From Too Much to Just Enough: Downsizing Our Backyard Garden

From Too Much to Just Enough: Join us as we discuss our journey of downsizing our backyard garden. We’ll share our strategies for determining how much to plant and what varieties we’ll be growing this spring and summer. Get ready to learn some valuable tips and tricks for scaling back your own garden. Don’t forget to subscribe for more gardening inspiration!

0:00 Intro
0:51 Are We Worried About the Cold Weather?
3:42 Why Are We Downsizing Our Garden?
5:25 Spring Planting Plans: Potatoes
6:59 Spring Planting Plans: Sweet Corn
8:59 Spring Planting Plans: Tomatoes
10:19 Spring Planting Plans: Watermelon
11:19 Spring Planting Plans: Peppers
12:03 Spring Planting Plans: Squash and Cucumbers
13:23 Spring Planting Plans: Beans
14:42 Spring Planting Plans: Field Peas
15:14 Spring Planting Plans: Pumpkins
16:03 Spring Planting Plans: Sweet Potatoes
16:39 Spring Planting Plans: Okra

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So rotation is a big thing to keep in mind and then like I mentioned earlier how much do we really need to grow versus how much could we grow what’s up Lazy Dog fam we all yall are having a fantastic day it is Saturday January 13th here in South

Georgia and I know most of y’all are just now recovering from a pretty big cold spell that moved through this week but on today’s video I want to talk about some of our spring planting plans because it won’t be long before we’ll be getting stuff started in the greenhouse

And it won’t be long before we’ll be plant taters so I want to kind of go through some of the warm seeds and veggies you’ll see us growing this spring and Into Summer talk about our strategies for determining how much we’re going to plant and what all we’re

Going to grow but before we talk about some of this warm season stuff I feel like I should talk about this cool spell a little bit more it’s coming up on us in the next few days by the the time this video airs it will have passed I

Know a lot of people wanted to see us do a video on what to protect how cold can stuff take but we shoot these videos a week in advance and so by the time I realized it was going to get really cold I already had videos shot for this week

And that’s why we didn’t have a video on it I kind of knew this was going to happen and that’s why if you recall several months ago as we were going into winter I did do a video talking about ways to protect plants in the winter

Time so we did do one of those although it was a few months ago I think we’re only supposed to get down to 24° here 24° two nights in a row so not super super cold we’re not doing a whole lot of preparation just a little so later

This afternoon the boys and I are going to get out here and harvest some of this stuff that I think could be damaged by 24° going to get the rest of our cauliflower over there you can see a few of those purple heads peeking out we also have some white cauliflower over

There that needs to be harvested probably going to get a good majority of these cabbage heads here they might make it but they also might split at 24° not worried about these brussel sprouts they’ll be just fine at 24° there you can see some of that pretty white

Coliflower that we need to harvest later today I’m also not worried about my onions over here 24° might knock them back a little bit but it’s not going to hurt them not worried about my garlic either as long as the soil is moist that should be fine so same thing those

Louisiana Evergreen shallots over there and then if I have time Monday afternoon I might cover some of these raised beds here since I already have some kind of TurnKey setup so I can get some cover on them pretty fast I don’t know if I’ll cover the carrots or not haven’t decided

Yet I may I may not I’ll probably definitely cover this mustard here although we’ve already got our money’s worth out of this already got three good harvest we probably can get a fourth if we can salvage it through this cool spell so I’ll probably cover that bed

Can’t can’t cover this bed over here with the collards cuz those things were too tall a little awkward and I don’t think I’m really worried about the kale and the rud beas over there so we might just leave that one so I don’t know we might end up covering three or four beds

In here but not a whole lot and that’s another reason I felt like I really didn’t need to do a video on it because we’re not supposed to get super super cold here I know a lot of y’all got really really cold probably lost some stuff that’s unfortunate but a lot of

Times these storms or these fronts as they move from west to east they kind of Peter out by the time they get all the way over here to Georgia so that’s probably why we didn’t get it as bad or are not going to get as bad as some

