I live in Namibia. It's super dry here because I litterly live in a Desert and because of that I never tried gardening. But because of your videos I managed to amend my soil. I just started growing some kale and cabbages and carrots and they all seem to be doing really well.

This man should have is own BBC garden shown on a Sunday morning. Down to earth and bad ass knowledge and experience that is shared.

I laughed so hard at “this really is the 💩.” I was not expecting that from you 🤣😂🤣

This was my 3rd year on my sandy garden (re-claimed lake bed). Each year I've increased my production of homemade compost and leaf mold, and this year I was able to cover almost all my garden beds with one or the other! It's exciting! The soil had almost no nutrients in 2019, but it's gotten better each year.

I just have to say THANK YOU Ben for providing me with much-needed therapy! You are cheerful and sweet and just what we need now in this crazy, often mean-spirited, self-absorbed world. If I've had a day full of mean and nasties, I just come home from work and soak in your kindness and warmth. My garden thanks you too for your inspiring ideas.

I take all my table scraps and pulverize them in a blender then pour them into my garden beds.

You couldn't have said it better. Give back to soil for ALL that the soil has given us. Amen !

Ben -- I am SO HAPPY to hear you spreading the word about composting directly in your planting beds. I have been doing this for years around the entire yard, and everything is thriving beyond my wildest expectations. Cheers from Albuquerque, New Mexico!

Great ideas! I used to amend my garden beds mostly with bagged chicken and steer manure because it was the cheapest way to do so when I first got into gardening. Now I have multiple compost bins and a large trash can filled with leaf mold so I don’t have to buy compost very often anymore. I try to feed my soil from a variety of sources in the hopes of providing many different nutrients for diverse soil life. Home made compost, leaf mold and glass clippings are my most commonly used amendments, and I don’t do any tilling - I just set it on top and let the soil life work it in over time.

Other that adding compost in the spring and summer in the fall after most everything is done. I layer a mixture of leaves, straw, and grass clippings. By the spring there rotted down enough to turn them into the soil and ready for me to plant

My mother buried food scraps all winter in our yard and garden, I'd forgotten about that. Thanks for the reminder, think I'll do that this winter.

the "lasagna garden" concept really does work .... just layer in grass clippings, leaves, kitchen scraps, cardboard, wood chips, etc. all winter and by planting time, you'll have lovely, plant-ready soil. I have been throwing a bag or three of commercial soil (bought at Lowe's) on top as extra insurance, but I really don't think I need do that anymore. I'm going to try going without next May. Thank you for another informative and fun video!

Raised rows with mulch in the valleys and compost tea will give you more harvest per square foot than you can handle. I was hired to build a garden for a botanist that was responsible for tripling the yield of the community garden and that was how she designed it. Simply and effective. I used the method to grow some outrageous outdoor oregon reefer 😎

At last! My heart is warmed 🔥 by someone talking about the importance of the health of soil. It’s our very body, what feeds and grows us. Sequesters carbon dioxide and stores water. If we could all get our governments to truly understand the critical need for healthy soil, our climate and our health would improve 🙏🏼 Yay 🎉for Ben 🫶🏼

Amazing. Also, your videos are so well made that they are ready to be shown on any TV. Thanks!

I am trying field beans and peas as green manure this year for the first time. I didn’t realise about not letting them flower or set seed, so thanks for the tip.

Thanks for the help, I should cover my garden with leaves

the no shame beater car earned you a sub, loved the video!

The compost pits have been the best method for me since I live in town and have close proximity to my neighbors. Its worked wonderfully for me and it doesn't smell or attract vermin. In the warmer months especially if I dig it back up a month later theres almost no evidence that I ever put anything there.

I 10/10 recommend this channel to those who are interested in gardening AND even those who are not. You will learn something about SOMETHING, and get a great healthy laugh from a great loving life guy.

