My Garden is RUINING My Life!

It's official, my garden is ruining my life. I have had my fair share of garden struggles over the years, but nothing like this. This has turned into such a time suck that I have had zero free time to myself over the last three months. I was born in New Jersey and spent the first 31 years of my life farming and gardening in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The climate there is fairly easy for vegetable gardening because the region has a true three month summer. Frost sensitive crops don't get planted out into the garden until May, and they get killed by frost in early October, so the growing season is warm enough to produce great harvests, but it isn't long enough for intense heat, disease, and pest issues to fester. By the time the crops get worn down naturally, the season is basically over anyway. Moving to Wilmington, North Carolina in 2017 was the shock of my life. My tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers get transplanted in late March, early April here, and by the time June is over, we have already accumulated more days over 90 degrees than we would get all year long in New Jersey combined. Then the torrential rains start. Again, we average more rainfall from June to September here than New Jersey gets all year long on average, so come mid-July, almost all of my annual vegetables were dead. I quickly learned the hard way that I didn't know the first thing about gardening when I moved here. Rather than quit gardening, I decided to research why plants I used to be able to grow with ease wouldn't grow here, and that's when I discovered the art of food forest design. I quickly realized that virtually every annual vegetable that we grow in our gardens aren't pioneer species. They're almost all vines, shrubs, and glorified weeds that naturally grow along forest floors under the protection of a forest canopy, hidden from full sun, direct rainfall, winds, and pests. Tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, cucumbers, squashes, leafy greens, and brassicas, they are all glorified weeds that humans have bred for centuries to give large fruits, but none of them ever adapted to grow out in the open. We only grow them out in the open up north because growing seasons are short there, but if you have a long or very hot growing season, the plants need to grow under the protective canopy like they're used to and adapted to, otherwise exposure to full sun and rain will kill them and attract huge swarms of pests. So I started to find ways to emulate the protection of a forest canopy, and the first thing I did was I started to experiment with shade cloth. I had this idea in my head that by using shade cloth, I could have the best of both worlds where I could plant my garden out in full sun in early spring when the sun was gentle, and then put up the shade cloth overhead in the summer and emulate that native forest protective canopy hammock when the plants need the protection when the sun is the worst. Then take it down again in mid-August when the UV and the day length begins to decline rapidly and before hurricane season kicks in here. So I bought my first shade cloth back in 2020, and after using it, the results were dramatic. The shade cloth dramatically reduced my plants' stress so much that disease pressure was mostly eliminated, insect pest pressure fell off a cliff, pollination rates increased, and watering demands were cut in half. Since then, I've purchased eight of them, and I've erected them in different orientations all around my yard, and I've been singing the praises of shade cloth ever since. This discovery extended the life of my garden from about mid-July into September, a huge increase no doubt, but it wasn't enough on its own. The insane rainfall and humidity would still take its toll, so I had to push further. My second solution was to install drip irrigation to as many of my garden beds as possible. My thought was, the ridiculous rainfall here was causing the remainder of my problems, so drip irrigation could help by keeping my soil more evenly moist during the dry spells and create less plant stress. Drip irrigation turned out to be one of my best investments. Not having to irrigate manually saved me countless hours of hard manual labor, and it made a dramatic difference in my plants' health off-season during the spring and the fall. However, it didn't fix my summer rainfall problem because the problem I had in the summer was just too much water. That's when I discovered fertigation, my third solution. You can purchase a fertilizer injector, and you can automatically inject concentrated water-soluble fertilizers into your irrigation lines, fertilizing your entire garden instantly. My hypothesis was, as temperatures increase, plants become more stressed, and they need more nutrition to battle that stress. However, as temperatures increase, we humans start slacking off because we don't want to do our garden chores when it's really hot outside. So what really happens is, as our garden fertilizer needs increase with temperature, we actually fertilize less to avoid being outside working in the heat. Therefore, if I could automate the process, I could feed my plants more