Folks did but anyways let’s get into some warm seeds and stuff we’ve had a lot of people asking us to do a video about what varieties we’re growing in the warm season and when we’re going to be getting some of this stuff started so we’re going to go through kind of Veggie

By veggie or fruit by fruit talk about which ones we might be scaling back a little a little bit on which ones were kind of keeping the status quo and some of the varieties were thinking about growing now I mentioned this every year and I’m going to mention it again this

Year because it’s still a little bit of a mental battle for me scaling back from when we were selling veggies so when we were selling veggies and that was probably four or five years ago it was constantly planting planting ahead always making sure we had something to

Put in our veggie bags but since we’re not doing that anymore you know we just need to grow enough for us and a little bit to share but it’s has been really hard to go from that mindset to this mindset of just growing enough for us growing enough to put some in the

Freezer and in the pantry so I have slowly scaled back year after year I still grow too much so it’s been tough but I’m getting there so as we’re planning our Spring Garden already figuring out what we’re going to grow how much of it we’re going to grow and

Where we’re going to put it several consider iterations we make one is always rotation we want to make sure we do a good job rotating everything around we don’t want to abuse a single plot with a certain family of vegetables year after year because I can cause some

Compounding Pest and disease issues from us so rotation is a big thing to keep in mind and then like I mentioned earlier how much do we really need to grow versus how much could we grow so let’s start out with ters which is one of the first Warm season veggies we’ll be

Planting usually around the middle of February down here in South Georgia and I told you a while back I’ve already got my seed potatoes in the mail from wood Prairie these have been sitting in the closet in my office nice and cozy for about I don’t know 3 weeks now so we

Like to order our ters well in advance of when we’re going to plant and I would recommend you do the same so we can get some nice little Sprouts on these get these ters to break dormy so when we do put them in the ground they’ll kind of

Hit the ground running so like I said these have been sitting in my office for a few weeks just like you go to the grocery store get a sack of Tes put it in a dark pantry and you leave them there long enough they’re going to start

Sprouting kind of the same process here I don’t know if you can see it there but some of these Baltic Rose taters already got some nice little Nubs of Sprouts on them there so these have broken dormy not all the varieties have some take longer than others looks like we’re

Going to have some really nice seed ters to go in the ground here in another month and as we move through this list of vegetables I’ll tell you about some that we are scaling back on but ters is not one of those we’re going to grow pretty

Much the same amount of ters we grew last year we’re going to do three 30ft rows in the inground garden and then we’re going to put some in our raise beds that’s more ters than we need but they’re fun to give away and these things are just really really fun to

Grow the kids love growing ters so we’re going to keep up the same amount of ters that we grew last year now the next one on the list would be sweet corn and this is one that I am scaling back on we did really well with our sweet corn last

Year and put a ton of sweet corn in the freezer we still got a freezer full even though we’ve been eating a good bit of it so I don’t think I need to grow a Whole 30 by 35 plot of sweet corn again this year I just don’t have the freezer

Space for it and that’s something that does take a little bit of time takes me about a whole day to you you know Harvest and process it and get it all in the freezer so I think I’m going just grow a half a plot this year half of one

Of these 30 by 35 plots and that’ll be enough for us to enjoy plenty of it fresh we might put 10 or so bags in the freezer just to make sure we’ve got enough to make it through 2024 we’ll have some extra to give away as well but

We don’t need a whole plot of it this year and I haven’t really decided which variety of sweet corn I want to grow this year I think I’ve grown all the augmented super sweet varieties those types of corn we really really like maybe I have maybe I haven’t not sure I

Need to go back and double check so I could grow one of those again if you got any suggestions put them in the comments below if there’s any variety you’d like to see me grow the only kicker is it’s got to be one of the super sweet varieties I need that extended Harvest

