How I Feed My Family From a 40x40ft Garden. ALL YEAR

Most people think that you need acres of land, a homestead, or loads of money to actually grow your own food. And I'm going to show you exactly why that's totally wrong and what you can actually do instead. And the reality is that the food and the supermarket is full of chemicals. And like the way that we are growing our food is honestly destroying the planet. And most people have no idea how to actually create a garden that can really feed their family. And with all the random information online, it's really easy to waste an entire season planting some seeds, throwing some stuff in, and going through this trial and error. And I believe now is the time to create real food security. And there isn't any time to waste for our own health and for the health of the planet. And in this video I'm going to give you the exact system that I use to grow hundreds of pounds of food in this 40 by 40 foot garden that's 1,600 square feet that provides harvest daily for a family all year long. And this is a garden that I built this year. So this is the first year of production in this space. So I'm going to outline the whole system for you starting from the very beginning of the process, the design. How did I lay out this garden? How did I orient the beds? What elements did I include? Then I'm going to walk you through how I created it, building the soil, installing the garden. You're going to be able to apply all this directly to your specific situation. Then I will walk you through the crops that I chose. Like what are the specific crops that I'm using to really feed myself all year long? And then closing the loop and looking at how I'm tending the garden. So what are the things that I'm consistently doing to make sure this space is super healthy? And this isn't just my conditions. Like I've built gardens from scratch like this in multiple different locations now. I've never even owned land. And I'm seeing more and more small scale kitchen gardens actually feeding people in a real way. And I've been teaching people how to do it. And you're going to leave with a real plan and inspiration to take you into your food growing journey no matter where you are in the path. This is going to be extremely valuable for you. And real quick before we dive into the design starting off, like if you want to learn exactly how to feed yourself from an abundant garden without the years of trial and error, just click the link below this video and you can apply for a free strategy session with me where I'll personally look at your specific situation and challenges and we can chart out a path together to real food security. So without further ado, let's dive in. So the first step in this process is designing your garden. And this is so important, like do not skip the steps. So many people just want to get to the fun planting starting seeds part. And I will tell you that you would not build a house without a blueprint, right? You wouldn't start a business without a plan of where you're going. Anything that you want to have an impact in your life, you need to have a little bit of And so the really the major important things of making a garden design is picking the right location, understanding the garden size, and making a drawing of that. Those are the three major things that you really need to do. And so picking the right location, you just need the proper amount of sunlight, you need to have access to the space and good drainage and to be able to get water to the space, and it needs to be really easily accessible, right? So you pick the right location, then you need to just pick the size that you're planning on doing. And this really is based off of like your goals, how much time that you have, like how much food you want to grow, how much time you have, and how much space you actually have available. So understanding the right size for you is going to be really important. So you don't go too small, because two people too many people like start one bed because they want to, you know, not overwhelm themselves, but then they don't get anything, they don't get any production. So you want to go to a good size that you can manage, and then draw that out. And so a basic sketch is all you really need to do this. And it doesn't have to be complicated. You could also just take an aerial photo of your landscape off of Google Maps, Google Earth, and then you can just print that off and sketch onto that. Or you can just make a simple drawing based off of measurements from your landscape and start to get an idea. And what I do is I like to make my map, make my drawing, start to lay out all my elements. And I'm going to walk you through all the elements that I created here step by step so you can know what to include in your design. So just stay tuned for that. And you're going to want to sketch that out and then flag it out in real life. So like make your drawing first, and then flag out your area, like with sticks and string, or those little flags you get at the hardware store. And then feel the space and be like, oh okay, like this is a pretty good size space. Like I feel like I can manage this. And obviously you're not going to know if you're just starting off from scratch. And a general rule of thumb is like it takes more time to set up the garden and build it. And so if you really want to grow a lot of your own food, like if you're trying to go to like self-sufficiency level, like look at a garden that's like 30 feet by 30 feet, 40 feet by 40 feet, about the size that I'm about to show you and walk you through. That's going to be a reasonable amount of space to actually feed you consistently. That's how much space you