I just retired & am starting an organic container vegetable garden on my porch & sidewalk utilizing companion planting methods. I’ve been composting for many years. You reinforced why this is such a great idea. Garden the way God does naturally. Thank-you!

I'm from India, thank you so much. Love your video. I stopped buying fertilizer and soil!! I grow everything in homemade compost from kitchen scraps and leaves. It works excellently. I don't spray any pesticides and do lose some strawberries, beans, tomatoes, green chillies, grapes squash,muskmelon,watermelon, malabar spinach, (moringa) drum stick, passion fruit, herbs, phalsa, guava, blackberries, karvanda and flowers, roses, to pests.😊 It's not too bad at all. I'm OK with some pests too. It's a well balanced garden with the good and bad of everything.I don't stress at all. I'm hoping to grow bananas😁 Enjoying every minute!!

One thing I’ve been conflicted about, that you have straightened out for me, is what to do with compost. I used to mix it into the soil every spring but then I learned about no-till gardening, which is more like how nature does it. But then I didn’t know what to do with the compost. I realize that in nature, the compost is always added to the top. This makes lots of sense, as the water runs through it, and as it breaks down, the good stuff runs down into the soil and roots. I can’t believe I was so resistant to top dressing with compost but so happy I’ve overcome!

I never fertilize anything in my garden, no one is running around fertilizing things in nature. What a scam. I do focus on soil building.

I was fortunate enough to have KZfaq gardeners at teachers when I started gardening during COVID. Every day is a learning day and I wouldn't have it any other way. Thanks Teach! 👍🏾

This is how I garden. It is nice to be validated!❤

To be honest I didn’t want to listen to this video because it was just after fertilizing all of my fruit trees. I’m glad that I did and will reconsider my methods

Comfrey is a plant growth stimulator. It grows abundantly if you have the space. Also great for healing broken bones.

"Trust nature," and that is the miracle. I love it

I make compost tea with the leaves of various plants and even broadleaf weeds as well as comfrey. It’s stinky, but it works well.

I stay away from that stuff and my garden is doing great! I could not figure out why soil for planters had a child warning on it- kids love digging playing with dirt - but that soil came with a warning- people please ask questions. Thanking you sharing your knowledge.

Topped off my raised bed with fresh homemade compost. It was truly beautiful. Im also trying to remove plastics from the garden.

Honest opinion....... speaking from 26 years of experience (take that for what its worth to you) its ok to use fertilizer. Its also ok to not use it. Everyones area has a different quality of soil, different climates, and different animals/pest. I mean the list goes on. My suggestion is do what any scientist does. Find out for yourself. Try every method you can try and figure out what works best for your particular situation. Ive tried direct sowing, tried raised beds, tried containers, tried elevated beds (6ft in the air), tried hanging containers, tried greenhouses, cold frames, hydroponics, aquaponics, full sun, full shade, all seasons, ive literally tried it all and have combos with every method and have found certain plants like different methods and u can do more than one at a time. There is no absolute answer in gardening. Thats what makes it fun.

This was great information! The way that God created nature to work and function is always the best way to garden.

I use Alaska fish fertilizer and I feel pretty good about it

I agree you need to feed the soil. Organic compost is an essential ingredient for most gardens. Also try cut grass, straw, alfalfa pellets, bone meal, and blood meal.

Thank you so much for sharing your wealth of knowledge with us! After gardening for 7 years mostly in pots, i have learned to stop buying anything with chemical fertilizers! i am now learning to grow from seed, and wow it is teaching patience! Gardening saved my life so now its up to us to care for mother nature the right way!!! You rock girl!!!!

Your message needs to be shared to all gardeners.❤

We started our garden in the Autumn of 2021. We created three compost bins in our green house, and grew plants in trays on top of the bins. This Spring 2024 there was enough black gold in those bins to fill all our garden beds. This was in just 2 1/2 years. Thank The Lord! Now we are seeing the worms come in and we are focusing on building good soil. Thank you for your videos. I am loving how you present your content and thank you for sharing your knowledge. God bless you.

