September Garden Harvest + New Raised Bed Update

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Hi! I am Barbara with Living Foods Farm. THANK YOU for coming to my channel and growing with me on my journey. I enjoy every comment, question and like. I am happy you are on the journey with us.
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Hey friends, welcome or welcome back. If you’re new here, please say hello in the chat. Let me know where you’re coming in from, what state or country, so I can say hello back. I’m so glad that you landed on my channel today. And if you’ve been here before, thank you so much for continuing to support us on our gardener’s journey. Absolutely. It is everybody’s journey if you’re a gardener. Your journey may look different than mine, but on this channel, I talk about my journey, my wins, my losses, the things that I learned, the things that didn’t go well, the things that went great. I talk about it all on this channel. And then we even go inside the house and cook some stuff up from farm to table in the kitchen DIY and all the things. But today’s video, we’re going to show you what we’re still harvesting in the month of September. Our summer garden is dwindling as we prepare for fall, but we are still getting a nice size harvest for at least I would say for the week. Um and so we’re going to grab a basket and see what we can um get out here today. But before we do that, I want to show you my new my new garden bed. my new garden. Yes, I know. I know you’re thinking, “Now, where did you put a new garden bed?” Come on. I’m going to show you. Let’s go this way. Now, you can see behind me where I walked from, that is where our corn was. And we’ve already gotten the corn pulled up. And so I’ve been telling you and I I like this approach. Instead of us trying to pull up everything at one time at the end of the season, we’ve been pulling stuff up as we go. As things go bad, as we’re done harvesting, as um the plant is no longer, you know, producing anymore, we’ve been pulling things up and I like that approach much better. It’s my first time doing that and I think I will do it from here on out. So I um all the corn has been pulled up, so that’s good. The okra will be the next thing to be pulled up. You can see here that we still have okra on the vine. I’m not going to be harvesting those today. I’m actually letting those go to seed. Um, and so if you’re a new gardener, what do I mean when I say go to seed? It means I’m going to let this um, okra pretty much die on the vine, right? And so I’m no longer harvesting it for a couple of reasons. One, I have enough okra I don’t need anymore. And then two, it’s too tall. I can’t even reach it. And so in order to harvest it, my husband won’t have to come out here. And my husband’s been tied up for the past week or so, he has not been able to make it to the garden. So that that’s the reason why. Um and so I already told I mean I have enough okra that um for what we need for until next summer. So I am good. I have plenty of okra in my freezer. So if I don’t get any more, it’s not a big deal. So now I’m just going to let these pods sit on there. And it’s funny how again it’s toward the end of the of the um summer season, but anytime you stop harvesting a plant, it will start to slow down its production, right? The more you pick, the more you harvest, the more the plant’s like, “Oh, we we’re alive. You want us? Okay, we’ll produce more.” But once you stop picking the fruit, it starts to slow down. Because you have to remember the life cycle of a seed. It starts off as a as a seed and its whole job is to go back to seed, right? And so that is the final process um of the life cycle is to go back to seed. Um it’s kind of like humans, right? Um God formed man out of the dust of the earth and then you go back to dust. Okay, similar concept. Um so the whole point is that it’s going to go back to seed. So I’m going to let it kind of die on the vine vine. Right now it is still green. Um you can see that it’s oversized. It’s big. Like even if I wanted to pick it now, it wouldn’t be any good. It’s going to be very hard, very woody. not really edible to eat because they are they’re pretty much overgrown. But what will happen is they will start to turn brown and they will kind of dry out themselves and then I will be able to break open the pod and the okra seeds will be on the inside and those will be the okra seeds that I can save and use for next summer’s garden and the year after that and the year after that. So that is the beautiful thing especially when you are growing heirloom plants is that you once somebody gives you one seed packet you never have to be without food because as long as you save the seeds you can plant it over and over and over again. God has designed this thing so beautifully right so beautifully. Now when it comes to hybrid I do a lot of hybrids. So when it comes to hybrid seeds I don’t save those. Now can you plant hybrid seeds next year? You can, but it’s not going to be a consistent crop. For example, if you um were to have a hybrid tomato and you save the seeds from that, will you get a tomato next year? Yes, you’ll