How we grew 1000+ lbs of food in our small backyard. Our Gardening Journey Part 1.

Join us as we take you back 11 years to show you how we began our gardening journey and our march towards growing our own food for life.
Continue to follow our journey with us on social media at:
Facebook : The Simmons Family Farmstead
Instagram : @thesimmonsfamilyfarmstead

[@pau1more1]

Your "small yard" is massive. Also, greenhouses are warm mostly because they capture heat coming out of the ground. The ground is the main heat source, rather than the sun. That's the same reason why you can protect a plant from frost by covering it.

[@bengeldard5677]

Really enjoyed your video from Australia

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

Thank you!

[@Bibitybopitybacon]

​@Michael_McMillan depends on where. The house is large but for rural areas in the USA the 1/4 acre isn't particularly large.

[@teddyboy252]

Smart

[@denisewilson8367]

​@Michael_McMillan I grew up on a 103 acre homestead. A teeny tiny 1/4 acre yard would drive me and my dog nuts! Neither one of us can stand people that close to our home.

[@barbaraflagg983]

Well done first year. So happy for you that you stuck with all the hard work and the joy of being able to contribute some of the joy to friends and neighbors even in the first year.

[@ginaeaton6680]

For your potatoe tower... You can add more seed potatoes every 8-10 inches. Basically, 3 layers of potatoes for your 3' tower. Cover the top with a mulch. The mulch will help retain moisture and prevent the potatoes from sun exposure. You can plant them 2 weeks before your last frost. It will take that long for the sprouts to emerge from the 8 inches of soil. They need (love) potassium. Organic banana peels are a good source. Happy growing!! 😊

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

This is a great idea! Thank you

[@chrisa6682]

Potatoes have determinate and indeterminate varieties like tomatoes. The later will grow potatoes all along the root as the plants grow. Determinate potatoes will only grow a set amount of tubers. You can google varieties to determine what they are.

[@kated3165]

Oh I had no idea! Thanks!

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

We plan to have both determinate and indeterminate on our new property, with a lot more room to plant them on as well! Thanks for the comment

[@ShelitaRN]

I just learned this, too!

[@jenbear8652]

Thanks for sharing this! In all the seed catalogs I’ve read over the years, I’ve never noticed any describing this!

[@nexxterra]

Last year I planted 12 potatoes, they grew well and 3 months later, I harvested ONE potato the size of my thumb... I WILL do better this year, I can't believe I would have been better off eating the 12 I planted!

[@Direct2children]

I learnt the hard way that we should regularly prune the potato plants

[@SK-lt1so]

Did you plant them in the shade?

[@hoahappyhome]

I'm quite impressed with the thumbnails in your channel's videos, they look like something out of a fairy tale. It's great when you have a dreamy small garden. ❤

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

Thank you! We were going for the old time seed catalog look. We love that artwork!

[@hoahappyhome]

Oh, I quite like this idea, good luck☺@@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead

[@juliawynm6335]

💓your garden is beautiful, thank you for sharing :))

[@1sagaciousgyrl]

Congratulations! And thank you for the straight -to- it content. I love that you didn't make this video with repetitive rumbling. I'm very encouraged that I can do this along with my mother's experience of gardening.

[@laonongtrendinhdk]

vườn cây rất đẹp, bạn giỏi quá

[@vickijenkins1266]

Good job! What an awesome first garden!

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

We were very blessed with that first season for sure, not having much Experience.

[@barbaranyhus2015]

awesome! good for you folks. I actually have the space, but not the energy to do something like this. I have 2 raised beds. They make a LOT of tomatoes and green beans. I have not been successful with much else. KEEP ON GROWING

[@slyjacinto2012]

I have a backyard, but it is a hill. I haven't seen a video yet that is gardening on a hill. If you do, pls share.😊

[@yellowdog762jb]

​@@slyjacinto2012There is a guy in California and an American lady living in France, both of whom garden on hills. I don't recall the names of either. But they have terraces with flat spaces. I think the first step would be to learn how to create a terraces. I think that you could do that using landscape timbers, rocks, or bricks. Instead of building raised beds with 4 equally high sides, you'll need to make them "lopsided". I'm on flat land, but have terrible soil, so I only know how to do conventional raised beds. There are no doubt loads of vids on building terraces. Starting out with some containers might also be feasible. Due to the heat where I'm at, container gardening is much more difficult than many make it look. So factor you climate in.

[@scottd7926]

Looking forward to the next videos in the series. Thank you for sharing your home garden journey.

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

Thank you so much for your comment and for watching! So glad you're enjoyed the video!

[@ginaeaton6680]

You guys did a great job!!

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

Thank you!

