Gardening While Pregnant is HARD!

Why do you have just a bunch of hay in your mouth? Where'd you get that from? You have so much grass. That gate's open. Go get the grass. You are funny. You're funny. Hi handsome boy. You guys are so cute. Hey everyone. Today is the first weekend forward where I believe we are frost free and ready to plant in the garden. So I actually already planted some Brussels sprouts and broccoli just a few days ago but I'm going to get the rest of those brassicas in the ground hopefully today as well as some flowers that are cold hardy. Some other things that just need to get in the ground. So Chris is working behind me shirtless on finishing up some of the weeding and we still have a little bit left to do over here. Let me darken it up for you guys. But weeding is almost done and the garden looks fantastic. Now is the hard stuff. Well actually weeding's hard too. I just didn't do it because of being pregnant and having some weird symptoms going on that I was having to treat like asthma. I've been taking it a lot easier than I normally would and Chris has been doing an amazing job weeding the garden. Honestly he's a better weeder than I am because he actually tries to get the whole weed out and I'm just lazy and just pull it from the top and then it comes back. So he's probably happy to be taking it on himself that he can make sure it's done well. Yeah he wants he wants to eliminate the dandelions for good which I think we're going to have a much smaller dandelion issue next year. The next part, the planting, is also incredibly time consuming. We love our no-till garden. We love using thick mulch. It's amazing for the soil and we have so many worms but the initial planting is a lot of work because every time you plant something you have to make sure the mulch has moved aside and you're really planting in the soil below and that can be pretty time intensive and also physically intensive. On the flip side though with the mulch once you get things planted you have much less weed pressure all season long so it's like more work now less work all season long so it's really worth it. I mean I remember last year when we got it done finally it was like now we just get to enjoy this and then the gardening season is so fun it's so enjoyable it's so stress-free you know you're not spending your nights weeding you're really just spending your nights walking the garden and and checking on things. Oh yeah oh yeah we don't water our garden at all because first of all we live in a climate that gets a lot of rain so there's that. Second though the mulch keeps the soil from drying out and also absorbs a lot of moisture and slowly feeds the plant's moisture so we don't water we don't weed it's kind of like an amazing stress-free what's the word what's the word people call it when maintenance free I don't remember anyways there's still stuff involved of course you know pruning and checking for pests and and troubleshooting things but it's a lot easier than it would be if we just had straight soil and planted right into it and I can tell you that for certain because our first year gardening we tilled a plot which we're not actually using right now the the chickens are over the roosters are over in it but our first year we we tilled a plot and we saw just how damaging that was to the soil to the moisture retention I'm counting you just can't see to the moisture retention and to the weed pressure and still the soil is recovering after this is three two years later now anywho let's get to gardening yes I'm probably gonna keep it take it easy and I'm just realizing my stomach is really growling and when you're pregnant you kind of have to eat a lot constantly it's weird so I'm gonna go grab some fruit or something maybe some watermelon in a big bowl and bring some out here so I can calm my little stomach okay guys is this cat hat cute Chris got it for me for Mother's Day he didn't just get me this cute hat he got me a adorable little summer hat for the little little baby it's a little hat um for when the baby is about six months old which will be next spring the baby will be about six months old and it has carrots on it it's so cute I'll show you guys later or maybe I'll just pop a picture in one of my biggest disappointments so far with being pregnant oh there's a bug on me has been my appetite um I normally am not picky I eat I like everything I eat everything of course you know I prefer you know sometimes things that have more sugar more oil you know classic American diet tendencies but overall I'm a really healthy eater normally Whole Foods plant-based approach we do use oil but other than that Whole Foods plant-based you know grains and beans and rice and that's a grain um avocado and we'll add like hot sauces and all kinds of yummy things from the garden and we still have lots of frozen veggies and canned stuff but lately I am so picky since March since I found out I was pregnant I've been the pickiest eater and it's not by choice so I can't just choose to eat healthy when I don't want it because then I'll just feel gross and sick and it's just it's not fun so the one saving grace has been fruit lately I really love watermelon and strawberries and berries unfortunately it's not the right season for them but I have to get what I can when I want it so that's kind of how pregnancy goes so I have this watermelon I'm just gonna put it in a bowl and then bring it outside cut my hat cut my watermelon we're gonna go back out in the garden get some stuff done okay let's go get the tray of brassicas and then we'll start start planting this area needs to be weeded so badly it's a mess this garlic mustard I'm gonna pull all this guy out because it's very invasive but it is something you can eat okay so here are the brassicas and a rotting pumpkin um and more brassicas grab this tray first I think grab this tray first so we're gonna get these guys planted in this area I think lots of worms already so the soil in this bed is still pretty heavy part of that is because it's wet part of that is because it's only a year of no-till this bed is specifically back to Eden which in my experience takes longer than roost out to create like a nice loose soil so we're gonna go ahead and grab some compost from our compost pile and add I'm gonna add that into the holes when I plant so that the plants roots have something a little bit looser to grab onto oh yeah it's pretty good yeah I mean I turned it a couple weeks ago so you know not really small but it's fine it's kind of like a like a mulch kind of like a wood mulch looks like there's no wood I know it just looks like uh it looks fibrous like wood that's just because it's not fully broken down yet um that's fine though adding a little bit in will be good so Chris is working on turning well he's almost done turning the bunny poop hay pile so that it can break down a little faster I know a lot of people have asked me for compost videos told you it's hot topic these days hot topic but we are not very good at it so I don't want to start putting out videos and tell you guys how to do something that we really don't know how to do very well yet we will try to share more of our learning with you right now we're learning that we need to do more ongoing turning and watering of the piles we just haven't prioritized trying to actually get it to break down quickly yeah this bunch of compost that I'm going to use plant in with stuff I'm going to add some compost in here when I plant and I'm going to get those cabbages in the ground okay I got the cabbage planted I planted the rest of the cabbage in the cuckoo culture bed Chris is working on weeding this but the cuckoo culture bed's looking really good actually so I planted four right here I'm about to plant these flowers in this bed as well just show them the wild animals we have living in the bed right now I have a wild creature in this bed hi you little knucklehead so we've collapsed most of the holes when we start walking on the cuckoo culture bed and collapse some of the holes the worms go nuts crazy this bed is loaded with worms and there's zero worms in it last year because it was all built so the worms like migrated from our soil to the bed which is pretty cool pretty cool stuff you're cute where are you going see ya oh hi what what what are you doing ow ow she's so happy very happy you're so cute what are you doing boop where ow neck punch she's so sleepy she's very happy what was that you're gonna sneeze she's gonna sneeze I have drool on my arm yeah it's drooling on me put you down you little one okay so I'm going to water in some of these flowers that I've gotten planted so I just spread them kind of randomly throughout the garden I do with them at the ends of the garden so that they they're the first thing you see hookah culture bed because basil really likes heat and dryness and hookah culture bed is drier and hotter so it's a perfect place I wouldn't plant the rest of my basil yet just because it's not quite hot enough but I definitely can go ahead and plant stuff in the hookah culture bed because it's nice and toasty. Is that a wrap? That's a wrap.