reliably when they need it. This system was a true game-changer. By keeping my plants better fed, they were better able to survive the heat. Last year was the first year ever I had a substantial number of my tomato plants survive in the ground from March all the way into mid-November. They survived a whopping eight months. I was able to pick so many tomatoes before my first November frost that I was eating fresh tomatoes I had stored in my garage all the way until January. But still, I wanted to do better. I wanted more of my tomatoes to survive all the way until frost, and I was still struggling to keep my cucumbers and squash plants alive beyond early October once the nights begin cooling off. And while my other plants were still surviving, I was taking huge crop losses, especially my tomatoes and peppers. The torrential rainfall was causing huge amounts of fruits to crack, split, and rot on the plants, which would then drop off, start rotting on the ground, and bring in plagues of flies. A lot of gardeners would ask me what I do with my enormous harvest from my big garden, but I'd have to explain to them it's not nearly as much as you think because we lose half our crops to the rainfall, so half gets composted or just thrown away. It was such a waste. That's when I decided to attack my most difficult problem of all, the rainfall. My fourth and possibly final solution to everything was to build a roof over my summer garden. It took me two entire years of installing wood posts, 2x4s, and cattle panel, but I finally got a roof up and strapped these incredible greenhouse tarps to it. The greenhouse tarps effectively function as a rain block and shade cloth because the thick UV-resistant plastic blocks a substantial amount of UV, giving me the benefits of full sun gardening with reduced solar intensity. The end result is miraculous. It blocks rain like a champ, keeping my crops dry in even the worst of downpours, yet standing underneath the tarps is like walking into a shade house when the sun is out. It is so much cooler underneath. Pairing this with my drip irrigation and fertilizer injector, I now have a garden that stays dry, cool, and irrigates and fertilizes itself. It's nearly July and my garden is in a condition that I have never seen it in before this late into the season. My tomato plants are utterly perfect, virtually disease free, and bearing fruit like I have never experienced, and not a single tomato has cracked. I am totally blown away. Even the heirloom style dwarf tomatoes, which are usually susceptible to so many problems, are just doing amazing. They're putting on the biggest crop that I've ever had, and I've been harvesting them for over a month. By the way, I'll place links down in the video description to all of the videos that I've referenced so far, like my drip irrigation installation, how to inject fertilizer into the drip lines, and how I built my garden's roof. I'll also place direct links down in the video description to all of the different items that I mentioned, like the shade cloth, greenhouse roof tarps, fertilizer injector, and more. Now that all of these systems are working together, the production that I'm getting is just absolutely ridiculous. I have never had so many harvests, because you see, the thing is, while I'm used to my plants setting fruits, I'm also used to a lot of them getting destroyed by the weather. So although they set, things crack, things split, things rot, and as a result, I'm not able to get absolutely insane harvests. But this year, because everything is being protected, all of the crops are coming to fruition. Everything has just been out of control, and I've been picking baskets and baskets of food every single day. Even the heirloom-style tomatoes that usually crack and split, like these Rosella purple tomatoes are swelling up into like 10 to 12-ounce beasts. They're not supposed to be this large, and they're not supposed to be this perfect. I usually get big losses every single year, and this year, they're basically turning into, aside from some small ones here and there, a lot of them are growing into being beefsteak size, and they are just everywhere. Oh, good heavens, I don't even know how I'm supposed to get all of these. I just picked a whole ton of these yesterday, and they just won't stop coming. Every time I look, I find more and more hidden clusters. I literally can't even reach back this far with this camera in the way. They're just, they're everywhere. The more you look, the more you're going to see. It's insane. It's so much food every single day, it honestly doesn't even make sense to put my food mill away. I just may as well let it have a permanent space on the counter for a few months. Because you just can't eat all of these tomatoes fresh, you have to process them, and I haven't even gotten into the cherry tomatoes yet. Look at all of these. There are more cherry tomatoes here than there are grapes in the Garden of Eden. And I also haven't even gotten into the container-grown tomatoes yet, which, by the way, aren't doing nearly as well, but they are still getting decent-sized harvests on them, and a lot of them are starting to turn color. I mean, that's a pretty massive cluster of