We need compost real bad, and we'll do whatever it takes to get some. Today you'll learn how to make a simple composting bin from pallets, how to compost your fall leaves, how to compost chicken manure, how to plant a green manure crop in a garden path, how to make a simple compost pile in the garden and how to compost grass clippings without getting weeds in the garden. Resources: Compost Everything: The Good Guide to Extreme Composting: amzn.to/3tDVuwM An Agricultural Testament by Sir Albert Howard: amzn.to/3FFjYIn Solomon's Gold fertilizer recipe: www.thesurvivalgardener.com/recipe-steve-solomons-solomons-gold-david-good-extras/ My Root Exudate Milkshake Brings All the Soil Life to the Yard: the-david-the-good-store.creator-spring.com/listing/root-exudate-milkshake?product=46 My main UA-cam Camera: amzn.to/3KjqEzf Thank you for watching!
I live on 5 1/2acres that is dead soil with only true weeds, poison ivy, awful privet, oak, elm, cedar on top of dead soil. Anytime I plant something it usually dies. I have been unable to establish and food type plants. I also am always trying to get hummus and compost. I am excited to watch the full video
I can relate. Moved to our new desert stead, and I am so far behind on every project. I am watching my compost bin through the window at night instead of netflix. Gripping stuff. And when we cook, we cut off more "bad parts" from the veggies, so we have more to throw in the bin :'( HURRY!
When we had hens, I spread out bags of woodchips in their coop. They were great about scratching it around enough to keep their poo buried. Every spring and Autumn, I shoveled out the coop and spread the compost on the unused garden. Most of the time it was tilled in and replanted a few months later. I had award winning veggies at the county fair every year. The chips kept the poo from burning everything up, including my sinuses whenever I entered the closed up coop. ;-)
I’m using leaves for the same thing. We just got a fresh batch of chicks and I’m building a coop right in the garden. They’re gonna love running through the leaves as they grow. I planted wheat inside the coop and I’ll be covering that with a grazing screen frame so they get greens. I read somewhere that a foot of stuff (straw, chips, leaves) in the bottom of the coop will equal free range because of the insects that the birds will eat. I guess we’ll see. My kitchen and my garden are my laboratories.
Mulching is in my opinion, the #1 best thing you could do for a successful garden or trees. Didn’t really keep up with mulching my fruit trees until a couple of year ago and I can easily say, that it’s the best thing I’ve could’ve done to them. They’ve all doubled in growth and flowered many times over. Like night and day.
David hi I I realey in joyed your copying ways I have been composting lawn grass for years when the tempered gets up over 150 no more seeds great nitrogen I am in ireland in join my retirement in my garden working harder than ever looking foward to next year I work with raised beds only to get oxigen in soil mulch with sea weed grass clippings and leaves carton small only the single ply the wormed love the glue worms are the good guys The glue on a postage stamp Use comfrey tea all the time Take out the chickens I used to frss
Another wonderful video David. We gardeners don’t mow the lawn, we harvest the grass, for mulch and composting. And trees are organic fertilizer factories, using photosynthesis to feed microbes which in turn break down minerals for the tree supercharging the leaves which fall to be harvested with a bagging mower for compost and mulch. I’ve even been known to volunteer to get up my neighbors leaves when I had my ride on with a bagger. All that and cover cropping make for an excellent food garden. 🙂
Live in Australia here. And I've noticed the big difference in chop and drop with native. Young trees that have struggled suddenly grow when alot of mulch placed around. We've recently had floods and had an aquatic weed Salvinia get dumped near dam. I'm using it as mulch around trees. It will die off because it's out of water. Can't wait to see results.
Hi David I don't add clay it's all we have at the midway ranch with lots of small rocks,btw we also have a very dry environment.were down range on the front range next to fort Carson artillery range. We're building a Polly culture orchard and will have a no till gardenthis is the third year I've tilled it .composting horse manure and we have avertised on the neighborhood app to accept all yard waste and branches I'll be makeing a couple of tones of biochar this winter.bonus is a bunch of free firewood.chickens are an awesome resource which I use constantly. Except for trees and perennials the garden is going in late we had a foot of snow in mid may.im so jealous of the water nature gives you.we don't plant on hills and on top of rows ,we plant in bowles,trenches and shallow pits ,also makeing good use of 40 yards of wood chips .well send you picks in a few weeks .thanks for your insperation
@@jamesellsworth8147 do you harvest your native clay? I don't know how cold it gets where you live, but that's the main raw ingredient for Mass Heaters. I live in Texas, but started looking at them after our little "Snowmageddon" and centralized power was failing...
I really respect and appreciate how you let us see just glimpses of your children, not shots that make them readily identifiable to the public. That's seems very wise, for a number of reasons.
I just love how you do things, It's so much easier than I do it. Thanx for sharing your knowledge with us. I can use ALL the easy tips I can learn since I have heart issues. I stay really tired and the easier it is for me the more I can do.
Thanks for the great 50 minutes. At first I thought it sounded like a boring hour wasted. In the end I really feel educated how to return my tired raised flower beds in to a productive garden space.
I was just planting fruit trees in a row and using my own compost which I'm horrible at making. So each tree grew its own glorious tomato bed. And that led to my grocery row gardening. I just finished burning my Christmas tree in a pit in my front yard and planted fruit trees on either end. Now I have more fruit trees that need pits dug in between them
I love this channel. I live in north east florida. I grew up on 15 acres with my mom and grandparents. My grandfather was a master gardener, and he had a huge garden that I am now reviving as it head sat for roughly 7 years. . He taught me a lot about gardening and how to store the food he grew. He did however, use a lot of chemicals to control pest. He did composting, but probably not as much as he should have. This channel helps to further the knowledge my grandfather passed down to me along with teaching me new things I didn’t know before. Thank you David for the help. Maybe next year I can attend scrub fest.
I live in a place that hasn't seen rain in at least 6 months. Watching you rake up that nice composted mulch is like a dream to me. My compost pile looks the same as when I started it a couple of years ago.
