The Donkeys Ate My Garden | FULL Summer Garden Tour 2025!

0:00 We've had some real pests in the garden this year.

0:02 And I'm not talking about squash bugs.

0:07 I'm talking about my dogs and then my donkeys that the dogs let into the garden

0:16 that have basically spent the last 2 and 1/2

0:18 months wreaking havoc while I was on maternity leave.

0:25 Subtle foreshadowing to what we're about to be seeing.

0:28 This is the fur of a June dog.

0:32 She jumped over the compost pile,

0:34 which apparently we're now going to have to move.

0:37 Going into this gardening season,

0:38 we knew that we would be putting all of the lazy gardening techniques

0:41 we've learned to the ultimate test because in the peak of growing season,

0:46 I was going to take a full month off to have a baby.

0:49 What we didn't know though was that that one month would quickly

0:52 turn into two or that the usual expected garden foes like watering issues,

0:59 weeds, disease, and bugs in the garden

1:02 would actually be the least of our problems.

1:05 Before we started filming this video, I took a quick peek,

1:08 and it's a real disaster in there.

1:10 So, if you are feeling anywhere near as discouraged

1:13 as I am halfway through the gardening season, take heart.

1:16 There are actually a ton of very easy,

1:19 very lazy ways to fix even the worst garden calamities.

1:22 Let's go talk about them.

1:26 [Music] [Applause] Oh, thank God that wasn't the baby.

1:35 This fungal situation, especially in here, is ridiculous.

1:41 And oh my gosh, there is a dead bird down here.

1:47 As if this couldn't get any worse.

1:50 Sorry, buddy.

1:52 We've had so much moisture this year that it's a one in 200year water event.

1:58 I don't know how we say that more succinctly.

2:01 This is what happens when you have extremely humid

2:06 conditions and too much foliage being too close together,

2:10 which tracks because I wasn't here to be pruning and making

2:15 sure that there was plenty of airflow or, you know,

2:18 picking the grapes when they got ripe, which is a real disappointment.

2:24 I was really looking forward to this.

2:27 Future Ann here popping in with a quick tip about how to fix fungal issues.

2:32 I'll be popping in throughout this video with lazy fixes

2:35 for all of the garden chaos we'll encounter throughout this video.

2:38 When there is an undesirable fungus in your garden,

2:41 most people's first line of attack will be reaching for fungicide.

2:45 And I will tell you right off the bat, that is the wrong choice.

2:49 Three things you want to do.

2:50 First, prune and thin like mad to create more air

2:55 flow among the foliage of the plant because when you've

2:57 got leaves touching and there's something yucky going on, stuff

3:01 is going to transfer from plant to plant really, really quickly.

3:05 Second, get rid of your spreaders.

3:07 Slugs and snails and other creepy crawies that have a long trail

3:11 along the leaves of your plant are going to be your worst culprits,

3:15 and addressing those is very important.

3:17 Third, instead of fighting the fungus, introduce a new, better fungus.

3:21 We can do that by spreading a fresh layer of rail

3:25 wood chips and inoculating those wood chips with wine cap mushroom spawn.

3:29 We talk a lot about that later in this video, so make sure you stay tuned.

3:34 My gosh.

3:36 Ah, well, here's some evidence of the true culprits of the garden this year.

3:43 What do my eyes see but some donkey poops in the middle of the garden?

3:50 This is not supposed to happen.

3:52 Oh my gosh, more donkey poop.

3:55 I seriously cannot believe these little jerks,

3:58 leaving their calling card everywhere they were.

4:01 Well, if you can see through all of the weeds over here,

4:04 we see where the dogs have been using this as a pathway to then

4:10 come in and dig their way into the root system of my Chinese mberries.

4:17 Oh man, look at all that fur.

4:18 Oh my gosh, look at that hole.

4:20 I know.

4:22 Holy smokes, J.

4:24 Not ideal.

4:25 I mean, I'm both really annoyed by this and also

4:28 feel so bad for June and her anxiety.

4:30 We filmed our last garden tour video before the baby was born,

4:33 right before a thunderstorm, which gave you, gentle viewer,

4:37 the opportunity to see our livestock guardian dog, June,

4:40 who's normally an absolute menace to threats to the farm,

4:45 having a panic attack because she has major storm anxiety.

4:48 I mean, who can blame her?

4:49 In 2021, while she was locked in the barn,

4:52 a tornado came through and tore the roof off the barn.

4:55 So, that fear comes from a good place.

4:58 The problem, however,

4:59 is that we ended up having the stormiest June and July on record.

5:04 And Sweet June was here to fend for herself.

5:07 I mean, with a farm sitter, but her favorite person,

5:10 me, was not here to calm her.

5:12 So, she was regularly jumping fences,

5:16 trying to get to any place where she felt safe.

5:18 And apparently during one of those freakout sessions,

5:21 she knocked over one of the garden panels,

5:23 giving the donkeys a wide open gateway to have a garden buffet.