I chopped my banana waste and mulch over my vegetables beds and fruit trees. Earthworms love it and you can easily see them everywhere. Many uses even the root balls can be made into liquid fertilizers.

Another lovely vid. Had a great laugh at the part about adding kitchen scraps where you say: '...It's important to cover it over, to stop it from being dug up by wild animals' and the face shot of the innocent looking dog right after 🤣

Greeting from central Florida USA! I prepare my garden like this all year round. I grow veggies all year round.

Nice presentation of soil treatment. Thank you for sharing this with everyone.

Another great video, thank you Ben. It’s always important to know about your soil and what we can do to enrich it ready for the new growing season. I really love the way you present your videos, you are always so enthusiastic and encouraging. Kind regards. Gary

Great video. Thanks. I compost and create leaf mold

Thank you for the warning about aminopyralid damage in manure. So many gardeners have lost produce and damaged their soil by using contaminated manure. Even Charles Dowding was affected by it.

I live in dry hot Southern California. It’s awful. Very urban. I have 1 deciduous tree. A solitary silver maple. I blow the fallen leaves down my driveway and into the veg patch weekly. The chickens stir it up and I water as normal all winter to support life in it. I don’t let it sit naked that’s fo’ sho’. LOVE your channel. Sooo helpful and achievable.

Thanks, I can smell the gold in your video! There's this giant lime tree outside our house that the council has ignored pleas to trim. For 2-3 years I've just collected all the leaves and lay them over the raised flower beds now and mixing in kitchen scraps. Love seeing those WORMS.

What a great idea to bury scraps directly in the garden. Thanks

My kitchen waste I put in a compost bin and add red worms. Then in the spring I have mostly worm castings. When I add it to the raised bed garden there will young red worms and red worm eggs. It’s getting a double treatment.

All your videos are the s--- 👍🏼 Thank you!

All being said, we just have to do it! There are many beneficial methods of composting and the outcome is practically the same. When I was a little boy I remember my neighbour used to trench compost every Fall. He had gardens that were the envy of the neighbourhood.

Again, another great video! I like the idea about planting the beans to provide nitrogen. I have always planted buckwheat late summer for the bees and soil.

I have lately practiced growing chickens and I noticed they do great job to the fertility of the soil. they bring eggs and also fertilize the soil for better larger crops.

Love the "wild animal" in his garden, wooof!

I was collecting pea straw and the nursery suggested an old duvet cover to line your car boot it's a great idea. I got a black one. From an op. Shop. Enjoy your humor and wild animal!

‘Pockets of fertility’ … I love it! 💖

The element of surprise 😅 “this really is the 💩.” clever addition.

Great video Ben. Absolutely right that now is the time to get working on improving the soil👍

The little pot trench idea is inspired! Feel very privileged that my mums pony and donkey cost her a fortune to feed and I get to enjoy the free manure.... try and reimburse her in home grown veg!

Love this guy! So sensible and easy to listen to. Makes me excited to grow my veg!

Collecting leaves 🍂🍁🍂🍁is a must, woodchips and compost are another way to build up soil. We had only sand, now it's humus.

I started planting winter cover crops a few years ago. Very pleased with the results.

First, I enjoy these videos very much. This particular one on soil management was very informative. If you don’t mind, I’d like to emphasize the importance which adding composted organic matter to garden soil has on improving soil texture and soil structure. This enhancement improves water retention and increases the ability of the soil matrix to adsorb and retain essential nutrients in the proximity of the plants root zone. Anyway, I wanted to share this tidbit of information while giving thanks to the makers of their videos.

You’ve just reminded me to sow my winter green manure for digging in late Spring.

Fantastic. I’ll be putting my dead leaves on my garden tomorrow

I'm fortunate to live near the sea, so I harvest seaweed that's washed up on the beach. Leave it out in the rain for a couple of weeks to wash off any excess salt, then chop it up with a lawnmower, together with dried leaves, grass clippings, shredded cardboard or anything similar. Makes a great mulch.

