Really big fan of all the info you share! I'm an amature permaculturist and often find myself watching your videos with a notepad on hand. I don't know if you do this or ever would, but your property would be one I would love to get a tour of someday (not local, so that would have to be a planned roadtrip some day, if available).
I've been a notetaker since as long as I can remember, and the process of writing helps me to envision more clearly and recall information more quickly. Glad that the videos are chock full of info enough to pull out your notepad. Down the line when we're finished with the renovation, we may do garden tours. At this moment, it's been more heads down and getting the buildings and the land into more working order. It's coming along. Some is faster than others, but we're happy with the progress every day. Thanks for letting us know that you'd be interested in doing a tour.
I'm on year 2 of mine and I'm loving it. Just got two new plum trees today as well as a raspberry. I agree taking the time to think it out and plant is nice
This was very helpful for my little circular guild I'm attempting on our little acre. 2 apples and a nectarine. I've used the 5 gallon bucket hack for drip to each tree and worked really well during the heatwaves especially. This year I will add in more natives. Currently I've got Lupins and Comfrey (Bocking 4 sterile seeds) and milkweed.
I love your orchard and the planning that went into it. I also started an orchard 5 years ago, with a 5 foot horse fence around a half acre to keep deer out. I just spent this afternoon laying cardboard and wood chips around the trees and bushes, again. I have 30 fruit trees planted in that area on a 22 foot spacing. Then I planted fruiting bushes between all of the trees, so there are about 35 bushes. Some of the bushes are Juliet bush cherry, Carmine Jewel bush cherry, Currents - black, red and white, Highbush Cranberry, Honeyberries- 3 kinds, Elderberrys, Seeded Concord grape, Gooseberry- 2 kinds, Hazel nut, Figs-Chicago Hardy & Celeste (Zone 6A), boysenberry, and more. I have things planted in other areas like Seedless Concord grapes, Horseradish, Blueberries, Asparagus and strawberries. I initial goal was to have something to eat every day during the summer. I have also been planting Egyptian Walking Onions around the trees.
Fantastic! We have quite a lot of overlap with you. And marvelous goal to be able to walk outside and eat something every day in the summer. Good on you! We have been blessed with not quite such cold weather so have also been able to do some work before winter sets in. P.S. The Egyptian walking onions are very lovely. We got some after our tour of Hortus Botanic Garden in Ulster County; we didn't have an orchard at that time, so put them in the Memorial garden and have to say they are quite prolific. I love their weebly-wobbly Dr. Seuss form.
Y’all might consider some bark paint for your tree trunks to keep them from cracking in winter or sunburning in the summer. Nice guilds I’ve had luck with are mulberry/bunchberry/yarrow/nodding onion and apple/yarrow/comfrey. We have strawberries and garlic everywhere too. One experimental guild that is very happy so far we have is asparagus/strawberry/sea berry. Your guilds are looking good. Cheers!
Fun! I grow a Backyard Food Forest/orchard/garden in Lubbock, Texas. Well done on your plant selection. It's really difficult to establish guilds in my climate. Especially around young fruit trees that are kept small but I just keep adding beneficial plants as I come across them. Giving them special care for a year or two. Looking forward to your updates 😀
I think it's really helpful to just plant over time. You can see what fills in and what doesn't and you can't often do that all at once. Thanks for leaving a comment and for watching! Happy gardening. You'll likely be gardening when we're inside with the snow!
@@FlockFingerLakes My first two years were frantic planting. My age making me rush. So the third and fourth year I corrected mistakes that I could 🤣 and slowed way down. My Food Forest is chaotic but I definitely have no regrets. Now in my fifth year I am thrilled just to walk out my back door 🙃
NIce video. Perma Pastures farm sells a bone sauce that repels deer and also have comfrey that is more contained. They have you tube videos on planting guilds and more. Thanks for your videos.
Awesome work so far! Looking forward to see that orchard evolve. Love the wide coppice lanes, lots of room for future intercroped production systems. My only note is for you(and everyone else with less than a dozen) is your honey berry's, they are a total thicket species, meaning lots and lots of them to provide lots and lots of cross pollination and better fruit sets. Seedlings of the modern cultivars work just fine for that as well, plus you may get a cultivar or two of your own out of it that way. I also really want to trial new jersey tea in a thicket form some time in the near future. Love the details. Looking good 👍
Hey! Lovely video, I was really impressed to see what you called "Peruvian black mint" in your guild. I manage an urban regenerative farm in Auckland (OMG - Organic Market Garden) and we use this plant extensively. However we refer to it as huacaty (pronounced wok-a-tai). It was brought to us by an English chef who named it very drably as apple marigold, later we had some Peruvian tourists come by the farm who told us its correct name. We use it as a herb in our salad mixes as well as biomass for composting. If you want to check us out more then our organisation is called For The Love of Bees. Thanks for producing such excellent videos!
