The 2023 GARDEN | What worked, What didn’t & What I’m changing

I hope you are having the merrier of all days my gardener friend! This video is one that I do for myself more than anything, but I am sharing it here in hopes that inspires you or helps you in any way possible.
We are going to rock out 2024 gardens… Are you ready?!

Video Resources of all the garden successes and fails mentioned here as they appeared in the video:
🌿Microgreens https://youtu.be/Nxvu5JE8a6g
🌿Freezing seeds https://youtu.be/vEDMLXrI8Hg
🌿Corten Steel planters https://youtu.be/78N_Ni1FVLI
🌿Winter sowing https://youtu.be/ZYsHnZdWf6A
🌿Drip irrigation https://youtu.be/j9vWxj67Hls
🌿Winter damage https://youtu.be/eoPVB6HI4nM
🌿Asparagus https://youtu.be/84lJ_HAzgrA
🌿Tomato cages https://youtu.be/e3KYv7z0R0k
🌿Growing tomatoes https://youtu.be/LWEO2K5xarE
🌿Greenstalk https://youtu.be/AdFubf6ll2k
🌿Dahlias in grow bags https://youtu.be/VQvbmjfnq8Q
🌿Grafted tomato https://youtu.be/cTPbTH9C1h0
🌿Pine needles https://youtu.be/6831L9uT2xA
🌿Snail Vine https://youtu.be/1K69-bLv88w
🌿Overwintering Jalapeños https://youtu.be/tTEeaNIlpeE
🌿Ginger https://youtu.be/abmrTKV2Elc
🌿Dried flower art https://youtu.be/RMQ5ggVacL8

🌿Links related to this video
10x10s for microgreens https://shrsl.com/3o2ph
Corten Steel planter https://amzn.to/3GR4R1i
Wifi Timers I use https://amzn.to/48rJy2m
Diamon Trellis (2) https://amzn.to/3TkrDnx
Arbor by Stepping stone https://tinyurl.com/archrosetrellis
Arched trellis https://tinyurl.com/walltrellis
Greenstalk https://lddy.no/1ctvb
5” containers https://shrsl.com/3gee5
Face used in dried flower art piece https://amzn.to/3NEAkYn

Growing Ginger FREE PDF https://upbeat-author-5099.ck.page/fd1d2195e5

If you would like to send me something:
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Cicero, IN 46034

🐿 CONTACT ME
Email – soilandmargaritas@gmail.com
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Hey gorgeous welcome to my channel soil and margaritas my name is Roxana and I Garden in zone zone six now in Central Indiana and today I’m going to do a video of a recap of everything well most of the things that I did in my garden in

20203 so maybe it can Inspire or if you’re new here it can give you an idea of the things that I do in my small garden my garden is not even half of an acre it’s not even a quarter of an acre it’s a very very small Lot close to the

City where houses are like literally next to each other so I try to maximize the space to grow vegetables flowers and I use INR flower beds I use race beds I use containers and I try to document everything that I do in this channel if you’re new here you’re going to find

That I do a lot of things I experiment with a lot I have a lot of success but I also have a lot of failures just like everything else let me start with microgreens at the beginning of the year right about the this time getting close

To the beginning of the year I started playing with the idea of growing things indoors to use in my kitchen and I wasn’t necessarily talking about just growing herbs having a small uh area where I was growing herbs but I was looking into growing micro greens and it

Was a lot of fun you guys I show you in a few videos that I started growing some things like sunflowers sweet peas broccoli all kinds of goodies I did a few videos of that and it was a lot of fun have you tried micro greens before

If you have haven’t tried micro greens and you want something to harvest really quick I think that you should give him a try because some of those some of those seeds were ready to harvest between 7 and 10 days like really really quick the one that I’m also going to keep on

Trying here and I don’t necessarily think that I’m going to do videos about it is cilantro because even though it takes a little bit longer I I believe that it took me about 21 days to grow cilantro from literally planting the seed in the containers to actually

