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We are still using the drip tape and everything is still working as it was at the beginning. We did get a thicker, quality drip tape which is made to last close to 10 years. We have accidentally punctured a piece of tape here or there with a pinprick hole, a few we just cauterized with super glue and that has worked well. However, we could easily replace a row of tape if need be. Hope that helps.

We do practice no dig gardening in our raised beds but growing in ground here is not possible due to the gophers and native sandy soil. We have to attach hardware cloth to the bottom of the beds to keep them out. When we grow hundreds of plants a year, trying to cage each one of them if growing in the ground isn't feasible.

That is great to hear and good luck on your project!

We don't have a video but we have an article on our website on how to fill raised beds: homesteadandchill.com/how-to-fill-raised-garden-bed-perfect-organic-soil/

@@HomesteadandChill Thank You, very much appreciated….

@@ronshewchuk4013 You are very welcome, good luck!

Good luck on building your raised bed and have fun growing!

The ink is fine as most of them are plant based inks, we have never experienced any issues in over 15 years of vermicomposting.

Thank you so much for the kind words and we are glad to hear you found the video helpful!

Thank you so much and glad you enjoyed the tour!

That's great to hear and have fun growing!

@@HomesteadandChill 100% having fun

You can find pre-made raised beds online but they do typically require some assembly to put them together. We have a few Birdies metal raised beds that we grow berries in that work really well, however, they do have small screws and nuts that need to be secured throughout the raised bed, maybe you have someone that can help you assemble them?

They are red wiggler composting worms and you could start out with a small amount (around 250 worms) as their population will increase with time. You just wouldn't feed them a large amount of food as they won't be able to compost it in time (they eat their body weight in food per day). We have got worms at Uncle Jim's Worm Farm but there are various sites online that sell them. Hope that helps and good luck!

That's great to hear and good luck with your harvest!

You could just use 4x4's as your main post instead of using t posts, you would just need to concrete them into place or use a concrete pier to secure it. This would obviously make your trellises much more sturdy as well. Hope that helps and good luck!

Thank you!

That is great to hear and no, we didn't use plumbers tape on any of the fittings and they do not leak. Good luck!

@@HomesteadandChillThanks for taking the time to respond. Much appreciated.

@@dmrouls1 Absolutely, good luck on your project!

So glad you found the video helpful! As you continue to add shredded newspaper or shredded cardboard, that is considered adding more bedding material. If you harvest a lot of castings at one time and deplete the contents of the bin by a bit, you can feel free to add more coco coir. Good luck!

So great to hear, we don't typically stain the raised beds as they will hold up great without it. The wood does start to turn more grey in color as it ages but it shouldn't have an impact on the durability of the wood itself. We did use GardenSeal (which we linked in the caption) which is a food safe/ non-toxic sealant but it's not something that you have to do either. Our beds have since faded to grey from their original bright redwood color that is shown in the video. Hope that helps and good luck!

You are very welcome and that is great to hear, good luck!

The first few days after starting the bin is when they will typically try and escape as they get used to their new home. We have found that laying sheets of newspaper over the top will typically reduce the chances of the worms doing this. As long as their environment is good (not too wet, too much food, etc.), they typically won't want to leave the bin. Sometimes they will collect in the lid of the storage tote but we haven't really ever found them outside of the bin. Hope that helps.

If you have the beds on concrete, they will definitely get your concrete wet and likely discolor it with the water runoff. When we have put raised beds on concrete, we have added landscape fabric and hardware cloth to the bottom to help keep the soil within the beds but we didn't have a way to control the flow of the runoff. The problem with using plastic on the bottom to control runoff, even if you have the beds at a slight downward grade to direct the runoff and punch holes in that end of the plastic, there is still a chance for the soil to become too water logged which leads to anaerobic conditions which you do not want for soil and plant health. With good watering practices, it may be something you can control but if you receive any amount of rain throughout the year and can't keep the beds covered, it could lead to less than ideal conditions. Here is our article on building a raised bed on concrete if you want to see how we do it: homesteadandchill.com/build-raised-garden-bed-on-concrete/

We do have PVC running to each bed itself all coming off a valve which has a 40 psi regulator. Then in each be we have a 15 psi regulator to reduce the water pressure at each bed so it meets the psi requirements for our specific drip tape that we used.

The holes in chicken wire aren't large enough to fit your hand through to start harvesting tomatoes. Chicken wire is also too flimsy to stand up on its own so you would need to create a frame for it to stick to using bamboo, wood, or rebar stakes.

Not very often, we typically just keep feeding more food scraps and shredded newspaper or cardboard. Occasionally, after a really big harvest of castings, we will add a small amount of additional bedding material such as coco coir or soil in addition to the shredded newspaper. Occasionally, if your worm bin mixture gets out of wack, you may have to add more coco coir or soil if it becomes too wet or if it looks like the material is almost all worm castings.

Right now, we can build one of these beds for just under $200 buying the materials at our local Home Depot. You don't need to worry about us growing plenty of veggies and flowers in these beds as they have something growing in them year round. Here is a tour of the garden from the summer of 2023: ua-cam.com/video/cQEdQ8tn-rw/v-deo.html

So great to hear you are starting a worm bin once again, you should be fine with the soil you started with and likely don't need coco coir as the soil will be the bedding. Although it is a good bedding material to have on hand if you ever want to add to your bin. Good luck!

