Growing Groceries for my Family // Homestead Garden Tour // Beat Inflation - Self Sufficiency

Come and tour our garden, where I grow most of my family's food. Things are thriving and the harvest is just about to start coming in. Start growing your family's groceries and beat inflation at the store.

[@EastRiverHomestead]

So good to see your channel and your garden grow. You deserve it.

[@MorganHillFarms]

Thank you so much!

[@nate4fish]

Interesting comment about the usda zone. It’s all about probability so even if you only see 15 below once a decade your perennials will still have to live through that rare cold snap. Like my zone is 6b but we’ve seen-24 F one time in my lifetime and-10F a couple more times.

[@SandcastleDreams]

Exactly! I don't trust this new zoning. My plants cost money and take years to grow. I found an older zoning chart that showed everything above Hwy 40 as being zone 8b. Everything below was zone 9a. So, I'm sticking with that. They don't even count our chill hours properly!

[@thelittlelearningfarm622]

Please share how you don’t have any weeds. My garden is new, just the second year in this location and it is aggressively trying to turn back into forest. I laid cardboard and wood chip mulch in my walking paths but it isn’t enough. Your garden is beautiful!

[@MorganHillFarms]

The raised bed garden area has landscape fabric and then the woodchips are about 4 inches thick. I still get weeds, but there aren’t many. As far as the inground garden, we just have to stay on top of them:) The kids are a great help weeding. It will get a bit overgrown once the main harvest starts coming in though.

[@thelittlelearningfarm622]

@@MorganHillFarms thank you for the reply.

[@chrisedbrooke6533]

@@MorganHillFarms I did the same thing - landscape fabric with 3”-4” mulch on top. That worked well for the first couple of years, but as the mulch decomposed, I found I was getting more and more weed growth IN the mulch. This year I’m in the process of removing all of the mulch and using it to fill new raised beds. I’m finding that the fabric by itself is doing a great job of keeping the weeds at bay, and the mulch is an inexpensive way to fill the new beds. I’m finding that not having the mulch keeps everything cleaner as well, which I appreciate since the garden is just steps from my back door. My dogs and I no longer track the mulch into the house. 🙂

[@SandcastleDreams]

Tilling and letting the sun bake them helps. But we have all kinds of aggressive weeds in FL. 3rd year and we don't have as many. In my raised bed area, weed block. And weeds still come up through that and you just have to keep attacking them before they produce seeds. We've got this plant down here that has stickers even coming out of the leaves. It's toxic. Nothing will eat it. It has tiny white blooms and it keeps coming uo everywhere. We keep a pair of pliers handy to pull them up. We don't have a quarter of the weeds or grass we had the first year after clearing our land. We have an acre. You have to attack them often uf you want to stay ahead. Last year, we had baby pine trees coming up all over our garden. I had to pull them all up by hand. This year, it's a tree that produces pink puffy blooms. They are all over the place. And a euphorbia that looks like a wild poinsettia, but without the color, keeps coming up in my raised beds. 😮 Must have come in the manure or something.

[@ht6684]

The garden looks fantastic! I"m in zone 5a, but I'd agree that I think our old one (4b) is what it really is.

[@MorganHillFarms]

I so want to be zone 8 because that is where you can grow citrus, but I don't trust our winters.

[@troxycat]

So much good information! Your garden is huge, so inspiring!

[@MorganHillFarms]

Thanks so much! I am glad the video was helpful!

[@ronalddavis5905]

Awesome garden!

[@MorganHillFarms]

Thank you!

[@Mylittleveganhomestead]

Your garden is so lush and organized. Beautiful❤

[@MorganHillFarms]

Thank you so much 😊

[@amystamper129]

Love your videos!!! Thank you for sharing!!

[@MorganHillFarms]

You are so welcome!

[@kimr4005]

Beautiful

[@MorganHillFarms]

Thank you

[@rebekahallen6188]

In your climate I’d try growing Italian stone pines. They are the pine trees that produce those fancy pine nuts the grocery stores charge $30 a pound. Also my favorite food is pomegranates. Can you grow those? And fig trees would be fun too.

[@MorganHillFarms]

I don't think I can grow pomegranates, but there may be some variety that they have created that would survive our winter temps. I wonder if I planted those Italian Stone Pines if I would still be the age to garden when they start to produce for me? I imagine that they take quite a long time.

[@lisadavis9286]

I hope you take us along when you process some of your tomatoes. I’ve never made marinara sauce. Also, do you have a video of your pickle technique? Love these garden tours. I’m in Maine and we just put our gardens in a couple weeks ago.

[@MorganHillFarms]

I will definitely be making videos on everything I am preserving. As soon as I get enough cucumbers to preserve I’ll make a video on how I make super crispy pickles:)

[@sumillyard9181]

Black berry's already wow ares are full of flowers but they don't go black untill August September time in the UK.

[@MorganHillFarms]

They are in full swing here. They are filling my fruit freezer fast!

[@SerenityMtnFarm]

I am in ga and I need to come spend a weekend and work and find your secrets

[@MorganHillFarms]

I wish we all had a little commune that we lived in. It would be so nice to have a growing community nearby where we all shared tips etc:)

[@lucythomas4077]

Another great video. Where did you get your grow bags?

[@MorganHillFarms]

They were from Amazon. After a few seasons the handles start to rip if you move the bags with soil in them, but otherwise they have been good! This is the brand I bought, but they are a little different now a.co/d/05elu23J

[@jacm021]

Do you happen to know the name of your blackberries. Im in north Florida and have alot of varieties. Love the the garden tours and the information you give is really great. Thank you for all the hard work you put into doing this for all of us to see and learn from.

[@MorganHillFarms]

You’re welcome. I am so glad that you find the videos helpful! They are thornless black crown blackberries:)

[@SandcastleDreams]

We've got the wild Loganberries here. They don't get very tall but I got a couple of quarts off them this year.

[@jennwalling8094]

Would you mind sharing the variety of berries you grow? We are in Texas but very hot humid most likely 7B also though they say we are eight

[@MorganHillFarms]

Blackberries - thornless black crown Raspberries - Heritage red, Caroline Red, and June Gold Blueberries - I have no idea. They are just from Lowes Strawberries - Ozark

[@lucythomas4077]

Is your pickle recipe from the NCFHFP?

[@MorganHillFarms]

Yes. Here is the link: nchfp.uga.edu/how/pickle/general-information-pickling/low-temperature-pasteurization-treatment/

[@Movnhorses]

I was curious about not seeing any mulch. I live in Florida and if I don’t put mulch down, the plants cook. Do you use a mulch or just keep your drip system on all day?

[@MorganHillFarms]

I run the drip system 20 minutes per day in the spring and when we get really hot around mid June, we increase the drip irrigation to 40 minutes a day. I have never used mulch. That is not to say that I don't think it would benefit my plants, it's just that I don't really know what to use. Straw and hay always concern me because of the weed seeds. Wood chips I feel like always get mixed in with my good soil and compost and then I have to spend the time removing them. If I had enough grass clippings, I could use those but for now, I have nothing down:(

[@Movnhorses]

@@MorganHillFarms Oh okay. That makes a lot of sense!

[@SandcastleDreams]

​@@MorganHillFarmsPine Straw Bales! They break down into pine fines. Protect the soil from baking in the sun.

[@katieauth8979]

Did I miss seeing carrots!?

[@MorganHillFarms]

It is too hot for carrots right now. I will be starting some in the fall garden:) They are super sweet when they grow in the cooler weather:)