 Today in the garden, we are going to share a little bit about garden maintenance. So we're going to start off with talking about watering, how to water, how to know how much to water. We're going to talk about thinning. We're going to talk about insect management. And fertilizer. And fertilizer, having that nutrition in your soil to grow the bounty that you're looking to grow. When I first started gardening, I was like, how much water do these plants need? And each plant, like, do they all need different amounts of water? And I was struggling with that at first when I first started gardening about five or six years ago. And what I found out is that there are a lot of simple rules of thumb that help. And it's not so challenging when you follow these basic guidelines. So analysis paralysis can kind of take over. And just like you said, you're like, oh, does my radish need more than my arugula, which needs more than my basil? Who knows, right? So we get into this circle of overthinking. So a few general rules of thumb when you are starting out with watering is, at the very beginning, when you first seed things, it's going to need more water than not because the roots are not established. We're looking for germination with the seeds. So in the beginning, it's going to be twice a day. They're going to be at the very surface of the soil, which dries out quicker. And we need to compensate for that. So two times a day is a good general rule of thumb. Keeping the soil nice and moist on the surface where the seeds and the new little roots are, right? And if you are starting in a pot and looking to transplant it out to the garden, it's typically going to be in a little bit more of a controlled environment. So those are probably going to need a little less, maybe once a day, especially once you do have germination of those seeds and the seedlings are starting their growth. So new seeds direct seeding about twice a day and then transplanting into the garden most likely can be once a day. But as we're going to talk about, there is no exact way of doing things. You might live in a climate that's cooler and moist. You might live in a dry, hot climate. And that's of course going to make a difference. Yeah. Everybody, I get that all the time. Just tell me how many inches and how long to run my sprinkler or my drip irrigation or whatever. And I'm sorry, but there's no perfect answer because it's going to be based on soil tests because everybody, like you said, is different. So if you're not sure if you have enough water, I like to dig down. That's always the first place to start. We water what you think your garden needs and then at the corner of the bed or in the ground or in the container, whatever you're planting into, don't just look at the surface. You have to actually dig down because that's where the roots of the plants are and that's where everything is developing. So dig down, finger depth at least if not several inches down before you judge whether it's enough water. The whole layer should be saturated, not just that half inch at the top of the container. Yeah, because we want to be getting that water down to the roots. And in fact, that's kind of one of the keys to establishing healthy plants is getting that deeper watering rather than the light watering on the surface. You actually want to do deeper watering to get it down into those roots and encourage those roots to go down deep, right? Yeah, so that just allows it for those times when you go on vacation for the weekend or you have a dry spell and you don't have a fantastic irrigation setup or something like that. There's always what ifs. And so when we allow the plants to develop a super deep root system, they have more soil to access for nutrients but water as well. And so nice deep root system means they're going to go longer without signs of heat stress or water stress. Deeper is better. So the pinch test, let's talk a little bit about the pinch test. So if you're pretty certain that you are getting a nice deep water, the next point would be is it too much? Is it not enough? Where are we in the, like, how much water to put into the garden? And I like to use the pinch test. So if you take your three fingers and you pinch the soil, you should be able to pinch it and have one or two drops of water come out. If you have a stream of water pouring out, too much. If you don't have any water coming out, it's not enough. So this would be way too dry. Yes, there's no water coming out of that. This is dry and you want it actually to pinch together and stay formed, right? Yeah. In like a ball. Okay, this isn't bone bone dry, but it's a little underwater. There's no moisture there coming out. So when the soil is dropped, you do your pinch test and it holds the shape that you create and it does a drop or two, you're in that sweet spot as far as like our range of water. Let's get this to be a sweet spot, let's see. So this is having too much. Yeah, exactly. Now it is a good idea. If you literally water it, pick it up and pinch it, it's going to drain out quicker. So you don't have to come back five minutes or ten minutes, although you can if you want, but usually just waiting a couple of minutes before you actually do your pinch test allows the soil to absorb what it needs and then that will be your indication. So here you have, you can see how it stays together as a nice cake, it's in form. So that's pretty ideal, but at this point it's drained out a little bit, but that's basically what you want to see as your soil forming together like that, right? Yep, and