I love Big Bend. Have been there 3 times. On my 1st trip I too was amazed at the variety of plant life. The desert is truly beautiful. While I make compost and have a worm bin, my perennial beds live under a bed of leaves. Due to limitations in my yard, I have been using sunflowers, short and tall, to provide summer shade. ☺️

You had me at National Parks. This is how we were raised and how my oldest was raised. I haven't used commercial fertilizer in years. I compost with what we have and plant everything pretty close together-now. And I am finding I can be putting it even closer! You have some wonderful tips I haven't tried. Thank you. This year should be a game changer. Now if I can just get the lovely deer and bunnies to stay on the outside areas! I am willing to share a little! Thank you for educating everyone of the many issues of using unneeded chemicals in their gardens! ❤

You are so brilliant. I am so glad that I found you. Will totally subscribe. I value intelligent and amazing people like you who are kind enough and generous enough to share your knowledge with the world. Thank you.

You are SO right about the natural strategy to backyard gardening! I'm doing patio gardening, and some box planters due to years of pesticides being sprayed on my lawn prior to moving here. I'm pretty sure I've killed many plants from over-fertilizing, and over-crowding containers with the same plants instead of diversified plants in same area/container. Thanks so much for the wake-up!!

I started my garden this year and I have just been winging it. I figured with companion plants and flowers that help with pest I was sold. Now I watch all these videos and find out I’m on the right track. Thanks for the video ❤

You are a very good teacher, focused, organized, emphasizing important points through careful repetition. Very effective. Skilled marketer, too.Thank you!

Very inspiring. I'm an indoor, apartment gardener and always try to grow everything from seeds (preferably seed saved from last season as they are adapted to the micro-climate of my pots) and with natural fertilizers like wormcast compost. Never thought about the distribution of plants though. I will surely try it this season !

Thank you for sharing! We use compost with horse poop and it’s amazing to see how healthy our vegetables grow and give us food! The spacing between plants is a new thing I’m trying now and it’s working! My lettuces and spinach are both growing healthy by packing them and not giving them big spaces in between!

👍 We've put synthetics aside several years ago. Focused on creating a living soil with organic fertilizers & companion plantings, interspaced with ornamentals.

I loved this so much I had to pause and take notes. I will be following your direction for my spring / summer garden.

I just came across your video and I totally agree! I after 50+ years living in The states have come to my little island. I am so excited because I live in an urbanized neighborhood but treat it like the country. Most people just have grass in the yard. I, on the other hand, started to throw seeds of fruits and anything I can get my hands on and everything grows. I have no training and I didn’t even think about it. I have trees and flowers and Herbs growing all around each other. I always get the skins of the fruits or veggies that I don’t eat or anything that is raw and throw it in the garden under the trees or in the dirt as compost. Another thing I started doing was playing classical music, and I swear the fruit on the trees is growing much larger. There is definitely a connection with just letting things grow naturally and having a good vibration in the air. I just recently acquired four miniature chickens, they’re more like my pets and three baby chicks. Their poop is definitely being used on the ground and I am so excited that everything works together. ❤️💯 I am a tropical country girl for sure!

Hi! New subscriber here. I loved this video. Thank you for teaching, and sharing your knowledge! I began an organic garden 2 years ago. I always wanted a garden. I didn't know if I could make it work. My mom always had a garden and worked extremely hard, but didn't believe in organic gardening. Her life would have been so much easier if only she had known! I am on a learning journey, and I am loving it!

Nicole, I have the same experience you have. I live in low mountains in an Italian national park. I don't use fertilizers. When the cows of my neighbour farmer are roaming near my place, I give them my water. He gives me mature manure. My small veg garden is in total disorder. No clean rows. The parsley has moved with the salad, the onions and salad with the tomatoes etc. With my preserves, I have enough tomatoes for the whole year. Everything tastes different. When I mow the lawn, trying not to mow the natural orchids as well, I leave the clippings on the spot to feed it.

