Comments

Episode-1957- The Beginners Guide to Growing Food — 17 Comments

  1. Jack, at 26:10, how did you determine your square yardage for a 4x8x1 raised bed? I got 3.5 cu yards, not 1 yard.
    Thanks for the show. Good advice regarding peat moss.

  2. 4×8=32 32 divided by 9= 3.55— square yards. 4 x 8 x 1 = 32 cubic feet divided by 27 = 1.185 — cubic yards of soil needed.

    • Thanks for the help. I couldn’t figure out what I was missing in my math. Time to go back to skewl!

  3. OK.. I agree that Jail House Rock was not about prison sex but since you brought it up, listening to the song with that mind, I had a few laughs. I’ll probably never hear that song the same way again, lol.

    Great show. In well into getting some plants started this season.. too many heirloom tomatoes that I’ll be selling off a lot of, and I was happy see my lettuces started coming up yesterday. Beans, squash, and melons are also planned along with some short carrots and I decided to plant radishes and turnips so I could excitement with trying to introduce them into my diet. Also considering a couple of potatoes, and definitely sweet potatoes.

  4. Maybe I missed it but I never heard anything about having a soil test done. Wouldn’t the results from a soil test be valuable? Perhaps just an oversight, but thought I would ask. Your thoughts?

    • No if you do what I laid out, it isn’t going to matter. If you want to do one fine, but in the end, amend with organic matter, see to soil biology and rock on with your life.

  5. I may have missed in my first listen through on this one but if you are double digging and adding mulch/organic material to improve the soil do you mix it in and then dump the soil into your hole or are you doing this after you replaced the old soul into the home you made? Do you do little 4×4 beds and have the wood chips around those or do wood chips go around everything and you just clear out a space to plant? I know it’s rudimentary but I just want to get it right this year since last year our garden sort of worked but became weed central. I thought we would go to raised beds this year but this episode has convinced me that we just need to use the dirt we have and do a better job of weed block. Thanks!!!!!

  6. Great show Jack! Put in a raised bed last fall and getting ready to plant this spring. Very timely with a lot of good info!

  7. Very timely for me as I just put together my first garden course. We are zone 3 (Canada) and surprisingly I included 90% of the same stuff as it works for me even up here. I geared it towards people who are not gardening at all or just buy bedding plants every year because they keep telling everybody “nothing grows up here”.
    Thanks for the show!