Window things get busy and crazy around here things come up so I need that longer Harvest window so if you’ve got any good suggestions for super sweet variety that I haven’t grown before let me know in the comments below and then as far as other types of corn go I do

Want to try to grow that mccormix blue giant corn again we pretty much got skunk with that last year due to the hurricane so I might try to squeeze that in part of the rotation somewhere and I’m not Beyond doing some popcorn again it’s been a few years since we grew any

Popcorn and that was really fun the kids really like that so we might try to squeeze a little bit of popcorn in there somewh where and then we have tomatoes which is most people’s favorite thing to grow in the warm season this is another thing we’re going to scale back on this

Year I have got a pantry full of pasta sauce and stewed tomatoes and I really don’t need to put up any more Tomatoes this year I’ve got enough to last me through 2024 so instead of growing two 30 foot long rows of tomatoes like we normally do we’re probably going to

Scale that back considerably now for the tomatoes that I am going to grow I’m going to grow mostly determinants I’m not going to plant near as many indeterminant or heirlooms this year I’m just tired of fooling with them they disappoint me every single year so for the determinates we’re going to plant

Some of our favorites red snapper Roadster and then I found a gold or kind of orange determinant called bhn 871 going to try that one this year and I think by the time this video airs we will have seeds for all three of those varieties on our website so if you want

To try those along with us you can find those at lazydog farm.com and then as far as the indeterminates go I’ll pick a few but not you know 15 different varieties like we did last year probably going to do the Turkey Creek again I don’t know that we’ll have any seeds for

Our website on that variety I’ve got a few that I saved last year so I can replant but I don’t have a ton and then we’ve got watermelons the ultimate survival food right it’s funny we always get some of the Preppers asking why we grow so many watermelons it’s not a real

Good survival food and you’re right about that but they are really really fun to grow me and the kids love growing watermelons and I just can’t help myself I’m going to grow a Whole 30 by 35 plot of watermelons again this year we really enjoy just having a stash of fresh

Watermelons just being able to eat a watermelon whenever we want to eat a watermelon so just like we’ve done the last couple years we’ll do a whole plot of watermelons seedless and Seed Ed so we’ll have the seedless plants out there and then we’ll use those seed plants as

Our pollinators haven’t decided on all the varieties I’m going to grow but I really really like that Cracker Jack red seedless variety we grew last year I think I’m definitely going to repeat that one again this year but I’ll throw some others in the mix as well then we

Have Peppers this is another one I’m going to scale back on a little bit this year I scaled back last year and I’m going to scale back even more this year probably just do a couple plants of you know three or four different varieties going to do the King Arthur

Bale again I really like that meilia Italian long hot pepper or whatever it was called that was good one do a couple plants of those we always like to grow the Santa Fe Grand do a couple plants of those I probably would do a whole row of

Really hot peppers for my buddy Mark over in K.O so he can make his saces and stuff but as far as the peppers just for us not going to grow a ton and I might actually just plant them in some of those raised beds over there that’s how

Few I think I’m going to need and then we’ve got squash and cucumbers and I’m going to group these together cuz my strategy is kind of the same for both of these I’m not going to plant a whole lot of these at one time I found that I two

Or three squash plants is often times enough for us to eat squash a couple times a week and be perfectly fine cucumbers we put up a good bit of pickles last year so I don’t really need to grow a whole row of cucumbers I’m just going to grow you know a few plants

Enough to give us a constant supply for salads and just chopping them up eating them fresh so with the squashing cues I’m going to focus Less on volume and focus more on succession planting now we always succession plant squashing cucumbers usually do at least two rounds through the warm season before it gets

Really really hot in mid to late July and August but I think I’m going to try to do even more successions this year and keep a nice steady supply until it gets just too hot to grow them and as far as varieties go I’m sure with some

Of those successions we’ll pick a couple varieties we’ve never tried before but I’ve got my tried and true favorites gold prize grand prize really good straight neck squash varieties that I like and then as far as the Cucumbers go can’t go wrong with Cento and that excels or Pickin cucumber we grew last

