I'm going to watch this later since I have to leave but I watched your other video on the topic and have decided to try having "living mulch" (likely perennial peanut and maybe sweet potatoes and whatever else will grow) in the garden. However, I've also seen videos by people who say they definitely reduced yield in their gardens to the point that they just couldn't continue with it. For trees, I've also read/watched that grass especially stunts tree growth in the early stages. I'm also wondering how grass will affect a vegetable garden since we have some low grass that would be easy for crops to grow over and chickens like it too. It would be a great addition to living mulch if it wouldn't out compete crops. I'd appreciate any insight on this. Thanks!
It depends on what you define as yield. If my yield is only measured in potatoes this year, and I actively mine the soil to produce only potatoes this year in a potato monoculture, then yes, my yield will be higher in a potato monoculture. But that's because I'm externalities the loss of nutrients and topsoil to future years and ignoring it in my definition of yield. This is very common short sighted thinking. If I add in basil and garlic and Yarrow and clover to my potato patch, and still only measure the potato yield, then even though I'm supporting more insects, some of the leaves of those other plants will block sunlight from my potatoes, and my potato yield will still be lower. However, even though the problem isnt that I'm externalizing loss of topsoil to future years anymore, I'm still ignoring all other yields but potatoes, so my calculation of yield still shows a reduction in potatoes. That's not a proper yield calculation though, because I'm ignoring all other yields. If instead I also include the basil yield, the Yarrow medicinal yield, the nitrogen enrichment from the clover, the biomass yield of any unused leaves that are mulched and turn to topsoil for next year, and the increased photosynthesis root exudate yield into the soil, which causes a swell of bacteria and fungi which use the glues and secretions to break up sand silt clay and form soil aggregates for next year, then my yield calculation now blows the first one out of the water. The problem is a lack of understanding of what should go into a yield calculation, as well as our current ignorance of the externalization of losses to the future soil, and failure to account for those losses in our misinformed yield calculations. Pinning this one, because it's such an important discussion, I could actually make an entire video followup on it.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacywould love to see that video. I’ve recently been learning about HANPP (human appropriated net primary production) and it being used as a measure of how far we’ve transgressed the functional aspect of the biosphere integrity planetary boundary. Your example of a field growing only potatoes is a prime example of HANPP that is making us transgress that particular planetary boundary and is linked to the mass extinction of species that we’re witnessing. It’s making me highly aware of how much of the net primary production (energy) on my property do I appropriate for my use, and how much do I leave for the use of all the other species (plant, animal, insect, fungi). A great lens to have on growing, I think.
@@lizt.5374 What an incredibly on point comment. This is exactly what I'm talking about. It's also a big reason why we have all these conservation programs to support Panda bears, and so few trying to preserve the Karner Blue caterpillar, even though the latter provides infinitely stronger benefits. Humans just think Pandas are cute. Another example is how we spray nemicide in fields to destroy ALL nematodes, despite the fact that humans have only catalogued an estimated 1% of all nematode species on earth. So we don't even KNOW what we're killing, yet we just carpet bomb it all, because one of them eats the roots of our precious corn.
Vandana Shiva has some interesting counterpoints to the yield argument for conventional farming and GMOs in particular. From an interview with her: “Through participatory research, we showed that when you intensify biodiversity instead of chemicals, and measure nutrition per acre instead of yield per acre, we can grow enough nutrition for two times the world population. New research is showing that native seeds have higher nutrition than industrially bred “high-yielding varieties", which are nutritionally empty and full of toxins.” Our local Fall Fair still awards prizes for the largest, most “perfect looking” vegetables, but many growers and permaculture enthusiasts have helped introduce new categories that don’t eliminate smaller or oddly shaped fruits and veggies, which may often have higher nutritional value. Many of us really want to see a “highest nutrition” category. We’re not there yet as the tools/testing for this is not cheap or easily accessible, but maybe soon!
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Please do a follow-up! My grandfather in Newfoundland practiced this integrated method of working with the land. He was enthusiastic in sharing his ever-accumulating knowledge with his grandchildren, and anyone else who was interested in developing the land and ocean. Similar to yourself and others, he developed systems which harmonized and benefited Nature, as well as ourselves…often to my grandmother’s bemusement - LOL!🙂 Thank you for another insightful video. Cheers!🇨🇦
"If humans disappeared" Having moved to an area with a bunch of abandoned mining towns, I can 100% back this up. Sure, there are foundations of old houses etc. around, but they are all totally overgrown. It's fascinating to see how nature has taken over.
@DZMYQD if you put work into setting up a food forest in an abandoned area you can speed up the natural process while benefitting yourself and the local wildlife/ ecosystem.
Very interesting. Folks who live in cities and have never eaten a garden grown tomatoes may not care for the softness of garden tomatoes. As we have grown to avoid the firm / hard tomatoes in the supermarket. You know the ones, shipped in from far away places, picked green and ripened during shipping. In one month the tomatoes will ripen in our gardens. Can't wait for a real tomato.
Doing it like this costs very little money (no buying fertilizers or mulches) uses very little energy (less mowing or tilling) but still takes a good amount of work and time to walk/ride around doing basic maintenence and trying to remember where things are :) what a joyous way to live life! Most of my place is rather wild like yours, but I also do some rows of individual cash crops like sweet potatoes in a 1/2 acre section for harvest ease. Hoeing, watering, chop/drop weeds and some woodchips make it an acceptable "monocrop" area in my opinion, nestled in by borders of wild goldenrod, blackberry, chicory, yarrow, wild young trees and more! The whole place was prior utilized as a hayfield for decades with tractors tromping and mowing most of it. Its amazing what has naturally come up in the 5 years since I took over management...more Persimmon trees than I can count, wild plum, etc etc. I started by using the typical poly square deer fencing in the crop area but have been cutting it from the bottom up (so as to not leave the nasty stuff tangled in the growth) as small trees and brambles have begun to from a natural hedge which will hopefully be the end of the fence one day in the future...I love the Honey Locust that are popping up for this purpose. I've really been inspired and have enjoyed your vids over the years as I learn to connect and live among the land more.
This is great. I love when people know the principles, and also when it's okay to relax them a little, in the favor of ease of harvest. It shows true understanding.
Last year I noticed a lot of leaf damage of our hazels in the young food forest and found it was some kind of sawfly larvae, everything from conventional gardening was telling me they must be destroyed but I kept telling myself stick with the plan. The hazels are totally fine, and this year for the first time we have house martins nesting around the house, I've spent a lot of time watching them swooping around catching bugs from the air wondering how many sawflies they are enjoying 😁
Some fixes just take longer, because they require the solution to naturalize on the property, and the patience to wait for the next cycle of new births/hatching, etc. Great job!
I feel so lucky I found this chanel, I just started gardening in my backyard and I am learning a lot here. Thank you for sharing your experience and knowledge.
Brilliant and insightful video! Thanks! It can be frustrating and dispiriting trying to explain one’s permaculture ideas to proponents of the mainstream war-on-nature ideology, but breaking it down into simple scientific principles is surely the best way to sow seeds of change
That caterpillar with the fake wasp eggs was super cool! I also follow these same principles on my land. I've even gotten used to my woodchuck neighbor eating half my tender greens. I think of my system as maximizing calories. I count insects, birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and fungi as important life/calories in my land.
I really appreciate your content. You have a wealth of knowledge you just dropped right here. If you want to change the world, change yourself. You're a light, keep on shining.
I’m starting a food forest on a modified scale, so I’m keenly interested in what you have done. I don’t currently live on the property, so whatever I plant has to be robust enough to survive without being coddled. Obeserving the land itself and figuring out the microclimates is so important. Also the soil conditions. Land I had thought was high and dry was super saturated this spring. Some drainage issues need to be addressed before I can use that area for my aronias. Before I plant, I see what nature has already provided. I found out that, after I had just bought some plants, that I have native hazlenuts growing in an area I had planned to plant my new ones! Nature is absolutely amazing, given half a chance.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy There are more and more small holders that are going this way in my area. It is a real juxtaposition to the big farms surrounding us with all of their massive equipment, corn/soy rotations, etc.
Great video to show someone (like my family 😅) who still doesn't quite get why our garden is a crazy mess, I think you encapsulated the basics very nicely. I must add that what I am finding in my very hot, dry (but still temperate) climate, with very degraded soil, is that rebuilding the soil is really taking time. I still have far more "pioneering species" (weeds) coming up, whilst the stuff I WANT to grow is very slow to take off. This means having to keep curating what's growing, chopping and dropping the weeds etc., seeing what nature pops up with in the way of natives, and it's all very slow going, slower maybe than if you have good rainfall and not terrible soil to start with. So I think that is something to be aware of, this is a long-haul process, but I know it's the right way.
