A fellow farmer told me he kept a lot of root vegetables in 5 gallon buckets buried in the ground and covered with leaves to keep them from freezing. He also layered them in the bucket row by row with newspaper so if any started to rot it was less likely to affect other root vegetables nearby.
I live on the Washington coast on a sand bar. Am doing Hugelkulture with world's largest kelp. Hugelkelp. Kelp logs next to the Red alder logs we have here. I put a ton of other stuff in there as well, rotten logs all broken up to wood chips mostly red alder and old dead huge blackberry stalks, marsh fronds, dead dry hollow reeds, marsh muck for microorganisms, leaves, native soil ( there is some in thin layers around rotting material in the woods). We have a lake too. Some rotten broken up red cedar with mycelium on it, mushroom compost mixed with a bit of topsoil, oh I put the bull kelp I where I could fit the end in the wood chipper. Works great! Also make seaweed tea I want to charge biochar with. Can you talk about the Ocean ecosystem and using seaweed/algae as a nutrient source? Found materials. Scarcity of materials and maybe some words on cultivating mushrooms. Innoculating my garden is the plan. I have the climate. Thanks so much. Maybe u have done this already. I will look around your videos some more. Thanks again. Great videos
Thank you so much. I found an online list of wood toxicity wood types and on them were both safe and toxic woods and a lot more information too. If I could only remember what it was, I would post it here for you. I do remember why I was looking for it though. My husband was given some wood for free from a friend for his woodwork projects and I decided to check it's toxicity before doing anything with it. Turned out that Red Robin contains cianacides and is therefore toxic and cannot be used safely for either woodwork, gardening or burning. It has gone to the skip now. What a waste of wood but it really isn't safe. It is always good to check. Thanks for the reminder.
Another good way of preserving the potato is to plant it right before the first snowfall in the fall and cover it with deep mulch, which will preserve it over the winter. As the ground thaws, the potatoes will come up in the spring once the ground warms up.
I have been saving seed potato for a number of years and it is not so hard to do. The potatoes you want to save are ones that are healthy and dry with no bruising, once your fall potatoes are in storage for a week or two sort out some healthy potatoes and place them in a box, pick enough to do what you want to plant the next spring. It is OK to pile the potatoes on top of each other but do not pack them let them sit loose, get a cardboard box with some holes in it the potatoes need some air circulation. I put the box of potatoes in the cold room and I put another bigger box over top of the first cardboard box, the second cardboard box you cut the top flaps off of it and just place the second cardboard box upside down over the first box, the top box needs to have some holes in it as well, the cold room is cool down to 40F and there are no windows so it is dark. The key things you want is good healthy potatoes, a cool place and a place with no sun or light. The potatoes will start to sprout as it warms in the spring and that is when you should plant them as soon as you can work your soil. if you feel the need to cut the potato seed you need to let the cut potatoes fully dry before planting. Some potato experts say that you could be propagating disease in the potatoes but I have not had any disease issues. The size of the seed potato does not seem to matter either the medium to small size potato seem to store better, I have also saved the largest of potatoes as seed and planted those seed the next year and it did not seem to make any difference in output. This has worked for me and why I did it initially was I could not get registered seed early enough or easily, so instead of planting late I always have seed and plant when I can work the ground I usually plant mid to late April. One year I planted two crops one after another both were successful and I live in Canada, this is easy you can do it. I currently have over 2 feet of snow on my garden. Keep your stick on the ice!
to the first questioner: the Peruvian Pepper is also called a California Pepper (as is the Brazilian Pepper) here in california -- although neither is native to California! it's fruit is used as a spice and as a medicinal, the leaves as a die. i have read on the permies boards that the wood's ok for a hugelkultur after 2 years ageing. i've read about companion plantings and it includes some of our califonia native sages and other of our chaparral which love our mediteranian climate. right now i have rosemary and lavender growing under two of them so maybe you could grow a meditaranian herb garden, which would have low water needs to. they are not as aliopathic as my redwood or live oak. we usually have no rain for 9 months of every year so there are many plants that die if you give them water in the summer. for dry farming methods also look to israel where there's alot of experience. because of our drought may california farmers are learning from them.
The black and white (butternut) walnut contains juglone, but I haven't had any ill effects from the pecans growing nearby; at least for the tomatoes, peppers and potatoes that I'm growing. It might affect other plants though.
