I have to say that your videos are so calming and grounding after listening to all the fear that is presently out there on the idiot box. I look forward to your updates and as always, I appreciate your hard work. Thank you, thank you both.
I don’t have an idiot box anymore. I only watch UA-cam and streaming services like Hulu. I got so tired of all the craziness and commercials and such-like. Haven’t looked back.
This is probably the finest and most useful and actionable series on Permaculture. I really do appreciate the effort, energy and time that takes to create this quality enriching and educational material.
I wish this series was available when I started my food forest 2 years ago. You’ve simplified so many solutions into a very straightforward process. Thanks for sharing!
Gardening in Mississippi and after falling in love with your chicken vids I have 6 hens tractoring around the yard. ( My predator pressure is intense so I let them have a walkabout while I have coffee with them in the AM and the rest of the day they are in their Omlet chicken tractor. I just pulled the spring garden out and to their delight let them scratch away for a while before I replanted for fall. They make gardening so much more pleasant and less ego-centered because if I have to pull something out or it wasn't incredibly productive, the chickens will happily destroy the evidence of my failed experiment, and they will take that vegetable matter and turn it into protein. It is kind of magical.
Nice. I'm officially into wood chips as of this summer. Finally bought a chipper and I could go all day... thankfully I have lots of shrubs and trees that needed to be pruned, haha.
I never thought I would be able to have a garden because I cant be on my hands and knees pulling weeds and things like that. My body just wont let me. But with your methods my dreams of having my own small homestead with a garden and chickens I could actually manage it! Thank you for posting your videos and making gardening more accessible to people with disabilities!
Love the updates on the potatoes and the pond work and the hay application. Lots of progress this season! Nice. We tried putting volunteer squash, melons, pumpkins interplanted with our seaberry this year. Our seaberry is in a spot where it stays drier than I'd like and they were not planted with anything else. Now the ground sprawling squash, etc. is helping the seaberry by giving them more shadowed time and less direct sun and allowing them more moisture retention as a result. Seems to be a great relationship.
Great video! Thanks for sharing your amazing experience! Your channel is my favourite of all permaculture channels on youtube, because you have such a positive attitude and voice and you think deeply about what you are doing. I managed and actively changed a garden here in Germany for the last ten years and some months ago I realized how permaculture is so much better - for the gardener, for the garden and for our planet and society. Seeing how often our garden needs watering made me think that something is elementally wrong with the way we are gardening here. On my hikes in nature I saw plants flowering in dusty, rocky dirt and nobody is ever watering them! I also knew nothing about soil life, mulching, swales, permaculture plants, N-fixers etc. despite having read multiple conventional gardening books. Also when I was buying plants in a gardening center nobody told me anything important about the plants. These centers are only for creating huge amounts of money from keeping gardeners stupid and ignorant. The worse the gardener, the better - for them. So they can sell the "special soil", "special slug solution", "special chemical fertilizer" etc. etc. and the really interesting plants for permaculture they are not selling at all. I watched almost all of your videos and currently read the third book about permaculture within two weeks. Now I am motivated to buy some really devastated property and turn it into a thriving food forest. I am tired of eating poisoned food from the super markets (pestizides/herbizides/bad fertilizer, maybe even radioactively contaminated with Uranium as some critics say, talking about mining phosphate), I also want to reduce the amount of meat I am eating. I don't want to eat anything anymore from a "brand" and I will reduce that as much as I can in the future. This is another revolution for me, after learning about the corruption of the financial (fiat money) system and the pharma mafia and doctors keeping us sick and selling chemicals to us to "help" us. No doctor here knows ANYTHING about the relationship of good , organic foods and chronical diseases. Unless you are totally overweight, the doctor will never tell you to change your diet - instead they prescribe all kinds of pharma products, which are not tackling the problem of most of these (autoimmune and/or chronical) diseases: Lack of micronutrients, vitamins, secondary plant substances and so on. This society is so sick - they tell people who get sunburn, because they are not used to the sun anymore (with zero vitamin D3 levels and white skin like a zombie) and they tell people to put sunblocker on their skin (which ironically block all D3 absorption and adds chemicals into our bodies). My little sister had a sun allergy for years, we got rid off it, giving her some D3 for a few weeks before the heat started. Now she can stay in the heat without getting burned. Humanity has created so many artificial problems, because of an unnatural livestyle. The industry is happy to solve these problems and we have to pay first with our health and then with our money to "fix" our health again with chemicals, thus creating further problems, which create another market for the industry. But we are no good consumers anymore, we are looking through this vicious circle more and more and we get out of it, also with your help. Thanks a lot for your work!!
@@ludicrousone8706 Heard about Rigotti, yes! :) @EdibleAcres Not easy at the moment, because of the high prices, but isn't it genius getting land for cheaper prices AND doing something for the planet's health (and myself) at the same time, because the land is depleted?!
You have such a calming way of explaining your projects, that your videos are not only informative and educational, they are also very soothing :) thanks!
The orange twine loops! Delighted to see someone else reuse them! They were handy this morning as I tied up a patch of Echinaceae that Isaias sent sprawling across a path. Sure didn't matter much to the insect world whether they were upright or not.
Lovely video! My cats also really enjoyed it. I thought they'd lose interest after the frogs were gone, but they especially liked they hay mulching part. They were hoping for chickens...
Thanks a lot! I think we probably have about $200 into it at this point, between the hay and some aged horse manure we bought in. Feels like a good investment.
Awesome work! We have a pretty bad drought here too this year. Something dug up one of my elderberries despite my best efforts to protect them. I'm happy the one I have left is doing very well.
I use used cardboard first then spoiled hay. For the raised beds I keep 2-4in thick squares from the hay then when I plant something I fluff up the hay so that I know I have planted in that area works amazing.