beefsteaks right there. And so far, we've only really discussed tomatoes. I mean, my peppers are just as problematic. They are absolutely loaded and healthy, far beyond what is normal. I mean, look at all of the fruit on these pepper plants. Look at this. It's impossible to even get it all in the frame of a camera. Like, what is this right here? How is it possible that there are that many peppers on one plant? Look at the size of this bell pepper. Bells don't really even grow here, and this is practically the size of a human head. Look at all those banana peppers. It's just insane. And don't even get me started on cucumbers. I have had a cucumber season like no other. My most productive vines must have been pumping out like 50 to 100 cucumbers per vine. I mean, they're finally starting to wind down a little bit because they're getting old, but I have even more cucumbers started from seed up in my office that I'm going to replace these more tired vines with. But in the meantime, I'm still getting huge cucumbers off of them, and I have more of them that I know what to do with. Even the squash production is a problem. I really wanted to try some of the zucchini rampacantes fresh and green this year, but I'm having so much zucchini production that I didn't really need to eat them. I couldn't get to them all. So I guess I'm just going to let them firm up and harden and kind of become more like butternut squash because I can't eat them all. I'll just store them for later. Luckily, these babies store for like a year once they're nice and hardened up. They're really special. Even the seedless watermelons are going hard this year. I'm very happy with them so far. This video isn't made to be a flex or a humblebrag. It's just meant to show you that these techniques that I've been promoting for years really do work. These videos aren't meant to be clickbait to sucker you into just watching them. This channel has always been and will always be about problem solving with real-world solutions that normal people can afford to employ to help their gardens produce better. After all these years, I think I've finally achieved that for myself. But now I have a new problem. My garden is officially too productive. These solutions have fixed my problems and now that I'm not losing my crops like I'm used to losing every single summer when the rains start, I'm being drowned by harvests every single day. I have officially gotten too good at this and now I have so much food coming in, I'm spending hours a day trying to figure out what to do with it all. So now I'm going to answer the question that thousands of you have asked over the years. What am I going to do with all this food? The overproduction problem actually began in April when my blackberries and blueberries started going off. Now that my plants are all five years old, they're pumping out huge amounts of food. I started by filling up gallon bags with blueberries and freezing them, which is the easiest way to store excess food, but I quickly ran out of freezer space. Then I started processing the blackberries and blueberries into jam. This is by far the best way to store the harvests of acidic fruits as proper canning techniques will keep these shelves stable for over a year and excess jars make great gifts for family, friends, and neighbors. Just this week, I made all of this blueberry jam that you see right here, plus a little bit more that I have open in my fridge, and all of this blackberry jam was from last month. The problem is canning takes a long time. It takes around an hour and a half to two hours to make a single batch of jam, so you can't just do it at the drop of a hat. You need some free time. So in order to use more of the fresh harvests right off of the plants, I've been making dog-friendly healthy cake for both ourselves and to share with Dale for dessert every single night since it's clean, relatively low calorie, and simple. In a powerful blender, I add two cups of oats, three extra ripe bananas, two eggs, a quarter cup of honey, one teaspoon baking soda, one teaspoon vanilla extract, and half to one teaspoon of cinnamon. Alternatively, you can substitute one 15-ounce can of pumpkin puree for the three ripe bananas. Then you blend all of the ingredients on high until smooth. Then after you get that all-purpose batter, you add your fresh fruits and stir it in. I've been stirring in fresh blueberries, chopped apples or peaches, and unsweetened coconut flakes. Then you pour it into a 9x9-inch pan and bake it for 350 Fahrenheit or 175 C for 25 minutes. Dale and us absolutely love it. We share it for dessert with some plain Greek yogurt literally every single night. Of course, if you aren't making this bread to share with a dog, you can always add chocolate chips or nuts or whatever else you'd like to it, but since we're sharing it with Dale, we like to make sure it's all dog-safe ingredients and we love it regardless. I've literally been making one of these every week for the last three months to use the harvests. Now that it's officially cucumber and pepper season, I've been pickling up a storm. Last year, I showed you how to make pickles from scratch. I like pickling everything, cucumbers, peppers, radishes, carrots, and