Harvest thing it was about 21 days and I mean for having that turnaround is really really great and especially nowadays in the winter where you can’t really find Cilantro easily at the stores I think that just having a tray of two or cilantro growing in doors it’s

It’s helpful and I don’t really bought any extra equipment because as you know I already have my setup with LED lights and trays and pots it was just a matter of getting enough seed and getting some nice potting mix and really really cool stuff another new thing that I tried

This year Well in 2023 because it’s December now was getting some of those seeds are a little bit pickier to germinate especially for perennials I try freezing them and this is not something original I did not come up with this idea I saw another lady showing that she put her seeds in the

Freezer for like one or two days and she just took them outside and she had had great results as far as germination rates do you try this technique of freezing the seeds at your own place the reason what I wanted to try this was because I was planning to grow a bunch

Of lavender seeds now if you heard or if you have grown lavender seeds you know that they can be tricky to get to germinate and they are kind of slow to get going indoors so I wanted to try for those and if I really would have thought

About it I would have purchased the seeds like a couple of months earlier I would have let them in the freezer and in the fridge back and fourth but I didn’t have the time to just you know put him in the fridge for 6 to 12 weeks

So what I did I basically grabbed the seeds just like they came out of the packet I put them in a wet paper towel inside a zlo bag and they went in the freezer for a whole day 24 hours after that I took them outside just like they

Were in the SE bag and they were under my LED lights in a warm room it was basically to signal to the seats that it was time to wake up and to germinate I had great results and I did the same thing with yo and corn flowers although

My corn flowers didn’t do that great I really think that putting them in the freezer for 24 hours really really help and I mentioned in that video when I did the whole recap of of that technique that in the future especially for those lavender seeds if I wanted to grow them

Again that I was going to do a whole week putting them in the freezer and in the fridge back and forth to kind of mimic a real winter the winter doesn’t just stay frozen outside just kind of goes back and forth between temperatures and that’s what I wanted the seeds to do

So regardless I had great great results with doing that little technique one of the many things that I did this year in my garden in 2023 was adding a bunch of corten Steel Planters especially for growing vegetables very early in the spring I grabb a bunch of 26 in tall

Well 26 in square planters that they went alongside of my garage and then I also grabbed a couple of different sizes that went in front of the garage so I pretty much went around the garage on the east south of the building and and at the time I also added a trellis that

I grabb from gardeners and my goodness that trellis fit perfectly and even though there is another piece to that tril that make it really really tall I only use one of the pieces scking with it because I didn’t have the height to add to that but by adding that trailers

To that front of the garage it just made it it made the area that little corner a lot more nice to look at it and I was playing with the idea of just letting that be and planting some sort of annual Vine I am glad that I didn’t because I

Found these gorgeous gorgeous Rose David Aston Rose btia Batha biva not bapti biva and my goodness I I fell in love with that Rose I found that plant locally it was already in a one gallon plant I put it there and it used to cough it is right now bypassing the

Height of that Tris and I still have to give it a trim but I’ll probably do that early in the spring not really sure just quite yet but all of those ctin steel beds that I put around the garage I grabbed the nicest race bed mixed soil

That I could find locally and I filled them up I did add a bunch of dead material organic dead material like leaves uh stuff that I trim from my perennials all of that good stuff and that really help although I still use like three four yards of soil to fill in

Those containers I mean it took a lot of a lot of soil but I planted most of my dalas in that area and I plant a bunch of other vegetables peppers tomatoes some other flowers and they did amazing having those permanently there I think they just add a nice look to the whole

Area overall another thing new that I did this year was starting dalas from seed normally I just get the tubers and I start them that way indoors a few weeks before to give a little bit of a head start but these year I use seeds that I purchased from florett and then I

Save from my the garden last year I wasn’t really sure if the seeds from the dalas that I say were going to be viable but they surprised me they really did amazing now I wish that I would have Ted the seedlings that I Grew From the seeds

