Please Read: We are very interested in hearing from YOU! What experiments have you tried that worked? What failed? Share ideas and questions here, maybe links to videos about your experiments with propagation or links to photos of what you've done. I feel we can all benefit immensely from our collective work in this area. Imagine a scenario where every town/city had a good handful of folks who dial in low-tech methods for replicating wave after wave of high resilience perennial food and medicine plants. An actual step towards deeper health for us all!
Wow such an amzing question to ask! Awesome i cant wait to hear more on propogation methods here. I have done softwood grape cutting when summer pruning i take the small stems and leave one leaf at the end and slice it in half thrn i usually stick it in a pot with a bunch of other cuttings into a moist well draining mix, then i tie a big clear bag around the entire pot and set it underneath my apple tree to give it some good shade. I usually get almost 100% success propogating grapes this way. If done mid summer in zone 4 ontario canada! I they still become established enough to go throigh dormancy in fall and get plugged in the ground over winter!. Also i use this same method with my issai kiwi it wrks very well.!
Hi, edible acres! Very nice setup! I have like a million or so notes and thoughts to share on this, so this will probably be more like a letter. Bear with me here. Lol I've become a fan of 80litre clear totes for propegations. I'm aware of the environmental impacts, so I started with one 2 years ago to test its life cycle and its not getting Britle at all, though I do keep them out of excessive sunlight, especially in summer months. This year I ended up with 2 more. I think for some plants that need a higher humidity you could also utilize those by simply inverting one over cuttings that would benefit from the captured warmth and humidity. Another nice thing about them, is you can stack them if space is limited. Just a thought, I think designing that bed into a mini permaculture farm with greenhouses and all would be a totally cool video. Lol. Anyway, I flunked with small blackcap cuttings last year, I tried 50 or so 8inch cuttings, with intention to encourage rooting from buds. I ended giving up 8 weeks into it, and only ended up with 3 that had one stragley root on them each. If I had more space this year, I'd probably try out a large length cutting, and attempt a trench propegation technique... though I think your right about trying out the root segment propegation previously mentioned. For now the natural tip layering is providing me with plenty of multiples, but I'm still very interested in propagation of some of my mother stock. Some blueberry notes would be pretty cool. I've got 5, 6x50ft beds going in this year,(ready in 2022) and the soil is on the acidic/well drained side of things. I also have quite a bit of needle rich pine mulch and branch to utilize. I've read into fungal rich soils for blueberry, so I'm trying out 6 older derelict commercial varieties this year in the hugleish, thicket principled plots, with lots of native pollinator encouraging wildflowers, as their companions between the plots. I'd definitely like to see some notes on dormant blueberry cutting trials... and also green cuttings methods. Some pollinating flower companions would also be a bonus. I'll follow up down the road as well. All things vines would also be cool. Hardy kiwi, grapes, ect. I want to create edible shading trellises in the future between the blueberry plots, and am starting out a few trials in my containment gardens before putting them to the permy Ag fields currently riddled with brassicas.(its going to wild flowers and reclaimed tarp plots this year to bring in overcrowding and reclaimed diversity for potential vine trellises) The sea buckthorn I'm not overly excited about. I trialed a few last year, and its characteristics are not really desirable for my permaculture fields. I may trial a few cuts from them this year and pass on some notes to help out. But those thorns in my cluster thickets! Ouch! Lol Also, if you have space in the bed, dormant black/red mulberry! I have no luck, warm, cold, alive, dormant, air layering, seeds,ect. Its one of the mainstays for my planned canopies, I just can't seem to multiply, I have bountiful supplies of mother stock, and no success. Lol, an old timer who I buy from here in Ontario told me, 'I just put a stick in the ground and a year later its a tree!' Lol. I'm a little jealous. My elderberry cuttings are coming along, massive callous, little leafs, a couple thin roots in development. They are in the totes inside the house sitting around 20celcius with high RH. I'm going to attempt a direct planting for my hugleish elderberry thicket this year, so I'm hoping I'll only have to thin them down into one tray of pots(thats all I have available this year) I may cut leafs down into halfs/single bud development in a couple weeks, I'll follow up with more notes later on. I would love to see more notes on pre/post callous development, rooting stages, potting up/ planting out after root development, even pruning techniques, pinching flowers, ect. for both elderberries and currants. Thanks for all the awesome content guys! Looking forward to seeing even more growth! Absolutely everywhere!
Thanks for the video. After watching many of your videos, and experimenting with propagation last year, this year I built a heated propagation bed similar to yours but a little smaller scale. My goal: experimentation with timing and soil mediums. I’m trying 5 different mediums and putting in cuttings every couple weeks in every medium. I have about 100 cuttings in, mostly blueberry because that’s the one I really want to figure out. I’ll be adding probably another 100 cuttings or more in the next month. If I learn anything valuable, maybe I’ll make a video :)
@@azereacres5967 I was hoping to find videos on your channel. Have you tried propagating mulberry from seeds? I was told recently to plant them immediately outside (protect from animals). I saved and dried seed and will plant soon. I may have also kept some in damp sawdust in the freezer - I'll see when I get to filling my air pruner beds in a bit.
@@az55544 I'm looking into hiring a local kid that really likes doing film stuff, he's done some work for our friends farms and it's quite excellent, I'm very much not even a photographer, lol, but want to share my progression of our permaculture farm development. Might be later this year, though I'm usually so busy during planting seasons. Mulberry seed was super difficult for me at the start, though this year I have a near 100 percent germination rate with this written method. Soak seed in water overnight, then place on damp, not wet, paper towel, seal in a ziplock bag and place in the fridge for 30-45 days, some mold may occur, that's fine so long as it's not overpowering. For sprouting seed after stratification, use a sieve to filter out mason sand, toss the large unfiltered sands and keep the filtered dry sand. Weigh the filtered sand, then weigh a bowl of water at 10% of the sands weight, mix the two together and microwave for 30 seconds or heat on stove(covered) for 30 seconds to sterilize your substrate. Once done, put in a ziplock bag and keep in the fridge for germination stages as you need. For germination of mulberry seed, add a quarter of your stratified seed to a small amount of sand mix, put in a Ziplock bag, and place on a warm high up shelf checking weekly for sprouts to form. If no sprouts at three weeks, I'd place those back in fridge for a couple more weeks and try more from the towel bag. They like 20° to 25° Celsius for germination I've found. Once germinated, I have my kids sort though them with their delicate hands, or fold a business card to scoop and pot up. I utilise clear totes for high carbon low oxygen at the start of growing, a heat pad or bottom heat and part sun is excellent for light, and once the days start getting longer I temper them off to more oxygen and move them to the garden house, then to the nursing beds, then to their forever homes as temperatures allow. When planting them at their site, I'll put 5gallons of water into a well disturbed hole, I'll amend once with compost, humanure, horse manure, innoculated wood chips(wine caps usually), biochar,,, really whatever organic fertility I can find, and I usually do 3 heafty shovels full until it looks like a bowl of soup, I then gently press the plant in, mulch with whatever is abundant, and in a couple weeks go back, water more, and compact the soil with my feet very tightly, mulberry love hard packed, slightly neutral PH soils for healthy nutrient uptake, so I utilise similar traights of other plants when guilding them in. Though silvo pasture goes hand in hand, just toss manure into the reach of those majestic mulberry root structures. Double or triple density planting, I like a zig zag, 8ft apart, accompanied with walnut, pawpaw, service berry, haskaps, apples, elders, nettles, mints, clovers, rye, ECT. Happy growing.
