In this episode of Prepper Dan's Garden, we talk about planting a garden early in the spring and how you can get the most out of your early-season veggie seedlings. There are a lot of things you can do in the early spring to ensure you get the best yield from your seedlings, but the most important thing is to plant them in the ground.
00:00:00.000So welcome to this episode of Prepper Dan where we're going to be talking about planting a garden and for most of you that this may be a new experience for you I just want to reassure you that planting a garden does not have to be complicated and you don't have to put a large garden in to get a good yield.
00:00:28.220And for those of you that are experienced this may just be a review and that's fine some of you will have a piece of land that you can put a garden in some of you will be putting a container garden in and the basic principles are the same for each one this is by no means going to be a very extensive presentation and there are certainly a lot of links online a lot of YouTube videos that we'll go into a lot more detail here but I just want to touch on some of the very basics with you.
00:00:55.740So let's get started a little bit now for some of you you would have started some seedlings perhaps indoors in the springtime and we're just not going to touch on a whole lot of these things here but your seedlings would have started early.
00:01:09.820So some of your varieties or some of your seedlings that you would have started early would have been tomatoes we start a lot of different varieties I think I started four this year Roma is the main one because we do a lot of our pasta sauces and different things and that's always a joy in the springtime when there's still snow on the ground.
00:01:29.740And in one of my earlier videos you would have seen how I started the seeds in little little peat pots like this or a little seedling trays and then I transplanted them in some larger cups and then you know you see the root grow balls grow and kind of going from there.
00:01:47.360And here's kind of a bit of a funny slide here where you see I mean your seedlings can get bigger and bigger and then you finally need a bit of a workforce to grow on from there.
00:01:57.840Some of your other early seedlings would include peppers and again I like some spicy stuff so I grow all kinds of hot peppers but then you know your standard green peppers and red peppers and yellow peppers as well.
00:02:11.880So some of your other early seedlings would include some of your cabbages and your celeries as well as your eggplants your cauliflowers and your broccolis.
00:02:22.380Some of these are susceptible to certain types of bugs and moths and things and some of these you may want to do some research in your area.
00:02:32.100These benefit from certain types of row covers when you plant them and some of your local garden stores will carry some of your row covers.
00:02:42.860We're not going to get into that too much today.
00:02:44.460Once your ground is thawed out and there's no danger of frost left you can direct sow a lot of your crops.
00:02:54.680Now some of your seed packets well all of your seed packets as a matter of fact will have a guide on them that will show you exactly what you can direct sow in the ground.
00:03:03.420Now asparagus is something that if you enjoy you can buy crowns from most good seed stores but just so you know that when you plant asparagus roots usually it's three years before you can really harvest them.
00:03:20.560But once they're in the ground you know they're good for 50 years or so you can keep harvesting them.
00:03:24.600Carrots, beets, potatoes and radishes are just some of the things that you direct sow and some of the seeds that you start early in the season you know as soon as the ground can be worked are leeks, head lettuce, onion sets, rutabaga and turnip.
00:03:44.180Now some of these as I've said in that earlier video I start some of these actually in late August and I'm able to grow most of these right throughout the winter simply by covering them with a row of plastic or double plastic and I grow some of these as a matter of fact in my greenhouse.
00:04:03.580So again keep in mind things that you can grow in the early spring you can extend your growing season in the fall and we're going to do a different video on that.
00:04:12.880So after your last frost you can direct seed your squash, pumpkin and cukes.
00:04:19.640A few things with this some of these don't do well necessarily when you transplant them so you can start these from seed but what I have found with these is if you buy yourself a bag or two of manure or if you can get yourself some you know some manure that's fairly composted if you direct sow your seeds in that
00:04:42.060That is where you will get the best and most yield for your squashes and your pumpkins and your cucumbers.
00:04:48.820Make a mound and put four or five seeds in there now all of these plants are trailing plants so in other words they don't grow up they trail and so you'll need to keep that in mind because before you know it they'll cover the ground but you'll get quite a bit of yield on those.
00:05:09.360And so I remember one year I had some of my children just throw a I think it was an old squash in the ground we weren't quite sure what it was so we called it a squashini it was kind of like a anyhow we're not sure what it was but my goodness it grew prolifically and it was in a manure pile.
00:05:28.020And so just keep that in mind so after the last frost you can certainly do well with these and some of your winter squashes they they preserve very well as well like right through into the winter if you have a cold storage or a cool dark place in your basement and again we're going to do a different video on that a little bit later on when it's closer to the end of summer.
00:05:51.420So one of the things to keep in mind is you need to prepare your soil a lot of plants grow up and you harvest the produce at the very top like your beans and you know your your Swiss chard and that but for your crops particularly that grow in the ground your root crops but regardless you want your plants to get as much nutrients as possible so what are the things that are required well your soils do have requirements.
00:06:19.060I live on the east coast of Canada and our soil pH here is very low and it probably is for most of Canada as a matter of fact I think we grow a lot of blueberries here so our soil pH is between five and five and a half and so we have to sweeten the soil a little bit so putting some lime in is a must where we live and usually when you put lime in you usually have to wait a few weeks to a month before it really takes effect because if you plant seed directly into fresh lime soil it will
00:06:49.060kill the seed now you could use some wood ash but usually you have to use twice as much and again you have to soak it into the ground and wait for a few weeks for it to really take effect.
00:07:00.060You can buy yourself a moisture meter sorry not a moisture meter but a pH meter to test your soil pH but the proper way to do it is a proper soil pH test kit which again you can purchase at a good nursery or a good garden center.
