Really liking the direction that you seem to be going in regarding soil health and making it much more accessible and natural for everyone, thank you for all your hard work and interest in these areas!

The best tomatoes I grew were in no dig raised beds in the greenhouse, with a thick woodchip mulch, from deciduous trees. Thinking of them as short lived perrenials makes so much sense.

This was so full of great info, I have a bunch of small pruned tree branches I didn’t know what to do with but chipping them up and using them as mulch makes so much sense!

I find on transplant from pot to soil/bed you want to not water at all for a few days and make sure they're planted into soil with some moisture (not bone dry) and the plant will send out more roots from the off to find said missing water...resulting in a much better root system. Might be wrong but just my experience...once established then keep em moist. Another great video Hue thanks for your time and efforts

I've just added rotted manure and gave everything a good watering after adding my JMS. I added a bit of everything to the brewing barrel comfrey, nettles , seaweed even biochar along with grass clippings and other things. I started it last year fingers crossed for this year's plants.

Your content is extremely helpful and informative, since watching your videos I have created my own vegetable garden 😊 Many thanks for making life a lot easier and enjoyable.

Huw wow. I'm a faithful follower and thankful for your passion in this life! You raise the bar continually higher and stay true to the importance of nature. I have Learned SO much from you as a new gardener. Keep it going and think about delivering to The Netherlands with your products!!

Thanks! It's a different growing mistake than I've heard before! One more thing to add to my To Do list!

In southern spain they water the tomatoes with brackish water, the salinity in the water increase the sugar content in the tomatoes

Many thanks! Years ago I had a cheap Black& Decker for breaking up branches up to ( hopefully 1” diameter) . I used it for fruit bush and blackberry which completes of thrush and blackbirds seemed to infest borders (but cats don’t like them ) so use was end of Season, beech hedge cutting, more often. Over the last 20 years things went to pot, or rather the council tip. However I still have my rusty Black & Decker and I’m just buying a small 6x8 greenhouse so I’ll take your advice for the veg that need shelter.

Growing in 5 gallon buckets and old storage bins. I hugel the bottom half with last years sticks, branches, and leaves. If it’s an old bed or I get it ready early in Spring, I leave the top covered with heavy leaf layer to keep the soil moist and alive. My tomatoes boom every year.

I really love the work you do and the valuable content you provide, especially about soil health. Thanks Huw!

This completely brilliant. Your videos are incredibly helpful.

I've noticed that when I plant actual tomatoes, like fresh in slices with their pulp, it always results in lots of fungal growth and really robust sprouts and seedlings.

Wowee, Hugh! This is mindblowingly useful information - so much so that I’m going to have to sit and watch it again with a notebook and pen. Thank you for getting into the weeds (so to speak) on these subjects! I love it. ❤

Great video Huw! Dai Iawn! Food for thought here for my new tunnel. Thanks. Danny 🌱

Using ramial wood chips really makes the most sense. Thank you for sharing this info. You’re the one to be willing to ‘discover’ a better way of getting things done to maximize the yield.💪🏾

This is such a relevant video and brought up a point which gardening channels have missed. I’ve been treating my container soil by mixing in beneficial fungus suggest by a agriculture degree friend and the results are great

Thanks for this wealth of information. Some really interesting thoughts Huw

Great video man! 🍅 really helpfull

They year I began to build my organic garden, I had a mound of topsoil that taught me to appreciate the joys of "volunteers". I had an amazing amount of "tom thumb" tomatoes ~ I probably harvested more than a 10 litre bucket... thankfully my kids liked eating pasta with tomatoes sauce

When Huw starts preaching his vast gardening knowledge his arms go into full Tai chi mode😁👍💪.

A fountain of knowledge. I've been watching you're amazing videos since you were starting and I live in Israel where it's quite hot and I tend to my garden for hours, daily, and always learn new things from you. I envy you so much for having such a large healthy plot and that your whole life is dedicated to your garden which I assume brings you infinite joy. Would be nice if you made more videos also about yourself to better connect with your audience. for example, your daily routine or other hobbies, and your area around the house. Aldo is very interesting to me is who eats all those plants and what types of cooking comes out of it! I love growing veggies so damn much and tracks great care making my own compost and bukashi and liquid fertilizer, but I also love growing other plants like flowers, moss, cactuses and lots of pineapples :)

Thanks Huw. "Food for thought"

Excellent video. Thanks for mentioning the difference of biological interaction between annuals, semi-, and long time perennials. That's some key info. Have went thru Nigel Palmer's book a couple of times now that you recommended awhile back. Amazing explanation of KNF. Working on a hybrid of that (+JADAM) and Back to Eden gardening with woodchips into an inexpensive year around fertility plan. We have a big lawn and lots of grass, thinking of partially composting woodchip and grass, then laying it down as mulch.

Great fertilizer for tomatoes. thanks for the info from your video ❤❤❤🎉🔔

Great informative video cheers👍

The year my tomatoes performed beyond expectation was the year I hill-ed them. They were spectacular and delicious. Last year's summer was so dry, I couldn't keep up with watering those I grew in plant grow bags. Thank you for clarifying that I was planting too many (3) in my plant grow bags.