Great to see this all coming together well. I’m starting a food forest at the moment, so good to see what others are doing to help get ideas. Thanks! :)
How do you balance the heavily mulched areas and green areas to feed mycorrhizae over winter? I'm guessing your wide variety of perennials work well, but have you tried to incorporate a cover crop into the mulch? I've seen clover grow right through woodchips so i'd imagine it'd grow in rotting hay too. I'm worried about leaving patches brown over winter and want my entire garden to be as green as possible. Thanks so much, great video as always
Excellent video. Thank you. LOVE seeing the frog habitat forming :) And WOW - can't wait to see the actual harvest of the potato mound experiment! It's so wonderful that you let us listen to the sounds of nature in the background (instead of cheesy, annoying, filler music). HA HA
Looks awesome. Wow those potato results... I recognize that glacial till subsoil from a mile away. I have actually made a raised bed out of it, with a bunch of horse manure on top. It was productive right away, and still is, except for 'root food' type plants. Potatoes, carrots, onions have trouble expanding into I think. Corn, squash, peas, beans, tomatoes, peppers, even shallots do ok... anything with fruit/veggie above ground don't seem to mind at all. And when I dig down into it their fibrous roots are in it, and hopefully improving the structure, and one day in my lifetime I hope it is healthy like the forests around me. Funny note, I have spent a lot of time digging around old foundations up in those hills yonder, and the basements that were once hardpan glacial till are now are so absolutely healthy, easily dug, sometimes richer than the soil above them. Makes the imagination wonder. Just my experience.
Takes a while to break it up and get it soft, but then these soils can definitely be productive. They have to remain in cover with plants and/or mulch or they bake back into concrete in days!
Wow, you're just making great strides there. You are making it look so easy, but hey you have had some practice right? Your truck looks like it's holding up nicely too. keep the content coming it is a pleasure to watch
Very cool, what I have in abundance are leaves so that's what I've been throwing down massively for mulch and walkways. I also had some bamboo-type grass (that stuff that gets 12' high and survives in zone 5/6) which I was quite certain had died off by the time I cut it and laid it down, but recently I've started seeing shoots coming up on my walkways, so that can't be good.
Great idea with the leaves. We'll use those extensively in the fall if we can find them. I suspect that the bamboo will uproot easily if you pull it now, and then put it back down on top of a leaf area and you should be good... I've had similar stuff happen, not a big deal.
Just a thought with the clay beds; If you replaced the cap/ peak of the bed with a small trench, then back-filled with manure. The I have sandy soil here and was amazed at how well a clay/manure mix held fertility. I love the lasagna technique idea with clay and hay, I bet it would work well in most soils.
I do the same thing with grass/weeds around my plants. I just lay them down and put damp papers over top in a thick enough layer to discourage sunlight and growth at that level. Then wood chips over the top, and weed as needed. Easy enough to do. I’ve been taking out huge chunks of lawn that way, which has been incredibly helpful since I hate mowing, and I also have hay fever. This year has been really bad for that (many fields in my area are on their hay rotation) but my yard is slowly losing the hay and turning to something much better. Poly culture for the win!
Yup, that'll be the real metric. In my own potato beds, top growth doesn't seem to be too closely related to what's actually going on under ground. Vigorous greens can still not produce much worth eating, while what seem to be struggling plants can produce quite a bounty. Time will tell!
ua-cam.com/video/GNU8IJzRHZk/v-deo.html - Ruth Stout... I mention her in this video and others, I'd encourage you to watch this video about her if you are interested in her story and style. It's lovely!
Hey, Sean! Hey, Sasha! As always, great stuff I can put to use immediately on my farm and in my garden. I see you doing so many videos on dense shrub plantings lately; anything on larger tree installations coming soon? Looking to plant a few dozen apple trees and always trying to learn as much as I can from y'all.
Hello! Ty for the video , this looks like a great long term management. Do you know though if the hay will attract snakes? I’d like to try it but we struggle with a lot of copper heads in our area
EdibleAcres okay I’ll try to research more for our area. We have to keep our sheds sealed and gaps in foundation and porches . They seem to like the cavey , dark places
You mentioned how the hay had some weeds in it....this doesn't bother a smidge???.... I guess I should explain myself....I am really just starting out....and I hear so much like how you better watch out for tainted hay....or hay with seeds or it'll take over!! I live with my uncle and have next to nothing but a dream or vision to turn his backyard into something beautiful.... it's not as much property but it's FAR from some apartment patio....and I want it organic....please share your thoughts with me..... greatly appreciated
I haven’t been able to find hay in my area that hasn’t been sprayed with weed killer. I have been using straw instead, it has also been sprayed but it isn’t killing my plants. I use cardboard between plants and in the walkways to suppress the weeds with a thin layer if straw, after the chickens have used it as bedding for a week, this keeps the soil moist and makes the worms happy. We have a very heavy clay soil that was a 6ft tall patch of weeds last year when we moved in.
EdibleAcres we have some wooded areas that were very overgrown, I have been working on clearing them out and planting more edibles, we have about 6 big mulberries that gave us and the local wildlife lots of berries in spring and early summer. I plan on collecting some leaves this fall to use in the garden. I did use shavings for the chickens and put the waste on the garden paths as mulch but it was too wet in the spring and I had a lot of mildew issues so I switched to straw. I will continue to try and find some chemical free hay or straw. I have to fend the landloard off regularly, he wants to spray everything with pesticides and weed killer. So far I have kept him away from my garden area.
Ha I seem to remember on a previous video about the potatoes saying that the other 2 rows will catch up. Of course it remains to be seen what the yields are. I still believe the easiest method, true Ruth Stout style will be great for you (as it has been for us).
