How To Turn Your Lawn Into A Vegetable Garden

Soil is the most important investment you can make in your garden and I'm not just talking about a financial investment I'm talking about investing your time and energy to create and maintain healthy soil that will improve every season I'm Kyle from Urban Farmstead and in this video I'm going to show you how to transform a yard full of weeds and poor soil into a fertile vegetable plot Capable of growing more produce per square foot with less weeds less disease less irrigation and less fertilizer My very first step in preparing this soil for a new vegetable garden is going to be to remove as much of the existing weeds as Possible and really the roots of the weeds are what I'm trying to get rid of Depending on the weeds that you have in your garden your plan for the garden and your personal preference Your process might look completely different than mine for me I've got some really harsh weeds like Bermuda grass and yellow nutsedge that honestly are almost impossible to get rid of even with Harsh chemicals. So my goal is not necessarily for them to be gone forever That would be great But I don't think that's gonna happen what I want to do is remove as much of their root mass as possible so that they don't come back as strong and So that my vegetables will still be able to thrive in this soil here So what I've done so far over the last few months is Sheet mulch of the entire area with a really thick layer of cardboard in order to deprive them of light and that's not gonna come Anywhere close to killing them, but it takes some of the vigor out of them next What I'll do is I'll come through I'll rototill all of this and rake out as much of those roots as possible My goal here is not to do a full till It's really just to loosen up the top few inches of this clay soil to make the weeds more easy to remove The weeds that I have are very invasive, but the roots are actually pretty shallow That's a characteristic of these weeds and the heavy clay soil that they're growing in if these were growing in sand It'd have much deeper roots. If your garden has deeply rooted rhizomatic weeds like bindweed They should be removed prior to tilling. All right. I've tilled all of this soil twice. I've loosened it up a lot now I'm just gonna rake through and remove as much of these grass clumps and weed roots as possible Some people choose to completely remove the top few inches of soil containing the roots and seeds of the weeds That process is just as effective But it requires hauling off a lot of material and those top few inches are the most valuable layer of your topsoil Raking out only the weeds is more labor-intensive But for me, it's worth that extra effort to save this nutrient-rich native topsoil All right, step one is complete. I've removed a lot of those grass roots and those weeds There's still gonna be plenty of them left in the soil I've definitely tilled some of those weed seeds back into the soil So there's gonna be stuff coming up, but from my experience at our last garden I did the exact same thing and it worked really well It really brought the weed amount down and once I mulch over the top We're not gonna have very much coming up at all. You might choose to do something different with your garden This is what I did with mine. It's gonna work. Well, next step is to bring in some compost Anytime you're amending soil for a vegetable garden The very best thing you can do is add organic matter and that can be bulk compost. It can be bagged compost It can be compost you make in your own backyard It can even just be wood chips or leaves or pine needles. Whatever you add is gonna be great But for me when I'm doing a very important project like our brand new vegetable garden I want to add the very best compost and I want to have even more nutrients in it This is just regular topsoil that I'm adding to so This bag has not only regular aged redwood and fir bark compost It also has dehydrated chicken manure, earthworm castings, bat guano, kelp meal, alfalfa meal, all kinds of stuff That's not only gonna add that organic matter to my soil But it's also gonna add a lot of nutrients to my soil and it's gonna help it build Some really good microbes and have a really really healthy garden this year. So let's till this in I am a huge proponent of no-till farming practices and no-dig gardening and will absolutely be using those methods here as I do on our Other farmstead but when starting a new garden in either heavy clay soil or very sandy soil It's often recommended to establish your soil structure that first season by tilling in compost And then never tilling after that. From now on any soil amendments I add to this plot will be applied directly to the soil and I'll allow the soil microbes and beneficial bacteria to establish and maintain the soil structure This soil ripper from Corona tools is perfect for loosening soil in the areas. I can't get to with the tiller All right All that compost is tilled in and the soils looking great The next thing I need to do is shape all of these beds and then I'll add an extra layer of soil amendments on The top of each bed and mix that in But it's getting a little late. I got to get that rototiller back to the rental place. So let's pick up here tomorrow All right It's day two and I am really excited because today will be the first time that this plot of soil will finally start to actually Look like a garden I've already measured this entire space and drawn up a sketch to scale that shows the size and spacing of each bed For permanent gardens, especially with hardscaping like raised beds built out of wood or cement I like to make my pathways wide enough that I can push a wheelbarrow down them But this is sort of a temporary garden. So I'm making my pathways a little bit more narrow They're only gonna be 18 inches