CORRECTION: It has been brought to our attention that the paperchains do not contain fungicides. They seem to contain Non-bleached kraft pulp paper, Ethylene vinylacetate resin and Vinylacetate resin
Love watching your videos Richard. Always packed with great information. I love the fact that every decision is informed by your depth of knowledge and understanding- you really do operate at another level. Good job and genuine thanks.
In our consumer society many people have a vested interest in seeing us buy yet more stuff (businesses, affiliates, unseen connections) and that tends to colour their advice. Rarely is the message "don't buy" and that's why this video is a breath of fresh air. Also men in particular tend to love unnecessary gadgets.
We are working on a seeder for direct seeding on a small scale. Seeding directly in the harvested preceding crop. Leaving roots and everything... Preceeding crops are crushed with a roller with teeth and you saw directly into that with the seeder. It is being done on large scale, comes from Brésil. You must know what that is, what do you think about applying it to market gardening.
Love your videos! So informative! Thank you! Do the wood chips on the walking paths between the beds not suppress/restrain plant growth in the beds, please? Do you make the wood chips yourselves? What kind of wood is it, please?
I've been an organic gardener and farmer for many years in the States. I used to use horse manure compost frequently because it was readily available and free. They started using a new broadleaf herbicide on the hay fields which has up to a 2 year residual effect. So, the manure was tainted even after composting. I discovered the problem after noticing damaged, distorted plants in my gardens. A gardener in the U.K. had the same problem. Have you had any problems like this in Sweden?
RICHARD! What do you think about using woven plastic landscaping fabric to mulch weeds? They're supposed to last many years. I mulched my garlic with grass clippings and it did work for a while, but eventually the weeds got through. They never got through my landscape fabric!
Great to hear your thoughts on the paper pot transplanter. A few months ago I had asked your opinion on a few issues on that tool, glad to hear we came to the same conclusion
@Richard Perkins, I would LOVE to see a trial comparison bed where the only thing you change is to not put woodchips in the bed, but instead add an easily controllable, low-lying perennial ground cover that stands up to heavy foot traffic. I've seen Sedum requieni suggested. The idea being that you'll have a root always in the ground and it'll do same job to suppress weeds, you can keep it easily out of the beds, it'll nutrient cycle itself, and the biggest reason: It will ideally keep a very healthy population of microbrial life deep in the soil, ESPECIALLY mycorrhizal fungi that could be ready to transfer over to your crop soon after transplanting, possibly? Do it on a small area as a trial and see how she goes? That way you don't have to buy cover crop seed ever again for the same area, you don't have to worry about how to terminate your cover crop or when.
The one tool that I am glad I got is a good petrol wood chipper. That way I can produce my own wood chip from any type of tree I like and I have mulch whenever I need it. It also allows me to produce a lot of growing medium for mushrooms. It was quite costly but will last me for years and years.
I've thought about getting one though Richard has mentioned a Jean Pain specific one before and I haven't been able to that that in the states. I've also debated about whether I would want a PTO driven chipper, hydraulic, or stand alone gas powered
I went for a mighty mac chipper that takes up to 75mm twigs. It's a 13hp one which has pneumatic wheels so I can bring it with me to the forest when I prep my firewood for the coming winter. I use it a lot to stock my compost heaps with great quality chip so I think I've probably already saved what I would spend on chip and compost by buying it. It cost me around £1000 from an arborist friend of mine.
Do you have a book ? I'm not wanting to be a market garden but I am beginning a no till I love love love your whole concept for our little 5 acre farm so excited just found your channel this morning and have watch already 6 videos
I agree 110% that you don’t need all the expensive tools. I also am all for no till and building soil content. I didn’t have many weeds on my urban farm. I’m going on a larger scale now and intend to use the same methods. Thanks you for the vid
Richard this is a great video and I highly appreciate your videos and your work. With no-till, my question always comes back to what do you do with larger crops. Say you have a bed of broccoli...what do you do with all those huge thick stalks left in the bed? Sure winter does a number on them but without cutting them up and breaking up their root structure it is super difficult to plant anything else in that bed...any suggestions besides ripping out each stalk by hand? maybe hit the bed with the broad fork first?
How thick is your compost layer to suppress weeds? What about perennial weeds at the beginning of pasture cultivation? I like your idea of investment in soil and caring about the soil food web.
