RETAIL Products Vs FREE Resources Garden Bed Preparation SHOWDOWN!

In this video, I show you how I prepare two raised garden beds. One with retail garden products and the other with free resources.

Plant Doctor Fertiliser: Go to https://www.plantdoctor.com.au/ and use SSME10 = 10% off products (not shipping).

Ocean2Earth: https://ocean2earth.com.au/ Use “SSM” on checkout for 5% discount.

Raised Garden Beds: Go here to get Birdies Raised Garden Beds in the USA: https://lets.growepic.co/self-sufficient-me for a 5% discount, or use SSME2020 at checkout.

In Australia, go to https://birdiesgardenproducts.com.au/ and use Code SSMEbird for a 5% discount. In New Zealand, go to https://birdiesgardenproducts.co.nz/ and use Code ssmebird22 for 5% off your first purchase.

Hoselink Garden Products such as hose reels go here https://l.linklyhq.com/l/5uZu and you will automatically get a 10% discount on checkout!

Aussie-made Forged garden tools: Go to https://gardentoolsaustralia.com.au/ and use code SSM10 for a 10% discount at checkout.

Harvest Right freeze dryer website: https://affiliates.harvestright.com/1099.html
For Australian freeze dryer purchase info, use the link above and contact Harvest Right directly.

Rolling Sifter: https://rollingsifter.ecwid.com/

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Self Sufficient Me is based on our small 3-acre property/homestead in SE Queensland, Australia, about 45kms north of Brisbane – the climate is subtropical (similar to Florida). I started Self Sufficient Me in 2011 as a blog website project where I document and write about backyard food growing, self-sufficiency, and urban farming in general. I love sharing my foodie and DIY adventures online, so come along with me and let’s get into it! Cheers, Mark 🙂

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#Gardening #garden #preparation

Now the next step after adding all this mulsh is to remove it all again this is humic acid I did have it covered up but you know how those little buggers can get in born out of fire I have two garden beds here that are in desperate need of a good makeover

But what I’ve decided to show you is the difference between a commercially refurbished bed and one that is done all El natural the commercially refurbished bed I’ll use commercial products purchased from reliable retailers that take care in the products that they offer and then in this bed here I’ll use

Ingredients that will do the same job but be basically all for free because let’s face it these days it’s getting harder than ever to part with your hard earned due to the cost of living good day I’m Mark from self-sufficient me and let let’s get into it now I’ve already

Mostly de planted and deweed degrass this bed here but there is still a little bit more to go this one here I’ve deliberately left go Rogue so that you can see the process I go through with my trusty ET to be able to clean this bed up for you when you’re removing weeds

And plants from a bed you naturally remove a lot of the nutrients blue a mosquito and the problem with that is of course when you go to plant back in you’re going to lose a bit of bulk which means it’s going to have less medium in it for you to grow things in

It so you’re going to have to replace that somehow along with the nutrients that get sucked out by those plants that are growing in it at this stage and over that last season but anyway let’s stop yaking and let’s get to digging and pulling a lot of these spring onions will keep

And put in the crisper I understand that some of you might be thinking Mark I suppose you’re not doing the no dig method and that’s true you can have garden beds that of course aren’t that hard to refurbish because they’re fairly new or whatever and if you don’t have to to dig to

Refurbish it well don’t dig or have to dig to plant out or so don’t dig that’s fine but in this case I’ve got nutgrass in the beds I don’t know how it got in there but nutgrass is a prolific weed around here so I need to dig it up to

Make sure that I get most of it at least otherwise it will just quickly grow straight back plus sometimes digging in a bed is just inevitable that’ll be plenty of seed hundreds of them just make sure there’s no more nut grft one final look over then I’ll give it a

Rake and even it up as you’re raking what you can do is you can find any bits of extra grass some of the other organic matter is good to leave in the bed rather than throw it out like the base of plants and as long as it’s not