5:30 Remember the self-seeded carrot bed I was

5:33 so excited about because it had worked so

5:36 dang well and I hadn't had to lift a finger to grow all those carrots.

5:42 Tada!

5:45 Sweet June dog has done some redecorating and I

5:48 could not be more sad or ticked off about it.

5:54 And honestly, this is one of those moments

5:56 where you could very easily laugh or cry.

5:58 But we're going to choose to laugh about it

6:00 because it's fixable and it could have been way worse.

6:06 Oh my gosh, I just saw another thing

6:08 the donkeys did that I didn't notice before.

6:11 Cool.

6:11 We'll go see that in a second.

6:14 The most important premise of lazy gardening is

6:17 that we never ever ever leave our soil uncovered.

6:21 My dogs were kind enough to come in here and dig all the mulch off of all

6:25 of my plants back here to find a nice cool spot of dirt to lay in.

6:28 And unfortunately, that turned our once very fertile soil into dirt.

6:34 Lifeless dust that is very prone to blowing away in the wind.

6:39 The bigger problem is not just that the soil is dry,

6:43 but the fact that it's become hydrophobic,

6:45 which literally translated means afraid of water.

6:48 So even if we were to suddenly have a huge downpour,

6:52 all of this soil is not actually going to be rehydrated the way

6:56 that it needs to, that water is going to bounce right off.

6:59 And far more concerning is that so much of this soil that is now

7:03 dust will be blown away with the wind and washed away with the water.

7:06 And that's how we lose all of our top soil.

7:09 If you want to learn more about this, check out the dust bowl.

7:12 But even now, you can see if I sprinkle

7:14 and water this, that water is not soaking in.

7:18 It's just running off.

7:19 Kind of like that gross dry sponge that you can always find in your mom's sink.

7:24 The easiest fix to hydrophobic soil is

7:26 a nice long overnight soak with a sprinkler.

7:29 Turn that sprinkler on and let it do its thing for at least 4 to 6 hours.

7:32 And the way that you know that your soil has been properly rehydrated

7:36 instead of just washed away is that we pick up a handful of it.

7:41 And if we squeeze it, a ton of water doesn't come out,

7:44 but it does actually feel moist to the touch.

7:47 And the most important thing here is that when you pull the soil

7:51 back 2 or 3 in, that down there you're finding even more moisture,

7:56 like plenty of moist soil and not more dry dirt.

8:01 Because dry dirt down where the roots of your plants need to be,

8:05 is a sign that you've still got to water some more.

8:09 Right here, you see evidence of why it's

8:12 actually good to have dogs in the garden, or at least why it used to be.

8:16 This is evidence of a little critter that was tunneling underneath,

8:19 which could very likely damage the roots of any

8:22 one of my perennial plants that's growing in here.

8:24 And the dogs love to root up any

8:28 kind of little critters that are invading the garden.

8:31 So, usually the dogs are a huge plus out here,

8:34 but they seem to have gotten a little carried away.

8:38 When I first found out that June was doing this, I

8:42 was really distraught about it because we've dealt with so

8:44 many behavior problems and other things with our livestock guardian dogs

8:48 that have just been a whole lot of work to fix.

8:52 And my livestock guardian dogs coming into my garden

8:55 and digging kind of felt like an unfixable problem at first,

9:00 but then I remembered I grew up in Montana

9:02 and we dealt with deer in the garden constantly.

9:05 The easy fix for an animal being a pest in the garden ever is

9:10 a solar powered sprinkler that will fix the problem in a matter of weeks.

9:15 Lazy solution, absolutely.

9:17 And the tasty side effect is that my garden will get a little extra water.

9:22 Not ideal, but what are you going to do?

9:31 All right.

9:32 So, one of my livestock pests is on the road right now.

9:38 George.

9:39 Georgie.

9:40 Porgie.

9:41 How did you get out there, buddy?

9:42 Come here, Bubba.

9:43 Come here, little Georgie.

9:44 Porgie.

9:45 Hey, Georgie.

9:46 Oh my lure in here.

9:50 Hey, Georgie.

9:51 Porggy.

9:51 Come here, Bubba.

9:52 Georgie, wrong way.

9:53 Bubba, wrong way.

9:54 Oh my gosh.

9:55 If you want to get behind him, I can.

9:57 And just like chase him this way.

9:58 Take a wide birth.

9:59 Oh, he's going this way.

10:00 Shoot.

10:01 Hey, Georgie.

10:02 Georgie.

10:02 Here.

10:02 Wait, Adam.

10:03 Hold on really quick.

10:04 Move over.

10:04 Come here, Georgie.

10:05 Come here, Georgie.

10:06 Come here, Georgie.

10:07 Oh, he's going that way.

10:08 All right.

10:08 Well, we'll let him.