Awesome, love the details. Can't wait to see how all the different cuttings perform, especially blueberry, apple. The 'jump start' is a good one, I'll put it next to my light timer. Great video!
This is fascinating. I'm a Florida gardener and I've never even wondered how winter cuttings were handled in cold regions. I'm blessed with a pretty much year round growing season.
I love your videos. And I love how you and Sasha have created a system that depends on a certain wildness. Because I alway start my garden with the hope of order. I have a 10x10 community garden bed and I volunteer in the food bank gardens. Very quickly wildness and the notion of “I wonder what would happen if I did.....”. Many blessings to you both in the coming years.
I'm VERY used to things not working out the way I hoped at this point. If you can't get your head into that space this work can be emotionally crushing!
thanks for the inspiration! My family has been working on getting a nursery business started and keeping things simple seems to be requisite for success.
2:50 The great thing about metric is that you can just divide out the "tens". 20000 sq. cm. we would just write as 2 square m (or: 2 m2) Just divide out 10*10 to go from square cm (or cm2) to square dm (or dm2), then do that again to go to square m (or m2)
Good note, thanks. I don't get why you folks don't just use 'imperial'.... What's so hard about saying "hey, cut that board for me 5 and 7/8s by 4 and 13/16ths but make that side about 23/32"nds shorter". I just don't get why you make it so hard. HA!
@@edibleacres One of the great things about living close to the boarder and our school system switching from imperial to metric about half way through my education means I know both. It is very handy! XD
@@edibleacres grew up with the metric system, but then worked in truss design. I find metric much more practical, but I understand imperial measurements better.
A propagation technique I discovered for European elder is to cut a log during winter as thick as my arm, and a few feet long. I just lay it the ground and in spring it sprouts up a thicket. It's a great way to establish a dense hedge or windbreak. I've not tried it with American elder yet, but if anything the American species is even more aggressive so it may well work.
Very cool note. I tried something like this way back with some sections of curly willow I was cutting and laid branches like that in a little ditch. Seemed to root. Poplar seems promising as well in this way.
Also as an added piece of info you can air layer pears and apples during the growing season and they will callus but not fully push roots. You can then move those callused over cuttings to that bed for the winter. 👍 i seen it on mike kinkaids channel! He sat em off in a temp controlled greenhouse after they callused to finish rooting in a pot.
This film is, as the entire channel, super sympathetic, inspiring and constructive-I really do appreciate that, thank you. I did the setup with a mix of soil, well rotten cow manure, chicken bedding and forest soil. The idea being, to give the plants a good, healthy start and to inoculate with the right microorganisms, from the forest soil. You however articulated pretty clearly in your last videos on this, that you don't want too much nutrients and aim for a well drained, loose medium. So, do you think I'm running in danger of getting mold or anaerobic conditions? Your answer would be genuinely appreciated, very best regards, Simon
Thanks for such kind words, very happy to share with lovely folks like you! Feedback: I can say that in the past I have tried rooting some hardwood cuttings with warmth from below in a more nutrient rich media and had mixed results. Some plants which root easily enjoy the nourishment I think and it boosts them (currants, elders, etc) but those which need a fair bit of time or are picky about rooting (which is mainly what I would use this for) had some issues with mold/rotting. Could very much be user error or the mix I used, etc., but my takeaway is if you are adding nutrient keep it light, balanced and aged and make sure the rest of your mix is loose and free draining. Best of luck and please share notes on how it all works for you!
VERY INSPIRING! Fantastic info on such an exciting topic. Thanks for sharing your experience. This is really helpful to me as I'm expanding into this method of propagation. Grateful for this documentaion.
This is such a wonderful design! By spring I might be able to learn if my saskatoons needs this to root. I just tried them direct in soil for overwintering the first time this year :)
I hope they take for you. I've had nearly 0 success with rooting saskatoon from cuttings. They will naturally sucker and I've had great success digging up and dividing suckers in the past, and some success in saving seed and fall sowing it in a nursery bed with decent germination in spring. Best of luck!
This is a very timely video for me. Thank you for all your wonderful videos. Rabbits have girdled two of my mature seaberries due to all the snow we've gotten. I'm hoping to take cuttings from what is left. Any suggestions would be appreciated, never propagated seaberries before.
I'll share more notes when we get to doing them, but yes, you'll need to act pretty quickly. ua-cam.com/video/5GHg5MTWplQ/v-deo.html - I show last years setup with some cuttings in there, can give you reference. In general I would suggest erring on the side of keeping cuttings 'fatter' and longer. Use everything you can, but the cuttings that will have the highest rooting success come from lower on the plant, and have a thickness to them and a 'heel' where they connected to last years stem. With bottom heat and lean media like in this video I can get 80-90% strong callousing and rooting (the roots are insanely delicate, be careful with transplanting). I have many 2' tall beautifully rooted and field ready seaberries now for this spring because of last years cuttings work. I hope it works super well for you John!
Good idea, to improve the heat conservation, you could clogg the top of open channels or rotate 1/4 turn of the external layer (they will act as chimney if let open - assuming they are open).
I tried this in the past. I would love the concept to work but I think there may be too much steam/gasses coming off. I had things rot in my experiment... Not suggesting folks don't try it, I just didn't have amazing luck.
@@edibleacres how about running water pipes through the compost and then through a seperate cutting bed? If people use compost heated water to shower then surely that would work without having to deal with off gassing.
Question: Did you put plastic corrugated on the floor of your bottom heat propagator before putting in the sawdust? // My set up is way smaller. When I need bottom heat for propagating tomatoes, a much shorter time horizon than woody cuttings, I take an electric heating pad -- the kind that's used for wet heat -- place it in a couple of zip lock bags, and put my seed pots in their trays on top of it and set it on the lowest setting. I start with the bags zipped up and open them to regulate the temperature. My set-up is in the house so I don't have too much of a differential to make up for. I check the set up many times a day making sure that it is just warmer than ambient temp. If it gets too warm (very rarely) I turn it off open the bags up so there's air flow. I'll wait till the tray feels cooler to touch and turn it back on. There's a thermal break between the pots and the tray and tray and bags, and I've never had cooked roots. I used an electric blanket once when I had a huge garden and followed the same "mother hen" approach checking the temperature often and turning it off and letting it cool when needed. I had success with it, but I do not recommend any one disregard UL recommendations for electrical appliances. They are there for your protection. I'm old and way past my expiration date😂, so I play fast 'n loose! LOL I tear tags off pillows and furniture too!