Thanks Jake for that additional information on the Peruvian black mint. From that initial inspection, it goes by many names and that often means-it's a plant with many uses to many people. Always wonderful to get more direct cultural references and very cool that you used within your salad mixes. It has a pungent flavor. Can definitely see it giving a zing and a zest to one's mix. Appreciate you sharing your work and the organization and the references. Will be useful for others who care to read the comments.
So I think i answered this myself but is the difference between "attracts pollinators" vs "insect host" ... pollinators come and go vs a insert host is more of a home for them?
Inspiring and manageable the way its broken down ! Really like how Stefan over at The Polyculture Orchard explains plantings. The explanations here reveal so much in fresh ways to me! This will be great to follow as it grows!
Great spreadsheet rating system developed for your large property. I can see how this would also work well for a small homeowner. It will be interesting to see how the medicinal plants do in keeping deer away from the trees moving forward. Great idea. Could you also list source of your work clothing, supplies, garden tools, books, seed and bulb sources in each video or your on your website?
Love celeriac, especially put through the shredder nd then a lemon and whole grain mustard vinaigrette mixed through, you can add a carrot for a bit of contrast. Also garlic, celeriac and tattie mash oven baked. I do it with crème fraiche for Christmas dinner.
I turn it into a mash with crème fraiche and it's absolutely decadent. Much better than mashed potatoes. And to get that springy taste in the fall-winter is a treat. Thanks for sharing how you prepare it!
Rabbits will eat pear trees down to the ground in wintertime - 2 years in a row at my place, despite caging. Kirsten Dirksen’s YT channel did a great tour of an established permaculture orchard guild in Wales; they caged long strips of land to protect their guild from sheep. Worth a view. “Left BBC’s Planet Earth to start family homestead” is the episode.
Started my day with Danny Gokey-NewDay. As I was preparing my morning meal. I wondered what you guys have been up to. ❤️ your channels! So much thought, conversation, and information! Today, for some reason, you reminded me of writings from Henry Mitchell. A collection of books in my personal library. I ❤️ rhubarb, prefer this for size over peace lily or elephant ear for its many attributes! Also, I ❤️ kinnikinnick simply because its name to me catches the funny bone. 😆 Thank You much. Happy Holidays!
Excellent video! I like your point system. I have a few questions though. How wide and long are your guilds? I have a southwest facing gentle slope that I want to develop with guilds (140ft X 140ft). My thought is swales on contour. Any reason you didn’t make those as swales?
Have you considered adding fringe tree to maybe a south facing wall? It is native to the USA and it is the American counterpart to the olive. The fruit it produces can be similarly brined as well.
Hi, been able to get plenty of inspiration thanks to you. Just ordered Tagete minuta seed, looks like a super interesting plant for in a guild next year, was unknown to my yet. Your guilds look really diverse, curious to see the results in the future and to hear your feedback. For the moment, I only work with mint and lemon balm around my fruit trees. It looks like the number of infestations with fruit moth has been reduced. I can confirm what you said about the untouched pear tree. rodents and deer always feed on my apple trees, and always leave the pear trees next to it untouched. Someone once told me that an apple tree tastes sweeter, especially the root.
Fascinating! Thanks for sharing your information here. It is curious that they do not eat the pear, but I bet when push comes to shove in the winter, they would readily eat the pear...Heck, I would eat the pear tree if I were starving too! Hopefully we'll get lucky like last winter and have 0 deer in the core of the area. We just need to be vigilant with keeping the deer exclusion fence in tip top shape.
We have a small orchard in NH, love your channel. We bought right before covid and have been reviving the orchard. In the last two years our mature pear trees have been ravaged porcupine, deer and squirrels. I can see how companion planting can deter them. Id be interested in hearing how you guys develop other natural strategies throughout the years.
Fantastic you are in the process of reviving an old orchard. This land was let go for a couple years before we got here, and it's surprising how quickly things get pushed out, eaten, etc. if the human caretaker doesn't intervene.
Just looking at your comments, they are all positive. If you really want input this should concern you. The space is already planted, you have some cool stuff. I'm wishing you the best :)
Thank you so much for sharing! I found a shorter comfrey here for the meadow that I'm trying out for size. Bumble bees seem to go CRAZY for it. Lots of buzz pollination happening in those flowers.
@@FlockFingerLakes yeah, the pollinators love it, but towards the end of the summer season so do the deer here! Definitely a great combo though. I also planted them with my Nankin cherries and the blueberry bushes
It'll be interesting to see if these bulbs are hardy in this zone to emerge next year. I got a nice little crop from the saffron. I almost exclusively use it in butternut squash soup. It's such a precious spice!