I have seen a advertisement for soil that is rich in beneficial bacteria and fungi. Do you think a small amount of this scattered over mulch would be worth the cost?
Those organisms live naturally in the soil. It just takes time for them to build up. Once you have mulch in place those organisms will multiply exponentially. It's not worth the money to buy it unless you want a jump start on amending your soil. But like I said previously, your soil already has these rich ingredients in it. Good luck.
Hi, Thank you for this video. It looks awesome and thank you for caring for our mother earth! Greetings from the Balkans. I like your tone . It has a calming effect. Any chance you have a compost video?? Thanks in advance
I apologise for sending you a bombardment of questions. Thanks for your patience. Nevertheless, here's my question du jour: I'm growing my potatoes under straw mulch this year for the first time. To what extent can I simply throw the straw on top of the plants, and how much do I need to worry about being gentle and moving the plants aside to tuck the straw in? I'm not sure if the plants are strong enough to simply grow through the mulch. Thanks yet again.
Happy to answer questions Colin... Potatoes are super rugged we've found. Certainly don't want to slam the foliage with heavy wood chips/rocks/etc but straw/hay/leaves flaked out and shaken between plants is so super reasonable. AIming to get it between plants, up against stalks, that's the goal, but if some is laying on top here or there the plants should grow right through. Maybe take one area and be super careful and thoughtful, one area and be looser and see what they look like in a week or two... You'll want to repeat the mulching/hilling often this summer to get best results, and if you can find time to add a little compost or garden soil a few times up against the stems right before the mulch, all the better... Hope the grow incredibly well for you!
@@edibleacres thanks so much! They're growing like crazy so far, but of course I have no idea how good the harvest will be just yet. Great, thanks for the advice!
I love this project. I would love to do the same with my lawn. Do I have to remove the sprinkler system? I live in Arizona so anything I plant will need to be watered. I worry that the sprinklers would not be able to throw water over taller plants.
I would say that you should leave the sprinkler system in place. You can probably change the sprinkler heads out to a version that will spread water like you desire. They all generally connect with a 1/2" threaded connector.
I would question how well the sprinklers would benefit the growth of plants. Frequent light watering on foliage is WAY more stressful than periodic deep watering at the root line. You may find with enough mulch the watering patterns and needs may change...
Amazing project! Thanks for sharing it! I'd like to know, could leaves be used as mulch in the same way you're doing with hay in this video? And if so, are all leaves okay or is there some that aren't suitable for mulching?
I think you could do a similar thing with leaves. Maybe shredding would help them fly away less, or mainly leaves with a little hay on top to pin it all down. Ideal leaves are deciduous, but some pine would be just fine I bet.
I've been following you for a few years now. I love the Ruth Stout gardening method and how you are able to be successful with it. I keep hearing people complain about pesticide in the hay and staw and that it ends up killing their plants. I too had that issue a few times with several suppliers and have started growing my own hay as best I can but I don't grow enough because of limited space. I try to supplement with woodchips. My only problem with using wood chips is that it's getting harder to get as a free resource. Do you have any suggestions on combating these issues?
Sorry you are dealing with those challenges :( How about sawdust? Any local wood mills or cabinet shops or builders? Leaf bags in the area? Get a scythe and harvest grass around where you are, great mulch and super green! Rake leaves in fall nearby... Just some ideas, good luck!
When I plant potatoes I just lay them on the ground and put hay on top . No need to dig . My wife's cousin did this method on a fishing barge . 6" of soil and cover with hay .
The frogs are going crazy in my ponds this year. Only the first batch of eggs took (I guess everyone else's got eaten) but there have been many batches of eggs laid this summber with all the storms. The first bach of tiny frogs are finally out of the pond as of a couple days ago. Held the centimeter-big tree frog in my hands for a minute. Hoping that teaches it I'm cool, but I doubt it :p Crazy how the weather's been changing. We normally get consistent but less delugey rain, more like seattle when it rains, but it's been storms all summer so very very wet, esp with the tropical storms. And how your context is normally pretty wet, but this year it's drought for you. The beauty of permaculture though! Weathers the storms.
If a bale is too tight to pull the string off a corner...if you already have a piece of string, pull it under one of the strings on the bale and maintaining upward pressure use a backward and forward motion and it will cut through the string on the bale.
Thanks for the tips on mulching! I only used 3 bales for a 12’ x 24’ plot and have been fighting the weeds more than I would like. I have noticed that the spots that were mulched deeper had less weeds. Tips to remember for next season!
Yep, when in doubt go a little more on the hay. Maybe it's $10 more to do it more thoroughly which may save you hours of weeding and watering and leave the garden soil healthier for next year. No brainer...
Looks great! All those frogs are going to be so great to have! Do you get any slug problems with the hay? Perhaps all those frogs means you don't have to worry about the slugs either, that would be cool!
So my backyard is generally hard clay under the California sun which seasonally grows a variety of groundcover weeds but if I try to dig it I find it incredibly difficult. If I apply this mulch over the ground will it repair the clay and hydrate the soil loosening it up? Im fearful no edible plants will wanna root in it.
Straw is wonderful, but I'm wondering if maybe free woodchips wouldn't be cheaper to spread after mowing. I'm sure you've weighed your options. I've tried the hay thing, and found that rodents love to nest in it, as well as snakes. It's not so easy to spread, and is messy. Just my experience, with a small area. For a large area as this, I would at least try wood chips for part of it and see what is best.
I hear you. If someone offered us a huge pile of free wood chips we'd jump on it. I find the hay breaks down nicely and I've gotten really used to spreading it and it is actually very fast for me.
you inspired me to start composting with my chickens and i sectioned off an area with short wall and been filling it with old hay, leaves and forest floor debree and garden scraps. really amazing how fast chickens can shred and blend the material togather
Why not buy a big round bale? It would be way cheaper than small bales? And if anything like my area tons of old round bales getting tossed out u can get for next to nothing and would be way better compost wise?