that's going to be, you come back in the afternoon, it's not going to do the pinch test. It's going to be for like a few minutes after, you know, it's not going to, it's the plants, the air, everything is moving that water through the system. So this is an indicator for fairly close after you do your watering. There's another really simple way to know whether your plants need water and that's to look at them and see how they're doing. And now some people think if the plants are drooping at any time, it means they need water, but during the peak of the sun, during the peak of the day, you may have drooping regardless of whether you're watering enough, but if the plants are drooping in the morning or they're drooping late in the evening, then you know that's a sign that they need more water. What do you think about that? I would agree with that. So some drooping due to sun and heat, it's actually a plant defense, it's taking care of itself and it's conserving the plant, the plant tissues, totally normal, unavoidable, you could have it in an aquaponics system and it could show wilting in midday and that's it's natural form or exhibit, but if it's in the morning or in the evening when it's cooler, the plant shouldn't be showing those signs. So if you do see any sort of like drooping or wilting of the plant at those points, then you know it's time to adjust your watering. Yeah, so it's a very simple way to see what the plants are up to and to learn from them watering. So we're going to talk a little bit about which water to use on your garden, something that also I do get a lot of questions and concern about water. I mean we want pure water, we want healthy clean water and so your general sources are going to be city water, which can be reclaimed water, then you've got rainwater and you've got well water. Those are going to be your main sources of water and we want to talk a little bit about each of those. So let's start with, well I'd like to start with saying whatever water you have, that's the water that you're going to use, city water. Let's talk a little bit about that first. City water is available to everybody or almost everybody in our country who are lucky enough to have access to some sort of clean water source. But with that being said, that clean water does go through a lot of processing to get it to our homes and property. So honestly I put it lower on the list if it is what you have, go for it. But there's going to be a lot of chlorine. Yes. Depending on the systems that you have in place, it can even have other things like medicine passing through, all sorts of pharmaceuticals, heavy metals. Weird stuff that we don't ideally want. Yes, but that being said, I have grown numerous abundant gardens off city water. I know a lot of people who grow abundant off gardens off city water. So absolutely if city water is what you have, use it. Now the thing is is that a lot of us in the city, we can harvest rainwater. So if you can harvest rainwater, that's what I'd recommend. So harvesting rainwater, it can be very helpful. Obviously less potential pollutants, right? So sometimes you can get a little bit of runoff if you have like a shingle roof or something. There are systems that you can put in place to drain a lot of that off. But with that being said, rain comes in the rainy season. So unless you have large volumes stored away, it may not be enough to get you through from A to B. So that is something to keep in mind. It's definitely your first stop. You can use that while you have it. And then if you are in a prolonged dry spell, then you would resort to either city water or well water at that point. And for learning more about rainwater, I have a guide to harvesting rainwater and using it in your garden. So that is going to be linked so you can learn more about it through there. So but just to say, you know, 275 gallon totes or 55 gallon drums, those are the easiest things to access to store a fair bit of water. And then there's also passive rainwater harvesting just by directing it from your rooftop directly into your garden so that storage isn't as much of an issue. As far as the well, if you've got a well, use your well. So use your well. It's almost always going to be your purest source. There is a caveat. It can be, depending on where you live, have groundwater contamination. And that is that is a thing, unfortunately, to think about. There is no perfect source. That's the point. So just use what you got. But in general, wells will typically have the purest source. Wells are going to be, depending on how long ago they were drilled, pretty deep into whatever water sources you guys have in the area. And so it is a very reliable, even in dry spells and such like you're going to have that. It's going to be free as long as it's already installed. You're not paying for city water. So that's an affordable way to water the garden. So then at least mentioned city water. So just a quick note on reclaimed water. Reclaimed water is just water that has gone through the system, cleaned, comes back to us. So absolutely, I've used reclaimed water. Definitely, if that's what you got, use it. But the word of caution. Would be that it is technically supposed to be used for things like perennials, watering the lawn, that kind of thing. Versus your leafy greens that you're eating because it can potentially have contamination of bacteria and things. But if that's what you got, use it. One other thing that we didn't mention, of course, is if you have access to a pond or a lake or a river, you can always set up irrigation