The gardening community is overwhelmed of myths, misconceptions, and sometimes, outright lies that cause gardeners to develop bad habits that harm our vegetable gardens. In this video, I share shocking truths I wish I knew before I started gardening. They lied to us about our garden this whole time, and I hope to set the record straight so you don’t make the same gardening mistakes I made.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
0:00 Don’t Fall For These Gardening Myths
1:02 Lie #1: STOP Mass Planting!
5:38 Lie #2: The REAL History Of Man
9:37 Lie #3: We Aren’t REALLY Growing Plants
12:40 My Honest Gardening Advice
14:13 Adventures With Dale
If you have any questions about how to grow a vegetable garden at home, want to learn more about growing fruit trees or the things I grow in my raised bed vegetable garden and edible landscaping food forest, are looking for more gardening tips and tricks and garden hacks, have questions about vegetable gardening and organic gardening in general, or want to share some DIY and “how to” garden tips and gardening hacks of your own, please ask in the Comments below!
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ABOUT MY GARDEN
Location: Southeastern NC, Brunswick County (Wilmington area)
34.1°N Latitude
Zone 8B
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#gardening #garden #gardeningtips #vegetablegardening #vegetablegarden
The older I get, the more I seem to learn how shockingly often conventional wisdom is wrong. It seems like every successful person got successful by swimming against the current, taking the road less traveled, breaking away from convention. I was lied to. I got bad advice and me and my garden suffered the consequences. Today, I’m going to share those lies with you. And hopefully you can learn from my naivee. If you’re new to the channel, please subscribe. Hit the bell for notifications and check out my Amazon store and Spreadshop links in the video description for everything I use in my garden and awesome custom apparel and gear. I’ve been gardening for a long time, honestly, since before I can remember. There are literally baby pictures of me in the garden pulling weeds, planting seeds, and watering plants. I got my first job working on a farm when I was 11 years old. I was indoctrinated early into gardening culture and still I couldn’t figure this stuff out for myself if I didn’t know this stuff. What chance does the average person have? Lie number one, they told me that gardening was a season. Gardening season. Well, as a young gardener in my 20s, I bought into gardening season and I followed the conventional wisdom for planting my crops out in early spring. I watched them grow. got my first harvest at some point in May or June and then the really big harvest would come in midsummer. Things would slow down into fall. Then the frost came, it would kill my plants and I would pack up my garden for the winter. Then I would repeat the process again next year. What a lousy way to garden. The best way to grow food is not to plant one massive crop, then have everything come in all at once, so we can’t handle all the harvests, then have absolutely nothing mere weeks later. The best way is to stagger smaller plantings so we have continuous, manageable harvests for as long as possible. This process is called succession planting. Not only is this less work at any given time, but it produces more food over a longer period, maximizing your potential growing season, minimizing waste, and it’s less maintenance this way. This is such a better way to grow food, yet almost everyone does it the other way where they mass plant everything at once. I used to plant all of my tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and squash plants out in my garden in April in one giant mass planting event. But that leads to poor results. First, you wind up wasting much of your harvest because all of the plants produce their food at the same time, and you get such a giant deluge of food that you wind up giving half of it away, or you let part of it rot on the ground. Then because most annual vegetables have short lifespans and they can’t survive healthily all summer long, the progressive and persistent heat, diseases, and insects are just too much for the plants. Everything gets attacked by bugs and diseases. You get frustrated because you can’t keep up and your garden falls into disarray. You go from so much food you don’t know what to do with it all to none in the blink of an eye. Now, I avoid that problem by planting everything in waves. I do two plantings of tomatoes. The main tomato crop goes out in my garden around April 1st, but then a second smaller crop of determinant tomatoes go out in late July. Cucumbers and zucchini, well, they are even more extreme. I plant a new crop of them every four to 6 weeks. By year’s end, I’ve planted anywhere from four to five waves of cucumber and zucchini over a summer because they germinate quickly. They produce quickly and they get killed by pests and diseases quickly. There’s just no use trying to keep your original plants alive all season. These raised garden beds here are where my original crops of tomatoes, cucumbers, and zucchini were. Most of them are long dead, aside from a small handful of tomato crops that I was still able to keep alive all summer that are doing okay. But now I have a whole new bed of fall tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and zucchini coming along. Looking beautiful. Look at those zucchini plants back there. Don’t they look incredible? Everything is perfect. Green, disease-free. Look at that. I’m starting to get some tomato flowers back there. But I have more plants that are in their peak production scattered all about the yard. For example, here are some small melons. And look, cucumbers looking beautiful. These staggered plantings are hidden all over my yard in different levels and stages of development. This strategy isn’t just limited to warm crops. I do the same thing with my cool crops. I plant waves of broccoli, cabbage, and peas in late summer for a fall harvest and in late winter for a spring harvest. I sew small rows of lettuce, carrots, radishes, and beets continuously from August all the way until March every few weeks. I grow two different rounds of onions for a winter harvest and a summer harvest. And I grow spring potatoes and fall potatoes. This all allows me to heavily drag out my growing season because I’m not relying on tired old plants for food. There are always younger, tougher plants in peak production somewhere in my yard and garden. I waste less food because not everything matures at once, and I can manage the harvests. And it’s a lot less work this way because I don’t have to constantly manage everything all at once. It is all so much easier. Why didn’t anyone tell me this in the beginning? Hopefully, I can share this better way of growing food with you. Lie number two that they told me was that gardening was for older people. It’s an old folks hobby. It’s something you do in retirement when you have time. Young people, well, they are just too busy. They have jobs to go to, families to raise, money to make. just outsource your safety and security to someone else. What could go wrong? A truly tragic consequence of modern society is we seem to have lost our connection to where food comes from and how natural systems work. And that’s ironic because modern society only exists for one reason. We no longer spend significant amounts of time trying to stay alive. For most of human existence, almost all of our time and energy was spent trying to find food, water, and shelter. By the time we found enough of those things for that day, the day was over, and we had to do all of those things all over again the next day. There was simply no time left in the day to build society. It wasn’t until we discovered agriculture that we actually had enough time to settle down. Picture this. For most of humanity, we were hunter gatherers. We were roving tribes that made temporary settlements as we chased the migratory patterns of animals to hunt and the seasonal patterns of fruing plants, roots, and tubers that we could actually harvest. We moved with the food, and that meant possessions were not advantageous to us. Aside from a weapon to protect us and clothing to keep us warm, owning stuff did nothing but slow us down. But then something happened. Somebody figured out that when you planted a seed, it grew a plant that we could eat. And then that same plant would produce more seed that could be planted to grow even more plants that we could eat. For the first time, we had a renewable source of stationary food. When that happened, we did something we had never done before. We built permanent camps around a renewable stationary food source. We called those permanent camps cities. So for the first time, people had their own permanent place to call their home. And when they suddenly had their own personal space, they had places to put stuff. People actually wanted to own things and have possessions. Suddenly, there was an economy because we all had a stable, stationary food source. And we didn’t have to spend all day huntering and gathering anymore and just trying to stay alive. We finally had free time to think. And what did we think about? Inventions. We wanted to develop new cool and shiny objects that we could trade back and forth with each other. Invention, possession, trade, business. All of these things exist because someone figured out that planting a seed made food. All of modern society today exists because the things we need to survive have been outsourced. So we now have the free time to do other things that are not required for our survival. Imagine walking into a grocery store and all of the shelves are empty. Some of us got a real taste of that in 2021. How did that make you feel? Not very good, right? We aren’t used to thinking about our basic survival anymore. And this is why learning where food comes from is so important. It not only gives you a deep respect for the people that grow our food for us, but it also gives us an understanding at how fragile the food system is. If the food system breaks down, all of society will collapse. That system must be preserved and protected at all costs. When you garden, you instinctively know this. And reserving this knowledge simply for older generations is in my opinion a disservice to society. People need to learn this from the earliest age possible. So we are all instinctively aware of this from day one. That way we will be more than likely to make smarter decisions that protect our food and we will be less likely to be fearful in the face of a crisis or an inevitable problem. And lie number three is probably the biggest one of all and that is that gardening grows plants. Gardening grows people. The plants that grow are a side effect of the personal growth. Gardening teaches us all that life is precious. From the tallest tree to the tiniest bacteria because everything is connected. Without the bacteria breaking down the organic matter in the soil, there will be no nutrients for the big tall trees to grow. We are all part of a massive machine, more complex than any of us can wrap our minds around. When we do our part, the machine runs smoothly. But when we don’t, things break down. Sometimes I look around me and just marvel at this little garden that I’ve built in total awe. Thousands of plants all around me exist because I decided to plant some seeds and then tend to the garden. That is magic. Yes, I understand that magic is technically just misunderstood technology, but also it’s like magic. You know, you plant a seed and then poof, something appears out of thin air where there was nothing and then it grows bigger by absorbing light. Like, what is that? When you actually think about it, it is mindbending. It is an actual miracle. Gardening is magical. Not experiencing this is just such a missed opportunity. And I want everyone to experience this and we all can do it. I believe this especially holds true for the younger generations. At this point, I am fairly convinced that the more time we spend indoors with technology, the less happy and healthy we are. Yes, I understand the irony since without advanced technology and the internet, this video you’re watching right now wouldn’t exist. Technology is good. Technology can be healthy when used as a platform for sharing beneficial information. learning and making positive connections with people all over the world. Technology is absolutely wonderful. That is why I love the YouTube gardening community so much. The positivity, the kindness, and the support is truly amazing. But at some point, you have to go outside. You have to touch grass. You have to put your hands in the dirt and get them dirty. You have to actually do this gardening thing. So, please, if you haven’t started a garden, start one, no matter how small. Start it on your patio. Start it on your window sill. Just start. If you already have a garden like me, get someone else involved. Get your kids or grandkids involved. If you’re a younger person, get your parents or grandparents involved. If you don’t have family nearby, tell your neighbors. Tell your co-workers. Tell your friends. Spread the good word. If we all had the same connection to living things that gardeners have, I think the world would be a friendlier and kinder place. I could be wrong, but I don’t think I am. What do you think? I know this video was a little bit different than usual, a little bit more philosophical, but I hope it didn’t come across as preachy. That is not my intent. All I really intended with this video was to provide some motivation, some positivity, and hopefully some good vibes, and throw them out there into the world. I hope I genuinely did accomplish that. With the year winding down and the sunsets getting a little bit earlier. I mean, it’s 7:20 p.m. and it’s already almost dark. I’ve just been in a more reflective and contemplative mood. I think I often get that way this time of year with it coming to an end. But I’m guessing a lot of people also feel the same way this time of year. So, I wanted to give you all my thoughts. Hopefully, you did enjoy this video and you took something positive away from it. If you did, let me know down in the comments below. And if you’d like more videos like these or if you just want me to stick to the technical stuff. So everybody, I genuinely hope you did enjoy this video. If you did, please make sure to hit that like button, subscribe to the channel, and please ring the notification bell so you’re notified when I release more videos like these. And please drop a comment down below. Tell me what your thoughts are. I would love to hear from you. If you’re curious about any of the products that I use in real life in my yard and garden, everything I use is linked down in the video description in my Amazon storefront link. So, expand the video description, click on the Amazon storefront link, and you’ll see everything I use in real life. And while you’re down there, please consider checking out my spreadshop for custom merchandise if you’d like to support my channel. I just released a whole bunch of new homemade designs you may want to see. Thank you all so much for watching, and I hope to see all of you again on the next video. Where oh, where has my puppy dog gone? Oh, here he is. Dale has been depressed all day because mommy left for a work trip at 400 a.m. He saw the suitcase out last night and he’s been giving us the cold shoulder. He didn’t come wake me up in the morning or anything. He’s just sitting here all depressed. Buddy, are you about ready to go outside? You have to go potty. No reaction. No, he’s just sitting here and staring out the darn window. It’s all he wants to do. Come on, buddy. It’s lunchtime. Are you thirsty? Do you want to go outside? Do you want to play? No, he just wants to be alone with his feelings. That’s all right. We get like that when mommy leaves.
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If you enjoyed this video, please LIKE it and SHARE it with family and friends! Thanks for watching 🙂 TIMESTAMPS here:
0:00 Don't Fall For These Gardening Myths
1:02 Lie #1: STOP Mass Planting!
5:38 Lie #2: The REAL History Of Man
9:37 Lie #3: We Aren't REALLY Growing Plants
12:40 My Honest Gardening Advice
14:13 Adventures With Dale
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Heya MG… 😢 Sadly, your soil has White Powdery Mildew living in it 😢
fyi, I’m a subscriber, experienced gardener and really enjoy your informative videos!!👍
I love succession sowing. We thankfully live where we can also grow food year round, so we are always changing what we are growing and get to eat different things all the time, and don't feel overwhelmed or in lack from it.
Gardening has been my passion since early childhood and I was lucky to be raised with traditional Cherokee companion planting and succession planting methods, as well as modern seasonal planting. My grandmothers grew up in a time when successful harvests meant that you had food, and an unsuccessful crop meant you would have a lean year at the dinner table. Since the weather started to get more chaotic, with frost and deadly heatwaves within the same week and the sun acting strange, I set up an indoor garden room to provide our tender vegetables and those we wanted year-round: scallions, celery, herbs, lettuces, greens, radishes, turnips, beets, dwarf carrots, sugar snap peas, cherry tomatoes, peppers, sweet potatoes, ginger, garlic greens, and even green beans. It's a blend of modern technology and new world succession planting.
These aren't storage crops and we don't wait for all the root vegetables to mature–we eat the greens. You can eat sweet potato leaves in a salad or stir fry. Thin celery stalks and leaves provide aromatics for cooking. Microgreens provide tender leaves for salads. Sugar snap peas grow so fast that we have those in the daily salad, thinly slicd, pod and all. I only wish we had the forsight to start doing this sooner.
We still grow the storage crops outdoors. Maize, potatoes, garlic, onions, tomatoes, sunchokes, sunflowers, cucumbers, squashes, zucchini, basil, and beans of all kinds. September is pesto season with lots of fresh pesto daily, frozen pesto cubes for cooking all year, and dehydrated basil. It's also the final days of the tomato canning, sundrying, and fresh eating season. October will be fried green tomato and pickle relish season when the tomatoes don't ripen on the vine anymore.
Grocery store vegetable prices are over 40% higher now. I saw shrinkflation at Walmart with collard green bundles shrinking by half at the same price, which is a fifty percent price increase. Tip: chop collard greens, ribs and all, and freeze. This preserves them, improves the texture, and they can easily be added to soups and stews or used in a stir fry. As my grandmother said, eat your greens! She also said to eat the weeds, a different traditiinal crop.
Thank you for inspirational video. I shall be somewhat out of topic, but what I want to add is HUGE because it affects everything. The superriches intentionally changed climate to eliminate food production. They actually sabotage the gardening consequently.
So the season is not season any more. When temperatures rise more then 35 °C for long period, droughts terrible, every development stops, flowering, fruit, just everything. If conditions improve, the plants need some lag period to recover and start again. Then sharp weather peaks, both very hot by day and very cold by nght are devastating. The stink bugs I am not sure about, might be not exactly accidentally spread all over the world. Whatever it is, you get the idea.
So the main course of action (apart from dealing with the superriches) in gardening would be finding ASAP some viable strategies how to manage gardening in new circumstances.
Gardening is magic, and growing plants for food nurtures our part in life in the big universe. I think growing plants is the most calming thing to do. You feel a part of life instead of apart from life.
Your videos are 100 percent great green philosophy.
Have gardened on and off since 1997 or so. Used to think gardening was just "plant seeds in dirt, add water, watch it grow and harvest later". It wasn't until probably 2022 that I learned no til and soil health is key. Dirt and soil are two very different things. 2nd thing was also "gardening season", thinking "plant in spring". O would plant everything all at the same time and be disappointed that spinach and lettuce were bolting, that cabbage would die off. It took me years to realize in my area certain crops had to be planted in October and could grow perfectly fine through the winter up until it got to warm for them in April. Figured out timing and soil health and my garden is better and better each year.
Great video, total truth. I almost want to share number two lie with my family so they have the understanding. I have and do try to get my family to garden with me and sometimes my eldest daughter does (just not for long) but they just don't have the interest. I've been trying to encourage and inspire my neighbors to grow but to no avail. So it's just me and my fellow gardeners on YouTube. Thankfully i live in an area where I can grow all year round. Btw, this video is what made me subscribe so yeah keep them coming.
Excellent video. Thank you!
The Lord God said one man plants the seed another man watered it but God give's the increase. The reason is we fell so at ease in the Garden is because that's where you were in the beginning
Please stop using the click-bat tiles. You've been doing this for too long to not know how a title with real thought.
An eye opening video…This is a big picture perspective! 👍👍
I moved across the country with the goal of growing my own food. I started watching your channel because I'm in North Florida, it's like another planet compared to Seattle when gardening.
Since living here and learning the weather patterns, finding places food will grow on the property, and lots of research, I realized I can eat fresh food ALL YEAR LONG.
It's simply a matter of copying Mother Earth. We walk our dogs in the woods every morning and get to see the abundant beauty of constant growth, regrowth, blooms and fruit. Nature never stops growing food! Why should we? ❤❤❤
I'm finding edible food that grows NATURALLY in this region, and using what I've got here. Lots of adjustment. I like my European vegetables. However, they don't like growing here, so I'm adjusting.
Permaculture is the way to go. It's hard to make the change to this style of growing food, but it makes so much sense, and the food thrives, returning year after year for this lazy gardener.
I really enjoyed this video!
You're correct about time outside–there are a number of research studies that have shown that time spent outside helps mental health issues immensely. It's great you're advocating such a healthy way for us to decrease stress and feel better!