[@GrandmaSandy]

Thank you so much for a wonderful video and some great inspiration for a wonderful garden

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

You are so welcome! Thanks for you comment and watching. Our followup comes out this Sunday at 7!

[@blacksmithtv5069]

That's actually a nice beginner video, please ignore critical comments and just keeping growing while learning. Much love!

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

We appreciate the kind words and encouragement! Thanks for watching

[@ptrainingbytim]

Well done family. Have you watched the Back to Eden garden documentary yet? It is truly lifechanging and the chickens are the greatest thing you could add to your garden/family. Blessings from northern california!

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

We have! So inspiring! Thank you so much for your comment and for watching!

[@mcraw4d]

Need to make sure you’re planting the right potatoes. Newer varieties were created to grow shallow so they could be harvested with machinery. Heirloom varieties are better suited to mounding dirt on top of to increase yields.

[@stephenbrown2054]

We have tried box gardening four years in a row in Texas. Everything does poorly, except peppers and herbs. Congratulations on your success the first year.

[@Padraigp]

I'm the same except raspberries work well I don't buy soil. I just use what God left there and some chicken manure. But go eith what works somone down the road will not be able to grow peppers and have too many cucumbers and you can swap.

[@meganharper6566]

Well done! ❤

[@CBJAMPA]

Most inspiring! Kudos! 👏👏👏

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

Thank you!

[@pm7684]

Love this!

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

Thank you!

[@RonnieMinh]

Thanks for this awesome presentation.

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

Glad you liked it!

[@redgingerbreadpam]

Great story! Looking forward to seeing the rest of it.

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

Thank you! We look forward to sharing it. We get into much more about what worked really well for us and what did not. Thanks for watching!

[@dandavatsdasa8345]

Great Efforts!

[@CerberusOnFire]

0:42 is what gardening is all about. Great and inspirational video. Well done.

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

Thank you so much for the encouragement!

[@Cheriesgardenvegplot]

I'm looking forward to watching more of your videos.

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

Thank you!

[@emekasearthgems3376]

Thanks for sharing 💜

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

Thanks for watching!

[@sandramorton5510]

Fabulous.

[@GoshenHideaway]

Nicely done! Hopefully our first attempt will go well. 🎉

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

Thank you for your comment! I'm sure it will 😊. Good luck to you!

[@baneverything5580]

My yard was bulldozed down to hard red dirt. So It`s gonna take me years with physical issues to haul in forest soil. I`ve never encountered anything like this. People are ridiculous. It was my half sister`s mom who had it done. Now I know why she and her son don`t like fruit or vegetables and were horrified that I planned to grow fruit trees and offered them a tree because they might "attract bugs." My nephew only admitted to liking bell peppers but refused to eat the ones I grew because....."bugs might be on them." My Yankee cousins wouldn`t eat ANY fruit, berries or vegetables we grew but happily ate them from cans or from the store. Why? Because ours "came from the dirt." Welcome to America! LOL! We`re 100% DOOMED!

[@yellowdog762jb]

That's a hoot! When my daughter was young, her friends were amazed that we had food growing on plants in our yard. They thought grocery stores were factories that made food.

[@JRNurse2013]

Crazy, huh? I had hard red dirt here in OK in 2018 when we moved here. I started trench composting and adding wood chips and some leaves. My soil is so rich and I can use my shovel easily now. I always have coffee and tea grounds with crushed eggshells and vegetable peels sitting on my countertop waiting for my daily dig. Just move all around your flower/gardening beds and dig a hole at least a foot deep and dump it in. Add toilet paper rolls too. You will be amazed how fast you can totally change that red dirt into lively earthworm loving soil. 😊

[@baneverything5580]

@@JRNurse2013 I`ve been adding chopped leaves, forest soil, rotted logs, leaf mold, and thick layers of grass clippings and I found some deep mounds of sandy mix in a wash nearby and have been dragging it in with a garden dump wagon. I just planted over a dozen more fruit trees and the blackberry blooms didn`t get frozen this year. I planted more fig trees, pineapple guava, and four dwarf everbearing mulberry trees and I have a dozen strawberry plants.Pill bugs are becoming a problem though.

[@kate739]

great testimony of what we can do at home. thanks for sharing

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

Thanks for watching!

[@cookiseat894]

Wow beautiful garden ❤Thanks for your wonderful video ❤❤❤ 8:39

[@AAPHomestead]

Very Cool

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

Thank you!

[@cathykillion6544]

Enjoyed the video 😊

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

Thank you for watching ! 😊

[@ishaa5948]

I think that its funny that I always skip videos w long intros. But not this time. 🙏 I really enjoyed ur video. I'm always looking for inspiration. Y'all made it look easy. 😂 I know that tilling that grass was insane. 🙏 We had to till St. Augustine. 😭😂 Awesome Sauce 🙌 Great job.