There is no cultivation in no dig. He deals with the perennial weeds with rows covers over the compost over winter and then immediately plants starts into them in spring so as not to give other plants a chance compete. ua-cam.com/video/WT6hqdLb7mk/v-deo.html
Your system of weeding works great with annual seeded weeds, but perennail grasses that grow year around & wild bambles with fatty rootlet, as well as wild garlic, are not easy to stop. They can not be smoothed, I buried the grasses in 8 inches of compost, that I spread with a short tooth rake, they came though in weeks stronger then ever. So some of us have to till, no till low labor is great when you have no perennail to fight. You do make it look easy, I am sure it is not, but you do it very well.
This is the method I want to do for my home garden next year. My. Biggest concern as a home gardener is making the compost cost work. I guess if I dig into local resources though that might be fine
Curious how do you clean your beds up for the next plant you’re going to put in? Your beds always look so clean. Do you just pull them and put new compost down or do you rake hem out?
yea, I'm super curious about this too. Broccoli, cabbage, even cucurbits and the nightshades are difficult to deal with once the season is done. I'm thinking a mower set at it's highest level and going very slow over the bed helps, but you're still left with the huge root structure the plant has made in that dank soil. tarps and the broadfork might help but it would be interesting to see how he deals with it.
Hi Richard! Thank you for your great videos. I'm preparing for the new season in the garden and I want to switch to the "no dig" approch. I can have a good deal on compost from champignons bedding (I'm reading it should consist of composted horse and chicken manure, straw and peat). Is this a good compost for vegetable beds in your opinion?
I don't know about where you are but what about the meds that are giving to the horses before you use it for compost (Wormers mainly)? Or would the composting cycle take care of any issues?
Hey Richard, is that harvester gentle enough so that it doesn't crush tender leaves? I just saw Curtis Stone demoing a crazy expensive machine, expensive for our scale at least (32k USD). That one seemed to have knifes like on a combine, so it's simmilar to a scissor action. That would probably be hard to miniaturize for a hand held application, but not impossible.
So they don't use a BCS at Ridgedale at all? To establish beds the grass is covered in woodchips and then compost is placed on top to make the beds? Just making sure I've got this right....
You've got it wrong. It's 6inches or 15cm over the beds of compost/manure and between the beds where the paths are there is a well layered cardboard (make sure the joint overlap lots) which is covered by woodchips. Woodchips don't have a place on the beds in his market garden set up.
Ahh okay, gotcha. Do you know if they have any vids up of them creating beds from scratch? would like to see how its done in detail. If a BCS is ultimately unnecessary that would be good to know, as I thought I would need one even if not tilling, to shape beds and use the power harrow for smooth seedbeds...
Pretty sure he used cardboard on a big roll for no seams. And also covers the grow beds with a woven polypropylene textile tarping pegged down. For raised beds or more additional organic matter you can initially remove the topsoil and grass from the paths to form the beds and then tarp to compost it down over winter. Then apply cardboard & woodchips in the sunken path. That's extra work, not sure if Richard bothered, it's not usually necessary.
Richard, you mentioned that you leave roots in the ground. I've heard others say the same thing, but in application I am confused about how that looks. For example, with larger rooted crops like my tomatoes and chard (which last year had a 4-6 inch diameter base) how do you leave roots that big without it creating uneven surfaces to plant succession crops later? That said with any roots I've tried to leave it seems to either 1) pulls so much dirt up, 2) left over roots stick up, 3) there is a dip/hole left over , and 4) the roots don't decompose ... all of which create some kind of issue with the tilth and making planting more of a challenge for the next succession or season. Thoughts or feedback? Would love a video on the topic if you are so inclined. Thanks again for all the value you create!
I wish I could get organic compost for cheap because my "soil" is almost pure sand. Sadly, despite all the horse farms near by there aren't a too many options for me. Best I've found for already rotted, organic compost is $50 per cubic yard. I ended up spending $175 for one flower bed worth around a pergola last year. Maybe I need to get creative and maybe offer to remove horse manure and then compost it myself. Seems time intensive to do that though.
All these Veg youtube rock stars proclaiming the advantage of paper pot transplanters failed to mention the fungicides. Some of them market produce as organic. Thx for the heads up.
I also forgot to ask in regards to your no dig method ... last year I bought compost to start a no dig bed. Put on 3-4 inches, cardboard in the pathways, etc. And my plants got stunted and burned! What did I do wrong?