Sounds like you are in the same position I am. When I moved to my hillside property, the garden was 2 acres of exhausted ex-sheep pasture, a third bare rock, the rest just a thin, very poor quality turf. It was terrible, and without a job and my husband just part time, we had no money to buy in tons of soil. This had to be done naturally. Firstly, if you have soil to spare along your boundaries - plant a mixed hedge made of native shrubs/trees, nectar rich shrubs for the bees, and particularly plants that produces a lot of growth in the year - so you can cut it, stack it, let it break down naturally, the rain washing the composted particles and nutrients downhill (chuck some fungi caps in there - research your fungi first - and that helps break down the woody stems all the faster. Hedgerows generate leaves to add substance to your garden. They encourage animals that live, eat, poop and die in your hedgerow. They shelter the rest of your property, cutting wind speeds so the leaves don't travel too far. Here's something I wish I'd done earlier - collect plain cardboard from shops when you go grocery shopping. Stack the card in your garden, place a brick on it, let it rot. I've been doing this for a while, and it breaks down so fast, adding a little material to your soil You can get brown boxes with black print on it. But don't use those with other colours. Do you go for walks where you live? Bring home a couple of sticks, chuck them in your garden, let them rot. I do this a lot. Do you have a stream running through your property? Collect Autumn leaves from it before they wash away down stream. Do you have 'boggy, marshy, or fairly permanent damp spots' in your garden? Buy willow cuttings somewhere like eBay, and plunge them in the ground. They'll root, throw forth lots of excessive growth, cut each Autumn, stack the sticks, let them rot I made the mistake of depending on Salix alba for waste generation for years (because I liked the pretty stem colour in winter). However, Salix alba isn't as fast as some willows, is hit and miss if you try to grow more plants from cuttings and isn't as useful in other ways. 18 months ago, I got my brain into gear, bought cuttings of Salix viminalis, and these look more promising. This is the classic basket willow and 18 months after receiving my 10 initial unroofed cuttings, I now have nearly 40 plants in the ground, the majority of these being newly rooted cuttings I took from my original stock last Autumn. I will keep taking cuttings from these plants for a few years, make a large swathe of willows - this to attract Willow Warblers, which attract Cuckoos, the Cuckoo chicks also being dumped in the nests of other birds that might be eating fruit from my plants. It all connects. Start with fruit bushes before fruit trees. Fruit bushes won't end up meaning sideways after a storm, like my first fruit trees did. The roots of many fruit bushes will tolerate shallow and poor soils much better. Start with currants, raspberries and thornless hybrids of blackberries. Raspberries - don't be tempted to get a wild species 'to feed the birds.' It spreads very aggressively and you're never really rid of the stuff. Get early and late varieties of raspberry, but 'For the love of Pete!' do not buy that yellow berried raspberry. It is the worst, most insipid fruit I've ever tasted. When it rains, just a bit, it turns to mould. It's either unripe, or slush. It's never at a good point of freshness. I have red Summer, Autumn raspberries in plenty. I planted black, peach and purple raspberries, but haven't had a thing off them yet, and this is after waiting 3 years. What's going on, Idk. Other good berries ate Loganberries and Tayberries, if you can get them. With the Loganberry, one plant goes a long way. They tip layer, and you can't turn your back on them for a minute. Tayberries are more restrained, pricklier, and the fruit a bit smaller. Gooseberries are fairly tolerant of shallow soil, but my plants do better in the shade than in open positions. I think the roots cook a bit too much, so they tend to drop their fruits if unhappy. Guelder Rose - not a conventional. Actually poisonous until you cook them for 20 minutes. I'm still here, so that's proof cooking them works. Be brilliant at taking cuttings and make it your annual obsession. The more ground I cover with fruit bushes, the more leaves above grass/weed level, the more organic material you're adding. Because I have deer issues, I surround a lot of my fruit plants with plants deer don't find so delectable. These just so happen to be nectar rich plants that aid bees and pollinators, are wonderfully common, easy to block up once you don't need them, and propagate like a dream - Spiraea, Weigela, Buddleia, Symphoricarpus. With these in the garden, and the thornless blackberries - you'll be considering beehives (my neighbour has loads, and the garden buzzes all summer long). After quite a few years, you will have soil enough for trees. Don't rush it or you will be disappointed. Take it from me, I've been there, done it, and regretted it. I did plant a few trees in containers first. Indeed, my peach tree is still in its original pot and very happy there. But finally, after 21 years of working at this place, I have cherries, plums, apples, a pear, Aronia, Blueberries galore, Honey berries and a ton of Hazel but trees. All fairly small and young, but they are fruiting nonetheless. You have to learn to develop an eye for taking advantage of any opportunity to grab organic matter when you can. I pick up sticks and branches on walks, pine cones, pine needles for the ericaceous plants. Oh wow, wait. Nearly forgot something. Spring bulbs are powerful soil builders. No, didn't expect that either. I collect and sow bulb seed from my original bulbs every year, spreading them over the grass/weed areas. (I'm in the UK, so Bluebells, Snowdrops, Snowflakes, Wood Sorrel, Wood Anemones, and Wild Arum. You likely have others. But where these grow, my soil is dark, moist and rich as can be. Bulbs are highly underrated, great food source for early bees and a real kickstart for later plants when the leaves die back. You won't regret it). I also go for ferns a lot. I grow these in problem areas mostly, harvest the leaves in Autumn, and mulch under favourite plants. They break down into the most perfect compost. I also plant seedling trees that are only in place temporarily, just so they can add organic matter for as long as they can until they can't cope with conditions or a better plant can go there. I've very recently discovered that in a neighbouring location, also originally cursed with thin soil, the thicket of small Bir hes that exists on it has begun to transform it. The new soil there is perfect. I'm now 'copying' several small Birch thickets (8-10 inches between seedlings) into the garden as a way to mass produce coppicing material to stack and rot. I get the seedlings from roadsides, where they eventually get killed by traffic, salt, flails, weedkiller. I transplant them here, will let them grow to about 8-9 ft, thin them out a little, coppice the rest for firewood, and under plant with Blueberries. I'm only just about to add animals to the mix. Not chickens, but ducks. I have a serious slug and snail problem here. I never see a strawberry, so I have 6 Indian Runner duck eggs in an incubator to ensure these pests are kept under control. I have no doubt I will have to watch them around my plants. Chickens will come later, and I'm hoping quail before that. There's an old well that's going to be converted into a fish 'tank' for carp. That's a project waiting while other projects are being done. But as the lad says, plant everything up. No bare soil. If you don't put something there yourself, Nature will, and it's not always the most welcome gift (like thistles). I never cut grass. I won't have a mower. Instead, when I want to plant something, I'll pull out the grass, plant, water and mulch as generously as I can. Hope some of this is helpful to a fellow hillside gardener. 😊
@@Debbie-henri Wow, yes, incredible response, thanks! I am going to have to go through carefully and get the main takeaways, you are a good 15 years ahead of me. Some of the things you describe I have gradually been figuring out myself, like constantly collecting organic material, lol. We actually had an existing traditional orchard on that slope (which is way too steep for swales, btw) and the original owner had created some kind of slight terraces, which is something. So I have left all those fruit trees in, even though they aren't producing brilliantly, and have been piling up organic material at the edges of the terraces (and in other areas where there are no terraces) to slow the run-off. This is stuff I find when I am out and about (my wife LOVES me throwing old logs in the car, lol) and there is a lot of material from pruning the trees. But I'll never collect enough to make an impact in the short-term so just by leaving "weeds" to grow and fill in the spaces between trees (where the neighbours would neatly mow everything and destroy any successional growth that might happen), I feel that roots in the ground and the sheer increased quantity of "solar power" and material that I can chop and drop is already helping retain water better, and my site is visibly greener than my neighbours'. It's just the productivity that is still underwhelming. Entire fruit crops just fail if we don't have decent rain in winter/spring, that kind of thing, so it's a struggle but I'm in it for the long term.
Yes, building the soil takes time. I built my raised beds 2020. Planted seed 2023 a yield (minuscule) of egg plants and cherry toms. This year less as I started late having been abroad. I’ve learnt so much from vlogs such as these am currently using freely available cow manure to condition the soil further. I hope 2025 will see some abundance. It’s a learning curve that’s for sure but as enjoyable as it is frustrating in equal part . Good luck!
Fantastic video! I too believe we can be a net positive to the ecosystems of which we are a part. I think our lives would look radically different than they do today, but I also think we would be happier, healthier and more connected.
Check out any of Jeff Lowenfels' books: Teeming with Microbes, Teeming with Fungi, Teeming with Nutrients. They're amazing, and I believe that's where I first learned of exudates. Phenomenal stuff.
I have robins in the backyard, with insects in their beak nearly every time I see them, because the eggs have hatched & the babies are hungry. I'm incredibly jealous of your haskaps; I planted mine last spring and they were doing well, then rabbits ate them down to the ground over winter. They're finally about knee high, but didn't produce a single flower. This fall I'll put fencing around them to keep the rabbits away, and hopefully have a small crop next year.
I haven’t tuned into your channel in a while. I’ve missed your info and education. I have to move again and so I’m not wanting to build an entire food forest just yet. I would if I knew the new owners would not tear it out and put in a lawn. My soil is amazing this year. So exciting! Absolutely amazing! You remember me……I’m working on learning about communication with plants, soil and mycelium. I having unusual things going on in my yard and with the plants and soil. I truly believe that nature communicates with us, if we tune into nature.
I inadvertently ended up with mostly bare soil under my largest apple tree. One spring when the weather was odd nothing that normally supports early pollinators was flower...no dandelions, no clover...except the ground ivy. I had a ton of ground ivy under that apple tree, so when I mowed the lawn I mowed a circle around that tree & left the ground ivy to flower. Once other flowers were in bloom I mowed under the tree...the ground ivy had beat out other plants (including grass) but didn't recover from mowing. At least four years later I'm just starting to get a few dandelion, sow thistle, etc. to grow under there. I've started planting things...elecampane, comfrey, horseradish, etc., but I leave spaces here & there so I have places to stand when harvesting the apple tree. I have several types of bees, hover flies, ladybugs, moths, butterflies, toads, and birds so I guess it's working.
It's truly a lesson in "if you don't plant something, nature WILL". It's so important to quickly establish what you want in a space, before nature throws some nasty invasives in there!
The national Park in Germany had a monoculture of spruce, then the entire chunk was infected with the beetles. Instead of replacing the spruce with more, they've left it and planted a few native trees, trying a few other resilient trees, but essentially the forest is being left to regenerate. I saw what's left of the chunk and it's a very dismal image, essentially a desert of stumps. BC STILL hasn't grasped the idea that monoculture pine/spruce is far worse than bare soil. There aren't many predators for those beetles, they produce hundreds of thousands of offspring every year.
This is a great video- thanks! Really good explanation of why to maximize photosynthesis. I'm new to permaculture and your channe. Working on a design to transform my small property in my neighborhood. Thankfully no HOA to worry about. I feel like I'm horrible at landscape design so struggling to figure out where to place different parts of my wish list while also figuring out how to move standing water after storms to a more useful area like storing water in soil by the garden. It is fun though:)
Love your work as always, one small note. Back in the day before monocultures took over, when soil organic matter was low one of the best ways to increase it was to plant corn. You made a comment that human intervention has hurt everything except for maybe corn, but we’ve actually hurt that too. A good person who speaks on that and some many other fascinating topics related to growing food such that a legitimate conversation about growing food as medicine could occur is by a guy named John Kempf, I think you would love his podcasts (also can be found on UA-cam under either his name or his company Advancing Eco Agriculture). Cheers
For sure, Corn is not evil. It's the SYSTEMS that humans run it in, that is. Corn is just another plant. Love John Kempf, and you can probably tell that he's a huge source of input for me. I've been listening to him for years and years.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy I'm a huge fan too, considered investing in AEA's recent opportunity but ultimately didn't. John's information and the science behind it is incredible, when I found him 3-5 years ago or so I immediately searched for every video he had out and have been trying to absorb as much from him as I can
My food forest in my front yard is just getting started, eventually it will get there. In a couple of years the back yard will follow. You inspire me, thank you.
Great video! This was my first of yours, YT recommended, and I'm so glad they did! I subbed! I've been studying permaculture, soil science, and other subjects I find fascinating for about a year now. It's brought me so much joy and excitement. I currently live on ¼ acre in Wisconsin, USA, so I consider myself somewhat of a micro suburban homesteader. The dream is to have LAND. You have done a remarkable job with your property! Thank you for the wonderful bits of knowledge! 😊
Welcome aboard! Glad to have you. Make sure to check out the essentials playlist first. Sometimes youtube suggests videos that "catch on" via the algorithm, but they aren't always the better videos. I try to put my main topic videos in the essentials playlist, so people can have a good primer on things we stand for here, and how I manage the property. I hope you enjoy. We have a lovely community in the comment section. It's truly a badge of honor of mine, that I attract such amazingly knowledgeable gardeners and scientists here. So many wonderful people are found in the comments.
I am convinced that my multitude of wheel bugs are not just eating the harlequin bugs, but farming them and making sure not to eat them all too quickly so they have a new family to feast on.
Is there any way to plant some trees, then plant some food gardens strategically placed beneath some of the trees to block out some of the harshest midday sun? I haven’t tried it myself, but wonder something like that could work almost like a natural shade cloth for part of the day. Just brainstorming 😊 good luck with your gardening!