Wow, you are a chicken guru... I love your free-nature with chicken care. You are the garden-guru whom most Homesteaders look up to. David the great !!
I'm doing that now with my rabbit manure and bedding in a raised bed can't wait to see it in the spring! last time I did it couple of years ago I had a ton of worms working through it so cool.
I was captivated during the entire video. And jealous. I started daydreaming about riding my vintage craftsman mower with the mulching blade and double bagger over last falls leaves. They are in piles in the back corner, hopefully busy turning into compost under the 2" of snow we got the other day. I cannot wait to get my hands back into the soil.
Just picked up a couple of your books and I’m planning to start a grocery row garden this spring here in northeast Ohio, was originally going to do a separate food forest and raised bed vegetable garden but this seems to be the better use of my space. Thanks for all you do David The Good!
My tomatoes leaves twisted and curled this past summer and I blamed “all the rain we had” but I keep thinking back to the black cow brand cow manure I put on in the spring🤔 I have discovered a compost company near me that collect kitchen waste and sea material to make compost. They don’t use any grass clippings I will try them this year. I do try to make my own just can’t make enough on my own.
I had the same problem when I was lazy and bought a few bags of hardwood mulch from a big box store. It affected my blueberry patch and ornamental areas. My neighbor did the same thing and her annual beds were destroyed
I never wear gloves either! Lol I love the feel and smell of dirt/ Soil! I also believe as you do, it's soooo good for your health! I tell everyone, if ya want to be healthy, eat some dirt! Lol
Dear DTG & Staff: You guys are awesome, each and all. I wish there were multiple "thumbs up" for every time I've seen this video and can't help but watch it again as it comes up in my rotation. Informative, entertaining, and informative, (did I mention informative?) Inculcation of these instructions and your exploits are all, in combination, sifting through my cranium and slowly making more and more cognitive sense. Thank you so much for your channel and all the effort you all put into it!!! Many "green thumbs up" to you. Regards, a simple humble ardent admirer, well past my prime : )
Thanks for the chicken manure composting tips, going to be dealing with that myself as all my manure piles start to thaw in the spring. Those game birds you’ve got are sweet!
Lots of good info here. You inspired me a while back to spread the compost love around and create different compost areas using pretty much everything. My garden this spring will be happy you did that! The lens was a little trippy, I currently have the same ailment your brother does and thought it was just virus vision until the end of the video when you were talking about it!
Or if not a green thumb a thumb black with wonderful compost 👍 I love composting, BUT after years of working very hard on what I call growing compost, I decided ENOUGH! I do not have the time and energy to fight the weather and mosquitoes to manage all the moving and turning. So we built one extra bed in my garden just for composting....now I live in MN so it takes all of one full year to break down that bed....then I plant in it and pick another bed in my garden to compost in....next to no turning or watering....I do a bit when it's ideal weather conditions solely because it's fun to dig something in and cover it up and see how quickly it decomposes. Anyway so hands off and it's a once and done composting!
Thank you thank you for the information I love your videos by Fred Ortiz from California El Monte keep doing a good work God bless you and God bless your family
You mention looking for folks trying the grocery row gardening in different places. We are zone 8B here in Central Texas and I'm trying it! I'm taking a tightwad, minimalist approach and taking it slow, but I am using what I have, mulching with weeds and opportunitistic volunteers I don't want. And I figuring out what grows here and what doesn't. I think we get less rain than ya'll, and our native dirt is heavy heavy clay. We might get hotter? Some years are crazy dry and other years are crazy wet. Its an adventure!
Regarding incorporation of livestock into permaculture systems, aside from chickens - there are rabbits. (Also bees and other insects.) My Depression-era grandmother always kept a rabbit or two in a hutch at the back of her garden to maintain soil fertility. Although rabbits cannot be used exclusively as a protein source for humans, they are a great lean-protein addition, and are a faster option for reproduction and maturation than chickens. (The offal and meat also work great as dog feed.) 25 years ago, there was an older gentleman in Orange Grove, MS (which has since been subsumed by Gulfport) who small-scale farmed redworms under rabbits. He had a 20' x20' low-ceilinged shed in which he hung wire rabbit cages, with raised beds of red wiggler worms on the ground underneath, which consumed the bunny poo and spilled feed. He grew tall banana trees around all sides to shade the heat-sensitive rabbits (except for the south-facing shed doors), and I think because of the exceptionally fertile soil, he got nice harvests of fruit in the years we got milder winters (since bananas need 18-24 mos to fruit). He had panels to cover the shed sides for hurricanes or when we had a bad cold snap. He sold rabbits for pets and food, he sold red wigglers, he sold excess worm castings, he occasionally sold some bananas, both trees and fruit. (He also raised crickets in another shed for the bait trade, and that frass was really high in nitrogen, too.) My husband won't go for it (he doesn't want to deal with livestock except for chickens), but I saw that as a great addition to a permaculture setup. If the longer sides of the shed are situated to the north and south (doors to the east instead), the structure could be used to provide microclimates for tender plantson the south, and heat or sun sensitive plants to the north. Or combine a rabbit shed setup with adjoining hoop or greenhouse lean-tos....
I had 7 roosters at 1 time for about 4 years and they never killed each other, they fought every once in a while but they never killed each other... My birds were the Old English bantans like you have they're beautiful...
I found a compost that is made from a mulch company. They leave the mulch to compost down and mix it over time and eventually it turns into a beautiful rich compost, from wood mulch.
Nice Vid!!! I am doing just about all of these. Also, started collecting the Used Coffee Grounds and Shredded paper from the office to add to the Bin. Also, would love an update on the crazy mixed up Cover Crop bed where you mixed up all your old seeds.
Compost Everything was the first book of yours I bought- I not only learned a lot of ideas, but I was cracking up throughout the read! I got both Jack Broccoli books for Christmas and finished them in 2 days. I’m ready for Book 3!!!!!
