This is what the world needs: people that are pushing for new ways and coming up with new ideas for small organic farmers to make a profit while healing the Earth.
Heck yea. I feel the same way about the food forests. I can’t help but love straight lines. Linear food forests are definitely the way to go like you’ve done. Way more manageable
Awesome to see you doing a syntropic system for the food forest space. Thanks for walking us through your support species and spacing. Plus mentioning management, hormones, and flail mowing before stuff sets seed. I’d like you to Consider fast growing herbaceous biomass producers between the 3m spaced comfrey. Motherwort, Elecampagne, catnip. Sage, yarrow, *coastal mugwort, valerian, sorrel, chives, skirret, lovage, Norwegian Angelica. My experience is These herbs add more biomass than the support trees in a temperate climate! Plus they are photosynthesizing and releasing hormones and feeding soil biology before the deciduous fruit and support trees leaf out. They add habitat and food for pollinators, pest protection with ladybugs, and umbel flowers attract parasitic wasps… If I could make one recommendation based on our few years of experience, it would be: increase density and diversity of the herbaceous layer between the 3m comfrey.
Looking forward to seeing your progress in the food forest, Curtis! I love seeing more and more people implementing these systems, and plan to do the same. Happy planting!
Interesting ! We will be watching the progress of your work . Our very best to your endeavors over the next few years you have a lot of work to do so we are very interested in seeing the fruition of your labors !
Thank you for the simplest syntropic for temperate climate. Have been trying to figure this out and appreciate your easy to understand approach with species. Realize other things might fit but this is sooo accessible to get started. Typically its tropics or dryland Australia or jibber jabber of random this that or other syntropic babble. Thanks again!
Fantastic. We need many more such systems in the ground to test these ideas and the species for our winter climate. I have been seeing the rhyzomatous species like poplar are not so quick to disappear and require ongoing maintenance because we don’t want a closed canopy but rather an edge (which poplar like).
Looks like it’s going to be a great food forest. Though I think that with syntropic you’d start with your biomass accumulators and add in your fruit trees next. Those fruit trees are large to start out with. If you start with seedlings it allows them to get their roots well established in place. Trees of that size often have constricted roots if pot grown or pruned roots if bare root. Starting with seedlings would also give time for the succession of the system to do its work on the soil and prepare the way for the fruit trees.
Looks like a brilliant design! Mowing/Chop&Drop pruning promotes growth hormones which boosts plant vigor. So always do large amounts on the same day, when possible. Thanks for sharing, very inspiring, especially in your Zone!
Nice! I've started my Takota Coen syntropic food forest too, 3 3/4 rows. Mine are 4ft wide with comfrey and Jerusalem artichokes on the edges. I'm also pruning all my trees ala grow a small fruit tree. I only have fruit and nut trees for my main trees. Planning on growing out my own nitrogen fixers this and next summer.
Having grown mulberry in the past in a sub-tropical climate in Australia, I wouldn't grow one within 5 meters of another fruit tree. The roots are invasive and rob the moisture and nutrients from the surrounding area. I'm not sure if trees support each other, or if it's more a battle of the fittest. I'll be interested to see what it looks like in a few years.
Can’t wait to see how it progresses. My prediction rough and dirty is 30% - 50% mortality over the next few years from voles and winter kill, and slow establishment on the remainder with limited fruiting due to early and late frosts on the larger fruit trees. Very cool to get to follow progress on trials like this!
Those are very beautiful steps / terraces. You’re bound to have a beautiful peaceful food production forest there. Well thought out. Lately I’ve been learning about comfrey teas.
Great planning; thanks for sharing! If your Carragana trees are like the prairie ones, don’t eat the seed pods until you research them. They have a pea-like pod. Where I grew up in central Alberta, they are quite invasive & were used for wind breaks. Blessings to all 🤗🇨🇦
This is complex and seems cutting edge (pun intended) in the food forest realm. How about a demo FF system that's more duplicatable for those of us newer to this growing ecosystem? I'm working on a food forest strip, expanding and connecting 3 fruit guilds. The FF strip will start as more of a Grocery Row Garden from David the Good with more fruit bushes, some perennial vegetables, then fill in with vining annuals like sweet potatoes and squash. Next year, I'll add more perennial instead of annual veg to spread out the costs. Planting nitrogen-fixing trees as a chop and drop is helpful info. It's been quite the adventure borrowing from your ideas and those of others, applying it to our clay, alkaline soil IN AN HOA! My fellow Master Gardener friends here in NE Indiana are speechless. Cool beans.