@@Emiliapocalypseyou can shadecloth all you want, but once the temps pass about 95F, ain’t nothing gonna grow, really. And it’s hitting that in the shade down here since late May.
Thank you!! You are Very informative! Your well explained concepts & conclusions tell me that you can back-up everything you say, and I find that important. Thank You from NE Ontario! Keep up the great work and spreading the news ! I’ve been subscribed for a few months and am passing this episode on to several others that I think will enjoy & benefit from as well 👍
I always put protective bags on my tomatoes to stop them being attacked. I also leave 3 sacraficial plants. These are for the insects and the insects are for the birds. My little vegetable garden is always filled with birds who visit regularly for a snack and a drink.
I have a back yard garden. I had to put a chicken wire fence all the way areouind and on top of it, which unfortunately keeps the birds out, but if it wasn't there, the squirrels would eat everything.
ABSOLUTELY 💯 BRILLIANT INFO..LESSONS..I WANT A FOOD FOREST TOO..CAN YOU MAKE A VIDEO OF DESIGHNING A FOOD FOREST SIR..WE BUY INTO THIS..JUST NEED FULL NAMES /RECOMMENDATIONS ..PLANT SPECIES NAMES..LAY OUT OF DAMS..I AM EXCITED ABOUT THIS..ITS SOLUTIONS FOR WORLDS 🌎 FOOD PROBLEMS..GREAT VID..PLEASE MAKE MORE SIR..THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR TEACHING WORLDS 🌎GO BACK TO NATURE..COVER GROUND..PLANT EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE..LOVE INSECTS/PREDATORS..MAKE BIRD NESTS ..MAKE A PARADICE..AND WHALLA..HUGE GROTH/SUCCESS..😊😅❤😂😂
Excellent! It's true what you said about even little children know what's the right way to grow a thriving garden. I remember as a kid I would draw fruit trees surrounded by flowers, grasses, and shrubs; as well as bugs like butterflies and lady bugs. We have to be like children to enter in the Kingdom of God (Matthew 18:3-5)
I don't have pests in my garden because I view everything as an ecosystem. What most people don't realize, without herbivores (What most people call "pests") we wouldn't have meat to eat. We wouldn't have the biodiversity of plants.
@@BB-mt5sb My point was not that I don't have anything eating the crops I hope to harvest for myself. My point is that wither something is a "pest" is a matter of perspective. Trying to kill off everything that eats what we claim is "mine! mine! all mine!" is a poor way to exist.
The damage from exotics that don't have any predators can reck have on an ecosystem. Examples: southeast, kudzu, my backyard, field bind weed,aka morning glory. If you don't try to eradicate these, they will kill everything they can, making your system a monoculture
In my strawberry patch I used what I had on hand, saved lettuce & radish seeds...I'm finding it's difficult to find all the strawberries in amongst the lettuces, but even on my oldest plants, I'm getting more berries & bigger berries & sweeter berries (might be sweeter because they're super-ripe, having been missed a time or two when harvesting, due to the lettuce). When I find a damaged berry I throw it out onto the lawn, and a few hours later they're all gone...I have yet to see the benefactor, but something is eating them, and hopefully staying away from my healthy berries.
@CanadianPermacultureLegacy : at the end you said a minor problem is that you have to be careful where you step when harvesting... but I kind of want to challenge that statement... (keep in mind, I don't have near the experience you have and although I've been working on growing a "rewilded" native yard (0.2 acre lot) here in the deserts of Utah for about 8 years, I haven't yet planted many bushes and no food -- bushes are next, maybe starting this fall!)... but when I go around my yard, while I do try to steer away from the plants while I'm just walking about, I somewhat ignore that when I need to be in a certain area in order to work (for example, while trimming a tree or working on my fence) and the plants recover just fine even when I trample them. Deer don't mind where they walk when they try to eat from the tree, so why should I? (with exception of frequently just walking around a tiny lot like mine, of course... which is also why I'm working on creating actual pathways this year) Anyways, VERY AWESOME video thank you so much -- it's great to see my thinking RE pest-mgmt confirmed and it's now got me thinking of planting some food crops in the mix.
Yeah, I should have been more clear, and great catch. Trampling many plants actually is just similar to chopping and dropping them. Crimping. The only thing I really care about stepping on a tiny saplings that are a year old.
If the soil is left with roots and mycelium growing, it's impossible for a human to compact it. It's only depleted soils that cannot support human weight, even a large human. Dr Paul Stamets has spoken about this exact topic if you wanted a deeper dive from a global expert.
@@y0nd3r I don’t really know any of the science myself, I only know what I’ve observed; I live in the 2nd driest state in the US, in the driest county in the state, smack in the middle of a semi arid desert in the open valley of an ancient lake bed where the soil is nothing but compacted clay. The soil in my yard has only been “rehabbed” for less than 10 years, and definitely not aggressively because I don’t know what I’m doing lol. But I can trample my plants pretty good, on occasion, and they bounce right back. I don’t know of I technically should worry about things like human compaction or not, but I don’t and everything seems fine as far as I can tell.
I've just came back to my garden after spending a week in town and everything here has shown such a huge growth after several heavy rains.. including weeds )) I'm practicing divercity and high dencity of planting, but I still practice weeding by chopndroping everything ecxept my "target" plants. But after your video I'm really hesitating, should I weed during the season or not... I'll be gratefull for your comment on that ❤
Chopping and dropping weeds during growing season is still great. It mimics herbivore grazing. New things will regrow in the space. You can also do semi cutting, where you chop and drop some but leave some up to regrow, and go on a cycle.
6:30 "A two acre property can sustain thousands of people" Is that correct or exaggerated? I am under the impression that 2 acres can only sustain a few families.
They were uploading automatically. I just checked and for some reason it stopped 6 months ago. I'm not sure what's going on with rumble. It's possibly my account wasn't conspiracy theory enough for rumble LOL. It's impossible to keep things up on all platforms, I do my best to hit as many of them as I can though, but in terms of return on time spent, keeping rumble updated is just not really worth my time to be 100% honest. I'm stretched thin as it is.
Thank you so much for all your videos and sharing of knowledge and viewpoints! I am about to buy my first fruit trees and I was wondering if you have any thoughts about grafted vs not grafted (if one can even find them...). Rootstocks seem unnatural and "unethical" to me at first glance. Thank you so much!
I don't have any problem with grafting. I think its a great way to ensure a healthy tree (the rootstock) but yet getting a good tasty yield (the graft).
CO2 isn't a villain, it's a critical gas that nature absolutely depends on. What matters is scale. Oxygen is critical for humans for example, but if we have too much we die, or set fire to the hydrogen in the air, and oxidize everything ajd destroy all life on earth. Scale matters. Humans right now are doing the latter. It just doesn't mean CO2 is the bad guy. It means we need to maintain a balance. This balance doesn't resemble releasing billions of years of stored fossilized energy in 2 decades.
Great channel, great advice, thank you. I had a few questions that came to mind as I watched the video, maybe you could answer? 1. If growing an urban food forest that is intended to support wildlife but also grow fruits and veggies for human consumption, are there concerns about the wildlife like deer or rabbits or predators like foxes and wolves in ultimately disturbing the quality of the yield of those crops meant for human consumption? Such as berries, apples, cucumbers, etc. EDIT: I see you did get to that about 'pests' in your video, just wondering if you could speak more to the variety of food that could be grown and protection methods, if some use of fences might be useful, at times? 2. Food that is harvested using this natural process, is there a recommended cleaning solution or process before humans should be eating it? Like, I used to enjoy eating fresh garden peas out my mom's garden like carrots and peas, but they were protected by the ground and pod, mostly and a little garden hose washing seemed to be enough. But again, for more exposed fruits and berries that could have insects and animal mouths on it before it was eaten, is there any recommended cleaning to do? 3. There is an urban food forest in my town, I'm involved in supporting it, but I'm not a great gardener or anything. But I see a good amount of space is used for growing food for humans (in addition to wet land restoration and natural plants and stuff) but it could be a bigger production and help grow food for the town if there were more helpers. More 'helpers' could come in the form of automation and machines. I've seen picking and monitoring machines, I've seen something called FarmBot that works on planters, and other things of that nature. Removing the cost of obtaining them for a moment, would you be in favour of that kind of application of modern technology with still a human involvement needed? Thanks for what you do!
1. They aren't in numbers large enough to worry about in my opinion. They are also very skiddish (in terms of physical safety). 2. Many people soak them in water with a little vinegar added to it, then rinse it after. I truly think store produce is much filthier. There are too many food recalls because harvesters aren't given breaks, and will urinate/deficate in the fields. Way too many. 3. Definitely in favor of whatever grows food in sustainable ways. Some automation can help, especially if the machines are purpose built, electric and charged with solar. It's not going to be better than human labour in terms of planetary impact, but it sure beats the heck out of diesel heavy machinery that we currently use. Any step in the right direction is one we should take. 3.
Advanced robotics might solve large scale production by being able to deal with a more complex polyculture. I'm imagining flexible spider robots with all sorts of sensors and tools on 100 legs.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Yeah, we'd have to already have scaled past the resource limitations of the planet. Maybe once we're efficiently mining asteroids and have cold fusion and perfect batteries. I also wonder about bioengineering plants to grow some woodlike replacement for plastic and metal that pulls carbon out of the air with solar energy. We took too much of it out of the ground and put it in the air, might as well use it to make stuff if we can. Especially if can be designed for lasting reslience but have some easy way to intiate composting breakdown so it can fit into the biomass cycles of the planet.
Hi, Keith! Thank you for spending so much time shooting this video to share this not quite popular yet very important issue. Wish this video would attract deserved attention.. And as always, I’ve got something to ask :) First: do you think it is a realistic idea to try to turn let’s say a 0,5 of an acre of land into a food forest amongst other pieces of land which are managed in a typical way of gardening? Do the nearby plots affect the food forest in a bad or good way?
As long as they don't spray, it shouldn't impact you at all. And you will absolutely benefit them. And if they do spray, you could look at putting up wind blocking hedgerows if you have the space, to try to push any windblown sprays up and over your space. Also can look into earthworks to divert any rainwater runoff from entering your land, laden with herbicides. Again, it all depends on the site, the space, and how your neighbours run their systems.
And another thing: I’m not good at knowing the names or your local plants, so just wondering if all those plants under let’s say your pear tree are those which you've planted out yourself or you do often let the “weeds” to be a ground cover or other layers too? And if the second is true, does it only depend on how much time you have to manage it, or there are some other reasons for your choice?
It depends on what shows up. I use plants for a future. (Google it). I combine that with plant ID asps, ajd learn what grows here, the benefits, and if it's local or invasive.
Around 20:45 - what plant has the seed heads, just right of the pink flowers? The leaves remind me of rhubarb, but mine isn't old enough to have sent up a flower stalk yet, and everyone I know breaks the stalks off as soon as they see them.
With the small, fishless pond, how to you get frogs and dragonflies without mosquitoes? Or do you generally get mosquitoes but the frogs and dragonflies eat enough to keep them from being a bother?