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

Thank you! Yes the Bermuda was a challenge and continued to be a constant battle over the years. I can imagine the St. Augustine was fun to till as well!

[@expertexcavatinginc]

Love!

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@rebeccasanford8607]

Waving at yall from East Texas! Enjoyed your video. I’m working on my “Asphalt Homestead”. Right now I have some buckets in a frame. lol l am 67 and need to use oxygen when doing exertive activities. Congrats on your 20 acres! Looking forward to watching your Journey

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

You have encouraged us! Thank you for you kind words!

[@MorethanRn]

Well done

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

Thanks for the encouragement and for watching!

[@sheilaackers3854]

Nice soil in the intro.

[@angelasbusybeesgardenandho4627]

Such a beautiful journey. New friend here.

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

Welcome! Thank you for joining us

[@betterlivingonabudget]

I just found your channel with this video popping in my feed. I really enjoyed watching your garden progress. It's dream for me to own a homestead, meanwhile I'm renting and patio gardening. I love kolrahbi!

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

Awesome! Thank you for watching and keep growing! Kohlrabi is a winner here too! 😊

[@baneverything5580]

A nice, tasty, inexpensive, rare, amazing grape variety developed in SE Texas for Southern growers that will thrive where others fail up to zone 5: "Mrs. Munson" by Fair Haven Vine Nursery. Saw a guy growing it in zone 8 and it was a great producer at two years old. We have Muscadines here in Louisiana but the wild ones here never seem to produce anymore or the squirrels get them while still green. They did this to our huge fig tree when I lived on the river in the NW region. There was no stopping them. Thankfully there are owl families living here and the squirrels do a lot of hiding. A big hoot owl woke me up at 2:58am. Must be nesting time.

[@reginaldanglin4264]

Good morning and Asalammualaikum. Wow just wow. I've always thought about having a graden. So i did containers gardening. So so results. But i was so happy. To hear and see you're stories of beginning and continue small garden. Mind blowing. I now have a 1/2 plot in a community garden. I dont have a plan, i just plant😅. Like reg. You dont have enough space for these plants 😅. Having fun. Hop i can share a pic with yall. Just maybe you'll give suggestions. God bless yall. May Almighty Allah bless you abundantly. Ameen

[@jackstone4291]

That’s a huge back garden.

[@shadyacrefarm1005]

Good video. Loved it. New subscriber.

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

Welcome! Thanks for subscribing and we are glad you enjoyed the video. Part 2 will be out Sunday at 7!

[@susanpayne5592]

The garden looks great! I have a backyard full of Bermuda grass too and it's a pain to deal with.

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

When we found our new property we made sure to look at the ground as we toured it. If it had bermuda anywhere, we were passing on it!

[@trinamcgarvey-vw7ke]

I liked your intro. Good job on the video. You put in the work and had an excellent garden!

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

Thank you for the comment and for watching!

[@mickzie5]

intro sounds like an HBO series intro but thank you for all your work and info

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

😆

[@UrbanHomesteadMomma]

This is a great video, lots of info. My only complaint is about your editing not your content… your volume on your audio is so low that the music blasts you out of your chair when turned up enough to hear you talk. But again, love the content ❤

[@shaneannconnell8022]

Great video, but I'd hardly call your garden small thou.

[@foorlife632]

How many plants did you have? We just became a family of 7 and I'm unsure of how much to plant. Did each row only have 1 type of vegetable?

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

Great question. Yes we kept most rows to one variety of plant. For instance we had 8 roma tomato plants in one row 7 or 8 squash in another row. We just read the back of seed packs and spaced them accordingly. We did cheat a little on some and planted them closer just due to space. We kept it very simple as this was our first ever real garden.

[@corinne7126]

Great idea? I love what you did but did you have your soil checked for herbicides and other chemicals. Homeowners use many chemicals on the lawn.

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

Unfortunately we did not think to have the soil tested the first year we put in the garden. However it was a year after we moved in and we never put any type of herbicide or fertilizer treatments on the lawn. Knowing what we do now, it was quite possible the previous owners (whom had not lived here for over a year before we purchased it) had used some.

[@thefrankperspective4247]

Haha, your home is 500 square feet smaller than my entire parcel when I was in Los Angeles.

[@MD-bp8vb]

Wow great video. Where do you live? I am in FL and am starting on this journey now

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

Currently we are in Central VA. Our new property is about an hour south of us, closer to NC.

[@blacksinglemomhomesteadont6454]

I can see you guys put allot of time into the production of your video. Congrats on all your success. However, gardening doesnt go that perfect for most people so the video is really deflating.