need. I've tested it in multiple different locations over multiple seasons. And generally like as one bed, you can see like a bed like this, like generally one bed here is going to take you about 30 minutes a week generally to maintain. To weed, to water, to harvest, all that stuff. So a lot of this has to do with your time. Like you're going to want to consider your time. And whatever your time constraint is, whatever your most, whatever your constraint is, either it's your time or it's going to be your space. One of those two things is going to constrain you. So you're just going to want to base your garden off of those things. So now let's walk through all of the garden elements. So you know exactly what to include in your garden, in your process. And so you can see how I did it step-by-step. So the first thing that I'm looking at when I'm creating any garden is just jotting down all the elements that I want to. So you can take some notes as I go through this of, yes, I want to include this, yes, this, this, this, and note everything down. The first thing I'm always thinking about is the garden beds, right? Like where are we putting the garden beds? And you can see here, I laid these out in a clear delineated way. So you could see that they're kind of rectangular shaped. They're straight and they run along the garden this way, right? And I have this way, this way, they just like stack on top of each other. There's also a perimeter bed around the edge of the garden. And I like to create a perimeter bed around the edge of the garden because this allows me to access and plant along this fence line as a trellis. It lets me keep weeds out of here. And then I have a mulched edible perennial border on the edge to keep weeds out of this fence line. I'll talk about that. We'll circle back to this. Let's stay on the beds for right now. So I'm laying out all the beds, right? You're going to want to make the beds and the pathways a majority of your garden space. It's a key feature of your design. This is your main growing areas and having as much possible bed space is going to allow you the most production, right? So I'm laying these out. These are about three to four feet wide and the pathways are about 18 inches or two feet wide. And there's the perfect size dimensions for maximum productivity and also a maximum space yield. I've tested all these different sizes. These are the best. Just trust me on this. It's because you can still access these beds. Like you can reach across into them and of nice four foot wide bed really maximizes your growing space compared to even a two or three foot wide bed. So I'm, you know, putting these beds in and you want to consider your grading here. So this slope is naturally sloping down this direction. It's going downhill. So that's why I put my beds oriented this direction and this direction because it's catching water and allowing it to drain as well, but also retaining water into the soil. So how you lay out your beds is going to be based off of your landscape, your slope, all that stuff. And like I said, majority of your bed space is going to be going in. So once I made my design, I sketched out a lot of my elements, I started building these beds, right? So let's go through and walk through all the elements and then I'll tell you how I built them in order. So you have your beds and your pathways. I have this nice central pathway throughout here that's a little bit more wide open, easily accessible. The compost bin is a super easy setup. This is a pallet compost bin. You want a place to be able to pile materials to create your own compost, build your own fertility. I always plant a squash plant in here. Every time they are super productive and I love utilizing this as a growing space as well. Once you get your compost system in, you get some of your beds in, you'll probably need a really easy water system. One of the simplest water systems is to just take off of your spigot, off of your house. You can attach a simple timer like this and what this does is it allows you to create multiple different zones and phases throughout the garden. You can also just have a simple timer that has just one zone and then you can run a sprinkler off that or drip irrigation. This is really setting up an irrigation system as its own video in itself, but this is the easiest way to set up a super simple irrigation system. An overhead sprinkler or a soaker hose. You can hook up a hand nozzle to this as well and hand water too. So keep it super simple. That's exactly what I did. I used this sprinkler from Lowe's and it's worked super well. So just keep it simple as you're building the garden. Don't ever complicate it and then you can refine those systems later on. So setting up a really basic water system is going to be a major thought in the design process where you're getting your water. And then I'm thinking about trellises. So I have my beds in place. I have my beds, my paths, compost systems, trellises. I'm thinking about where can I place these to maximize my vertical growing space. So I have like wall style trellises. We have like pyramid obelisk style trellises. I have A-frame style trellises and I like to place these strategically throughout the garden to create a lot of beauty and function. I also use my fence as a trellis. The greenhouse placement was also included in the initial design process. So I knew that the greenhouse was going to be here when I built the garden. And I like to include two little beds on either side. There's actually a U-shape in this greenhouse to maximize growing space because this is really productive growing space. I can grow in this simple polytunnel kit that I took this $100 polytunnel