This reminds me of a video where, to get rid of mosquitoes, someone cultivated habitats for dragonflies, which eat mosquitoes. Africa may have more success against mosquitoes by this
The only thing you can do is to keep plants short in areas you traffic, and when it's tick season, don't go in areas where they can be. If you do have to, wear long boots, long pants, long sleeves. And check your WHOLE BODY every night. Every single crack and nook and crannie.
I agree with almost everything. However here I have leaf cutter ants and if left unchecked no trees can grow no new trees can be planted for fruits etc what would you suggest
Leaf cutter ants are so damn cool. They don't eat the leaves, they take them back to their lair and they use them to grow fungi. They make mushroom gardens. How cool is that? They are largely considered a very positive aspect of the rainforest. Though I must admit although I've never heard of them defoliating trees so much they kill them, I can see how it could be a problem establishing new trees. I'm honestly not sure what I would suggest, besides like, antlion habitat. They are just so cool, I'd have a hard time trying to eradicate such an awesome creature.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy they defoliate my mango trees over night and these are big well established trees, their colonies can cause cave ins i dug up a spot and my leg can go through that hole and it goes down about 2 metres.
Thanks for the nice video! It’s always inspirational. I’m also trying to grow the biodiversity in my garden and have seen an increase in insects, in particular ants. I have a small citrus tree in a medium big pot that only goes outside in the garden in the summer as it can’t survive frost. But it is heavily plagued by scale insects (and now the ants are carefully farming them). I tried scraping them off and hosing down, but they keep coming back. Do you have any advice on how to manage the issue with no chemicals? Are there any other insects I should attract? If woodlice or slugs could help, I would have no problems! But unfortunately they’re busy eating all my strawberries and vegetables.
My answer to the same style of question is always the same. Food, water and habitat for all creatures. Think about what things you have on your property that can support more birds, bats, frogs, snakes (careful here if venomous snakes are in your area). For example, add bird and bat houses, add piles of sticks, add piles of rocks, add fallen logs. Add thorny plants for small birds to hide from predators, etc. Add small pocket ponds, and aerate them (using small solar fountain pumps, water wigglers, etc). Add more diversity in the herbaceous layer with planting native wildflowers. The more you can provide habitat, water and food for predators for insects, you'll see some damage on your trees but it will be manageable.
Can you plant plants under fruit trees from the start? Most "Specialists" say the tree shouldn't have any Competition for water and nitrogen...at least in the first couple of years.
The more concerning thing isn't soil space but rather sunlight competition. If the metric you are trying to maximize is fruit tree growth, then ensure it can collect every photon that could hit it. So it just depends on how tall the other plants are around it. Small fruit trees surrounded by clover is no problem. Also, ensure no allelopathies. So nothing like garlic mustard around trees, because it suppresses growth of other plants.
I remember John Kempf has this on one of his podcasts, and I found it absolutely fascinating. (And a bit creepy if you think about it too). I wonder if Dr White was the guest.
Totally not needed. It only causes a temporary swell in bacterial colonies. It's much better to maintain a longer term focus, and avoid silly gimmicky one-time temporary "garden tricks" like this.
Just to be argumentative (😅) in the past couple decades theyve discovered entire ecosystems that are based on energy from thermal vents on the ocean floor rather than the sun. Until then, it WAS believed that all life on earth relied on the sun. Great video, very much agree eith everything (else 😅). Have a good day AYE from your Montana neighbor 😊
Counterargument: Hydrothermal vents are created by plate tectonics, which is driven largely by shifting gravitational stresses applied by the sun (and moon). Therefore, it’s unlikely that such vents could form at all without the sun.
haha I was thinking that myself when I first read the comment. Everything essentially comes back to the sun, or on a bigger picture the super massive black hole at the center of the milky way.
What is your answer regarding the 100% weather manipulation that is being used against us? The dimming of the sun is huge and in Alberta we use to receive 325 sunny days a year and that is LESS THAN 100 days today!!!! SUN = ENERGY = FOOD
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Not a conspiracy my friend....I grew up in Edmonton and an old slogan back in the day was Welcome to Sunny Alberta and over 95% of our weather came from the mountains out west with some from north and south and rarely did we get any weather from the east....today we get 30% of the weather from the East and mostly Northwest and mostly whiteout hazy cloudy days. You might want to look into HAARP...here is an old CBC video when they actually did investigative journalism. ua-cam.com/video/ZO5Adt4nhCk/v-deo.html
@@kaleyjanenigh Climate change as they are calling it is MAN MADE weather! Would it hurt you to do some actual due diligence (aka investigation) before offering your uneducated biased opinion? For you to bring up conspiracy tells me everything I need to know about your character. Why don't you spend 5 minutes reading the definition of conspiracy so you learn something today. SMH at the level of stupid in this world today. It would probably surprise you to learn of weather patents dating back to the early 1900's and the fact that weather warfare was used during the Vietnam war to extend the monsoon season for months. How about you spend less time watching TV (aka Tell-Lie-Vision) and more time outside in nature......and yes those lines in the skies are chemtrails to dim the sun and to poison earth and all inhabitants. Don't believe me though, DO YOUR OWN DILIGENCE!
How does someone MAXIMIZE PHOTOSYNTHESIS? Until we have HEALTHY SOIL.... we can't easily optimize Photosynthesis. Advancing Eco Agriculture ((AEA) has a system that uses Plant Sap Analysis to formulate Foliar Spray Muxtures to Oprimize Photosynthesis....usually increasing Photosynthic Efficiency from 10%-15%....to 50%-60%. This approach produces healthy plants....that is the ONLY WAY to produce Healthy Soil in a timely way....AT SCALE.
By planting as many plants as you can. Not maximize photosynthesis per plant, but rather maximize photosynthesis per square foot area. If soils are depleted, and you don't have healthy soil yet, then you are in stage 1 of the ecological transition, and you need to plant pioneer species that thrive in that environment. Lots of nitrogen fixers, and deep taprooted plants (many are typically known as "weeds"). Chop and drop those constantly. For a great video on REALLY depleted soils and how this can work, check out the Greening the Desert projects by Geoff Lawton.
It wasn't at first! It took me 5 years or more to change my mindset. However, I can 100% guarantee you that if I had my old property (a 40 foot by 90 foot lot), that even in a tiny 40x10 foot garden, I'd plant plenty of things for nature and share my land as much as I could. We all have to do our part. I believe that in my core.
My city lot is packed with fruit trees and berry bushes, herbs and medicinals, a beautiful kitchen garden. I am attempting to supply what I can for myself. Because of all I learned from you I feel a little better about my families future. My grand children have fresh fruit and help me in my garden, learning to grow.
20:37 your cycle doesnt quite make sense... if you have BIG pest problems... that would mean that you had pests, which would mean you had the predators of said pest, hence you couldnt have a "BIG pest problem"... the logic isnt logic-ing there...
I go into the details more in my "how I solved my pest problems". What matters is the timing on when things happen. If you have balance already established, then your predators and pests hatch at the same time in the spring and the predators interrupt the pupae/larval stage of the pests. However, if you don't have habitat for the predators established, then what happens is the pests pupate and start eating the crops, and swell in numbers unchecked. Predators may find them, but only after they've already done their damage. Predator populations then swell tremendously (but again, damage is done), then crash when they eradicate the pest and their food runs out. When you have balance established, you have low levels of pests and predators that are in balance. When you don't have balance established, you get BUST/BOOM cycles of both pests and predators, which is really bad for your plants (complete defoliation). I hope that helps answer it a bit clearer. Unfortunately, I can't go into that level of detail on each individual micro-topic I bring up, every time I bring it up, or my videos get very long, very tangential, and very repetitive. So I don't always get to expand every topic to the level that someone may want in every video. It's for that reason that I try to have "topic" videos where people can dig a bit deeper on each topic. I hope this helps.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy : permaculture has low food yield per area, and does not feed 8 billion people. it's fine that you want to look at a low maintenance and low food production greenery, but then your golden principles dont compare to the anount of food grown on a farm conventionally, that you diss. so you're capturing maximum sun energy, to produce less food. but it looks nice, and you can spin some stories.
@@kaleyjanenigh : why is it strange to test things/ideas being promoted as "golden rules" for gardening? they should stand questioning, if they're any good. or is make believe good enough nowadays? he felt free to say negative things about commercial orchards and growing veggies in rows.
I completely disagree. My next video will explain it detail why. This line of thinking is incredibly short sighted in both scale and temporally as well. It also ignores all the externalities that we push onto our future.
I'm going to watch this later since I have to leave but I watched your other video on the topic and have decided to try having "living mulch" (likely perennial peanut and maybe sweet potatoes and whatever else will grow) in the garden. However, I've also seen videos by people who say they definitely reduced yield in their gardens to the point that they just couldn't continue with it. For trees, I've also read/watched that grass especially stunts tree growth in the early stages. I'm also wondering how grass will affect a vegetable garden since we have some low grass that would be easy for crops to grow over and chickens like it too. It would be a great addition to living mulch if it wouldn't out compete crops.
I'd appreciate any insight on this. Thanks!
It depends on what you define as yield. If my yield is only measured in potatoes this year, and I actively mine the soil to produce only potatoes this year in a potato monoculture, then yes, my yield will be higher in a potato monoculture. But that's because I'm externalities the loss of nutrients and topsoil to future years and ignoring it in my definition of yield. This is very common short sighted thinking.
If I add in basil and garlic and Yarrow and clover to my potato patch, and still only measure the potato yield, then even though I'm supporting more insects, some of the leaves of those other plants will block sunlight from my potatoes, and my potato yield will still be lower. However, even though the problem isnt that I'm externalizing loss of topsoil to future years anymore, I'm still ignoring all other yields but potatoes, so my calculation of yield still shows a reduction in potatoes. That's not a proper yield calculation though, because I'm ignoring all other yields.
If instead I also include the basil yield, the Yarrow medicinal yield, the nitrogen enrichment from the clover, the biomass yield of any unused leaves that are mulched and turn to topsoil for next year, and the increased photosynthesis root exudate yield into the soil, which causes a swell of bacteria and fungi which use the glues and secretions to break up sand silt clay and form soil aggregates for next year, then my yield calculation now blows the first one out of the water.
The problem is a lack of understanding of what should go into a yield calculation, as well as our current ignorance of the externalization of losses to the future soil, and failure to account for those losses in our misinformed yield calculations.
Pinning this one, because it's such an important discussion, I could actually make an entire video followup on it.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacywould love to see that video. I’ve recently been learning about HANPP (human appropriated net primary production) and it being used as a measure of how far we’ve transgressed the functional aspect of the biosphere integrity planetary boundary. Your example of a field growing only potatoes is a prime example of HANPP that is making us transgress that particular planetary boundary and is linked to the mass extinction of species that we’re witnessing. It’s making me highly aware of how much of the net primary production (energy) on my property do I appropriate for my use, and how much do I leave for the use of all the other species (plant, animal, insect, fungi). A great lens to have on growing, I think.
