- 2 hours ago
Ten old gardening tips can help you grow more food on less ground, with less work and less money, by working with nature instead of fighting it. Drawing on old garden ways, this practical guide covers flowers for free pest control, herbs grown from cuttings, living soil, mulch, compost, seed saving, and the no-dig method.
The advice is plain and useful: plant flowers among your vegetables to attract pollinators and beneficial insects, root herbs like basil, mint, and sage from cuttings, keep soil covered, and never leave a bed empty if it can be growing something. It also shows how to make fertilizer from weeds and leaves, build a garden ecosystem with water and wildlife, and save your own seed for future seasons.
Created for gardeners who enjoy homestead gardening, organic gardening, vegetable garden tips, permaculture, no-dig gardening, and low-cost self-sufficient growing. It is ideal for beginners and experienced growers looking for practical garden planning, soil health ideas, and simple ways to reduce work while increasing harvests.
The advice is plain and useful: plant flowers among your vegetables to attract pollinators and beneficial insects, root herbs like basil, mint, and sage from cuttings, keep soil covered, and never leave a bed empty if it can be growing something. It also shows how to make fertilizer from weeds and leaves, build a garden ecosystem with water and wildlife, and save your own seed for future seasons.
Created for gardeners who enjoy homestead gardening, organic gardening, vegetable garden tips, permaculture, no-dig gardening, and low-cost self-sufficient growing. It is ideal for beginners and experienced growers looking for practical garden planning, soil health ideas, and simple ways to reduce work while increasing harvests.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Here is a promise. If you take up even half of the ten old garden ways I am going to
00:05give you today,
00:06you will grow more food, on less ground, with less work and less money than you ever have in your
00:13life,
00:13and your garden will mere tend itself. These are not tricks nor gimmicks.
00:19They are the plain old ways the old gardeners lived by, ten of the best,
00:24and I am going to give them to you quick, one after another, so keep up.
00:28By the end, you will have a whole new way of gardening, one that works with nature instead of fighting
00:35it,
00:36and grows abundance from almost nothing bought.
00:39I am Elias, and these ten together are near the whole of how the old folk grew so much from
00:46so little,
00:47so let me hand them to you plainly, in order.
00:51Quick word before I go further.
00:53The old methods my family uses, there is more of it than fits in any one video.
00:59I gathered the whole of it into a book at EliasYoder.com.
01:05The book is the long version. If you want it, it is there. I will not mention it again.
01:11My grandmother's garden fed a big family off a small plot,
01:15and it did it because she gardened by a handful of plain old rules she had from her own mother,
01:22the very ones I am about to give you.
01:24She wasted nothing, bought near nothing, and let nature do the most of the work,
01:30and her ground grew richer every year while the neighbors wore out.
01:35It is not about working harder, Elias, she would say.
01:39It is about working with the garden instead of against it.
01:43So let me hand you her ten ways.
01:46The first is to plant flowers all through your garden,
01:50and plenty of them, for they are your free pest control.
01:54Do not keep your flowers off in a separate bed.
01:58Mingle them right in among your vegetables, all kinds, as many as you can.
02:02For the flowers do two great works.
02:06They draw the bees and pollinators that set your fruit,
02:09and they draw the good hunting bugs, the ladybugs and the lacewings
02:14and the little helpful wasps that hunt down your aphids and pests for free.
02:19So a garden laced with flowers is a garden with its own guard and its own pollinators,
02:26both for the price of a few seeds.
02:29Marigolds are the old standby,
02:31and nasturtiums, which pull the pests onto themselves and spare your crops,
02:37and sunflowers and calendula and borage and the herbs let to flower.
02:43Lace your whole garden with flowers, and nature does your pest control.
02:48The second is to grow your own herbs and make them endless for free.
02:54Plant the herbs you actually cook with,
02:57the thyme and sage and oregano and basil and chives tucked in among your vegetables,
03:03and you save a fortune over buying them and always have them fresh.
03:08And here is the fine part.
03:10You never need buy a herb plant but once,
03:13for most herbs root from a cutting easy as anything.
03:17You snip a few stems of your basil or your mint or your sage,
03:21strip the lower leaves and stand them in a cup of water on the sill,
03:26and in a week or two they put out white roots,
03:29and you plant them out as whole new plants.
03:32So from one plant you make many,
03:35and from many, endless, all for free.
03:38Grow your herbs and clone them from cuttings and never buy one again.
03:44The third is to build a whole living ecosystem,
03:47not just grow crops,
03:49for a garden full of life tends itself.
03:53What I mean is to make your garden a place all manner of helpful life wants to live.
03:59A little water is the great one.
04:01Even an old half-barrel sunk and filled with water
04:05and a water plant or two makes a little pond
04:08that draws the frogs and the toads and the birds,
04:11and a toad eats a fortune in slugs and bugs for you every night.
04:16Lay wood chips on your paths to shelter the worms and the soil life beneath.
04:21Leave a wild corner, a log pile, a bit of rough.