from that. Of course, make sure you're not taking more than that water source can supply. But a lot of them, you can definitely take a small amount. Every place is different, but you can take an amount that's sustainable, that doesn't pull from the water source in a negative way. And also being aware of what's upstream. Of course. So whatever water you have, definitely use it. One of the most common mistakes for new people is to drastically underestimate how these little tiny seeds turn into big plants. I mean, one tiny kale seed can turn into a kale plant that's like three, four feet tall by like a couple feet wide. And it's hard to imagine. So we're going to talk a little bit about thinning because thinning is something that all gardeners have to do some of. So I know that everybody doesn't want to kill their baby plants that they just started, but it is essential for the overall growth of your garden. And it is one of the most common issues that I see when I work with beginner gardeners is not thinning enough. So when we are seeding, I am not expecting people to sit there and take their carrot seed or their tiny little kale seed and plant them, you know, two feet apart. It's not really reasonable. And if you do that, you may have a pest or something come through that eats your one plant that you put there and now you don't have any. So it is totally normal to over plant, whether it be in the beds or in transplant pots, it's going to happen. Once things start to grow and get a few inches of growth, that's when our time is to come in and start thinning it down from there. So there's a few different ways to thin. Let me just say, so you might be like, well, how far apart is it? That's in our growing guide. So in the growing guide, we have exactly the recommendation of how many seeds per foot or square foot or per row bed. And there's also recommendations based on square foot gardening versus more spaced out. So there's different ways of doing it. And I do really encourage following those, especially if these are the only seeds that you have. You can waste all of the seeds by planting them too close. But if you follow that guide, you're going to get the maximum use out of this pack. Yes. So once we are ready to start harvesting, your plants should be at least a couple inches tall in most cases. And at that point, we're going to reference the guide and figure out how far apart they do ultimately need to be spaced. And it's time to start thinning or weeding out the extras. So when you are thinning, it is really important to use scissors, pruning shears, something like that. If we are to take our radish, for example, that we put too many in our space, and we just start pulling plants out, it's very likely that you disturb its neighbor, that you do want to keep and it can stunt growth, it could potentially kill the other plant that you did leave in place. So rather than just pulling them out of the ground, it is really important to use some sort of trimming, whether even your fingers, if you have fingernails to pinch it, but we want to be pinching it out the soil line, not pulling them out of the soil. The other tip that I have when you do start thinning is instead of saying, okay, I have this square foot, I need to get rid of 10 of my 20 plants, don't immediately thin all 10 that you need to get rid of, because we're working with nature. Maybe a pest comes through, maybe you forget to water and some of them die because they had a little bit of heat stress. I like to do it over the course of a week or two. Yeah, and at the same time, what you're doing is you're keeping the soil covered, which is key. And so you actually thin as you need to, rather than thinning them all at once, and by doing that, you also get to continuously be having these early harvest. So you go out and you thin. Now, a lot of people think, I think a lot of people, when they thin, they're like, okay, compost it. Every one of those plants that you thin, if it's an edible plant, is a microgreen. You know, something people are in craze over. I know, and they pay gobs of money for it. You got it in the garden and they're super nutrient dense. So they are like, depending on the plant and the nutrients and everything, 10 to 100 times higher in that vitamin or mineral than the adult form in most cases. So they're like vitamins for you. We've got this pot right here. So this is actually turnips. And these would be planted way too close, right? Yep. So let's thin this pot. Okay. And I'll eat it. You thin, you thin, I eat. So whenever we are thinning, you're going to be looking for the one that has the most growth to it, the nice dark green leaves, maybe minimal pest damage. The ones that are showing signs of any of those would be the first ones that I pull. Now, sometimes they may all look killer and that's great. And you'll just pick at random at that point. But you're always thinking about the ultimate or eventual spacing. So right here, I would probably pull the one that's in the middle because that is the one that is going to be the least likely. If we had those two, then it would be too close. So again, we could be doing this with the scissors. We don't have one in our hand right now. So Elise is just pinching right here at the base. Yep. So ideally we want to leave those roots in the grounds. And it depends on the stage as to how many you're going to pull. But remember, you don't need to pull them all at once. So we can stop here or we could go a little bit more. Let's do a little bit more. This one you wouldn't have needed to thin