00:00All right, guys, welcome back to another Grow the Earth, and today I'm going to kind of go over some
00:04of the most asked questions I've seen, or I'm going to address two asked questions I've seen a lot on
00:11the Internet.
00:12So that most asked question I see is, number one, when should I start my garden?
00:18And number two, how much space do I need to have a garden?
00:24Well, to address the first thing is, when should you start your garden?
00:29Well, I'm going to tell you, it's kind of a saying, but the best time to start a garden was
00:34yesterday.
00:36The even better time was five years ago, because that is going to be, yesterday was always better because you're
00:44a day ahead.
00:45Five years ago was better because now your soil is going to be conditioned, and it's going to be a
00:50better type of soil than what you're dealing with if you started your garden today or yesterday.
00:54The best time to start it is whenever you're ready.
00:58You know, if you're in the middle of winter in your area and you can work your soil, get your
01:04soil ready for your spring garden.
01:07If it's the dead middle of summer, whenever you decide that you want to start a garden, well, start your
01:13soil, get some really short day vegetables in the ground, and start your garden.
01:20Again, there's never a bad day, there's never a bad time to start a garden.
01:26And so that kind of leads into the second question is, how much space do I need to have a
01:31garden?
01:31I have a house in the neighborhood with right under a quarter of an acre of ground that my house
01:39sits on, and for me, this is not enough area because of what I want to do.
01:44Because I've got my in-bed ground here, I've got some potted plants, I've got fruit trees, I've got raised
01:52beds over there.
01:53And every time I turn around, I'm looking for more space.
01:57If you're starting out and you're a new gardener, if you live in an apartment, you can have a potted
02:05plant garden on your patio.
02:08You know, or if you have a community garden, you can go there and request to have a row, and
02:16you can grow in the community garden.
02:19If you live in a house, you can do whatever the size of your garden is only limited by the
02:27space you have available, and your willingness to take care of it.
02:32Because it will tell you, having a garden the size of ours, some things are kind of set it and
02:38forget it, other things require a lot of time and patience in order to get right.
02:45So, if you are a new gardener, I would tell every new gardener, either buy a raised bed and grow
02:52in one raised bed, and kind of feel out and learn what it takes to take care of that one
02:58raised bed,
02:58and then multiply that whenever you're ready.
03:02No one's going to tell you as a new gardener that you're going to go out and you need to
03:06buy eight loads of garden soil, you need to put in 25 raised beds, you need to have all this
03:13or you're not going to garden.
03:16Whenever you are gardening, whenever you're growing vegetables for yourself, any amount of space, the amount of spaces you want
03:23to dedicate to it is the best space to have.
03:26If you're in a rental house, and say your landlord didn't want to agree to let you put a garden
03:31in, again, you can go back to using pots or using a table and put grow bags on it,
03:40or any multitude of things that you can do to have a garden and not actually destroy the grass that
03:48so many people seem to want and need.
03:51Don't fall into what most people fall into when they're a new garden, and think that they've got to have
03:57this big, expansive garden in order to be a gardener.
04:02A gardener can start with one pot.
04:06A vegetable garden can start with one raised bed.
04:10It can start with whatever space you have available and whatever time you have to dedicate to it.
04:16If you're a new gardener and you've got the space and the time, go hog wild.
04:20But I'm going to tell you, most new gardeners, when they fall into a garden and they start gooing too
04:26much, which, as most of us do,
04:29we put in the structures and then we go, oh my gosh, I've got all this to take care of.
04:32It takes me X amount of hours a week just to keep it going, and you get overwhelmed fast.
04:39So I would say, if you're new, start small and take care of that.
04:43See how much time and how much energy that takes to take care of, and then grow out from there.
04:48And then when you reach a point to where you're happy with your garden, then stop.
04:53No one says you have to keep adding more and more and more every year.
04:58You know, be happy with what you've got and what you're willing to take care of and how much time
05:01you're willing to dedicate to it.
05:04Because guess what? Tomorrow, God may decide that he's going to change your circumstances,
05:08and now you don't have the time to take care of him.
05:11Or Jeff's the opposite. He may have something in mind where you have got more free time,
05:17and you expand your gardens because you can take care of that.
05:22So don't be fooled by the, you know, people like me who have got this big, expensive garden,
05:27and you expect that as a new gardener, you've got to have that.
05:31But start small, you know, use the space you have, use the things that you have at your disposal.
05:38If that means wooden beds like this, if that means just simply tilling up the ground
05:44and adding compost and fertilizer to it and growing in-ground.
05:49Unfortunately, in my area, that's not really an option because of the type of soil I have.
05:53Because with the type of soil that we have here in southeast Texas,
05:57it's what we call gumbo, which is a mixture of topsoil, clay, and sand, and it's just a mess.
06:04And the only way to make that plantable is to add compost to it, till it in,
06:11work it, let it sit, add more compost.
06:14It takes between two and three years to make a good growing soil in this soil.
06:20So, it's a mess.
06:21So, we stick with raised beds and pots around here.
06:26So, guys, this is not a real expensive video.
06:29It's not going to, we're going to, not going to deep dive into a whole bunch.
06:32But this is more of an encouragement and to answer questions that I see a lot of on the internet.
06:38As always, I thank you for joining me today.
06:40If there's something you learned, if there's something that you want to hear more about,
06:45put it down in the comment section.
06:47I read and respond to every comment.
06:49And if you look back over my videos, you'll see that I read and respond to every comment.
06:53If you are new here, subscribe.
06:56Because I'm looking to expand my presence on the internet.
07:00And I hope that more and more people will see my videos and hopefully get something out of them.
07:04As always, I ask you to pray of your family, pray of your garden, and have a great day.