Blue comes from copper sulfate. Some plants want it and it inhibits some soil pests. Copper and sulfur are both micronutrients provided here beyond the npk. I like natural approach more as well but these synthetic ones have a place too. I can allow nature to let my kale plant die or I can give it an immediate boost and keep it for the whole season. If I'm late a slower fertilizer applied at that time may be too late to save it. More natural slow fertilizers are better. They leech into the water table too though, even compost. So I'm in the camp of using a moderate amount of compost and then only using a fertilizer when the plants clearly need nutrition, and they'll show you. You could test the soil too. Using these in excess is still bad for the environment, and your wallet if your buying it :P I find composting food scraps, yardwork, and garden scraps to be enough to fertilize. You don't need to top your garden with 6 inches of compost. Important note about nitrogen fixing plants. That doesn't even start to become available until that plant dies, goes dry, and the roots rot. So your peas are fertilizing next year's crop and that's fine as long as you just keep doing it. Farmers will grow beans with corn and then cultivate the soil to speed up that whole process. It's not the best for soil health but it is a proven strategy. Still better for the environment than dumping loads of liquid fertilizer. I started my garden in straight up dirt. It was hard to even keep it wet. But I persisted and I fertilized my plants when they turned yellow and sad a couple times. By late summer I mulched everything with my own compost coming from yardwork and the garden that season. By the next spring that patch is doing beautifully. I don't need to do anything to get started with it. Liquid, highly plant-available fertilizers like miracle grow aren't the most desired but they definitely have their place in the toolbox. Apart from that gardeners should be responsible and not pollute with fertilizers. Whether its a box of blue or a truckload of compost that won't be used or will be over-applied. Through experience you'll learn how much slow-release organic stuff you actually need to add, and then unless you are hit with a surprise monsoon you probably won't need any additional boosts :) Sorry that's a wall. I think we let nature lead the way and help her when she needs it. Sometimes we see the bumps far out in the road and sometimes we first trip over them. Either way we use the appropriate tools that exist and work.

Always hated miracle grow, and I do have a composting bin and use that soil as an additive in my garden. Love that you made this podcast. It was very imformative.

This video made me cry tears of Joy 😊 Thank you so much!

We started using alpaca poo tea fertilizer for our garden this year. We have the most beautiful garden we’ve ever had! Love your channel! Just found you this morning!

My husband just bought some fertilizer but haven’t used it yet. Now that I’ve seen your video ~ you make a lot of sense never thought about growing vegetables God’s way! Thank you 🪴

You truly are amazing!! I’m going to follow your advice!! Blessings from Kentucky 🙌🏻🙌🏻🤗🙏🏻

Agreed on compost. Manure is also a great way to get high levels of nitrogen into your soil. But what you're doing is fertilization, you're just accomplishing it organically. You can, absolutely, 100% garden using only synthetic fertilization. I don't necessarily buy that organic is better for the environment. You can also do a mix if you know what you're trying to accomplish. You can start your seedlings with a dilute fertilizer and then transplant them outside into an organic garden.

I have plant pot vegetables and feed with himalayan salt in the water for the minerals..i have vompost worms in every pot too and i plant plants together and try and put the dead leaves back into the same pot to put back in what the plant took out the compost..great video, thanks..

Biggest thing I learned over the years: A-C-Y-S -> Always Cover Your Soil. Second biggest thing is the permaculture layering where you focus on canopy trees small trees then bushes/flowers and groundcovers.

Compost (self-made knowing what's in it)and good soil....and flowers and plants to assist in pest control!😊 It makes me feel so good and blessed to growing successfully without taking in harmful chemicals for my family and myself. Thank you, for this post of truth. (Only occasion of coffee ground water or banana peel water...only here and there, but not dependent.)

About 2 days ago I bought a small 4x4x10" box of Miracle Grow to use once every week or 2 weeks on my plants. Now I watch this podcast of you aying NOT to buy Miracle Grow, darn! Only 5 minutes in so back to watching/listening and learning. Thank YOU!