Fairly sure in a previous video he mentioned that he wished he had access to deciduous chips as they would more suit fungi inoculation. In the woods he's been stacking logs and doing inoculation into them. Go back through the previous years videos and watch them it's a treasure trove of information.
Great video but I think you misinterpreted the concerns of the sustainability of compost heavy agriculture, I am worried about the feasibility of an increasingly commodified organic matter market as it becomes more common to mulch and compost.
We currently produce enough waste to create large volumes of compost and mulch. Perhaps after we've minimised waste streams it will be something to address.
barleycorn i It's nota dificult to produce the organic matter right on the site. Check Ernst Gotsch, He has some good methods to join food production with organic matter production.
But he must have a fairly closed loop in terms of composting...you're maybe thinking of bought in compost, which is just consumerism, and similar to purchasing chemical fertilisers. If you're returning waste/surpluses to the ground with additions of liquid feed, animal manure to the ground that made it in the first place, that must be good...not sure how you could over compost the ground...
CORRECTION: It has been brought to our attention that the paperchains do not contain fungicides. They seem to contain Non-bleached kraft pulp paper, Ethylene vinylacetate resin and Vinylacetate resin
are those chemicals good or bad?
'Try and keep your startup costs really low'
This is true of every business. I've grown to really appreciate your perspective over the last year.
Love watching your videos Richard. Always packed with great information. I love the fact that every decision is informed by your depth of knowledge and understanding- you really do operate at another level. Good job and genuine thanks.
In our consumer society many people have a vested interest in seeing us buy yet more stuff (businesses, affiliates, unseen connections) and that tends to colour their advice. Rarely is the message "don't buy" and that's why this video is a breath of fresh air. Also men in particular tend to love unnecessary gadgets.
We are working on a seeder for direct seeding on a small scale. Seeding directly in the harvested preceding crop. Leaving roots and everything... Preceeding crops are crushed with a roller with teeth and you saw directly into that with the seeder. It is being done on large scale, comes from Brésil. You must know what that is, what do you think about applying it to market gardening.
Heja Sverige ! Thank you for educating us. May you be rewarded in this life and the next.
Love your videos! So informative! Thank you! Do the wood chips on the walking paths between the beds not suppress/restrain plant growth in the beds, please? Do you make the wood chips yourselves? What kind of wood is it, please?
Thank you Richard! Your work makes me dream! Since January I took a first step with a community garden!
Thanks very much for that. I love the distant view of the fur trees on the mountain!
I've been an organic gardener and farmer for many years in the States. I used to use horse manure compost frequently because it was readily available and free. They started using a new broadleaf herbicide on the hay fields which has up to a 2 year residual effect. So, the manure was tainted even after composting. I discovered the problem after noticing damaged, distorted plants in my gardens. A gardener in the U.K. had the same problem. Have you had any problems like this in Sweden?
RICHARD! What do you think about using woven plastic landscaping fabric to mulch weeds? They're supposed to last many years. I mulched my garlic with grass clippings and it did work for a while, but eventually the weeds got through. They never got through my landscape fabric!
Great to hear your thoughts on the paper pot transplanter. A few months ago I had asked your opinion on a few issues on that tool, glad to hear we came to the same conclusion
@Richard Perkins, I would LOVE to see a trial comparison bed where the only thing you change is to not put woodchips in the bed, but instead add an easily controllable, low-lying perennial ground cover that stands up to heavy foot traffic. I've seen Sedum requieni suggested. The idea being that you'll have a root always in the ground and it'll do same job to suppress weeds, you can keep it easily out of the beds, it'll nutrient cycle itself, and the biggest reason: It will ideally keep a very healthy population of microbrial life deep in the soil, ESPECIALLY mycorrhizal fungi that could be ready to transfer over to your crop soon after transplanting, possibly?
Do it on a small area as a trial and see how she goes? That way you don't have to buy cover crop seed ever again for the same area, you don't have to worry about how to terminate your cover crop or when.
Another awesome video, Richard. Thank you so much for sharing all this with us 💚
The one tool that I am glad I got is a good petrol wood chipper. That way I can produce my own wood chip from any type of tree I like and I have mulch whenever I need it. It also allows me to produce a lot of growing medium for mushrooms. It was quite costly but will last me for years and years.