Grass the bed is pretty dry it’s got a lot of good organic matter in there but it’s depleted so what we need to do is use some products in here that can pump up the moisture keeping qualities first thing I’m going to use is some of this zeolite this volcanic

Stuff should be wearing a mask when you use it especially if it’s kicking up too much dusk we’ll see how it goes but this is the stuff here it’s a commercial product I get this from Plant Doctor this it’s an Australian company founded down the Gold Coast it’s really great at

Holding moisture and also nutrients there’s no signs to how much you add can’t really hurt it too much but just a really good helping all over the bed I use this stuff in potted plants as well and container plants especially with some potting mixes that are quite

Dry and not that good at holding water tile that out and because I’m not using a lot of organic matter in this bed and it’s commercial mixes I’m going to put a little bit extra than I normally would now the next product I’m going to use is also from Plant Doctor and this

Is humic acid this stuff here is another soil improver it also does help to hold water as well keep moisture but it has has Trace elements through it as well that will give those small micronutrients and minerals that your plants need to be able to actually

Thrive we need to make sure that they’re getting a balanced diet rich in micronutrients and Trace elements and all those things that are needed to keep that plant strong and pest resistant and disease resistant but this stuff here is like charcoal you don’t need a heck of a

Lot of this but you’ll see I’ll just cover the bed in a nice light l of this humic [Applause] [Applause] acid now the next product I’m going to use is this ocean to Earth down in beiger and Burmy down the south coast of New South Wales these guys had an idea

To use fish waste that was otherwise just going into landfill compost it down turnning into a really great composting mix you only need 1 L per square meter and this is about a 3 square m garden bed so I’m going to use a full bag of

This stuff which is a 3 l bag there you go it looks like beautiful dark compost lovely stuff they don’t call this a fertilizer as such although of course it will feed your plants just like any comp compost does they more call it a soil enhancer

Or a compost to add to your garden bed and so yeah this little bag will do this full garden bed no worries now we’re go on back to plant doctor with the next thing I’m going to use and that is to add a little bit of extra bulk commercial wise

To this garden bed and that’s with these power pellets these things here are pretty much a plant matter you can’t overuse them so they are sold as a fertilizer and there’s the little pellets there they look like I don’t know guinea pig po uh but they’re pretty much compressed loosen and other things

Added to it it’s high in nitrogen really good for adding bulk to the garden and other types of minerals and nutrients completely organic a lot of people like it because it’s not manure or animal so this is good for those people who want to use a completely plant-based product and still get good

Results in the garden it doesn’t stink or anything like that doesn’t smell it won’t attract your pets and if it does attract your pets and they eat these things it’s really only plant material won’t hurt them unlike some other types of fertilizer es and at the end of the

Day it does activate microbes as well now could just leave it there and that would be pretty much fine but I’m going to add some extra fertilizer to this bed to give it that extra boost and this is the good old blood and bone fertilizer

It’s made by what’s in the name and it really is great stuff and plants love it and it is organic too and now I’m going to give this a light rake and I mean not a big rake just a light rake just to make sure it

Just goes in the first few inches of the soil and that way when I water it it’ll be combined better with the soil and won’t be just sitting on top in one sort of mat so that when I do sew seeds or plant plants they’re not going to get

Burnt you’re going to have that protection of it mashed in with the soil a little bit at least now I’ll give this a good water in and that’ll dissolve some of these elements into the soil straight away and it’ll wash it in and combine it better with the existing medium I was

Talking about compost before and you can get commercial compost mixed in bags and you can then use that to bulk up your garden bed and to add some extra nutrients I use smaller more concentrated compost mixes in this bed today but you can do that you can also

Use potting mix as a compost substitute so you can get a new bag of potting mix good quality WI are even fairly poor quality and you can put that in these in a bed to help bulk it up if you want to and the last thing I’m going to add is