10:10 I bet that's where he got out.

10:12 Just like my farmer friend Zach used to say,

10:14 they'll telling themselves they'll go back in where they came out.

10:19 Oh, look at him.

10:20 He's going good.

10:21 Well, I'll just go the other way and give him some food over there.

10:24 Georgie.

10:25 Hey, Georgie.

10:26 Wrong way.

10:26 Bubba.

10:27 Georgie.

10:27 Shoot.

10:28 Here.

10:28 I got it.

10:29 Yeah.

10:29 Run ahead over there and stick your hand to the fence to push him back this way.

10:32 Come on, Georgie.

10:33 Come on, Georgie.

10:34 Where did you get out, Bubba?

10:36 Hey, Georgie.

10:37 Just wait, Bubba.

10:38 Ringo, your help is not wanted right now.

10:41 Come here, Georgie.

10:42 He must have gone over there.

10:44 A good boy.

10:46 That's a good boy, Georgie.

10:47 Come here.

10:49 Well, as it happens, this leads us to the accidental squash and pumpkin patch.

10:55 I didn't know I had until this exact moment.

10:59 The pigs have planted us quite a buffet.

11:04 So, I'll pick some of those and we'll show you the fruits of that labor as well.

11:10 If you've hung around this channel for a while,

11:12 you know that I've already been juggling a lot,

11:15 but we've added a new piece of chaos to the mix

11:18 in the form of little Bubby here and Big B.

11:22 Good timing.

11:24 The last thing that I need is another

11:26 thing to have to think about in the morning,

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11:30 to be able to get the nutrition that I need.

11:32 So, as a now even busier farmer/mom,

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11:52 Making these smoothies is so easy.

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12:27 One of the cool things about Daily Harvest is being able to find

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12:31 to find in our regular grocery stores.

12:33 Because I spent most of my young life living in Asia,

12:36 being able to just pull some fresh dragon fruit

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12:43 If you need help simplifying your mornings,

12:45 check out Daily Harvest at the link in the description below.

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12:54 And I just want to say a huge

12:56 thank you to Daily Harvest for supporting our channel,

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13:00 and honestly for making our mornings this summer a whole lot easier.

13:04 Cheers.

13:07 Normally, we have an absolutely no walking on the garden

13:11 bed rule because we don't want to compress the soil,

13:14 but obviously someone, the donkeys, have already done this for us.

13:20 But mercifully, they actually created a little path right to some

13:24 of the worst of their destruction for us to better get to it.

13:28 So, here we are.

13:29 Um, oh, look, another garden implement I left out here all season,

13:34 probably unnecessarily.

13:35 All right.

13:36 So, you may have seen us feeding the donkeys Dalia snacks earlier this season,

13:42 which I clearly gave them a taste

13:44 for these things because they came through here to get

13:48 a nice little snack and in the process

13:54 knocked over a whole bunch of these things.

13:57 The real bummer is this is actually my favorite

13:59 purple dalia in here and all my lanta.

14:03 Well, here's some natural propagation that happened on accident.

14:08 Thank you, Howdy and Bella.

14:09 Howdy, Bella.

14:10 Come on, guys.

14:12 Hey, Bella.

14:13 Come here, Bella.

14:16 I hate to reward bad behavior, but there's going to be some foliage here.

14:24 The lesson here is maybe don't feed your donkeys Dalia scraps

14:29 all year long if you don't want them breaking into the garden.

14:32 and messing with your DAS.

14:35 Howdy, what are you doing, Bubby?

14:37 Just rearranging more of my stuff or is there something yummy in there?

14:42 I don't know how you walk through those weeds.

14:44 Those things give me an awful rash.

14:48 Here you go, bub.

14:51 One great way to keep weeds from climbing in from the outside

14:55 of your garden is to keep your outside of your garden really,

14:59 really well trimmed.

15:00 or better yet, put a nice thick 4ft mulch patch

15:04 in between the exterior of your garden and the interior,

15:09 which is something I normally do,

15:10 except that I was 9 and a half months pregnant when the garden season

15:15 started and I wasn't really in the place to do my normal garden prep,

15:20 which is kind of what got us into all this mess to begin with.

15:22 But you know what?

15:23 We grew a baby this year and that's way better news than ever growing a garden,

15:28 especially after all the struggles we've had.

15:30 So, normally I would say when dealing with weeds, do not major in the minors.

15:35 Major in the majors.

15:36 Take care of all of these seed heads so that all of these weeds

15:40 don't actually go to seed and then spread those seeds in your garden.

15:45 However, in a patch like this, my natural inclination is to come

15:49 in here with my weed whacker and take care of it all at once,

15:53 top it off with some cardboard and some mulch,

15:55 crush whatever seeds may or may not have dropped,

15:58 and call it good because there's nothing really worth saving beneath me.

16:03 And there's a whole lot of stuff that has gone to seed here.

