No Mow Permaculture
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- Опубліковано 22 лип 2024
- Do you want to start a food forest but don't know where to start? Are you all-in on "No Mow May" and want to take it to the next level? Do you want to free range your chickens and never buy feed again? Do you want to see native plants take back your landscape? Do you want to support pollinators and provide wildlife habitat? Are you wondering how you can build your topsoil passively? This video is for you!
No Mow May + Food Forests = No Mow Permaculture
Visit www.foodforestvirginia.com for more
Amazing channel..binge watching your videos! Can’t wait for all your future videos!
My no mow zone is my favorite part of my gardens ❤
Keep up the good work
I have been No Mow for 21 years (on a thin soil landscape).
My trees have taken their time to grow, but I really think being No Mow all this time has helped build a better soil.
I don't really harvest the grass. I don't want to use machines at all anywhere in my garden. All I do is pull away grass when I want to plant something.
Due to the (initially) very thin soil, I did start with the fruit bushes first - currants, gooseberries, etc, etc. And I have quite a few of these now (as I propagate some plants every year from the few plants I bought).
The trees are taking much longer to grow, as the soil is still quite thin. But they are getting there, and I am getting some fruit off them over the last couple of years.
Yeah, I like 'chop and drop trees. I have several Elderberries. The stems break down so fast. I did try and grow a Pheasant Berry for the same reason. It didn't work and I will get another one sometime, but I think it would be a good one, and the chickkies will like the berries I suspect.
I have decided to add 'thickets' of quick growing native trees to selectively coppice, adding the brush to brash heaps, there for the numerous insects and some fungi to break down (it is amazing just how quickly the brash heaps start to drop once there's an established insect and fungi system working through it.
Oh, I do that twisting of grass bundles under my trees too. Not too close to the stem though.
It was okay, but be careful if you have voles in your garden. Voles will use the dead grass as a place to hide - and then nip out to gnaw certain apple trees (Jonagold is one they'll attack if you make it too easy).
I'm going for ducks first (eggs in the incubator), as they have sloopy poop that can go straight on the ground too.
I'm in the UK, so different birds, but there are now so many, and the insect life is improving all the time.
Ah well, this looks interesting. I'll subscribe.
Great video my man
LOVE This video, so inspiring!! thank you for sharing your information , just subscribed!
New here, beautiful garden 😊❤
Thanks! I'd like to take credit but it was mostly Mother Nature! hah
first time viewer. I like your format and the information, while not new to me, is a good refresher. And you do a great job of putting bits of information together.
thanks! I know this isn't a totally new idea, but I thought it useful to link "no mow" and permaculture. glad you liked it.
Thank you for drawing attention to syntropic principles in a temperate climate. I'm in Zone 5 and have been using linear guilds with chop and drop for around 5 years (is a guild really a guild if you've just planted? When do the interactions actually start happening?).
You mentioned the sunblocking leaves (usually large) and the more intense sun in the tropics. In temperate climates leaves are smaller and less dense(allowing more sunlight through to the ground) and the sun is less intense. One could argue that any photon that hits mulch is wasted vs being intercepted by a photosynthesing leaf. Living groundcover should provide more carbohydrates to the subterranean world and presumably increase the life and ultimate output of the system.
On the other hand syntropic style mulchng in temperate climates does provide a more tidy look for traditional N. American aesthetics. It's hard to get a uniform groundcover without pulling out things that aren't uniform (e.g. weeds). Smothering everything with mulch is a way to achieve uniformity (at least once it dries out).
Of course there are hybrids all along this spectrum.
Is our most efficient model in temperate climates to mulch the ground to the point of groundcover exclusion or to have living groundcover?
P.S. In case it's interesting, the bursting chop and drop here is designed as autumn olive (none introduced), comfrey, goldenrod, duckweed and oregano (invasive here).
I agree that a photon on mulch is wasted, ideally guilds should have a living herbaceous ground cover plant. In temperate zones it becomes hard to find the perfect candidate that is available in the winter through summer (perhaps there should be multiple ground covers). No matter what, I think the West needs to let go of their preference for highly-manicured gardens (usually synonymous with heavy chemicals, too) , and I think permaculture can be a great gateway into a more functional "look".
p.s. there is a non-invasive sister to Autumn Olive called Goumi, I have several and are very happy with them
@@DeWittPermaculture Slightly easier in temperate climates with full winters. Only need 3 season ground cover. When you get a more closed canopy, hostas are great. Tasty and live in very low light. Of course spring ephemerals can be added for a bit longer cover. But, honestly, there are so many ground cover options in zone 5. What makes ground cover options so difficult in you area?