more. Plus, the garden is just overflowing with fresh dill right now. Now, when my cucumbers began, I made a gallon of these, refrigerator pickles. When you don't go through the trouble of boiling and processing the jars, you need to store them in the refrigerator to keep, but you can do it in less than half the amount of time this way, so it's really, really quick. The problem is now I've run out of fridge space, so I had to switch to canning them shelf-stable. I just made a bunch of these shelf-stable pickles last week that you see right here. I also made a few jars of fresh salsa this week. This is technically pico de gallo and it stores in the fridge for about a week. I have a couple of these. So, of course, I've been eating tomato, basil, and cucumber salads as well, literally every night for the last few weeks to make use of the harvest fresh, too. But I still have way too many tomatoes. I'm getting a basket like this every single day right now. So, just this afternoon, I took about 40 tomatoes, I pureed them in my blender until smooth, and passed them through a fine sieve in a food mill to remove all of the skins and seeds. That is now slowly reducing with some fresh basil into tomato puree on my stovetop as we speak. And I'll use that for sundae sauce tomorrow after it cools and thickens in the fridge overnight. But you can also process this tomato puree in canning jars, in mason jars, and boil them for shelf-stable storage, but I just don't have the time to do it right now. But even after all of the tomato sauce processing, salsa making, salads, and pickling, and everything else, we still have so many excess vegetables and tomatoes that last night Dale and I literally went for a 45-minute walk around the neighborhood with a basket of tomatoes and cucumbers in my hand, and I handed them out to literally anyone I could find that passed us and was out walking that night that would be willing to take them. Totally normal neighbor behavior, I'm sure, but hey, we're a friendly neighborhood, and Talk about a conversation starter when you walk up with a fresh basket of garden tomatoes to someone. It's just crazy how everybody's interested in them, but so few people grow them. I just want to tell everyone, you know, you could be growing these yourself. In so many ways, this has all been such a blessing. I have been able to defeat nearly every single one of my garden problems over time, and I've honed my gardening skills beyond anything I've ever thought possible, and I've gotten pretty decent at this whole homesteading thing as well. I've gotten good at this, and my hard work and dedication has been rewarded by incredible abundance. I mean, I spent $57 in total on groceries this week at the store for me, my wife, and Dale because we cook all of Dale's food fresh every single week. $57, all in. All I needed was some meat for all of us, a couple of toiletries, milk, and yogurt. Everything else is being provided by my garden and my fruit trees. We are eating like princes for the budget of paupers right now thanks to the garden, and for that, I am so incredibly grateful. But it comes at a cost. I am basically homesteading right now on top of my normal schedule. I do all my own filming, editing, and uploading, plus I do 100% of the work in my yard and garden by myself. I don't have any help, I don't pay anyone to do anything, plus I still work my engineering job. So now that I'm doing two hours of food harvesting and prep every single day, this has turned into literally 100 hours of work a week, every single week, keeping this all going since this all started months ago and the harvest all came rolling in and transplanting season began. So I'm able to keep up this pace because I really love it more than anything, but I've been burning the candle at both ends more than ever before right now, and it is burning me out. It's just too much and I can't sustain this all for much longer. It's really becoming a burden and it's stressing me out. To make things even more difficult this year, YouTube changed their algorithm and they're promoting shorts content more than long format content this year, and when you pair that with all of the AI slop that's being dumped onto the platform, it's been really, really hard for long format content creators such as myself to find new audiences because of all the other stuff that's being promoted. So if you enjoy videos like this and it's really helpful for you, made by a real human being, I'd really appreciate it if you hit the like button, subscribe to the channel, and you left a comment because all of those things influence the algorithm to share the video more across the platform. I really appreciate your support. What I'm learning is the unintended consequences of success. I've become so much more efficient at growing food, but I have not scaled back the number of plants that I'm growing. Quite the opposite. I'm growing more plants than ever while increasing the average productivity per plant as I hone my gardening skills. The problem is, I'm not eating more as a person. The demand isn't there. If anything, I'm getting older and I'm eating less every year over time, so I'm drowning myself with unnecessary amounts of work because