quite yet. Would you say or would this have been the day to thin? I think this is a fair chance. When the leaves start touching each other, that's it. So the root system of a plant in general is going to be about the width of the above ground growth. And so when the leaves start getting to the point of touching each other, that means they're going to soon start competing for things like light and nutrients and water. So if the leaves are starting to touch, that would be your time to thin. And of course, I'm going to thin these other. We've got a little bit of Ethiopian kale popping up. So I'm going to go ahead and weed those. This is actually a papaya right here. I'm not going to eat that because you don't eat papaya trees. And then this is tomato here. And I'm not going to eat that because you don't eat tomato leaves. So yeah, a little lesson there on thinning. We'd like to talk a little bit about fertilizer, nutrition in the soil. And fertilizer, definitely, I use the word fertilizer and I don't even like it because of how abused fertilizers have been by industrial agriculture. But fertilizers are not inherently negative. Compost is a holistic form of fertilizer. Fish emulsion, compost tea, worm casting, all these ways to add nutrients back into the soil. And this can be done in liquids, fertilizers, or it can be done in solids. And so absolutely a proponent of fertilizing, but not over fertilizing and not using these industrially produced fertilizers. Yeah, so when we are gardening, these plants are getting their nutrition to do all of the growth that we expect of them from the soil. And so I'm a huge proponent for feeding the soil. If we are to properly amend our soil before we plant, we aren't going to have as much of that maintenance with the liquid fertilizers and stuff, which is often the cause or the issue with runoff over fertilization, all of those other things, typically not always, but typically is stemming from those liquid fertilizer applications. So before we start growing in our garden, take the time to find some sort of organic slow release fertilizer. If you have compost, that is obviously a great way to start. But if you're a beginner gardener, you may not have it available, and that's totally normal. So looking for a general all-purpose slow release fertilizer is the way to go. These come from plants, they come from animals, depending on what your diet consists of. There's something for everything. If you're looking for a general all-purpose blend, there's all sorts of like vegetable garden, all-purpose, blah, blah, blah. Any of those are going to do. What you want to do is make sure it's in solid form because that is what's going to slowly break down in the soil and feed the plants over the entire growing season. Yeah, and something that Elise and I both very much feel is that at the beginning of your gardening, your soil might not be super nutritious, and you've got to build it up. But the goal isn't that you stick with this. The goal isn't that you'll need these fertilizers necessarily forever as you start to build up your own compost, as you start to build up your healthy living soil. You can move away from that, but at the beginning, it's necessary. It is, and it takes anywhere from three to four years to build like a pretty robust, healthy soil. So just know in the beginning, you are going to have inputs. And even with a nice slow release fertilizer added at the beginning of the season, in your first year or two, it is quite realistic to maybe even need small amounts of liquid fertilizer to pull them through to the ends. And that's just because your soil is growing in and of itself. Yes, and of course, some of you might be so fortunate to have really beautiful soil already, but most beginner gardeners don't have that. Soil is one of the most challenging parts. And to have healthy living plants, you need healthy living soil. So putting your energy into the soil is just as important or more important than putting it in the plants. Often when you look at issues that you're having, we'll talk a little bit about insect control. It's often the question is actually, is the soil healthy? And if the soil is not healthy, you might not have healthy plants, which are more prone to diseases and insects and such. You mentioned sort of an analogy of like an energy drink versus... Yeah, so when we're looking at, do I need slow release, like solid fertilizers versus a liquid fertilizer? I like to make the analogy of somebody who is tired, right? So if you need energy, we get our energy from food and sleep. If we are to go out there and eat like a bag of candy or have a energy drink, it's going to give us a huge burst of energy and we get some growth. We get some energy. We go run a marathon, whatever, but that's going to dissipate really, really quickly. And that is where liquid fertilizers are in the scheme of things. Whether it's organic or not, that doesn't matter. It is accessible to the plant when it is applied and then it's gone. So it's a quick fix. It's a temporary fix. If you are having to use liquid fertilizers, you need to know that you need to solve the underlying problem of continuing to add more slow release solid fertilizers to the garden. So always just remember, it's a Band-Aid and not the cure. Yes. And that said, it can also be used as a holistic part, like with Korean natural farming through and like bokashi, you know, with worm teas and fish emulsions. They can be done in a way that are in alignment with the earth, in alignment with our plants. But it's something that