Tear those tags! Nothing below the sawdust, just dumped on the floor, then a polycarbonate double wall sheet between the sawdust and the start of the rooting media. I meant to take a video shot of that but ya know, I'm way more focused on doing the thing than filming the thing :)
Thanks for the great information! We don’t have a garage but are interested in this set up. We live in northern Ontario zone 4 and are wondering if we could adapt this idea and keep it outside. Was thinking we would take cuttings closer to spring to use less energy through the heat cables. Do you think this could work?
I think it is possible... You'd want really good insulation around the sides and probably underneath as well as cold and wind could really zap efficiency. But give it a shot. Maybe you want to design it with low tunnel hoops over the whole thing so you can put poly on as needed if/when there are particularly cold times during the rooting...
Hey Sean, how Important is light during this process? I notice its by a window, is that on purpose to provide direct/indirect light for your cuttings once they get going? Or maybe do you move your cuttings out to more light once they callus and start putting on roots with no top growth?
Indirect light from the north. I put mine on the N wall of house. W/o roots the plants have no place for the sugar. Enough energy is in a healthy stem (at least of many bushes) to push roots.
Technically light is not important at all to stimulate rooting down below. If done perfectly, the cutting will establish a ropey and healthy root in the media while still being mainly dormant at top and I can plant in a nursery bed. Most times they sprout just a little above so I like some light to support them if they do without having to rush them outside...
Are you putting the play sand directly on the shavings, or are you placing a layer of the polycarb first? Basically, any barrier between sand and sawdust?
Thanks for the clarifying question... I should have made a video shot of it, but after the sawdust I laid 1-2 layers of the rigid polycarbonate panels on top as a 'break' between the more moist media above and the dry sawdust below. This could have been cardboard and a sheet of poly plastic, or plywood with a garbage bag, or... you get the idea.
I just took some seabuckthorn cuttings from some plants by the coast close to me in Ireland and was considering building a bottom heat setup for vegetables anyway so might get a head start on it... interestingly seabuckthorn is regarded as an invasive species here and I think it's even illegal to plant it! Crazy really considering the nutritional value of the berries. I'm giving careful consideration to where I plant it though considering it's status here! Some where that it can be controlled from spreading too crazy. Have you folks any tips on what to do with their berries?
I'd say it worked out 'well enough' if that you had a very focused attempt at this and it was your main concern and you dealt with any issues that came up you'd have amazing results and it would be so super worth your time.
@@edibleacres Were there any major concerns you had with it, and how long did you end up using it? I know you posted this video near the end of winter just trying to realize any potential flaws you may have noticed so if I can think of any improvements I can implement them and let you guys know of how things go :)
I am unsure why you're rooting right into the area with the cables. How do you ensure that the species you are rooting doesn't root too quickly and gets stuck near or under your cables? How do you deal with pests once it gets into the media. I've used prop benches before with soil warming cables but we always propagated into a tray that was resting on the soil warming prob bench. We could move quicker rooting species with ease, and we didn't need to replenishing the media that you have around the cables.
We've since upgraded some aspects of our process and I plan to offer a newer video of our methods this spring. We still do similar methods overall but have a media that is differentiated from the sand/heat layer below to help minimize mixing of roots and cable..
I know you have access to lots of hay/straw bales. Have you tried inoculating some with nitrogen rich matter - like coffee grounds? Other more personal organic stuff in liquid form are also readily available. Once you are finished with it, you can add the remains to your composting process or direct to beds as a mulch. Thanks for sharing. Stay safe.
We do a ton of composting and love it... Not applicable in this particular nursery work in this video but super lovely out in the garden during the season for sure.
I would LOVE to learn how to propagate pear & apple cuttings! PLEASE be sure to let us know if you are successful!!.......... I am trying some chestnut & apple cuttings in a humidity dome but I started late (mid Aug in zone 5) so I'm not expecting success. I did air layering with them at the same time on new wood & no visible roots against the bag at this time. I will probably try again next year early summer.
I think you'll want to definitely explore grafting for apples and pears and saving seed for chestnut (and apples too!) to get a more rewarding experience.
@@edibleacres I have grafted apples & pears in the past & grown chestnuts from seed. I will be doing so again, but there are times when rooting/cloning an apple tree is the best way to go. Such as when you have no rootstock available to graft to. Or you only have room for one tree & want the vigor of a seedling but as a known variety (like Honey Crisp) to be used to get a lot of scion wood from for grafting trees for sale each year. I would like to root chestnuts so I can get specific hybrid seed from known parents like AuSuper x Qing. You can do this by grafting but chestnut grafts often fail. So if you have any success with your apple & pear cuttings with bottom heat I hope you will let us know.
Hi again. I’m wondering if you can propagate cane plants like raspberries, blackberries, etc...I’d like to reproduce my blackberries faster than just tip rooting... can I take a cutting just like grapes or elders or currants and propagate them on bottom heat?
If you have the space it seems worth trying. I just took a pile of cultivar Black Cap cuttings the other day for this bed so I will share notes on how that works. You may consider, just as a concept, with the blackberries burying most of the stem in warm media laid on their side to mimic the tip layer vibe. I may do that if we have room and will document/share notes. Both raspberry and blackberry can be grown out from even pretty small root sections so you can ramp up numbers quite a bit early spring without bottom heat.. .Good luck!
i have been trying to root cuttings for three years here in sw colorado. it is hot in the symmer and super dry. either they just shrivel up or they rot in a covered bin. i have some apricot and grape cuttings in sand outside but there are no roots and hece been in the sand for several months now. the lawn sprinkler keeps them watered daily but they are in full sun. im at my wits end as i have ten rooted cuttings coming in today from florida of citation rootstocks for stonefruits. i will pot them but dont know what else to do, shade or sun im just lost
Why not save the sand mixture to reuse next year? You mention you'd be spreading it onto raised beds after this and also that you recognize the material is energy intensive to produce
Good/reasonable question. I think the challenge is that it gets a bit grimy by the end of the process and has mold or other bits in areas that would be problematic for next years use. I will be thinkinig through alternative routes for next year.
That could be interesting. The only catch is you'd want to be careful it isn't too warm in that space so you don't trigger the top parts waking up too early... Ideal scenario would be 70ish F down by the roots and as close to freezing above but not frozen...
@@edibleacres hm.. i might try it out on my heated bathroom floor. Gone follow your "bottom heat propagator" series closely :) Thank you for doing an indepth showcase this year about it. Hopefully you will give us many updates on it until, so we have something to enjoy until the spring is here :)
I would guess we may start with cuttings that are super slow to take (like apple, pear, blueberry, cherry, IF they are willing at all they need a WHILE) sometime in mid-February. Most will go in very early March. We're zone 5B.
I want to do this!! We have raspberry bushes I think I'll try this with soon. I mean, I'll fill a rubbermaid with playsand and heat mat under the box. I don't need a space as big as yours. :)
The great news with the raspberries is that you can simply dig into the bed in the spring when the ground is workable and dig up runners and root sections and plant them out in new areas. Super easy and requires no heat or investment! Yay!
Yikes! I wonder if you are going for too high of a ratio of above to below... Ideal scenario is 80% or so of the total cutting length is below ground, 20% above. If you have absolutely ideal field conditions you can go for longer sections certainly but if it gets dry or hot they can wither before they have a chance to establish.... .Lesson learned on my side many times!