Yes, we definitely went heavy on the Alliums, which I know will multiply rapidly without us trying! Have to admit too-love when both those garlic and onion flower too. They are delightful blooms!
Gardening is such good excersize! As far as I understand, no insects care or know if they are useful to humans or not. It is all about them. And all contribute in some way. A poisonous plant to animals for instance (tansy) attracts lots of kinds of butterflies and bees, but would kill your livestock or pets so I'd never grow it just to see insects on it etc. Those beetles that are destructive in my veg garden are a great help in the wild places around & in my woods to clean up things & add to the general compost. All insects contribute, even if just food to birds, bats, etc. So I don't make a distinction & all insects pollinate something when they walk across plants of any type. I even like spiders. Just don't like slugs which love young dandelion, so I spend many hours a year Spring & Fall digging them with a knife in all of my lawns, including 3 ditches along the hwy infront of my lands. Rarely get one in the gardens now since putting mulch down & horsetail fern has choked out almost everything that was not a mature bush or tree. I now rent raised beds in the village to grow food.
My dad's family has roots in the Finger Lake region, in farming and stone masonry. These videos give me an idea of the natural beauty that brought and kept them there. I like your garden journal; it looks similar to mine--a Minimalism Art B5 notebook with graph paper. It allows me to accurately plan out garden beds and also record the garden's progress. I keep spreadsheets, also, to collect even more detail. The scientist in me wants as much data as possible!
I've always been a notetaker. My note books used to be much more organized than they are now, but I find they are more like scratch and sketch pads now compared to the immaculate notebooks of the past. Glad to hear these vids connect you to your family. Such great history here that seems to transcend time. We'll have some good stone masonry stuff coming up too! We're about to finish up a big stone project here :)
Thanks for the video, you guys try to do it so well. Be careful with paper and cardboard along your beds. All paper and cardboard, such as painter's paper, which is water-repellent, has been treated with a product containing PFAS. And that's the last thing you want in your yard.
I don't believe that is true. I'd be curious to see the science on this. Waxed cardboard wouldn't be good, nor would the cellophane tape or labels be, but regular cardboard is fine. When you use cardboard, you do want to wet it and keep it moist, and then cover it with wood chips or other mulch to help retain the moisture.
My driver who lives a self-sustaining lifestyle has to fight comfrey all the time to protect his abiltiy to grow food & eat. In some places some weeds & herbs become a nightmare. For instance I grew oregano for years in a small patch (sandy soil) & shared some with a friend (clay soil) who then was very upset because a few years later they had to use a tractor to tear out the roots that had totally invaded a decorative garden bed. They were not pleased since the entire garden then had to be redone. Had a similar thing happen when I gave someone that horrible Jerusalem artichoke & it spread to the point t hat they got infights w. the next door neighbour. Since that woman commited suicide 3 yrs later, they still talk about my 'weeds' that I gave them when the remember that youngish mom.
I did a garden tour recently and comfrey definitely went crazy wild on the land and spilled out over into some wild areas. It seems that if it's not a plant that one will manage, then it can be quite aggressive. Also see that the Bees LOVE it. So I'm sure they have something to do with spreading it.
@@FlockFingerLakes Apparently you need to get the sterile variety like Bocking 14. It will not spread by seed. I have so many because I propagated root cuttings.
Lawn and leaf bags (paper obviously) also work well to smother weeds and I can often find them at a reduced price at the end of the season. And those deer….if they don’t eat something they manage to damage it somehow. Buck rub has almost ruined several small trees, so we’ve taken to caging them til they’re of a thicker caliper.
@@LMLewis Thanks! Though if you make friends with a smaller retail establishment they might just let you have your pick for free since they have to be discarded anyway.
I recommend growing an heirloom apple from Holland named Belle De Boskoop since your partner is from Holland. It is one of my favorite apples! I would also recommend a second fence to protect your orchard or the deer will kill your trees that you spent so much time, money and energy planting.
Wow! That was a lot of information! I use a ton of comfrey. I think the plant has the ability to absorb specific mineral nutrients. Not necessarily super deep but in the upper foot or so.
When your New Jersey Tea flowers, inspect them for ants. The butterflies that use the plant in the Lycaenidaeas family all disguise themselves like parts of the plant but the ants that tend them often give them away.
vaguely heard of the concept of guilds but honestly i would love to research more on it. as if i need a reason to do more research when i, for fun, spent a week writing down every plant native to my county, including general care in terms of sun and water needs, lol
Wonderful video, thank you. I am definitely adopting some of your mints in my orchard guild. I have a question too perhaps you have some experience or information about it. So, I have an area along the driveway where I have planted 3 citrus trees, 2 plum trees, an apricot tree and a fig tree. On the other side our neighbor has 4 tall pine trees and now I am thinking it could be a good spot for an evergreen garden if I move my plums and the fig somewhere else and add a couple of dwarf conifers. The question is if the citrus and conifers will be compatible trees or not, will they suppress each other or not?