@@lizt.5374 What an incredibly on point comment. This is exactly what I'm talking about. It's also a big reason why we have all these conservation programs to support Panda bears, and so few trying to preserve the Karner Blue caterpillar, even though the latter provides infinitely stronger benefits. Humans just think Pandas are cute.
Another example is how we spray nemicide in fields to destroy ALL nematodes, despite the fact that humans have only catalogued an estimated 1% of all nematode species on earth. So we don't even KNOW what we're killing, yet we just carpet bomb it all, because one of them eats the roots of our precious corn.
Vandana Shiva has some interesting counterpoints to the yield argument for conventional farming and GMOs in particular. From an interview with her: “Through participatory research, we showed that when you intensify biodiversity instead of chemicals, and measure nutrition per acre instead of yield per acre, we can grow enough nutrition for two times the world population.
New research is showing that native seeds have higher nutrition than industrially bred “high-yielding varieties", which are nutritionally empty and full of toxins.”
Our local Fall Fair still awards prizes for the largest, most “perfect looking” vegetables, but many growers and permaculture enthusiasts have helped introduce new categories that don’t eliminate smaller or oddly shaped fruits and veggies, which may often have higher nutritional value. Many of us really want to see a “highest nutrition” category. We’re not there yet as the tools/testing for this is not cheap or easily accessible, but maybe soon!
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Please do a follow-up!
My grandfather in Newfoundland practiced this integrated method of working with the land. He was enthusiastic in sharing his ever-accumulating knowledge with his grandchildren, and anyone else who was interested in developing the land and ocean. Similar to yourself and others, he developed systems which harmonized and benefited Nature, as well as ourselves…often to my grandmother’s bemusement - LOL!🙂
Thank you for another insightful video.
Cheers!🇨🇦
"If humans disappeared"
Having moved to an area with a bunch of abandoned mining towns, I can 100% back this up. Sure, there are foundations of old houses etc. around, but they are all totally overgrown. It's fascinating to see how nature has taken over.
They act like we don’t have entire civilizations hidden under jungles and hills still today
Lol, therefore, if he left his yard alone it would be "better". So we wasted time watching his video... We should just leave things alone
@@DZMYQD go spend a day with an old friend or something grumpy butt.
@DZMYQD if you put work into setting up a food forest in an abandoned area you can speed up the natural process while benefitting yourself and the local wildlife/ ecosystem.
Lookin' good. To clarify, if you do see a parasitized caterpillar with white "rice grains" down its back, I believe those are actually the wasp pupae.
Very interesting. Folks who live in cities and have never eaten a garden grown tomatoes may not care for the softness of garden tomatoes. As we have grown to avoid the firm / hard tomatoes in the supermarket. You know the ones, shipped in from far away places, picked green and ripened during shipping.
In one month the tomatoes will ripen in our gardens. Can't wait for a real tomato.
I want a shirt & hat that say, “Grow soil, not food”!!! Love that, it’s such a simple saying but it says sooooo much
I happen to make shirts and sell on Etsy! I could make one for you! 😊
Doing it like this costs very little money (no buying fertilizers or mulches) uses very little energy (less mowing or tilling) but still takes a good amount of work and time to walk/ride around doing basic maintenence and trying to remember where things are :) what a joyous way to live life!
Most of my place is rather wild like yours, but I also do some rows of individual cash crops like sweet potatoes in a 1/2 acre section for harvest ease. Hoeing, watering, chop/drop weeds and some woodchips make it an acceptable "monocrop" area in my opinion, nestled in by borders of wild goldenrod, blackberry, chicory, yarrow, wild young trees and more!
The whole place was prior utilized as a hayfield for decades with tractors tromping and mowing most of it. Its amazing what has naturally come up in the 5 years since I took over management...more Persimmon trees than I can count, wild plum, etc etc.
I started by using the typical poly square deer fencing in the crop area but have been cutting it from the bottom up (so as to not leave the nasty stuff tangled in the growth) as small trees and brambles have begun to from a natural hedge which will hopefully be the end of the fence one day in the future...I love the Honey Locust that are popping up for this purpose.
I've really been inspired and have enjoyed your vids over the years as I learn to connect and live among the land more.
This is great. I love when people know the principles, and also when it's okay to relax them a little, in the favor of ease of harvest. It shows true understanding.
Hey I just wanted to say that the original version of video is what started my permaculture journey. Thank you so much for making your videos.
Great to hear!
Last year I noticed a lot of leaf damage of our hazels in the young food forest and found it was some kind of sawfly larvae, everything from conventional gardening was telling me they must be destroyed but I kept telling myself stick with the plan.
The hazels are totally fine, and this year for the first time we have house martins nesting around the house, I've spent a lot of time watching them swooping around catching bugs from the air wondering how many sawflies they are enjoying 😁
Some fixes just take longer, because they require the solution to naturalize on the property, and the patience to wait for the next cycle of new births/hatching, etc. Great job!
I feel so lucky I found this chanel, I just started gardening in my backyard and I am learning a lot here. Thank you for sharing your experience and knowledge.
Good luck!!
Many thanks for sharing your hard work and thank you for caring we need millions more like minded souls here to survive… stay blessed
Brilliant and insightful video! Thanks!
It can be frustrating and dispiriting trying to explain one’s permaculture ideas to proponents of the mainstream war-on-nature ideology, but breaking it down into simple scientific principles is surely the best way to sow seeds of change
That caterpillar with the fake wasp eggs was super cool! I also follow these same principles on my land. I've even gotten used to my woodchuck neighbor eating half my tender greens. I think of my system as maximizing calories. I count insects, birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and fungi as important life/calories in my land.
I like this
I really appreciate your content. You have a wealth of knowledge you just dropped right here. If you want to change the world, change yourself. You're a light, keep on shining.
❤️
I’m starting a food forest on a modified scale, so I’m keenly interested in what you have done. I don’t currently live on the property, so whatever I plant has to be robust enough to survive without being coddled. Obeserving the land itself and figuring out the microclimates is so important. Also the soil conditions. Land I had thought was high and dry was super saturated this spring. Some drainage issues need to be addressed before I can use that area for my aronias. Before I plant, I see what nature has already provided. I found out that, after I had just bought some plants, that I have native hazlenuts growing in an area I had planned to plant my new ones! Nature is absolutely amazing, given half a chance.
Your thinking is already so advanced and ahead of the curve of where I was when I started my project here. You will do amazing things on your land.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy There are more and more small holders that are going this way in my area. It is a real juxtaposition to the big farms surrounding us with all of their massive equipment, corn/soy rotations, etc.
I love the texture and color that the seaberry bushes add.
Great video to show someone (like my family 😅) who still doesn't quite get why our garden is a crazy mess, I think you encapsulated the basics very nicely. I must add that what I am finding in my very hot, dry (but still temperate) climate, with very degraded soil, is that rebuilding the soil is really taking time. I still have far more "pioneering species" (weeds) coming up, whilst the stuff I WANT to grow is very slow to take off. This means having to keep curating what's growing, chopping and dropping the weeds etc., seeing what nature pops up with in the way of natives, and it's all very slow going, slower maybe than if you have good rainfall and not terrible soil to start with. So I think that is something to be aware of, this is a long-haul process, but I know it's the right way.
Sounds like you are in the same position I am.
When I moved to my hillside property, the garden was 2 acres of exhausted ex-sheep pasture, a third bare rock, the rest just a thin, very poor quality turf.
It was terrible, and without a job and my husband just part time, we had no money to buy in tons of soil. This had to be done naturally.
Firstly, if you have soil to spare along your boundaries - plant a mixed hedge made of native shrubs/trees, nectar rich shrubs for the bees, and particularly plants that produces a lot of growth in the year - so you can cut it, stack it, let it break down naturally, the rain washing the composted particles and nutrients downhill (chuck some fungi caps in there - research your fungi first - and that helps break down the woody stems all the faster.
Hedgerows generate leaves to add substance to your garden. They encourage animals that live, eat, poop and die in your hedgerow. They shelter the rest of your property, cutting wind speeds so the leaves don't travel too far.
Here's something I wish I'd done earlier - collect plain cardboard from shops when you go grocery shopping. Stack the card in your garden, place a brick on it, let it rot. I've been doing this for a while, and it breaks down so fast, adding a little material to your soil
You can get brown boxes with black print on it. But don't use those with other colours.
Do you go for walks where you live?
Bring home a couple of sticks, chuck them in your garden, let them rot. I do this a lot.
Do you have a stream running through your property?
Collect Autumn leaves from it before they wash away down stream.
Do you have 'boggy, marshy, or fairly permanent damp spots' in your garden?
Buy willow cuttings somewhere like eBay, and plunge them in the ground. They'll root, throw forth lots of excessive growth, cut each Autumn, stack the sticks, let them rot
I made the mistake of depending on Salix alba for waste generation for years (because I liked the pretty stem colour in winter).
However, Salix alba isn't as fast as some willows, is hit and miss if you try to grow more plants from cuttings and isn't as useful in other ways.
18 months ago, I got my brain into gear, bought cuttings of Salix viminalis, and these look more promising. This is the classic basket willow and 18 months after receiving my 10 initial unroofed cuttings, I now have nearly 40 plants in the ground, the majority of these being newly rooted cuttings I took from my original stock last Autumn. I will keep taking cuttings from these plants for a few years, make a large swathe of willows - this to attract Willow Warblers, which attract Cuckoos, the Cuckoo chicks also being dumped in the nests of other birds that might be eating fruit from my plants. It all connects.
Start with fruit bushes before fruit trees.
Fruit bushes won't end up meaning sideways after a storm, like my first fruit trees did.
The roots of many fruit bushes will tolerate shallow and poor soils much better. Start with currants, raspberries and thornless hybrids of blackberries.
Raspberries - don't be tempted to get a wild species 'to feed the birds.' It spreads very aggressively and you're never really rid of the stuff.
Get early and late varieties of raspberry, but 'For the love of Pete!' do not buy that yellow berried raspberry. It is the worst, most insipid fruit I've ever tasted. When it rains, just a bit, it turns to mould. It's either unripe, or slush. It's never at a good point of freshness.
I have red Summer, Autumn raspberries in plenty. I planted black, peach and purple raspberries, but haven't had a thing off them yet, and this is after waiting 3 years. What's going on, Idk.
Other good berries ate Loganberries and Tayberries, if you can get them. With the Loganberry, one plant goes a long way. They tip layer, and you can't turn your back on them for a minute. Tayberries are more restrained, pricklier, and the fruit a bit smaller.
Gooseberries are fairly tolerant of shallow soil, but my plants do better in the shade than in open positions. I think the roots cook a bit too much, so they tend to drop their fruits if unhappy.
Guelder Rose - not a conventional. Actually poisonous until you cook them for 20 minutes. I'm still here, so that's proof cooking them works.
Be brilliant at taking cuttings and make it your annual obsession.
The more ground I cover with fruit bushes, the more leaves above grass/weed level, the more organic material you're adding.