I had thought about that last night at 3:00 am when I work up from a dream and couldn’t go back to sleep! Hahaha. Thanks for the advice, I’ll try pushing them in deeper.
Willow will also root if left in water to give a head start but needs to be done at beginning of dormant season. But worth trying now too... pencil thick newest growth cuttings of around 12" to 18" long. It's probably been addressed on the channel already but chopped up willow soaked in water makes a good growth hormone solution ideal for promoting root growth.
@@ciaranosullivan7791 thanks for the comment, appreciated. I’ve tried rooting willow in water, which worked, but the pants didn’t survive being planted out. Maybe I needed to pot them for for a while before planting them out. I’ve heard of the willow to make rooting hormone but haven’t tried it yet.
@@Teem_Loots of the 20 or so cuttings that I done this with a few years ago most of them took pretty well but they were definitely slower to establish. I took cuttings at start of winter/dormant season and put them into a bucket of water to root until mid spring ish and then potted them for that year and planted them in the following spring into a grassed area. They are mostly doing great now...
Thoughts on how moist this bed should be? I've got a plastic barrel cut low that i'm going to use for a small scale trial of something like this, trying to root hardy kiwi. Do you have any recommendations on moisture for this? Mine is in a 3 season room, basically an enclosed porch. I've got a heating mat and i'm just curious your thoughts on how wet to keep this to be optimally functioning without getting things to have issues from warm + wet.
I think the key is even moiisture that isn't too too wet... You definitely don't want it to dry out and you want to avoid watering in a way that has a lot of water runninig through.
FWIW, I truly appreciate your content ending as soon as the value has been shared. So many others extend their videos to hit UA-cam analytics numbers (e.g. 10 minutes or longer) that I actively avoid videos that are 10 minutes and a few seconds long. Please accept this active engagement and a like in exchange for continued quality content without fluff.
Yeah, I know there are ways to get better metrics and such. Could have named the video "They said you couldn't propagate this way, 7 reasons why they're wrong?" Ha! :) You can really feel when a video is filler, I don't have the bandwidth for that (literally, we have slow internet!)
Do you have any issues with fungus gnats? If so what’s your solution? I have a small bed on a heat mat. Pure sand medium. Fungus gnats are the bane of my existence.
No formal way to monitor that I have, but I'll check with a finger every few days or pull up a random cutting here or there to see how moist it is down at their base. If I overwater it will simply go down in the sawdust, no big deal, so it should be pretty easy to maintain.
No, I mention them in the description. They are heating cables meant for soil. BUT, I had a friend use 'rope lights' with the same temperature controller and he really liked the results, so you can explore other options that may make sense.
Think will make a small propagation bed in hoophouse closest to the heated greenhouse wall with a seedling mat underneath. Love to have some more river locust and some blueberry plants.☺
Blueberry supposedly takes from cuttings but needs up to 3 months to form callousing and roots! River Locust I've heard will root nicely but I haven't tried, maybe I'll give them a shot too...
I think this may have been a 48' length but I don't remember exactly... My friend uses rope lights with his bed and has had good success, so there are definitely other options...
Here's one question you may not have an answer for but here goes as it an issue. What can be done to get rid of, permanently, Japanese Knot Weed? Is there a safe chemical that will do this? ( the cancer causing chemical is recommended but that scares me, even if I don't do it myself). BTW, big areas of this is growing in our area, Southern Tier, NY
"Get rid of" is not the mentality I'd encourage you to think with... If you can, explore more the idea of "what plants can I focus and support getting established here that can replace the knotweed"... Can you plant in Alders, Willows, Elderberries, etc, with a plan to cut the knotweed back a number of times each season to use their clippings as mulch to support the shrub and tree layer that will replace them... We're pushed a narrative of 'kill the invasive' but if that is the only work then the niche they filled is a vacuum and they'll just refill it... Think through who's next and focus on that transition. Appreciate the knotweed for the amazing biomass it is in the meantime!
Consider the ASMR as just being imbedded in actual ideas :) Instead of talking close to a mic while I touch a candy wrapper or open an iphone box, you get the vibe while I share how to replicate plants... win win :)
coroplast! a larger, thicker, more durable version of the exact same sort of stuff makes up those greenhouse panels one often sees at home improvement stores... ive seen paul elkins do some pretty cool stuff with it (highly recommend checking out his youtube channel if you arent familiar with him)
Glad to hear it. My cousins had a chimney fire when I was a kid,and it was mostly blind luck that the house didn't catch fire. Thanks-I enjoy,and value your content a great deal,and I'd hate to see it come to an end over creosote.
Please Read: We are very interested in hearing from YOU! What experiments have you tried that worked? What failed? Share ideas and questions here, maybe links to videos about your experiments with propagation or links to photos of what you've done. I feel we can all benefit immensely from our collective work in this area. Imagine a scenario where every town/city had a good handful of folks who dial in low-tech methods for replicating wave after wave of high resilience perennial food and medicine plants. An actual step towards deeper health for us all!
Wow such an amzing question to ask! Awesome i cant wait to hear more on propogation methods here. I have done softwood grape cutting when summer pruning i take the small stems and leave one leaf at the end and slice it in half thrn i usually stick it in a pot with a bunch of other cuttings into a moist well draining mix, then i tie a big clear bag around the entire pot and set it underneath my apple tree to give it some good shade. I usually get almost 100% success propogating grapes this way. If done mid summer in zone 4 ontario canada! I they still become established enough to go throigh dormancy in fall and get plugged in the ground over winter!. Also i use this same method with my issai kiwi it wrks very well.!
Hi, edible acres!
Very nice setup!
I have like a million or so notes and thoughts to share on this, so this will probably be more like a letter. Bear with me here.
Lol
I've become a fan of 80litre clear totes for propegations. I'm aware of the environmental impacts, so I started with one 2 years ago to test its life cycle and its not getting Britle at all, though I do keep them out of excessive sunlight, especially in summer months. This year I ended up with 2 more. I think for some plants that need a higher humidity you could also utilize those by simply inverting one over cuttings that would benefit from the captured warmth and humidity. Another nice thing about them, is you can stack them if space is limited. Just a thought, I think designing that bed into a mini permaculture farm with greenhouses and all would be a totally cool video. Lol.
Anyway, I flunked with small blackcap cuttings last year, I tried 50 or so 8inch cuttings, with intention to encourage rooting from buds. I ended giving up 8 weeks into it, and only ended up with 3 that had one stragley root on them each. If I had more space this year, I'd probably try out a large length cutting, and attempt a trench propegation technique... though I think your right about trying out the root segment propegation previously mentioned. For now the natural tip layering is providing me with plenty of multiples, but I'm still very interested in propagation of some of my mother stock.