We didn't want it to have 3" added to either direction so it was personal preference there. Glad you enjoyed the video.

You will just need to run the system for a set amount of time, let's say an hour, then check the soil moisture for a few days afterwards and see how moist it stays. We will typically run a system like this twice a week or even every 4 days for an hour at a time but that can vary depending on your climate (temperature), rainfall totals, and the plants that are in the beds (as well as their irrigation needs as they grow larger). We will typically do the math on the water output by counting how many emitters there are in the entire bed, if there are 20 total emitters along the drip line(s) that drip .25 gallons per hour, we know the bed would get around 5 gallons of water total in an hour. Most soil and plants do best with more infrequent and deep waterings as opposed to more frequent and less amount of water per waterings. Hope that helps and good luck!

@@HomesteadandChill This is exactly what I needed to know, thank you!

That is so great to hear and thank you so much for following along through various platforms. We aren't sure just yet if we will do a summer 2024 tour this year or not. We may feel more inspired to do so once everything is really growing and in full bloom. Obviously we will share a lot more on IG as the garden really starts to get going. Thanks again and have fun growing!

Tomato plants need airflow to reduce the chance of disease so it is not recommended to plant them on both sides of the trellis. You won't be able to easily harvest the fruit and they will likely grow into quite the mess. Some people who heavily prune their tomatoes to only one single leader can keep their tomatoes 12-18" apart which would allow you to fit closer to 6 per row (but you would need to prune aggressively and stay on top of it throughout the growing season). We find that planting 4 tomatoes per bed, even pruning to 4-6 leaders per plant takes up a lot of space in the bed but still allows us to plant basil and marigolds closer to the edge of the beds. Hope that helps and good luck!

Makes a lot of sense! Thank you so much!

Thank you so much!

Thank you so much and we hope you enjoy our content!

Most ink is vegetable or soy based so it shouldn't harm the worms, we haven't had an issue with it whatsoever over the years.

So glad you found the video helpful, our property is definitely not weed free at all. When this video was taken it was late summer or early fall and being that we are in California, that means it hadn't rained for months at the very least. I know people who have large properties and acreage that use goats to control weeds. Whether the goats are always on the land or are rented out as weed control. Good luck!

Sounds like a good idea, good luck!

So great to hear, have fun growing!

Yes you can store castings, keeping them in a breathable storage tote should work. You may not need to harvest the castings either if you just keep adding more bedding and food to your bin, as long as you have space in your worm bin for more material, you can just keep the system going and leave whatever castings are there inside until you need them. Hope that helps and good luck!

Thank you so much and hopefully drip tape irrigation works out well for you. In regards to the other raised beds with pressure treated wood and corrugated steel, the previous owners were the ones who built them or had them built, we just inherited them. We haven't had the time nor the energy to replace them just yet but may do so in the future.

Thank you so much! In regards to the fireplace, you are absolutely correct there, we do have one on our back porch but have settled for a round table in the garden space.

We planned out our garden with specific spacing between the beds which included the beds being exactly 4x8 feet in dimension. It also allows for us to assemble them in a more ergonomic way. You still have to cut an 8 foot board in half even if you want them 4 feet wide, we just make an extra cut to make the outer dimensions exactly 4x8 feet.

We have our garden on automated drip irrigation using drip tape. It is usually set for twice a week for 60 to 90 minutes depending on the time of year. When it gets especially hot and the plants are fully mature, we have occasionally watered three times a week. I can't really say how much you should water as there are many factors that can influence your watering depending on the irrigation you are using as well as the temperature and rainfall that you may or may not get. Tomatoes in general like slow and deep waterings so they can really stretch their roots.

@@HomesteadandChill that’s super helpful thank you! I’ve tried 30 min a day every day on 1 gallon drippers and they never get that tall. I’ll try longer periods less frequently.

@@PetarBojinov Exactly, I would maybe even switch the emitters to 2 gallon per hour and water for 45 minutes to an hour, check the soil each day thereafter and see how moist the soil stays. Maybe start with twice a week for close to an hour each watering and see how they do. When your tomato plants are smaller, they will obviously use less water. If your summer weather gets relatively hot and as they grow in size, you will likely need to water for longer and maybe more often. The tomatoes in this trellis system also grow taller because we prune some of their suckers so they grow more into a wall versus a large vining bush. I should also note that these are indeterminate varieties which are vining types that continue to grow throughout the season. Determinate tomatoes are a bush type that normally only grow 4-5 feet tall and should not be pruned in this way. Be sure you know which types the varieties are that you grow.

You can't really link lumber when it varies depending on where the person lives as most people don't shop for lumber online but do so locally. Redwood is roughly $17-20 per 8 foot 2x6 board here, you can still build a raised bed for around $200. We have yet to find a pre made bed that is a similar size or has the same durability for the same price. If you can garden in ground, that is obviously a cheaper option.

Most inks used are non toxic so nothing to worry about there. We have been using various types of newspaper over 15 plus years and have never had an issue.

You can as long as you don't add/spray pesticides or inorganic fertilizers on your grass which can harm the worms. Also, the grass can clump and mat together and become quite slimy. I would start out with a small amount and see how it goes before adding larger amounts.

Uncle Jim's Worm Farm but there are a number of companies online that you can order from as well. You likely only need a 500 worms or so to start.