kit and built a strong greenhouse out of it. And so I have my warm season peppers and just like look at these things are thriving and eggplants. So all my warm season crops in here and then I have tomatoes and then I have kale for the winter. Kale and broccoli and cabbage, all that's going to be coming in for the fall. And honestly a greenhouse kit is not necessarily required. You do not need a polytunnel. You do not need a greenhouse. You can use simple hoop beds, hoop covering systems. These are really nice if you want it to really maximize extending your growing season. It's definitely worth the investment. But you can do the same thing by creating small little hoops and hoop beds and then covering this with row cover or polyplastic sheeting. This can accomplish the same thing. This is a mini version of that, right? And so you want to include some undercover growing spaces in your garden design. You want to include small undercover growing spaces like a cold frame or the hoop beds with simple hoops. You can use PVC. You can use metal and just cover your crops to be able to extend your growing season. You're definitely going to want to do that. It's necessary to grow food all year round and we'll get into that when we talk about crops and succession after this. So fencing is also pretty important if you have any pests or critters. This is a simple t-post and wire fence. So I just created this whole area here with t-post wires and built this simple gate to keep out bunnies and groundhogs and everybody else. And the thing is, is you want to have the right system and the right elements. This is not complicated. It's really simple if you know this is what you want to include and that's how you do it. Something I always incorporate on fence lines, if you're looking for fencing strategies, the edible perennial border is the way to go. What you do is you mulch this edge here. So this two foot outside of the fence is a mulched edge. And then I plant this with all of my different perennials. I have sage and thyme and oregano and Egyptian walking onions and strawberries. And then I plant annuals like zinnias in here. And what this does is it creates weeds from, stops weeds from getting into my fence and creeping into my garden. And then I have my garden bed on the other side. So both of these are really accessible from the fence. So it can take you some months to build a garden like this and then you have it for life, right? It's built, it's done, it's improving year after year. And honestly I can understand if it feels like a little bit confusing or overwhelming how these specific elements fit into my specific growing space. And if you want me to walk you through exactly your specific situation, your plan, your personalized garden design, then just click a link below. You can book that free strategy session and I'll walk you through it and make it super simple and applicable to you. So at this point in the process, you know, we've designed the garden, sketched it out, understand what elements that we want to include, how some of those things are going to piece together. And with that basic foundation, then we are having some of our first beds, right? I've created some of my first beds and then we're getting into planting. So in terms of crops and what to grow specifically in the garden, this is where it gets super fun, right? This is where the rubber meets the road and where we can actually really start to have success with this. So one of the key things here is when you're going and making your beds, you're going to want to plant them right away. You never really want bare soil. And so as you're going and planting, you're going to want to start with the staple crops. And I outlined this in a food pyramid, like starting with the foundations, right? And with the food pyramid, credit to Lexi's Kitchen Garden. She gave me so much inspiration on this. I love how she lays this out. Give credit where credit's due, right? And so you start with the foundations, right? And with the foundational crops that are really going to feed you. These are like storage crops, like potatoes and onions and sweet potatoes and winter squash, garlic. These are crops that you can store for a long period of time. You can add them as the base to meals and the foundation to really calorie dense food. We are creating a garden as a food system, not just a project to put energy into and not get anything out of it, right? So you're starting with these foundations. Then you move up to the meal makers, right? And so with the meal makers, these are like tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, kale, carrots. These crops are really calorie dense as well and very highly productive. This is where you can really start to create food and meal plans based off these two categories. So the bottom two, the foundation is the staples. You're going to want to focus 70% to 80% of your growing space to these crops. So you're going to want to write a list of these crops down and prioritize growing them. I allocate most of my bed space to these crops. This is really important because these are the crops that actually feed you. In terms of crops that actually feed you, you're going to want to only grow things that you actually eat and use into your meals. And if you're experimenting with something, if you're looking to learn or try to incorporate something into your diet, that's fine too. But make sure that you're actually growing things you're actually going to eat and use as foundational staples, right? So you're writing down exactly the crops that you're going to want to grow and focusing on those. So we have those, and this pyramid is to outline exactly how you can