From flued and the ones that I sa for myself but I just mix them all but I got some really really nice mixes and I I’m saving those stubbers from the ones that I started from seed and hopefully I’ll get some of the same blooms that I got

The first year we’ll see fingers crossed one of the things one of the many things that didn’t do that well in my garden was Winter sewing did your winter sewing do okay this year I showed you early in the spring how I did uh three tops and I

Put 10 and some containers inside two and 1/2 in containers and I had a lot of seeds thankfully I do not rely on those seeds that I winter sew to put in my garden those were sort of a backup and I always do this even though I am very new

To Winter sewing I feel like I am not quite there yet I can’t just rely on mother nature to do okay to do enough to get those seeds going and I did not have great results you guys I show you that in another video where I just there was

Nothing growing there one of the main reasons why I blame the failure on the winter sewing was that we didn’t really had great cold temperatures by the time that I put those containers outside it was really dry it was kind of warmish even though it was supposed to be like

In really cold temperatures and and the seeds really didn’t go through that period of cold it was just too warm and too dry for them to do anything even though I was there a few times just watering them uh trying to make sure that they were nice and and moist they

Just didn’t work out installing drip irrigation in my race beds and in most of my garden was really one of those things that you just have to do because it will save you tons of time in the long run while I love watering by hand I

I really enjoy that time that I just get to to hang out there watering my cleans it really takes a lot of time especially if you have containers and you have things in the ground where they need just a little bit extra time some more than the others and by having that drip

Irrigation set up in different zones it was a huge huge deal for me and I really wish that I would have done that at least a couple of years ago when I install all of that Irrigation in the garden I also set up a couple of Wi-Fi

Timers for each zone so that I could easily use controller from my phone whenever I needed to water things and this was really the first year that I went with everything being on irrigation although I didn’t really want to give a full control of when to water and have

Things being done automatically I still went in and I set up things when I needed to water but normally I will go outside and if I knew that I needed to water my race beds I would just turn them on for however long I needed them

To and during that time I will either take a walk around my carton or do some weeding or do something else around my garden and that way I didn’t have to lose any time I don’t know that this will be the year where I get full control of my watering but but having

Everything already on drip and as needed is it’s honestly a Time saber for me last year in December right about Christmas time so December 2022 we had a couple of days here in Central Indiana and in a lot of places around it where the temperatures di really really low in

The minus 15 in some areas and it’s normally not that big of a deal if it happens you know for like a morning or for sometime during the night but it was a constantly two or 3 days of those temperatures and I lost a lot of my

Perennials and some of my shrubs a couple of things literally just died to the ground and while they came back they took some time to to get going and to get healthier again a couple of those examples were one of my climates that I have in uh in my Arbor and another one

Was my Kia Japonica rose that I absolutely love I was really afraid for those things not to come back I was really not um I really didn’t think that my climatic was going to come back but that thing just took out from the ground again and it reached all the way to the

Top of the arbor in the first year my carrier japanica while it did Grow Again from the ground it’s really taken its time and that’s fine uh hopefully this year this winter we don’t have to go through all of those temperatures who knows but the things that I lost that I

Was really really s about were my wall well they were becoming a wall of Honey suckles along the west side of the house and I had all of those three plants growing along the cattle panel that my husband built a few years ago and the idea was to have a green wall for

Privacy reasons mainly they all died and I thought okay maybe I’ll just give them some time TR and see if they started getting from the ground but not one of those three plants one of those three shrubs made it and that really was painful for me because I really had this

Idea and I had already spent about 3 years growing those those Vines so nothing that I could have done I I really did not think that uh those perennial shrops were going to be hurt by the temperatures but you know I had no control about it but I took that

Opport Unity for extra space and I got three more V shivas of those roses and I got them there I don’t know how they’re going to do because I kind of got them late in the season this year so we’ll see if next spring they do well I am