get a tomato, but it may not look like it may not be the shape and that may not be intense color. It’s not going to be consistent because a hybrid seed is not consistent. It’s not stabilized versus an heirloom seed is. Okay. So, I’m letting this okra go to seed. Um and then once it goes to seed, gets dry, I’ll pull the seeds from it. Then we will pull up the plant if it doesn’t produce any more. Um, right. Like it’s starting to slow down production, but I do see some new pods um popping up. I have enough. I’m counting right now. I got at least at least 20 big okra stems. That is more than enough seeds to get me wherever I need to go next summer and the summer after that and the summer after that. So, but let’s go ahead and let me show you my new raised bed. So, y’all look at her. Look at her. Is she not beautiful? She is beautiful. Okay, so if you’re new around these parts, um, so I have three main garden spaces. So we have a high tunnel which is to the left of me. You can kind of see that there. That’s the high tunnel. And then we have this outside garden where I am standing. And then we have a garden in the back of our house, which is where my garden started. So I started behind my house with four raised beds. And then we kind of grew to all of this in the last five years. Um, but one of the things that I started doing last year, every year I feel expansion, right? Every year I feel like we need to add a little bit more. We need to add, you can’t have, you can’t have too much food. You cannot have too much food. So last year I’m like, okay, how do I get more food without expanding the garden this way and incurring more cost, more fencing and all that stuff. And so I had the idea um to start building up raised beds along the perimeter. So, this is basically unused space, right? It’s kind of right up against the fence. Um, I wouldn’t plant anything, you know? Well, we hadn’t planted anything here. I mean, you could, but I wanted to have raised beds and, um, and just kind of form them all along the perimeter. So, you can see it starts all the way down there. We started this last year with one raised bed. Oh, okay, y’all. I thought I felt something. It’s nothing but the um ochre vine. Um, so we started with one raised bed and then we built up from there. And so basically what I’ve done, um, there have been some beds that have been sponsored, but there have been other beds that I’ve just bought with my own money. And so as I have extra money, I’ll buy a bed, right? And I especially will do that, um, in the fall. I think this past fall, I bought two beds and then I want to say I bought one in the spring. Um, and so that’s kind of how I do it. And so I’m not in a mad rush to fill up, you know, the hole. is just as I as I have as I get it and that’s what happens. And so all of my beds out here with the exception of one um is VGO Garden. VGO Garden, I am an affiliate for them and I love love love their products. My very first metal raised bed, I have two inside of my high tunnel are VGO garden beds. And so the they have different colors, but to keep it consistent, I kind of just chose the ivory um um color to kind of keep it consistent. and I know that it’ll just kind of go with anything and all of that, but you can they have other colors that you can get. I have different sizes of raised beds um as well. Um and so down on the far end I have a 32 in high bed. Um we have not planted in it yet. Um and we just got some dirt in it the other day when we filled this one up. And then in between I have like a four a 2 by8 a 2 by10 and I think a 2 by six if I’m not mistake. So I have all different um sizes. And then in terms of height I have that 32 inch. But then this is my new raised bed. This is the elevated raised garden bed from VGO garden. And y’all she is definitely my favorite. Let me tell you who it’s perfect for. It’s perfect for anybody who hears the sound of my voice. You did you hear that in church before? Anybody under the sound of my voice. It is perfect for, but it’s especially perfect for if you have back issues, knee issues, elder issues. It you may be young on camp, I don’t know, but especially if you’re um up in age, and you don’t garden because it hurts, right? It hurts your back, it hurts your knees. This is a perfect bed because literally, y’all, it is waist high. I don’t have to bend. I don’t have to squat. I don’t have to do anything. I literally I am at the level where I can just plant. It is absolutely wonderful. Now, this is a two by is it a 2 by eight? A 2 by8. They come in 2×4 and 2×6. I do have a code um in the description box. I will also put that up here. You can get um 10 I think it’s $10 off of your order or 5% off of the bed. I will put all the information up at the top, but you can go to my description box and get the code to get a savings. This right here also comes with wheels. Now, what I’m going to show you is I’m going to show you some footage of us actually putting not us, my husband putting it together. And we put it together actually in um our family room of our house. And then my husband wheeled it down here. Why? Because it got wheels, y’all. It has wheels. So, before