don’t actually know who came up with the design first. However, credit where credit is due. However, I don’t know who to give credit to, but I can’t take credit for it. So, just wanted to call that out. For supplies, you’re going to need two Upupost. And you want to make sure you get Upost and not Tpost because Upupost have the holes you’re going to need to set things up. I highly recommend investing in a post driver. It will make your life 10 times easier, especially if you have clay soil as well as airline cable. Now, this is rated for over 1,500 lb. A cable cutter, not a wire cutter, y’all. Will not work as well. You’re also going to need two turnbuckles, four eyebolts with the nuts, four crimping loops, and either wire cutters or a crimping tool. Start off by positioning your upupost at a 45° angle, and then using the post driver to pound in the ground. You want to continue to drive it in until the anchor plates are completely buried into the ground. Screw in the eyebolts at the desired hole height, ensuring that the eyebolt is placed horizontally. I am creating a twocable trellis. So I am going to put two eyebolts on each upost. One towards the top and one towards the bottom. Next, you’re going to unscrew each end of your turnbuckles, but not enough to completely remove either end. This is going to allow you to apply tension as the weight of the fruit will create slack in the cables over time. Next, hook your turnbuckle into one of the top eyebolts. Run the cable through one side of the crimping loop. Next, run the cable through the loop end of the turnbuckle. Next, run the cable through the opposite side of the crimping loop. Pull down on the cable to tighten. Next, use your wire cutters or a crimping tool to crimp or cinch the crimping loop in place. Cut your cable to the appropriate length, leaving a few inches extra on the end. Loop the opposite end of the cable through one side of the crimping loop. Run the cable through the eyebolt. Pull on the cable to remove any slack and then pull the cable through the other end of the crimping loop. Use your wire cutters or crimping tool to fasten the crimping loop into place. Repeat all these steps for the bottom level of your trellis. [Music] So, this is my grower over here that I have containerized trees and shrubs. And in this area, I have blueberries. And blueberries are another vari that grows really well here provided that you plant the right varieties. I have rabbit eye varieties as well as southern high bush. And I have a complete growing guide that shows you how to plant blueberries, how to pick the right varieties based on your growing zone. I will link it below. Birds have already stripped a lot of the fruit off of these. Um but there’s still some on here. So I need to get over here ASAP and net them. So, this next task, y’all, I ain’t going to even lie, I have been putting off for the longest. And that is to plant my rosale habiscus. And it’s not the planting I’ve been putting off. It’s the fact that I still need to remove the plant from last year that is a small tree. It got over 10 ft wide and almost 6 ft tall. And so now there is a skeleton of what once was. So I’ve got my handheld saw, my safety goggles. I’m ready to get this out the way because I want my Rosel Habiscus Jam this year. And if you have not had Rosel Habiscus Jam, you are missing out. Under my forest of habiscus, I had some oregano growing, some garlic chives, some walking onions, but I also had some chamomile that receded itself as well as some deal that receded itself. However, I don’t want either in this bed. So, I am relocating both of them. I also came across this mucousy substance that freaked me out, but I found out it’s called snake spit, which further freaked me out, but it’s not caused by actual snakes. It’s produced by this insect called the spittlebug. While they’re in their nymph stage, they create this substance as a means for shelter and protection. So, yeah, snakes bit, but not made by actual snakes. [Music] So there are still quite a bit we have not gone through in terms of before and after. So, what I think I’m going to do is I’m actually going to put a B-roll of all that at the end of this video. But first, I wanted to thank you all for those of you um who have shown such immense support and have shared such kind words. It means the world to me. I greatly appreciate it. Like I put off starting this YouTube channel for I don’t know how long. And you know, sometimes this whole process, not only YouTube, but just this whole gardening and self-sufficiency or road to self-sufficiency can be quite discouraging. Sometimes things don’t always go as planned. Things die. There’s like the weather. There’s the heat. Like I don’t always want to get out in the in the Texas heat and humidity. And you know, times like this where I can actually like sit back and reflect and see the fruits of my labor. it makes it all worth it. So, I appreciate you all for being part of this journey um with me and sticking along for the ride. And if you are new here, first off, welcome. My name is Dria and this is Kata Lead and Clay. And if you are interested to see where all this madness started when I first brought y’all along and started my spring garden, I will link that below. Even if it’s one thing, commit to growing something. But y’all already know the deal. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and hit that bell. And remember, every black thumb ripens to green, and it all just starts with a seed. Here we [Music] go. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat.