Vegetable Gardening Made Easy! | Beginner Gardening Tips and Tricks That Foster Long-Term Success!

Gardening Tips for Beginners | Improving and Beginning Gardeners | A Foundation for Long-term GARDENING Success | Optimize Growth, Health, and Productivity | EASILY, and More Adequately, Meet Your Plants’ 6 Critical Needs | The Core of All Expert Vegetable Gardener’s Practices | What Great Gardeners Do Differently| The Foundation and Fundamentals of Old-school Organic and Ecosystem-based Gardening | Easiest Way to Grow Chemical-free Vegetables | Chemical (and even organic) Pesticides Become Optional, Unnecessary, and even Superfluous

For more green thumb gardening secrets, check out my website at https://greenthumbgardeningsecrets.com

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Links from video:
Finding Your Sunniest Spot: https://greenthumbgardeningsecrets.com/three-easy-to-moderate-ways/

Dealing with Sod: https://greenthumbgardeningsecrets.com/dealing-with-sod/

Soil & Bed Building Methods: https://greenthumbgardeningsecrets.com/building-soil/

Soil Moisture: https://greenthumbgardeningsecrets.com/the-right-amount-of-water/

Planting at the Correct Temperature: https://greenthumbgardeningsecrets.com/planting-times/

Finding Your Last Frost Date: https://greenthumbgardeningsecrets.com/frost-dates/

Proper Spacing: https://greenthumbgardeningsecrets.com/in-bed-spacing/

Offset Spacing: https://greenthumbgardeningsecrets.com/sidebar-offset-spacing/

Easy Companions to Get Started: https://greenthumbgardeningsecrets.com/easy-companion-groupings-to-get-started/

Complete Companion Planting Chart: https://greenthumbgardeningsecrets.com/companion-planting-chart

Chapters
00:00 – Intro
01:15 – The 6 Biggest Needs
01:37 – 1. Sunlight
04:24 – Dealing with Sod
04:46 – 2. Super Rich Soil
08:22 – 3. Moderate Soil Moisture
09:42 – 4. Correct Air & Soil Temperature
10:44 – 5. Proper Spacing
12:04 – 6. Companion Planting
14:41 – Outro

***Video Transcript***

Gardening doesn’t have to be difficult. It never had to be. It can actually be quite simple and surprisingly easy. And it’s ALL connected. And you can most definitely do it. Everyone can. If you have the desire, you can learn the skills. Anyone can learn the skills. It’s something you can easily do. Yes, even you! [Music Intro] Judd Lefeber here with Green Thumb Gardening Secrets, where we’re trying to reforge the generational chain of knowledge that connects people to their food and all of the other wonderful joys of gardening. And it’s not that hard, especially if you simplify it to what really matters. And what really matters is not a litany of disease and pest information. It’s your plants’ biggest needs for optimum growth, health, and productivity. That’s where you start. It’s the most important thing! Today, in late winter, while there’s nothing up yet but cover crops, garlic, and hopes for the coming season, many people are considering starting their own gardens, making it a perfect time for me to show you how. [The Six Biggest Needs] To be their absolute best, vegetable garden plants actually need six things: Immense amounts of sunlight, Super rich soil, Moderate soil moisture, The Correct air and soil temperature, Proper spacing, and Companion plants. If you give your plants these six things, they’ll do exceptionally well. That’s the whole secret to gardening; that’s it. Really… that’s it! [Why Start with Sunlight] Your first step in getting started with the actual tasks of gardening is to pick the right spot. And, you want to pick the spot with the most direct sunlight you can because… 1. Our garden plants need it like we need food. Plants might do alchemy with carbon dioxide, water, and nutrients, but it’s all powered by the sun. 2. And the vast majority of our garden plants evolved in open sunny environments so are hard-wired to require LOADS of direct sunlight 3. Plus, think of what we ask of them. We don’t want tiny, tasteless tomatoes and paltry little broccoli heads. We want BIG, JUICY, super-flavorful EVERYTHING! Therefore, our plants need a ton of sun to power all of that size, sweetness, flavor, and nutrition. Think about it: Is there another plant in our landscape that can start from a seed and grow a fruit the size of a tomato…an 8 or 9” ear filled with 100 plus super-energy-packed kernels, or a huge squash…in four months? Is there a plant that could do that in the shade?—where flowers and seeds tend to be small just because the available energy is so much less? The sun powers all of that growth, and we want the best of it! So give it to them! 4. Finally, the amount of direct sunlight a spot gets is often the hardest thing to change. You can fix soil that’s low in nutrients, too dry, or even too wet. And you can easily change your planting times to change the temperatures in which your plants are growing. But there’s usually nothing you can do to fix a spot that doesn’t get enough direct sunlight. Doing so often means removing houses and large trees that give you shade and shelter and might not even be yours…so, changing things that are not theoretically impossible but functionally so. Choosing a spot that you eventually decide to abandon because it doesn’t get enough sunlight means a lot of wasted work, so it’s much easier to start with a spot that gets enough direct sunlight to start right away. [How Do You Know If A Prospective Garden Spot Gets Enough Direct Sunlight?] I show several ways to find out exactly how much direct sunlight a spot gets on my website. They’re all really easy, and I’ve included a link directly to them in the description below. [How Much Sunlight Do Vegetable Plants Need?] Keep in mind that, to be anywhere near their best, most common garden plants need 9 or 10 or more hours of pure, unfiltered, absolutely direct sunlight. [What If You Can’t Find a Spot That Gets Enough Sunlight for Your Plants?] If you can’t find a spot anywhere that gets 9 or 10 or more hours, there are a few things you can still grow in a spot that gets down to 6 or 7 hours of direct sunlight a day, but I hesitate to tell you that because your plants won’t be at their best, possibly without you even realizing it. And if you do notice it, you might think it’s some mystical personal failing—like you magically just don’t have the mythical green thumb—and then give up in defeat when really it was just that you picked a spot that didn’t get enough direct sunlight to fully power your plants. And I see this exact scenario all the time. [What Vegetable Plants Grow in Less Than Seven Hours of Direct Sunlight?] But if you don’t take my advice and try to grow in too few hours of direct sunlight, keep in mind: It takes much less sun energy to grow leaves (like lettuce, spinach, kale, etc.) than it does to grow flowers (like broccoli & cauliflower heads), seeds (like corn), or fruit (like peppers, tomatoes, and eggplants). So plants that you grow for their leaves will do…not their best but…okay…in maybe 6 or 7ish hours of direct sunlight a day. [What Happens If Vegetable Plants Don’t Get Enough Sunlight?] If you try growing anything from which you harvest flowers, seeds, or fruit? Keep in mind that, even when everything else is perfect, this is what broccoli heads look like when the plants only get 7 hours of direct sunlight a day compared to those right next to them in the same soil that got 9 or 10. [Dealing with Sod] If your best spot is currently covered in lawn grass, you’ll have to kill or remove the sod. You have two good options—cutting out the sod by hand and composting it, or smothering it well in advance—and two lesser options—tilling it in, or smothering it closer to planting time. Each has its own pros and cons, all of which are too much to get into here, but you can find out more about all of them on my website. I’ll leave a direct link to the pages on dealing with sod in the description below. [Super Rich Soil] For enriching your soil, you have three options: 1. chemical fertilizers, 2. organic fertilizers, 3. or cured compost. To create super-rich soil, you really only have one: adding cured compost. [Chemical and Organic Fertilizers] Chemical and organic fertilizers both work, but only sort of. They provide richness to your soil, but their richness is short-lived, and they only provide the big three of N, P, & K without all of the micronutrients that are also critical for plants’ long-term health (and yours). Once these pellets dissolve and are either taken up by plants, run off, or leach away, they’re richness is gone. It’s sort of like, a person only eating protein, carbohydrates, and fats but not getting any of the vitamins or minerals they need but also doing so with carbohydrates that are all simple sugars, and proteins and fats that go through their digestive system just as quickly, so they’re hungry in an hour even though they’ve ingested more calories than they’ve used, but are somehow also malnourished. These things feed your plants…sort of…but they don’t give your plants everything they need for long-term health. [Adding Cured Compost to a Planting Bed] A well-balanced cured compost, in contrast, provides all of the macro- and micro-nutrients plants need. It’s the concentrated organic matter and complex organic compounds that feed the microbes and symbiotic mycorrhizal fungi that ultimately feed your plants—in just the right proportions, all growing season long. To use it, simply mix six inches of it into the top 6-12” of your soil, and you’re plants will love you for it! They’ll also love the loosening of your soil that this mixing entails. [Options for Mixing in Compost] There are several options here for mixing it in—from to double digging it in 2’ deep, to spading or forking it in 1’ deep, or even tilling it in 6” deep—but, in general, the deeper you mix it in and loosen your soil in the process, the better your plants will do. Personally, however, although it’d typically only take me 2 hours to complete a 3’ x 10’ area, I only do the much harder work of loosening and mixing compost 2’ deep for plants with particularly large root systems—namely tomatoes, peppers, and the larger brassicas, like broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage—for which I’ve found it makes the most obvious, profound difference. For the rest, I’ve made the personal decision that it’s too much work for the payoff. Therefore, I only recommend it, if at all, for just those parts of your plot that will hold those plants. And if that sounds like too much, even for any part of your plot, luckily, loosening an area a foot deep with a digging fork and then using that same digging fork to mix in 6” of cured compost is the best mix of ease and efficacy, taking only about a 1/2 an hour to complete even on a 3’x10’ plot, with great results for your plants’ growth, health, and production. Similarly, although it’s fallen out of favor of late, tilling a couple times to loosen your soil, followed by tilling to mix in 6” of added cured compost is another easy option that gets very good, if not quite as great, results. [No Dig, No Till Approach] Additionally, if you weren’t able to kill your sod in advance and don’t want to remove it by hand, you can smother it with a layer of overlapped wetted newspapers 8-10 sheets thick or a similar layer of an overlapped cardboard, and then create a planting bed by placing 6” of cured compost directly on top of that. It’s more of a short-term option, and not the one I’d most recommend— because it doesn’t do any super-beneficial mixing or loosening and, for the most part, cuts your plants off for the natural benefits of the underlying soil—but it’ll work okay. [No Dig, No Till Works Better for Some Plants than Others] Some of your plants, like lettuce, will do just fine, but just keep in mind that 6” is way too shallow for many of your plants’ root systems, and the layer you used to kill the sod also keeps most of your plants’ roots from penetrating it for the same reason it smothers the sod. Plus, this layer also mostly isolates the soil in your planting bed from having its moisture regenerated from the natural upward wicking of water between soil particles, or capillary action, from the deeper water table, meaning it’ll dry out faster and need to be watered more often, possibly much more. But, if you have sod to kill, can’t or don’t want to remove it by hand, and know to expect a little lessened results your first year so don’t take it personally but instead do some loosening and mixing the next year once your sod is gone, it’s a fine way to get started in a pinch. [Moderate Soil Moisture] Keeping your soil moderately moist can also be easy. In a mostly bare garden without a lot of organic matter, you need about an inch of water per week to keep the soil at the moderate moistness level that most fruit and vegetable plants love, which is why this is the most commonly given advice for watering. In many regions, however, the rain will do this for you, especially early in the growing season. But if you don’t artificially locate your bed soil high above the ground level surrounded by warm wood, masonry, or metal on four extra sides, which dries it out much faster; don’t functionally cut it off from the water table below that naturally feeds it through capillary action; have lots of organic matter in your soil—like that provided by cured compost, which holds almost its weight in water; and…mulch the exposed top of your soil in between your plants with straw, the soil will stay evenly, moderately moist with much less than an inch of water per week, leaving you to not have to water at all in many areas at most times of the year, unless it’s a draught. If you’re ever unsure if your soil is too dry, just stick your finger all of the way into it and see how it feels. In areas where you’re trying to get seeds to sprout and grow, try to keep it moist throughout until their little root systems get established—so until the plants are, say, three or more inches tall. Once, your plants are more established, it’s fine if it’s dry on top but moist starting, say, 1/2” or 1” down. If it’s dry a 1/2” or 1” or more down? Likely water. It’s not an exact science and depends a little bit on how established your plants are and what kind they are (Some like it a little wetter; some a little drier.), but that should get you started. [The Correct Growing Temperature] In terms of their preferred, and in some cases required, growing temperature, plants fall into two main groups: cool-season plants and warm-season plants. Because cool season plants can take a light frost but get severely stressed and often bolt and go to seed when temperates get over 80 to 85°F (so like 27-30°C), each species can be planted a certain number of weeks before your specific, local, average last frost date to take advantage of the cooler weather but longer, sunny days of spring that they love. Because warm-season plants typically can’t take a frost and love warmer temperatures, they’re typically planted on, or a certain number of weeks after, your specific, local average last frost date. You can use the number of weeks before or after your average last frost date that I have displayed on the screen here, you can look them up on my website (I also have a link to that specific page in the description below.), or you can use the seed packets, which typically display this information along with planting