04:25The more kinds of life you welcome,
04:28the more of them are working for you,
04:30eating your pests and pollinating your crops
04:33and enriching your soil.
04:36Make your garden a living whole,
04:38and it defends and feeds itself.
04:41The fourth is to never stop sowing,
04:43for the soil needs no rest,
04:46and an empty bed is a wasted one.
04:49The moment one crop comes out,
04:51put another straight in,
04:53and all season long,
04:54keep a little seed always going in,
04:57so you have a steady stream of young plants
05:00coming on to fill every gap
05:02and follow every harvest.
05:04And always sow a little extra as a backup,
05:07a spare batch coming along,
05:09for you never know what will fail or bolt or be lost,
05:13and then you have a replacement ready and lose no time.
05:17Never let your ground sit bare and idle
05:21when it could be growing you another crop.
05:23Keep sowing, always,
05:26and your garden never rests and never empties.
05:30And here is a thrifty little turn on the sowing worth knowing,
05:34that some crops do find sown several to a spot in a clump,
05:38rather than one by one,
05:40the beetroot and the onion and the like,
05:43and they simply push each other apart a little
05:46as they swell and grow,
05:48and you harvest a clump at a time.
05:50It saves you seed and space and fiddling both,
05:54and for these crowd-happy sorts,
05:57it grows you as much off less ground.
06:00So sow steady,
06:02sow a backup,
06:03and clump sow the crops that take to it.
06:07The fifth is to make your own fertilizer
06:10from the weeds and leaves you already have for free.
06:14Do not haul your pulled weeds away.
06:16They are packed with the goodness they drew from your soil,
06:20so give it back.
06:22The simplest way,
06:23chop them down and drop them right there on the ground
06:27to rot where they lie,
06:29feeding the soil as they break down.
06:31Chop and drop, the old folk called it.
06:34Or make a weed tea.
06:37Stuff a bucket with pulled weeds or nettles,
06:40top it with water,
06:41and let it steep a couple weeks into a rich, dark brew.
06:45Then water that well down
06:47and pour it on your plants
06:49for a fine, free feed.
06:52Your weeds and leaves are free fertilizer,
06:55so feed them back to your garden
06:57instead of hauling them off.
07:00The sixth, and the heart of it all,
07:03is to make living soil.
07:05For healthy soil is healthy plants,
07:08and it is the whole secret under everything.
07:11Do not think of feeding your plants.
07:14Think of feeding your soil
07:16and letting the soil feed your plants.
07:19And you feed your soil above all with compost,
07:23good, rotted compost,
07:25made from your own scraps and leaves,
07:28laid a thin layer over your beds every year,
07:32and the worms and the weather work it in,
07:35and the soil grows richer and more alive
07:38year on year.
07:39Make a compost tea of it, too,
07:42a few handfuls of compost,
07:45steeped in a bucket of water,
07:47to pour on for a quick feed of all that life.
07:51Keep your soil covered, fed, and alive,
07:54and it will grow you anything.
07:57Feed the soil, not the plant,
07:59and the living soil does the rest.
08:02And if your ground is old and worn
08:05and wanting in minerals,
08:07there is one honest old amendment worth adding.
08:10A bit of rock dust,
08:12finely ground stone,
08:14sprinkled over the beds,
08:16for it slowly releases the minerals
08:18the rock holds back into your soil
08:21over the years,
08:23remineralizing tired ground
08:25the slow, natural way.
08:27A little rock dust,
08:29and a steady feeding of compost,
08:32and even a worn-out soil,
08:34comes back rich and alive in time.
08:38The seventh is to stay on top of your chores,
08:41for a garden is tended little and often,
08:44or not at all.
08:46Keep to a steady rhythm of the small tasks,
08:49and none of them ever grows into a big one.
08:52Water regular,
08:54especially in a dry spell.
08:56Keep after your tomatoes,
08:58taking the lower leaves and the suckers,
09:00and here is a thrifty turn.
09:03Those tomato suckers you pinch off
09:05will root in a cup of water
09:07into whole new tomato plants,
09:10free copies of your best one.
09:13Keep your cucumbers twisted up their trellis.
09:16And above all,
09:17keep up with the harvesting,
09:19for it is not just gathering your food,
09:22it keeps the plants producing,
09:24and a courgette left but a few days too long
09:28swells into a great marrow
09:30that saps the whole plant.
09:33Tend little and often,
09:35and the garden never gets away from you.
09:38The eighth is to save your own seed,
09:42and this one sets you free,
09:43for a gardener who saves his seed
09:46need never buy another packet.
09:49It is easy,
09:50and I will give it its own full telling soon.
09:53But the plain of it,
09:55let a few of your best plants
09:57go all the way to seed,
09:59and gather it.
10:00Your beans and peas,
10:01leave a few pods on the vine
10:03to dry brown and hard,
10:05then shell out the seed.
10:07Your flowers,
10:08let the heads dry and shake out the seed.