Just curious where you are because most of the syntropic agriculture stuff I've seen has been in. You know super hot places where everything grows 20 ft tall overnight. Kind of deal. I'm hoping to get a little bit of land and do it in the Willamette valley in Oregon which is zone 8B considered mediterranean-ish. But there's not a lot of information on that type of system working
Interesting. I had just learned, from an Australian, about syntrophic design but in the context of garden planting. Had not thought of it in Food forest design because natural transition is part of food forest design and therefore the syntrophic design is built in. I suppose though that if you are manipulating things by removing certain species, it may be different. Or is it just a twist on a common design concept? I guess it would depend on what your food forest design is. I designed mine to replicate the various layers of a forest complete with annuals, perennial flowers, perennial vegetables, fruiting shrubs, trees, etc. and in doing so, the thought is that each will benefit from the others. I noticed that your design appears to be very woody biomass (carbon) heavy. I would be interested to see what one of those rows you planted would do if left to natural transition devises rather than the manual labor involved in your proposed maintenance design. I have my suspicions. None the less, interesting. A lot of work too!! Looks good though. Thanks for sharing.
Even I, who uses mezquite as support species around my newly planted fruit trees and other plants in the mix am surprised by how close you are planting everything. Think how you will get in a saw or loppers and not damage your desirable trees and plants.
What Mulberry variety? We have an 8 year old Illinois every bearing Mulberry and it's 18' tall and wide at this point. We have a dwarf Mulberry by our chicken pen that is 12' tall and 6' wife - apprx 4 years old.
HEY CURTIS, i just heard you mention on CROW777 that you can trim nut trees/berry trees to whatever height is practical to you , spefically mentioned along with a 120 ft saskatoon tree. my parents have a short driveway near pa sask with many saskatoon trees that are 10-12 ish ft high and thus unpickable by my parents or lil nieces. SO i just chopped them down to 7-8 ish ft high with those big hedge scissors/clippers and the next year they grew absolutely nothing!? i think all the growth was sent into regrowing their height and nothing for berries did i do it wrong or what?
controversially, the some of OG subscribers prefer nuts and bolts gardening and that he keeps his political opinions away from the channel. This is good content. edit ; oh .. my sarcasm detector is broken. maybe I missed the last line.
"Climate denialism" lol. This is the coldest spring I've experienced in Kansas in 27 years. We can discuss climate volatility, but global warming doesn't seem to have any legitimacy. Hottest summer on record was in 2014, with Hill City, KS being the hottest place in the world if I remember the KWCH article correctly.
This is what the world needs: people that are pushing for new ways and coming up with new ideas for small organic farmers to make a profit while healing the Earth.
Heck yea. I feel the same way about the food forests. I can’t help but love straight lines. Linear food forests are definitely the way to go like you’ve done. Way more manageable
Nice work Curtis.
Awesome to see you doing a syntropic system for the food forest space. Thanks for walking us through your support species and spacing. Plus mentioning management, hormones, and flail mowing before stuff sets seed.
I’d like you to Consider fast growing herbaceous biomass producers between the 3m spaced comfrey.
Motherwort, Elecampagne, catnip. Sage, yarrow, *coastal mugwort, valerian, sorrel, chives, skirret, lovage, Norwegian Angelica.
My experience is These herbs add more biomass than the support trees in a temperate climate! Plus they are photosynthesizing and releasing hormones and feeding soil biology before the deciduous fruit and support trees leaf out.
They add habitat and food for pollinators, pest protection with ladybugs, and umbel flowers attract parasitic wasps…
If I could make one recommendation based on our few years of experience, it would be: increase density and diversity of the herbaceous layer between the 3m comfrey.
Looking forward to seeing your progress in the food forest, Curtis! I love seeing more and more people implementing these systems, and plan to do the same. Happy planting!
Looking forward to seeing how this progresses !