I’ve gardened with the same philosophy for several years now. The only thing i disagree with from this video is that the animals eat lower leaves. That is partially true, deer, rabbits, etc love the fresh new growth the best - they eat the tops right off of lots of veggies. This is why I will often harvest the tops off of these types of veggies esp in early summer - 1) I get to eat it instead of the creatures eating it 2) It encourages the plant to bush out and produce even more.

4;25 minute mark...made me happy that I'm doing the square foot gardening method this year. The plants are absolutely packed in, shading the soil and each other and they are all companions. Natural soil food I use in containers etc is Gaia 4-4-4.

You make some good points about learning from nature, but in effect you are fertilizing. The fertilizer you use is simply natural rather than synthetic. At least I consider compost, slash and drop, and worm castings fertilizer.

I started my first vegetable garden ever, last month. 3.5' x 6.5' raised bed filled with organic raised bed mix (branches, sticks, leaves, grass the bottom 5" and the ORBM the remaining 12"). I already planned "no fertilizer" before I watched this because I want to see if I can grow these vegetables instead of Miracle grow growing these vegetables. I planted in 1' squares, but I am intrigued by your technique. Your method seems similar to the way I planted my perennial flower beds years ago. I'm curious how you mix these different plants if they require different amounts of water. ie. tomatoes next to basil. I'm going to have to search your video library for answers. Thank you for this video!!

We also have the Spanish olive several ornamental trees, a fig, an Italian, prune and many different berries and everything‘s doing well. I just got lazy and I said I’m using what we have. We have tons of leaves breakdown and it has been the best thing, and I never take all the leaves out of my flowering trees and, pretty areas around the yard where ornamental bushes. I let them sit because I’ve heard that that’s a good place. We’re a little frogs and things live throughout the cold months and we have tons of frogs a lot of different bugs that come around sometimes big bugs but everything seems to be doing well. And I just think it really goes back to using what you have and learning about, saving leaves and when you squished down leaves, you can just put it out in your garden beds are in your yard because it’s dark. It’s pretty it looks from a distance like bark or something but it’s much more natural and it’s what grows in your area. I’m sorry I’m rambling on, but it’s, just discovery that comes overtime of being a gardener not necessarily reading but just learning as you go.

Thank you for the wise input. Gonna get rid of my garden rows and do more companion and “no empty spaces” gardening 👍 blessings!

I'm a new gardener. My instinct is to mot use fertilizer. Others I know encourage it, but something tells me NOT to do it. I don't buy plants already started (tomato etc..) I'm trying g to learn and do by seed with organic matter. Others think I'm nuts. I've only had little success but I'm still learning so thank you for all your helpful information. Glad someone eles has the same thoughts.

Thank you for the advice for a better gardening. I will fallow all your recommendations. I am very sure that all natural is best for the plants and people.

Mushroom compost is the best

WOW, I have never heard this explained the way you did, that is just an amazing light bulb moment, and very smart! I love people who think! I have always been more natural minded anyway, and don't like using chemicals, so this is right down my alley. It makes perfect sense, because like you said, in nature, there isn't store bought fertilizers being put on all the plants, and they grow just fine, the way they are supposed to! The plants in nature that grow around and next to each other, have a symbiotic relationship, they all help each other out in different ways....they way people should be too...but aren't. I always say "people could learn so much from animals and nature, but just refuse to".

I been feeling this way for awhile , however I have use some of the bad fertilizers! It’s only been for small time ! If shft then we want have none of this other stuff except for nature! It’s been done this way for 100 years plus so yes thank you! God bless!