We have had the same thing happen here with tree roots growing in the compost.. and not even with the pile being that close to the tree. Trees are very, very skilled at seeking out moisture and nutrition. Even 50-100ft away from the tree isn't enough. The tree finds a way to get the goods!
I used to think trees were not intelligent till I came to know that the amount of neural activity happening in a trees root system is more than in a human being.
"Why not just go buy some compost" is akin to the people who think food magically appears at the grocery store. When you buy compost, you are paying for someone else's work! Not against paying for someone else's work, but there's no such thing as an instant garden. The work must be done and the time must be spent.
Your overall edit compositions are getting better. Visual compositions and editing style have an anti-youtuber feel that I appreciate. A few technical things I like are: 1. Hanging on a wider shots, then cutting to short montages, sometimes with an art card or title card works well. 2. Jump cutting into your intro with music 3. Some of your follow shots are really getting good. 4. Committing to the idea of show, don't tell and letting action sit in the edit a little more than most people do sets y'all apart from a lot of YT content. - Nice work.
This spring the dirt under our cherry tree is looking super fine. I raked and composted lots of leaves last year. I'm going to also steal some of that dirt this year xD
We are in upper midwest zone 4 and use a no dig method, no chickens but we have tons of woodchips, pine needles and leaves as we are surrounded by forest. We dont bring any off property materials. Too many unknowns. Like you, we have poor grass and soil here. Thank you for mentioning not using gloves and why. I prefer not wearing them. I also go barefoot, have been a gardener for a long time and seem to have a pretty strong immune system in my 60’s. Gloves have their uses. We have sandy soil and need good bit of compost. Most things I have been growing in tubs but most of my onions, garlic, tomatoes and fruit trees and shrubs are in the ground. I have a few peppers in the ground and they don’t do well at all so tubs and weed tea has been a good choice this year. My tubs are filled 1/2 way with logs, branches, twigs and leaves. The rest is my own home made potting mix. I cant make enough compost with our sandy soil. It can be quite frustrating. Im finally getting some good chop and drop from trimmings but still not enough. It takes time as you know. Thanks for all you share.
I have hardwood leaves and bagged grass from my yard. I have hay that has been fertilized with pelletized stuff. I watched the truck go around the hayfield. I live in the middle of a 50 acre hayfield. I don't know if the hay is safe to use, but the weeds and little trees and such are still in the brome grass. I have made two compost piles so far. I used up last years compost, one with goat manure and one without. I hope all goes well with this years efforts. I live in northeast Kansas and am trying several gardening methods. I enjoy your videos!
@@breesechick No, they don't spray grazon or any other type pf weed and feed. It is a fertilizer that is safe and their have been no ill effects to my plants. I also use the grass to mulch my plants.
I had the same problem as your grandmother when I located my compost pile too near the drip line of a maple tree. I will be using a bottom always now. I am hoping the worms can come in over the sides if edges are not sharp. or maybe I will add some in later.
Dude, you just saved me a fortune... I didn't know that kitty litter was made of bentonite clay, the next time someone wants to make a clay mask or take a detox bath, I'm dissolving some TidyCat.
At first I read the title as "Secrets of a Hummus Junkie", LOL- big difference between soil amendments and a garbanzo bean spread! SOOO MUCH INFO HERE! I am now into pruning here in SE NM. Reach out to me if you want another tester for your "long-term, permaculture inspired, hedge type systems; and what was the title of that book @10:35? New Mexico is a warm, xeric climate with a summer monsoon season. My particular acreage is mostly sand. With your guidance, I'm having great luck with the fruit trees; mostly apples, peaches, and pecans. Always growing bee flowers, but vegetables have been my bane.
Growing garbanzo beans is a great fiel crop and cover crop and soil builder. Hummus for humus sounds like an experimental part of the garden David the Good should try !
You are extremely inspiring. I would love to practice regenerative farming similar to yourself and start a chemical spray free composting/hay system and sell or trade that compost to like-minded farmers.
have had hens going on 6 years....small yard ten or so birds...started with sand n rock on floodplain....which did flood up to my knees in 2018 mid may....to the point my jaw drop dirt now amazes me
I do like the grass cycling mulching mower for the lawn, but I'm with you on everything else. Great vids David keep going!!! Experimenting with several techniques that you advocate for.
I really enjoyed the video ! I bet we mowed and bagged at least 2 acres of leaves and grass this Fall to fill the greenhouse up with . We was even over at my neighbors bagging his leaves up . .I was wondering your thoughts on adding sea salt in the soil in small amounts ? Thank you for sharing !
Here in Mangalore on the South West coast of the Arabian sea, farmers have been using sea salt, once a year for their Coconut groves. At present there is a white fly infestation on the coconut trees. It has been observed that coconut trees on the seashore, which get a spray of seawater, don't have whitefly infestation. So people are suggesting that sea water could be sprayed on inland coconut trees, on the underside of the leaves to combat white fly. 🙏
I put in a few raised beds...withing a year, the neighbor's trees had sent roots over. They were so thick in the beds that I could no longer garden in them. I grow in containers now. I also have a nematode infestation. Totes, bags and buckets are great.
I’m building layers on top of pretty bad soil. Right now the top layer is about 6” deep leaves. I expect some weeds but I’m positive that those leaves were fungally laden. I can take care of any weeds that pop up. I’m also adding hardwood saprophytic mushrooms mycelium. I don’t expect mushrooms but I do expect good decomposition.
Awesome! I was wondering about putting a bottom under my compost pile. My pallet compost bins are right under huge maple tree. I have been laying down thick layers of paper (all the lawn bags I collect from the neighborhood on garbage day).
I bought meat and eggs from Joel Salatin when I lived in Virginia. He made deliveries to my area. I also went to a talk he gave at a church. He is awesome.
Another type of kitty litter is good for dry climates : corn stalk or cobs, shredded up. Aborbs lots of water like corn starch would in the kitchen. Bentonite is a low Cec clay, but of course better than sand. But if you can get Potter clay, sometimes it’s a better kind for soil building. Thanks for exeperimenting diffrents ways of humus building and sharing results.