Some blueberry notes would be pretty cool. I've got 5, 6x50ft beds going in this year,(ready in 2022) and the soil is on the acidic/well drained side of things. I also have quite a bit of needle rich pine mulch and branch to utilize. I've read into fungal rich soils for blueberry, so I'm trying out 6 older derelict commercial varieties this year in the hugleish, thicket principled plots, with lots of native pollinator encouraging wildflowers, as their companions between the plots. I'd definitely like to see some notes on dormant blueberry cutting trials... and also green cuttings methods. Some pollinating flower companions would also be a bonus. I'll follow up down the road as well.
All things vines would also be cool. Hardy kiwi, grapes, ect. I want to create edible shading trellises in the future between the blueberry plots, and am starting out a few trials in my containment gardens before putting them to the permy Ag fields currently riddled with brassicas.(its going to wild flowers and reclaimed tarp plots this year to bring in overcrowding and reclaimed diversity for potential vine trellises)
The sea buckthorn I'm not overly excited about. I trialed a few last year, and its characteristics are not really desirable for my permaculture fields. I may trial a few cuts from them this year and pass on some notes to help out. But those thorns in my cluster thickets! Ouch! Lol
Also, if you have space in the bed, dormant black/red mulberry! I have no luck, warm, cold, alive, dormant, air layering, seeds,ect. Its one of the mainstays for my planned canopies, I just can't seem to multiply, I have bountiful supplies of mother stock, and no success. Lol, an old timer who I buy from here in Ontario told me, 'I just put a stick in the ground and a year later its a tree!' Lol. I'm a little jealous.
My elderberry cuttings are coming along, massive callous, little leafs, a couple thin roots in development. They are in the totes inside the house sitting around 20celcius with high RH. I'm going to attempt a direct planting for my hugleish elderberry thicket this year, so I'm hoping I'll only have to thin them down into one tray of pots(thats all I have available this year)
I may cut leafs down into halfs/single bud development in a couple weeks, I'll follow up with more notes later on.
I would love to see more notes on pre/post callous development, rooting stages, potting up/ planting out after root development, even pruning techniques, pinching flowers, ect. for both elderberries and currants.
Thanks for all the awesome content guys!
Looking forward to seeing even more growth!
Absolutely everywhere!
Thanks for the video. After watching many of your videos, and experimenting with propagation last year, this year I built a heated propagation bed similar to yours but a little smaller scale. My goal: experimentation with timing and soil mediums. I’m trying 5 different mediums and putting in cuttings every couple weeks in every medium. I have about 100 cuttings in, mostly blueberry because that’s the one I really want to figure out. I’ll be adding probably another 100 cuttings or more in the next month. If I learn anything valuable, maybe I’ll make a video :)
@@azereacres5967 I was hoping to find videos on your channel. Have you tried propagating mulberry from seeds? I was told recently to plant them immediately outside (protect from animals). I saved and dried seed and will plant soon. I may have also kept some in damp sawdust in the freezer - I'll see when I get to filling my air pruner beds in a bit.
@@az55544 I'm looking into hiring a local kid that really likes doing film stuff, he's done some work for our friends farms and it's quite excellent, I'm very much not even a photographer, lol, but want to share my progression of our permaculture farm development. Might be later this year, though I'm usually so busy during planting seasons.
Mulberry seed was super difficult for me at the start, though this year I have a near 100 percent germination rate with this written method.
Soak seed in water overnight, then place on damp, not wet, paper towel, seal in a ziplock bag and place in the fridge for 30-45 days, some mold may occur, that's fine so long as it's not overpowering.
For sprouting seed after stratification, use a sieve to filter out mason sand, toss the large unfiltered sands and keep the filtered dry sand. Weigh the filtered sand, then weigh a bowl of water at 10% of the sands weight, mix the two together and microwave for 30 seconds or heat on stove(covered) for 30 seconds to sterilize your substrate. Once done, put in a ziplock bag and keep in the fridge for germination stages as you need.
For germination of mulberry seed, add a quarter of your stratified seed to a small amount of sand mix, put in a Ziplock bag, and place on a warm high up shelf checking weekly for sprouts to form. If no sprouts at three weeks, I'd place those back in fridge for a couple more weeks and try more from the towel bag.
They like 20° to 25° Celsius for germination I've found.
Once germinated, I have my kids sort though them with their delicate hands, or fold a business card to scoop and pot up. I utilise clear totes for high carbon low oxygen at the start of growing, a heat pad or bottom heat and part sun is excellent for light, and once the days start getting longer I temper them off to more oxygen and move them to the garden house, then to the nursing beds, then to their forever homes as temperatures allow.
When planting them at their site, I'll put 5gallons of water into a well disturbed hole, I'll amend once with compost, humanure, horse manure, innoculated wood chips(wine caps usually), biochar,,, really whatever organic fertility I can find, and I usually do 3 heafty shovels full until it looks like a bowl of soup, I then gently press the plant in, mulch with whatever is abundant, and in a couple weeks go back, water more, and compact the soil with my feet very tightly, mulberry love hard packed, slightly neutral PH soils for healthy nutrient uptake, so I utilise similar traights of other plants when guilding them in.
Though silvo pasture goes hand in hand, just toss manure into the reach of those majestic mulberry root structures. Double or triple density planting, I like a zig zag, 8ft apart, accompanied with walnut, pawpaw, service berry, haskaps, apples, elders, nettles, mints, clovers, rye, ECT.
Happy growing.
I’ve never seen any one else addressing this before, very well done. I’m excited to see the results.
I'm excited to share more notes when we get to the next steps.
Rooting before shooting. Exceptional advice. Thanks for another invaluable video. Grace and peace.
Awesome, love the details. Can't wait to see how all the different cuttings perform, especially blueberry, apple. The 'jump start' is a good one, I'll put it next to my light timer.
Great video!
This is fascinating. I'm a Florida gardener and I've never even wondered how winter cuttings were handled in cold regions. I'm blessed with a pretty much year round growing season.
I love your videos. And I love how you and Sasha have created a system that depends on a certain wildness. Because I alway start my garden with the hope of order. I have a 10x10 community garden bed and I volunteer in the food bank gardens. Very quickly wildness and the notion of “I wonder what would happen if I did.....”. Many blessings to you both in the coming years.
The fact that you just laughed at the idea of failed experiments is probably why you've been successful.
I'm VERY used to things not working out the way I hoped at this point. If you can't get your head into that space this work can be emotionally crushing!
Agree completely. I come from a scientific background and failure is an answer to experimentation.
thanks for the inspiration! My family has been working on getting a nursery business started and keeping things simple seems to be requisite for success.
I'd say so. In fact, I don't know that I'd suggest this design/implementation is necessary at all but for our scale it has proven quite nice.
2:50 The great thing about metric is that you can just divide out the "tens". 20000 sq. cm. we would just write as 2 square m (or: 2 m2)
Just divide out 10*10 to go from square cm (or cm2) to square dm (or dm2), then do that again to go to square m (or m2)
Good note, thanks. I don't get why you folks don't just use 'imperial'....
What's so hard about saying "hey, cut that board for me 5 and 7/8s by 4 and 13/16ths but make that side about 23/32"nds shorter". I just don't get why you make it so hard. HA!
@@edibleacres One of the great things about living close to the boarder and our school system switching from imperial to metric about half way through my education means I know both. It is very handy! XD
@@edibleacres grew up with the metric system, but then worked in truss design. I find metric much more practical, but I understand imperial measurements better.