I live in Maine and as far as potatoes go, I received organic spuds from a CSA that delivered to my old apartment complex and I did not get to eating them all so I kept them in the fridge uncovered in a tupperware and they sprouted around planting time
We always used styrofoam chests putting potatoes in them with lid secure and place them in garage attached to house. Our garage is not heated. Eastern Oregon on the Snake River. You might try this. We store 50 lbs a year.
Keeping potatoes and other root crops can best be done in a root cellar, or in a basement that is cold but not too damp. When we lived on the farm we didn't have a root cellar, but we were able to keep the potatoes until spring. Also, we had to go through the potatoes. They will start growing before spring, so we would have to go down there and break off the eyes, and get rid of the mushy potatoes, giving those to the pigs and putting the better ones in a clean dry area. We didn't feed the eyes of the potatoes to the pigs because the eyes are poisonous to humans, so why risk losing a pig.
We also do Hugelkultur here in GA. We are also doing an experiment with it this winter. To be able to do it indoors.. have you ever tried something like this?
Seeing how many trees are being killed by bark beetle in the mountains I ride all season, plus being a environmentally friendly gardener/ farmer as well....I’m wondering what your options might be on Hügalculturing infested pines on the mountains to thin the infestation while adding water filtering bed structures and maybe adding potential mountain biking trail banks and jumps just in case we lose our winters in the future...Since most our local mountains had years on mining as well, I figure adding soil and compost would bring back the forest to a healthier state as well.
Was curious... I realize Walnut and pecan can prove toxic to plant growth or at least stunt growth. But is it possible that the ash from burning that wood would make it usable if it was charred enough? Makes sense to me that it could be, but I'm not sure.
Ok I am now panicked and I mean it! I dug two beds a few months ago and thought of the Hugelkultur method so I put wood and stuff in there. As I was watching the video I relisted that I also had put trims and barks from my Thuja trees and quite a lot of them!!! Thuja also known as lemon cedar or lemon cypress / pine. Dose anyone know if thuja is also toxic?
I picked up random tree "scraps" from around town during council clean up recently. I have no idea what they are and I already dug and filled my beds plus planted veggies; I worked for weeks on it all and now I don't know if it's safe or not 🤔 if I eat the produce, will I get sick? Or does it just make the plants sick??
Hi there! Greetings from Ireland. I have a bunch of seasoned wood that was originally intended as firewood, but I've decided not to burn it now for various reasons. I've decided to take a stab at hugelkultur and add it as the lower layer of a tall raised bed I've built. I am not sure what the wood is - currently trying to identify - but it might be some type of laurel. I've discovered that this plant can contain a lot of cyanide, particularly the leaves. I cannot find out if the timber is the same, or if this breaks down with seasoning (almost three years in this case). Therefore, I don't know if it's a concern to use this timber for this purpose. Do you have any thoughts? Thanks!
Everywhere is different & I don't know what your personal tastes are, but when I started out gardening I got good & fairly quick returns with leaf lettuces, also known as cut & come again types. You may want to do research on what ag.extension agency serves your area, or a university with an ag. department as they often have charts showing what veg. to grow when in your area. Even though I've gardened for a few years now, I often reference one for my area, central Texas, from A&M university. Knowing when to plant is as important as knowing what to plant.
according to this www.extension.umn.edu/garden/landscaping/implement/trees_turf.html allelopathic trees target between one to a few other species as opposed to being a broad spectrum toxic killing everything. so i'm assuming that juniper i cut down is safe to hugelkultur, since this article says it's toxin only affects grasses?
Yet if you dint wabt weeds ir plants to grow than use Eucalyptus Leaves Mulch Mulch. W This Tree. I move the leaves rake i Guess Ill Se If Anything Grows. any Ideas Here there are warer ditches on the ground from the metal roof. So i am very hopefull.
Can diseased wood go into the bottom of the trench? I have to take down some fungal infested fruit trees and am hoping this can be a way to use the wood...thank you for advice in advance :))
I could not say for sure, but considering that you will use the diseased wood on other types of plants (like veggies) I don'd see how that could affect them.
Down Vote just because it was a third of the way into the video before you even addressed the question. I don't come here to waste time.... get to the point!
