Must know tips for raised bed gardening

in today's video on the stoney ridge farm we're going to talk to you about gardening hey there folks this is josh stoney ridge farmer welcome back to another gorgeous day here on the stoney ridge farm it's absolutely awesome out here but it's gonna be a roaster it's gonna be 94 degrees with a heat index of 120 today it seems like so we're in the foothills of the blue ridge mountains of north carolina and today's video focus is going to be squash okay and you see these little squashes my squash is just now coming in here on the stoney ridge farm and i kind of wanted to walk through this as a gardening 101 video for you guys about how to grow zucchini and yellow squash it couldn't be simpler and you all need to be learning how to grow your own food for your own family [Music] i ain't afraid of word i ain't afraid to play i ain't afraid to get the job done and do it my own damn way [Music] i ain't afraid of lie [Music] times like this if you mess with my freedom i'll tell you just what you can kiss that's right all right guys welcome to the farm again this is the stoney ridge farm this is a 150 acre first generation farm here in the foothills of the blue ridge mountains of north carolina and what we're doing today again is working in the garden this is part of my daily routine so i'll come down here i'll work my way through the garden i'll weed things if i see any insect problems i'll take care of those i don't use any fertilizers or any sprays it's all natural so it's all from the farm and or from another farm it's manure it's chicken litter it's chicken manure and it's all natural stuff compost okay so what we have here is a bed of yellow squash and a bed of zucchini squash this couldn't be easier to grow guys and you don't need to go buy the little plants from the store you need to just plant them from seed it's very very simple i'll explain the whole process to you so we're going to visit the tomatoes so stick around to the end we're gonna talk about those but this is my zucchini squash guys and you don't have to weed a whole lot in this zucchini squash but you can see got a little bit of grass coming up in here these are raised beds that i built with the sawmill i've got a sawmill on the farm and we have approximately 10 raised beds right now we'll probably expand that to somewhere around 20. these are late tomatoes in the background that's why they look a little pitiful and again this is our zucchini squash so part of my and also these are sunflowers these are goliath sunflowers i like to plant things concomitantly in other words plant them together you look in here you'll see we've got buds we've got squash buds coming in our honeybees are pretty close here they're right over there and the chicken coop is right there so when we have bad veggies and bad fruit we'll toss it over in the coop and let the chickens eat it we'll also give our chicken some of this grass so i don't we eat right up next to the garden beds i take this and i'll feed the chickens with it or i'll toss it back on the land and we'll mow it and mulch it in you can see the yellow squash all down in here those guys will mature and get fat let the buds fall off you can actually eat the squash bud which is pretty cool also all i did to plant these squash and they don't require a whole lot of nutrient is simply place the seeds in the ground so each bed kind of started out like this and this is where my shallots were planted and my onions were planted each bed starts like this i'll go through i'll weed the bed and then i'll place my seeds in the ground you can expect squash to germinate within about three days so it'll really jump up pretty quick you don't need to go to the added expense of buying the dog on pre-planted plants they sprout just like that a few pests that you might encounter when you're raising squash are what they call cut worms and cutworms have gotten one of my squash plants i'll show you that and we also have you'll see some insects eggs on here right here some see this little piece of foliage right here that has some insect eggs on it we can simply take our thumb as long as we're maintaining our garden and just rake those guys off these are eggplants okay pretty low maintenance item you can plant those from seed very very easily and we should start getting eggplants here very shortly now with squash you're going to get a bounty of squash so when you plant this mini this is probably eight plants in each bed eight to ten plants you're going to get a bounty of squash i've got a harvest right freeze dryer in the shop and that's what we'll do we'll freeze dry this squash and we need to plant more so this bed right here later this week will be cleaned up and i'll plant new squash over here so that we have a constant flow of squash coming in throughout the summer and there's nothing that says summertime more than good fresh delicious yummy squash now you can see we've got cut worms in this one right here so in other words there's something we're going to go ahead and pull pull this up something cuts the root of this plant and destroys its ability to reproduce so this right here that goes in the chicken coop these guys are looking good these are big boys and better boys these are the big boys those are the better boys big boys seem to be doing better and be a little bit more drought tolerant as you look down in here you'll see eggshells there are eggshells that i incorporate into the soil along with my compost to help prevent a illness called or a predicament called blossom end rot blossom end rot looks similar to this this is uh this is a summertime heat problem the blossom end rot would be black right there now all we do since we've got our chickens i'll toss that over in a coop chickens will chow down right there so it's an ecosystem guys it's all about a cyclic ecosystem got a little moldy uh tomato and you're gonna have bad tomatoes it's just gonna happen a little rotten tomato there that's why you have chickens the ultimate farm garbage disposal right there so guys i just thought i'd point you in the right direction when it comes to planting squash it is not too late for you to plant your own squash this year you can keep planting it all summer long now typically if you want to grow some uh pumpkins around the week of the fourth of july is when most people plant their pumpkins and i may end up putting some pumpkins over in that bed right there so i hope this helped you guys take away the fear of planting a garden if you want to do raised beds you don't have to have a sawmill you can build your own raised beds lastly we're going to go up and i'll show you some cool raised beds that we have right by the house i've got a little salad bar growing right beside the house it's edible landscapes and it's super easy and you don't need 150 acres to do this so i'm up here at the house and this proves to you right here that you just don't have to have too much space to grow a garden so we've got some kale growing in here we have some hot peppers some green peppers we have uh carrots growing right here and again some more kale and this is my salad bar okay so i come out here and i pick myself a salad whenever i want to there's arugula there's lettuce there's all sorts of stuff it's right here in the salad bar patch right here and these are some pretty awesome little raised beds well folks it's just that easy i hope you enjoyed the little video today i just want to give you a quick tips video on how to plant and grow squash go to the store buy the non-gmo squash seed put three of those seeds in the ground and place them somewhere between 18 and 22 inches apart and you will have squash within about a month it's pretty cool stuff guys again have one raised bed ready so you harvest one thing plant another thing harvest one thing plant another thing and if you don't have chickens you're missing out on the ultimate garbage disposal and the ultimate composters and the ultimate fertilizers for your property guys thank you so much for joining me here on the stoney ridge farm i hope you learned a little something if you have any questions please post them down there in the comment section i'd love to hear from you again i'll post links to these raised beds in case you don't want to build them out of wood for yourself and you can simply use garden soil and potting soil right from your local hardware store thank you guys we'll see you next time on the stoney ridge it's a beautiful day i gotta go take care of the cows