David I use used clumping Kitty litter I scooped the box separate the solids from the clumps run the clumps through 1/4 inch mesh let it dry and then mix it into my sifted compost how about a cup for a 5 gallon bucket of sifted compost I figure it's getting nitrogen this way also
Thank you for the beginning of this for those whose photography is basic -love the experiment to learn method that you are so fond of and using everything, I have bananas at my disposal to help hopefully help make good hummus. My only problem is sharing the backyard with my hubby who still wants nice grass and who is yet to be bit by the gardening bug . lol I would love to try Geoff’s deep chicken bedding method but I would be fined out of the city. :( And hubby won’t let have outlaw fowl.
Oh David! I did it to myself! I have Ohio clay, and was looking to improve my soil last year for a banner 2022 all out growing season....after being a suburbanite for WAY TOO LONG, I had the whole "I know everything, gardening is cake", mentality.Gah! So my neighbor ( who is suspect because he has guineas and 19 peacocks) also has cattle. He needed to clean out his cow lot at the end of the summer, and smart me, said, "bring it! "....and not a week later, Danny from Deep South did a segment on grazon 😭. So I am working on moving so many skid steer scoops of manure (now frozen in place) to other areas....by hand. Do I have to tunnel down to the Earth's crust to get this out of my garden?(not mixed in yet, just spread on top) I am so sad, and had such high hopes for this coming growing season!
Good to know clover is good, we got lots. I'm a terrible gardener, still trying, but I've found I'm good at animal husbandry, right now just chickens, so I've been trying to figure out how to get the most from them in my garden, which has worse soul than yours. This spring will be the first year I have a good amount of humus I've been working on building up from last year's poop.
My secret to humus production and retention is to leave the weeds and grass to grow. I'm gardening in stuff you could fill a sandbox with, but I leave all the rye grass, lamb's quarters, sunflowers and bull nettle to grow, unless they're in the way or otherwise misbehaving. The roots help me hold humus, and later, become more humus themselves. When I cut down a weed, or something dies, I use that as "mulch" and later more humus. I've also found that throwing down old, rotten storm fall helps. It takes a long time to rot, but the time it's there, it holds a lot of stuff. The rye is totally fine to just drill its roots right through hard wood, which helps to rot it faster, as well as making way for other plants to root into it. I have totally partnered with my native vegetation, and it helps me a lot
I highly recommend the Grassroots Garden system. Merry Bradley runs a two acre garden on land donated by St Thomas Episcopal Church, and produces an average of 60,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables annually for Food for Lane County. It gives you an excuse to dig! Trench out your paths and pack them with leaves, wood chips, old veg, ect…Let the excess nutrients from your rows combine with the leaves that you don’t need to chop in you paths. Then you just dig it out and throw it on your rows next year or whenever you need mulch, and repack with leaves ad nauseam….maybe you could test it on one path and see what happens. Two square feet times your path length equals a lot of compost. Also, I think all of us who are gardening in clay soil should start sending you our samples which you can then throw in your sandbox!!!🌿❤️🌿
We need compost real bad, and we'll do whatever it takes to get some.
Today you'll learn how to make a simple composting bin from pallets, how to compost your fall leaves, how to compost chicken manure, how to plant a green manure crop in a garden path, how to make a simple compost pile in the garden and how to compost grass clippings without getting weeds in the garden.
Resources:
Compost Everything: The Good Guide to Extreme Composting: amzn.to/3tDVuwM
An Agricultural Testament by Sir Albert Howard: amzn.to/3FFjYIn
Solomon's Gold fertilizer recipe: www.thesurvivalgardener.com/recipe-steve-solomons-solomons-gold-david-good-extras/
My Root Exudate Milkshake Brings All the Soil Life to the Yard: the-david-the-good-store.creator-spring.com/listing/root-exudate-milkshake?product=46
My main UA-cam Camera: amzn.to/3KjqEzf
Thank you for watching!
I live on 5 1/2acres that is dead soil with only true weeds, poison ivy, awful privet, oak, elm, cedar on top of dead soil. Anytime I plant something it usually dies. I have been unable to establish and food type plants. I also am always trying to get hummus and compost. I am excited to watch the full video
rob a train
only joking!!
David. Check out this yard in Florida. You may be able to interview him on one of your trips.
ua-cam.com/video/VbainNBcWOE/v-deo.html
I can relate. Moved to our new desert stead, and I am so far behind on every project. I am watching my compost bin through the window at night instead of netflix. Gripping stuff. And when we cook, we cut off more "bad parts" from the veggies, so we have more to throw in the bin :'( HURRY!
"I own one, but its at a friend's house forever" 🤣 I felt that in my soul!
So FUNNY! But soooo true… :(
When we had hens, I spread out bags of woodchips in their coop. They were great about scratching it around enough to keep their poo buried. Every spring and Autumn, I shoveled out the coop and spread the compost on the unused garden. Most of the time it was tilled in and replanted a few months later. I had award winning veggies at the county fair every year. The chips kept the poo from burning everything up, including my sinuses whenever I entered the closed up coop. ;-)
Perfect! We are putting woodchips in the run now too, since we got a big pile of them. Seems like an excellent C/N balance.
@@davidthegood the smaller the chips the faster the hens can turn them over and the chips break down.
I’m using leaves for the same thing. We just got a fresh batch of chicks and I’m building a coop right in the garden. They’re gonna love running through the leaves as they grow. I planted wheat inside the coop and I’ll be covering that with a grazing screen frame so they get greens. I read somewhere that a foot of stuff (straw, chips, leaves) in the bottom of the coop will equal free range because of the insects that the birds will eat. I guess we’ll see. My kitchen and my garden are my laboratories.
Great idea!!
@@dr.froghopper6711 Very interesting.
Mulching is in my opinion, the #1 best thing you could do for a successful garden or trees. Didn’t really keep up with mulching my fruit trees until a couple of year ago and I can easily say, that it’s the best thing I’ve could’ve done to them. They’ve all doubled in growth and flowered many times over. Like night and day.
