Early Morning in the Main Crop at Zaytuna Farm
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 ก.ย. 2024
- I’m back at the active Permaculture demonstration site, Zaytuna Farm, my home and home to the Permaculture Research Institute-a sixty-six acre (27 hectares) property in Northern NSW, Australia.
Its early morning here, the crew-a dedicated and enthusiastic group of volunteers-has emptied the toolshed and we’re heading down to the main crop gardens, the dogs are darting amongst and ahead of us. We’ve got buckets for harvesting and hand tools for flipping compost.
The first deed is to let the chickens out and tempt them to the compost piles with foods scraps and a little feed. We introduce a small number of pellets to boost our egg production when we need it for the participants of our PDC and Permaculture In Action course. At other times, our chickens will eat kitchen scraps and the bug population of our rolling compost piles, plus surplus harvest from the main crop that doesn’t make the kitchen grade. This is rare, but consists of blown and otherwise damaged/decomposed vegetables.
There are several piles of compost there in different stages of decomposition, and part of the morning duties will be to turn a pile, putting the inside on the outside and the outside in the middle.
The field is full. Rows of corn are growing between cowpeas, which help to cover the footpaths and control rampancy. Pulled weeds are atop the last of the winter potatoes. Sweet potato vines are so dominant they control their own weeds. Alley crops of leucaena have comfrey underneath. The rows of vegetables-cucumbers, eggplant, beets, corn-are bordered with chop-and-drop cowpeas. Tomatoes are growing into cages, an easier option than staking them.
Normally this time of year is dry, but there have been incredible rains recently. Still, it’s too hot for potatoes, which are nearing the end of their harvest, and the carrots-germinating beneath a shade cloth-are getting only one row before being relocated to the kitchen garden, where weeds aren’t as competitive. Fresh beds have been broad-forked rather than turned, and they are waiting for planting.
Grape vines, about twelve months old, are climbing up the fence, even though the climate isn’t well suited for them. Jam is on the horizon. Melons are planted around mulch and compost pits, allowing lots of plants in compacted space and preventing them from overrunning crop rows.
And, it’s all going and growing, in the early morning main crop.
Zaytuna Farm is under continuous development and with ever-changing and evolving on ground research in practice, work is consistently in progress to develop more efficient and productive systems.
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About Geoff:
Geoff is a world-renowned permaculture consultant, designer and teacher. He has established permaculture demonstration sites that function as education centres in all the world’s major climates - information on the success of these systems is networked through the Permaculture Research Institute and the www.permaculturenews.org website.
About Permaculture:
Permaculture (en.wikipedia.o...) integrates land, resources, people and the environment through mutually beneficial synergies - imitating the no waste, closed loop systems seen in diverse natural systems. Permaculture applies holistic solutions that are applicable in rural and urban contexts and at any scale. It is a multidisciplinary toolbox including agriculture, water harvesting and hydrology, energy, natural building, forestry, waste management, animal systems, aquaculture, appropriate technology, economics and community development.
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Enchanting. This is how humans are meant to interact with the land.
Amazing as always, Geoff. Love to Nadia, Latifa and Zaytuna Farm.
Geoff you and John D Liu are my hero s thank you
That's a really paradise.... Wowwwww love this place.
Gertrud Franck - Companion Planting is a wonderful book about cover-crop gardening and is full of useful tidbits to improve efficiency in your gardens. It's readily accessible with a quick Google search and it's great reading, I'm very thankful to Geoff for suggesting it.
Loving these videos
Been watching all your Jordan clips - v. happy to see it's working out as planned. Congrats and welcome back home, Geoff !
Abundance...😊
Beautiful job!
Really like your kitchen garden setup
Thanks, Geoff
Thanks really enjoy what your your doing and sharing. Totally out standing. Just amazing 🌈
Always look forward to & enjoy these Geoff !
wow great demonstrations
What a great sight to see first thing in the morning 😍
Zaytuna!!
So good to see you again.
Best. Site. Ever.
Thank You!
Beautiful
Looks amazing guys! Can't wait to come back one day :)
Amazing!
Fantastic! I must go on a tour soon :)
Thanks for sharing this very helpful information
.
👍👍👍
I would have guessed grapes would do very well there!
Tank you for publishing more frequently, Geoff! I’m always enjoying the new content!
I signed up for the early bird online PDC. I’m just hoping you guys can help me out with splitting up the fee in a few parts, since my budget is all over the place right now 😱🤠
Nice! That was fast paced and full of ideas. I love it. Now... Tell more about the melon circles, please. Why the pit circles? Just for more feed? Would regular addition of compost work, if i planted in a traditional row? Does the pit just make it easier to feed the melons?