16:07 And I'm not going to handpick or hand prune any of this garbage.

16:10 Who has time for that?

16:12 We're lazy gardeners.

16:14 Even though this looks pretty awful right now,

16:17 now that farmer is back on duty, we should probably have a few less casualties.

16:24 Let's see if we can reclaim this pepper plant that the donkeys

16:30 and the dogs did us the favor of uh absolutely destroying here.

16:37 I love these Thai peppers and we grow them every year,

16:41 but uh a garden gone wild may or may not result in a stellar harvest this year.

16:49 There we go.

16:50 We'll see what we can do with that.

16:52 Maybe something, maybe nothing.

16:54 Our next step in reclaiming what has been lost to mother nature is to prune,

16:58 weed whack, and trim like a madman.

17:02 Sometimes this is a little sad like right now

17:04 because it means that we're losing a lot of flowers

17:07 but a they're directly blocking our path and also they

17:12 got some disease so we gots to get rid of them.

17:15 Another bit of pruning that feels a little sad in the moment

17:18 but actually has great rewards is pruning back our fruing things like our figs.

17:23 Because though that has a really cute baby fig

17:25 on it right now and everything in my heart wants

17:28 to hope upon hopes that there's enough time left

17:31 in the growing season for this little baby to mature.

17:34 There isn't.

17:35 And so we've got to get rid of the extra plant material and the plant's desire

17:40 to grow more foliage rather than putting its

17:44 energy into ripening those sweet little baby fruits.

17:48 But far more importantly provide some more airflow for this whole area which

17:54 will help the plant stave off this fungal issue that's starting to afflict it.

18:00 Let's get figgy with this.

18:06 In the midst of all of these kuruffles,

18:08 it seems the donkeys also disrupted my beehive,

18:11 which is unfortunate because that hive is probably since vacated since

18:17 there's been a water spigot basically going into it all season long.

18:21 However, funny story, remember how we were talking about the bee swarm

18:25 that was happening in the midst of our last video?

18:28 I caught it in one of my swarm traps

18:30 and it has established itself to be a very healthy hive.

18:34 So, all we've got to do now is convince Farmer Adam to go get it down for us.

18:38 Carry it down cuz I'm not supposed to carry heavy stuff yet.

18:41 And we can put that sucker right back into the beehive that was seemingly lost.

18:48 Lucy, you want some amaranth seeds, buddy?

18:51 Here, we'll give you some amaranth.

18:53 Here you go, Lucy.

18:55 Look at how tall the asparagus has gotten.

18:59 All my work to keep some of these from going

19:00 to seed earlier this season has obviously not gone well.

19:04 But good news of great joy,

19:06 we can collect all of the seeds from all of the tallest plants,

19:09 replant those, and in three more years,

19:11 we'll have some more delicious and delightful giant asparagus to eat.

19:16 And as I try to continue to get back into the darian gap over here,

19:22 I want to check on my baby paw paws and my figs and my kiwis.

19:28 But um Oh, wow.

19:29 This is quite itchy.

19:30 Yeah, I told you not to come back here with me, Farmer Adam.

19:34 He's walking through the asparagus, which is literally the itchiest thing ever.

19:37 Please don't walk back here.

19:38 Just hold on for a second.

19:40 Shorts maybe it was a bad idea.

19:41 I hate to say I told you so.

19:44 Actually, that's a lie.

19:45 I love saying I told you so, but to each their own.

19:50 There's a reason I wore my hard pants today.

19:55 Oh, praise God from whom all blessings flow.

20:00 Look at my paw paws.

20:01 So, somehow, miraculously, these little fruits survived it all.

20:06 And boy howdy, they're almost ripe as the proud father

20:11 of these baby paw paws because I pollinated them myself.

20:15 I mean, to be clear, I'm actually both the mommy and the daddy

20:18 of these paw paws because I also planted this tree.

20:22 So, a quick note on this weedy patch here.

20:27 This is a garden pathway that is very

20:30 well trodden and is generally somewhere that we put

20:33 down a ton of cardboard and mulch and don't

20:35 have the creeping issues that we've had this year,

20:39 but these weeds here are actually doing us a service.

20:42 And so, while my natural inclination is to want to pull

20:47 every one of these blasted things up and burn it

20:51 and send it back right where it came from, the lazy

20:56 gardener in me also understands how incredibly beneficial it is

20:59 to have a root system like these plants are offering

21:03 the soil down here at the very bottom of the garden

21:06 because so much of the good fertile soil higher up

21:10 in the garden has gotten a little dried out by the sun.

21:14 And I'm really worried about a sudden downpour,

21:17 which are really common in Tennessee,

21:19 causing a lot of that good fertility to run off the soil

21:23 and go straight into my pond where it's going to do me zero good.

21:27 All of this less than desirable grass and it's very delightful root

21:31 system is actually a fantastic catching device for all of that fertility.

