FOREST GARDEN HEDGEROWS | MARKET GARDEN ALLEY CROPPING | TAP SHORTS
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ก.พ. 2025
- In this TAP SHORTS (filmed Sep 2019) we look at our forest garden tree rows that frame our market garden veg bed plots. These mixed fruit tree and shrub species hedgerows are inspired by the natural pattern and design of a forest ecosystem but planted in a way that enables easy harvest of the fruit. We also took great inspiration from the work of Stefan Sobkowiak and his Permaculture Orchard. Planting rows of productive trees between our plots of organic vegetables (harvested for a weekly CSA veg box scheme) is a small scale example of alley cropping, a widely used agroforestry method of combining crops on one area of land.
In these rows we grow apples, plums, blackcurrant, raspberry, autumn olive and many different herbs.
WHAT ARE TAP SHORTS?
TAP SHORTS are extracts from our FARMVLOGS - nuggets of information, be it a market gardening tutorial, tool demo, handy tip or just something we feel needs to be highlighted - reconfigured into a bite size video for you to quickly watch.
About Tap o' Noth Farm:
Hi, we're James and Rosa! Welcome to Tap o' Noth Farm, a quarter acre Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) market garden and 8 acre permaculture designed forest garden farm/homestead in Aberdeenshire, NE Scotland. We practice home scale to small farm scale agroforestry and regenerative agriculture methods to produce organic fruit and vegetables, raise dairy goats for all our raw milk needs, Shetland sheep and geese to graze our silvopasture and coppice systems and laying hens, moved around in a Chickshaw, for an abundance of eggs.
Our videos aren't 'how to's' - more videos to give a glimpse into our lifestyle and hopefully inspire you to bring aspects of what you see into your own life.
Patreon:
/ tapfarm
If you're looking for even more content from James and Rosa then you can become a patron of Tap Farm. It takes James between 5-10 hrs to edit our vlogs, let alone the time it takes to film and farm at the same time! Your support will aid us greatly in producing our FARMVLOGS, enabling us to take the time needed to craft a beautiful film and to help fund the licences needed for the vlog soundtrack. We will list your name at the end of each vlog episode so everyone knows how brilliant you are! We will also keep you updated on our farm work/life by posting exclusive video content that is not available on TH-cam such as FARMVLOG outtakes, behind the scenes footage, hints & tips and more in depth videos discussing the many permaculture systems to be found on the farm PLUS the odd photo from Rosa and James.
Social Media links:
INSTAGRAM - / tapfarm
FACEBOOK - / taponothfarm
TAP CHAT FB GROUP - / tapch. .
WEBSITE - www.taponothfarm.com
#forestgarden #permaculture #agroforestry
Yeah, people say, "Too difficult to harvest from because one can't harvest with machines." I have come to realize a truth about westerners (Americans, Europeans, etc.), they are afraid of only one thing... inconvenience.
Well done on your efforts Tap family! I hope your children and grandchildren fall in love with the farm as much as y'all have. Peace and blessing!
We hear ya! Thanks so much for your kind words.
Lots of info. in this video. Glad for Rose that the baby will be here before mojito season. Lol. Laura
Cheers Laura!
Your forest garden tree rows reminds me of a younger version of The Permaculture Orchard, in Canada. It's a commercial permaculture orchard.
Nice information 🙏👍🇮🇩
This is one great, really practical and well explained.
Thank you!
Great video! Thank you. Love from Strathpeffer :)
Thankd for the ingormative video! Here in the eastern US autumn olive is designated as a very invasive shrub, non-native (asia) , and large efforts ongoing to eradicate it. Don't know a nursery that even sells it. Found that interesting you use it.
Thank you so much for this!! Exactly what we are trying to accomplish on our property!
You're welcome! Look forward to seeing what you guys get up to.
Have you tried seabuckthorn as your nitrogen-fixing shrub layer? Wonderful, nutritious, beautiful berries.
Hi, yes we grow sea buckthorn in windbreak hedges around the various areas of forest gardens, but personally keep them out of the the tree rows as they are too spiky to work with - easy to poke your eye on the spines as the canopy of the apples and buckthorn merge.