you want to, you definitely want to tread lightly and be careful and know what you're doing because it is the most likely way you can cause runoff and damage. It's the most likely way you can accidentally add too much nitrogen. And that is a problem in and of itself. A lot of people want the best for their plants and if they have the resources, they say, okay, maybe I'm going to do, you know, this is super regular because I just really want that growth. But too much nitrogen can actually draw and attract pests. It's a super common thing. You can also burn roots that way. So over fertilizing is just as much of an issue as under fertilizing. Yeah. Any other last things on fertilizing? Slow release. Yes. Compost. Compost is number one. Build your compost. Compost everything on site. Support local people who are creating compost and get that compost from them as much as possible. Compost being your number one source of fertility of nutrients in your soil. All right. The last thing that we want to talk about in this garden maintenance class is a little bit of insect management. And you'll notice that I didn't use the word pest. Even I myself still catch myself using the word pest. But pest is a human made concept. Every insect, every plant, every bacteria, every human, we all have our place. None of us are inherently bad. In fact, there is no such thing as bad or good. It's just a matter of things being in the place where you want them and at the time that you want them. So I talk about insect management rather than pest management. So as we start to identify things in the garden, we have baby seedlings popping up. We have our garden fairly mature. We're getting ready to harvest things. What's a good guy and what's a bad guy? Or suppose a good and bad guys? Caterpillars are a perfect example. They're something that are super common. They're going to be munching on your kale more than likely or many other things in the garden. What does that become? The beautiful butterfly that's flying through the garden. So when we are looking at sort of insect control or pest management, we need to be mindful that we're trying to take the least impactful approach to our control. Because if we simply blanket the garden in some sort of pesticide, not only are we killing the bad guys and we never end up actually killing all the bad guys, but you're also taking out all of the beneficial insects that are there performing natural functions, the ladybugs and the lace wings and all of these other creatures and insects that are there eating the things or praying on the things that we don't necessarily want in the garden. And of course, all those pesticides going into our garden are eventually going into us as well. Yes. So when we are looking at a plant and we say, okay, we have a problem, my first line of approach is to ask yourself, is this even really going to affect my yields? If it's not going to affect your yields, if you have a couple of aphids on a leaf, you can still eat that leaf. No control is really even necessary. Yep. An aphid is just a manifestation of a leaf, which is a manifestation of the sun. All you're eating when you're eating an aphid is that leaf that came from the sun. It's the same energy more or less. There's something that's not going to generally kill a plant or impact your yields. So asking yourself that question before you take any action is probably the first place to start. If you do decide that, okay, I'm going to have reduced yields. It may kill my plants. It is getting to the tipping points. At that time, we're going to try to take the least or most targeted action. So in most cases, that's going to be using these. And it freaks people out in the beginning. But hands are going to be taking out that one pest that is affecting your plants. So it's picking off the caterpillar. It's squishing the aphid. It is brushing off the beetle or whatever is bothering your plants. If we use our hands, we know that we are only getting the bad guy and none of the good guys. We're not putting any sort of pesticides into the soil. We're not spending money on insect repellents or in all of this other stuff. So oftentimes our hands should be the first course of action. And a really nice thing about that is that the insects that you don't want there can be a gift to you because they actually encourage you to get out and get connected with the plants. For me, when I was a beginner gardener, going out to my garden and every day just spending a handful of minutes looking at all of the leaves, even looking at the underside, looking for the caterpillars, I actually got to know the plants a lot more. It gave me a reason to be out there. It helped me to like to really tune in with it. So just using your hands, you'd be amazed at how much you can control the insects if you go out every day and just don't let any problems get huge by being there with your mind and your hands. Yeah, it's if you have an hour to garden a week, don't do power hour on every Saturday or whatever. If you're at all able, just like you were saying, just that five minutes a day and then maybe the rest of your remaining 30 minutes or whatever once a week to do a little bit more intensive work. But that constant check-in is going to allow you to notice an issue before it gets out of hand. And then it is completely feasible and reasonable to get it with your hands or a very targeted approach. If you know that your plants are getting eaten and you can't find the pest, a trick is one to check the underside of the leaf but to go out at night with a