Very comfortable they’re going to do well but you never know having asparagus growing in my garden was one of those things that I wish that I would have started at least 3 or 4 years ago so that I could already be harvesting by now that was one of the things that I

Did this year as well I gave up about half of one of my race beds to get asparagus going and the thing about asparagus is that it takes a lot of time by the time that you actually get to harvest I got mine I got a bunch of

Crowns locally and I got those in the ground in the early spring and I’ll probably won’t have any Harvest any major Harvest until until 2025 or 2026 really so if you are just starting your garden if you’re starting to get vegetables do yourself a favor and get a

Little area where you can just get asparagus going because you’re going to thank yourself here in like four or 5 years if you have been here long enough you know that doing some sort of DIY trellis or something for my garden it’s really something that I enjoy to do and

This year I volunteered my husband’s help to make some tomato cages really there were panels that we turn into cages and they really did great I tried to get materials to match the arbor that he made last year and I am I’m very happy with how they did some of you were

Really sad when I took those down late in the fall and honestly they were not supposed to be there permanently uh because I really kind of want to change the look of those race BS every year and just having something that permanently like those panels was going to not work

For me so I have those four panels now and I have an idea of where maybe I want them to be maybe somewh what permanent but but that’s something that I’m going to have to get my husband involved because I don’t really know that I I can

Do it by myself but stay tuned somewhat early in the spring so that I can show you that now one of the many successes that I had in my garden this year was growing my tomatoes and I am so happy that that was the case this year because last year I had a

Really crappy year with tomatoes and this year I was really kind of hesitant about growing that many varieties of tomatoes but thankfully the what cooperated uh I had great results I had Great Harvest I got a bunch a bunch of tomatoes um I am trying to figure out

Get creative with how I can still get the same amount of tomatoes but maybe also try other different types of vegetables if you know if you have been here for a while you know that having the extra space or having more space to grow the things that I want to grow is

Really a challenge so if sometimes I want to grow some other new things I have to give up the space for some of the things that I’m already growing so I don’t really want to stop growing that many tomato plants which is normally between 36 and 40 tomato plants I just

Love tomatoes and you guys while I’m talking about having extra space to grow or really complaining about not having any extra space purchasing those green stacks for my garden really is giving me more opportunities to think about the things that I can grow because those things are amazing honestly I was a

Little was a little worri that like tomatoes and other things weren’t really going to grow that well compared to how they do in the race bed but do not underestimates their size because those things are very very convenient especially if you don’t have a place outside or if you just have a little

Patio or balcony because I am planning to get maybe one more maybe two more I am playing with the idea of having just a wall of green stock back there next to my race beds I still have to see about the the space that I have available but

I’m excited about the things that I can grow in those things my tomatoes my herbs my basil they did really really well in those containers and it really pushes me to think about the things that I can grow there instead of having those in my race beds and for things that it

May need a little bit more room to spread I can have those going in the race bit so if you have been thinking about green stocks definitely think that you should look into them again the dalas that I had growing specifically in the grow B in front of my honeysuckle

Diamond trelles area they they really didn’t do that great and I am I think that the reason why is because the irrigation that I had set up for that flower bed which is in the ground was the same Z that I had those uh grow bags

In and I normally don’t water the plants that I have grown in the ground that much unless we really don’t have a lot of rain going for that season and basically Al the growbags got water at the same time so if I didn’t water my plants in the ground they didn’t get

Water so I think that by being in the grow bags having you know that having them being just breathable constantly and getting a little too dry probably most of the time really didn’t help to their growth potential and I also really didn’t fertilize them enough and if you

Grow alas you know that they really love their nutrients so I blame that um that was an error on my part but that little area over there in front of the water fountain is it’s exciting for me because I can change the look by just growing different anals there last year was the

First time that I put that little bench DIY bench and I had some elephant ears and some smaller sunflowers that growing and these year were dalas I did not get the look that I wanted with dalas but that was okay I still got some blooms at

