PLANTING: Zinnias, Dahlias, and Tomatoes + Homegrown Strawberry Pie // Backyard Flower Farm

Hello everyone, welcome back to the garden. You might notice the audio is a little bit different in this one. I finally cleaned up all the insulation and stuff out of that room that got hit by that tree and fell on my microphone. I spent the most of this week working on the garden, getting things into the ground. Let me show you what I planted. Most of it is just regular kind of tender annual type things. I have these four additional new beds. You can see I have plastic holes and kind of a Swiss cheese type appearance. The first thing I planted was these zinnias. As you can see, these zinnias got much larger than they should have been. As a result, they got too big in the tray. They had rooted into the ground and as soon as I pulled them up, voila, they're wilting. Not to worry though, I went ahead and I put these zinnias into the ground into my beds and made sure to water a lot. Lots and lots of water will be the key in making certain that these are able to pull through. And by the time that you're seeing this, I already know that they did pull through. Also planted some celosia. Here you can see them. They're just in this kind of laying all over the place just like the zinnias. It's not a great look. I'm not proud. It was really hot this day when I was transplanted. But I did want to show you this because, you know, everybody shows you the pretty stuff but there's an ugly side too. So if you have just transplanted your plants and they're all wilty and look terrible, don't despair. As long as you keep them hydrated and watered for a few days, they're likely to perk up. I mean, obviously, this isn't ideal but I'm just kind of dealing with what I got because I don't even have water in this garden. So that's a thing that I'm worried about too. Also planted some tomatoes out in the beds. I started these tomatoes using the winter sowing method. I have a complete video about that if you're interested in that. These are a mix of tomatoes. I think these are brand new ones and a blinken and an heirloom mix that I've been saving the seeds from for several seasons now. So lots of variety there. The same thing. I just kind of separated these as best I could. Some of them have two plants per holes. The spacing is much wider on these. These are about a foot spacing. Some might say it's a little bit close but I have grown these intensively in the past and it's not been an issue. In fact, I actually prefer it this way. So, you know, different strokes, different folks, all that good stuff. Moving on though, I mean, I have all these rows pretty well organized. That row on the left there, it has some dahlia seedlings. Growing dahlias from seed is really fun because you never quite know what you're going to get. The genetics in terms of dahlias are just so vast and saving seeds from established tubers last year and the year before. I've been saving several seasons now and I've got some really beautiful results from them. So once again, I am really excited to grow from seed. Those have about a foot spacing. I mean ideally they could be a little further apart but in most cases I like to just get a good set of tubers the first growing season for dahlias from seed and then after that focus on the actual flower production and seeing what I get and pulling the rejects and keeping the pretty ones and all that kind of good stuff there. Also in this video I wanted to show you the strawberry patch. Now this is a first season strawberry patch. A lot of people say don't let them, you know, pinch off the flowers and whatnot. I went ahead and I just, you know, I let them make some strawberries. Fresh strawberries are so delicious and I cannot resist myself. There's certain things that when you grow it yourself is just exponentially better and I strawberries are definitely one of those. I ended up making a strawberry pie as per my mother's request because it is absolutely one of her favorites. I had plenty of these delicious gorgeous juicy ripe strawberries. They were so sweet. They were so tender. They're so good. Oh this pie ended up being so good. You'll of course have to forgive my crust making skills. I don't know what it is about pie crust but I cannot get the little edge, the little pinchy edge. I can never make it look good. As many pies as I ever have made, it always looks just ugly. Put a little crumble topping on there too. That was extra tasty. Going back to the garden, speaking of dahlias, I showed you the dahlias from seed. These are the dahlias that were grown from established tubers that I either had in my old yard or I started this year. I only ordered a few new tubers this year just because uh dahliamania is a thing that I just can't compete with it. Everybody's so like, you know, into it and I just hate the disappointment of not being able to get, you know, the different things that I want. So I have a few tried and true varieties here in my yard and hopefully I will continue to collect more and amass a bigger collection here in this yard. Other things in the garden, taking a look around, the gladiolus are looking pretty darn good if I don't say so myself. Using a grass clipping mulch this year to see if that helps with suppressing the weeds a bit. A lot of very, very vigorous weeds in this new yard simply because it was just an empty abandoned field with 10 foot high grass and weeds and stuff. So there are a lot of really aggressive species in here. The sunflowers that I planted weeks ago now are up and they're doing well. These are really looking good. They're uniform. So far, knock on wood, I haven't had too much damage done by the deer. There's a few spots where it's really patchy where they went through and they definitely did some chomping through the hair. There are about six different varieties in this row of sunflowers. So the heights and the sizes are varying a little bit, which bums me out because I like uniformity. But I'm not going to complain. This is so far much better than I had expected. So I'm pleasantly surprised. It hasn't rained here in a while. I'm kind of getting nervous. Kind of need it to rain soon. So I think sunflowers are looking good moving on. Also, I have a lot of kind of odds and ends plants here in the yard. Is this too big to call a yard now? I'm going to call it a yard. I have some moonflower and some Seminole winter squash. Seminole winter squash is my favorite. It's a muscata. It's really disease resistant and resistant to bugs. So it's always a dependable performer. As well as some cantaloupes. I can't remember the exact name. I think these are the Prescott Ford cantaloupes. There are also some other squash. This is the musky de Provence or however you say it. I clearly don't speak French. I barely speak English. But I'm excited about these. I always love the foliage of these. The little kind of like mottled look is really pretty. And also have some watermelon. This is obviously moon and stars. You can tell because it's already getting that signature yellow spotting that is so loved by many. I should be excited to see these. I hope that we get some watermelons. It's been probably 10 years since I could grow watermelons because I've never had the space. I'm so excited. Under random plants in beds we have some torchethonia or Mexican sunflower. This is a pretty one for the hummingbirds and monarch butterflies. Usually blooming in late fall before the weather changes. Also we have some beds full of a different type of sunflower. These are dwarf sunflowers. So it should be interesting to see the contrast between the full-size sunflowers and these dwarf varieties. That's really about it for this video. I hope that it was somehow helpful. It probably wasn't because really it's just a quick look around at what's growing and what's going on. Definitely trying to get a lot done here to get ready for the season. But hey, thank you so much for taking the time to watch. It really does mean a lot to me. I hope you're having such a great day because you know what? You totally deserve it. So I'll talk to y'all later. Bye!