Year that was a home run too next on the list we’ve got beans and I’m talking about lima beans here not like green beans or snap beans we used to sell veggies I grew a lot of green beans or snap beans they were good sellers for us

A lot of people like see them in the bags I just don’t really like picking the dang things and I’m not too crazy about them I mean I like green beans but I don’t like them enough to grow a lot of them I do like lime of beans I like

Having those in the freezer I don’t think I grew any last year cuz we had a nice stash in the freezer we have depleted that so I need to restock my freezer freezer with some good lima beans now Brooklyn really likes the smaller Bush lima beans those baby lima

Beans as some folks call them but those things are an absolute booger to pick and I just refuse to grow them so I’m going to grow that king of garden pole Lia again right back there on our Arch panel trellis grow a good many of them and from experience in past years we

Should be able to put quite a few bags in the freezer from nice grow out on that Arch panel trellis so going to plant some of those once things warm up in say mid April or so and uh hopefully we have as good harvest as we did last

Time we grew that variety and moving on to the next veggie I’m also starting to get a little bit low on my field pea stock in the freezer so I need to replenish that a little bit probably going to plant my field peas in the fall

Not going to take any space up with those in the spring Spring Garden really like that chck Bay variety we grew last year and that Ozark razor back we still have some seeds for those two varities on our website so I’ll probably do a fall planting of both of those and use

Those to restock our freezer next on the list we’ve got pumpkins now we grew quite a few semon old pumpkins in that big plot behind me here last year and I still got quite a few underneath the barn those things store really well I’ve got a decent supply of pumpkins going

Into the spring so I’m not sure I need to grow any more Pumpkins I’m not going to prioritize Pumpkins this spring if I have some space available once I get everything else planted I may plant some pumpkins but it’s not going to be top priority I do however want to grow a few

Plants of that giant butternut squash again those are really fun to grow last year and I want to see if I can get up into that 40 lb range with a really really big one hopefully in the next few weeks we’ll have some more seeds for

That variety I know a lot of people had fun growing those last year and want to grow them again and then we have sweet potatoes which I usually like to wait and plant in late May early June that’s one of the few things that will thrive

In our hot summers down here in South Georgia so I don’t have to be in a huge hurry to get sweet potato slips in the ground and I’ll probably grow the same amount of sweet potatoes we grew last year three or four rows in the INR

Garden might put some in a few of the raised beds over there even if we don’t need that many sweet potatoes they just make a really nice ground cover during the summer you know keep the ground covered keep that soil from being bear during those months when there’s not a

Whole lot we can grow and then last on my list although I’m sure there’s some stuff I’m forgetting would be Oaky Oak loves our summer heat as well so we don’t have to be in a huge hurry to get Oak in the ground we can wait until

Early midm May and pl our o prioritize all the other stuff that we need to get in the ground first that’s not going to like the summer heat and then put our heat loving stuff in the crown later as far as oak varieties go I’m going to

Stick with the stuff that I’ve really been liking the last couple years dwarf C horn and that Ruiz o we did just restock both of those on the website so you can grab some of those before they’re gone dwarf C horn Oak you really don’t need a whole lot of it you know

Five or six plants would give you all the oak that most people need so those are my plans at the moment they are not set and stone they are very fluid they could change by the time we get some seeds start in the greenhouse or start getting some things direct seated out

Here in the garden plots it’s good to kind of have a preliminary idea of what you want to do and how much you need to grow and if there’s any vegetables I didn’t mention that you feel like I should be growing or some varieties that you’d like to see me grow definitely put

That in the comments below I’ll read them all and consider some of them so I hope you enjoyed the video today don’t forget to go to our website lazydog farm.com check out some of the seeds and other stuff we have over there I mentioned that crackerjack watermelon

Earlier and how good and sweet it was if you missed that last year watch this video right here when we did a bricks test on that watermelon and show you the results so check that out and we’ll see you next time right here at Lazy Dog Farm