flashlight, especially caterpillars, they practically glow. And oftentimes they're hiding during the day because that's when the birds and the lizards and everything else are out in the garden looking for them. So a lot of their natural cycles are, they're nocturnal and they're going to be much more active at night. So if you're having trouble finding them to pick them off, try going out at night. And that can be a treasure hunt for the kids if you want to get some free labor, potentially enjoy. Now, one of the most common challenges I see for new gardeners is they don't want to kill anything. But the truth is in order to create space for life, death is a part of that. And once you start to tune into gardening, you start to see that there is indeed a circle of life, that death is inherently a part of life. And you realize that when you kill these insects, you're just putting them right into the soil, composting them, and they're going to turn back into the plants. There is no, there doesn't have to be this idea of death being inherently negative. This society that I'm born into has this belief of death being a bad thing, but death is a part of life. And to become an abundant gardener, you need to become a part of the circle of life, which is a part of killing. So as Elise said, our hands are our most powerful tool in this, and that means pinching them. And if you got to put on gloves, put them on. But simple things like taking your hands, shaking the insects into a bucket of water, digging a hole in the soil, pouring them in, and then cover enough to return to the soil, whatever you have to do. But I will say that in my six years of about five, six years of gardening, I have never used a pesticide, not even an organic one. I have thought about it, but I have yet to actually do it. It's going to be, it's going to be a time balance. So if we are limited on time and we have made our efforts with our hands, and it is going to be a make or break success in your garden and you want to have your harvests, there are targeted things that you can use if you are limited by that, and if it's going to make the difference of you gaining that harvest or not. I would say that you should always be using some sort of organic approach. Those chemical synthetic pesticides have so many, so many embedded issues. So I would definitely avoid those. There are products that are pretty specified or targeted in on a specific pest or a specific life cycle. So trying to find the most direct way to resolve the issue and get it under control is always the way to go. Yeah, and just to say, obviously you're free to do anything you want. These are just our recommendations. If you're passionate about working in harmony with the earth, growing food in a way that doesn't poison your surroundings or yourself, this is our recommendations. There's nothing that you should do or you have to do. And then the last thing that I want to just say one more time is there is no such thing as good or bad. Like every insect plays its role, and once we break free from that good or bad mindset, it liberates ourselves to have our entire time in the garden be enjoyable and fun. And when you have some insects eating a specific plant, maybe that plant, you're not going to eat this year, but that's the key of diversity. The more you're growing, the more different things you're growing. That's why there's 20 different plants in this pack. The more you're growing, the more that it's okay if some of them are getting eaten. So do you want to talk a little bit about beneficial insects? We have the beneficial insect attractant mix to bring these in. So beneficial insects, again, kind of falling back to that good and bad. They are insects that are going to be natural predators in your system. So think about the lion in the gazelle or whatever, but there's something that's out there eating the grass, right, the gazelle, but there's also a lion that's eating the gazelle. There are insects that will naturally check out and explore your garden for the bad guys. And so it is a natural circle of life, just like you were saying, and it is something that is going to be there, whether we do it or not. But there's ways where we can support them as best we're able by having things that they nectar on, if they don't have a food source. Ladybugs are like that iconic beneficial insect. And they are great. They love to eat aphids. It's amazing. They'll just tear through them. But a lot of people don't realize they will also nectar off flowers. So if they've gone through and cruised and eaten all of the aphids in your garden, never going to be foolproof, but they will go and turn to the flowers that you have in the garden in the meantime. And then instead of them having to relocate your garden, they're already in the area. They're already cruising around, looking for the protein source that they prefer. So having that beneficial insect attractant mixed into near around your garden is going to allow all of those positive interactions occur in the garden without much interaction or demand on your part. Let the insects, let the earth do the work for you. So we hope that this video has been helpful in basic garden maintenance. We know we dived into a lot. We hope that you don't feel any overwhelm. Take it one step at a time. Take what you can, and each day, each week, each month, each year, you'll learn a little bit more and you'll be able to apply a little more of this. Yeah, you never stop learning. That's for sure. It's a constant evolution and interaction with your natural surroundings.