Definitely a nice route to take, and if there were big round bales of mulch hay available we'd scoop them up, but the square bales are available from some local lovely folks and they are easy to stack on the truck and move around so they have a nice benefit there... I'll use round bales gladly if thats whats available.
Is the pond sealed in any way? It's holding a lot of water. We have been digging one which fills when it rains but it drains really fast so it's acting much more like a rain garden than a pond. Any suggestions? Thanks for sharing your work!
DEEP mulching with hay helps smother and prevent germination of seeds, but it isn't a guarantee. Getting it spoiled also helps as the seeds become less viable and the nutrients are more available. I mulch with hay over recycled woodchips (local tree services will dump truckloads for free) and have not had a problem. I think you always have to weigh the possibilities, but if it's a cheap/free option for you, I say give it a try in one area and see how that source of hay does. That way if you do get unlucky, you won't be dealing with a problem everywhere :)
I have found that a nice loose mulch of hay supresses most if not all weeds incredibly well (especially if I'm willing to repeat once or twice as needed). I have seen very few times where weeds come up *because* of the hay but I have seen MANY MANY situations where pulling weeds and leaving bare soil has created massive weed pressures... So I am very much on the hay side of things.
Hey Sean....the rain we got was huge help here in northern New York......i have found that full sections of hay....hold the weeds down about 95% and a year later...still virtually no weeds.....still moist underneath with only 1-1/2 inches of rain in 2 months !!!!! Mulch mulch mulch !!!!! Hay works well....unless u till it in......then u have a huge weed crop😞 the soil is rich but had to weed that spot twice before I got to mulch it again. I too am experimenting with potatoes...just dug 22 feet and only got a 5 gal bucket.......they were planted traditional way.....all the mulched or planted in mulch potatoes are still growing.....thats a good sign 😊
Thanks much for sharing your notes and experience here, too, very valuable for other folks to see. Good point on the tilling in the hay and having it be an explosion of weeds!
For me a 2 hour drive west of you, it is year 3 of Ruth Stout over a former pasture area, I did little work, the onions failed, critters got the lettuce, tomatoes, squash, pumpkins, califlower and cabbage are all doing well with little watering. I chop some former pasture with a bushhog and pick it up with a fork for my hay.
i couldnt go to my land in 2 weeks and weeds win this battle. Then started to rain and recorded goooood quality videos but then the phone died :( I have recorded how the water increased due to earthworks & i supressed a quarter of the area with cartoon and mulch :( what a shame....
There is a farm that feeds their chickens weed leaves and sells their poultry for 5x the regular price... Man you should be doing that... just feed them weed!
I have to say that your videos are so calming and grounding after listening to all the fear that is presently out there on the idiot box. I look forward to your updates and as always, I appreciate your hard work. Thank you, thank you both.
I agree, I hope you keep all political and hot button issues out of these
Thank you kindly for these words. Lovely to know these videos land in a good place for you.
I don’t have an idiot box anymore. I only watch UA-cam and streaming services like Hulu. I got so tired of all the craziness and commercials and such-like. Haven’t looked back.
@@kitdubhran2968LOL ITS INDEED AN IDIOT BOX.
@@edibleacres Greetings from the Balkans. Do you have a compost video I can watch by any chance?
This is probably the finest and most useful and actionable series on Permaculture. I really do appreciate the effort, energy and time that takes to create this quality enriching and educational material.
So glad it lands in a place as useful to you, and thanks for the kind words.
I wish this series was available when I started my food forest 2 years ago. You’ve simplified so many solutions into a very straightforward process. Thanks for sharing!
Really my pleasure to share.
Gardening in Mississippi and after falling in love with your chicken vids I have 6 hens tractoring around the yard. ( My predator pressure is intense so I let them have a walkabout while I have coffee with them in the AM and the rest of the day they are in their Omlet chicken tractor. I just pulled the spring garden out and to their delight let them scratch away for a while before I replanted for fall. They make gardening so much more pleasant and less ego-centered because if I have to pull something out or it wasn't incredibly productive, the chickens will happily destroy the evidence of my failed experiment, and they will take that vegetable matter and turn it into protein. It is kind of magical.
i guess I am kinda off topic but does anyone know a good site to stream new movies online?
@Harlem Devon flixportal :D
@Eden Ty Thank you, I signed up and it seems to work :) I appreciate it!!
@Harlem Devon happy to help xD
Nice. I'm officially into wood chips as of this summer. Finally bought a chipper and I could go all day... thankfully I have lots of shrubs and trees that needed to be pruned, haha.
I go to my local feed store, they have masses of "spoiled hay" which I take for free.... Basically I get slightly composed hay for nothing....😁
Wow! Win for you!!!
What an amazing opportunity!
Trev Cole - Nice. I think I'll see if I can do the same!
Why did you say composed
@@kimberlymaxey4349 - They probably meant to say composted.
Looks great !! Love your content. I'm in the process of building a food forest also. Thanks for the inspiration.
I never thought I would be able to have a garden because I cant be on my hands and knees pulling weeds and things like that. My body just wont let me. But with your methods my dreams of having my own small homestead with a garden and chickens I could actually manage it! Thank you for posting your videos and making gardening more accessible to people with disabilities!
Look into 'Ruth Stout' and her gardening methods with incredible amounts of hay... In her 90s she was still growing most of her food...
@@edibleacres I definitely will!
Love the updates on the potatoes and the pond work and the hay application. Lots of progress this season! Nice.
