I Almost Quit

Welcome to the garden. We are going to plant these trellises and talk a little bit about why I almost totally gave up on planting the trellises. If you're new here, my name's Jen. Welcome to the sunshine farm. We're a plant based homestead in upstate New York and we grow a lot of food in our permaculture garden. It's a mix of methods and it's second year. So welcome. We're happy to have you guys here. Hey guys, we are making dinner. I'm making some flatbread with some garlic scape pesto and a little broccoli from the garden. Some tomatoes we picked up at the store, garbanzo beans, vegan cheese and some kale. So I'll show you guys what we're doing and then I'm going to go outside after dinner and finally plant all those transplants that I grew in response to our slug issue. Are you excited for dinner? Yes, I'm very excited for dinner. I'm very hungry. Okay, let's get this. Let's get these guys in the oven. Well dinner was delicious and now I'm out here. I'm going to take a quick photo for Instagram. We had our anatomy scan done on Thursday, yesterday and it went super, super well. Baby is doing great growing right on track. So I'm going to take a pic quick, quick, pick, pick, quick take a quick picture of this really adorable onesie that came in the mail from nature supply co and it's super soft and I think you guys will like it because maybe a little bit garden inspired. How cute is that? Broccoli, kale, cucumbers, carrots, zucchini and tomatoes. So here's the pictures of little sprout. You can see the little eye sockets. Look at those tiny little feet, little feet. There's a little profile. This picture sprout was actually opening their mouth and drinking amniotic fluid, which is kind of cool. And then in this one, just a little cute profile, a little sprout. Really? That's what's going to happen. You're just going to lay on everything. Roll on the ultrasound photos for real. Do you want to be in the photo? So how things are going? So I got some cute photos despite this little bean causing some issues. Okay, now it's time to get to work. I have to plant all of these guys there over, over there on the trellises. I'm excited. These artichokes guys are growing so beautifully. Excited to show you them in Monday's garden tour. These are the squash that I need to transplant over to the trellises. Now they're all in grow bags, so I'm not going to be actually removing them from what they're in. Just moving aside the soil and just placing the grow bag into that soil so the roots can grow into the soil below. I'm going to start with this trellis right here. I think this is the one surviving jarred ale. So I'm going to finish planting jarred ales on both side here. This guy's weeding for me. I got half of the trellises planted. One, two, three. And for those who haven't been following along this season, we have had a major slug issue, which is pretty much resolved like 90% resolved now that things have warmed up and dried out. But it meant that anything I direct seeded about three, anything I direct seeded about a month ago now was devoured by slugs. So I'm actually a huge proponent of direct seeding, especially things like cucurbits, which prefer to be direct seeded. So cucumbers, squash, watermelon, all those guys. But I wasn't able to this year and it was like kind of like a punch to the ego because I'm always like just direct seed. And then direct seeding turned out to be a huge problem with a slug issue. So what I did instead, which referenced earlier, I used those little fabric grow bags that I bought off of Amazon to start squash indoors. And so when I planted them, I didn't take them out of the grow bags. I just put the grow bags right in the soil because the roots can grow right through. So I'm hoping this approach because essentially the pots that I planted them in are plantable pots. I'm hoping this approach means that they won't be so affected by being transplanted. I've also hardened them off pretty well and they're a pretty good size. We'll see how it goes. So let me show you what I planted here. This is Sibley. I have an extra Jarredale there and then two Sibley there. Oh, he's coming over to say hi. What do you know? Mr. Knight in shining armor. He's in his fly sheet. Oh, hello. Up close and personal I see. You are looking so shiny. He gets like bug bites on his neck. So he tries to get you to rub him and that's what he's doing right now is rubbing his neck, neck on the fence line. Hello Justin. Hi. When it came to winter squash this year, I was pretty defeated when I would come out and see a little squash sprouted and then a few hours later sometimes or the next day it would be gone. It would just be completely gone. I knew it was slugs because I saw them and I would see their trails left behind and I just felt super defeated and honestly wanted to just give up when it came to the trellises because I knew if I planted them again, the same thing would happen. And sure enough, I actually did direct seed a bunch of squash in the hugelkultur bed not too long ago and they were eaten, most of them by slugs. So it was really defeating and I totally wanted to give up, but instead came up with some creative solutions like using these little fabric bags. I even used some bottomless pots like I took pots and put them where I wanted them to go. Removing the bottom, filled them with some soil and planted cucumbers in those. So I came up with some creative solutions and it seems like they've worked for the most part. So I'm hoping all is not lost when it comes to squash and we'll see what happens this year. It's probably not going to be a perfect squash year, but next year we'll work on our slug issue by doing some no dig in the garden. And I think it's super easy when you run into a major problem in the garden, especially with something like your favorite crop. For me, winter squash is one of my favorite crops. It's really easy just to want to kind of call it quits and just not have any of that thing for the year. Or even just some people like get so tired of pest issues or problems in the garden that they just like give up entirely and they don't go back to gardening. And the idea of not gardening anymore isn't, isn't going to work for me, but I think there are ways where you can kind of power through and face it as an obstacle to overcome as opposed to a barrier that you cannot get past. So for me, that meant being really creative. Also while I was dealing with those issues, I decided to focus on the crops that were doing really well, like our peppers and tomatoes. Instead of focusing on the squash, I focused on the peppers and tomatoes and I focused on all the things like the potatoes and the garlic that were doing so well and that kind of gave me the encouragement I needed to keep going and not just feel completely deflated. But I, I like cried a couple of times about how bad our slug issue was and how sad it was to plant something beautiful or to see something beautiful coming out of the ground. And the next day it just was completely gone. Yeah, it's really defeating. If you're feeling that way ever, know that you're not alone and there is another side and it does get better. Anywho, that is the story of the slugs and the squash. Slugs and the squash of 2020. Yeah, but the peppers and the tomatoes, man, they are killing it. What do you think about the peppers and the tomatoes? Hopping? Hopping. Hopping. I mean like too much. Like I could get lost in here. That's why we call it such a dense thicket. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty thick. So I need to go ahead and plant some of these pole beans on that trellis back there and then this trellis is going to be more squash and that trellis, that trellis is also more squash. So I have like still like three trays to plant. These eggplants are looking so good. I'm so impressed by them. Nightshade alley, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, eggplants, even okra over there and some other random stuff. I also have a bunch of summer squash to plant. So zucchinis and I think I'm going to plant some of them in the hookah culture bed and I'm also going to plant some of them. I have this empty spot over by the corn where I want to plant some. I could plant one right here. There's like this bare spot, some weeds, but plants are right there. It's my little cucumbers. Oh, this spot over here where I've got the corn is pretty bare. So I could plant some summer squash there. I could probably plant one between these tomatoes over here. Maybe between those tomatoes because these guys are determinants. They really don't get that big. Yeah. So I've got some room to plant some squash as you might see this bed right here is like completely empty and you might be like, well, why don't you just go plant some stuff in there? And there is a very good reason because it absolutely stinks to plant stuff in this bed, which will lead me to another video I'll be making on why we'll be quitting the back to Eden method for our annuals. I've talked about it before, but I'm gonna make a full video on the fact that we're doing that. So be on the lookout for that and our garden tour on Monday. Bye friends. Thanks for being here. The sun is always shining, right?