Jerry, it is called click bait. I hate to do it as much as you hate to fall for it, but unfortunately it works. This is part of the reason why I stopped making videos. I'm tired of these games. I could have put up a less sensationalist title that addresses all the topics I'm talking about, but it doesn't work. You would never see it. Everyone is doing it, and youtube encourages us to do it. I don't know if you publish videos also. If you have attempted to grow a channel you would understand.
Juglans is an allelopathic compound. It is toxic in the sense that it severely inhibits the growth of other plants. Nature does produce toxic compounds many times for plants and animals self defense. They do usually breakdown with time, however, but they still can do harm to other things.
Yes it does, poison ivy/oak. arsenic in fern. tannic acid in certain trees such as oak..a few examples. there's too many poisonous plants out there to mention.
@Svetla Nikolova if you do some research on botany instead of shouting at people, you will learn a lot in a short time. Read a book, or if there isn't one - politely ask an elderly person who is a keen gardener with a thriving and abundant garden. That person can be your teacher, if you are willing to learn. An older person with knowledge is likely very happy to be asked to share their lifetime of knowledge with you. Then start gardening, even a small plot or section on your balcony will reward you greatly with both things to eat and more peace of mind. Time spent in your garden, and handling plants you will find you are shouting at people a lot less. We, your friends and everyone around you will benefit from that.
A fellow farmer told me he kept a lot of root vegetables in 5 gallon buckets buried in the ground and covered with leaves to keep them from freezing. He also layered them in the bucket row by row with newspaper so if any started to rot it was less likely to affect other root vegetables nearby.
A version of clamping.
I live on the Washington coast on a sand bar. Am doing Hugelkulture with world's largest kelp. Hugelkelp. Kelp logs next to the Red alder logs we have here. I put a ton of other stuff in there as well, rotten logs all broken up to wood chips mostly red alder and old dead huge blackberry stalks, marsh fronds, dead dry hollow reeds, marsh muck for microorganisms, leaves, native soil ( there is some in thin layers around rotting material in the woods). We have a lake too. Some rotten broken up red cedar with mycelium on it, mushroom compost mixed with a bit of topsoil, oh I put the bull kelp I where I could fit the end in the wood chipper. Works great! Also make seaweed tea I want to charge biochar with.
Can you talk about the Ocean ecosystem and using seaweed/algae as a nutrient source? Found materials. Scarcity of materials and maybe some words on cultivating mushrooms. Innoculating my garden is the plan. I have the climate.
Thanks so much. Maybe u have done this already. I will look around your videos some more. Thanks again. Great videos
I buy organic potatos at Walmart and use them for seed potatos. I get 10 to 20 potatos for $4.
Thank you so much. I found an online list of wood toxicity wood types and on them were both safe and toxic woods and a lot more information too. If I could only remember what it was, I would post it here for you. I do remember why I was looking for it though. My husband was given some wood for free from a friend for his woodwork projects and I decided to check it's toxicity before doing anything with it. Turned out that Red Robin contains cianacides and is therefore toxic and cannot be used safely for either woodwork, gardening or burning. It has gone to the skip now. What a waste of wood but it really isn't safe. It is always good to check. Thanks for the reminder.
Just make charcoal with allelopathic wood and make Biochar out of it.
Don't forget the potash.
Another good way of preserving the potato is to plant it right before the first snowfall in the fall and cover it with deep mulch, which will preserve it over the winter. As the ground thaws, the potatoes will come up in the spring once the ground warms up.
I have been saving seed potato for a number of years and it is not so hard to do. The potatoes you want to save are ones that are healthy and dry with no bruising, once your fall potatoes are in storage for a week or two sort out some healthy potatoes and place them in a box, pick enough to do what you want to plant the next spring. It is OK to pile the potatoes on top of each other but do not pack them let them sit loose, get a cardboard box with some holes in it the potatoes need some air circulation. I put the box of potatoes in the cold room and I put another bigger box over top of the first cardboard box, the second cardboard box you cut the top flaps off of it and just place the second cardboard box upside down over the first box, the top box needs to have some holes in it as well, the cold room is cool down to 40F and there are no windows so it is dark. The key things you want is good healthy potatoes, a cool place and a place with no sun or light. The potatoes will start to sprout as it warms in the spring and that is when you should plant them as soon as you can work your soil. if you feel the need to cut the potato seed you need to let the cut potatoes fully dry before planting. Some potato experts say that you could be propagating disease in the potatoes but I have not had any disease issues. The size of the seed potato does not seem to matter either the medium to small size potato seem to store better, I have also saved the largest of potatoes as seed and planted those seed the next year and it did not seem to make any difference in output. This has worked for me and why I did it initially was I could not get registered seed early enough or easily, so instead of planting late I always have seed and plant when I can work the ground I usually plant mid to late April. One year I planted two crops one after another both were successful and I live in Canada, this is easy you can do it. I currently have over 2 feet of snow on my garden. Keep your stick on the ice!