I go in about this raised bed, let me show you the footage of us of my husband. we are one of us putting the bed together and bringing it down to the garden. Okay, so all the parts um are laid out. Um my husband literally puts it together in like an hour. You can see that’s the finished product. Um he’s putting the wheels on as you can see there, which makes it very easy to transport and to move around cuz can you imagine if you live by yourself and you had to carry this to wherever you wanted to go? That would be a challenge. But the wheels make it super super easy. So once he gets all the wheels on all the way, he puts the shelving in at the bottom. I love the fact that it has shelves um in it or on it so that way you can um store your stuff. And then this is him and one of the guys that works on the property that um helps him get it down to the garden. And then they fill it up with dirt and she is ready to go. Just like that. Okay, y’all. This thing is absolutely amazing. So, it’s 32 in high. So, it’s at um waist level, but the planting depth is only 12 in. So, as the difference between this one and this one, it definitely the difference between this one and the one down at the end that’s circular that’s 32 inches high is that all of that you have to fill up 32 inches high with soil. Right? this the planting depth is only 12 in and so it’s way less soil that you have to fill up. Plus, I love that it has a shelf on the bottom where you can come and put your trays, your soil, your compost, whatever you want to have it. Now, once you put soil in it, it’s going to be pretty hard um to move. Now, if you have a smaller one, maybe not, but this is the 2×8. Um but it was so easy for my husband to wheel it down here to get it in position. It was much easier for him to put it together at the house. Um, and one of the things like my husband puts together all the stuff that, you know, I I order all the stuff that I get. Um, and he by far always says that VGO Garden does such an excellent job with their instructions. It is well put together. They have videos. They have easy to follow instructions. They send you everything you need. You can put it together. So, so nice. So, that is the beautiful thing um about this bed. Now, let me tell you about we’ve already filled it up pretty much um with soil. And this is the soil. If you’ve been here, remember I got a big um truckload or no, a big Yeah, a big truck load that came in the spring. And so I can’t remember how many yards we got. It was I have to go back to my notes and I’ll try to put it up here if I can remember. But anyway, we spent I want to say like $600 or $700. It was like a big I mean was a huge. And we filled up all of the raised beds that you see, all of the um ivory colored ones. And y’all, I had soil left over. It filled up this bed and it filled up the 32 inch. So, I feel like I got my money’s worth. I feel like I got my money. Now, it was hard to pay that, you know, when it came. But that and that raised bed, um, what we got was landscape raised bed mix. It was absolutely wonderful. And it was from like a nursery that was like 4550 minutes away. So, I also had to pay a delivery charge. That was included in the price. But, so the actual mix itself was probably like maybe$450 and then the delivery charge was like, I don’t know 150, 175, something like that. But y’all, that’s what you got to do sometimes. Um, because I don’t, it was cheaper to do that than to go buy bags of soil over and over, which I do that a lot. Buy bags of soil over and over, especially when I’m trying to fill up something new. So, I feel like I got my money’s worth because I was wondering now, how am I going to fill up this 32 in um raised bed, that big one, and y’all, it’s almost up at the top. So, I’m glad about that. Now, this one is pretty much ready, but I saved this last part so we can do it together. So, I have here, this is the um mix that I got. It’s been sitting on a tarp um at the edge of my um on the side of my driveway for months. I got this back in like February or March. Um and so, it’s definitely dry. I’ve been watering it trying to kind of wake the soil um up, but it had a lot of it had some weeds growing growing in it even though we had it tarped. And so the person that I had helped me, they kind of pulled the weeds out and stuff like that and pulled it at the root instead of just kind of bringing it all in. So we try to eliminate as much weed seeds as we possibly could. But I’m going to top it with some new fresh soil. Even though this is new, it’s been sitting, if that makes sense. And so, Happy Frog has a new raised bed mix that I’m going to use to kind of top this off. Um, I love Happy Frog. You guys always ask me what type of soil that I’m using. I have three kinds that I use on my farm and that is it when I’m growing vegetables. Now, for my flowers, not my flowers in my vegetable garden, but like flowers like in my pots, landscape in the house, I’ll use some cheaper stuff, stuff that I wouldn’t use on my on my food. But when it comes to soil, I use Backto, Happy Frog, and Coast of Maine. That is it. That is it. Coast of Maine is my number one. Happy Frog