Great info. thanks for sharing, which zone are you there in NY? I'm getting ready to start a garden probably next spring, just bought some acreage here in zone 6 Michigan, building a house as we speak and living in my travel trailer. I'll be designing a garden with about 25 common vegetables and some fruit tree guilds, probably a greenhouse in the center, a fence around with a tall hedge just inside to keep the deer out, this property was used as a hunting property and there are deer EVERYWHERE! You are so fashionable! love the engineer boots and the fedora;-)
Love this video and everything you guys do. For your native insect meadow, when do you plan on mowing this? I am starting something similar at our new property, but I'm not sure when to mow. I don't want it to turn to woods.
Oooh boy, I can't recall the name offhand, but it's an AMAZING soil book done back in the 1920s of a scientist who dug transects into the soil and literally drew out the roots and rootlets of each plant species. It's the type of dedication to a science/craft that we do not see any longer in our university system.
IMO Asian Pears, pawpaws, and persimmons are the best for avoiding deer browse. I saw you had european pears but don't sleep on the asian ones, they are way yummier and store for a long time. Obviously, pawpaws are also awesome.
I've always wondered, isn't it just as important to know how invasive a plant is regardless if it's native or non-native. Seems like it's important to think about because a non-native plants that's not invasive is perfectly fine but we should be careful of planting a native plant that spreads like crazy.
I built a large patio at each end of a newly built garage 4 inches off the ground to prevent mud on shoes going inside. On Sunday I tore the 1 end apart due to rot & my feet going thru 2 boards while clipping back roses. Wild aggressive strawberries had grown there between my rose trees. Was a constant task to also pull them out from between the wide boards. They were always a tripping hazard & kept dampness in the entire area. The boards had rotted underneath despite being painted several times ontop. The patio at the other end has no strawberry invasion at all, no rot of lumber despite being the one walked on several times daily by me & all the deer, bear etc.
Some of our young fruit trees got munched by the neighbors’ cows and we thought they wouldn’t survive but the ones that got hit responded really well to the pruning and actually made the most growth in the summer. I Hope you have a similar success story with the deer-victims 🫶
Cardboard around a orchard is a HORRIBLE idea. It just provides home for voles which kill all nearby trees by girdling them. I had four apple trees in a row taken out last year. Since then I've planted Alliums around each tree, and removed all cardboard.
Way to go nice start, deer are dear.
Would you ever share your spreadsheet? Sounds like it would be an awesome resource
Fantastic. We do something similar on a smaller backyard scale - I think you're going to have fantastic success. Spring will be gorgeous! Great video.
Really big fan of all the info you share! I'm an amature permaculturist and often find myself watching your videos with a notepad on hand. I don't know if you do this or ever would, but your property would be one I would love to get a tour of someday (not local, so that would have to be a planned roadtrip some day, if available).
I've been a notetaker since as long as I can remember, and the process of writing helps me to envision more clearly and recall information more quickly. Glad that the videos are chock full of info enough to pull out your notepad. Down the line when we're finished with the renovation, we may do garden tours. At this moment, it's been more heads down and getting the buildings and the land into more working order. It's coming along. Some is faster than others, but we're happy with the progress every day. Thanks for letting us know that you'd be interested in doing a tour.
I'm on year 2 of mine and I'm loving it. Just got two new plum trees today as well as a raspberry. I agree taking the time to think it out and plant is nice
This was very helpful for my little circular guild I'm attempting on our little acre. 2 apples and a nectarine. I've used the 5 gallon bucket hack for drip to each tree and worked really well during the heatwaves especially. This year I will add in more natives. Currently I've got Lupins and Comfrey (Bocking 4 sterile seeds) and milkweed.
The aerial shot was beautiful🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄💚🙃
That's Sander on drone duty when the light is just right!
Explaining your point system is inspiring. I might have a new winter project.
Glad it can be useful.
I love your orchard and the planning that went into it. I also started an orchard 5 years ago, with a 5 foot horse fence around a half acre to keep deer out. I just spent this afternoon laying cardboard and wood chips around the trees and bushes, again. I have 30 fruit trees planted in that area on a 22 foot spacing. Then I planted fruiting bushes between all of the trees, so there are about 35 bushes. Some of the bushes are Juliet bush cherry, Carmine Jewel bush cherry, Currents - black, red and white, Highbush Cranberry, Honeyberries- 3 kinds, Elderberrys, Seeded Concord grape, Gooseberry- 2 kinds, Hazel nut, Figs-Chicago Hardy & Celeste (Zone 6A), boysenberry, and more. I have things planted in other areas like Seedless Concord grapes, Horseradish, Blueberries, Asparagus and strawberries.