Because I have deer issues, I surround a lot of my fruit plants with plants deer don't find so delectable. These just so happen to be nectar rich plants that aid bees and pollinators, are wonderfully common, easy to block up once you don't need them, and propagate like a dream - Spiraea, Weigela, Buddleia, Symphoricarpus.
With these in the garden, and the thornless blackberries - you'll be considering beehives (my neighbour has loads, and the garden buzzes all summer long).
After quite a few years, you will have soil enough for trees. Don't rush it or you will be disappointed. Take it from me, I've been there, done it, and regretted it.
I did plant a few trees in containers first. Indeed, my peach tree is still in its original pot and very happy there.
But finally, after 21 years of working at this place, I have cherries, plums, apples, a pear, Aronia, Blueberries galore, Honey berries and a ton of Hazel but trees.
All fairly small and young, but they are fruiting nonetheless.
You have to learn to develop an eye for taking advantage of any opportunity to grab organic matter when you can.
I pick up sticks and branches on walks, pine cones, pine needles for the ericaceous plants.
Oh wow, wait.
Nearly forgot something.
Spring bulbs are powerful soil builders. No, didn't expect that either. I collect and sow bulb seed from my original bulbs every year, spreading them over the grass/weed areas. (I'm in the UK, so Bluebells, Snowdrops, Snowflakes, Wood Sorrel, Wood Anemones, and Wild Arum. You likely have others. But where these grow, my soil is dark, moist and rich as can be. Bulbs are highly underrated, great food source for early bees and a real kickstart for later plants when the leaves die back. You won't regret it).
I also go for ferns a lot. I grow these in problem areas mostly, harvest the leaves in Autumn, and mulch under favourite plants. They break down into the most perfect compost.
I also plant seedling trees that are only in place temporarily, just so they can add organic matter for as long as they can until they can't cope with conditions or a better plant can go there.
I've very recently discovered that in a neighbouring location, also originally cursed with thin soil, the thicket of small Bir hes that exists on it has begun to transform it. The new soil there is perfect. I'm now 'copying' several small Birch thickets (8-10 inches between seedlings) into the garden as a way to mass produce coppicing material to stack and rot. I get the seedlings from roadsides, where they eventually get killed by traffic, salt, flails, weedkiller. I transplant them here, will let them grow to about 8-9 ft, thin them out a little, coppice the rest for firewood, and under plant with Blueberries.
I'm only just about to add animals to the mix. Not chickens, but ducks. I have a serious slug and snail problem here. I never see a strawberry, so I have 6 Indian Runner duck eggs in an incubator to ensure these pests are kept under control. I have no doubt I will have to watch them around my plants.
Chickens will come later, and I'm hoping quail before that. There's an old well that's going to be converted into a fish 'tank' for carp. That's a project waiting while other projects are being done.
But as the lad says, plant everything up. No bare soil. If you don't put something there yourself, Nature will, and it's not always the most welcome gift (like thistles).
I never cut grass. I won't have a mower. Instead, when I want to plant something, I'll pull out the grass, plant, water and mulch as generously as I can.
Hope some of this is helpful to a fellow hillside gardener. 😊
WOW what an amazing comment and response!!!!
@@Debbie-henri Wow, yes, incredible response, thanks! I am going to have to go through carefully and get the main takeaways, you are a good 15 years ahead of me. Some of the things you describe I have gradually been figuring out myself, like constantly collecting organic material, lol. We actually had an existing traditional orchard on that slope (which is way too steep for swales, btw) and the original owner had created some kind of slight terraces, which is something. So I have left all those fruit trees in, even though they aren't producing brilliantly, and have been piling up organic material at the edges of the terraces (and in other areas where there are no terraces) to slow the run-off. This is stuff I find when I am out and about (my wife LOVES me throwing old logs in the car, lol) and there is a lot of material from pruning the trees. But I'll never collect enough to make an impact in the short-term so just by leaving "weeds" to grow and fill in the spaces between trees (where the neighbours would neatly mow everything and destroy any successional growth that might happen), I feel that roots in the ground and the sheer increased quantity of "solar power" and material that I can chop and drop is already helping retain water better, and my site is visibly greener than my neighbours'. It's just the productivity that is still underwhelming. Entire fruit crops just fail if we don't have decent rain in winter/spring, that kind of thing, so it's a struggle but I'm in it for the long term.
Yes, building the soil takes time. I built my raised beds 2020. Planted seed 2023 a yield (minuscule) of egg plants and cherry toms. This year less as I started late having been abroad. I’ve learnt so much from vlogs such as these am currently using freely available cow manure to condition the soil further. I hope 2025 will see some abundance. It’s a learning curve that’s for sure but as enjoyable as it is frustrating in equal part . Good luck!
❤🐸🐞🕸🐌🦎🌳Best video ever! Your garden is looking luscious, full of life and a joy to inhabit!
Awww ❤️
Fantastic video! I too believe we can be a net positive to the ecosystems of which we are a part. I think our lives would look radically different than they do today, but I also think we would be happier, healthier and more connected.
I had no idea about root exudates. Thank you for the primer on how a food forest works.
Check out any of Jeff Lowenfels' books: Teeming with Microbes, Teeming with Fungi, Teeming with Nutrients. They're amazing, and I believe that's where I first learned of exudates. Phenomenal stuff.
I have robins in the backyard, with insects in their beak nearly every time I see them, because the eggs have hatched & the babies are hungry. I'm incredibly jealous of your haskaps; I planted mine last spring and they were doing well, then rabbits ate them down to the ground over winter. They're finally about knee high, but didn't produce a single flower. This fall I'll put fencing around them to keep the rabbits away, and hopefully have a small crop next year.
I haven’t tuned into your channel in a while. I’ve missed your info and education. I have to move again and so I’m not wanting to build an entire food forest just yet. I would if I knew the new owners would not tear it out and put in a lawn. My soil is amazing this year. So exciting! Absolutely amazing!
You remember me……I’m working on learning about communication with plants, soil and mycelium. I having unusual things going on in my yard and with the plants and soil. I truly believe that nature communicates with us, if we tune into nature.
I inadvertently ended up with mostly bare soil under my largest apple tree. One spring when the weather was odd nothing that normally supports early pollinators was flower...no dandelions, no clover...except the ground ivy. I had a ton of ground ivy under that apple tree, so when I mowed the lawn I mowed a circle around that tree & left the ground ivy to flower. Once other flowers were in bloom I mowed under the tree...the ground ivy had beat out other plants (including grass) but didn't recover from mowing. At least four years later I'm just starting to get a few dandelion, sow thistle, etc. to grow under there. I've started planting things...elecampane, comfrey, horseradish, etc., but I leave spaces here & there so I have places to stand when harvesting the apple tree. I have several types of bees, hover flies, ladybugs, moths, butterflies, toads, and birds so I guess it's working.
It's truly a lesson in "if you don't plant something, nature WILL". It's so important to quickly establish what you want in a space, before nature throws some nasty invasives in there!
The national Park in Germany had a monoculture of spruce, then the entire chunk was infected with the beetles. Instead of replacing the spruce with more, they've left it and planted a few native trees, trying a few other resilient trees, but essentially the forest is being left to regenerate. I saw what's left of the chunk and it's a very dismal image, essentially a desert of stumps.
BC STILL hasn't grasped the idea that monoculture pine/spruce is far worse than bare soil.
There aren't many predators for those beetles, they produce hundreds of thousands of offspring every year.
DW article.
How unfortunate 😢
This is a great video- thanks! Really good explanation of why to maximize photosynthesis. I'm new to permaculture and your channe. Working on a design to transform my small property in my neighborhood. Thankfully no HOA to worry about. I feel like I'm horrible at landscape design so struggling to figure out where to place different parts of my wish list while also figuring out how to move standing water after storms to a more useful area like storing water in soil by the garden. It is fun though:)
Love your work as always, one small note. Back in the day before monocultures took over, when soil organic matter was low one of the best ways to increase it was to plant corn. You made a comment that human intervention has hurt everything except for maybe corn, but we’ve actually hurt that too. A good person who speaks on that and some many other fascinating topics related to growing food such that a legitimate conversation about growing food as medicine could occur is by a guy named John Kempf, I think you would love his podcasts (also can be found on UA-cam under either his name or his company Advancing Eco Agriculture). Cheers
For sure, Corn is not evil. It's the SYSTEMS that humans run it in, that is. Corn is just another plant. Love John Kempf, and you can probably tell that he's a huge source of input for me. I've been listening to him for years and years.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy I'm a huge fan too, considered investing in AEA's recent opportunity but ultimately didn't. John's information and the science behind it is incredible, when I found him 3-5 years ago or so I immediately searched for every video he had out and have been trying to absorb as much from him as I can
My food forest in my front yard is just getting started, eventually it will get there. In a couple of years the back yard will follow. You inspire me, thank you.
Have fun!
Great video! This was my first of yours, YT recommended, and I'm so glad they did! I subbed! I've been studying permaculture, soil science, and other subjects I find fascinating for about a year now. It's brought me so much joy and excitement. I currently live on ¼ acre in Wisconsin, USA, so I consider myself somewhat of a micro suburban homesteader. The dream is to have LAND. You have done a remarkable job with your property! Thank you for the wonderful bits of knowledge! 😊
Welcome aboard! Glad to have you. Make sure to check out the essentials playlist first. Sometimes youtube suggests videos that "catch on" via the algorithm, but they aren't always the better videos. I try to put my main topic videos in the essentials playlist, so people can have a good primer on things we stand for here, and how I manage the property. I hope you enjoy. We have a lovely community in the comment section. It's truly a badge of honor of mine, that I attract such amazingly knowledgeable gardeners and scientists here. So many wonderful people are found in the comments.
Thank you! Such a great teacher. My trees say thank you too!
I am convinced that my multitude of wheel bugs are not just eating the harlequin bugs, but farming them and making sure not to eat them all too quickly so they have a new family to feast on.
Very wise. Enjoyed thoroughly and am inspired :)
I live where the sun is so intense. By July the garden is over unless you use Shade Cloth.
Is there any way to plant some trees, then plant some food gardens strategically placed beneath some of the trees to block out some of the harshest midday sun? I haven’t tried it myself, but wonder something like that could work almost like a natural shade cloth for part of the day. Just brainstorming 😊 good luck with your gardening!
In the Carolinas, we used River Birch trees as dappled shade for the garden. Worked well.
@@Emiliapocalypseyou can shadecloth all you want, but once the temps pass about 95F, ain’t nothing gonna grow, really. And it’s hitting that in the shade down here since late May.
@@wmpx34 yeah I see how that might fry everything to a crisp.
Thank you!! You are Very informative! Your well explained concepts & conclusions tell me that you can back-up everything you say, and I find that important.
Thank You from NE Ontario! Keep up the great work and spreading the news !
I’ve been subscribed for a few months and am passing this episode on to several others that I think will enjoy & benefit from as well 👍
Much love! Word of mouth spread is so important for growing the channel, so I very much appreciate it!
I always put protective bags on my tomatoes to stop them being attacked. I also leave 3 sacraficial plants. These are for the insects and the insects are for the birds. My little vegetable garden is always filled with birds who visit regularly for a snack and a drink.