is my number two. Backto is my number three. But those are the three that I use. So, I was excited to see that um Oh, woo y’all. I was excited to see that Happy Frog has now a raised bed mix specifically for raised beds. So, I picked up a bag so that we could try it. I normally get the potting soil. So, let’s open her up. And let me just tell you, soil matters. Y’all know if you’ve been here long enough, you know there’s a certain brand that I do not like. And you ain’t going to never see me put it in my garden, in my vegetable garden. Oh, yeah. This looks good. Look at that. Oh y’all, it’s something about fresh fresh soil. I love it. Then I’m going to get you guys to help me plant this. You like, Barbara, how we going to help you plant? We don’t live where you live. You going to help me plant via the internet, okay? Via this video. I want you guys to put down your thoughts about what I should plant in this bed. But let me give you a couple of thoughts. Not criteria, but some thoughts because I’ve been trying to figure out what I want to plant in this bed. I really, cuz this is the easiest bed that I have in my entire garden. And you best believe I want some more of these because um I’m of a certain age and my knees and my back don’t act like my 30-year-old knees and back. Okay. Um so I’m trying to figure out what to plant it in now for the fall because in the fall and winter I won’t be gardening in this space. We only use our hot tunnel um primarily because we can grow all of our food that we need for the fall and winter. So, I don’t want to put anything out here that I have to come tend to um because I’m not going to be out here tending to anything else um in the cold. And I also don’t want to put things that I’m not going to be able to enjoy. Does that make sense? I won’t be out here during the fall and winter like I am in the summer. And so, if there’s something that’s growing beautiful, um I won’t really be able to enjoy because I won’t be out here. Nothing else will be out here. So, I had a thought of maybe doing snapdragons in here. um and letting them over winter. And so when when it comes to spring, I’ll have a nice pretty big surprise. Although in the spring, we not going to have stuff out here. We don’t have stuff out here until like end of April, 1st of May because we only use this space for the summer. Then I thought about Y’all, this bag heavy. Um then I thought about Okay, there we go. Okay, once I got it halfway. So then I thought about, do I want to use this for herbs, right? And I thought about maybe I make this my mint bed and I have all different kinds of men in this bed because, you know, mint needs to be in a container. Mint is not allowed to run off by herself because she can’t be trusted. Wherever she goes, she’s going to take up the whole space. But I’m like, this is my easiest bed that I have, meaning I don’t have to be in. Do I want something in there that I don’t get a chance to plant in? Meaning, once I have the mint in here, it’s in here, right? I mean, it don’t need much. It’s going to take up this whole bed. Then I thought about, what about my lemon balm? I didn’t, you know, I could grow more lemon balm. I don’t know. I really want to be able to use it to where I can use it. Meaning I have the what’s the word? I’ll have the joy of being able to plant in here and be like, “Oh, I can just do and don’t have to ban.” Like even the raised beds I have in my tunnel, they’re 4×8, but they’re 19 inches off the ground. I still got to be in. So, I don’t want to put something in here that is going to grow and I never have to get the joy of planting in this bed. Does that make sense, y’all? It may be faulty thinking, but it is what I’m thinking. Okay, that looks fantastic. I want to be able I can plant something. So, if I plant something in now, the only thing I can come up with are snapdragons. I can put some snapdragons out here, some of them on the back row, and that could be a nice beautiful landscape come spring when they actually bloom. That’ll be pretty. Although, I wouldn’t be out here that much. I mean, they last to probably I would say the snapdragon is going to last until like maybe I don’t know end of May because when it gets too hot they start to fade. Now I could always cut them and they can just overwinter year after year after year. Um so that’s an option. And then when it comes spring I can plant something out here like flowers. Um and I’m thinking should I have low lowline flowers or zenas grow real tall because the bed is already tall. Will that look good? I don’t know. So y’all going to help me plant. Put your suggestions down below. So, I have it filled up with soil. So, I also have a bag of compost out here. I’m going to top it with compost, but I don’t think I’m going to do that yet until I figure out what I’m planting. But y’all, this bed right here, beautiful. If you if you don’t need it or if you have a a a parent that likes to garden, again, maybe they don’t want as big as mine as long the 2×8, but they have a 2×4 and a 2×6. I definitely want me another one. Like I would be a-ok okay if the rest of my perimeter is this kind of bed. I would be a okay with