I think the idea of the pit is access to a large sink of fertility, but the vine is planted on the outer/upper edge of the pit so it has better drainage and access to other soil if the pit is too rich/hot/wet.
Adding small amounts of mulch/compost over time results in better plants/soil than a single large application.
Love your dog Geoff :)
Bravo from Paris ... Cette vidéo ressemble à un rêve ^_^
Ahh, thank you for this video. I have been scratching my head over annual production thinking I was making it harder than it has to be, but I see that there is no getting around grass growing during the summer and weeds... they're a lot more work than perennials. This is the hard part for me! I am in Texas and I am always fighting grass. I put out 4 inches of wood chips and in one year it was overrun. A real bummer because I installed irrigation and everything. My family lost interest after that in participating but I've kept on going fervently. I hope there is enough time in running a farm for my music career! It seems like such a lifestyle and commitment
Keep going with dogged persistence and you will be learning invaluable lessons all the way.
Very nice...it would be to labor intensive at my age, but I'm glad yo can do it.
Hi Geoff,
I'm Nick from Melbourne, I'm building my sustainable garden now too. So I am going through some studies and implementations.
Talking about vegi yard, I would like to ask if you tried some modifications to further increase sustainability and productivity from what you have now. I am reading through last century agronomist John Owsinski's study "New Agricultural Model" and others. They made me to stop and think further.
Major modification points are as below:
1) Making paths between the rows double the size.
2) Plant veggies double the density density.
3) Introducing composting tranches into the paths.
4) intruding canopy trees to achieve effective 4:1 leaf to soil surface ratio for optimal photosynthesis and water management.
Watering management is my main concern, I aim to have a productive system with 0 watering requirements. Main source is air and rain season water. By means of increasing capillary system in the soil (cover crops) this would increase water holding capacity and penetration for due during dry season. The hotter the weather the more due we get (physics of due point).
All above four point do have scientific meaning, too broad to discuss here. Hopefully you are reading this bolg, we could exchange with thoughts via e-mail if you would have a desire and/or opportunity for this. Best regards!
That's an epic garden! Hey Geoff why are the garden beds so high?
Shanon Hudson they just keep growing and we keep knocking them down
Geoff Lawton: Permaculture Online , that's alot of soil you've made!
Very cool. I like the companion planting with cowpeas; always adding N and groundcover to the soil. Though I like staking my Toms w/ the florida weave; like you said, preference. Why do you guys cage them?
Geoff,
Any chance you can set up two beds as a trial - one broadforked as you are doing, and another no-dig, only mulched with that amazing compost? I wonder if a no-dig approach would relieve some of that weed pressure. See Charles Dowding's Trial beds for what I'm suggesting. What you're doing is obviously producing great results (no surprise there!) but a trial comparison could be fun.
Galen (Online PDC grad, 2015)
I couldn’t follow what was cover crop versus food crop. Is cow pea on outside of mound and food crop on middle of ground?
I'm surprised you fork the garden beds, disturbing the microflora and fungi actually lowers crop production. Charles Dowding has proven that many times with his dig/no dig garden beds. He had a big difference even in the beds he only forked Vs non forked. A major win for those of us who are past the age of digging!
I think the land is a heavy clay that had previously been pastured. Forking may be a one-off soil prep for compacted soil. Broad-forking is less damaging to the soil structure than forking over or digging over. It may be done to provide variable-depth holes for easy seeding.
We are just prying not digging and it is just to relieve compaction created by mistakes made by volunteers learning on site.
Your cowpea looks quite different from the one I'm growing in the same climate.
Can I ask what variety or vendor you use for your cowpea?
Thanks.
Amazing! What does Zaytuna mean?
"Chop and drop the cover crop onto the crop"
This is our other chicken tractor on steroids
Hey Geoff, I have a question. Can you see any issues with using skinned possum in a maggot bucket for my chooks? I'm in NZ and possums carcass is dime a dozen
Shanon Hudson no problem at all
Geoff Lawton: Permaculture Online Great! thanks for the reply.
is this farm related to zaytuna college?
+1
vegetables suck.. and im vegan.. its all about collecting fruit trees now so where da fruit at boy lol u got any jackfruit yet
BetterYouBetterWorld V yes lots
@@DiscoverPermaculture awesome how many years from seed to fruit? ima grow all the tropical fruit in tassie in my native bushland hidden where jacky wont find em, tasmanians dont eat enough fruit and still no1 fixes it but i aint fuckin around bitches lol
By the sun & its brightness, & the moon as it follows it, & the day as it unveils it, & the night as it conceals it! & by heaven and ˹the One˺ Who built it, & the earth & ˹the One˺ Who spread it! (Ash-Shams 91:1-6)
Amazing!