Mulching with some partially or well rotted ramial chips is a great idea, but when you go to mulch around the tomatoes i would think mulching the whole area would be better for the connection and re-establishment of the fungal network.

Thank you Huw. I am growing Dwarf variety of tomatoes, and I definitely think I would like a polytunnel, as I want to grow more vine varieties, and grown in hydroponics and soil.

Such a beautiful garden! You remind me of a young Robert Smith, love the video ♡

This is very Informative .

You really have lovely videos. Very visually interesting. I always enjoy your content.

Thanks!

Yes sir, Elliot Coleman stated the #1 thing growers need is long term fertility. Your going a bang-up job.

Hi! Thanks for great content! Your videos are very informative and wholesome. I was wondering about a technique you've showcased in one of your videos last year. I am talking about fermented plant juice from nettles. I haven't seen you mention it in recent videos. Do you still recommend this type of feed, or are Jadam feeds a better alternative in your experience?

There are two things I've done to really speed up the break down of wood chips, ramp up the amount of fungal growth in them, and make them usable as a mulch that will really feed the soil. Option 1: In a compost tumbler or pile of wood chips--add fish carcasses. Fish plus wood is a fungal miracle. Option 2: pee on wood chips in buckets. The urine soaks into the wood chips for a couple months growing bacteria and fungi like crazy and when you dump it out it will be about half broken down can be used as a mulch right away and will be pretty much gone in a couple more months.

I had a stroke 2yrs ago, so my rewarding therepy is raised bed growing, nagged my 2 grandsons for their old sweaty sports bags (big rugby players )to grow spuds in grand. Now tjey dtead christmas as they know what they are getting. 😂😂

Amazing video, my Minibel tomato plants are in pots in my living room and maybe I can't apply any of this.

This is very interesting. I make a lot of greek yogurt and have a lot of whey as a by product. I believe whey is essentially LAB. I think I will try using this when watering as well as in my compost pile. I'm also putting spent mushroom blocks in my raised beds and compost pile which are adding quite a bit of mycelia. I'm going to plant tomatoes into a mushroom block/straw layer in the raised beds. Time to make JMS also! So many experiments!

underplanting with pumpkins, their mass of foliage create a great barrier to evaporation

Thank you for one more great video!!!What is your opinion about Bokashi?

Interesting 🤗👍

I'm so glad I've found your channel!Your approach sings to me. Sorry if you have covered this. I'm just listening your video mentioning the importance of carbon based compost. What are your thoughts/experience with bio char?

I grew my money maker and little yellow tomato varties in almost pure catle manure this year. They are also extreme heavy feeders i noticed. I would give them a little more space next time.

Good 👍

I think my brain's too slow for this level of gardening genius today. But I can still enjoy the pretty pictures.

My tomatoes that I planted in the earth went mental last Yr, they spread over the fence and into the neighbours back garden, right up until early December. 🍅👍

every day we learn

How about comfrey for the tomatoes? Can you use that on other veggies too?

You should grow goji berries there like perenial cold hardy tomatoes and there is Everglades tomato that I’ve heard reseeds like crazy and probably more cold hardy to.

When I pass on my gardening wisdom, I Always stress the importance of soil. You can't have good crops grown in crappy soil.

Huw, what do you think about growing a crawling crowd such as cucumber, squash or melon etc to provide the cover on the soil to help retain moisture? Assuming there is sufficient compost already there for soil health, would you try this? Thank you.

Im going to put my wood chips im a compost tea bath for a week this year to see if it helps.

Sooooooo interesting. Two years ago I had an incredible tomato harvest. I was pregnant, so I was not pruning or tending to the staking. The tomatoes grew into an enormous bramble a fruited like crazy. I assumed my deep planting of the seedling + the natural "pruning" were the key. But I also smothered them in woodchips from the local pile (everything had to be hand-watered, and again I was pregnant, so I wasn't keen on watering daily). The woodchips broke down quickly, and I had to reapply midseason. I interplanted the tomatoes with marigolds, basil, and some other herbs. No blight or other disease. The main issue was that I was a little too lazy with the watering, so when heavy rains came, some fruit did burst. I pruned those away and shoved them under the woodchip at the base of the plants. Anywho, I thought you'd think this was interesting given what you're trying! The woodchips were municipal, mainly downed tree limbs!

My tomatoes have never been a success on my west aspect balcony which only gets really sunny in summer and is covered too. I feed em as instructed, & look after them but I'm gonna try to grow deeper roots this year and water the pots from underneath. 🤞

we are in the process of building our raised beds veg patch (ive watched so many of your videos i'm overloaded with information) we have a huge area saved for growing, could be .26 of an acre, we are not sure how much space we would need, want to grow every veg possible, as a plant based family of 6 we go through so much veg, would growing tomatoes be done better in a poly tunnel? if so how do the insects get to polinate them, or do you do it by hand?