The mulsh mulsh mulsh mulsh I got this stuff from Facebook Marketplace $6 a bow pretty economical although it’s still a commercial product you can get a more commercial type product from the stores it’s a finer mix and that’s good also but it’s a lot more expensive either way this this is a commercial

Product and it costs money and as this breaks down it’s going to add extra bulk to the bed it will also protect the soil and the nutrients in there it will help to retain moisture for the plants and the protect the roots from the harsh Summer Sun it will also

Inhibit weeds and grasses from growing back through the bed this sugar cane mul happened to be sitting out in the rain for at least a week sitting in this wheelbarrow and you’ve got this really rich looking compost te almost that has developed so I’m going to put this into

The bed as well I could technically use this for the other bed if I wanted to inoculate that b a little bit better free of charge but because it’s a commercial product put in here I might as well keep it commercial and we’ll put it into this bed rather than claiming it

As a freebie for the other bed which we’re going to get on to shortly so I’ll just pull that in this will be valuable stuff you know better doing this into the garden bed then throwing it just onto the lawn or just tipping it out this is really valuable

Stuff look at this all made from straw and lastly I’ll give it one more water in just to settle it down even though the mosch is wet and now let’s move on to this bed here which I’m sure most of you will be more keen to see because

This is the freebie bed where we put free stuff in it to make it grow just as good as this one here with all the expensive commercial stuff in it there is some eggplant and some other old plant materials that I am just going to dig back into this bed since that I’m

Only using free stuff I want all the organic goodness that I can for free put back into this bed here I’ve got some more spring onions so now I’ll just take them all out okay it’s about a 25 cm maybe half a foot deep trench that I’ve just dug

Right in the center of this bed now I’m going to disappear for a second here is a bucket of fish waste it’s even got maggots in it and blowflies I did have it covered up but you know how those little buggers can get in it doesn’t matter because that’ll

All go in as a beautiful organic food for this garden bed I’m going to put it along the middle and that way it will eventually through the microbes through the worms and other animals it’ll get slowly sifted and sorted and moved around throughout this whole garden bed

And really add so much value organically and and nutritionally to this bed it’s also a good way to sustain ably get rid of your fish waste some of you might not know I’ve also got a fishing channel called self fishing me so if you like go and visit that only if you’re interested

In fishing the links are below my son runs it James uh I’m just sometimes a bit of the front man we’re only beginners so we’re coming at it from a beginner angle but the crossover is this type of stuff is using fish waste Etc to make fertilizer and in this case to use

That fish waste directly into the garden bed this has got all the the fish sort of juice if you want to say blood and all that from the esy I’m just going to throw it all evenly along this trench guts and bits and pieces doesn’t smell too bad not the best but anyway

You won’t smell it once this is covered over like this this stuff is really impossible to get commercial and there’s a lot of reasons for that of course commercial people retailers they have to be careful of what they sell you can’t just sell fish waste like this

Because it could come with disease or they can get in trouble poisoning people or pets or whatever so as a commercial product they they have to really break it down like I showed you a broken down composted commercial product and even then they have to put all sorts of

Warning labels and have to adhere to all sorts of government regulations before they’re allowed to sell it to the public but for us we can do what the heck we want cuz it’s our garden it’s our bed it’s our fish that we caught it’s our waste and this couldn’t be any better

For your garden bed it’s not going to affect the plants at all because by the time the corn in this bed in particular starts growing down to reach some of these nutrients or when it gets divided around the bed it’s it’s going to be months old anyway and so it’s going to

Be broken down fish waste breaks down very quickly so there you go that’s all covered up so that’s the first bit of extra nutrients and fill I’m adding to this bed the next thing I’m going to add is some manure and then I will even this

Bed off here we go here’s some cow manure that I got from the local Dairy but this is really special stuff not the special from the special cow or anything or even a special place but it’s special because look at it looks like dirt doesn’t it and that’s because it’s been

Sit to rest and compost itself down in one big lump of cow manure into this really non-smelling beautiful organic almost compost here we go out here this is the fresh stuff and uh when I say fresh it’s probably a month old or so but when we