I've not thought about species of wood being bad for the beds. I never thought I'd had to worry about the wood limiting growth.
to the first questioner: the Peruvian Pepper is also called a California Pepper (as is the Brazilian Pepper) here in california -- although neither is native to California! it's fruit is used as a spice and as a medicinal, the leaves as a die. i have read on the permies boards that the wood's ok for a hugelkultur after 2 years ageing. i've read about companion plantings and it includes some of our califonia native sages and other of our chaparral which love our mediteranian climate. right now i have rosemary and lavender growing under two of them so maybe you could grow a meditaranian herb garden, which would have low water needs to. they are not as aliopathic as my redwood or live oak. we usually have no rain for 9 months of every year so there are many plants that die if you give them water in the summer. for dry farming methods also look to israel where there's alot of experience. because of our drought may california farmers are learning from them.
thanks for the great info!
People use the soil that accumulates over time under that tree as fertilizer. They usually mix it with normal soil.
Nice laid back style - so many gardeners channels are far to animated. That's not what gardening's all about.
for those of us that are in a time-crunch, would you mind putting a list of the toxic/allopathic woods you know of in the video description?
Thanks!
eucalyptus
Gotta love the weather we have here in Maryland. Hot summers, cold winters, no fire ants, plenty of rain. It's just paradise.
We sure have a bit of everything
The black and white (butternut) walnut contains juglone, but I haven't had any ill effects from the pecans growing nearby; at least for the tomatoes, peppers and potatoes that I'm growing. It might affect other plants though.
I live in Maine and as far as potatoes go, I received organic spuds from a CSA that delivered to my old apartment complex and I did not get to eating them all so I kept them in the fridge uncovered in a tupperware and they sprouted around planting time
We always used styrofoam chests putting potatoes in them with lid secure and place them in garage attached to house. Our garage is not heated. Eastern Oregon on the Snake River. You might try this. We store 50 lbs a year.
Keeping potatoes and other root crops can best be done in a root cellar, or in a basement that is cold but not too damp. When we lived on the farm we didn't have a root cellar, but we were able to keep the potatoes until spring. Also, we had to go through the potatoes. They will start growing before spring, so we would have to go down there and break off the eyes, and get rid of the mushy potatoes, giving those to the pigs and putting the better ones in a clean dry area. We didn't feed the eyes of the potatoes to the pigs because the eyes are poisonous to humans, so why risk losing a pig.
We also do Hugelkultur here in GA. We are also doing an experiment with it this winter. To be able to do it indoors.. have you ever tried something like this?
Seeing how many trees are being killed by bark beetle in the mountains I ride all season, plus being a environmentally friendly gardener/ farmer as well....I’m wondering what your options might be on Hügalculturing infested pines on the mountains to thin the infestation while adding water filtering bed structures and maybe adding potential mountain biking trail banks and jumps just in case we lose our winters in the future...Since most our local mountains had years on mining as well, I figure adding soil and compost would bring back the forest to a healthier state as well.
can you please do more videos on Hugelkulture? it's really hard to find good information about this online.
Great topic! We were just talking about this.
Was curious... I realize Walnut and pecan can prove toxic to plant growth or at least stunt growth. But is it possible that the ash from burning that wood would make it usable if it was charred enough? Makes sense to me that it could be, but I'm not sure.
I suppose that the compounds like juglone are destroyed when they become ash.
very informative, thank you
Real good Q & A. Thanks for the information!
You are welcome!
Ok I am now panicked and I mean it!
I dug two beds a few months ago and thought of the Hugelkultur method so I put wood and stuff in there.
As I was watching the video I relisted that I also had put trims and barks from my Thuja trees and quite a lot of them!!!
Thuja also known as lemon cedar or lemon cypress / pine. Dose anyone know if thuja is also toxic?
I picked up random tree "scraps" from around town during council clean up recently. I have no idea what they are and I already dug and filled my beds plus planted veggies; I worked for weeks on it all and now I don't know if it's safe or not 🤔 if I eat the produce, will I get sick? Or does it just make the plants sick??