The end of the season I’m thinking that next year I want some sort of medium size annal that is just that does well in the full Z so if you have any tips for what I could put there next year let me know in the comments okay this one

Was super super fun for me I grew two types of tomatoes a cherry and a beef steak tomato from one plant and I know that sounds crazy because at the time when I was researching this I thought it was a little bit crazy but listen I basically took two plants two different

Types of tomatoes that I had started from SE indoors I used one for the base and I used one for the top I really didn’t have a scientific reason why I chose those two varieties other than the fact that I love both of them and I

Wanted to see if I could grow them from one plant and I did and I had really really great results you guys I put that one plant with two different binds coming one from the cherries one from the beef steak and I put them in one

Container in one huge huge planter and I wasn’t sure how well how big was going to be growing both of those Tomatoes were I knew that they were going to be big if they were growing by themselves but I wasn’t really sure how much growth they were going to have from being

Combined and I mean at the end of the season that Tris was super tiny compared to all of the growth that the binds were doing I got cherries and I got beef steaks from those from that one plan and that was really really fun to do like I

Mentioned I beginning when I first put those two together they looked like they were dying there was no hope but I just kept giving them water and they took off they kept on growing just like any other regular tomato plant and that was really really cool for me to try I don’t know

That I’ll do that this year just because of space but if you want to try that I’m going to leave the links below to how I did that and I think that you know if you have kids and if you want to try that it will be like a really cool thing

To do another thing that I did for the first time as well uh this year here in my garden was using pine nles as mulch for my race bits and this was just for my race bits and in some containers like the gorten steel containers that I had

Growing along along the size of the RIS beds but the reason what I was trying pine needles is one because I I really like the look and two because I did try straw I did try using it last year and I don’t know if I got the wrong kind of

Straw it was labeled for being mulch for the garden but this straw was going everywhere like a little bit of a wind and that thing will be like blowing all over the place and I hated that and I also really didn’t want to use uh some

Sort of wood mulch so I look into pine needles I don’t know how I got into it and I found those at Tractor supplied and I really like them I think that a lot of people in the south of the US use pine needles and I know some people

Mention that when I was showing the pine needles in my videos on how I was using them for mulch a lot of you mention that that is really the mulch that some of you use in the South for your race beds or for the things in the ground that you

Have growing and I really like it you guys not only it look great when everything else was growing there but it really kept my soil nice and moist nice and protected and also in the fall when I was doing all of the cleanup that was

Really easy for me justed to move to the side if I needed to dig something or to plant something I I really think that pine needles is going to be the mulch that I use from now on in my race Gardens and I found that a tractor

Supply in the spring I think that here in Central Indiana is one of those things that I don’t know if it was just the year that everybody decided to use pine needles or if that just happens that way but I had to order online so

That it could be shipped to me and it worked out really great for me this year this year I tried growing SLE tomatoes and my personal favorite my personal sweet sweet cherry tomato is Sun sugar and I swear that that is that is the sweetest cherry out there if you’re

Looking for one try Sun sugars for sure some of you mention if you like sun sugar you definitely got to try Sun gos and I did and I wasn’t impressed and I’m probably hurting somebody’s feelings right now but honestly I compare them I did some blind test with my husband with

My kids by myself I still think that sun sugars are probably the s is in my own personal opinion and along those lines of trying things that weren’t that great uh snail Vine was also the case I took the time the money because those seeds

Were not cheap to grow a snail bind from seed and the plants did great they took some time if you growing them from seed for the first time know they take a little bit of time to get growing indoors and I put them outside and and they grew fine they took forever to

Bloom they really Bloom way later in this season they did smell great in my opinion everybody talks about the fragrance of snail Vine blooms and they were great um however the location where I put them the vines were really tall really high that if I really wanted to

Get that experience I would have to get on the ladder and get next to those booms so that was an eror of my part of course I think that if you have a a small fence if you have a granal on that fence it will be better but I don’t

