Why Natural Gardening Is The Answer To Your Pest Problems! Grow Food The Lazy Way

What if I told you you can have a garden full of bugs, do nothing at all for pest control, and still have an abundance of fresh tasty food? No need for black plastic, soapy dish soap or fabrics. Sounds crazy right? Well it's actually possible and that's exactly what I do. And the reason I can do this is by using a few simple techniques that cost nothing at all and in this video I'll be breaking it down for you. So instead of freaking out about every single pest on your plants I'm going to show you how you can deal with your pest problems without having to do anything at all. There's one way we can fix our pest problems from the very beginning and it all starts with the seeds that we plant in the soil. In modern agriculture modified seeds are claimed to produce bigger more reliable yields however in a lot of cases they're still required to use pesticides and fertilizers. For backyard farmers like myself buying seeds from seed companies is not always the best option. The reason for this is that the seeds are not adapted to local conditions and that makes them more vulnerable to pests and problems. By using local seeds instead they are automatically going to be adapted to the soil and water conditions of the region. They will also be more resilient to local pests. The seeds I planted in my garden five months ago were collected from the produce I bought at the local market grown by the local farmers here in Mexico. I have to say I actually made a big mistake with the corn it wasn't that bad it is growing but there was a better way I could have done it and I'll let you know how I did that later on. I did find out what it was it's all a learning process and you'll find this useful so make sure to stay tuned. Just to fill you in I'm only renting the garden and property for six months so I only planted annuals. Even though I'm staying here for a short while I still jumped at the chance to do some planting as I haven't stayed in one place for longer than a couple of months for many years now. That's because I've been traveling to different organic farms, food forests and regenerative projects to film everything I've learned there, sharing those videos with you on this YouTube channel. But now I'm super excited to share some tips with you from my own garden. You see I'm really passionate about sharing the benefits of growing nutritious food in harmony with nature and that's because I grew up in the inner city of London. It was a food desert that means the local shops did not sell any fresh vegetables only frozen and processed goods were available. However my grandma grew a lot of organic food from her garden. For her this was a way of life since she lived in a remote mountain village in the Alps which really made me appreciate the benefits of having fresh healthy food at arm's reach. She also preserved a lot of food for the She did this all her life but I had no idea where she learned this from and since she passed away I had no way to ask her. So I decided to do some digging into my family history and partner with the sponsor of this video. MyHeritage is the leading global service for family history research and DNA testing. By adding the details of my grandparents I was matched with instant discoveries. It turns out I've been able to connect to some distant family members. Through them I was able to discover my great-grandparents names details and profession. It's been interesting to discover that both my great-grandparents were farmers that lived in this self-built adobe house that was around 400 years old and they were completely self-sufficient grew produce for the local market since there were no shops. They also lived without any electricity. Speaking to some family members I was able to learn that this house is where my great-grandmother was born so was my mother and my aunt and it's highly likely that the family through my mother's lineage are from a long line of female farmers. There's still quite a lot of gaps in my family tree so I'm still investigating and there are 19 billion records that I can access through MyHeritage to search through. By accessing these records I was actually able to find out about my great-grandmother on my other side. I was surprised to find out that she actually emigrated to the United States. It's been amazing to enhance colorize and animate these old black and white photos through MyHeritage's AI technologies. Bringing these photos back to life and building my family tree has made me feel much more connected to my origins and it's been so much fun. If you want to learn more about your family history you can sign up for a 14-day free trial by clicking the link in the description or clicking the QR code on the screen. One big problem as gardeners have is how we've been brainwashed to believe that every bug and every weed is completely bad. It turns out that some of these bugs can reduce your pest problems and I'll be showing you bugs that are actually your friends and there are some so-called weeds that do an excellent job at pest control and I wanted to start out with one very important volunteer plant. It does a