Adeline of Bohodukhiv plants a garden

Adeline is the youngest sister of Athanasius who posts on Youtube. She studied in Germany and then moved back to the family compound. She teaches German language "remotely" and posts cooking and family-life videos on Youtube.

She recently moved out of the family compound. It may have been difficult to work remotely due to ambient noise, power outages and general chaos.

The first order-of-business after moving was to put in a garden. Several things struck me as notable in this video:

• Adeline and her helper are very industrious. They keep working and working and working.
• The only power-tool I saw them use was a cordless drill. Everything else was done with hand-tools. I saw them use a mobile-home anchor as an auger to dig holes for trellis posts, for instance.
• Other than seeds, the only "purchased/manufactured" materials I saw them use was netting for the cucumbers to climb on.
• Their soil was very easy to work. It is "Chemozem" or "Black soil". The garden appeared to have been used in 2025 since the only weeds were common annuals like Wild Lettuce and Lambsquarters.

Other observations that are making me think

While videos like this can be inspirational to new gardeners, it comes with some caveats.

If a person were to attempt to exactly replicate her garden in the US, for instance, he would likely have problems. Most specifically, the planting density that she uses.

Things like planting density depend on "the system". Context matters.

• Varieties planted
• Training 
• Soil fertility
• Dryland or irrigated 
• Weed control plan
• Disease pressure 

My father, for example, planted potatoes in hills that were planted in a 36" grid in both directions. He cultivated (kept the weeds under control) with a rototiller with a 24" width. First he would till east-west and then he would follow with a north-south tilling. He did not have the means to water the garden during dry-spells nor did he use significant amounts of fertilizer.  

All of those pieces fit together. Effective cultivation conserved water and the low density meant that the individual potato plants were not competing with each other for the limited moisture and fertility. While his harvest per unit-area was low, he cultivated enough area to have plenty of potatoes.

I, on the other hand, plant at about three times that density. But I fertilize and I use impulse sprinklers to water the garden through dry spells. You cannot mix-and-match details from the two systems although sometimes you might get lucky with rain and fertile soils.

Some examples from the video:

She is planting a boat-load of carrot seeds per inch. Perhaps they will suppress weeds?

 

This row-spacing commits them to hand cultivating

In this image she is planting tomato plants.

By midwestern standards, this is a very high planting density.

From a systems standpoint, it could work with a "determinate" tomato variety like Roma trained to a single shoot per plant and modest amounts of fertility. A dry summer climate is also a part of the system...high plant densities and wet weather foster disease.

That is one reason for finding a local gardening mentor. YOUR local conditions and the best methods might be very different than what a glamorous influencer does.