We tried putting volunteer squash, melons, pumpkins interplanted with our seaberry this year. Our seaberry is in a spot where it stays drier than I'd like and they were not planted with anything else. Now the ground sprawling squash, etc. is helping the seaberry by giving them more shadowed time and less direct sun and allowing them more moisture retention as a result. Seems to be a great relationship.
Great video! Thanks for sharing your amazing experience!
Your channel is my favourite of all permaculture channels on youtube, because you have such a positive attitude and voice and you think deeply about what you are doing.
I managed and actively changed a garden here in Germany for the last ten years and some months ago I realized how permaculture is so much better - for the gardener, for the garden and for our planet and society. Seeing how often our garden needs watering made me think that something is elementally wrong with the way we are gardening here. On my hikes in nature I saw plants flowering in dusty, rocky dirt and nobody is ever watering them! I also knew nothing about soil life, mulching, swales, permaculture plants, N-fixers etc. despite having read multiple conventional gardening books. Also when I was buying plants in a gardening center nobody told me anything important about the plants. These centers are only for creating huge amounts of money from keeping gardeners stupid and ignorant. The worse the gardener, the better - for them. So they can sell the "special soil", "special slug solution", "special chemical fertilizer" etc. etc. and the really interesting plants for permaculture they are not selling at all.
I watched almost all of your videos and currently read the third book about permaculture within two weeks.
Now I am motivated to buy some really devastated property and turn it into a thriving food forest.
I am tired of eating poisoned food from the super markets (pestizides/herbizides/bad fertilizer, maybe even radioactively contaminated with Uranium as some critics say, talking about mining phosphate), I also want to reduce the amount of meat I am eating. I don't want to eat anything anymore from a "brand" and I will reduce that as much as I can in the future.
This is another revolution for me, after learning about the corruption of the financial (fiat money) system and the pharma mafia and doctors keeping us sick and selling chemicals to us to "help" us. No doctor here knows ANYTHING about the relationship of good , organic foods and chronical diseases. Unless you are totally overweight, the doctor will never tell you to change your diet - instead they prescribe all kinds of pharma products, which are not tackling the problem of most of these (autoimmune and/or chronical) diseases: Lack of micronutrients, vitamins, secondary plant substances and so on. This society is so sick - they tell people who get sunburn, because they are not used to the sun anymore (with zero vitamin D3 levels and white skin like a zombie) and they tell people to put sunblocker on their skin (which ironically block all D3 absorption and adds chemicals into our bodies). My little sister had a sun allergy for years, we got rid off it, giving her some D3 for a few weeks before the heat started. Now she can stay in the heat without getting burned.
Humanity has created so many artificial problems, because of an unnatural livestyle. The industry is happy to solve these problems and we have to pay first with our health and then with our money to "fix" our health again with chemicals, thus creating further problems, which create another market for the industry.
But we are no good consumers anymore, we are looking through this vicious circle more and more and we get out of it, also with your help.
Thanks a lot for your work!!
Here here! Hoping you find some land in need of deep healing and can get to work!
Hi,
kennst du den Kanal Selbstversorger Rigotti? Der hat auch mit einem Ödgrundstück begonnen.
@@ludicrousone8706 Heard about Rigotti, yes! :)
@EdibleAcres Not easy at the moment, because of the high prices, but isn't it genius getting land for cheaper prices AND doing something for the planet's health (and myself) at the same time, because the land is depleted?!
You have such a calming way of explaining your projects, that your videos are not only informative and educational, they are also very soothing :) thanks!
Wow, thank you!
The orange twine loops! Delighted to see someone else reuse them! They were handy this morning as I tied up a patch of Echinaceae that Isaias sent sprawling across a path. Sure didn't matter much to the insect world whether they were upright or not.
Lovely video! My cats also really enjoyed it. I thought they'd lose interest after the frogs were gone, but they especially liked they hay mulching part. They were hoping for chickens...
Glad it's cat approved!
thanks you just gave me a solution for my 200 acre project in the desert the lasagna method works really well on my swales nice job
I've watched this from the start, this whole area. Very impressive, you've transformed the area relatively quick and for very low cost. Well done.
Thanks a lot! I think we probably have about $200 into it at this point, between the hay and some aged horse manure we bought in. Feels like a good investment.
Awesome work! We have a pretty bad drought here too this year. Something dug up one of my elderberries despite my best efforts to protect them. I'm happy the one I have left is doing very well.
tomboncino!! I just harvested my first yday. what a terrific squash.
I use used cardboard first then spoiled hay. For the raised beds I keep 2-4in thick squares from the hay then when I plant something I fluff up the hay so that I know I have planted in that area works amazing.
Sounds like a great system you have!
So wonderful to watch this play out over the season! It's both inspiring and informative. Thanks!
You are so welcome!
Great to see this all coming together well. I’m starting a food forest at the moment, so good to see what others are doing to help get ideas. Thanks! :)
Best of luck!
How do you balance the heavily mulched areas and green areas to feed mycorrhizae over winter? I'm guessing your wide variety of perennials work well, but have you tried to incorporate a cover crop into the mulch? I've seen clover grow right through woodchips so i'd imagine it'd grow in rotting hay too. I'm worried about leaving patches brown over winter and want my entire garden to be as green as possible. Thanks so much, great video as always
Thanks as always for the updates! Exciting news about the potatoes!
Excellent video. Thank you. LOVE seeing the frog habitat forming :)
And WOW - can't wait to see the actual harvest of the potato mound experiment!
It's so wonderful that you let us listen to the sounds of nature in the background (instead of cheesy, annoying, filler music). HA HA
It's easier to not add the music so I'm glad you don't want it anyway! Ha!
Such a great idea!! Can’t wait to see the beds this fall! Please share ☺️
Loved the video!
Looks awesome. Wow those potato results...