I have an addiction to growing plants I just struggle to control, which is stressing me out to levels I can no longer handle. This is all self-inflicted stress, and it's a monument to my own insanity and plant addiction. I have a feeling a lot of you can relate to this. So I want this video to serve as a summary of the most successful gardening techniques that I've developed over the years that really do work, but also serve as a warning that, at some point, it can become too much and the abundance can shift from a blessing to a curse. This is consistent with wealth in general. For example, reaching a comfortable level of monetary wealth can be a blessing. A life where you don't have any debt and you don't have to worry about paying the mortgage, utility bills, and credit card bills is an incredible blessing because you eliminate the stress of not being able to make ends meet. But this can go too far. People can also achieve a level of monetary wealth where it becomes too much. It can become like a video game to you where you obsess over beating last year's numbers and you descend into this rabbit hole of wealth building where all that matters is making more than the year before. That obsession can be worse than not being able to make ends meet and you lose yourself in the process. I fear I'm approaching that mindset with my garden. I've become so obsessed with growing as much as possible that it's shifted from a blessing to an obsession and I need to take ownership of that and scale back. I constantly discuss the concept of succession planting on this channel. The idea of instead of planting all of your crops at once and going from zero harvests to way too many harvests, stagger your plantings and spread the work out over a longer window and therefore your harvests over a longer window. I understood how to do that when I was fighting the weather and the pests because I'd lose so much of my harvest to them every single year. But now that I have mostly fixed these problems, I need to rethink how to do this. I need to relearn gardening underneath this protective structure and I need to learn how to better control my plant growing addiction or at least stagger the plantings more so I'm not managing so much all at once. I'm going to work on that, I think. I hope. So I really and truly hope that you gained a lot of information from this video. I wanted to show how well these garden techniques that I've developed over the last decade and share with you truly work and hopefully inspire you to implement as many of them as possible to boost your harvests to make your life easier. But I also wanted to share what happens when you take things too far. These techniques work so well to boost productivity that if you employ them while increasing the size of your garden, you can quickly reach a point where your garden becomes a monument to your own insanity and managing the harvest become a full-time job in and of itself. We want our gardens to be a blessing, not a curse. That being said, I also wanted to show you all the awesome ways that I've learned how to use, store, and preserve my harvests. These harvests are worth saving because it's the healthiest, finest, most delicious food on earth and it needs to be saved. Just don't overdo it to a point where it becomes a burden. Gardening is about the journey. You have to enjoy the journey. So everybody, I genuinely hope you enjoyed this video and you found it helpful. If you did, please hit the like button, subscribe to the channel, and ring the notification bell so you're notified when I release more videos like these. I placed direct links down in the video description to all of the how-to tutorials that I mentioned throughout this video to help you implement some of these techniques. I also placed direct links down in the video description to all of the products that I mentioned, like the shade cloth, the greenhouse tarps for my roof, and the fertilizer injector, and other things. For everything else I use in my yard and garden in real life, that is all linked in my Amazon storefront in the video description. And while you're down there, check out my website, themillennialgardener.com, for all things gardening and custom home design merch if you want to support my channel. Thank you all so much for watching and I hope to see all of you again on the next video. Here goes trouble. I can hardly even keep him in frame. He's zooming like crazy. Finished with a little tinkle. He's out bunny hunting. Aw, Mr. Good Boy is just relaxing in his paw hut. We already went for a really long walk today and it was a little bit warm. Now he came outside. He got the bunny hunt. Oh! I thought he was getting it out of his system. I said the B word. So naturally he has to smell every exit from the yard. Now he's got to check behind the rain barrels because the bunny sometimes hides back there when he's trying to run from Mr. Dale. Alright buddy, I don't want you to find another snake. I have to finish filming so we need to bring you inside where you're safe until I can keep an eye on you. The job of a hound dog is never done. The yard is never completely safe. Right buddy? You're very handsome Dale, even when you're panting and out of breath.