That is encouragement to push the intensity of our plantings. Thanks, Curtis!
Interesting ! We will be watching the progress of your work . Our very best to your endeavors over the next few years you have a lot of work to do so we are very interested in seeing the fruition of your labors !
Watching from Zimbabwe... Thank you!
Love your style Curtis! I would recommend using Lupines with your comfrey. Great nitrogen fixing chop & dropper that is a good pollinator too.
Thank you for the simplest syntropic for temperate climate. Have been trying to figure this out and appreciate your easy to understand approach with species. Realize other things might fit but this is sooo accessible to get started. Typically its tropics or dryland Australia or jibber jabber of random this that or other syntropic babble. Thanks again!
Fantastic. We need many more such systems in the ground to test these ideas and the species for our winter climate. I have been seeing the rhyzomatous species like poplar are not so quick to disappear and require ongoing maintenance because we don’t want a closed canopy but rather an edge (which poplar like).
Looks like it’s going to be a great food forest. Though I think that with syntropic you’d start with your biomass accumulators and add in your fruit trees next. Those fruit trees are large to start out with. If you start with seedlings it allows them to get their roots well established in place. Trees of that size often have constricted roots if pot grown or pruned roots if bare root.
Starting with seedlings would also give time for the succession of the system to do its work on the soil and prepare the way for the fruit trees.
Looks like a brilliant design! Mowing/Chop&Drop pruning promotes growth hormones which boosts plant vigor. So always do large amounts on the same day, when possible. Thanks for sharing, very inspiring, especially in your Zone!
Plz do a video (or series) on your previous crop in that food forest
Yes, please!
Love this. If it were me, i'd plant clover everywhere bare dirt is exposed.
Nice, need some Curtis gravy
Nice! I've started my Takota Coen syntropic food forest too, 3 3/4 rows. Mine are 4ft wide with comfrey and Jerusalem artichokes on the edges. I'm also pruning all my trees ala grow a small fruit tree. I only have fruit and nut trees for my main trees. Planning on growing out my own nitrogen fixers this and next summer.
Very helpful !
This video expanded the scope of my planning/thinking.
Having grown mulberry in the past in a sub-tropical climate in Australia, I wouldn't grow one within 5 meters of another fruit tree. The roots are invasive and rob the moisture and nutrients from the surrounding area. I'm not sure if trees support each other, or if it's more a battle of the fittest. I'll be interested to see what it looks like in a few years.
Grocery row garden
FYI, honey locust and alder do root-run.
Amazing content! PLease good sir show us how you grow BC BUD
Nice video Curtis! I'd love to see a long version showing the preparation of the site, and the eventual development, maintenance and harvesting.
Very interesting .. great ideas .. thanks for sharing! Great to hear from you Curtis!! 🙂
Amazing work and very informative - thanks Curtis ! And straight lines are the deal !
Can’t wait to see how it progresses. My prediction rough and dirty is 30% - 50% mortality over the next few years from voles and winter kill, and slow establishment on the remainder with limited fruiting due to early and late frosts on the larger fruit trees. Very cool to get to follow progress on trials like this!
I just grew cannabis here... I fucks with that! :D
The Brazilian is Ernst Götsch
Thanks for the video, Curtis! I still use your old videos and book while I build my farm business. Really enjoy your new stuff too
Those are very beautiful steps / terraces.
You’re bound to have a beautiful peaceful food production forest there. Well thought out. Lately I’ve been learning about comfrey teas.
Thanks for the vids but can you keep vids to at least 1080p please. Hard on the peepers, I thought it went to super low res but its maxed
Great planning; thanks for sharing! If your Carragana trees are like the prairie ones, don’t eat the seed pods until you research them. They have a pea-like pod. Where I grew up in central Alberta, they are quite invasive & were used for wind breaks. Blessings to all 🤗🇨🇦
This is complex and seems cutting edge (pun intended) in the food forest realm. How about a demo FF system that's more duplicatable for those of us newer to this growing ecosystem? I'm working on a food forest strip, expanding and connecting 3 fruit guilds. The FF strip will start as more of a Grocery Row Garden from David the Good with more fruit bushes, some perennial vegetables, then fill in with vining annuals like sweet potatoes and squash. Next year, I'll add more perennial instead of annual veg to spread out the costs. Planting nitrogen-fixing trees as a chop and drop is helpful info. It's been quite the adventure borrowing from your ideas and those of others, applying it to our clay, alkaline soil IN AN HOA! My fellow Master Gardener friends here in NE Indiana are speechless. Cool beans.