Anytime convenience is brought up you need to question it. Not saying its all bad but i can tell you taking your time and putting love into something will always win. Most of the time if its a longer slower plan it is better for you. Fast food is fast and it takes life away by eating it.
Convention
Convenience
Con is the key word
Excellent kudos to you Sir.
Thank you! Subscribing now. I agree with ALL you said!!
Love this , thank you for sharing your experience, thoughts 💭 ❤
I enjoyed this reflective video. I know I have grown as a person since becoming a gardener 4 years ago. I used to be so afraid of any bee or wasp or bug. Now I plant a variety of herbs and flowers to attract them to my garden and even spend time videoing them. What a change! It is too funny how Dale eyeballs you from the side😂
Great show today. You are right on! Am sharing it with my millennial friends.
Whole heartedly agree!!!
Gardening has become a safe haven and bonding time for my daughter and I. She had her own raised bed this year and appreciates the higher quality homegrown food we have access to. Cheers Anthony!
Incredible! The whole garden overview. Great information
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I try to introduce others to gardening as much as possible. My garden is my sanctuary.
The damage done by the advent of Agriculture is far greater than any imagined benefit.
Go ask Professor Bart Kay.
Thanks
Thank you, your words are so true. I am now 71 (Dang! How did THAT happen?) and I have been around gardens, forests, growing things seedlings and harvesting all my life. I remember asking my Italian grandfather, who was grafting a fifth kind of fruit on a peach tree, how it all works. Meaning seed to plant to fruit, he looked at me like I was a dumb a$$ and said, ‘it is God’s magic machine. His hobby. All the systems work together to create all this.” He pointed to all his gardens and trees. “All the bees pollinating and all the worms cultivating and we get to masticate.” And smiled. Of course, me being just a wee lad didn’t understand it all but his words planted a seed in me, as it were, to find out more. Your words reminded me of him. May the soil be with you. Love your videos. I wouldn’t mind hearing more.
Ambient background visuals help commentary feel paced.
I’m so glad that you have figured out the gardening seasons ! Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us. I have been gardening for a while now and I’m still learning. To me it’s so amazing to watch the little seed that you put in the soil become a beautiful flower or a delicious vegetable but not by magic but with God’s great love for us.❤🙏🏻
Great message young man. Spot on…the magic is ture and comes from that tint seed…
This was an outstanding video, thank you so much!!!
Now these people are farming "HATE FOR GARDENING" Wow. Ok Bud.
Great video! Well said. We could all use a little reflection on how we got to this point in our society and how gardening is great for both your physical and mental health! Love the channel.
Must be nice to have such an option, for me it isn't even warm enough to plant till May long at the soonest and the growing season without building a greenhouse ends in late September to mid October. Not everyone has the option to do build one. At best I might have another month tops before the risk of frost becomes real. I simply don't have the option do go with that strategy.
I know exactly what you are conveying! I have learned so much from my garden. From my successes to my failures, i am learning. And not just about growing a food but about life. God created the Garden of Eden for humans to tend and nurture. We were created for this!
And when you were talking about the miracle of a seed going to a full grown plant and then giving us food to eat ( all from a tiny seed ) is jaw dropping to me 😮 I get speechless at times as I watch day to day what is happening in my garden. It’s all God’s work, His plan, His miracle 🤗☺️❤️ And we have the greatest pleasure to be a part of it !!!
Just grow things! If it works, Awesome!!! If it doesn’t, Awesome, bc we are learning either way. Every day is GROWING SEASON ❤️
Please Make sure your subscribe and bell is on. I have been unsubed several times in the past year for whatever reason. Great video brother! Keep up the good work! Thank you!
If you have an overabundance of food… you may want to learn how to preserve it instead of letting it go to waste 👌🏼
"Today, I'm going to share those lies with you." is a pretty wild sentence.
Love this video. You should tour the country getting people involved in this great activity.
Gardening takes patience
When I was younger I didnt think much about growing plants, but even when I was young it would hurt to see my plant die despite looking so pretty, and made me curious on learning how to prevent that and make sure it got bigger and healthier
This was my first year in a very small garden area after losing my very large garden area of the previous 18 years. With such a short growing season this far north high in the Rockies and so little area to grow on it certainly made progressive planting a lot tougher. Learned some lessons though that will be applied next year.
When you dont listen to other people, you can't be lied to
I agree with you. Its also peaceful.
Thank you for your thoughts. I appreciate you.❤
I think it was a great video. Thank you.
This video just made my day!