Please the Brand, Model, and max branch diameter ? tqvm
I've thought about getting one though Richard has mentioned a Jean Pain specific one before and I haven't been able to that that in the states. I've also debated about whether I would want a PTO driven chipper, hydraulic, or stand alone gas powered
I went for a mighty mac chipper that takes up to 75mm twigs. It's a 13hp one which has pneumatic wheels so I can bring it with me to the forest when I prep my firewood for the coming winter. I use it a lot to stock my compost heaps with great quality chip so I think I've probably already saved what I would spend on chip and compost by buying it. It cost me around £1000 from an arborist friend of mine.
Thank you Magnus for the details
Do you have a book ? I'm not wanting to be a market garden but I am beginning a no till I love love love your whole concept for our little 5 acre farm so excited just found your channel this morning and have watch already 6 videos
I agree 110% that you don’t need all the expensive tools. I also am all for no till and building soil content. I didn’t have many weeds on my urban farm. I’m going on a larger scale now and intend to use the same methods.
Thanks you for the vid
Can you grow pine nuts up that far north? I haven’t heard you mention them in nutfield.
Richard this is a great video and I highly appreciate your videos and your work. With no-till, my question always comes back to what do you do with larger crops. Say you have a bed of broccoli...what do you do with all those huge thick stalks left in the bed? Sure winter does a number on them but without cutting them up and breaking up their root structure it is super difficult to plant anything else in that bed...any suggestions besides ripping out each stalk by hand? maybe hit the bed with the broad fork first?
Thanks Richard!! Very, very usefull information!
How thick is your compost layer to suppress weeds? What about perennial weeds at the beginning of pasture cultivation?
I like your idea of investment in soil and caring about the soil food web.
There is no cultivation in no dig. He deals with the perennial weeds with rows covers over the compost over winter and then immediately plants starts into them in spring so as not to give other plants a chance compete. ua-cam.com/video/WT6hqdLb7mk/v-deo.html
great video Richard! I'm really interested in how you fix your insect netting, it looks pretty good
Your system of weeding works great with annual seeded weeds, but perennail grasses that grow year around & wild bambles with fatty rootlet, as well as wild garlic, are not easy to stop. They can not be smoothed, I buried the grasses in 8 inches of compost, that I spread with a short tooth rake, they came though in weeks stronger then ever. So some of us have to till, no till low labor is great when you have no perennail to fight. You do make it look easy, I am sure it is not, but you do it very well.
This is the method I want to do for my home garden next year. My. Biggest concern as a home gardener is making the compost cost work. I guess if I dig into local resources though that might be fine
Curious how do you clean your beds up for the next plant you’re going to put in? Your beds always look so clean. Do you just pull them and put new compost down or do you rake hem out?
yea, I'm super curious about this too. Broccoli, cabbage, even cucurbits and the nightshades are difficult to deal with once the season is done. I'm thinking a mower set at it's highest level and going very slow over the bed helps, but you're still left with the huge root structure the plant has made in that dank soil. tarps and the broadfork might help but it would be interesting to see how he deals with it.
Chris West X
Hi Richard! Thank you for your great videos. I'm preparing for the new season in the garden and I want to switch to the "no dig" approch. I can have a good deal on compost from champignons bedding (I'm reading it should consist of composted horse and chicken manure, straw and peat). Is this a good compost for vegetable beds in your opinion?
I don't know about where you are but what about the meds that are giving to the horses before you use it for compost (Wormers mainly)? Or would the composting cycle take care of any issues?
Hey Richard, is that harvester gentle enough so that it doesn't crush tender leaves? I just saw Curtis Stone demoing a crazy expensive machine, expensive for our scale at least (32k USD). That one seemed to have knifes like on a combine, so it's simmilar to a scissor action. That would probably be hard to miniaturize for a hand held application, but not impossible.
So they don't use a BCS at Ridgedale at all? To establish beds the grass is covered in woodchips and then compost is placed on top to make the beds? Just making sure I've got this right....
You've got it wrong.
It's 6inches or 15cm over the beds of compost/manure and between the beds where the paths are there is a well layered cardboard (make sure the joint overlap lots) which is covered by woodchips. Woodchips don't have a place on the beds in his market garden set up.