I have a back yard garden. I had to put a chicken wire fence all the way areouind and on top of it, which unfortunately keeps the birds out, but if it wasn't there, the squirrels would eat everything.
ABSOLUTELY 💯 BRILLIANT INFO..LESSONS..I WANT A FOOD FOREST TOO..CAN YOU MAKE A VIDEO OF DESIGHNING A FOOD FOREST SIR..WE BUY INTO THIS..JUST NEED FULL NAMES /RECOMMENDATIONS ..PLANT SPECIES NAMES..LAY OUT OF DAMS..I AM EXCITED ABOUT THIS..ITS SOLUTIONS FOR WORLDS 🌎 FOOD PROBLEMS..GREAT VID..PLEASE MAKE MORE SIR..THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR TEACHING WORLDS 🌎GO BACK TO NATURE..COVER GROUND..PLANT EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE..LOVE INSECTS/PREDATORS..MAKE BIRD NESTS ..MAKE A PARADICE..AND WHALLA..HUGE GROTH/SUCCESS..😊😅❤😂😂
Excellent!
It's true what you said about even little children know what's the right way to grow a thriving garden.
I remember as a kid I would draw fruit trees surrounded by flowers, grasses, and shrubs; as well as bugs like butterflies and lady bugs.
We have to be like children to enter in the Kingdom of God (Matthew 18:3-5)
❤️
Commenting for the algorithm!! Didn't know about the mesquite root rot, thanks for the info!
I don't have pests in my garden because I view everything as an ecosystem.
What most people don't realize, without herbivores (What most people call "pests") we wouldn't have meat to eat. We wouldn't have the biodiversity of plants.
Want some of the slugs from my area? They eat EVERYTHING that's green and sprouts are their absolute favorite.
@@BB-mt5sb My point was not that I don't have anything eating the crops I hope to harvest for myself. My point is that wither something is a "pest" is a matter of perspective. Trying to kill off everything that eats what we claim is "mine! mine! all mine!" is a poor way to exist.
The damage from exotics that don't have any predators can reck have on an ecosystem. Examples: southeast, kudzu, my backyard, field bind weed,aka morning glory. If you don't try to eradicate these, they will kill everything they can, making your system a monoculture
In my strawberry patch I used what I had on hand, saved lettuce & radish seeds...I'm finding it's difficult to find all the strawberries in amongst the lettuces, but even on my oldest plants, I'm getting more berries & bigger berries & sweeter berries (might be sweeter because they're super-ripe, having been missed a time or two when harvesting, due to the lettuce). When I find a damaged berry I throw it out onto the lawn, and a few hours later they're all gone...I have yet to see the benefactor, but something is eating them, and hopefully staying away from my healthy berries.
So awesome 💖
Outstanding! Cheers from Ottawa 🍁
Absolutely love this.
@CanadianPermacultureLegacy : at the end you said a minor problem is that you have to be careful where you step when harvesting... but I kind of want to challenge that statement... (keep in mind, I don't have near the experience you have and although I've been working on growing a "rewilded" native yard (0.2 acre lot) here in the deserts of Utah for about 8 years, I haven't yet planted many bushes and no food -- bushes are next, maybe starting this fall!)... but when I go around my yard, while I do try to steer away from the plants while I'm just walking about, I somewhat ignore that when I need to be in a certain area in order to work (for example, while trimming a tree or working on my fence) and the plants recover just fine even when I trample them.
Deer don't mind where they walk when they try to eat from the tree, so why should I? (with exception of frequently just walking around a tiny lot like mine, of course... which is also why I'm working on creating actual pathways this year)
Anyways, VERY AWESOME video thank you so much -- it's great to see my thinking RE pest-mgmt confirmed and it's now got me thinking of planting some food crops in the mix.
Yeah, I should have been more clear, and great catch. Trampling many plants actually is just similar to chopping and dropping them. Crimping. The only thing I really care about stepping on a tiny saplings that are a year old.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy shouldn't we care about compacting the soil?
If the soil is left with roots and mycelium growing, it's impossible for a human to compact it. It's only depleted soils that cannot support human weight, even a large human. Dr Paul Stamets has spoken about this exact topic if you wanted a deeper dive from a global expert.
@@y0nd3r I don’t really know any of the science myself, I only know what I’ve observed; I live in the 2nd driest state in the US, in the driest county in the state, smack in the middle of a semi arid desert in the open valley of an ancient lake bed where the soil is nothing but compacted clay. The soil in my yard has only been “rehabbed” for less than 10 years, and definitely not aggressively because I don’t know what I’m doing lol. But I can trample my plants pretty good, on occasion, and they bounce right back.
I don’t know of I technically should worry about things like human compaction or not, but I don’t and everything seems fine as far as I can tell.
So love your work
I've just came back to my garden after spending a week in town and everything here has shown such a huge growth after several heavy rains.. including weeds )) I'm practicing divercity and high dencity of planting, but I still practice weeding by chopndroping everything ecxept my "target" plants. But after your video I'm really hesitating, should I weed during the season or not... I'll be gratefull for your comment on that ❤
Chopping and dropping weeds during growing season is still great. It mimics herbivore grazing. New things will regrow in the space.
You can also do semi cutting, where you chop and drop some but leave some up to regrow, and go on a cycle.
Completely agree with you. Great information
6:30 "A two acre property can sustain thousands of people"
Is that correct or exaggerated? I am under the impression that 2 acres can only sustain a few families.
Completely agree
Beautiful discussion!🤗💛🤗
Great video. You can also add animals like ducks and chickens that will eat and fertilize the land.
There isnt a single regenerative system on the plant that has no animals. Bang on.
I would love if you could post your longer videos to rumble as well.
They were uploading automatically. I just checked and for some reason it stopped 6 months ago. I'm not sure what's going on with rumble. It's possibly my account wasn't conspiracy theory enough for rumble LOL. It's impossible to keep things up on all platforms, I do my best to hit as many of them as I can though, but in terms of return on time spent, keeping rumble updated is just not really worth my time to be 100% honest. I'm stretched thin as it is.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy I totally understand. Thanks for responding to my post. Have a lovely weekend!
Thank you so much for all your videos and sharing of knowledge and viewpoints! I am about to buy my first fruit trees and I was wondering if you have any thoughts about grafted vs not grafted (if one can even find them...). Rootstocks seem unnatural and "unethical" to me at first glance. Thank you so much!
I don't have any problem with grafting. I think its a great way to ensure a healthy tree (the rootstock) but yet getting a good tasty yield (the graft).
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Thank you!
Good to hear another CO2 proponent. We need to maximize photosynthesis.
CO2 isn't a villain, it's a critical gas that nature absolutely depends on. What matters is scale. Oxygen is critical for humans for example, but if we have too much we die, or set fire to the hydrogen in the air, and oxidize everything ajd destroy all life on earth. Scale matters. Humans right now are doing the latter. It just doesn't mean CO2 is the bad guy. It means we need to maintain a balance. This balance doesn't resemble releasing billions of years of stored fossilized energy in 2 decades.
Great channel, great advice, thank you. I had a few questions that came to mind as I watched the video, maybe you could answer?
1. If growing an urban food forest that is intended to support wildlife but also grow fruits and veggies for human consumption, are there concerns about the wildlife like deer or rabbits or predators like foxes and wolves in ultimately disturbing the quality of the yield of those crops meant for human consumption? Such as berries, apples, cucumbers, etc.
EDIT: I see you did get to that about 'pests' in your video, just wondering if you could speak more to the variety of food that could be grown and protection methods, if some use of fences might be useful, at times?
2. Food that is harvested using this natural process, is there a recommended cleaning solution or process before humans should be eating it? Like, I used to enjoy eating fresh garden peas out my mom's garden like carrots and peas, but they were protected by the ground and pod, mostly and a little garden hose washing seemed to be enough. But again, for more exposed fruits and berries that could have insects and animal mouths on it before it was eaten, is there any recommended cleaning to do?
3. There is an urban food forest in my town, I'm involved in supporting it, but I'm not a great gardener or anything. But I see a good amount of space is used for growing food for humans (in addition to wet land restoration and natural plants and stuff) but it could be a bigger production and help grow food for the town if there were more helpers. More 'helpers' could come in the form of automation and machines. I've seen picking and monitoring machines, I've seen something called FarmBot that works on planters, and other things of that nature. Removing the cost of obtaining them for a moment, would you be in favour of that kind of application of modern technology with still a human involvement needed?
Thanks for what you do!
1. They aren't in numbers large enough to worry about in my opinion. They are also very skiddish (in terms of physical safety).
2. Many people soak them in water with a little vinegar added to it, then rinse it after. I truly think store produce is much filthier. There are too many food recalls because harvesters aren't given breaks, and will urinate/deficate in the fields. Way too many.
3. Definitely in favor of whatever grows food in sustainable ways. Some automation can help, especially if the machines are purpose built, electric and charged with solar. It's not going to be better than human labour in terms of planetary impact, but it sure beats the heck out of diesel heavy machinery that we currently use. Any step in the right direction is one we should take.
3.
Advanced robotics might solve large scale production by being able to deal with a more complex polyculture. I'm imagining flexible spider robots with all sorts of sensors and tools on 100 legs.
The problem as always comes down to energy and cost.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Yeah, we'd have to already have scaled past the resource limitations of the planet. Maybe once we're efficiently mining asteroids and have cold fusion and perfect batteries. I also wonder about bioengineering plants to grow some woodlike replacement for plastic and metal that pulls carbon out of the air with solar energy. We took too much of it out of the ground and put it in the air, might as well use it to make stuff if we can. Especially if can be designed for lasting reslience but have some easy way to intiate composting breakdown so it can fit into the biomass cycles of the planet.
Hi, Keith! Thank you for spending so much time shooting this video to share this not quite popular yet very important issue. Wish this video would attract deserved attention.. And as always, I’ve got something to ask :) First: do you think it is a realistic idea to try to turn let’s say a 0,5 of an acre of land into a food forest amongst other pieces of land which are managed in a typical way of gardening? Do the nearby plots affect the food forest in a bad or good way?
As long as they don't spray, it shouldn't impact you at all. And you will absolutely benefit them.
And if they do spray, you could look at putting up wind blocking hedgerows if you have the space, to try to push any windblown sprays up and over your space. Also can look into earthworks to divert any rainwater runoff from entering your land, laden with herbicides. Again, it all depends on the site, the space, and how your neighbours run their systems.
Awesome video!
And another thing: I’m not good at knowing the names or your local plants, so just wondering if all those plants under let’s say your pear tree are those which you've planted out yourself or you do often let the “weeds” to be a ground cover or other layers too? And if the second is true, does it only depend on how much time you have to manage it, or there are some other reasons for your choice?
It depends on what shows up. I use plants for a future. (Google it). I combine that with plant ID asps, ajd learn what grows here, the benefits, and if it's local or invasive.
excellent info ... thank you
Ive got mushrooms popping up out of the logs, and the frogs in my yard look happier for it.