Think that I’m going to try them again it’s one of those things that I tried it I did well with it I’m not impressed this is also my first year trying and I say trying because I don’t even know if they’re already dead uh I am trying to

Overwinter Jalapeno plants so I went through the trouble of digging up the plants cutting up some of the branches cleaning up the roots adding fresh potting mix to bring IND doors and I am trying to keep them alive I don’t know if I I am succeeding let me show

You I posted on Instagram that I don’t know if I am watering plants that are dormant or if I am just watering sticks because I don’t know you tell me I mean I scratch a little bit of the I scratch a little bit of the the branch uh just

Very very minimal and there is green in it so I think we are okay um time will tell I don’t know also the ginger that I started indoors that I show you how I started indoors and I planted outside it didn’t do that well when it was time to

Harvest and I should have know better the first year that I Tred growing Ginger outside in my in my garden I put it in a planter it was big it was huge and I water it here and there I had great results the first year doing that

And I think the biggest thing with Ginger was that I had extra space for it the second year that I tried it I decided to just put it in a smaller race bed I show you where I planted it this year and it did okay I had some Harvest

But not as big as the year before and I think it was because of the lack of space so I am going back to doing the thing that I did when I had great success and I’m just going to keep it that way because I love Ginger and I

Love that I could grow it here if I give it the right circumstances for it I think that the weather was great the first year the weather was also great this following year and I know some of you are wondering you’re in a cool climate how can you grow ginger really

Ginger needs a long time to get to mature so you really have to start it 3 to four months depending on your zone or depending where you live uh ahead of time so that by the time that it gets outside or you want to grow it it it’s

Already a grown plant so if you want to know more about how I did that the first year and when I planted it and all of that I going to leave a link for a free pdf that you can just keep and download

So uh if you want to do that if you want to get a little bit more details on that I’m just going to leave that in the description I don’t know why I didn’t think about drying flowers sooner in the past years but this year I decided I am

Going to dry a bunch of the flowers that I get from my garden and I don’t know what I’m going to do but at the end of the year I’m going to to do something some sort of DIY with them and you guys I made that that head over there I don’t

Think that you can see that but she came out gorgeous I did a full video on how I did that it was done with flowers from my garden 100% about 90% of those flowers that I have there were grown just by hanging them indoors cutting them at their at their Peak and just

Hanging them indoors a few weeks later they were nice and and dry and others especially the dalas were dry using silica gel and that’s a game changer guys if I know a lot of you do uh bouquets with dry flowers some of you have no idea what to make with your dry

Flowers that you collected throughout the year I think that that super do was super easy takes a little bit of time that took me about a couple of hours from painting the the frame to putting every single flower in there but I think it really came out really really nice

And I love looking at it every day okay before this video gets extremely long I got to say that the core tens still planters that I added to my garden they are aging beautifully you guys I just I just love that warm rustic look of them against everything else right now and I

Know they don’t look like anything without plans in them right now but there is something about just adding things that will be a access accessory or something to look at during the winter during the winter months when everything else outside is just pretty much that and that’s what I love my uh

Boxwoods and my Evergreens and my Planters now because all of that together they just make the place happier so for those of you who are wondering how I felt about The Rustic look of the Planters I love them I absolutely love it and that’s why I purchased those plants I know that you

Can get I know that you can get planters that are uh already black that that will not rust that they will just keep like that I really was not going for that look I really just wanted the the natural rustic look of the planter so

Just an update on that that is it for this video you guys this is probably the last video that I will post for 2023 we made it we’re here I don’t know how this year just went by so fast super excited about all of the Garen things

That are happening for 2024 I already started a few seeds I am going to be studying a bunch January 1st I am studying a bunch of violas and Eucalyptus because you never know if you celebrate the holidays I hope that you have a great time thank you for being

Here thank you for an amazing 2023 I know that our Gardens are going to be amazing for next year and until the next time you Guys