I initial goal was to have something to eat every day during the summer. I have also been planting Egyptian Walking Onions around the trees.
Fantastic! We have quite a lot of overlap with you. And marvelous goal to be able to walk outside and eat something every day in the summer. Good on you! We have been blessed with not quite such cold weather so have also been able to do some work before winter sets in. P.S. The Egyptian walking onions are very lovely. We got some after our tour of Hortus Botanic Garden in Ulster County; we didn't have an orchard at that time, so put them in the Memorial garden and have to say they are quite prolific. I love their weebly-wobbly Dr. Seuss form.
Y’all might consider some bark paint for your tree trunks to keep them from cracking in winter or sunburning in the summer.
Nice guilds I’ve had luck with are mulberry/bunchberry/yarrow/nodding onion and apple/yarrow/comfrey. We have strawberries and garlic everywhere too. One experimental guild that is very happy so far we have is asparagus/strawberry/sea berry.
Your guilds are looking good. Cheers!
Thanks so much for sharing your guilds and your tips. Useful all the way around and I'm sure will be helpful for others here too.
Fun! I grow a Backyard Food Forest/orchard/garden in Lubbock, Texas. Well done on your plant selection. It's really difficult to establish guilds in my climate. Especially around young fruit trees that are kept small but I just keep adding beneficial plants as I come across them. Giving them special care for a year or two.
Looking forward to your updates 😀
I think it's really helpful to just plant over time. You can see what fills in and what doesn't and you can't often do that all at once. Thanks for leaving a comment and for watching! Happy gardening. You'll likely be gardening when we're inside with the snow!
@@FlockFingerLakes My first two years were frantic planting. My age making me rush. So the third and fourth year I corrected mistakes that I could 🤣 and slowed way down. My Food Forest is chaotic but I definitely have no regrets. Now in my fifth year I am thrilled just to walk out my back door 🙃
NIce video. Perma Pastures farm sells a bone sauce that repels deer and also have comfrey that is more contained. They have you tube videos on planting guilds and more. Thanks for your videos.
You are such a good teacher!
Thank you for the videos you all do!
You're most welcome! Glad they are useful.
Love this planning video, a look inside the system behind setting up your orchard is really appreciated! Thank you!
You're most welcome.
Awesome work so far!
Looking forward to see that orchard evolve.
Love the wide coppice lanes, lots of room for future intercroped production systems.
My only note is for you(and everyone else with less than a dozen) is your honey berry's, they are a total thicket species, meaning lots and lots of them to provide lots and lots of cross pollination and better fruit sets. Seedlings of the modern cultivars work just fine for that as well, plus you may get a cultivar or two of your own out of it that way.
I also really want to trial new jersey tea in a thicket form some time in the near future. Love the details. Looking good 👍
Hey! Lovely video, I was really impressed to see what you called "Peruvian black mint" in your guild. I manage an urban regenerative farm in Auckland (OMG - Organic Market Garden) and we use this plant extensively. However we refer to it as huacaty (pronounced wok-a-tai). It was brought to us by an English chef who named it very drably as apple marigold, later we had some Peruvian tourists come by the farm who told us its correct name. We use it as a herb in our salad mixes as well as biomass for composting. If you want to check us out more then our organisation is called For The Love of Bees.
Thanks for producing such excellent videos!
Thanks Jake for that additional information on the Peruvian black mint. From that initial inspection, it goes by many names and that often means-it's a plant with many uses to many people. Always wonderful to get more direct cultural references and very cool that you used within your salad mixes. It has a pungent flavor. Can definitely see it giving a zing and a zest to one's mix. Appreciate you sharing your work and the organization and the references. Will be useful for others who care to read the comments.
So I think i answered this myself but is the difference between "attracts pollinators" vs "insect host" ... pollinators come and go vs a insert host is more of a home for them?
Inspiring and manageable the way its broken down ! Really like how Stefan over at The Polyculture Orchard explains plantings. The explanations here reveal so much in fresh ways to me! This will be great to follow as it grows!
Great spreadsheet rating system developed for your large property. I can see how this would also work well for a small homeowner.
It will be interesting to see how the medicinal plants do in keeping deer away from the trees moving forward. Great idea.
Could you also list source of your work clothing, supplies, garden tools, books, seed and bulb sources in each video or your on your website?
Love celeriac, especially put through the shredder nd then a lemon and whole grain mustard vinaigrette mixed through, you can add a carrot for a bit of contrast. Also garlic, celeriac and tattie mash oven baked. I do it with crème fraiche for Christmas dinner.