00:07:16.060Your soil should be well drained in other words it shouldn't pool and be all muddy you know a day after it rains and in order to make your soil more well drained that's good English there isn't it you could always add some sand and again sand is something that you can get at a quarry you can buy it by the bag or you can you know buy it by the truckload if you need to but adding sand is something that will help you
00:07:46.060with the drainage with the drainage of your soil you can also add peat moss to the drainage oops I just skipped ahead there let me go back here your soil should contain lots of organic matter and I've spoken in a previous video about adding some
00:08:22.060I add I make my own soil here and I've got a video that I produced earlier
00:08:27.060that shows you how to do that so a lot of organic matter
00:08:31.060and the reason for that is because you want your soil to be active you want the
00:08:35.060the biology of your soil to be active you don't want a dead dormant soil
00:08:40.060and you want some some worms in there as well because worms
00:08:44.060you know they have their castings in there and so they're really rich in minerals and that
00:08:51.060and your soil should also be free from pests bugs and last year's remnants and what I mean by that is if you had a garden in that soil last year you want to pull out all the old roots and the old stocks and that and that will prevent some of the bugs you know bugs festering from there another thing you should know is your hardiness zone and that's something that you can find online environment Canada does have a map there and I've got the map up here that you can look at it's not
00:09:20.060you can look at it's not very very specific but you can find your specific area and you know when they say that the last frost date for your area should be such and such a date that always changes you know where I am usually they say it's by Victoria Day long weekend in May but I mean we've had frost sometimes the 16th of June so keep an eye on your weather channel and you know you suspect you're going to have a frost if you've got plants in the ground cover them over with plastic or wet them a little bit the night
00:09:50.040before but always better be safe than sorry and know when to plant I've included here some rough charts that will tell you these show you a little bit when to plant things in inside as seedlings and then when to direct sow typically across Canada we're between zones five and eight on the west coast and but typically you know around Canada
00:10:20.020Canada we're around zones five six maybe zone seven so just keep an eye on that and that kind of gives you sort of like a rough idea
00:10:27.020let's talk about companion planting just a little bit so what is the benefits of companion planting well there's a lot of different benefits to companion planting and most gardeners would agree that the more help you can give to achieve a productive fruitful garden the better so what and how can companion planting help well let me give you five different ways so the first one would be natural support
00:10:55.020the first one would be natural supports so plants and flowers that grow tall and strong will lend themselves as natural organic supports to crops that grow low or they sprawl for an example this would be planting tall sunflowers say next to cucumbers or snap peas and the sprawling crops can use the taller plants as a trellis
00:11:13.020another benefit would be plant health so growing plants next to their companions can improve the overall health of both plants so by eliminating competition between the plants you allow one to absorb what it may need without depriving another so additionally as nutrients are pulled from the soil by one plant the result can actually change the entire biochemistry of the soil and when this is done right the soil can then change
00:11:43.020a third benefit of companion planting is to optimize the soil a plant's root system can easily affect the soil that it's in and so plants with long tap roots like parsnips and carrots will lift the nutrients from the depths of the soil and the nutrients can then benefit those plants with shallow root systems
00:12:01.020and nitrogen is also an important element in these in these plants and some such like peas and beans can actually help to draw the nitrogen in making it more available in the soil for the plants that need it a fourth benefit is to prevent weeds and alternating upright plants and sprawling ones can create a thicker cover across the majority of the open land in your garden area which ultimately will prevent weeds and who likes to weed right
00:12:29.020and the last thing would be to regulate the shade and wind because too much sun can damage tender tender and fragile plants so companion planting can help prevent this by offering shelter as taller plants protect the smaller ones and the same is true for the wind the taller and larger plants will offer protection from harsh winds
00:12:50.020so i've offered here a companion planting guide and you'll notice that there are some plants that do well beside other plants some of them have enemies so this is just a rough idea and a rough guide to let you know what you should plant next to what and the benefits for that
00:13:17.020now there are some things that you might consider planting every couple of weeks because they produce prolifically and some of these would be like your green beans your peas your leaf type lettuces especially in the cooler season and then your radishes you know you can plant radishes every couple of weeks
00:13:39.020uh what i like to do is alternate different uh what i like to do is alternate different uh types of radishes now there's not too many people in our home here matter of fact i think i'm the only one that eats radishes but they're nice always in a in a in a salad
00:13:52.020what about companion flowers and what are the benefits of companion flowers well i've got here some marigolds nasturtiums and zinnias well the marigolds really they uh they help
00:14:06.020to keep some uh some of the uh bad bugs away they're they're particularly helpful for tomatoes because they repel the nematodes that attack the roots of the vegetables
00:14:18.020the nasturtiums help prevent insects particularly aphids from attacking other plants
00:14:24.020the aphids love nasturtiums and they will surround them instead of their neighboring plants
00:14:29.020the things with the nice thing with nasturtiums also is they come in various different colors
00:14:34.020and you can eat them they've got like a really nice peppery taste and i love to put those in my in my salads
00:14:41.020and the zinnias the zinnias are excellent companion plants they attract the ladybugs in the garden
00:14:47.020they also attract a lot of butterflies and they're very pretty to look at
00:14:51.020we also have companion herbs such as sage mint dill and basil while dill and basil are natural protectants for tomato plants
00:15:04.020and they keep away the dreaded corn worm
00:15:07.020now the mints they repel both ants and cabbage moths one thing to keep in mind is mint is very invasive
00:15:14.020you see the photo here of it in a in a container and what you may want to do is get some containers
00:15:20.020and simply put them in different places in your garden sage is another helpful herb in the garden