10:11Your tomatoes,
10:12scoop the seed and pulp
10:14into a jar of water
10:15to ferment a few days,
10:17then rinse and dry it.
10:18Store it all dry and cool,
10:21and you have next year's whole garden for free,
10:24and, in time,
10:25a seed grown to suit your own ground.
10:28Save your seed from your best,
10:30and you buy seed no more.
10:33The ninth,
10:34and one of the very best if you are short of time,
10:37is to mulch,
10:38to keep every bit of bare ground covered.
10:41Lay a good thick blanket over your soil.
10:44Straw is the finest for the beds,
10:46or wood chips for the shrubs and pads,
10:49or shredded leaves.
10:50And that mulch does a great many goods at once.
10:54It holds the moisture so you water far less.
10:57It smothers the weeds so they never come up.
11:00It keeps the soil cool and even,
11:02and as it rots,
11:04it feeds the ground.
11:06It is the closest thing to a garden that tends itself,
11:09especially for pots and raised beds that dry so fast.
11:13And here is a wonder to add to it,
11:16that you can seed your straw mulch with certain mushrooms,
11:20and they will grow you a crop of mushrooms
11:22right there among your plants,
11:24while their threads help feed your crops besides.
11:27Mulch every bare inch,
11:29and it holds your water,
11:31kills your weeds,
11:32and feeds your soil all at once.
11:35And the tenth,
11:37which ties it together,
11:38is to garden the no-dig way,
11:41for the digging and tilling folk think they must do
11:44is mostly harm.
11:45When you dig and turn your soil over and over,
11:49you tear apart its living structure and its fine threads,
11:53wake a fresh crop of weed seeds to the light,
11:56and pack a hard layer below,
11:58and break your own back doing it.
12:01So do not.
12:02Build your beds up instead of digging down.
12:06To start a new bed right over weedy ground,
12:09lay down newspaper or cardboard to smother the weeds,
12:13then pile compost and rotted matter and straw atop it,
12:17and plant into that,
12:19no digging at all.
12:20Layer your beds up with rotted logs and twigs and leaves and compost,
12:26and let it all break down in place,
12:29feeding the soil for years.
12:31Stop digging,
12:32build up and feed the surface,
12:35and let the worms and the life do your tilling for you.
12:38Now let me say a small, plain word,
12:42not a who-prophets sermon,
12:44for none of this is anyone's scheme.
12:46But notice the thread through all ten
12:49that not one of them was a thing to buy.
12:53Flowers and herbs from seed and cuttings,
12:56a barrel pond,
12:57your own saved seed,
12:59your own weeds and scraps made into feed and compost,
13:03a mulch of straw,
13:05and never a spade nor a bag of fertilizer.
13:08There is a whole trade that would sell you pest sprays and fertilizers
13:13and seed every year and tillers and the rest,
13:17and here the old ways do all of it better
13:20from what you have to hand and what you would have thrown away.
13:24So folk come to think a good garden must be bought season on season,
13:29when the old people grew abundance from their own ground
13:32and their own leavings and a bit of knowing.
13:36That old self-reliant wisdom of a garden that feeds and defends
13:41and renews itself from what it has
13:43is worth more than every product on the shelf.
13:47So there are ten old ways to change how you grow forever.
13:52Lace your garden with flowers for free pest control.
13:56Grow your herbs and clone them from cuttings.
13:59Build a living ecosystem that tends itself.
14:03Never stop sowing and keep a backup coming.
14:07Make your fertilizer from your weeds and leaves.
14:10Feed your soil with compost and keep it alive.
14:14Tend little and often and root your tomato suckers besides.
14:19Save your own seed from your best plants.
14:23Mulch every bare inch of ground.
14:25And stop digging, build your beds up, and let the life do the tilling.
14:32Take up even half of these, and you will grow more food with less work and less money
14:38than you ever thought you could.
14:41Now I want to hear from you.
14:43Tell me down below which of these ten you already do,
14:47and which one you mean to take up first,
14:49and any old way of your own I did not name,
14:53for I am always glad to learn one.
14:56And tell me your county and how big a patch you garden,
14:59for these ways serve the little city plot
15:02and the big country garden alike.
15:04I read every one.
15:07Next time, I want to show you the saving of your own seed in full.
15:11The eighth of these ways, crop by crop,
15:15how to gather and dry and store the seed of your beans and tomatoes and flowers and the rest,
15:21so that from your own garden you grow all next years for free,
15:26and never buy a packet again.
15:29The old people grew abundance from their own ground and their own leavings,
15:35drawing in the bees and the good bugs with flowers,
15:38feeding their soil with their scraps,
15:41saving their seed and cloning their plants,
15:44mulching and never digging,
15:46so that the garden fed and defended and renewed itself,
15:50and they, with almost nothing, bought.
15:55There is a quiet wisdom in that,
15:57in working with nature so that it does the most of the work for you,
16:01rather than fighting it and buying your way through.
16:05The people who built this country with their hands knew that,
16:10and we are only just starting to remember it.