@@TapoNothFarm thats true, i feel like they give more value af a early sucsestion pioneer and not an addtion amongst an allreadh established system. Great to hear that you have them. PS. They are a lovely nutrientbooster in smoothies. :)
@@TapoNothFarm there are non spikey varieties of sea buckthorn. -
That’s interesting to hear as I’ve never come across them when plant shopping. I’ll keep an eye out for them. We’ve certainly got cultivars that have been bred to have less thorns than the common sea buckthorn, as well as bigger berries etc. Thornless varieties would certainly be very useful to the commercial sector of growers. Thanks.
@@TapoNothFarm I didn't see then that you are in Scotland -- here is a list of some of the sea berries that are available in the US. We have bought some for the greenhouse/nursery where I work. We buy from a wholesale nursery that was at one time connected to One Green World ... this might help you find them in the UK. (really enjoy your videos) :-)
Hi Rosa & James, Haven’t long discovered Tap Farm and appreciate everything you both share so generously. With 3/4 of an acre to care for and squeeze in as much food growing as possible we started planting food hedges in 2016 and I’ve written a free ebook about it if it is something of interest. So great to come across you planting this way as well. I can’t help think that so much more food could be grown if gardeners adopted this method. Happy Gardening from southern Tasmania, Jude 🙂🌿🐝
Thank you so much!
Thank you for this Short! It’s full of good information😊
You're very welcome, thanks for watching!
so jealous. my garden is still brown. the snow just melted here in new york!
Oh us too, this was footage from back in the summer. Things just waking up here and snow melting.
Thank you! Great information and is very understandable. Hope to put it into practice here too. Would work very well with our duck grazing. Blessings from Holland Ohio US🥰🌻🐛
Glad it's useful for you!
I'm so glad to have stumbled on this video. I'm about to plant an acre of food forrest and wasn't exactly sure about the layout. Can elderberries also work as the nurse, nitrogen fix?
And, how do you get the mushrooms to impregnate the root system? That would be magnificent.
Hi there - thanks for finding us! As far as I am aware elder does not fix N and also exudes chemicals that can inhibit the growth of some trees/plants (allelopathy) so might not be the best choice to interplant? Saying that, we have never witnessed this natural chemical process (walnut is similar) and do have elder growing amongst fruit trees that don't show any negative growth. Some research shows that allelopathic trees exude the chemicals when and if needed, like in times of drought when trees are in competition for essential resources (water/growing space). Look into mycorrhizal fungi root inoculate (see the first ten minutes of our latest farmvlog). Thanks.
Do you have access to seaberry aka sea buckthorn? It's a nitrogen fixing plant that produces an awesome berry. Good luck!
Is your focus on trees and shrubs based mainly on the ecosystem philosophy you're working with or is your climate best suited for these hardier plants? I'm in coastal Oregon where they said people went to dairy because the growing season was short and wet. It seems similar.
Hi there - I would say it's both. Thanks for watching!
Not sure if you've seen Stefan Sobkowiak's channel - the Permaculture Orchard - a very similar principle he uses for commercial production.
Definitely, love Stefan’s work and certainly was an inspiration (gave him a shout out in the description).
could you use Lupins for nitrogen fixing? Really hardy and lots of flowers for insects
Certainly could use lupins, they would look lovey and work well in the understory/ground cover layer.
That's really interesting to hear. Obviously agricultural lupin is recommended for sowing as green manure within organic farming and so I haven't encountered any negativity to it in that respect but have read that it is good at spreading (I wonder if there are different varieties that spread more than others, like the difference between common and Russian comfrey?).
It's a heated debate between most people working in garden design/ecological design/regenerative practices isn't it....native V exotics. And I think it's best to look at all the alternatives and the measures that would have to be in place to manage them (if a problem occurs). Some of the plants that we work with here in Scotland are very good at spreading but are actually native.
I've just planted 1 yr old apple trees, do the other plants not compete with the young trees?
In our experience we have not seen any negative impact - the plants we have chosen, on the whole, occupy different niches so competition is low (different root structures/sunlight requirements etc). Of course you would want to space your plantings so that plants like comfrey do not smother the young trees and regularly cut them back/chop and drop.
Unleashing mint on your garden, brave.
James! Sorry I missed every word you were saying for the first 2 minutes lol. Was focusing on what great hair you have 😝. Ok let me go watch again.
Hahahaha! Yeah, I forget I have hair sometimes with all the caps I wear....it was pretty bouffant in this one! ;)
If it’s 3 year old is there an update coming ? 😁
Hehe! I’m sure there will be.....
so jealous. my garden is still brown. the snow just melted here in new york!