depth, spacing, etc. All will work well and will be about the same. To find your specific, local average last frost date in the spring, you can click on the “average last frost date” link in the description below which will take you to a page with resources to help you find yours. You can also just Google it. [Proper Spacing] Every plant also needs its own specific amount of growing room—from 2 to 24," depending on the plant—similar to how different people need different amounts of personal space. Your plants are basically just like goldfish—who will stay small in a tiny fishbowl but can grow quite large if given a larger, healthy space. Their eventual size absolutely matches the space they are provided, staying small and even miniature in small and miniature containers, and only reaching their full potential if given their ideal amount of loose, rich, unoccupied soil to stretch their roots in their search for nutrients. It’s super important, therefore, to give them enough space. However, you also don’t want a lot of extra, empty space between them that just leads to sun-baked, dried-out soil and more weed growth. The specific spacing I’m providing on the screen allows them to reach their full potential but also be close enough to form a dense canopy of foliage to shade and cool the soil, preserving soil moisture and minimizing weed growth. You can also use the spacings listed on seed packets. The only difference is that seed packets often decrease in-row spacing a little but increase between-row spacing a lot because many seed companies assume most people are still stuck in the “paths next to each row” paradigm. Instead, our plants do best in beds we never walk on, planted in blocks, with their in-row and between-row spacing being roughly the same. I have much more on plant spacing and a method called offset spacing on my website. And you guessed it, link, description, below. [Companion Planting Tips, What Plants Grow Well Next to Each Other] Finally, every plant has preferences for which other plants grow near it. There are tons of reasons for this—like root-depth and nutrient-need compatibility (each taking up space and nutrients that the other is not) or…deterring pests of each other with their scents—but the long and short of it is they grow better, often markedly so, near their best companions, so we use it to our advantage. [Comapanion Planting Chart] It can get complicated, however. Many a gardener has been left with their head spinning after trying to match up all of the best companion combinations for what they’re planting, and you can go wild yourself. On my website under “Companions,” I have one of, if not the most, comprehensive compilations of them—all verified from at least three sources and most tested for many years, i.e. decades, in our own garden. [Three Easy Companion Planting Groupings to Get Started, Companion Planting for Beginners, Three Sample Companion Planting Beds] To make it easier, however, here are three combinations of common vegetable garden of plants listed in order of what they do well next to: Note that, since the sun will be slightly to the south, even in summer, taller plants like tomatoes, typically go on the north side of a bed, so there are no garden plants in their casted shade. Groups listed together here mean they’re planted interspersed. For onions & carrots, spinach & onions, broccoli & kohlrabi, this can be every other plant or every other row, whichever works best for you (but you can also do it however you want—I’ve certainly done it in patches or even little mini-blocks). For tomatoes & onions and tomatoes & carrots, both onions and carrots (or even a mix of the two) make a great companion border for tomatoes and fill in the extra spaces around a plant that, if viewed from above would grow in a roughly round area but, is in a rectangular bed. For carrots and lettuce each with early radishes, the radishes are often planted mixed right in with the carrots and lettuce seed, where they sprout strongly and help their slightly weaker companions break through the soil crust, and then are harvested earlier, leaving space for the lettuce and carrots to fill in. Finally, lettuce, spinach, & kale (and even onions and carrots with them) make a great set of companions, with the kale continuing on all season and growing to fill in the space vacated by the earlier-maturing lettuce and spinach, which are typically pulled when they start to bolt and go to seed during the first flush of hotter weather. As you can see in the third column, you can also use this combination strategically adjacent to the rows of carrots and onions surrounding a tomato plant so that you end up with a row of large kale next to your tomato that is surrounded by carrots and onions. I would note, however, that such groupings often lead to other plants benefiting at the expense of onion bulb size, so, while I add them as sort of sacrificial companions in groups like those listed here, for onions I want to reach ideal storage size, I plant them in their own separate block, ideally spaced apart. I’d also note that I really like the middle column’s grouping of sweet potatoes next to broccoli and potatoes, followed by onions and bush beans the next respective spots away. Not only do they all grow great next to each other, but it also works great temporally, since the others are done growing and vacating their areas of the bed just in time for the sweet potato vines to fill the extra space as they need it. [Summary] So, if you’ve always wanted to get started but didn’t know how, or if you’ve started but are wondering why you’re struggling, these six, very-doable steps to give plants exactly what they need should get you heading in an excellent direction that has you primed for long-term success. They’ll make sure you give your plants everything they need to be their healthiest, most productive selves and give you amazing vegetables every year without much trouble and without chemicals of any kind. You’ll be the gardener you’ve always wanted to be, and be ready to always stay open to growing! [Outro] You can find more on all of these topics and others on my website. I’ll leave a link in the description below. Like this video if you liked it (likes really help us out), leave a question or comment below (I personally answer each one), and subscribe to get all of our future videos. You can find videos I’ve already published on many of these topics on my channel. Just click on “Green Thumbed Gardening Secrets” or the channel icon below this video. And if social media is your jam, feel free to follow me on Twitter and Instagram for more green thumb gardening secrets, tricks, and tips…and just the tips. [Music outro]