A propagation technique I discovered for European elder is to cut a log during winter as thick as my arm, and a few feet long. I just lay it the ground and in spring it sprouts up a thicket. It's a great way to establish a dense hedge or windbreak. I've not tried it with American elder yet, but if anything the American species is even more aggressive so it may well work.
Very cool note. I tried something like this way back with some sections of curly willow I was cutting and laid branches like that in a little ditch. Seemed to root. Poplar seems promising as well in this way.
Very thought out iterative design.
Thanks a lot
Also as an added piece of info you can air layer pears and apples during the growing season and they will callus but not fully push roots. You can then move those callused over cuttings to that bed for the winter. 👍 i seen it on mike kinkaids channel! He sat em off in a temp controlled greenhouse after they callused to finish rooting in a pot.
Very cool info here, thank you.
i have has zero luck air layering anything here in sw colorado
Love these experiments! Will be watching the comments closely too for other ideas. Cheers!
Nice set up! A much better use of the polycarb material than silly signs.
I will keep an eye out for them next year so we can experiment with putting them to much high use!
I absolutely love your channel. You have taught me so much. I am looking forward to beginning my food forest this spring.
We're excited for you! Hope things grow in amazing ways :)
This film is, as the entire channel, super sympathetic, inspiring and constructive-I really do appreciate that, thank you.
I did the setup with a mix of soil, well rotten cow manure, chicken bedding and forest soil.
The idea being, to give the plants a good, healthy start and to inoculate with the right microorganisms, from the forest soil.
You however articulated pretty clearly in your last videos on this, that you don't want too much nutrients and aim for a well drained, loose medium.
So, do you think I'm running in danger of getting mold or anaerobic conditions?
Your answer would be genuinely appreciated, very best regards,
Simon
Thanks for such kind words, very happy to share with lovely folks like you!
Feedback:
I can say that in the past I have tried rooting some hardwood cuttings with warmth from below in a more nutrient rich media and had mixed results. Some plants which root easily enjoy the nourishment I think and it boosts them (currants, elders, etc) but those which need a fair bit of time or are picky about rooting (which is mainly what I would use this for) had some issues with mold/rotting. Could very much be user error or the mix I used, etc., but my takeaway is if you are adding nutrient keep it light, balanced and aged and make sure the rest of your mix is loose and free draining.
Best of luck and please share notes on how it all works for you!
It's been a year already. Gosh. I remember last year's.
The new 2021 models are already coming out :) ha!
VERY INSPIRING! Fantastic info on such an exciting topic. Thanks for sharing your experience. This is really helpful to me as I'm expanding into this method of propagation. Grateful for this documentaion.
This is such a wonderful design! By spring I might be able to learn if my saskatoons needs this to root. I just tried them direct in soil for overwintering the first time this year :)
I hope they take for you. I've had nearly 0 success with rooting saskatoon from cuttings. They will naturally sucker and I've had great success digging up and dividing suckers in the past, and some success in saving seed and fall sowing it in a nursery bed with decent germination in spring. Best of luck!
This is a very timely video for me. Thank you for all your wonderful videos. Rabbits have girdled two of my mature seaberries due to all the snow we've gotten. I'm hoping to take cuttings from what is left. Any suggestions would be appreciated, never propagated seaberries before.
I'll share more notes when we get to doing them, but yes, you'll need to act pretty quickly.
ua-cam.com/video/5GHg5MTWplQ/v-deo.html - I show last years setup with some cuttings in there, can give you reference.
In general I would suggest erring on the side of keeping cuttings 'fatter' and longer. Use everything you can, but the cuttings that will have the highest rooting success come from lower on the plant, and have a thickness to them and a 'heel' where they connected to last years stem.
With bottom heat and lean media like in this video I can get 80-90% strong callousing and rooting (the roots are insanely delicate, be careful with transplanting). I have many 2' tall beautifully rooted and field ready seaberries now for this spring because of last years cuttings work.
I hope it works super well for you John!
I love everything about your property except the snow. (I'm strictly a tropic/sub-tropic gardener.) Always good to learn something new though.
We've all got our different contexts.. I love the snow for a few months (I'll be SUPER tired of it by the end of Februrary :)
Good idea, to improve the heat conservation, you could clogg the top of open channels or rotate 1/4 turn of the external layer (they will act as chimney if let open - assuming they are open).
You must be great at what you do since all your plants are sold out already.
Ha! OR... We don't grow enough plants, hard to say :)
what about a setup on top of a compost pile for passive heating?
I tried this in the past. I would love the concept to work but I think there may be too much steam/gasses coming off. I had things rot in my experiment... Not suggesting folks don't try it, I just didn't have amazing luck.
@@edibleacres how about running water pipes through the compost and then through a seperate cutting bed?
If people use compost heated water to shower then surely that would work without having to deal with off gassing.
Question: Did you put plastic corrugated on the floor of your bottom heat propagator before putting in the sawdust? // My set up is way smaller. When I need bottom heat for propagating tomatoes, a much shorter time horizon than woody cuttings, I take an electric heating pad -- the kind that's used for wet heat -- place it in a couple of zip lock bags, and put my seed pots in their trays on top of it and set it on the lowest setting. I start with the bags zipped up and open them to regulate the temperature. My set-up is in the house so I don't have too much of a differential to make up for. I check the set up many times a day making sure that it is just warmer than ambient temp. If it gets too warm (very rarely) I turn it off open the bags up so there's air flow. I'll wait till the tray feels cooler to touch and turn it back on. There's a thermal break between the pots and the tray and tray and bags, and I've never had cooked roots. I used an electric blanket once when I had a huge garden and followed the same "mother hen" approach checking the temperature often and turning it off and letting it cool when needed. I had success with it, but I do not recommend any one disregard UL recommendations for electrical appliances. They are there for your protection. I'm old and way past my expiration date😂, so I play fast 'n loose! LOL I tear tags off pillows and furniture too!
Tear those tags!
Nothing below the sawdust, just dumped on the floor, then a polycarbonate double wall sheet between the sawdust and the start of the rooting media. I meant to take a video shot of that but ya know, I'm way more focused on doing the thing than filming the thing :)
Do you ever sell the plants you root in the coming spring, or do you find it more worthwhile to raise them into the season and sell them in fall?
Definitely need to grow them for a season. . They callous and begin rooting in this setup but need a year to develop real roots for sure.
Thanks for the great information! We don’t have a garage but are interested in this set up. We live in northern Ontario zone 4 and are wondering if we could adapt this idea and keep it outside. Was thinking we would take cuttings closer to spring to use less energy through the heat cables. Do you think this could work?
I think it is possible... You'd want really good insulation around the sides and probably underneath as well as cold and wind could really zap efficiency. But give it a shot. Maybe you want to design it with low tunnel hoops over the whole thing so you can put poly on as needed if/when there are particularly cold times during the rooting...
@@edibleacres Thanks so much for the advice! I’ll keep you posted :)
Could you graft onto rootstock this way, and avoid too much leafing out too early? Like peaches or other stone fruit?