21:36 So, I'm going to just leave this right here against my better judgment.

21:41 Did I mention that this is a garden pathway?

21:44 So, none of this grass,

21:45 while ugly and annoying and potentially offering creeping issues,

21:50 is actually inhibiting the growth of anything we do want.

21:54 So, when we're being lazy and the season's almost over, let it grow.

21:59 I see nothing has changed here.

22:01 A resident guardian is harassing everyone else.

22:05 Lucy's little goose, as we affectionately call her, on fly patrol.

22:11 Excuse me, sir.

22:12 Sir, ma'am, do you have any dectable snacks I can snack off of you?

22:18 I'm just going to go stand over here now.

22:19 Please stop chasing me, sir.

22:21 That's very rude.

22:21 But if you look around the disasters, there's still some good to be found.

22:24 So, let's try to do that, shall we?

22:27 First things first, we had some volunteer beans that showed up,

22:31 and that's always exciting.

22:34 These Chinese long beans are a key

22:36 ingredient in one of my favorite Chinese dishes.

22:39 This isn't going to be a huge harvest,

22:41 but there will probably be enough for a dinner or two.

22:44 If you look closely at my tomato plant here,

22:46 it almost looks like someone has actually taken care of it

22:49 and trimmed it the way a tomato plant needs to be.

22:52 And hilariously, that work was done by a pest.

22:56 This right here is a hornworm turd.

22:58 And might I say, the turd of a very healthy large hornworm.

23:03 But thank you, hornworm, we've got tomatoes to harvest.

23:06 And that is honestly kind of a big shock.

23:10 Now, generally speaking,

23:11 hornworms that are putting off turds that are that large

23:14 and rotunded are pretty easy to spot with the bare eye.

23:18 But if you are having trouble spotting hornworms on your tomato plants,

23:23 come right after dusk with a black light flashlight.

23:25 They're like $11 on Amazon, and point it right at your tomato plant.

23:30 Fair warning, a bunch of bugs are going to come flying at your face.

23:33 Be ready for it.

23:34 But those horn worms will glow.

23:37 You can pluck them off and give them to your chickens if you have them.

23:40 But there you have it.

23:41 Hornworm first line of defense.

23:45 Uh-oh.

23:46 Bubby's awake.

23:48 Oh my gosh.

23:48 The donkeys hear him crying and now they're crying, too.

23:53 Oh.

23:57 Oh.

23:59 Well, if that isn't the most precious thing.

24:03 Howdy.

24:04 Do you know the sound of your little buddy?

24:08 Baby Alexander.

24:14 Hi, Bubby.

24:16 Oh my goodness.

24:19 Are we sad?

24:21 Are we sad?

24:22 There's no reason to be sad.

24:24 Come here, little muffin.

24:26 Should we go fix all our garden problems?

24:29 Yeah.

24:42 A lot of the stuff that we're getting rid of in the garden

24:45 is actually great organic matter to either compost or mulch.

24:49 But there are a few exceptions to that compost and reuse rule.

24:54 And I would say that tomatoes and other things

24:56 in the nightshade family that have fungus on them

24:59 are definitely not things you want to save

25:02 or chop and drop and leave because every droplet

25:06 of water that splashes onto one of these infected

25:10 leaves and then touches anything else or the soil

25:13 around it will then become infected with the same

25:16 fungus and will spread it to your other plants.

25:18 And we definitely don't want that.

25:20 So, when we're trimming back things like tomatoes, we want to be really,

25:23 really careful to make sure we collect and burn

25:26 or throw in the garbage all of these fungal gross bits.

25:31 Tomatoes, much like other fruing plants like our figs,

25:35 really, really benefit from being heavily pruned all season long.

25:40 What we actually want to do, especially this late in the season, is really,

25:44 really aggressively prune these back and make sure that the plant

25:47 then puts its energy into ripening the fruit it already has rather

25:51 than trying to create more foliage and more fruit that quite

25:56 frankly we're not going to have time to get to this season.

26:00 My basil down here has gotten a little fungal issue,

26:04 probably raining down from the tomato plant, and that's totally okay.

26:08 But it's still putting off tons of basil.

26:11 What we want to do to keep it from going to seed and to keep getting nice,

26:16 beautiful basil all season long is to just cut

26:19 off all of the tops of the growths here,

26:22 which will cause each one to then put off new growth and put on new leaves,

26:27 just like any other plant when we're harvesting it in the garden.

26:29 We never want to take more than one third at a time.

26:32 But the big thing about keeping basil going all

26:35 season long is to keep up with keeping it

26:37 trimmed and making sure that it can't actually put

26:40 all of its energy into then going to seed.

26:43 So, this is good stuff here.

26:45 Hilariously, the whole idea behind putting basil and merry golds

26:50 around your tomato plants is that it's supposed to deter pests,

26:54 but clearly it didn't do a good enough job at keeping those hornworms away.