David hi I
I realey in joyed your copying ways I have been composting lawn grass for years when the tempered gets up over 150 no more seeds great nitrogen
I am in ireland in join my retirement in my garden working harder than ever looking foward to next year I work with raised beds only to get oxigen in soil mulch with sea weed grass clippings and leaves carton small only the single ply the wormed love the glue worms are the good guys
The glue on a postage stamp
Use comfrey tea all the time
Take out the chickens
I used to frss
Same noted.
Another wonderful video David. We gardeners don’t mow the lawn, we harvest the grass, for mulch and composting. And trees are organic fertilizer factories, using photosynthesis to feed microbes which in turn break down minerals for the tree supercharging the leaves which fall to be harvested with a bagging mower for compost and mulch. I’ve even been known to volunteer to get up my neighbors leaves when I had my ride on with a bagger. All that and cover cropping make for an excellent food garden. 🙂
That's right!!!
I love that 'harvest the grass' comment. I have always harvested my weeds, before they go tomseed.
Live in Australia here. And I've noticed the big difference in chop and drop with native. Young trees that have struggled suddenly grow when alot of mulch placed around. We've recently had floods and had an aquatic weed Salvinia get dumped near dam. I'm using it as mulch around trees. It will die off because it's out of water. Can't wait to see results.
Yes, definitely.
Hi David I don't add clay it's all we have at the midway ranch with lots of small rocks,btw we also have a very dry environment.were down range on the front range next to fort Carson artillery range. We're building a Polly culture orchard and will have a no till gardenthis is the third year I've tilled it .composting horse manure and we have avertised on the neighborhood app to accept all yard waste and branches I'll be makeing a couple of tones of biochar this winter.bonus is a bunch of free firewood.chickens are an awesome resource which I use constantly. Except for trees and perennials the garden is going in late we had a foot of snow in mid may.im so jealous of the water nature gives you.we don't plant on hills and on top of rows ,we plant in bowles,trenches and shallow pits ,also makeing good use of 40 yards of wood chips .well send you picks in a few weeks .thanks for your insperation
@@jamesellsworth8147 do you harvest your native clay? I don't know how cold it gets where you live, but that's the main raw ingredient for Mass Heaters. I live in Texas, but started looking at them after our little "Snowmageddon" and centralized power was failing...
I really respect and appreciate how you let us see just glimpses of your children, not shots that make them readily identifiable to the public. That's seems very wise, for a number of reasons.
A gardener really is the ultimate optimist.
And truly patient.
Watching this channel is so much more entertaining and informative than TV shows and movies.
Yeah at 10:21 you can really see that weird lens fall off on the edges. Cool though, gives variety to the imagery.
Couldn't the effect be done with a lens filter with Vaseline on the edges as well?
I just love how you do things, It's so much easier than I do it. Thanx for sharing your knowledge with us. I can use ALL the easy tips I can learn since I have heart issues. I stay really tired and the easier it is for me the more I can do.
Thanks for the great 50 minutes. At first I thought it sounded like a boring hour wasted. In the end I really feel educated how to return my tired raised flower beds in to a productive garden space.
Thank you very much.
I was just planting fruit trees in a row and using my own compost which I'm horrible at making. So each tree grew its own glorious tomato bed. And that led to my grocery row gardening. I just finished burning my Christmas tree in a pit in my front yard and planted fruit trees on either end. Now I have more fruit trees that need pits dug in between them
That's awesome.
I really appreciate all the work that goes into your experiments! Thank you so much! ❣❣❣
I love this channel. I live in north east florida. I grew up on 15 acres with my mom and grandparents. My grandfather was a master gardener, and he had a huge garden that I am now reviving as it head sat for roughly 7 years. . He taught me a lot about gardening and how to store the food he grew. He did however, use a lot of chemicals to control pest. He did composting, but probably not as much as he should have. This channel helps to further the knowledge my grandfather passed down to me along with teaching me new things I didn’t know before. Thank you David for the help. Maybe next year I can attend scrub fest.
Thank you.
I live in a place that hasn't seen rain in at least 6 months. Watching you rake up that nice composted mulch is like a dream to me. My compost pile looks the same as when I started it a couple of years ago.
You may have to soak it with the hose once a week or so.
I really feel like an old Nerd now, But that's cool I can grow food not everyone has that super power.
I listen to this video while working from my apartment, dreaming of my homestead. It's really peaceful. 🙂
Wow, you are a chicken guru... I love your free-nature with chicken care. You are the garden-guru whom most Homesteaders look up to. David the great !!
I'm just this guy.
I'm doing that now with my rabbit manure and bedding in a raised bed can't wait to see it in the spring! last time I did it couple of years ago I had a ton of worms working through it so cool.
I was captivated during the entire video. And jealous. I started daydreaming about riding my vintage craftsman mower with the mulching blade and double bagger over last falls leaves. They are in piles in the back corner, hopefully busy turning into compost under the 2" of snow we got the other day. I cannot wait to get my hands back into the soil.
The cold season is hard - I remember that feeling from TN.
Just picked up a couple of your books and I’m planning to start a grocery row garden this spring here in northeast Ohio, was originally going to do a separate food forest and raised bed vegetable garden but this seems to be the better use of my space. Thanks for all you do David The Good!
Thank you - I really look forward to seeing how it does. Should work great. Bet you have better soil than me, too.
Nice, I'm also in NE Ohio. We turned our entire yard into gardens this fall to plant next spring too. Hope you post results somewhere.
My tomatoes leaves twisted and curled this past summer and I blamed “all the rain we had” but I keep thinking back to the black cow brand cow manure I put on in the spring🤔 I have discovered a compost company near me that collect kitchen waste and sea material to make compost. They don’t use any grass clippings I will try them this year. I do try to make my own just can’t make enough on my own.
Yeah, it was almost certainly the manure.
I think it's the Grazon in the manure. I forgot to who me they spray it on hay, so I think other manures are ok if used right.