I don't believe so, but I can't say that I know for sure at all so perhaps you'd want to try on a small scale.
Hey Sean, how Important is light during this process? I notice its by a window, is that on purpose to provide direct/indirect light for your cuttings once they get going? Or maybe do you move your cuttings out to more light once they callus and start putting on roots with no top growth?
Indirect light from the north. I put mine on the N wall of house. W/o roots the plants have no place for the sugar. Enough energy is in a healthy stem (at least of many bushes) to push roots.
Technically light is not important at all to stimulate rooting down below. If done perfectly, the cutting will establish a ropey and healthy root in the media while still being mainly dormant at top and I can plant in a nursery bed. Most times they sprout just a little above so I like some light to support them if they do without having to rush them outside...
Are you putting the play sand directly on the shavings, or are you placing a layer of the polycarb first? Basically, any barrier between sand and sawdust?
Thanks for the clarifying question... I should have made a video shot of it, but after the sawdust I laid 1-2 layers of the rigid polycarbonate panels on top as a 'break' between the more moist media above and the dry sawdust below. This could have been cardboard and a sheet of poly plastic, or plywood with a garbage bag, or... you get the idea.
Would you know if walnut would root, planted straight from cuttings? And if so, is there a limit to cutting size would you say?
I really don't think walnut roots from cuttings... Seed is ideal.
I would love to buy some live "sea berry" plants. Put a link in the description. Thanks.
We've got enough for some local sales this spring and hoping to have enough for serious offering for fall...
I just took some seabuckthorn cuttings from some plants by the coast close to me in Ireland and was considering building a bottom heat setup for vegetables anyway so might get a head start on it... interestingly seabuckthorn is regarded as an invasive species here and I think it's even illegal to plant it! Crazy really considering the nutritional value of the berries. I'm giving careful consideration to where I plant it though considering it's status here! Some where that it can be controlled from spreading too crazy. Have you folks any tips on what to do with their berries?
did this end up working out pretty well? I'm tempted to do something similar to this this winter.
I'd say it worked out 'well enough' if that you had a very focused attempt at this and it was your main concern and you dealt with any issues that came up you'd have amazing results and it would be so super worth your time.
@@edibleacres Were there any major concerns you had with it, and how long did you end up using it? I know you posted this video near the end of winter just trying to realize any potential flaws you may have noticed so if I can think of any improvements I can implement them and let you guys know of how things go :)
I am unsure why you're rooting right into the area with the cables. How do you ensure that the species you are rooting doesn't root too quickly and gets stuck near or under your cables? How do you deal with pests once it gets into the media. I've used prop benches before with soil warming cables but we always propagated into a tray that was resting on the soil warming prob bench. We could move quicker rooting species with ease, and we didn't need to replenishing the media that you have around the cables.
We've since upgraded some aspects of our process and I plan to offer a newer video of our methods this spring. We still do similar methods overall but have a media that is differentiated from the sand/heat layer below to help minimize mixing of roots and cable..
I know you have access to lots of hay/straw bales. Have you tried inoculating some with nitrogen rich matter - like coffee grounds? Other more personal organic stuff in liquid form are also readily available.
Once you are finished with it, you can add the remains to your composting process or direct to beds as a mulch.
Thanks for sharing. Stay safe.
We do a ton of composting and love it... Not applicable in this particular nursery work in this video but super lovely out in the garden during the season for sure.
I would LOVE to learn how to propagate pear & apple cuttings! PLEASE be sure to let us know if you are successful!!.......... I am trying some chestnut & apple cuttings in a humidity dome but I started late (mid Aug in zone 5) so I'm not expecting success. I did air layering with them at the same time on new wood & no visible roots against the bag at this time. I will probably try again next year early summer.
I think you'll want to definitely explore grafting for apples and pears and saving seed for chestnut (and apples too!) to get a more rewarding experience.
@@edibleacres I have grafted apples & pears in the past & grown chestnuts from seed. I will be doing so again, but there are times when rooting/cloning an apple tree is the best way to go. Such as when you have no rootstock available to graft to. Or you only have room for one tree & want the vigor of a seedling but as a known variety (like Honey Crisp) to be used to get a lot of scion wood from for grafting trees for sale each year. I would like to root chestnuts so I can get specific hybrid seed from known parents like AuSuper x Qing. You can do this by grafting but chestnut grafts often fail. So if you have any success with your apple & pear cuttings with bottom heat I hope you will let us know.
Hi again. I’m wondering if you can propagate cane plants like raspberries, blackberries, etc...I’d like to reproduce my blackberries faster than just tip rooting... can I take a cutting just like grapes or elders or currants and propagate them on bottom heat?
If you have the space it seems worth trying. I just took a pile of cultivar Black Cap cuttings the other day for this bed so I will share notes on how that works. You may consider, just as a concept, with the blackberries burying most of the stem in warm media laid on their side to mimic the tip layer vibe. I may do that if we have room and will document/share notes. Both raspberry and blackberry can be grown out from even pretty small root sections so you can ramp up numbers quite a bit early spring without bottom heat.. .Good luck!
EdibleAcres thanks for the info. Do you have any videos on how to take root cuttings? I have no experience with that...
about watering how wet does the media need to be and is the excess drainded down into the bottom and held
i have been trying to root cuttings for three years here in sw colorado. it is hot in the symmer and super dry. either they just shrivel up or they rot in a covered bin. i have some apricot and grape cuttings in sand outside but there are no roots and hece been in the sand for several months now. the lawn sprinkler keeps them watered daily but they are in full sun. im at my wits end as i have ten rooted cuttings coming in today from florida of citation rootstocks for stonefruits. i will pot them but dont know what else to do, shade or sun im just lost
Why not save the sand mixture to reuse next year? You mention you'd be spreading it onto raised beds after this and also that you recognize the material is energy intensive to produce
Good/reasonable question. I think the challenge is that it gets a bit grimy by the end of the process and has mold or other bits in areas that would be problematic for next years use. I will be thinkinig through alternative routes for next year.
I was wondering if the electricity from the coil could get hooked up to a solar panel🤔 I like that idea
That is possible, but I haven't tried. Something to research...
I have subfloor heating in my bathroom, I think I will adapt a system like yours to root cutting using heat from my floor.
That could be interesting. The only catch is you'd want to be careful it isn't too warm in that space so you don't trigger the top parts waking up too early... Ideal scenario would be 70ish F down by the roots and as close to freezing above but not frozen...
Oh. I’m glad you told me. Yeah probably won’t work. I just had an Idea, propagator heated by running hoses through a compost pile..
Have you tried with peat moss? Wondering if that could work since it keeps a lot of moisture?
I haven't tried it, but would be excited to hear what other folks experience there.
@@edibleacres hm.. i might try it out on my heated bathroom floor. Gone follow your "bottom heat propagator" series closely :) Thank you for doing an indepth showcase this year about it. Hopefully you will give us many updates on it until, so we have something to enjoy until the spring is here :)
What week will you start putting cuttings in?