good job at attracting a lot of bugs yet it's a controversial plant and vilified as a weed especially in industrial agriculture which uses a lot of herbicide to remove it as they believe that it will choke or over compete with the corn plants but it does no such thing. In fact I had this plant growing with my corn and it was perfectly fine. There are reports that this plant has a symbiotic relationship with corn. If this plant grows well so will the corn. So let me introduce you to it. Here we have morning glory growing amongst other crops. It makes a fantastic ground cover. It stops erosion. This is because morning glories have extensive root systems that hold the soil together. Furthermore they can improve soil fertility by promoting microbial activity. You can see the leaves of the morning glory have these little holes in them. That's because all the bugs want to eat the morning glory instead of the other crops. Aphids are one of the biggest threats to agricultural crops as they carry diseases and infect plants. I had a ton of aphids on these marigolds. No surprise there since these flowers are known to distract pests. Some say they even attract them. Either way I just left the aphids to it. Thankfully they never spread to my other crops and there were definitely other bugs eating them. When this stick bug showed up next to the marigolds I knew it was a good sign that nature was taking its course. Since some stick bugs do eat aphids and mites but not all stick bugs apparently. I also noticed a metallic long-legged fly and they too will eat aphids. I also came across this harlequin bug. It's a destructive pest for brassica plants and other crops. I only saw one of them so I assumed they were just being eaten up by their predators such as parasitic wasps, spiders, birds, toads and a praying mantis. Having flowers and tall grass helped to encourage these beneficials to deal with the harlequin bugs and many other pests. As you can see I had plenty of habitat to accommodate these good bugs. I'm surrounded by a huge patch of amaranth and not only is it edible from the seeds to the leaves and the stem, what's even more incredible is a study concluded that amaranth helps to support healthy soils and helps microbes to thrive. Furthermore it helps to decrease soil-borne pests and diseases within the soil. Amaranth is a great distraction plant. All the bugs that you don't want on your food gravitate towards amaranth. An example here is there's some bugs hiding in the leaves. I'm just going to investigate the soil where the largest patch of amaranth is growing to see what the quality of the soil looks like. The soil actually looks really good. This crumbly texture is great for crops as it allows for air, water and roots to move through it. Yeah so it hasn't really rained properly for a few days. There's still a fair bit of moisture in the soil but it's kind of dry but you can feel that there is a bit of moisture still in there. The only thing I put down was vermicompost which I made with my own food scraps. It's very rich and thick so all the microbes in the soil have been at work to get it to this perfect texture. If you would like me to make a video on how I made this low effort vermicompost then be sure to let me know in the comments. Mammals can be a problem for agricultural crops and there are a few mammals around this area. Also my garden isn't fully fenced in. Despite this I found that nothing really ate my domesticated crops and that's a hundred percent because of the native plants. Take this sow thistle. They're great for animals. We saw a little bunny rabbit in here eating the wild leaves of these and what's great about having a plant like this to attract animals to eat it is that they won't eat your other crops that are planted here because I've got chard, I've got corn, I've got lettuce and so instead of eating those which I like to eat they'll eat the wild plants. Now let's not forget the birds. I noticed this townsend warbler flying into my yard. They are a foliage cleaner meaning they are fantastic pest control for scaby insects that are a common problem for fruit trees and agricultural crops. Lacewing and parasitic wasps are also great at controlling these types of pests and both the lacewing and parasitic wasp need caterpillars and other insects to reproduce. That's why I left any caterpillars that I saw. I really didn't have much damage at all from caterpillars. So why did I make such a big mistake with the corn? Well I was so close to doing everything right. It's much better to grow corn in bunches and more close together with at least a hundred plants. This is for pollination and to maintain good genetics. It also helps against the wind. So I have some exciting videos for you coming up where we'll be going to see much larger productions in remote villages where people are completely self-sufficient when it comes to growing corn, beans and other agricultural products. So if you want to stay in the loop for that make sure to subscribe with the bell on. If you want to learn more about your family history you can sign up for a 14-day free trial by clicking the link in the description or clicking the QR code on the screen.