Thanks, Ben. Very educational as always!

Love your stuff kick on love it

Excellent video. Very important information.

I'm a big user of cover crops ... I like winter rye and hairy vetch best. The winter rye just looks like grass, but does a great job crowding out weeds, and is easy to mow down and turn back into the soil in spring. The vetch is pretty, and also easy to till in once I am ready to use that space.

Bed I use we rotted horse manure and chopped leaf mulch which I leave for a year. Also home made compost I make at the alloment. One I like to say bed about woodchip you carnt put pine chippings in beds as it will stop growth of things you plant pi e has within its self to stop anything growing. Any other chippings are fine. Great vid always look forward to the next one all the best.

Ben you’re a breath of fresh air. Love your site

Thank you so much 🌻

I love this guy! So down to earth, (pun intended) passionate about gardening, helpful! Love watching!

Dig up the neighborhood cemetery and put them in my garden 🪴 they make my garden grow wonderfully

"wild animals" at 3:55! Hah! I love your sense of humour, guys!

This year I have tilled everything into the garden. Then we added a layer of mown leaves and I tilled them in. Now we are adding another layer of the mown leaves as a cover. This way they are not too thick to till in when spring cones. Our Niece raises show rabbits and once a month I get her rabbit poop All winter long I add another layer of rabbit poop over the leaves, often between layers of snow, eventually covering the whole garden. Which when the snow melts and Spring comes i till it in with the compost from our bins. All summer long I use grass clippings as a mulch so that is some of what I tilled in this fall

Perfect timing! I had planned on doing this today :)

Thank you

Great episode again. Enjoy it very much. We're in Aus and I am using a worm farm to recycle about half of our composting material - the other half goes in to traditional compost bins.

Instead of raking up all the leaves on my lawn I run over them with the lawnmower. The grass catcher fills up with a light mixture of chopped up leaves and grass, which I spread thickly on my raised veg beds.

I put down straw over all of my beds. Then plus some organic fertilizer. Just brought home two bales of straw last night after work... and got straw all over the inside of the car 🙂.

great vid, thanks for sharing. You speak my language, happy gardening, bro.

Outstanding!

I came here for the enthusiasm and positivity !

My chickens get all my food scraps. I live in north eastern Florida on two acres and my yard is pretty much sand. I am hoping to start a Food Forest. Thank you for the info. This video was great!

Thank you, Ben.

I love making compost! So very satisfying : )

Very good video. Thank you

Covering my earth bed with cardboard first, then shredded leaves. First time trying this method. 😬🤞🏼My bed has thrived the past several years with me doing absolutely nothing. 😆 Bare soil overwinter, never fertilizing, never amending. I’m having so much fun being out in the garden, and sourcing materials. I’m so nervous. It feels like I’m trying to fix something that isn’t broken, possibly messing up a good thing. 🥺 The only issue I’ve ever had with this bed is all the weeds and grasses, which is why I’m covering the bed this year…in hopes of drastically reducing weeds next season. The space under my peach and cherry tree, I’m going to cover with a thick layer of wood chips. My wood chips are definitely only single shredded, but I’m not complaining! They were free from a wood chip drop my friends and I shared.

Thank you very much for sharing useful video 👍

Love this video

"This really is the s***" Haha!

Excellent info, presented in a quite enjoyable manner. Thank you and God Bless🙂

Hello 👋 new subscriber and love your content already. You're so smart. Thanks for your wonderful teaching 😘 😊 ❤ 😀 💕

I really enjoy you Chanel, great intro for beginners like myself. Thank you for sharing your journey and helping others along the way. Grateful 🌍💚

Beginners grow vegetables. Masters grow soil ;-)

This video was very useful, and very enjoyable!

You are our hero. I put my kitchen-scraps in the smoothymaker and pour it onto our vegetable beds. Is it wiser to cover the scraps just as they are?