I had the same problem when I was lazy and bought a few bags of hardwood mulch from a big box store. It affected my blueberry patch and ornamental areas. My neighbor did the same thing and her annual beds were destroyed
the world needs more davids THANKS FOR KEEPING IT REAL
Gotta love the chickens!! So many rewards!!great video! Thanks!
Thanks Rachael and David. I love these long videos, so informative.
I never wear gloves either! Lol
I love the feel and smell of dirt/ Soil!
I also believe as you do, it's soooo good for your health!
I tell everyone, if ya want to be healthy, eat some dirt! Lol
Dear DTG & Staff: You guys are awesome, each and all. I wish there were multiple "thumbs up" for every time I've seen this video and can't help but watch it again as it comes up in my rotation. Informative, entertaining, and informative, (did I mention informative?) Inculcation of these instructions and your exploits are all, in combination, sifting through my cranium and slowly making more and more cognitive sense. Thank you so much for your channel and all the effort you all put into it!!! Many "green thumbs up" to you. Regards, a simple humble ardent admirer, well past my prime : )
"... just don't have it right now because it's at a friend's house forever." Love this as much as the great info -- thanks for the chuckle!
Great info. I can imagine that the seeds in the unique microbiology of your soil develop a relationship over time...
Always good to see more ways to use chickens.
Thanks for the chicken manure composting tips, going to be dealing with that myself as all my manure piles start to thaw in the spring. Those game birds you’ve got are sweet!
Lots of good info here. You inspired me a while back to spread the compost love around and create different compost areas using pretty much everything. My garden this spring will be happy you did that! The lens was a little trippy, I currently have the same ailment your brother does and thought it was just virus vision until the end of the video when you were talking about it!
Hey brother nice work. Last few years has me thirsty for growing knowledge. Subbed and got my eye on you.
Welcome, Tim.
Or if not a green thumb a thumb black with wonderful compost 👍
I love composting, BUT after years of working very hard on what I call growing compost, I decided ENOUGH! I do not have the time and energy to fight the weather and mosquitoes to manage all the moving and turning. So we built one extra bed in my garden just for composting....now I live in MN so it takes all of one full year to break down that bed....then I plant in it and pick another bed in my garden to compost in....next to no turning or watering....I do a bit when it's ideal weather conditions solely because it's fun to dig something in and cover it up and see how quickly it decomposes. Anyway so hands off and it's a once and done composting!
Northerner's can use Bokashi compost, it breaks down quickly and can be dug right into a raised bed. I love it :)
Thank you thank you for the information I love your videos by Fred Ortiz from California El Monte keep doing a good work God bless you and God bless your family
You mention looking for folks trying the grocery row gardening in different places. We are zone 8B here in Central Texas and I'm trying it! I'm taking a tightwad, minimalist approach and taking it slow, but I am using what I have, mulching with weeds and opportunitistic volunteers I don't want. And I figuring out what grows here and what doesn't. I think we get less rain than ya'll, and our native dirt is heavy heavy clay. We might get hotter? Some years are crazy dry and other years are crazy wet. Its an adventure!
Love this video. This is one of the richest videos on hummus. Love your style. Thankyou Goods.
Thank you, Juliana.
Regarding incorporation of livestock into permaculture systems, aside from chickens - there are rabbits. (Also bees and other insects.)
My Depression-era grandmother always kept a rabbit or two in a hutch at the back of her garden to maintain soil fertility. Although rabbits cannot be used exclusively as a protein source for humans, they are a great lean-protein addition, and are a faster option for reproduction and maturation than chickens. (The offal and meat also work great as dog feed.)
25 years ago, there was an older gentleman in Orange Grove, MS (which has since been subsumed by Gulfport) who small-scale farmed redworms under rabbits. He had a 20' x20' low-ceilinged shed in which he hung wire rabbit cages, with raised beds of red wiggler worms on the ground underneath, which consumed the bunny poo and spilled feed. He grew tall banana trees around all sides to shade the heat-sensitive rabbits (except for the south-facing shed doors), and I think because of the exceptionally fertile soil, he got nice harvests of fruit in the years we got milder winters (since bananas need 18-24 mos to fruit). He had panels to cover the shed sides for hurricanes or when we had a bad cold snap.
He sold rabbits for pets and food, he sold red wigglers, he sold excess worm castings, he occasionally sold some bananas, both trees and fruit. (He also raised crickets in another shed for the bait trade, and that frass was really high in nitrogen, too.)
My husband won't go for it (he doesn't want to deal with livestock except for chickens), but I saw that as a great addition to a permaculture setup. If the longer sides of the shed are situated to the north and south (doors to the east instead), the structure could be used to provide microclimates for tender plantson the south, and heat or sun sensitive plants to the north.
Or combine a rabbit shed setup with adjoining hoop or greenhouse lean-tos....
So you’re the one who started this “Compost” Revolution?? It’s so Awesome! It has changed my life! Thank you 🙏
I'm just this guy that loves composting.
@@davidthegood me too! Love it! It’s such a miracle👍
On point again Good Sir
I like the way you incorporate the animals and God.
Thank you for sharing all of this. I’ll probably rewatch a few times.
I had 7 roosters at 1 time for about 4 years and they never killed each other, they fought every once in a while but they never killed each other... My birds were the Old English bantans like you have they're beautiful...
I found a compost that is made from a mulch company. They leave the mulch to compost down and mix it over time and eventually it turns into a beautiful rich compost, from wood mulch.
Nice Vid!!! I am doing just about all of these. Also, started collecting the Used Coffee Grounds and Shredded paper from the office to add to the Bin.
Also, would love an update on the crazy mixed up Cover Crop bed where you mixed up all your old seeds.
The cold has that bed looking like a mess, but it's growing.
Compost Everything was the first book of yours I bought- I not only learned a lot of ideas, but I was cracking up throughout the read! I got both Jack Broccoli books for Christmas and finished them in 2 days. I’m ready for Book 3!!!!!