26:58 But such is life.

26:59 There's literally been no one but dogs and donkeys

27:02 in this garden for over a month destroying things.

27:05 So, we're lucky to have what we've got.

27:08 I would say that still having cucumbers

27:10 from our very first cucumber plants that we

27:14 planted earlier this year is a pretty dang good thing this late in the season,

27:19 especially considering the fact that here

27:22 in the south we have so many cucumber pests.

27:25 And so I think one of the secrets to longevity with this is

27:29 literally just that it had such a tall trellis to climb.

27:33 And as it died back all the way down here,

27:38 it just still had somewhere good to go and grow.

27:41 And it has.

27:43 And that's pretty dang cool because boy howdy do I

27:46 love my baking cucumber salads at this point in the year.

27:49 I'm unbelievably pleased to report that my artichokes that I

27:53 planted from seed actually germinated and have started to grow.

27:58 My turmeric is thriving.

28:01 Every year I'm always shocked to see that it's come back.

28:04 One of my hot spicy peppers somehow germinated over here.

28:07 And normally I'd cut that out of the pathway,

28:09 but because we're going to be a little shy on the pepper production this year,

28:12 we're going to let that grow and see what happens.

28:15 My piment tree that I accidentally singed during a cardboard bonfire

28:19 earlier this year has miraculously recovered and it's doing phenomenally well,

28:24 which I couldn't be happier about.

28:27 If you've been hanging out for a while,

28:28 you know that I'm obsessed with popcorn and growing my own popcorn,

28:34 harvesting my own popcorn,

28:36 then using antique tools to actually make the popcorn.

28:39 But this is now a multi-year project that has

28:42 had basically varying levels of failure every single year.

28:47 There are a few popcorns that have survived the damage this year,

28:51 but it's going to be a real pathetic harvest this year.

28:55 In hopes of eradicating some of the creeping grasses

28:59 that like to creep in from the edges around the garden,

29:02 I planted some hops here.

29:03 I may or may not regret that.

29:05 But right now, we've got some healthy growing hops,

29:09 and this will make for a nice spear harvest,

29:12 so I definitely can't complain about that.

29:16 [Music] Probably the best fix to a broken heart in a garden is try try again.

29:23 Even though we are fairly late in the gardening season,

29:25 if you look at the back of your seed packets,

29:27 every single one has a days to harvest window.

29:30 And here in Tennessee, we actually have a really long growing season.

29:34 So though I felt like everything was lost,

29:36 especially when I thought about only being able

29:38 to harvest six popcorn husks all season long,

29:43 it turns out popcorn only has 60 days to harvest.

29:46 So if you calculate back from your first expected frost date to today's date,

29:51 there's probably still time at least to grow some radishes.

29:55 So, put some seeds in the ground.

29:57 See some greenery grow.

29:59 And if all else fails, remember there's always next year.

30:04 Oh, here's a still edible piece of asparagus.

30:07 That's neat.

30:08 But here's some dill that's perfectly gone to seed.

30:12 How do we as lazy gardeners plant next year's dill?

30:20 [Music] Amidst a whole lot of disappointment,

30:27 my ginger has miraculously just done amazing.

30:31 This is the first year I've actually been successful in growing ginger.

30:35 So, it's cool to see that all my fruit trees are still alive.

30:40 That's a miracle among miracles.

30:44 The new raspberry patch is actually kind of thriving.

30:48 My hazelnut trees also doing great.

30:52 And all of this was literally just trimmings from over there

30:55 that I buried in mulch earlier this season and was like,

31:00 you do what you're going to do best.

31:02 And it did.

31:03 Look at it.

31:04 Woo.

31:05 And most exciting.

31:06 Oh my gosh.

31:07 Are we going to get some okra?

31:10 Ah.

31:11 Well, this is very exciting.

31:13 Oh my gosh.

31:13 Watermelon.

31:14 Watermelon.

31:15 Watermelon.

31:15 Watermelon.

31:16 Watermelon.

31:16 There's literally watermelons everywhere I look.

31:19 And my sweet potatoes are already starting to climb around.

31:23 We should be able to start picking some okra here this week.

31:27 That is so exciting.

31:28 And as you can see, the sweet potatoes are thriving.

31:32 Oh my gosh.

31:34 Oh my gosh.

31:35 The cool thing about all this stuff is that I'm going

31:38 to have to fork this up to pull out the sweet potatoes anyway.

31:42 And the sweet potatoes grew so quickly

31:44 and so prolifically that they actually crowded out

31:48 the majority of the grasses that usually

31:50 grow super tall and high in here anyway.

31:52 So that's what's allowed us to have then okra and watermelon.

31:58 All right, this over here is even more

32:02 exciting because holy moly did whatever beans I left

32:07 last year do something good over here because

32:11 these all naturally went to seed have clearly thrived.

32:16 There's more beans here than I could possibly eat if I wanted to.