Given you haven't found ground cover for your area, what about multiple species intercropped. Different growing patterns should allow varying mix mixes across all season. No season would be bare.
@@SeekingBeautifulDesign Here in Virginia the summers get very hot; we've been in a very hot (days of upper 90s-100s) drought and it killed off half my Sweet Charlie/Ground Ivy groundcover. Intercropping ground covers will have to be how it goes here.
@@DeWittPermaculture Thanks. I do like my 2 varieties of goumi, but there are some caveats:
1. They are less vigorous than AO. Certainly mine don't produce the biomass necessary to do much.
2. They produced well, but birds took 95% the minute they turned red. I barely harvested any. So, given the birds take goumi more than they take AO around here, I wonder the level of invasiveness.
3. Nurseries may sell you incorrect plants. I ordered goumi and received AO. Couldn't tell until after a season. Had to order again from a different nursery.
I used AO because it was free (naturalized here) and massively productive. They were used in such a way as to not introduce any new AO and to reduce the bird spread seed load in my neighborhood. I've not seen this technique used elsewhere.
I just came in from chopping biomass. Have a scythe, but haven't set it up. Right now using electric hedge clippers to 3D trim bushes and trees. Works ok for small patches of grass. Can you use the scythe to easily and safely trim vertical planes of bushes and/or use overhead for trees?
I like using a scythe to make mulch.
me too! easy as heckin
I live in zone 2b, and it's amazing, by the end of June the "grass" , a mix of natural and human introduced quack grass, is upwards of 4 feet!
A scythe is on my wish list. Where did you get yours?!
We let our yard grass grow past dandelions and other more native plants/flowers first bloom stage for bees etc.
I employ chop and drop for vetches, thistles and lambs quarters... etc. To "green mulch " my fruit trees, which are surrounded by wild roses, gooseberry, saskatoon berry and chokecherry bushes. Ground covers i like are dew berries, strawberries and woodland greens.
And! Thank you for your presentation. Well done and several good tips and affirmations of what I'm doing here❤
@@carolvandale5597 scytheworks and scythesupply
Very peaceful and informational, thank you. I have a newbie permaculture food forest, still learning. You just convinced me to get Deschampsia cespitosa | Tufted hairgrass that i was on the fence about. Its a native grass and grows 3' tall. Beautiful and will be great biomass i think. And can you please tell us more about syntropic agriculture principles? i like the air quoted phrases lol
Thanks! that grass looks nice, I appreciate it's ornamental aspects, too. Also consider warm season clumping grasses for biomass.
Hey man I will say the tea in some cases is easier to apply to the existing plants rather than the compost mulch
definitely
Migratory animals bring many great things
Great video! I started my food forest 2.5 years ago. I put down wood chips (8-12 Inches) and it got rid of most unwanted “weeds”. A year later Bindweed popped up all over the place. I couldn’t keep on top of it and it spread vigorously.
Any way to get rid of it? Of course without chemicals
Where in Va are you located?
South Central VA, Dinwiddie county
This what I want but tropical permaculture. I will only need a machete
@@improvisedsurvival5967 machete is my second fav tool!
I am more hesitant to make this liquid stuff I’m not really into anaerobic stuff I rather make compost but I think it’s mostly cuz I don’t want smelly water aerobic compost doesn’t stink
yeah fair enough, but now that I think of it I never smell this stuff and I walk by it multiple times a day. I guess it stays in the bucket (anaerobic means no air - it's pretty darn airtight). Compost tea is another great product to make!
@@DeWittPermaculture I think it’s just a preference of what you want to deal with and what is available around you like where I am we lack water and it saves me a step just to build a pile when I cut my grasses and clovers down
@@DeWittPermaculture my wife likes the compost pile better than the nasty water barrels also haha
That’s the smell of success.
Mowing is gay
Keep up the good work