do that. So we have the foundations, we have the meal makers, these are our staple crops. Then we move up to the quick crops, like some quick wins. This is like lettuce and cilantro and radishes. We like to fill these in and these can be like really fast producing. Bok choy is another one where you can just, you know, get a pick daily from and get some yields from, but it doesn't have to take up a whole lot of space and it can really produce. This can, you know, make your garden feel really fun and you can get those quick wins, get some momentum going. So you have the foundations, you have the quick wins, then you have the flavor makers. So these are going to be the herbs, the things that pull the meals together and add so much flavor. You don't need so much of these, but this is like basil and fennel and dill, right? So those crops you're going to want to sprinkle in as well and create diversity. I'll walk you through exactly how I'm planting and laying out my garden and how I think about diversity. And then to top it off, we have the soul crops. These are like flowers, experimental things that you want to play with, strawberries. These aren't going to feed you, but they're going to bring soul and life and joy and energy into the garden and really create more diversity for pollinators and for beauty. That's a really important thing. So you're starting with 70, 80% on that bottom foundation, and then you're adding those up and working more into how you're laying out and planting your garden. So like right now in the fall, I have a lot of my bed space allocated to my staples. And you can see, like, I have an entire bed of sweet potatoes right here. Staple crop, just like boom. We have a whole bed of winter squash. Look at that huge staple crop. Bang. Then we have a lot of staples here. We have broccoli. This is a staple for me. Then I have some fillers. I have some cilantro and lettuce. So you're going to want to allocate most of your bed space to crops that are really feeding you. Cucumbers. And then I have beautiful turmeric, right? This isn't a staple crop for me, but I want to include it. This is an herb. And then I have carrots over here and beets. Those are roots. Those are more of a foundational staple. Then I sprinkled in some lettuce. So you can see how I like to incorporate blocks of plantings. And then around that on like end caps, I'll have like little different flavors of stuff. I have thrown a hibiscus plant here. And you want to get creative with it. Adding in some of my beauty, right? I have marigolds splattered all throughout here. And then my sweet potatoes are back here again with more of a staple. Another thing that's always happening is there's this constant iteration in the garden. It's always evolving. This is September here in North Carolina and it's changed so much throughout the year. I've been constantly planting. So succession is one of the key crop strategies. One of the biggest things is improving soil health and planting successions and having your proper design. Those are some of the most important things to really have success with this. And so I'm on my second succession of cabbage. I planted one in the spring. Now I have one in the fall. I'm on my second succession of kale. One in the spring, one in the fall. There's many things that you can have multiple successions of like peas and cucumbers. So a lot of this is really based off of you making a super simple planting calendar. And I have an entire video on that. But you can literally just write down your frost dates, write down every month of the year, and then outline what you're going to be planting. When? Just know that succession is a really important skill. Like essentially what you can think about is that you're always planting something. Every week, every two weeks, every month, there's some important crops to be planting throughout the entire year. And that's how you get consistent harvests by consistently sowing. You're consistently harvesting. And some of those crops are bigger storage crops that just come in one and done. Like sweet potatoes. I'm not succession planting sweet potatoes. It's just one. But a lot of crops, zucchini, cucumbers, cabbage, peas. I'm succession planting all of that. I'll succession plant lettuce once a month. Every month I'm sowing lettuce so I have a constant supply always coming in. And I'll give you two simple examples of this so you can get a practical hands-on way of learning this. So earlier this March, I planted potatoes. This is a staple potato bed. Harvested 70 pounds of potatoes out of this bed. Then I harvest all of them. I planted a fall crop of broccoli. After that, lettuce and cilantro. Right? So that's how one bed can move throughout the seasons. I'm going to overwinter these with my hoops. I'm going to cover this and overwinter it. Another example is I had early spring broccoli and cabbage in this bed. Harvested that and then I planted sweet potatoes into it. So that's how two beds can move throughout the seasons. When this is harvested in October, I'm going to just cover this with a mulch and then let it rest over the winter and plant it in the spring. So we've gotten this far through the design process. Creating the garden. Planting it out. Now it's time to tend and make sure that we're caring for the space. And so one of the biggest things here that I want to emphasize so much is that consistency is key. Consistency is the key to success with this tending at this point. So once we've done all this work, once we've created the garden, all we have to do is come out into the garden twice a week, three times a week. Maybe it's a little bit every day. What I do is I come to the garden on