"Why is it blue? I don't get it", earned you a 👍🏼😂

I spent years in the Caribbean, we had so much trees growing healthy around us with little to no effort. My mom would just throw seeds out the window and stuff grew lol she did intentionally plant a few different plants, but many of the fruits and vegetables plants were neglected yet grew very well lol the soil in a low populated, less polluted area makes gardening easy. I bought property in Florida a few weeks ago and the weather is great for gardening so I’m going to start a kitchen garden and see how it goes. I hope the natural soil is as good as the Caribbean 😆

I have a lot of trees, large trees and I let their leaves fall. We rake them down to a lower bark area, which is no longer bark and it’s beautiful because it’s all the leaves just end up turning into soil overtime when I go out and dig that and put that in my pots. I’m never been a big fertilizer person. I’ve used it, but I’ve used it very sparingly, I don’t spray plants. I have fruit trees don’t spray them. I have a few fruit trees, 3 lemon and a lime tree in greenhouse.. a lot of different types of trees and plants but I just think it’s best to use what we have and what we have is a lot of leaves turn them over sometimes put them at the bottom of the pots and they’re full of worms and dried leaves. Add them in pots again in summer. We use what we have. No waste.

It's really difficult not to fertilize (with organic fertilizers but still) when you have a container garden. I compost and mulch but there is no way I can get a decent harvest without fertilizing. But it is true, when I started applying regen gardening practices the soil quality improved so much.

Thank you so much. This was very encouraging and inspiring. First time watching and I love it.

Best explanation I've heard. Thank you!

I've been looking to do this for years. I'm mostly there but still working on it.

God bless your wisdom and sincerity Ma'm.

Thank you for this Nicole. I have been moving more and more to the methods you promote because I am getting older and I want to garden but more efficiently with less work and heavy lifting, y'know what I mean? I want to pare down the "stuff" I use in the garden and the stuff I do in the garden, and less watering (mygod the watering the last few years has me really not looking forward to this garden season) and your way embraces that idea very well. In the past I had a whole laundry list of soil amendments I thought I had to use - not commercial fertilizers, but natural/organic soil amendments like kelp, rock dust, different kinds of composted materials, biochar, dried manures, worm castings, fish emulsion, mycorrhizal fungi, compost teas, Korean magic liquids :), bone meal, blood meal, etc....... I am almost out of some of these amendments and I think I'm going to go with just compost and worm castings and see how it goes. Thank you so much, it's actually quite liberating :)

I use this method and love this video and the way you explain I have shared it with all my friends thank you ❤

I go around when the leaves are bagged up on side of road and bring them home. Tilled them up in the garden! If you notice the darkness soil is in old timber. Under my tomatoes I have hay or straw. On top of my potatoes put straw or hay.

My vegetablevgarden is new (2021), and it has never had fertilizer on it. I use compost and it is very productive!

I’m lucky to have a large garden and compost in multiple ways- tumbler compost, pallet compost bins, sheet compost leaf mould, chicken run compost. It’s satisfying. I grow in pots, raised beds and in the ground beds. I’d rather have a lower yield from a home produced and free growing medium than a higher yield from expensively purchased products as it just makes economic sense to me. But of course I have the luxury of space and abundant naturally available resources to do this and it would be harder for some folks to do.

I agree with you about fertilizer, but getting started, until garden is established, I’m finding that plants do need fertilizer until compost is ready. You actually buy mushroom compost because I saw you taking it from a bag and applying to your plants. I this is my third year gardening on our 5 acre very heavily wooded property. I was able to use my compost this year as it is all a learning process. However, there is an awesome fertilizer called Microlife. It is wonderful, filled with all those naturally occurring organic materials that you mentioned. I have compost bins filled with leaves from my yard, I also pick up mushrooms when we have them and add them to my compost as well as kitchen vegetables and fruit scraps and garden waste. I would like to get to the point where we have enough of our own compost and no longer need the microlife. We plant sweet potatoes throughout our garden which acts as a ground cover and try to companion plant as you mentioned. The green bean trellis climbs over the bell peppers. Happy gardening to everyone. It takes a lot of trial and error to get success.

Glad this information is being put out there. Loyal to the soil!

Superb!!! That's how I do it my friend.❤❤❤❤

Wonderful information. Love it ❤

Excellent and helpful input.Thank you!