I turn it into a mash with crème fraiche and it's absolutely decadent. Much better than mashed potatoes. And to get that springy taste in the fall-winter is a treat. Thanks for sharing how you prepare it!
and there is also céleri remoulade -- a wonderful French salad using celeriac.
Really enjoyed the garden walk, and always appreciate shared garden tips and plant suggestions I can use in my own food forest.
Fantastic! Love that it resonates with you Charles.
well done....TY for all the info
you're most welcome. Hope it was helpful!
One of the best channels on UA-cam. I’d love to help you guys if I were from US!!
Rabbits will eat pear trees down to the ground in wintertime - 2 years in a row at my place, despite caging. Kirsten Dirksen’s YT channel did a great tour of an established permaculture orchard guild in Wales; they caged long strips of land to protect their guild from sheep. Worth a view. “Left BBC’s Planet Earth to start family homestead” is the episode.
Started my day with Danny Gokey-NewDay. As I was preparing my morning meal. I wondered what you guys have been up to. ❤️ your channels! So much thought, conversation, and information! Today, for some reason, you reminded me of writings from Henry Mitchell. A collection of books in my personal library. I ❤️ rhubarb, prefer this for size over peace lily or elephant ear for its many attributes! Also, I ❤️ kinnikinnick simply because its name to me catches the funny bone. 😆 Thank You much. Happy Holidays!
Excellent video! I like your point system. I have a few questions though. How wide and long are your guilds? I have a southwest facing gentle slope that I want to develop with guilds (140ft X 140ft). My thought is swales on contour. Any reason you didn’t make those as swales?
Have you considered adding fringe tree to maybe a south facing wall? It is native to the USA and it is the American counterpart to the olive. The fruit it produces can be similarly brined as well.
Hi, been able to get plenty of inspiration thanks to you. Just ordered Tagete minuta seed, looks like a super interesting plant for in a guild next year, was unknown to my yet. Your guilds look really diverse, curious to see the results in the future and to hear your feedback. For the moment, I only work with mint and lemon balm around my fruit trees. It looks like the number of infestations with fruit moth has been reduced.
I can confirm what you said about the untouched pear tree. rodents and deer always feed on my apple trees, and always leave the pear trees next to it untouched. Someone once told me that an apple tree tastes sweeter, especially the root.
Fascinating! Thanks for sharing your information here. It is curious that they do not eat the pear, but I bet when push comes to shove in the winter, they would readily eat the pear...Heck, I would eat the pear tree if I were starving too! Hopefully we'll get lucky like last winter and have 0 deer in the core of the area. We just need to be vigilant with keeping the deer exclusion fence in tip top shape.
Would love to see a list of the plant qualities you look for. Love your videos!
Great video and always look forward to seeing what's up next.
We have a small orchard in NH, love your channel. We bought right before covid and have been reviving the orchard. In the last two years our mature pear trees have been ravaged porcupine, deer and squirrels. I can see how companion planting can deter them. Id be interested in hearing how you guys develop other natural strategies throughout the years.
Fantastic you are in the process of reviving an old orchard. This land was let go for a couple years before we got here, and it's surprising how quickly things get pushed out, eaten, etc. if the human caretaker doesn't intervene.
Just looking at your comments, they are all positive. If you really want input this should concern you. The space is already planted, you have some cool stuff. I'm wishing you the best :)
I've planted comfrey next to every fruit tree and bush I put in the ground. Chop & drop for easy fertilizing.
Thank you so much for sharing! I found a shorter comfrey here for the meadow that I'm trying out for size. Bumble bees seem to go CRAZY for it. Lots of buzz pollination happening in those flowers.
@@FlockFingerLakes yeah, the pollinators love it, but towards the end of the summer season so do the deer here! Definitely a great combo though. I also planted them with my Nankin cherries and the blueberry bushes
Saffron is an expensive crop though labor intensive. Bulk Barn for the cheapest saffron shows how expensive it is. Great job as ever!
It'll be interesting to see if these bulbs are hardy in this zone to emerge next year. I got a nice little crop from the saffron. I almost exclusively use it in butternut squash soup. It's such a precious spice!
Love your scoring system. My brain totally works that way.
Try planting Garlic along the edges to keep voles and your larger browsers out, some people swear by that.
Yes, we definitely went heavy on the Alliums, which I know will multiply rapidly without us trying! Have to admit too-love when both those garlic and onion flower too. They are delightful blooms!
Nice al those different verarities, thanxs
Your videos are always so informative and just a feast for the eyes. Thank you!
So glad you enjoy and you find educational. We personally love enriching and educational videos so glad to hear that others also enjoy.