Where did you get the large square sifter in chicken coops used in 1st part of video to shift thru chicken poo/dirt???
Thanks!
Thank you.
Game for the information very important very important God bless you buddy and your family
We have had the same thing happen here with tree roots growing in the compost.. and not even with the pile being that close to the tree. Trees are very, very skilled at seeking out moisture and nutrition. Even 50-100ft away from the tree isn't enough. The tree finds a way to get the goods!
I used to think trees were not intelligent till I came to know that the amount of neural activity happening in a trees root system is more than in a human being.
I hurt myself today... 😂
Thanks for the smiles! 💚
When they free-range on your garden , they eat insects, pests, spiders, etc. Lots of benefits too.
great video david! congrats & thankyou!
My thumbs are black for a big ol' like on your videos! You are very much appreciated 👍
"Why not just go buy some compost" is akin to the people who think food magically appears at the grocery store.
When you buy compost, you are paying for someone else's work!
Not against paying for someone else's work, but there's no such thing as an instant garden. The work must be done and the time must be spent.
Why have a garden if you're not going to enjoy working on it xd
Your overall edit compositions are getting better. Visual compositions and editing style have an anti-youtuber feel that I appreciate. A few technical things I like are: 1. Hanging on a wider shots, then cutting to short montages, sometimes with an art card or title card works well. 2. Jump cutting into your intro with music 3. Some of your follow shots are really getting good. 4. Committing to the idea of show, don't tell and letting action sit in the edit a little more than most people do sets y'all apart from a lot of YT content. - Nice work.
Thank you - nice analysis.
This spring the dirt under our cherry tree is looking super fine. I raked and composted lots of leaves last year.
I'm going to also steal some of that dirt this year xD
We are in upper midwest zone 4 and use a no dig method, no chickens but we have tons of woodchips, pine needles and leaves as we are surrounded by forest. We dont bring any off property materials. Too many unknowns. Like you, we have poor grass and soil here. Thank you for mentioning not using gloves and why. I prefer not wearing them. I also go barefoot, have been a gardener for a long time and seem to have a pretty strong immune system in my 60’s. Gloves have their uses. We have sandy soil and need good bit of compost. Most things I have been growing in tubs but most of my onions, garlic, tomatoes and fruit trees and shrubs are in the ground. I have a few peppers in the ground and they don’t do well at all so tubs and weed tea has been a good choice this year. My tubs are filled 1/2 way with logs, branches, twigs and leaves. The rest is my own home made potting mix. I cant make enough compost with our sandy soil. It can be quite frustrating. Im finally getting some good chop and drop from trimmings but still not enough. It takes time as you know. Thanks for all you share.
I bought 2 of your books. Great infk. And i watch all your videis. Thank yiu.
Thank you
I have hardwood leaves and bagged grass from my yard. I have hay that has been fertilized with pelletized stuff. I watched the truck go around the hayfield. I live in the middle of a 50 acre hayfield. I don't know if the hay is safe to use, but the weeds and little trees and such are still in the brome grass. I have made two compost piles so far. I used up last years compost, one with goat manure and one without. I hope all goes well with this years efforts. I live in northeast Kansas and am trying several gardening methods. I enjoy your videos!
Ask if they spray Grazon (I think that's how it's spelled on it) it with deform your plants.
@@breesechick No, they don't spray grazon or any other type pf weed and feed. It is a fertilizer that is safe and their have been no ill effects to my plants. I also use the grass to mulch my plants.
I had the same problem as your grandmother when I located my compost pile too near the drip line of a maple tree. I will be using a bottom always now. I am hoping the worms can come in over the sides if edges are not sharp. or maybe I will add some in later.
Dude, you just saved me a fortune... I didn't know that kitty litter was made of bentonite clay, the next time someone wants to make a clay mask or take a detox bath, I'm dissolving some TidyCat.
I'm planning to build a couple of grocery row beds this year -- south-central KY, zone 6b.
Very cool! I think you are the first from Kentucky!
You guys got style, so much fun!
I really dig the retro lens and the steady supply of D2 tha G vids.
Thanks, Nathan.
hurt-Johnny Cash. nice touch.. I really enjoyed that. thanks for that. beside the video was awesome learn whole bunch or new great things.
Thanks, Dan
At first I read the title as "Secrets of a Hummus Junkie", LOL- big difference between soil amendments and a garbanzo bean spread! SOOO MUCH INFO HERE! I am now into pruning here in SE NM. Reach out to me if you want another tester for your "long-term, permaculture inspired, hedge type systems; and what was the title of that book @10:35? New Mexico is a warm, xeric climate with a summer monsoon season. My particular acreage is mostly sand. With your guidance, I'm having great luck with the fruit trees; mostly apples, peaches, and pecans. Always growing bee flowers, but vegetables have been my bane.
Growing garbanzo beans is a great fiel crop and cover crop and soil builder. Hummus for humus sounds like an experimental part of the garden David the Good should try !
You are extremely inspiring. I would love to practice regenerative farming similar to yourself and start a chemical spray free composting/hay system and sell or trade that compost to like-minded farmers.
have had hens going on 6 years....small yard ten or so birds...started with sand n rock on floodplain....which did flood up to my knees in 2018 mid may....to the point my jaw drop dirt now amazes me
Im in Upstate NY and im ready to give it a shot!!
At least it's an interesting effect. Creates a sullen mood.
And Yep! 👌 😁 🌱 🌳 🌱 💚
Working toward a
No Poison World!
I do like the grass cycling mulching mower for the lawn, but I'm with you on everything else. Great vids David keep going!!! Experimenting with several techniques that you advocate for.
Thanks, Richard.
Your videos always inspire
Thank you
Love this video. cheerful amount of silliness thrown in. I love the song about making biscuits. is there a video or recording available?
Thank you. Yes - it's on the David The Good Tunes channel here on UA-cam.
OMG. You are HILARIOUS. And brilliantly so. Thank you!