Fantastic show today, love the miracle of nature.

Excellent video. Thank you!❤

Fantastic ,, Much Gratitude . I am still learning to get out of the matrix

Love that you are exposing these crappy garden products filled with chemicals.

I began raising compost worms , and their castings are called ' black gold'[ for very good reason ... ALL plants LOVE the castings and the liquid ' worm juice' made from the compost process and /or soaking the castings. Nothing beats it as goodness for the plants and for the soils. My yard was barren when I arrived, and nothing grew beneath certain trees also. Now it's a lush jungle witha huge variety of veges and other plants . In 18 months .

I learned a lot of value in this video. Subscribed. 🎉👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽💣💯⚘ I plan to use your tips. The content makes sense. Thank you.

So informative. Thank you, Nicole.

Not convinced but confirmed that I'm on the right path.Thank you

Very informative and useful video and the way you compared and explained was fantastic...

Thank you for encouraging us to get back to nature

I agree ...no fertilizer it hasn't worked for me......love your information about nature....you've given me a push to start a garden.....thank you

Same exact thing happened to me& the first time it didn’t, it was PERFECT!! Not even 1 bug bug!!❤

Very true doing the right thing for our garden soil to have natural normal vegetables and not huge over grown vegtables. The thing is growing food not how big I can grow my plants.

I subbed within the first three minutes. Thank you for making this video!

This has been my absolute favorite video of yours. You seem so relaxed and happy and share very valuable information! I am curious, do you recommend using fish and seaweed emulsion? Do tomatoes require calcium to keep from suffering in the garden from things like blossom end rot? Thanks so much!

Love it...beautifully explained in the most simple way. God bless

I realized this years ago when I looked at the bottom corner of my raised bed and there was a roma tomatoe that seeded am itself and was growing on the top of my landscape fabric and producing the most tomatoes I had ever seen in May(live in Maryland). I thought to myself how could his happen without any care at fertilizer and only my on soil.

Adding compost in the garden is giving back what nature has given you.....a symbiotic relationship.

You are absolutely fantastic. Thank you for sharing all this with people

Thank you for making this video ❤❤❤❤❤

Greetings Nicole. My first time on your channel. God bless you for your great information. I've never used fertiliser in all my life of planting. I always go natural without any regrets. You're doing a great job. Keep it up and God bless you.

Yes , i dont use quimical fertilizer anymore !! i have start to learn jadam natural fertilizer and how to integrated in the gardem and its working great 👍 Greetings from Portugal and keep the good work

You convinced me... thanks so much!

Can you do a video on the dangers of two of the most common herbicide active ingredients: Glyphosate (Roundup) and Aminopyralid (Grazon). If they are sprayed on hay that is eventually used in gardens or compost heaps, the soil absorbs it and weakens and kills the plants. It can stay for years.

Good for you, I hope ppl will listen to what you have to say, very good information. I make my own compost and liquid fertiliser from weed's and bit's of plants. I believe comvrey is great for liquid fertiliser. Awhile ago I was walking around to my daughter's house and this guy from the council was spraying roundwood onto weeds at the side of the road and kerb 🙈🙈🙈 O' my goodness that damage that can do to our land and as you said water's too. Thank you. 👍😉🇨🇮☘️Eire

Thanks for saying this. There is too many videos out there with different formulas of what to add when to grow plants. You have got it. Do what nature does and stop interfering.

Amen. I've never used fertilizer on my garden or house plants...partly bc I can't afford it, but also bc it's never jibed well with me that the plants NEED it or they won't grow...totally not true. I used miracle grow soil with my first 5 house plants...after that I realized miracle grow soil is crap. Dollar general soil is better than miracle grow! (Go ahead...ask me how I know 😅) So glad to see this video. I've been on the fence about doing permaculture gardening...this seals the deal for me, thanks! P.s...pesticides are TERRIBLE & totally unnecessary as well!!

Great video, thank you!