Ahh okay, gotcha. Do you know if they have any vids up of them creating beds from scratch? would like to see how its done in detail. If a BCS is ultimately unnecessary that would be good to know, as I thought I would need one even if not tilling, to shape beds and use the power harrow for smooth seedbeds...
Pretty sure he used cardboard on a big roll for no seams. And also covers the grow beds with a woven polypropylene textile tarping pegged down.
For raised beds or more additional organic matter you can initially remove the topsoil and grass from the paths to form the beds and then tarp to compost it down over winter. Then apply cardboard & woodchips in the sunken path. That's extra work, not sure if Richard bothered, it's not usually necessary.
Richard, you mentioned that you leave roots in the ground. I've heard others say the same thing, but in application I am confused about how that looks. For example, with larger rooted crops like my tomatoes and chard (which last year had a 4-6 inch diameter base) how do you leave roots that big without it creating uneven surfaces to plant succession crops later? That said with any roots I've tried to leave it seems to either 1) pulls so much dirt up, 2) left over roots stick up, 3) there is a dip/hole left over , and 4) the roots don't decompose ... all of which create some kind of issue with the tilth and making planting more of a challenge for the next succession or season. Thoughts or feedback? Would love a video on the topic if you are so inclined. Thanks again for all the value you create!
rkhubb I think I've heard mention of adding a small layer of compost between crops to help amend the soil and give a blank slate for seeding.
your farm is so beautiful...
Also where do you get your long cardboard ? We are using pieces quite the headache
I wish I could get organic compost for cheap because my "soil" is almost pure sand. Sadly, despite all the horse farms near by there aren't a too many options for me. Best I've found for already rotted, organic compost is $50 per cubic yard. I ended up spending $175 for one flower bed worth around a pergola last year. Maybe I need to get creative and maybe offer to remove horse manure and then compost it myself. Seems time intensive to do that though.
All these Veg youtube rock stars proclaiming the advantage of paper pot transplanters failed to mention the fungicides. Some of them market produce as organic. Thx for the heads up.
I wonder why they don't make the paperpot in biodegradable cornstarch...i would assume it's a more durable and less mold-prone material.
Where to buy a broadfork in Sweden? Have searched, but not found anyone
I also forgot to ask in regards to your no dig method ... last year I bought compost to start a no dig bed. Put on 3-4 inches, cardboard in the pathways, etc. And my plants got stunted and burned! What did I do wrong?
Sounds like unfinished compost
I have nearly 7000sq feet of tarps saved in my amazon basket which i nearly baught! The timing of this video is quite the coincidence! Hmm...
Does someone knows if we can compare richard's clîmate to the one at the south of the Quebec ? With similar problems, or even soils ressemblance ?
Pas tout à fait! il se situe à peu près à l'équivalent de Rawdon ; voir la classification climatique Köppen...
Do you ever inoculate your market beds with fungi?
Fairly sure in a previous video he mentioned that he wished he had access to deciduous chips as they would more suit fungi inoculation.
In the woods he's been stacking logs and doing inoculation into them.
Go back through the previous years videos and watch them it's a treasure trove of information.
I would think he would prefer bacteria heavy as opposed to fungi heavy. I believe annuals prefer bacteria over fungal
Sorry I have to be that guy: it's *fewer* tools
Love your vids man btw
Where is your source of compost?
Lawnmower and chipper/shredder. No animals so I gotta get that compost from somewhere.
Nature does not till, but she does mulch.
She works on time table of millions of years
Great video! I also prefer the previous intro
Another valuable video with great information! Thanks for that. Just an aside...miss the old music. That new ditty in comparison is just...well, ew!
👍👍👍
Great video but I think you misinterpreted the concerns of the sustainability of compost heavy agriculture, I am worried about the feasibility of an increasingly commodified organic matter market as it becomes more common to mulch and compost.
We currently produce enough waste to create large volumes of compost and mulch. Perhaps after we've minimised waste streams it will be something to address.
barleycorn i It's nota dificult to produce the organic matter right on the site. Check Ernst Gotsch, He has some good methods to join food production with organic matter production.
But he must have a fairly closed loop in terms of composting...you're maybe thinking of bought in compost, which is just consumerism, and similar to purchasing chemical fertilisers. If you're returning waste/surpluses to the ground with additions of liquid feed, animal manure to the ground that made it in the first place, that must be good...not sure how you could over compost the ground...
Yeees, i don't need the tractor! :-)