wide which will allow me access to walk down them But not necessarily get a wheelbarrow all the way down them Once the crops have filled in. The beds that will have low growing freestanding crops like peppers and summer squash will be four feet wide Which is wide enough to grow a lot of vegetables in them But not so wide that I can't reach into the center without stepping on and compacting the soil Taller crops that I'll grow on trellises like tomatoes tomatillos beans and cucumbers Those beds will be two feet wide so that I can run a trellis down the center and still access that trellis from both sides Creating a bunch of small beds rather than a few large beds allows me to grow each crop in their own specific area Which has a lot of advantages including amending the soil specifically to that crop and crop rotation Orienting my beds north to south will provide them the best opportunity for maximum sun exposure I could orient the beds east to west if that was my only option But it's likely to create a situation where I've got inconsistent sunlight with some areas of the garden being scorched by the Sun and other areas being shaded out and it really reduces my Options for what I can plant where because if I planted taller crops in the southern beds It would shade out the plants of the northern beds. Alright, so I've mixed in a bunch of compost I've shaped the beds now It's time to add the exact soil amendments that I need in order to get my soil ready to grow my crops now There's three main nutrients known as macronutrients. They're nitrogen phosphorus and potassium And in most cases a lot of those are already existing in your soil But they're all at different levels sometimes too high Sometimes too low and the best way to determine what levels they're at is to have your soil tested either send it off to a lab For an analysis or use a home test kit now I recently did a video on exactly how I tested my soil I trialed a few different kits and I sent one off to a lab and compared everything So if you want to see how I tested my soil and get an idea of what some good kit options might be for home Testing I'll add a link to that video here My soil test determined that the nitrogen levels in this soil is on the lower end So I'm going to be adding some organic nitrogen fertilizer to amend this soil This is an organic blood meal from EB stone and it's basically a slow-release nitrogen It's a 13-0-0 that first number is the nitrogen. So lots of nitrogen I'm just gonna add this on top of the soil mix it in a little bit and it's gonna be a great slow-release nitrogen They'll last the entire season Starting your garden with organic soil amendments and maintaining it with only organic fertilizers is the best way to build and sustain Live healthy soil and your plants will reflect that One last soil amendment. This stuff is like the icing on the cake This is called recipe 420 and it's like this elevated organic potting mix not only does it have a broad range of really nutrient-rich organic matter, but it also has beneficial bacteria and Mycorrhizal fungi this stuff is gonna just be added on top of these beds. Just like that blood meal was I'll barely scratch it in and it's gonna create an environment for the roots of the new plants to thrive and it's gonna continue to break down and feed the soil and the vegetables growing in it all season long if you can find this At your local nursery. I highly recommend it for top dressing your beds Not only the first season but each season after that before you plant now if you can't find this product in your area I recommend just using the most high quality compost or potting mix that you can find In addition to building your soil structure and balancing the nutrients now is the best time to check your soil pH and adjust it if necessary All right, the only thing left to do now is water it all in Now I'm gonna allow the soil to settle for a few weeks and during that time I want to encourage any of the weed seeds or rhizomes from those weeds that are left in the soil to germinate and with rain in The forecast and a little bit of sunshine It should create the ideal spring conditions to germinate those weeds so that I can pull them before planting All right It's been a few weeks now since I built these beds and we got that rain and the sunshine that were forecasted But we didn't get very many weeds There were a few here and there that I plucked out But it was encouraging to see that This area that was before full of weeds now has pretty much none And I know there's gonna be some that will continue to come up after planting But at this point I can see that this plot is ready to plant It takes time to build healthy soil because great soil is not just the right blend of organic matter and minerals Healthy soil is alive just like the plants that it's feeding So it relies on the microbes and other microscopic organisms within the soil that form a symbiotic relationship with your plants So continue to manage your soil by feeding it regularly with organic fertilizers maintaining the soil structure by adding compost each season never tilling after the initial till and Reducing soil compaction by not stepping on the beds and also planting cover crops during the rainy season Those basic soil management Practices will allow you to grow more produce more efficiently in a smaller space with less weeds and less disease If you have any questions about how I build and maintain the soil in our vegetable garden or any questions about the soil in your Garden be sure to comment below if you enjoyed this video give it a thumbs up And if you want to see more videos like this including the next phases of this project like installing the irrigation Putting up trellises covering these pathways and planting be sure to subscribe to this channel and otherwise, I'll see you all next time