Around 20:45 - what plant has the seed heads, just right of the pink flowers? The leaves remind me of rhubarb, but mine isn't old enough to have sent up a flower stalk yet, and everyone I know breaks the stalks off as soon as they see them.
You nailed it. Rhubarb.
We've had an extreme heat wave which caused them to go to seed very early this year.
With the small, fishless pond, how to you get frogs and dragonflies without mosquitoes? Or do you generally get mosquitoes but the frogs and dragonflies eat enough to keep them from being a bother?
Aeration is the key. See my pond series of videos where I discuss aspects of designing ponds.
I guess bare soil also provides nest material for birds including Robins.
This reminds me of a video where, to get rid of mosquitoes, someone cultivated habitats for dragonflies, which eat mosquitoes. Africa may have more success against mosquitoes by this
What do you advise regarding spotted lantern flies? Are they bad or not, kill them or not?
How do you manage with ticks? I just was diagnosed after flu like symptoms and red blotch's appeared ..
The only thing you can do is to keep plants short in areas you traffic, and when it's tick season, don't go in areas where they can be. If you do have to, wear long boots, long pants, long sleeves. And check your WHOLE BODY every night. Every single crack and nook and crannie.
Take the herb Cats Claw. It will get rid of the bacteria. I had Lyme for years and cured it by taking the tincture.
I agree with almost everything. However here I have leaf cutter ants and if left unchecked no trees can grow no new trees can be planted for fruits etc what would you suggest
Leaf cutter ants are so damn cool. They don't eat the leaves, they take them back to their lair and they use them to grow fungi. They make mushroom gardens. How cool is that?
They are largely considered a very positive aspect of the rainforest. Though I must admit although I've never heard of them defoliating trees so much they kill them, I can see how it could be a problem establishing new trees.
I'm honestly not sure what I would suggest, besides like, antlion habitat. They are just so cool, I'd have a hard time trying to eradicate such an awesome creature.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy they defoliate my mango trees over night and these are big well established trees, their colonies can cause cave ins i dug up a spot and my leg can go through that hole and it goes down about 2 metres.
Thanks for the nice video! It’s always inspirational. I’m also trying to grow the biodiversity in my garden and have seen an increase in insects, in particular ants. I have a small citrus tree in a medium big pot that only goes outside in the garden in the summer as it can’t survive frost. But it is heavily plagued by scale insects (and now the ants are carefully farming them). I tried scraping them off and hosing down, but they keep coming back. Do you have any advice on how to manage the issue with no chemicals? Are there any other insects I should attract? If woodlice or slugs could help, I would have no problems! But unfortunately they’re busy eating all my strawberries and vegetables.
My answer to the same style of question is always the same. Food, water and habitat for all creatures. Think about what things you have on your property that can support more birds, bats, frogs, snakes (careful here if venomous snakes are in your area). For example, add bird and bat houses, add piles of sticks, add piles of rocks, add fallen logs. Add thorny plants for small birds to hide from predators, etc. Add small pocket ponds, and aerate them (using small solar fountain pumps, water wigglers, etc). Add more diversity in the herbaceous layer with planting native wildflowers. The more you can provide habitat, water and food for predators for insects, you'll see some damage on your trees but it will be manageable.
Can you plant plants under fruit trees from the start? Most "Specialists" say the tree shouldn't have any Competition for water and nitrogen...at least in the first couple of years.
The more concerning thing isn't soil space but rather sunlight competition. If the metric you are trying to maximize is fruit tree growth, then ensure it can collect every photon that could hit it. So it just depends on how tall the other plants are around it.
Small fruit trees surrounded by clover is no problem.
Also, ensure no allelopathies. So nothing like garlic mustard around trees, because it suppresses growth of other plants.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy thanks for the quick reply 👍
What is best to to plant under each type of fruit tree?
Check out my guilds guide video for a comprehensive answer to that question.
How do you deal with rats that come to your property ?
Cats
I dont have any. Maybe it's the minks and foxes and owls etc... balance.
A healthy snake population
Great video! Are you familiar with the rhizophagy cycle? The work Dr James white and his team are working on is fascinating.
I remember John Kempf has this on one of his podcasts, and I found it absolutely fascinating. (And a bit creepy if you think about it too). I wonder if Dr White was the guest.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy I love listening to Johns podcasts also . His book quality agriculture is one of my favourites
If he's right, explains why cities with acres of asphalt and concrete are destructive.
should people be treating their garden with sugar?
The internet is at your fingertips, FIGURE IT OUT YOURSELF 🐑
@@TheNicestAssholeYouWillNvrMeet im asking his personal opinion.
Totally not needed. It only causes a temporary swell in bacterial colonies. It's much better to maintain a longer term focus, and avoid silly gimmicky one-time temporary "garden tricks" like this.
Just to be argumentative (😅) in the past couple decades theyve discovered entire ecosystems that are based on energy from thermal vents on the ocean floor rather than the sun. Until then, it WAS believed that all life on earth relied on the sun. Great video, very much agree eith everything (else 😅). Have a good day AYE from your Montana neighbor 😊
Great point! Small exceptions to every rule :)
Counterargument: Hydrothermal vents are created by plate tectonics, which is driven largely by shifting gravitational stresses applied by the sun (and moon). Therefore, it’s unlikely that such vents could form at all without the sun.
haha I was thinking that myself when I first read the comment. Everything essentially comes back to the sun, or on a bigger picture the super massive black hole at the center of the milky way.
👍🏻
What is your answer regarding the 100% weather manipulation that is being used against us? The dimming of the sun is huge and in Alberta we use to receive 325 sunny days a year and that is LESS THAN 100 days today!!!! SUN = ENERGY = FOOD
Wait what? You may have crawled down too far a conspiracy rabbit hole, friend.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Not a conspiracy my friend....I grew up in Edmonton and an old slogan back in the day was Welcome to Sunny Alberta and over 95% of our weather came from the mountains out west with some from north and south and rarely did we get any weather from the east....today we get 30% of the weather from the East and mostly Northwest and mostly whiteout hazy cloudy days. You might want to look into HAARP...here is an old CBC video when they actually did investigative journalism.
ua-cam.com/video/ZO5Adt4nhCk/v-deo.html
@user Yeah, man... climate change effects weather, but I wouldn't be bothering with "weather manipulation". Conspiracy.
@@kaleyjanenigh Climate change as they are calling it is MAN MADE weather! Would it hurt you to do some actual due diligence (aka investigation) before offering your uneducated biased opinion?
For you to bring up conspiracy tells me everything I need to know about your character. Why don't you spend 5 minutes reading the definition of conspiracy so you learn something today. SMH at the level of stupid in this world today. It would probably surprise you to learn of weather patents dating back to the early 1900's and the fact that weather warfare was used during the Vietnam war to extend the monsoon season for months. How about you spend less time watching TV (aka Tell-Lie-Vision) and more time outside in nature......and yes those lines in the skies are chemtrails to dim the sun and to poison earth and all inhabitants. Don't believe me though, DO YOUR OWN DILIGENCE!
Remove domination.
Very well put together channel
Subbed.
Left longer comment. But im being censored alot for my views on g a z a .
✌️💚🍉
How does someone MAXIMIZE PHOTOSYNTHESIS?
Until we have HEALTHY SOIL.... we can't easily optimize Photosynthesis.
Advancing Eco Agriculture ((AEA) has a system that uses Plant Sap Analysis to formulate Foliar Spray Muxtures to Oprimize Photosynthesis....usually increasing Photosynthic Efficiency from 10%-15%....to 50%-60%.
This approach produces healthy plants....that is the ONLY WAY to produce Healthy Soil in a timely way....AT SCALE.
By planting as many plants as you can. Not maximize photosynthesis per plant, but rather maximize photosynthesis per square foot area. If soils are depleted, and you don't have healthy soil yet, then you are in stage 1 of the ecological transition, and you need to plant pioneer species that thrive in that environment. Lots of nitrogen fixers, and deep taprooted plants (many are typically known as "weeds"). Chop and drop those constantly. For a great video on REALLY depleted soils and how this can work, check out the Greening the Desert projects by Geoff Lawton.
❤ Geoff Lawton! ❤
I’m sure it’s very easy to share your food with nature when you have a 2 acre food forest😂🤪
It didn’t build itself, he put a ton of work into it!
I am giving my thieving squirrels a garden
It would be easy for you too,if a food forest was your priority.
It wasn't at first! It took me 5 years or more to change my mindset. However, I can 100% guarantee you that if I had my old property (a 40 foot by 90 foot lot), that even in a tiny 40x10 foot garden, I'd plant plenty of things for nature and share my land as much as I could. We all have to do our part. I believe that in my core.
My city lot is packed with fruit trees and berry bushes, herbs and medicinals, a beautiful kitchen garden. I am attempting to supply what I can for myself. Because of all I learned from you I feel a little better about my families future. My grand children have fresh fruit and help me in my garden, learning to grow.
You talk about maximizing the energy from the sun but you stand there with short hair and a hat blocking the energy to your crown.
LOL
20:37 your cycle doesnt quite make sense... if you have BIG pest problems... that would mean that you had pests, which would mean you had the predators of said pest, hence you couldnt have a "BIG pest problem"... the logic isnt logic-ing there...
I go into the details more in my "how I solved my pest problems". What matters is the timing on when things happen. If you have balance already established, then your predators and pests hatch at the same time in the spring and the predators interrupt the pupae/larval stage of the pests. However, if you don't have habitat for the predators established, then what happens is the pests pupate and start eating the crops, and swell in numbers unchecked. Predators may find them, but only after they've already done their damage. Predator populations then swell tremendously (but again, damage is done), then crash when they eradicate the pest and their food runs out.
When you have balance established, you have low levels of pests and predators that are in balance. When you don't have balance established, you get BUST/BOOM cycles of both pests and predators, which is really bad for your plants (complete defoliation).
I hope that helps answer it a bit clearer. Unfortunately, I can't go into that level of detail on each individual micro-topic I bring up, every time I bring it up, or my videos get very long, very tangential, and very repetitive. So I don't always get to expand every topic to the level that someone may want in every video. It's for that reason that I try to have "topic" videos where people can dig a bit deeper on each topic. I hope this helps.
yawn, the nature does this fairytales. black holes concentrate energy the most, whilst stars leak energy in every direction, without a purpose.
Not sure the point you think you are making
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy : permaculture has low food yield per area, and does not feed 8 billion people. it's fine that you want to look at a low maintenance and low food production greenery, but then your golden principles dont compare to the anount of food grown on a farm conventionally, that you diss. so you're capturing maximum sun energy, to produce less food. but it looks nice, and you can spin some stories.
@Chris WHY are you mad, bro? Just scroll on by if permaculture isn't your thing.
So strange.
@@kaleyjanenigh : why is it strange to test things/ideas being promoted as "golden rules" for gardening? they should stand questioning, if they're any good. or is make believe good enough nowadays?
he felt free to say negative things about commercial orchards and growing veggies in rows.
I completely disagree. My next video will explain it detail why. This line of thinking is incredibly short sighted in both scale and temporally as well. It also ignores all the externalities that we push onto our future.