that. Yes, I would. So, let me know your thoughts about what you think about it. Definitely go look in my description box and get the code to be able to get um you a discount using my um using my code. So, you can get either $10 off your entire order or if you just want this bed, you get 5% off the elevated garden bed. Um, I got the 2×8 with wheels and I want to say it was roughly somewhere, I don’t know, I think the cost is around 350 somewhere along that, which to me is a very good price. This bed right here, cuz you would, if you were to build this bed, you’re going to spend at least half of that in wood. And the wood is going to rot in 5 years. Ask me how I know because we started our garden in the back with with wooden raised beds. We’ve already had to replace the wood and I’ve been gardening 5 years. If I had to do all over again, I always say for raised beds, I would go with a metal raised bed. This is food safe. It’s gonna It’s ready to last up to 20 years. No rusting, no anything. The ones that I have in my high tunnel, I’ve had for 3 years. They look brand new. Brand new. And so, definitely if you’re in the market for raised beds, maybe for next spring, next summer, whatever, I would definitely say give this a try and take a look at VGO Garden. You will not be disappointed. They’re so wellmade and absolutely excellent. Let’s see what we can harvest. Okay, we’re going to start um at the beginning and then just kind of work our way down. So, the first stop we’re going to make are these um long thin cayenne peppers. Um and so we have quite a few a couple on here that are blushing or that have already turned red. So, we’re going to pick those and then we have plenty more that are still green as you can see. [Music] Okay. [Music] Okay, guys. So, I just finished harvesting the cayenne. I want to show you something. So, you saw me stop at that first bush. This is the long thin cayenne. I grew this in my garden for the first three years I was gardening. But last year, I tried a new variety from Johnny’s that is cayenne called the red ember. I want you to see the difference in size. That is astounding. And so, one of the things that I always try to do is I try to try some new varieties each gardening season. Now, again, I always take risk. Um, and it’s not necessarily a risk, but let’s say I really depended on cayenne and really really wanted it. I would not just go all over my garden and plant the new one and not plant the one that I’ve been planting. I’m going to plant the new one in certain spots and see if I like it. I loved it. So, I planted way more of this than I did of this. And really, this can really get off my radar. I really just want the red ember because again, look at it. It would take like literally five or six of these to make this. So, when you’re talking about if one of your goals in your gardens is productivity and to get the most bang out of your buck, then find those varieties that give you that and that perform for you consistently over and over and over. So, my husband has joined me out here. He is helping um to harvest. You know, it’s his favorite thing to do. Um, and so he is just like a kid in the candy store. And we’re gonna keep harvesting and I’ll show you the end result of what we get. [Music] Okay, let me show you what we have so far. So, my husband got a whole basket of jalapenos. You can see the size of the basket. There is nothing in here but jalapenos. And that’s just from um a raised bed that has like four plants in it and then some more in the first row. So, we grow a ton of jalapenos because we make jalapeno salt. Um if you have never had jalapeno salt, you need to have some in your life. You can order it on our shop livingfoodsfarm.com. But jalapeno salt, I’ll put the graphic up here. It is good on everything. And so it’s going to have the spice level of jalapeno. So if you can take the spice level of a jalapeno, you can take jalapeno salt. So to me, it’s not real spice at all. It more it just gives your food a kick. So you can put it on popcorn is one of our favorites. French fries, grits, eggs, chili, collard greens, um meat if you eat meat. Like you can put it on basically anything that you just want a little jij it up a little bit, a little kick. It tastes so so good. And so we make it from the jalapenos that we grow on the farm. So that’s why we grow in excess of jalapenos because we um sell that product jalapeno salt. So if you’ve never tried it, definitely order you some. You will be so glad that you did. And if you’ve tried it before, go ahead and leave your your comments down below. Let the people know that the jalapeno salt is something they need on their pantry shelf because when we run out, we run out. So, we last year we were able to make it to like November, December, and then we sold out and we didn’t have it again until this summer. So, go ahead and get your jalapeno salt orders in um before it runs out because let me tell you, it goes fast. As soon as it’s on the website, it goes boom boom boom boom boom. So, don’t delay. Go to living foodsfarm.com and get your jalapeno salt. Now, let me show you what else we harvested. Um this is the basket that