I recognize that glacial till subsoil from a mile away. I have actually made a raised bed out of it, with a bunch of horse manure on top. It was productive right away, and still is, except for 'root food' type plants. Potatoes, carrots, onions have trouble expanding into I think. Corn, squash, peas, beans, tomatoes, peppers, even shallots do ok... anything with fruit/veggie above ground don't seem to mind at all. And when I dig down into it their fibrous roots are in it, and hopefully improving the structure, and one day in my lifetime I hope it is healthy like the forests around me.
Funny note, I have spent a lot of time digging around old foundations up in those hills yonder, and the basements that were once hardpan glacial till are now are so absolutely healthy, easily dug, sometimes richer than the soil above them. Makes the imagination wonder.
Just my experience.
Takes a while to break it up and get it soft, but then these soils can definitely be productive. They have to remain in cover with plants and/or mulch or they bake back into concrete in days!
Wow, you're just making great strides there. You are making it look so easy, but hey you have had some practice right? Your truck looks like it's holding up nicely too.
keep the content coming it is a pleasure to watch
Thank you very much!
Very cool, what I have in abundance are leaves so that's what I've been throwing down massively for mulch and walkways. I also had some bamboo-type grass (that stuff that gets 12' high and survives in zone 5/6) which I was quite certain had died off by the time I cut it and laid it down, but recently I've started seeing shoots coming up on my walkways, so that can't be good.
Great idea with the leaves. We'll use those extensively in the fall if we can find them.
I suspect that the bamboo will uproot easily if you pull it now, and then put it back down on top of a leaf area and you should be good... I've had similar stuff happen, not a big deal.
Excellent score on the hay!
These folks are so lovely. We're really becoming friends with them and look forward to sourcing all our mulch from them.
Just a thought with the clay beds; If you replaced the cap/ peak of the bed with a small trench, then back-filled with manure. The I have sandy soil here and was amazed at how well a clay/manure mix held fertility. I love the lasagna technique idea with clay and hay, I bet it would work well in most soils.
Great thought on a flatter top with some good fertility added... I'll keep that in mind for the next round :)
I do the same thing with grass/weeds around my plants. I just lay them down and put damp papers over top in a thick enough layer to discourage sunlight and growth at that level. Then wood chips over the top, and weed as needed. Easy enough to do. I’ve been taking out huge chunks of lawn that way, which has been incredibly helpful since I hate mowing, and I also have hay fever. This year has been really bad for that (many fields in my area are on their hay rotation) but my yard is slowly losing the hay and turning to something much better. Poly culture for the win!
Very helpful. I am curious about the yield, in quality and quantity, of potatoes in the three techniques of planting.
Yup, that'll be the real metric. In my own potato beds, top growth doesn't seem to be too closely related to what's actually going on under ground. Vigorous greens can still not produce much worth eating, while what seem to be struggling plants can produce quite a bounty. Time will tell!
Happy to share notes on how that all turns out. I'll plan to do that in the fall :)
Wow I love this, we are on the same boat, love the ideas.
So glad!
great video! love me some mulch.
ua-cam.com/video/GNU8IJzRHZk/v-deo.html - Ruth Stout... I mention her in this video and others, I'd encourage you to watch this video about her if you are interested in her story and style. It's lovely!
It looks great, mulch is awesome! =)
Looks Good!, clearly your squash is doing way better than mine.
Hey, Sean! Hey, Sasha! As always, great stuff I can put to use immediately on my farm and in my garden. I see you doing so many videos on dense shrub plantings lately; anything on larger tree installations coming soon? Looking to plant a few dozen apple trees and always trying to learn as much as I can from y'all.
Great content, as usual. Thanks for the videos!
More people should subscribe to you.
I appreciate that! Subscribers are coming slowly but surely. Hoping to hit 100K this winter if I can keep up the content.
Hello! Ty for the video , this looks like a great long term management. Do you know though if the hay will attract snakes? I’d like to try it but we struggle with a lot of copper heads in our area
I don't know if it will. I know that having large stones and open water is attractive to snakes in our context.
EdibleAcres okay I’ll try to research more for our area. We have to keep our sheds sealed and gaps in foundation and porches . They seem to like the cavey , dark places
You mentioned how the hay had some weeds in it....this doesn't bother a smidge???.... I guess I should explain myself....I am really just starting out....and I hear so much like how you better watch out for tainted hay....or hay with seeds or it'll take over!!
I live with my uncle and have next to nothing but a dream or vision to turn his backyard into something beautiful.... it's not as much property but it's FAR from some apartment patio....and I want it organic....please share your thoughts with me..... greatly appreciated
I haven’t been able to find hay in my area that hasn’t been sprayed with weed killer. I have been using straw instead, it has also been sprayed but it isn’t killing my plants. I use cardboard between plants and in the walkways to suppress the weeds with a thin layer if straw, after the chickens have used it as bedding for a week, this keeps the soil moist and makes the worms happy. We have a very heavy clay soil that was a 6ft tall patch of weeds last year when we moved in.
So sad that people spray grasses with chemicals to then feed to animals... :(
Maybe there is sawdust available? Leaves? Wood Chips?
EdibleAcres we have some wooded areas that were very overgrown, I have been working on clearing them out and planting more edibles, we have about 6 big mulberries that gave us and the local wildlife lots of berries in spring and early summer. I plan on collecting some leaves this fall to use in the garden. I did use shavings for the chickens and put the waste on the garden paths as mulch but it was too wet in the spring and I had a lot of mildew issues so I switched to straw. I will continue to try and find some chemical free hay or straw. I have to fend the landloard off regularly, he wants to spray everything with pesticides and weed killer. So far I have kept him away from my garden area.