Thanks for the great videos
I really enjoyed the video ! I bet we mowed and bagged at least 2 acres of leaves and grass this Fall to fill the greenhouse up with . We was even over at my neighbors bagging his leaves up . .I was wondering your thoughts on adding sea salt in the soil in small amounts ? Thank you for sharing !
That is awesome. I would add some sea salt. I do, in fact.
Here in Mangalore on the South West coast of the Arabian sea, farmers have been using sea salt, once a year for their Coconut groves. At present there is a white fly infestation on the coconut trees. It has been observed that coconut trees on the seashore, which get a spray of seawater, don't have whitefly infestation. So people are suggesting that sea water could be sprayed on inland coconut trees, on the underside of the leaves to combat white fly. 🙏
I thought the lens was pretty cool, once adjusted to it. Content great too, which is what it's all about. Thanks.
I put in a few raised beds...withing a year, the neighbor's trees had sent roots over. They were so thick in the beds that I could no longer garden in them. I grow in containers now. I also have a nematode infestation. Totes, bags and buckets are great.
I’m building layers on top of pretty bad soil. Right now the top layer is about 6” deep leaves. I expect some weeds but I’m positive that those leaves were fungally laden. I can take care of any weeds that pop up. I’m also adding hardwood saprophytic mushrooms mycelium. I don’t expect mushrooms but I do expect good decomposition.
Thanks David.
I kind of liked the look and vibe the lens created in your images and video. The vintage 70s and 80s look took my mind back to when I was a kid/teen.
Thank you. I like the nostalgic feel as well.
Awesome! I was wondering about putting a bottom under my compost pile. My pallet compost bins are right under huge maple tree. I have been laying down thick layers of paper (all the lawn bags I collect from the neighborhood on garbage day).
I think the gym effort is paying off. And great info as usual.
You’ve given me a use for the red clay in my property. Thank you
I bought meat and eggs from Joel Salatin when I lived in Virginia. He made deliveries to my area.
I also went to a talk he gave at a church. He is awesome.
Another type of kitty litter is good for dry climates : corn stalk or cobs, shredded up. Aborbs lots of water like corn starch would in the kitchen. Bentonite is a low Cec clay, but of course better than sand. But if you can get Potter clay, sometimes it’s a better kind for soil building. Thanks for exeperimenting diffrents ways of humus building and sharing results.
David I use used clumping Kitty litter I scooped the box separate the solids from the clumps
run the clumps through 1/4 inch mesh let it dry and then mix it into my sifted compost how about a cup for a 5 gallon bucket of sifted compost I figure it's getting nitrogen this way also
Thank you for the beginning of this for those whose photography is basic -love the experiment to learn method that you are so fond of and using everything, I have bananas at my disposal to help hopefully help make good hummus. My only problem is sharing the backyard with my hubby who still wants nice grass and who is yet to be bit by the gardening bug . lol I would love to try Geoff’s deep chicken bedding method but I would be fined out of the city. :( And hubby won’t let have outlaw fowl.
My hubby is same, I’ve just been converting it slowly lol
Great ideas brother 👍🏼
You mentioned God and give an excellent reason you don't wear gloves... instant subscriber!
Welcome
I kind of like the look of the old lens
Canadian thistle is what I brought in with old hay I used to mulch with and it's taken over the entire garden
Yikes!
Oh David! I did it to myself! I have Ohio clay, and was looking to improve my soil last year for a banner 2022 all out growing season....after being a suburbanite for WAY TOO LONG, I had the whole "I know everything, gardening is cake", mentality.Gah! So my neighbor ( who is suspect because he has guineas and 19 peacocks) also has cattle. He needed to clean out his cow lot at the end of the summer, and smart me, said, "bring it! "....and not a week later, Danny from Deep South did a segment on grazon 😭. So I am working on moving so many skid steer scoops of manure (now frozen in place) to other areas....by hand. Do I have to tunnel down to the Earth's crust to get this out of my garden?(not mixed in yet, just spread on top) I am so sad, and had such high hopes for this coming growing season!
Sounds like you found out just in time. If you get the manure out and till the area, the soil organisms will break down the residual effects.
Good to know clover is good, we got lots. I'm a terrible gardener, still trying, but I've found I'm good at animal husbandry, right now just chickens, so I've been trying to figure out how to get the most from them in my garden, which has worse soul than yours. This spring will be the first year I have a good amount of humus I've been working on building up from last year's poop.
You ROCK. GOD BLESS Y’ALL
My secret to humus production and retention is to leave the weeds and grass to grow. I'm gardening in stuff you could fill a sandbox with, but I leave all the rye grass, lamb's quarters, sunflowers and bull nettle to grow, unless they're in the way or otherwise misbehaving. The roots help me hold humus, and later, become more humus themselves. When I cut down a weed, or something dies, I use that as "mulch" and later more humus. I've also found that throwing down old, rotten storm fall helps. It takes a long time to rot, but the time it's there, it holds a lot of stuff. The rye is totally fine to just drill its roots right through hard wood, which helps to rot it faster, as well as making way for other plants to root into it. I have totally partnered with my native vegetation, and it helps me a lot
The lens gave the whole video a 90s horror film-vibe. Well done?
I highly recommend the Grassroots Garden system. Merry Bradley runs a two acre garden on land donated by St Thomas Episcopal Church, and produces an average of 60,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables annually for Food for Lane County. It gives you an excuse to dig! Trench out your paths and pack them with leaves, wood chips, old veg, ect…Let the excess nutrients from your rows combine with the leaves that you don’t need to chop in you paths. Then you just dig it out and throw it on your rows next year or whenever you need mulch, and repack with leaves ad nauseam….maybe you could test it on one path and see what happens. Two square feet times your path length equals a lot of compost. Also, I think all of us who are gardening in clay soil should start sending you our samples which you can then throw in your sandbox!!!🌿❤️🌿
I love that idea and was actually contemplating that idea after reading something similar in Sir Albert Howard's book.
@@davidthegood Great! I must find that and will let my husband know it was your idea for me to buy another gardening book! Thanks!!!