Getting to work !
Curtis nice the S1 trees usually means they are self-pollinating 👍 Looks Great
Now you need bees and a lemon tree in the high tunnel
Just curious where you are because most of the syntropic agriculture stuff I've seen has been in. You know super hot places where everything grows 20 ft tall overnight. Kind of deal.
I'm hoping to get a little bit of land and do it in the Willamette valley in Oregon which is zone 8B considered mediterranean-ish.
But there's not a lot of information on that type of system working
I feel like this is missing long term nitrogen fixing like the trios Stefan uses.
Doesn't he use honey locust?
@@AlSwearengen4 where is it in the plan?
Interesting. I had just learned, from an Australian, about syntrophic design but in the context of garden planting. Had not thought of it in Food forest design because natural transition is part of food forest design and therefore the syntrophic design is built in. I suppose though that if you are manipulating things by removing certain species, it may be different. Or is it just a twist on a common design concept? I guess it would depend on what your food forest design is. I designed mine to replicate the various layers of a forest complete with annuals, perennial flowers, perennial vegetables, fruiting shrubs, trees, etc. and in doing so, the thought is that each will benefit from the others. I noticed that your design appears to be very woody biomass (carbon) heavy. I would be interested to see what one of those rows you planted would do if left to natural transition devises rather than the manual labor involved in your proposed maintenance design. I have my suspicions. None the less, interesting. A lot of work too!! Looks good though. Thanks for sharing.
.
Even I, who uses mezquite as support species around my newly planted fruit trees and other plants in the mix am surprised by how close you are planting everything. Think how you will get in a saw or loppers and not damage your desirable trees and plants.
Hey chap 👍
Logical metric for the win 😁
Where are the cows. :) ..
I eat a lot of beef.. and Venison when I can
Very nice! For spraying what are you planning to use?
Do you show your "flower gardens" on another channel?
How are you going to prune your fruit trees? Open center, or modified central leader.
What Mulberry variety? We have an 8 year old Illinois every bearing Mulberry and it's 18' tall and wide at this point. We have a dwarf Mulberry by our chicken pen that is 12' tall and 6' wife - apprx 4 years old.
You will want to keep those Mulberries. ..💌
HEY CURTIS, i just heard you mention on CROW777 that you can trim nut trees/berry trees to whatever height is practical to you , spefically mentioned along with a 120 ft saskatoon tree.
my parents have a short driveway near pa sask with many saskatoon trees that are 10-12 ish ft high and thus unpickable by my parents or lil nieces.
SO i just chopped them down to 7-8 ish ft high with those big hedge scissors/clippers and the next year they grew absolutely nothing!?
i think all the growth was sent into regrowing their height and nothing for berries
did i do it wrong or what?
Grrreat
Poplars around here are invasive and have runners.
1/4 ac, wow camera makes it look a lot bigger
I guess that's why they pay you the big bucks.
Syntropic eh
Surprised you need a French drain
I think the f.d. is to direct the water to a pond.
I also buried the main irrigation line in it, so it’s dual purpose.
We encourage you to publish more climate denialism s**t. Please, tell us more from your comfortable Canadian perspective.
controversially, the some of OG subscribers prefer nuts and bolts gardening and that he keeps his political opinions away from the channel. This is good content. edit ; oh .. my sarcasm detector is broken. maybe I missed the last line.
"Climate denialism", is that the new anti-semitism?
Certainly hope not, wouldn't want you to get arrested! Always love the informative content 😊@@offgridcurtisstone
"Climate denialism" lol.
This is the coldest spring I've experienced in Kansas in 27 years. We can discuss climate volatility, but global warming doesn't seem to have any legitimacy. Hottest summer on record was in 2014, with Hill City, KS being the hottest place in the world if I remember the KWCH article correctly.
Oops, New York Times, 2012
Kicking arse man!