I would guess we may start with cuttings that are super slow to take (like apple, pear, blueberry, cherry, IF they are willing at all they need a WHILE) sometime in mid-February. Most will go in very early March. We're zone 5B.
I want to do this!! We have raspberry bushes I think I'll try this with soon. I mean, I'll fill a rubbermaid with playsand and heat mat under the box. I don't need a space as big as yours. :)
The great news with the raspberries is that you can simply dig into the bed in the spring when the ground is workable and dig up runners and root sections and plant them out in new areas. Super easy and requires no heat or investment! Yay!
I’ve been pushing in willow cuttings for years at different times throughout the year in different locations and not a single one has survived.
Yikes! I wonder if you are going for too high of a ratio of above to below... Ideal scenario is 80% or so of the total cutting length is below ground, 20% above. If you have absolutely ideal field conditions you can go for longer sections certainly but if it gets dry or hot they can wither before they have a chance to establish.... .Lesson learned on my side many times!
I had thought about that last night at 3:00 am when I work up from a dream and couldn’t go back to sleep! Hahaha. Thanks for the advice, I’ll try pushing them in deeper.
Willow will also root if left in water to give a head start but needs to be done at beginning of dormant season. But worth trying now too... pencil thick newest growth cuttings of around 12" to 18" long. It's probably been addressed on the channel already but chopped up willow soaked in water makes a good growth hormone solution ideal for promoting root growth.
@@ciaranosullivan7791 thanks for the comment, appreciated. I’ve tried rooting willow in water, which worked, but the pants didn’t survive being planted out. Maybe I needed to pot them for for a while before planting them out. I’ve heard of the willow to make rooting hormone but haven’t tried it yet.
@@Teem_Loots of the 20 or so cuttings that I done this with a few years ago most of them took pretty well but they were definitely slower to establish. I took cuttings at start of winter/dormant season and put them into a bucket of water to root until mid spring ish and then potted them for that year and planted them in the following spring into a grassed area. They are mostly doing great now...
Thoughts on how moist this bed should be? I've got a plastic barrel cut low that i'm going to use for a small scale trial of something like this, trying to root hardy kiwi. Do you have any recommendations on moisture for this? Mine is in a 3 season room, basically an enclosed porch. I've got a heating mat and i'm just curious your thoughts on how wet to keep this to be optimally functioning without getting things to have issues from warm + wet.
I think the key is even moiisture that isn't too too wet... You definitely don't want it to dry out and you want to avoid watering in a way that has a lot of water runninig through.
FWIW, I truly appreciate your content ending as soon as the value has been shared. So many others extend their videos to hit UA-cam analytics numbers (e.g. 10 minutes or longer) that I actively avoid videos that are 10 minutes and a few seconds long. Please accept this active engagement and a like in exchange for continued quality content without fluff.
Yeah, I know there are ways to get better metrics and such. Could have named the video "They said you couldn't propagate this way, 7 reasons why they're wrong?" Ha! :)
You can really feel when a video is filler, I don't have the bandwidth for that (literally, we have slow internet!)
Second this, few channels I'm considering unfollowing even though they have great information because they turn a 5 minute video into 15.
Do you have any issues with fungus gnats? If so what’s your solution? I have a small bed on a heat mat. Pure sand medium. Fungus gnats are the bane of my existence.
I haven't had any experience with them, sorry...
I have done mine with just sand no perlite couple of days ago. Will it work? Do I need to water it more often?
Probably more watering. A friend let me know he filled his with a light potting mix and it worked incredibly well, so that is something to consider.
What is your method for monitoring and adjusting moisture levels? Hoping to do better this year with our propagation bed.
No formal way to monitor that I have, but I'll check with a finger every few days or pull up a random cutting here or there to see how moist it is down at their base. If I overwater it will simply go down in the sawdust, no big deal, so it should be pretty easy to maintain.
@@edibleacres Thanks. By the way, sawdust is about R-2.4 per inch (dry, of course).
What kind of heating cables are those? Just regular ones for gutters?
No, I mention them in the description. They are heating cables meant for soil. BUT, I had a friend use 'rope lights' with the same temperature controller and he really liked the results, so you can explore other options that may make sense.
Think will make a small propagation bed in hoophouse closest to the heated greenhouse wall with a seedling mat underneath. Love to have some more river locust and some blueberry plants.☺
Blueberry supposedly takes from cuttings but needs up to 3 months to form callousing and roots!
River Locust I've heard will root nicely but I haven't tried, maybe I'll give them a shot too...
I just built a 4’x10’ prop table in my nursery. I used 120’ of ice melt cable with external thermostat. How long was yours?
I think this may have been a 48' length but I don't remember exactly...
My friend uses rope lights with his bed and has had good success, so there are definitely other options...
Here's one question you may not have an answer for but here goes as it an issue. What can be done to get rid of, permanently, Japanese Knot Weed? Is there a safe chemical that will do this? ( the cancer causing chemical is recommended but that scares me, even if I don't do it myself). BTW, big areas of this is growing in our area, Southern Tier, NY
"Get rid of" is not the mentality I'd encourage you to think with... If you can, explore more the idea of "what plants can I focus and support getting established here that can replace the knotweed"... Can you plant in Alders, Willows, Elderberries, etc, with a plan to cut the knotweed back a number of times each season to use their clippings as mulch to support the shrub and tree layer that will replace them...
We're pushed a narrative of 'kill the invasive' but if that is the only work then the niche they filled is a vacuum and they'll just refill it... Think through who's next and focus on that transition. Appreciate the knotweed for the amazing biomass it is in the meantime!
Good job
Do you keep it moist? In order to root the cuttings
Yes, for sure. . I'll share more notes when we get there but the media must remain lightly moist the whole time (not saturated).
@@edibleacres awesome sean, you da man. You are the teddy pendergrass of propogation. You make it smooth.
what is Sean's favorite gator?
trick question
Thats a propa question!
I still think you should diversify on UA-cam and do ASMR videos; you have a very calming voice.
Consider the ASMR as just being imbedded in actual ideas :)
Instead of talking close to a mic while I touch a candy wrapper or open an iphone box, you get the vibe while I share how to replicate plants... win win :)
coroplast! a larger, thicker, more durable version of the exact same sort of stuff makes up those greenhouse panels one often sees at home improvement stores... ive seen paul elkins do some pretty cool stuff with it (highly recommend checking out his youtube channel if you arent familiar with him)
Thanks for the notes, that Paul seems like a super creative guy
You've mentioned your wood stove a number of times-please don't forget to keep the stove pipe clean. Chimney fires can be very nasty.
I hear ya! I clean the chimney fully 2-3 times a winter to be super safe... Seems crazy but I want to be extra!
Glad to hear it. My cousins had a chimney fire when I was a kid,and it was mostly blind luck that the house didn't catch fire.
Thanks-I enjoy,and value your content a great deal,and I'd hate to see it come to an end over creosote.
👍
And i hope thats as close to politics as you stray haha keep up the good work
Cleaning up the trash wave behind politics is what we do :)
No geothermal?
Moar heat bed vids plz! K thx bye!
Can do! Planning an update soon.
Pride is sin anyways!