Picked it up it was pretty much out of the cow’s bum and uh you can see it’s starting to change shape a bit it’s not as green as it would usually be C manure smells not as bad as it was still it’s very fresh and it’s Clay like if you put

That in your garden bed and try to grow plants in it directly you’re going to a burn the plants you’ll see the leaves going very yellow maybe even Browning off and dying and B the soil will be too heavy it’ll hold too much moisture and your plants Roots will suffocate and

Your plants will die so this is why we compost down fresh cow manure and leave it for a good 6 months or so before you put it into the garden now I say you shouldn’t use raw manure or fresh cow manure straight into the garden bed you can if you’ve got

Nowhere else to put it and you’ve got a half a trail load or so of Cal manure and you want to put it directly in your garden beds you can do it do it but just remember that you must dig it in don’t just leave it on top dig it into about

The first 6 in or so of soil mix it in with the existing medium and then you’ll have to leave it for at least around 12 weeks or 3 months and that’ll give the bed and the manure time to rest and break down and the little animal and the

Worms in that bed the microbes will change that potent Cal manure into something that your plants will be able to tolerate I’m just going to evenly spread it around and this is such a great way to add fill to a bed as well and now I’m going to lightly dig it

In just mix it in just so that it’s not sitting directly on top of the soil that way it gives an even exposure to the plants that you’re putting in here just like you’re mixing a big cake and now I’m going to even it out and just rake

It looking good that’s put a lot of Fel back into this bed without having to add any extra soil and we haven’t even got to the compost yet we’ll be adding a little bit of compost to this bed our own homemade stuff made just from General organic waste from the garden

All right over the last few months we’ve filled these two bins here up with all sorts of organic waste everything from rotten fruit to just grass and whatever waste we had out of the garden and now it’s time to use well at least one of them I think I’ll only use one it’s

Broken down enough look at that stuff there it’s quite rich and it’s still very wet still could have been left for a while to break down but this is going to be perfect oh beautiful absolutely lovely and here we are yes it’s got sticks and stuff in there small Twigs that haven’t broken

Down yet and other bits of organic matter that’s going to break down into the garden bed in fact sometimes it’s good that it has this extra texture CU it does give the worms and microbes and little animals something else to chew on in that bed and it just it’s not going

To impede the plants at all this is just like forest floor beautiful humus it’s it’s the salt of the earth but it’s not salty it’s wonderful stuff so sprinkle that evenly around the bed a little goes a long way if you’re going to have to buy this I’m I’m

Charging 60 bucks $75 for this I’m charging it that’s what I’ll charge you know this is made over months and this is from top-notch ingredients from the garden it’s completely organic and there’s nothing artificial in it so I’m charging a lot of money for this this hasn’t been treated a lot of

The compost you will get in the store has to be treated at a high temperature so that it’s not as maybe potent to people or maybe kills a lot of the germs I don’t know but a lot of it is sterile that one compost bin is plenty enough for this bed nice and

Even look at that perfect coverage put a good water in and then we’ll finish off with a mulsh but you want to water in now because it’s a little difficult to water through the mulsh you just got to break up some of these bigger particles a little bit

More mix it in more with the existing soil that’s what a good watering Inn does good and finally we’ll give it a free mulsh that’s right free this is about a month old you can use fairly new mol if you want but you know a little bit older is

Good it’s a mixture of wood chip and other plant matter and I got this stuff for free from well as a friend of ours tree Lopper of course they get a lot of organic material often whoever they’re working for want that mul to be tipped

Back onto their place so they can use it around their property other times they want the waste taken to the dump the thing is if you take it to the dump as a commercial operation you’ll have to pay for it 9 times out of 10 so it’s not very coste effective but thankfully

There Are People Like Us who like to have this free stuff and use it in their Garden it serves exactly the same purpose as the paid for mosch just as good if not better maybe a bit more chunkier little harder to work with but still it’s going

