The inspiring story behind famed gardener @Selfsufficientme | My Garden Path | Gardening Australia

[Music] handsome looking guy good day I'm Mark Valencia retired Soldier founder of self-sufficient me the YouTube channel and also website I'm into sustainability self-sufficiency upcycling recycling anything to do with nature let's get get into [Music] it well I'm a Garder from belmir belir is near kulture it's about an hour's drive from Brisbane nah and my wife we moved out here in 2006 the whole premise of it was to one day uh leave the military and live a quieter life we both had very busy jobs so we've been talking about how this is affecting us and affecting more our children so we would get up at dark drop the children off at child care and then picked them up at dark and it wasn't much of a life at all I looked at N I said one of us is going to have to stay at home and she looked at me and she went it's not going to be me and I went oh all right well I'll give it a go and she said right so I put my discharge in and and decided to make a fist of it here it wasn't easy we went on the one wage thing and we R Peter to pay Paul for a good five or six years it was really tough and we knew that one of our biggest bills was the groceries so I just went to work trying to grow as much produce as I could in the backyard to cover the costs of of living really even though we had stuff or money ironically we were still happier we got three acres when we first got here it was just this big vacant lot in the Middle with one stump down the last acre was just scrub and we cleaned all that up we got the chickens settled down there and in the meantime we started putting in garden beds and putting in fruit trees now that we've got all these mature fruit trees and a veggie garden and I've learned all this Horticultural stuff on how to grow it comes easy to me now when I was in the military we were required to jump out of a perfectly good aircraft and as I went to jump out the guy in front of me barked at the door and I almost fell over the top of him but then he went but as I fell the static line wrapped around my wrist and there's this burn mark here I got sucked out of the plane at that point and my arm was was connected basically to the aircraft and it smashed me back and I think I hit the side of the door or the side of the plane and it basically spiral fractured my forearm both those bones that was only the start because the actual breaking of the arm freed me from the plane and then I was out in the air trying to get to the ground I ended up hitting the landing which is probably the hardest part you could ever pick out so I did a lot of damage but luckily I did survive I almost did lose the arm a couple of times it was a real Turning Point N and I both suffered from PTSD on account of a military service good morning ladies near-death experience really does make you appreciate every day and I like to try to to stop every day and think be in the moment this is the moment live it now it could be just walking through the garden looking at a bee it's amazing I I don't know I'd probably put it at number one the mental health aspects of a garden it doesn't have to be a food Garden but for me food gardening gives me even more it's just that satisfaction of having to go grow something and then Harvest it and then you're eating it it helps me more with my mental health than anything people would come over for a Barbie and they would ask how did you make this preserve how did you grow this and so I'd be telling this same story over and over and one day after everyone had gone Nina sat me down she said look Mark I love your stories but honey they are really driving me crazy I'm hearing the same thing over and over do me a favor get a website use your computer and then just direct people to it and then you don't have to go through this long thing of explaining it I went yeah it's a great idea and then I thought well there's this thing called YouTube perhaps I could also make a YouTube channel at the same time and do some instructional videos yeah I've got these Tomatoes here you can hopefully see along this Farrow got about 15 tomato plants my first I'd say 100 videos were just awful thanks for watching bye for now I almost gave up because I wasn't getting much traction I was too rigid and awkward too much of an army instructor and not just myself it wasn't paying any bills I had this lemon tree I loved this tree and uh I just stood in front of it I had the camera and uh I thought you know what I'm just going to tell people how it is I just was myself tip number one position this is one of the most important things you can do when you're sighting and planting a lemon tree and about 3 months later my phone just went crazy and I looked at it and there was all these messages saying congratulations you got your first thousand likes on a video and then were ding-ding congratulations an hour later was your first 10,000 likes on a video congratulations and before knew it I had 100,000 subscribers and that's where my YouTube career just took off good day I'm Mark from self-sufficient me and I love to bury things in the garden from then on um yeah I've just been overwhelmed with the support that I've got to uh now the channel I think is is over 2.2 million subscribers and on Facebook 1.2 million subscribers so yeah over 3 million all up you got to pinch yourself and I still find it surreal and I will never ever take it for granted I realized I'm on to something bigger than just cost savings here the mental health benefits and the physical benefits of getting out getting into it getting into the garden really do help people especially if you have a few troubles which most of do in life gardening even if it's a balcony Garden can help a lot let's get into [Music] it

Channel: Gardening Australia

Views: 123,211

Keywords: Gardening, Gardening Australia, garden, gardening tips, gardening advice, plants, how to, ABC, ABC TV, Mark Valencia, Self Sufficient Me, self-sufficient me, self sufficient, sustainable, sustainability, sustainable gardening, sustainable gardening practices, gardening, famous youtuber, gardening expert, garden design, garden inspiration, garden advice, gardening guru, plant advice, growing tips, planting tips, garden tips, garden expert, youtube expert

Id: hLL-h6WA4cw

Length: 7min 50sec (470 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 09 2024