Ha I seem to remember on a previous video about the potatoes saying that the other 2 rows will catch up. Of course it remains to be seen what the yields are. I still believe the easiest method, true Ruth Stout style will be great for you (as it has been for us).
What are the concerns around using straw that may have been sprayed with RoundUp? Does it break down quickly enough not to be an issue?
wonder if that would work on creeping charlie and garlic chives. we have a ton! Our beds are doing well and wwould like more
I have seen a advertisement for soil that is rich in beneficial bacteria and fungi. Do you think a small amount of this scattered over mulch would be worth the cost?
Those organisms live naturally in the soil. It just takes time for them to build up. Once you have mulch in place those organisms will multiply exponentially. It's not worth the money to buy it unless you want a jump start on amending your soil. But like I said previously, your soil already has these rich ingredients in it. Good luck.
Thanks 😊
Hi, Thank you for this video. It looks awesome and thank you for caring for our mother earth! Greetings from the Balkans.
I like your tone . It has a calming effect.
Any chance you have a compost video?? Thanks in advance
Look at our playlists, we have a chicken composting playlist that goes into detail on how we make compost with our chickens. Glad you like the vidoes!
What do you do about planting lettuces and radishes and brasicas.
We definitely use hay...much better then pulling weeds!
Fantastic.
I apologise for sending you a bombardment of questions. Thanks for your patience. Nevertheless, here's my question du jour: I'm growing my potatoes under straw mulch this year for the first time. To what extent can I simply throw the straw on top of the plants, and how much do I need to worry about being gentle and moving the plants aside to tuck the straw in? I'm not sure if the plants are strong enough to simply grow through the mulch. Thanks yet again.
Happy to answer questions Colin...
Potatoes are super rugged we've found. Certainly don't want to slam the foliage with heavy wood chips/rocks/etc but straw/hay/leaves flaked out and shaken between plants is so super reasonable. AIming to get it between plants, up against stalks, that's the goal, but if some is laying on top here or there the plants should grow right through. Maybe take one area and be super careful and thoughtful, one area and be looser and see what they look like in a week or two... You'll want to repeat the mulching/hilling often this summer to get best results, and if you can find time to add a little compost or garden soil a few times up against the stems right before the mulch, all the better... Hope the grow incredibly well for you!
@@edibleacres thanks so much! They're growing like crazy so far, but of course I have no idea how good the harvest will be just yet. Great, thanks for the advice!
On the sea buckthorn suckers .. do males only put off males or can they offshoot both male and female?
We call it "weed walking" at our place :) much better than weed wacking :)
I love this project. I would love to do the same with my lawn. Do I have to remove the sprinkler system? I live in Arizona so anything I plant will need to be watered. I worry that the sprinklers would not be able to throw water over taller plants.
I would say that you should leave the sprinkler system in place. You can probably change the sprinkler heads out to a version that will spread water like you desire. They all generally connect with a 1/2" threaded connector.
I would question how well the sprinklers would benefit the growth of plants. Frequent light watering on foliage is WAY more stressful than periodic deep watering at the root line. You may find with enough mulch the watering patterns and needs may change...
Amazing project! Thanks for sharing it! I'd like to know, could leaves be used as mulch in the same way you're doing with hay in this video? And if so, are all leaves okay or is there some that aren't suitable for mulching?
I think you could do a similar thing with leaves. Maybe shredding would help them fly away less, or mainly leaves with a little hay on top to pin it all down. Ideal leaves are deciduous, but some pine would be just fine I bet.
Great job.
I've been following you for a few years now. I love the Ruth Stout gardening method and how you are able to be successful with it. I keep hearing people complain about pesticide in the hay and staw and that it ends up killing their plants. I too had that issue a few times with several suppliers and have started growing my own hay as best I can but I don't grow enough because of limited space. I try to supplement with woodchips. My only problem with using wood chips is that it's getting harder to get as a free resource. Do you have any suggestions on combating these issues?
Sorry you are dealing with those challenges :(
How about sawdust? Any local wood mills or cabinet shops or builders? Leaf bags in the area? Get a scythe and harvest grass around where you are, great mulch and super green! Rake leaves in fall nearby... Just some ideas, good luck!
When I plant potatoes I just lay them on the ground and put hay on top . No need to dig . My wife's cousin did this method on a fishing barge . 6" of soil and cover with hay .
Good to hear this!
The frogs are going crazy in my ponds this year. Only the first batch of eggs took (I guess everyone else's got eaten) but there have been many batches of eggs laid this summber with all the storms. The first bach of tiny frogs are finally out of the pond as of a couple days ago. Held the centimeter-big tree frog in my hands for a minute. Hoping that teaches it I'm cool, but I doubt it :p
Crazy how the weather's been changing. We normally get consistent but less delugey rain, more like seattle when it rains, but it's been storms all summer so very very wet, esp with the tropical storms. And how your context is normally pretty wet, but this year it's drought for you. The beauty of permaculture though! Weathers the storms.
If a bale is too tight to pull the string off a corner...if you already have a piece of string, pull it under one of the strings on the bale and maintaining upward pressure use a backward and forward motion and it will cut through the string on the bale.
Nice!
Thanks for the tips on mulching! I only used 3 bales for a 12’ x 24’ plot and have been fighting the weeds more than I would like. I have noticed that the spots that were mulched deeper had less weeds. Tips to remember for next season!
Yep, when in doubt go a little more on the hay. Maybe it's $10 more to do it more thoroughly which may save you hours of weeding and watering and leave the garden soil healthier for next year. No brainer...
You have a very soothing voice. Have you considered doing audio books? I think you would do really well.
Thanks for that, I haven't considered, I think I'll make my millions with these youtube videos :)
Looks great! All those frogs are going to be so great to have!