I did. So, on the bottom are the cayenne peppers, but then look at all of these bell peppers. And then I have a few I think three cucumbers in here. You can see that there. And then a couple of these AI crystal peppers, but the majority of this bag is bell peppers. This is not from my tunnel. This is just from outside. So, y’all know we talked um last week about the bell peppers inside, how they were kind of putting on the hits, right? They hadn’t been doing much all summer long, but now they’re like, “Let me shine. Let me shine. Let me shine my light. And so I talked about it was about to get evicted, but y’all made a case and said, “Bro, let those peppers stay.” So I haven’t even done those in there. My husband harvested some I think the other day and he got like maybe seven or eight that all looked good, but we did have some bug damage and had to throw some of them away. But y’all out here, I cannot believe it. This is um the yellow monster. It has not been this size all summer long. It was probably half the size. They were not doing well. It was my first time trying yellow monster, but I had heard such great things about them. But now all of a sudden they are literally putting on. Like it’s unbelievable. Look at this one. That is huge. Absolutely huge. Um and so maybe they may they might get redeemed. I might put them in the garden next summer. U I don’t know why they’re producing now, but I’m very thankful. And that’s the one thing why I say it’s always a journey. Like you can’t ever just count it like yes I did this last year. It worked. It’s going to work this year or I got this garden thing licked. It is never licked. You never have it all. You are constantly learning each and every season with every new plant with every new variety. And so because it is a journey, if you want to get to your destination of having food for your family, if you want to get to the destination of not having to go to the grocery store as often, if you want to get to the destination of self- sustainability, you have to keep going. If I’m on my way to New York and I’m going to go see, let’s say my daughter was in New York and I’m like, I desperately want to see her. Oh my goodness, I I cannot wait to see her. I may get in my car and go to New York and I may get a flat tire. I may get in my car and go to New York and maybe I don’t know, one of my lights go out. Like many things can happen on my journey to New York. But if my heart is set that I’m going to go see my daughter, then that means I get back in the car, I get the tire fixed, I get the lights turned back on, and I keep going until I get to my destination. So, let this be a reminder to you. If it did not go well this summer, honey, there is always another season. We in it right now. If it didn’t go quite as planned and it was your first garden, do not say you have a brown thumb. Your thumb is green. Why? Because the Lord said it is. He is the master gardener. He has given us all that we need to grow the food that he desires for us to have. So do not give up. Be encouraged. That was for somebody and me. I don’t know who it was for. That just came came out. So receive it if it’s for you. If it’s not for you, put it on the shelf for another day when you down in the dumps and you like, I’m not going to garden anymore. Let that be a reminder. It is a journey. If you want to get to your destination of being able to grow food for your family, you must keep going. You must keep going. So, my husband is over there on the fruit row, not the fruit orchard, but the row where we have the cantaloupes and the watermelons. I don’t know if he’s finding anything, if they’re done. I have no idea. I haven’t been going over there lately. I just kind of stick to these first five rows because one, when I harvest it, I can’t carry it be too heavy. So, I just let him do that. And again, he harvests he harvests stuff way more than I do cuz he enjoys it. So, when he can get out here and do it, I let him do it. So, let’s check in with him and see if he’s found anything. If he’s just over there twiddling his thumbs, let’s go find out. So, hubby said he did not get anything. So, we think maybe he said there’s a couple of cantaloupe, but they’re not quite ripe yet. They may be okay. He said the watermelon has been the same size for the past month. They’re not growing any bigger. So, the tendril is brown. Yeah. Does it have the yellow spot underneath? Uh, I didn’t check. Okay. He didn’t check that. But I I’ll tell you, we have not had the best watermelon year. We have um it’s been very hit or miss. so hit or miss that we did not sell any because I didn’t trust um selling any to anybody because I would say if we harvested 50 I would say 10 maybe have been like really really really really good and then maybe I don’t know 20 are just okay and then the other 10 is uh we not even eating that. Would you say would you agree honey? Yeah. Yeah. So it’s been very hit or miss. Why? I don’t know. Huh? I have no idea. I know that we had a lot of rain. Um, but other than that, I have no idea. I would literally just be guessing. But you know what? I’ll grow watermelon again this year. I mean, next year because