Gardening is such good excersize! As far as I understand, no insects care or know if they are useful to humans or not. It is all about them. And all contribute in some way. A poisonous plant to animals for instance (tansy) attracts lots of kinds of butterflies and bees, but would kill your livestock or pets so I'd never grow it just to see insects on it etc. Those beetles that are destructive in my veg garden are a great help in the wild places around & in my woods to clean up things & add to the general compost. All insects contribute, even if just food to birds, bats, etc. So I don't make a distinction & all insects pollinate something when they walk across plants of any type. I even like spiders. Just don't like slugs which love young dandelion, so I spend many hours a year Spring & Fall digging them with a knife in all of my lawns, including 3 ditches along the hwy infront of my lands. Rarely get one in the gardens now since putting mulch down & horsetail fern has choked out almost everything that was not a mature bush or tree. I now rent raised beds in the village to grow food.
Thankyou! I look forward to see the development of your Orchard!
My dad's family has roots in the Finger Lake region, in farming and stone masonry. These videos give me an idea of the natural beauty that brought and kept them there. I like your garden journal; it looks similar to mine--a Minimalism Art B5 notebook with graph paper. It allows me to accurately plan out garden beds and also record the garden's progress. I keep spreadsheets, also, to collect even more detail. The scientist in me wants as much data as possible!
I've always been a notetaker. My note books used to be much more organized than they are now, but I find they are more like scratch and sketch pads now compared to the immaculate notebooks of the past. Glad to hear these vids connect you to your family. Such great history here that seems to transcend time. We'll have some good stone masonry stuff coming up too! We're about to finish up a big stone project here :)
@@FlockFingerLakes That's wonderful to hear. Wishing you success in all things!
Thanks for the video, you guys try to do it so well. Be careful with paper and cardboard along your beds. All paper and cardboard, such as painter's paper, which is water-repellent, has been treated with a product containing PFAS. And that's the last thing you want in your yard.
What do you use instead? Just mulch?
@@tiffanyrowbotham3663 I only use organic material.
I don't believe that is true. I'd be curious to see the science on this. Waxed cardboard wouldn't be good, nor would the cellophane tape or labels be, but regular cardboard is fine. When you use cardboard, you do want to wet it and keep it moist, and then cover it with wood chips or other mulch to help retain the moisture.
comfrey is great as a weed suppressor and it super easy to propagate. I started with 5 roots last year and have like 70 plants this year.
My driver who lives a self-sustaining lifestyle has to fight comfrey all the time to protect his abiltiy to grow food & eat. In some places some weeds & herbs become a nightmare. For instance I grew oregano for years in a small patch (sandy soil) & shared some with a friend (clay soil) who then was very upset because a few years later they had to use a tractor to tear out the roots that had totally invaded a decorative garden bed. They were not pleased since the entire garden then had to be redone. Had a similar thing happen when I gave someone that horrible Jerusalem artichoke & it spread to the point t hat they got infights w. the next door neighbour. Since that woman commited suicide 3 yrs later, they still talk about my 'weeds' that I gave them when the remember that youngish mom.
I did a garden tour recently and comfrey definitely went crazy wild on the land and spilled out over into some wild areas. It seems that if it's not a plant that one will manage, then it can be quite aggressive. Also see that the Bees LOVE it. So I'm sure they have something to do with spreading it.
@@FlockFingerLakes Apparently you need to get the sterile variety like Bocking 14. It will not spread by seed. I have so many because I propagated root cuttings.
Lawn and leaf bags (paper obviously) also work well to smother weeds and I can often find them at a reduced price at the end of the season.
And those deer….if they don’t eat something they manage to damage it somehow. Buck rub has almost ruined several small trees, so we’ve taken to caging them til they’re of a thicker caliper.
Great suggestion! Certainly cheaper than cardboard.
Good tip on the lawn and leaf bags and for caging the trees!
@@LMLewis Thanks! Though if you make friends with a smaller retail establishment they might just let you have your pick for free since they have to be discarded anyway.
My question is where are you getting all the plants? I've been working on propagation, seeds, cuttings, etc. and selling to off set costs on buying.
What are your thoughts on native cultivars? where would they fall on your point scale? New york- nativar? vs Us nativar
I recommend growing an heirloom apple from Holland named Belle De Boskoop since your partner is from Holland. It is one of my favorite apples! I would also recommend a second fence to protect your orchard or the deer will kill your trees that you spent so much time, money and energy planting.
Wonder when Belle De Boskoop blooms so we can coordinate bloom time.
A second fence, four feet high, about four feet from the first fence, will deter more deer than a single 8 ft. fence.
I can vouch for Belle de Boskoop, so delicious
@@FlockFingerLakes Trees of Antiquity says it is a "mid-season" bloomer, I'm not sure what time that would be for New York...