32:20 And that's really exciting,

32:21 especially cuz our harvest over there is pretty pathetic.

32:26 Man, I should have brought my whole harvest basket over here.

32:29 But these ones that are too big to pick,

32:32 I'm just going to throw them over here and next

32:35 year they can do their thing just like they did here.

32:38 This is actually super cool.

32:41 I truly couldn't be happier about this.

32:44 We're going to feast tonight, buddy.

32:46 The funny thing about all this too though is that over here,

32:50 this has no protection from deer and other actual

32:53 pests that could otherwise probably negatively affect this area.

32:58 And yet here we are.

33:02 The lesson being, my friends, don't ever get animals.

33:06 Please refer to my please don't get a goat video.

33:09 Please don't get alpacas.

33:10 Please don't get donkeys.

33:11 That's a total joke.

33:12 I can't imagine my life without them.

33:15 But this year, I will say that their presence amidst

33:19 my attempt at taking some time off was a real stressfest.

33:25 In areas that have gotten especially crunchy and/or crusty due to fungus or lack

33:32 of mulch or lack of root structure in the soil and hot hot temperatures.

33:37 a fantastic way in addition to the overnight

33:40 sprinkle to aid in waking the soil back up,

33:43 adding that calcium and phosphorus that it really needs

33:46 and also giving the microorganisms Oh, sorry about this.

33:50 My donkey bit this bag right as we were walking into the garden.

33:54 But basically to replenish a lot of the good stuff in a hurry,

33:58 I really recommend this Redmond product, Soil Builds.

34:04 I very rarely recommend buying products for your garden,

34:07 but this is one that is absolutely fantastic for a lot of reasons.

34:11 There's a link for it in the description,

34:13 and if you use the code animal trades, you'll get a discount.

34:17 One funny thing amongst all this chaos and destruction

34:20 is that given the right soil conditions and rain conditions,

34:23 Tennessee will always Tennessee.

34:26 And that can have things get out of hand in a real hurry.

34:30 I mean, are you kidding me?

34:31 I can see the tops of those branches clearly out the window

34:36 in the second story of the barn while I'm sitting down.

34:40 And speaking of Tennessee doing its Tennessee thing, check out these zenyas.

34:44 And these zenyas and all these zenyas.

34:48 All of them self-seeded and pretty much all of them currently in the way,

34:52 but at least it still looks good and covers

34:55 up some of the other chaos and destruction.

34:58 One plant that miraculously saved itself from my donkey deadheading

35:06 that happened to all my other pepper plants is this jalapeno plant.

35:10 What's craziest about this is not only the way

35:12 that it's thrived with zero care or maintenance,

35:16 though there are no actual extremely hot spicy peppers around these.

35:22 Somehow these have turned into the hottest,

35:25 spiciest jalapeno peppers I've ever had in my life.

35:29 Which is kind of crazy because usually we

35:31 have some sort of crosspollination between our peppers.

35:34 Like we've got some Carolina Reapers or some Thai spicy peppers or something,

35:39 but this year it's literally only this one pepper plant

35:43 that's actually doing well and somehow still providing the hottest,

35:48 spiciest jalapeno peppers I've ever tasted.

35:50 Whatever.

35:51 Since we don't have our regular hot sauce

35:53 peppers producing as prolifically as we would like,

35:56 we'll take whatever hot spices we can get.

35:59 But here we are scratching our heads and eating our hot sauce regardless.

36:05 This desolate wasteland before me was once a very fertile,

36:10 thriving, full of carrots garden bed,

36:13 and it has become a pathway for my livestock

36:17 guardian dogs as they patrol the garden.

36:19 So, in addition to our overnight sprinkle of water and the addition

36:23 of a product like soil build to wake up that microbial life,

36:27 we have two more lazy gardening weapons in our arsenal.

36:30 Compost and mulch.

36:33 Compost is only really necessary at this point if you're

36:37 looking down here and all you really see is dirt.

36:40 And by that, I mean dusty, unal alive garbage.

36:44 here.

36:45 If we're at all worried about the fertility of the soil,

36:47 a little addition at this point of some nice vermma compost, worm compost.

36:54 This is literally just worm poop.

36:56 Anyway, this stuff is absolute gardening gold.

36:58 So then, because mother nature never wants to stay exposed,

37:03 or just like my husband Adam really needs a giant hat

37:07 in the summer to protect his gentle skin from the sun's damage,

37:10 we want to put mulch, also known as arborous chips,

37:15 or straw or basically any organic matter that you can get

37:20 from a variety of sources that will basically act as sunscreen for the soil.

37:25 I really recommend using arborist chips mostly because I'm the cheapest

37:28 human alive and I like free stuff and I can get

37:31 it from the power company who comes through to absolutely obliterate

37:35 my trees every year in service of keeping our power on.

37:39 Sometimes you got to lose some to win some.