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

We completely understand that. We had several attempts of container gardening that failed. This first installed garden was a blessing for sure. We have had a ton failures since that first garden, pest pressure , disease, crops not hardening off from the greenhouse, and seeds just failing to germinate. Hail storms, Voles you name it. As we continue our story in this series you will see more of those struggles and our attempts to get back to such a highly productive garden. We hope you can find encouragement and inspiration in our attempts. Also thank you for thebkind words on the production. 8 hours went into putting this little video together as we are not very tech savvy folks!

[@jackstone4291]

Add on top of the soil. Don’t dig the he’ll out of it! Keep the microbes in and feed the microbes in the soil …

[@michelleconner2185]

Your place is not small. Where I live, I could put it three times in your place. That’s small.. you have a huge yard.

[@babyfox205]

what do you think about no till approach?

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

We love it and actually get into that further in the series. At the time of our first garden we had never heard of it.

[@paula.mcguinness6075]

No need to be over productive and wasteful of resources of which Time being #1! I used to grow a lot of food and I could not give the excess away. I now have a small space, can what I desire and compost the "excess". Don't over plant!

[@pizzapuffankles]

Awesome video thank

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

Thanks for the comment and thank you for watching!

[@user-wo6ut5ij2c]

I want my front yard to look like this, but my wife wants grass instead....

[@brendahowell5946]

What soil do you use that’s the secret I haven’t figured out

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

Great question. The first season we used the soil in our lawn without any amendments. As the years went on we talk more in the next video about which soil amendments we use and how we built soil.

[@brendahowell5946]

Blows my mind you have to use all this fertilizer and soil. Worked 25 years in the garden with my dad. We direct sowed everything their was no Lowes , plants to go get. You hauled it from the barn.

[@zoewhite7705]

“Small city lot”?! In most of the world’s cities that would be considered huge! Not undermining what you’ve achieved which is wonderful, but just to say in most cities people would give their right arm for a quarter of an acre so it can be frustrating to keep hearing how small it is ;)

[@Junzar56]

How many square feet is your garden?

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

The one we show in this video is about 400sqt. The garden grew as the years went on and we took up more of the usless lawn for it!

[@kgrand62]

You spelled large suburban yard wrong.

[@selinaalonzo4559]

just to dramatic FOR . i watch a lot of homestead cotent and the down to business ones ALWAYS seems to be the best

[@blacksmithden]

"Small" city lot ? U-huh.

[@Volfor321]

Extremely low voice volume then get BLASTED by music. Thanks

[@CelloandAnayaJ]

lol small backyard

[@malawianna]

Um, this is not a small yard.

[@chrisblank5277]

Woah the music got super loud I threw off my headset real quick

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

Sorry about that 😬. Had some issues with the audio blending at the begining. While editing, it did not sound as drastic of a difference.

[@tarabooartarmy3654]

The thumbnail looks AI-generated. No hate, just noticed it.

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

We were going for the look of the old seed catalogs.

[@frankgoblin7038]

Intro way too loud.

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

Still working on this editing. Thanks for the feedback and thanks for watching!

[@mariagibbons8437]

deafenin music put me off

[@c3plus192]

Your intro is way over the top dramatic. It’s gardening. Get a grip. Otherwise, good video. Good luck for the future.

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

Thanks for watching!

[@angorachic]

I thought it was nice and interesting.

[@agah1122]

Well -it worked 18K views 😊

[@senovia1992]

I know right?? 😂😂😂 i was sold and subscribed immediately. You get a grip and enjoy their talents on editing. 😂😂

[@cdybft9050]

He cut out the car chase so there’s that.

[@catejordan7244]

That’s no small back yard

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

The garden area utilized was 400sqt ft. Over 1000+lbs in that small area of our backyard. Most small backyards are larger than 400sq ft. Just showing you how it can be done. Thanks for watching!

[@lmd2454]

Unsolicited advice: lose the stock images and videos. Makes your channel look like all the stupid bot channels on KZbin. Your original video and photos are good enough, you don’t need the stock media.

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

Thank you for watching and the input!

[@jessicapearson9479]

Did you actually weigh all that? Do not spit out random numbers. It makes you look fake. Like you BOUGHT the majority of what you claimed to have grown.

[@TheSimmonsFamilyFarmstead]

Yes it was all weighed and logged until the end of the summer when we stopped counting after 1000lbs. We didn't think 9 years later to take pictures of all of that to put into a youtube video one day!

[@becky1789]

@c3plus192. Are you joking? There doing something positive feeding there family and I'd bet giving their friends and neighbors so delicious food..you get a grib❤