To take it’ll probably take longer to break down these larger chunks and wood chip but it’ll still break down and don’t worry about it taking nutrients from the soil it’ll all go back into the soil anyway if it does draw a few some nitrogen from the soil to help itself

Break down it’ll just get absorbed in the soil like any other mulsh and if you’re worried at all just add a bit of extra fertilizer if your plants need it just keep an eye on the plants you don’t have to worry about that soil getting depleted of of nutrients because you put

Down some wood that’s a myth now the next step after adding all this mulsh is to remove it all again because manure head here forgot an ingredient and that is Ash the reason why ash is important is because I want to show you the similarity between the other bed where

We used humic acid this ash here can do pretty much the same thing and you can get it for free and to me the free part is interesting because you’re saving money from a whole heap of different angles when we make our Ash it’s because ultimately we’re cooking with fire and

Cooking with fire is not only a fantastic way to cook food because of the smokiness and the Beautiful char grill effected has on your food but it’s also a free way for us to cook something it uses less energy because we’re burning wood that we get from our

Property it’s prunings from our fruit trees mango and Olive make excellent firewood for smoking foods and of course all the gum tree and normal firewood that we get down the back is great hardwood for those long burns when you want to roast something over the fire so

At the end of the day with the cost of living and electricity especially with the cost of energy going up and up and up it’s really good to cook with some free Fuel and at the same time the end product can then be put into the garden

It’s just a win-win win all over the place it contains potassium it contains Trace elements that your plants will need potassium helps plants fruit flour it makes them stronger against PES diseases so all around putting a few handfuls of Ash not on top of the mulch but underneath it when you’re doing the

Full layering process that I’ve just done is a great way to go I’m not going to take all this Mulch off and then put the ash down and then put the mul back on it would have been better if I did that but I’m just going to sprinkle on

Top and water this in I don’t crush this down too much of course I burn it down so that it’s almost all powder powder is optimal but I can’t be bothered crushing all the big bits down into fine pieces so I’m just going to let a few big bits

Hang around they will break down eventually in the bed but yeah just a good old sprinkling around just so that I cover the whole bed it’s starting to rain now anyway so the rain will probably wash it through and into the mul but it will do its job

Just as effectively because it will eventually get into the soil and thus through into the plant root Zone where it can be absorbed by the plants you can even crush it up a little bit in your hand if you got some really big pieces it crushes pretty simply and

Pretty easily and then sprinkle those big bits around by the way um this is Mark of the future I had to come back and complete this video because I only realized a few days later that I’d stuffed up so uh back to Mark in the present making this

Video actually it’s still marking the future I forgot to water the bed in you can see how this water straight through you’re going to have a few chunky bits sitting on top that’s going to get absorbed in like I said but this is going to do the trick

Nothing like a good bit of Ash born out of fire there you go good as new you’d hardly even know now back to Mark in the present wow looks great and this here is pretty much all for free and it’s going to grow as good as the commercial bed

There if not better probably very similar and I know because I’ve done this a thousand times there’s no saying that you can’t get a wonderful garden bed all refurbished up and ready for the new season all for pretty much next to nothing I’ve just demonstrated it but of

Course there are times when you might not be able to Source organic matter and make your bed totally for free you might have to have a combination of organic materials to get your garden bed refurbished you might use a whole heap of different products there are millions

Of organic and free products you can use to refurbish a garden bed and there are thousands of probably millions of products around the world that are similar to the ones that are used in this bed that can help refurbish and pum Pump It Up all from the store if that’s

All you can get hold of or if that’s what you want to do I will use most of the time a combination of commercial stuff and organic stuff but in this video I just wanted to show you that there are two ways of refurbishing a garden bed so I hope you enjoyed this

Video make sure you give it a big refurbished double thumbs up share the video Around And subscribe if you haven’t already thanks a lot for watching bye for now Cheers