Hi there! Greetings from Ireland. I have a bunch of seasoned wood that was originally intended as firewood, but I've decided not to burn it now for various reasons. I've decided to take a stab at hugelkultur and add it as the lower layer of a tall raised bed I've built.
I am not sure what the wood is - currently trying to identify - but it might be some type of laurel. I've discovered that this plant can contain a lot of cyanide, particularly the leaves. I cannot find out if the timber is the same, or if this breaks down with seasoning (almost three years in this case). Therefore, I don't know if it's a concern to use this timber for this purpose. Do you have any thoughts? Thanks!
I don't have experience with laurel to know if it would interfere with others like black walnut does.
Ty
Growing which vegetables will save me the most money and be fairly easy/ enjoyable as a beginner?
creativeidentity start out growing what you like to eat, start small and build up!
Everywhere is different & I don't know what your personal tastes are, but when I started out gardening I got good & fairly quick returns with leaf lettuces, also known as cut & come again types. You may want to do research on what ag.extension agency serves your area, or a university with an ag. department as they often have charts showing what veg. to grow when in your area. Even though I've gardened for a few years now, I often reference one for my area, central Texas, from A&M university. Knowing when to plant is as important as knowing what to plant.
according to this www.extension.umn.edu/garden/landscaping/implement/trees_turf.html allelopathic trees target between one to a few other species as opposed to being a broad spectrum toxic killing everything. so i'm assuming that juniper i cut down is safe to hugelkultur, since this article says it's toxin only affects grasses?
I have several beautiful juniper benches. I would never use it added into a garden however...toxins...more than grasses.
Yet if you dint wabt weeds ir plants to grow than use Eucalyptus Leaves Mulch Mulch. W This Tree. I move the leaves rake i Guess Ill Se If Anything Grows. any Ideas Here there are warer ditches on the ground from the metal roof. So i am very hopefull.
Had 12 ft healthy roses in Southern California, due to eucalyptus, they love it! However, veggies just would not grow...toxic oils in the wood.
Are oleandro wood chips safe to use in the garden? Thank you .
No! Highly toxic, poisonous even.
Can diseased wood go into the bottom of the trench? I have to take down some fungal infested fruit trees and am hoping this can be a way to use the wood...thank you for advice in advance :))
I could not say for sure, but considering that you will use the diseased wood on other types of plants (like veggies) I don'd see how that could affect them.
suburban homestead great point! Thanks! Appreciate your input :)) and btw, I find your videos spectacular ...and I love your peaceful energy...thank u
geo engineering, weather weapons of war., solar remediation... we may need to pay attention
Where i live they keep hitting us with cold spells so we cant plant
Down Vote just because it was a third of the way into the video before you even addressed the question.
I don't come here to waste time.... get to the point!
Jerry, it is called click bait. I hate to do it as much as you hate to fall for it, but unfortunately it works. This is part of the reason why I stopped making videos. I'm tired of these games. I could have put up a less sensationalist title that addresses all the topics I'm talking about, but it doesn't work. You would never see it. Everyone is doing it, and youtube encourages us to do it. I don't know if you publish videos also. If you have attempted to grow a channel you would understand.
Ü
WHAT DO YOU CALL TOXIC? NATURE DOES NOT CREATE ANYTHING TOXIC SO BE SPECIFIC!!!!!!!
Juglans is an allelopathic compound. It is toxic in the sense that it severely inhibits the growth of other plants. Nature does produce toxic compounds many times for plants and animals self defense. They do usually breakdown with time, however, but they still can do harm to other things.
Yes it does, poison ivy/oak. arsenic in fern. tannic acid in certain trees such as oak..a few examples. there's too many poisonous plants out there to mention.
@Svetla Nikolova if you do some research on botany instead of shouting at people, you will learn a lot in a short time. Read a book, or if there isn't one - politely ask an elderly person who is a keen gardener with a thriving and abundant garden. That person can be your teacher, if you are willing to learn. An older person with knowledge is likely very happy to be asked to share their lifetime of knowledge with you. Then start gardening, even a small plot or section on your balcony will reward you greatly with both things to eat and more peace of mind. Time spent in your garden, and handling plants you will find you are shouting at people a lot less. We, your friends and everyone around you will benefit from that.