I’ve grown watermelon in the past and it has gone wonderful. I didn’t do anything different um that I can remember. But that’s that’s part of the journey. Sometimes it works beautifully and sometimes it doesn’t. So that’s why when you have plenty, you know, preserve as much as you can. Now, it’s hard to preserve watermelon, right? But um the the principle is the same. When you have a good year of something, hey, soak it all in. Get as much as you can get and sometimes you don’t have um a good year and then you have to rely on other fruits and things like that. So our cantaloupe did wonderful this year. Like absolutely amazing. It was the best cantaloupe year we have ever had. And the last cantaloupe we we um opened last week, I think I put some pictures on Instagram. If you’re not follow me on Instagram, follow me on Instagram. the the tag it’s at living foods_farm. Um the cantaloupe that we had is the best cantaloupe I have ever tasted in my entire life. It was so sweet and so like it was like supernaturally good. Like the Lord himself was like, “Let me kiss this for you and present this to you, oh my daughter.” Like it was that good. It was I can’t even express how good it was. And I’m not like a cantaloupe. I love I like cantaloupe. I don’t love cantaloupe. like I like it, right? But that right there was like top of the line. Um, but that’s the way it goes. That’s the way it goes. Uh, but in case you didn’t know, we’ve just installed or started planting our orchard over there. It’s probably hard to see. Um, but everything is doing good in the orchard. And so that’s going to give us again more food sustainability because we will have different fruits that we can grab. So, if the watermelon is not a good year, we can go grab us some blueberries, some peaches, some plums, and all of that. So, if you didn’t see the video on us um getting our first orchard on the homestead planted, I’ll pop that video up here so you can go take a look of how we got here with the orchard. We have nine fruit trees um planted. And y’all, I’ll be going out there like they babies. Like, let me let me go check on my babies. Um, so to give you an orchard update, we had one plant, which is one of the pairs that one day we went out there last week and the leaves were literally black. Um, I’ll pop a picture up here if Yeah, I’ll try to pop a picture up here. Now, the picture I’m popping up here is like after a few days. I did not take a picture. I didn’t have my phone with me on the first day. The leaves were black and I’m like, what has happened to my pear tree? Again, I don’t know much about fruit. Um, and so that was a first for me. And so I looked it up. It could be a couple of different things, but I was pretty sure it was transplant shock based on what I read. So, the picture I’m popping up here is actually after a few days. You can see some of the black, but you see more yellow than black. So, the leaves went from like green to black and then this yellow picture. And now, y’all, I’m not going to walk over there cuz can somebody pray for me a golf cart? I’m not walking over there. Not right now. Um cuz it looks like it’s closed, but it I mean it’s it’s walking distance for sure, but it’s not happening today. I will give you a visual on another video. But when I’m looking out here now, I don’t see any black. I see mostly green. So, it just again, I could have been in despair. I could have tried to pull it up, but again, when it comes to fruit trees, you’re less likely to pull them up than you are a bad vegetable. But that is a blessing. It went from black to yellow and now it’s back to green. And the only thing I can say it must have been transplant shock. Um, yeah, because again, when you’re planting your fruit trees in the fall, what I’ve been reading and learning is that fall is a good time to plant your fruit trees, but if they are more established, then they may experience transplant shock because they haven’t gone into dormcancy yet. It’s not cold enough for them to go into dormcy. So, in their mind, not that they’re still growing, but it is still kind of the growing phase, if that makes sense. But anyway, that’s how that works. All right, guys. So, uh, my husband said that he harvested the high tunnel the other day, so we’re not going to go in there. But thank you guys so much for hanging out with us today, um, and getting our harvest. It just goes to show you that even in September, the garden is still producing and providing us some groceries, and for that, we are so thankful. Also, um, I’m glad to be able to show you the VGO elevated raising raised guard bed. So definitely um click on the description um and get the link for $10 off your whole order or five five% off of just the raised bed if that’s all that you want. I cannot say enough great things about it. Y’all remember this is all a journey. I didn’t preached about it, talked about it and everything on this video. I hope that you are a believer. If you have not subscribed, hit the subscribe button. I would love for you to be here and I cannot wait to see you in the next video. Remember, gardening is a journey. Let’s do it together. I’ll see you next time for