Do you get any slug problems with the hay? Perhaps all those frogs means you don't have to worry about the slugs either, that would be cool!
Very few slug issues, and yes, I suspect that the frogs are really helping.
@@edibleacres that's wonderful!
So my backyard is generally hard clay under the California sun which seasonally grows a variety of groundcover weeds but if I try to dig it I find it incredibly difficult. If I apply this mulch over the ground will it repair the clay and hydrate the soil loosening it up? Im fearful no edible plants will wanna root in it.
What do you think about chopping the hay with a mower? Seems like it would be more effective, but maybe it would just be a big mess.
We've done that, really nice for detail mulching like around seedlings, but not great for larger scale since it's a lot of fuss...
I would love to see all the videos cut together to show a 5 minute time lapse.
Go for it! I'll link to it :)
Hello,
Are there many ticks in the deep straw?
I haven't had that experience. (not saying no, just haven't seen it myself)
Straw is wonderful, but I'm wondering if maybe free woodchips wouldn't be cheaper to spread after mowing. I'm sure you've weighed your options. I've tried the hay thing, and found that rodents love to nest in it, as well as snakes. It's not so easy to spread, and is messy. Just my experience, with a small area. For a large area as this, I would at least try wood chips for part of it and see what is best.
I hear you. If someone offered us a huge pile of free wood chips we'd jump on it. I find the hay breaks down nicely and I've gotten really used to spreading it and it is actually very fast for me.
you inspired me to start composting with my chickens and i sectioned off an area with short wall and been filling it with old hay, leaves and forest floor debree and garden scraps. really amazing how fast chickens can shred and blend the material togather
That is awesome!
Do you find that the deep hay mulch gets moldy?
I have not had that experience. When it gets wet it simply begins to break down into nice compost, at least thats what I find.
Why not buy a big round bale? It would be way cheaper than small bales? And if anything like my area tons of old round bales getting tossed out u can get for next to nothing and would be way better compost wise?
Definitely a nice route to take, and if there were big round bales of mulch hay available we'd scoop them up, but the square bales are available from some local lovely folks and they are easy to stack on the truck and move around so they have a nice benefit there... I'll use round bales gladly if thats whats available.
do you leave a little space around perrenial plants/trees without mulching? i heard its bad for tree bark, can rot. not sure
I try to avoid banking mulch right up the stems...
Fingers crossed there's no aminopyralid in the hay...
I hear ya... These farmers don't use nasty stuff on their hay, I ask.
Do you get problems with mice and other rodents making homes under all the composted hay?
Sometimes... Voles in particular can take up residence for a bit, but the snake population is matching them and taking care of them quite well.
Is that hay? It seems more like straw to me.
Nope, definitely hay.
Is the pond sealed in any way? It's holding a lot of water. We have been digging one which fills when it rains but it drains really fast so it's acting much more like a rain garden than a pond. Any suggestions? Thanks for sharing your work!
Look up bentonite for that.
Not sealed, we're on a pretty wet hillside with a TON of clay so that helps...
Bentonite clay!
What prevents seeds from the hay to germinate and become unwanted plants?? I am interested in this method. Hay is easy to come by in my area.
DEEP mulching with hay helps smother and prevent germination of seeds, but it isn't a guarantee. Getting it spoiled also helps as the seeds become less viable and the nutrients are more available. I mulch with hay over recycled woodchips (local tree services will dump truckloads for free) and have not had a problem. I think you always have to weigh the possibilities, but if it's a cheap/free option for you, I say give it a try in one area and see how that source of hay does. That way if you do get unlucky, you won't be dealing with a problem everywhere :)
I have found that a nice loose mulch of hay supresses most if not all weeds incredibly well (especially if I'm willing to repeat once or twice as needed). I have seen very few times where weeds come up *because* of the hay but I have seen MANY MANY situations where pulling weeds and leaving bare soil has created massive weed pressures... So I am very much on the hay side of things.
Thank you for the explanation!
HAY!
Clay is the best soil! Look it up 😉
Clove and peppermint essential oils work for deer and other harmful stuff human hair works too, cardboard your pathways?
Sure, could do the carboard, but this works pretty well this time of year.
I need more lol
👍
Hey Sean....the rain we got was huge help here in northern New York......i have found that full sections of hay....hold the weeds down about 95% and a year later...still virtually no weeds.....still moist underneath with only 1-1/2 inches of rain in 2 months !!!!! Mulch mulch mulch !!!!! Hay works well....unless u till it in......then u have a huge weed crop😞 the soil is rich but had to weed that spot twice before I got to mulch it again. I too am experimenting with potatoes...just dug 22 feet and only got a 5 gal bucket.......they were planted traditional way.....all the mulched or planted in mulch potatoes are still growing.....thats a good sign 😊
Thanks much for sharing your notes and experience here, too, very valuable for other folks to see. Good point on the tilling in the hay and having it be an explosion of weeds!
For me a 2 hour drive west of you, it is year 3 of Ruth Stout over a former pasture area, I did little work, the onions failed, critters got the lettuce, tomatoes, squash, pumpkins, califlower and cabbage are all doing well with little watering. I chop some former pasture with a bushhog and pick it up with a fork for my hay.
Sounds like the start of a nice system!
i couldnt go to my land in 2 weeks and weeds win this battle. Then started to rain and recorded goooood quality videos but then the phone died :( I have recorded how the water increased due to earthworks & i supressed a quarter of the area with cartoon and mulch :( what a shame....
I'm the first one to view this.
Congrats! Thanks for being interested!
There is a farm that feeds their chickens weed leaves and sells their poultry for 5x the regular price... Man you should be doing that... just feed them weed!
Straw ISN'T hay. Just for anyone who's gonna think they need to buy hay for mulch.