37:43 Other people who don't have access to free

37:45 arborous chips like I do will use straw.

37:49 That's a fantastic option.

37:51 If you've got chickens, I would really recommend tossing that straw

37:54 in with your chickens before you put it

37:56 in the garden because the chickens will help you eat all of the seeds out.

37:59 But as everyone here knows, I hate chickens.

38:02 So, I don't use straw.

38:04 One thing that I definitely don't recommend getting confused is the stuff

38:08 that you get in bags from your local home center because that stuff,

38:12 which they also call mulch,

38:14 is beauty mulch and it's often been treated and we don't want

38:18 to put those treatments into our organic

38:21 nutrient-dense growing medium for our food.

38:26 What else do we have that's good?

38:28 Oh, here's a watermelon.

38:29 Though the dogs were successful at digging

38:32 up most of my other watermelon plants,

38:34 we still somehow ended up with a watermelon that is ready to pick.

38:39 We've got the nice yellow there.

38:41 The stem has died back.

38:43 Those little curly hues, the tendrils are dyed back.

38:46 This is ready for a quick garden snack.

38:48 Somehow surviving the mayhem.

38:51 Also, the few unpicked carrots that she left have gone to seed.

38:57 And so as soon as I fix these beds,

38:59 they'll recede themselves again and we'll have a second go at it.

39:02 Mother Nature also did us another huge favor with this giant amaranth

39:07 that wasn't even supposed to be growing

39:09 here because its extensive root system here

39:14 spread out and mercifully protected the other half of this garden bed

39:19 from getting dug up by June while she was doing whatever she was doing.

39:23 And that protected all of my very precious grape

39:26 vines from having their roots exposed to the sun,

39:29 which definitely would have killed them.

39:31 And that would have been way, way more sad than a few lost carrots.

39:37 The bigger blessing here is that all of these grapes,

39:41 the grapes I was actually really excited about earlier this season,

39:45 aren't even fully ripe yet.

39:46 So, we won't miss out on this enormous harvest of all of these propagation

39:52 experiments that I have worked so dang hard to bring to fruition.

39:58 And in fact, if we look carefully here,

40:00 we might even be able to find one that's ready to eat.

40:03 Aha!

40:04 Step one of being able to make our very own grape popsicles complete.

40:09 The absolute best gardening tip I can give you though is to take whatever felt

40:12 like a failure this year and turn it

40:15 into a lesson for next year's growing season.

40:19 The other thing that is absolutely definitely never going to hurt is to get

40:23 some more data that can help get you off to a better start.

40:26 And to that end, I'll tell you about the only

40:28 other product I regularly recommend you buy for your garden.

40:32 And that is this a soil test.

40:38 What?

40:37 Not from my side.

40:38 That's a gap.

40:41 I'm dyslexic.

40:43 What you will learn by running a soil test is God, this freaking fly in my eye.

40:54 This is the absolute best $40 you can spend on your garden

40:57 because not only are you going to get very easy

40:59 to read results that will actually give you the information you

41:02 need to be able to grow the things you want to grow,

41:05 the company that does it is not actually trying

41:07 to sell you anything else by giving you those results.

41:13 The other thing you can absolutely do this fall to better prepare you for more

41:18 success next season is to inoculate

41:20 your garden pathways with wine cap mushroom spawn.

41:24 If I put this in these fresh cut wood chips now,

41:27 the very aggressive wine cap mycelium will start to eat the carbohydrates

41:32 in the wood chips and spread very rapidly through the pile.

41:36 That is a pretty frugal way to really multiply the amount of spores

41:41 that you eventually put into your garden in a very an economical way.

41:45 That's barely English.

41:46 I feel like you get it though.

41:49 I think there's a lot to be said about setting our expectations

41:53 low and then being overjoyed and surprised when things actually go well.

41:59 And especially when we're getting started with gardening,

42:02 it's way better to have that perspective than a constant

42:07 disappointment with this that didn't work and that that didn't work

42:11 and this that failed and these pests that ruined everything when

42:15 really everything that we do all the time is an experiment,

42:20 an opportunity to learn and to grow.

42:23 Every year we're going to have successes and failures.

42:26 Even when we really feel like we know what we're doing

42:29 and this is going to be the year that everything pops off,

42:32 we are still beholden to whatever the weather

42:35 does and whatever our animals do or don't do.

42:40 And I will just say that I'm really, really good at finding the bad.

42:44 But I've tried over the last few years to get

42:46 a whole lot better at looking for the good.

42:50 And here's the thing.

42:52 Whether you're looking for the bad or the good, I promise you, you will find it.

42:58 So this year, look for the good.

43:01 Look for the chances to learn and to grow.

43:05 And instead of viewing failures as failures, look for the lessons in all of it.

43:10 May you grow many good things this year.

43:12 I will see you in the next video.

43:14 Cheers.

43:19 [Music]