That's why I use to add finely chopped woodchips to my "premium tomato compost".

With tomatoes, if you mound up the soil / mulch up the stem (especially if leaves are removed in this zone) the more roots the plant produces and the more productive it is.

Very interesting, how do you make dam microbial leaf mold?.

Vermicompost made with shredded leaves is tomatoes best friend for myco inoclulation. Drenching the seedlings in a heavy slurry. Pour a bit into the hole. Cover with dirt & mulch. Most bagged, dried myco is a waste of time & money (dead by the time it reaches you) unless you special ordered it with express shipping. The fungi found in your area from treed & scrubbed areas (forest duff & leaves) is far superior.

Have you found electro culture yet? Really worth looking into ❤

Question: How do you know if you've made lab correctly? I've made it a few times but have no idea if it's correct.

Another Huw video and I'm on a work meeting....

❤❤❤

What if I covered my raised beds in the poly tunnel with weed control matting is that any good

Could I use willow stem shredding on the soil? I’m worried it will take root as willow stems do root so easily!

Would used coffee be good for the tomato plants

i love tomatoes, im growing 48 verities and 100 plants. i do think tomatoes are so forgiving, as if you get them leggy you can bury them deep and they will grow more roots along the stem. just dont water the leaves!

Diversity is key to health. Diverse diet for body health Diverse microbes for soil health Diverse plant and animal species for ecosystem health. Ect

I'm growing tomatoes in my first greenhouse this year, but it's on concrete. What do you think is best, make a shallow raised bed or use growbags? If I use growbags I feel I have lost control of the growing medium. What do you suggest?

How do we make the LAB liquid?

Please tell me where I can get the blue container in which he makes his solutions. I’ve looked in the US and can’t seem to find these smaller versions!

So is white mould on top of the soil good for tomatoes then?

Huw, they are side shoots not suckers, suckers grow from the base, root or rhizome of a plant 😉😁🌱☀️

Anyone know when you buy that lactus bacillus?

Do cherry tomatoes require pruning?

Some leaf mould from a forest floor is packed with fungi and bacteria.

Do you prefer growing tomatoes inside the poly tunnel or outside?

Looking forward to your ramual woodchuck update

Any recommendations for breeds of tomatoes to grow in a greenhouse. I've grown some, in previous years that don't have much taste. 🙁

I read tomatoes will dies in 4-5 months,. So we have to keep growing a new tomatoes every month to maintain our stock??

I do not have a garden but I do use raised beds. I live in an concreet building and use them to grow my veggies and stuf. I've tried to add all kinds of food scrabs to it but now (after 8 years +-) it looks more like dirt then soil and it keeps pooring out from the bottem... What should I do? Take it all out and start over? I am using mulch for 3 years now and I have got musrooms growing so there is a good bit of fungy in there but the soil is just so sand like... My plants aren't producing like they did so they are probably missing something. Whats best? Keep mulching (I do not have money or space to make or buy compost) and hope for the best or get it all out and start over with the knowledge I got now?

What is JMS?

Another reason why no dig/till is the best way to garden. Digging year after year would destroy all these funghi connections

I am using my banana water diluted on the potatoes

This worries me cos I grow toms in pots in my tiny garden......so no chance for the micro-organisms rhizals to develop???????

Careful. I lost a whole season of potted San Marzanos to blossom end rot due to OVER watering.

Have you tried electroculture?

Gawd

Noob question, instead of composting why don't you spread the organic matter directly on the beds,instead of wasting time and labour for a pile?

Huw, I love your videos, and your general approach, but a honest observation: You're over complicating it. Either for yourself, but more importantly, for others.. Evidence: Charles Dowding. Good quality compost on top of the ground, once a year. Done. Excellent tomatoes. You know this very well. Simplify things. Please don't go down the path of unecessary complexity for the sake of your producing "unique content". That's not what the world needs. And you are better than that. Another observation: The gardening world is lacking instruction of tried and tested companion planting (i.e. with actual A/B tests), for various uses (pests, vigor etc - help us get away from plastic fleece and netting), on seed saving/breeding, deep understanding and application of permaculture principles (as opposed to "permaculture"). You are in the perfect position to fill that gap. Go deep on these things, the world needs it. You are already into this stuff, just go deep, keep it simple and accessible, show the real world results. That is a goldmine of unique content ideas right there, the world needs it, and I think you're audience will love it too.

Amid all the waffle I missed “THE MISTAKE” 🤨

sorry to say but too much data for beginners. I'm not one but feel this could do with simplifying for thaoes who are

A bit too technical for me to follow.

Didn't know tomatoes can be perennials, very embarassing 🙈

I grow tomatoes in 10 litre pots and I don’t feed often but have great success. My soil have red wriggles in.👍🏻🪱😊 I also mulch the pots.

Huw Richards sounding as based as #VindanaShiva 😍🌱🪴🌻

This completely brilliant. Your videos are incredibly helpful.