Wow! That was a lot of information! I use a ton of comfrey. I think the plant has the ability to absorb specific mineral nutrients. Not necessarily super deep but in the upper foot or so.
any recs for dealing with those awful 4wheeler rider pests?
Hahhaha... Ear plugs.
When your New Jersey Tea flowers, inspect them for ants. The butterflies that use the plant in the Lycaenidaeas family all disguise themselves like parts of the plant but the ants that tend them often give them away.
vaguely heard of the concept of guilds but honestly i would love to research more on it. as if i need a reason to do more research when i, for fun, spent a week writing down every plant native to my county, including general care in terms of sun and water needs, lol
This was great, thank you from Seattle, WA.
I love it it is beautiful.
Wonderful video, thank you. I am definitely adopting some of your mints in my orchard guild. I have a question too perhaps you have some experience or information about it. So, I have an area along the driveway where I have planted 3 citrus trees, 2 plum trees, an apricot tree and a fig tree. On the other side our neighbor has 4 tall pine trees and now I am thinking it could be a good spot for an evergreen garden if I move my plums and the fig somewhere else and add a couple of dwarf conifers. The question is if the citrus and conifers will be compatible trees or not, will they suppress each other or not?
Great design. Hoping to do something similar in the next phase of development at my site. Thanks for the video.
Great info. thanks for sharing, which zone are you there in NY? I'm getting ready to start a garden probably next spring, just bought some acreage here in zone 6 Michigan, building a house as we speak and living in my travel trailer. I'll be designing a garden with about 25 common vegetables and some fruit tree guilds, probably a greenhouse in the center, a fence around with a tall hedge just inside to keep the deer out, this property was used as a hunting property and there are deer EVERYWHERE! You are so fashionable! love the engineer boots and the fedora;-)
Love this video and everything you guys do. For your native insect meadow, when do you plan on mowing this? I am starting something similar at our new property, but I'm not sure when to mow. I don't want it to turn to woods.
We take the meadow down in early spring because the fall and winter we keep it up for seeds for the birds and coverage for overwintering insects.
@@summerrayneoakes I thought about that but was a little nervous that birds would be nesting. You don't think that's a concern?
Saw the stark bros sticker on the fruit tree. Love them and they have great deals!
Can we start a petition to make "a honking plant" an official way to classify plants 😂
Very nice!
A lot of plums are not self fertile either, and Fuji apples can be tough to fully ripen here.
Nice video again! I was only aware of the lolly pop guild before today :)
I think your fruit trees will be fine as long as their not girdled. 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄💚🙃
I’m a NYS native wanting to do orchard guilds with native plantings. Can you share the spreadsheet you used for this?
What is the title of the book you are currently reading on soil?
Oooh boy, I can't recall the name offhand, but it's an AMAZING soil book done back in the 1920s of a scientist who dug transects into the soil and literally drew out the roots and rootlets of each plant species. It's the type of dedication to a science/craft that we do not see any longer in our university system.
IMO Asian Pears, pawpaws, and persimmons are the best for avoiding deer browse. I saw you had european pears but don't sleep on the asian ones, they are way yummier and store for a long time. Obviously, pawpaws are also awesome.
Glad to know which you would recommend. Very useful for us (and anyone else who cares to read the comments here).
I was just thinking about doing this in a straight line then I found your video. lol. Can you share how long and how wide your bed is?
I've always wondered, isn't it just as important to know how invasive a plant is regardless if it's native or non-native. Seems like it's important to think about because a non-native plants that's not invasive is perfectly fine but we should be careful of planting a native plant that spreads like crazy.
I built a large patio at each end of a newly built garage 4 inches off the ground to prevent mud on shoes going inside. On Sunday I tore the 1 end apart due to rot & my feet going thru 2 boards while clipping back roses. Wild aggressive strawberries had grown there between my rose trees. Was a constant task to also pull them out from between the wide boards. They were always a tripping hazard & kept dampness in the entire area. The boards had rotted underneath despite being painted several times ontop. The patio at the other end has no strawberry invasion at all, no rot of lumber despite being the one walked on several times daily by me & all the deer, bear etc.
Summer are you still living in brooklyn
Half time in Brooklyn.
👍👍👍👍👍
Some of our young fruit trees got munched by the neighbors’ cows and we thought they wouldn’t survive but the ones that got hit responded really well to the pruning and actually made the most growth in the summer. I Hope you have a similar success story with the deer-victims 🫶
17:30 "almost 6 ft tall"?! IDK, but the presenter's height seems to me more important than the plant's height🤔
Cardboard around a orchard is a HORRIBLE idea. It just provides home for voles which kill all nearby trees by girdling them. I had four apple trees in a row taken out last year. Since then I've planted Alliums around each tree, and removed all cardboard.