Tuesdays and Saturdays. I have two hour time blocks, Tuesday evening and Saturday morning. I come out to the garden. It's about five to six hours a week. I'm actually in the garden tending it. I don't live here, so it would be easier for me if I did. I would probably change that into like 30 minutes to an hour every single day because then you can just stay consistent. Because once you start planting and harvesting, what you want to do is you want to be in the garden regularly. So there's going to be harvest coming in. You're going to need to be going out and collecting the food, managing those crops. The more you pick the crops, the more they feel like they want to produce and give to you. It's crazy how it works like that. If you let them sit, like if you let peppers just sit on the plant, it feels like it's done. It's done its job and it just goes to sleep. So what you want to do is you want to consistently harvest, bring that food into your household and incorporate it into your meal plans. And then in terms of managing pests and diseases, you need to also observe. So the healthiest garden is the one that is maintained and looked at. You can notice if there's a disease that comes up. If there's a pest that comes up, you can catch it early. So consistency in tending the garden is really important. 30 minutes a day, 10 minutes a day even goes a massive way than just like completely letting things get neglected and weeded and overgrown. Like if you're out weeding for 5 to 10 minutes a day, that really does add up in terms of harvesting, weeding. And when you come out to the garden, there's really only a variety of things to do. So you want to make sure that you're being really effective at doing that. And so sometimes this is really hard for people to understand a schedule. Like how do they stay consistent? How do they know, how do you know when to weed and when to harvest and when to fertilize? And obviously how do these things work together? And that's exactly what I can help you do. If you click that link below and book a strategy call with me, we can outline a schedule and really map that out, map that path out forward. I can explain how that really does work. So consistency is key, right? And then we're going to want to improve soil health. So touching on soil fertility is part of tending the garden. And we want to make sure the soil gets better year after year. That is a natural regenerative approach to building soil fertility. So what I do in my garden is I'm constantly adding inputs. I'm adding compost and making my own compost. I have worm castings. I have a worm bin that I'm managing to implement fertility into the garden with worm bins. And now we're managing soil health. So we're going to be working with compost and making our own worm castings from a worm bin. I have all these different strategies to improve soil fertility in the garden. Always trying to keep crops in the ground, living roots in the ground. If there's not living roots and crops in the ground, I'll keep the soil covered. So something that I'm experimenting with is chopping up all my plant material from the plants that I'm growing and putting that onto my beds, composting on the beds to reduce compost needs. Also, I'm going to my local municipality where they collect all the leaves from the city and getting their leaf compost and piling that into the garden. So there's so many strategies that you can do that, honestly, you don't have to be buying truckloads of compost. You can make your own compost teas. And there's a whole fertility strategy, a whole fertility cycle that comes into working with the garden. And it's really simple. You do not have to buy store-bought inputs. You do not have to buy fertilizers. This is all based on nature. This is all stuff that you can easily do at home with your own skills, materials, and resources. I love it. It's just so simple and so easy. This year, I'm so proud to share that I've built this garden completely from scratch, grown hundreds of pounds of food, taken myself out of the grips of relying so much on the grocery store, and I'm growing food all year round. And so really, you'll start to see that there's a seasonal rhythm here that the garden season doesn't really end. Like, even in the winter, you can be growing undercover, and then you're planning, you're designing, you're creating new beds, you're creating new systems, building water infrastructure, sheds, whatever it is. There's always a practice to be working on, and I'm growing all year round, all throughout the year. Now, even up north in Wisconsin and Maine, you can be growing undercover. Not even heated greenhouses. Super simple stuff. I totally get this is a lot. Gave you the outline, the whole system of how you can incorporate this, and I really hope that it inspires you. And I totally get it can be a little bit confusing. Like, you have to figure out how this works in your specific context, and how it can all be placed together. And if you want to really take yourself and build a food system, build a thriving garden, so that you don't have to depend on the grocery stores. Like, you don't have to wonder where your food's coming from, or kind of feel that little bit of anxiety or guilt, like you're contributing to a system that is destroying the planet. Like, I want to talk to you. Click that link below. You can book a call with me. We can talk about your plan, and any challenges you're having. Anything that you're looking forward towards, and diving into your dreams, and just mapping out that plan for you to take action and move forward. And so, book a call. I would love to talk to you, and yeah, I hope you enjoyed this video, and I'll see you later.