Your little doggie 🐶 is the cutest wild animal 😅

Totally fabulous - normal and unpretentious delivery

I dump stall cleanings (from the horse, goats, and chickens) directly onto the garden all winter long, stopping in early March. The heavy rains in our Maritime climate (helped by chickens foraging through the garden in winter) break everything down so it's ready for planting in Spring. I make sure to include stall bedding (urine-soaked wood pulp) as well as manure. The native soil here is gravel-over-clay, so amending it is vital to even move a shovel around in it.

Here on the North Atlantic seacoast, a lot of people gather seaweed that has washed up on the shore and add it to their gardens for the winter. Word is that it is golden! (Word also is that it may not be legal in some areas to take it away, so beware.)

In addition to adding homemade compost in the spring and fall, I have been burying leafy veg and a bit of straw in the beds to help feed the worms living in our beds. I just push a small handful down into the loose soil to a depth of about 6 inches periodically here and there randomly throughout the beds. Now we find worms whenever we dig up potatoes, sweet potatoes, etc. We don't buy worm castings, because our beds are basically vermicompost bins themselves.

Cheered me up! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼✅

I lay down compost I make in November and cover with landscape material. No tilling I just use a pitch fork to aerate the soil. In the early spring I lay down shredded leaves that have been composting all winter. I grow microorganisms in a bucket and drench the soil. And cover again and let it sit for a couple of weeks until planting. This my second year doing this. Last years crop was the best ever. And it will only get better. Starting Bokashi this year and will be incorporating that also……

If you want a good soil let the weed grow during the winter. And remove it in spring when you cover for the dry season. Weed protect the soil for rain, regulate the moisture, break the lower soil with roots and send carbon to the microorganisms trough the roots

I love this channel so much.

Nice to see your cockapoo enjoys the garden, they can be mud monkeys :)

I use a multi- variety of green crops to tide my garden spots over winter. I cover seed with annual ryegrass, ladino clover, vetch, and buckwheat. The ryegrass overcovers the ground and holds the other seeds in place over the winter. Then the blossoms of the buckwheat, clover, and vetch go crazy in early spring, and the wild bees, butterflies, and mothbutterflies go crazy around it for a few weeks before I till it all under before the vetch makes mature seeds. It really improves the soil.Thanks!

Hello Ben, Thank you for your reply, I will get outside and begin work as soon as I can. All my friends adore Rosy, she is beautiful and appears to be a real companion to you. My husband passed away this time last year and I feel lost without him. I have been considering buying a dog to give me a focus now. I have read just about everything I can on the Cavapoo and the breed is a serious contender. If there is anything you can tell me about them that you have discovered since getting Rosy, it would be very much appreciated. Thank you for all of the valuable information and enjoyment that your videos have brought this past year and I wish you and your family a happy, healthy Christmas and New year. Regards Wendy

This guy has a nice style. He could easily be on TV.

I use grass clippings as mulch to conserve water and later work it in in the fall along with any compost or other amendments available. Normally throw down a lime treatment due to acidic clay soil. Use a rotary mower to chop up any remaining vegetation. Worm castings and bags of composted manure go into the seedbed row along with fish fertilizer type products during spring planting.

Ha, ha, ha!! The car bit had me laughing aloud! Great garden my friend. :)

I had to go out and put fleece on my broad beans this morning as the frost was so heavy here in S France. I was a little unsure re the green manure and sowed rye and buckwheat they may be a bit of a tough crop for my beds to get rid of! I have sown some mustard (for bio fumigation) and planted turnip within it, hoping to plant potato crops later and will try tansetifolia on the legume bed, maybe in January! I am totally envying your cavello nero as i tried to grow it and it didn't appear - thinking of trying it in January under cloches we will build as soon as we can before it gets too warm. Have broccoli though and some old cabbage!

Thank you Mr Ben : )

Great video! I’m particularly fond of using compost and worm castings.

I LOVE watching your video's Bob, they're great!!