I was thinking about you yesterday when I was unloading the woodchips we brought home on Sunday after we went walking and foraging in the forest. We live in a more remote area and haven't found many tree surgeons near us, but recently we did find a yard about 40 min away, so we've been collecting woodchips from there a day each weekend. I wish we could do it every evening, the garden would look much nicer by now and the soil would be richer sooner. We do what we can. It is so beautiful to see how it develops. Thank you for sharing your food forest with us. Take care!
It's heartening to hear that I'm not alone when it comes to needing to put an end to invasive, obnoxious species. I also loathe glyphosate, but very occasionally there are times when careful use is appropriate. These types of retrospective videos are super helpful as I'm starting out. Very much appreciated. Also really appreciate you spending your lunch break doing this for other people's (and the planet's) benefit. Very grateful.
Glyphosate really goes away very quickly.... you could literally spray it on a piece of land and then maybe even plant something like tomatoes within six weeks and probably not have any detectable levels. Assuming you get about three or 4 inches of rain on that land in that time. You could also use tryclopra or crossbow. There are significantly worse chemicals in the world. The reason glyphosate is in all of our blood is because the fda and other organizations approved it for spraying on wheat after wheat was cut.... to help it dry without mold... yeah. Literally agricultural farm people sprayed the chemical right before we eat it.... and it was legal. If they had sprayed it more than eight weeks before they cut the wheat we all might be ok. That's my limited understanding of it. It might not be 100% correct but that's what I have briefly read
Thanks so much for doing this video, it's so cool seeing the food forest grow through your videos, and I love seeing the permaculture principals pull through and develop a lovely and healthy system. Cheers!
I also made the mistake of trying to interplant annual vegetables rather than give them their own space. Now, I have my hedgerow space, which requires basically no maintenance (or irrigation) and coddled annual vegetable space. The goal is to produce a meaningful yield, which wasn't happening with the interplanting.
I intermingle my vegetables but for different reasons. My neighbours, the pecan workers and people using the swimming pools nearby were constantly jumping the fence and helping themselves and we couldn't keep up. Sometimes we would find them with bucket in hand as they scuttled over the fence. I gave up with the annual garden look. I started planting all over the place and mainly in cleared circles in the long grass and and tree wells. I started emphasising edible weeds (lambs quarter, amaranth, purslane, ladies lace, parsley, coriander) and fruit and vegetables that the locals are not very interested in (pumpkin (they see it as a sweet), watermelon, prickly pear) instead of rows tomato, cucumber, onion chilli, beans and silver beet. These are spread out. The only harvest that I usually defend are the pecans... but it's amazing how many visitors we have suddenly drop by. at this time. It's ok, we have too many anyway.
I love that you treat your "girls" with the love and care that any creature deserves. You get what you give. Thank you for this posting! I love your channel. I was raised with chickens on the farm. They are intelligent and fun! ❤
This type of video is super valuable. It's also been a while since I've commented since I don't have a garden at the moment. I was renting and my landlord went from saying dig the whole yard up and do whatever you want, it's less lawn to mow, to him coming on to the property without asking and cutting down fruit trees I planted. It really shows the importance of land and having control over those types of things, although guerilla gardening is a way to bypass that as long as it's somewhere it won't be disturbed. I live on the third floor and only have a small roof area to grow stuff, so I don't do much, but my friend is thinking of buying 100 acres of land in Kentucky or somewhere where land is cheap, preferable with some sort of stream or pond and a combination of forest and field. I'll definitely be thinking a lot about water management as I think that will be the most important thing to consider when buying land like that. I'm saving up money for a truck and a camper that I can tow to live in while we first start up production on the property. Then we could build more permanent structures etc. Having built a garden/food forest with like 1000 sqft, I definitely would have done a lot differently, mostly starting with land me or my friends/family owned. With 100 acres the idea is to build a healthy ecosystem and as much nutrition production as possible for ourselves, and other life. With that much space, it can definitely attract other people with similar visions too, but unfortunately places like Kentucky aren't safe for everyone for a variety of reasons, namely bigotry, but land can be expensive in a lot of places. 100 acres in Kentucky is only like 100k. I'm definitely going to be thinking a lot about starting another project from scratch, especially after I save up money to jump start it and start planting. It's funny how I turned a lawn into a forest and then my landlord came back and desperately tried to turn it back into a lawn, but I think the soil is forever changed and trees will keep popping up like they have been. He also built a huge fence around it too.
All the best with your dreams. Very frustrating with the lawn tree back to lawn experience. If you are into container gardening, consider wicking bed large totes on wheeled platforms with multiple plant families. One can cover them with a transparent tote early spring and late autumn if you get the tote sizes that correspond. The revolving tower gardens are also fantastic if you can afford them. Bokashi composting system is a great way to break down household waste for things that worms cannot eat. Although they say it can be on your kitchen counter, I found it was better near my plant containers in an insulated old Thermos.
Loved this video. I do feel that you listen and comment on my suggestions. I don't have a bank card at present so it's a bit tricky being a member right now. I hope you realise how much I appreciate your videos. I love walking around your garden hearing lots of common sense and logical order that is sadly lacking in my life. I love seeing all your plants flourish and all the other inhabitants.
Queen Anne's Lace is a culinary gift from Nature. First-year plants are best. Roots, leaves, flowers and seeds are all edible. I've made delicious fritters with the flowers. (Happy to share the recipe if you wish.) Leaves have a distinct peppery taste. Just be sure to be 100% you've identified the plant properly as there are toxic look-alikes.
I'd love to see the recipe and try it. These are definitely QAL, I made a video specifically on 3 things to look for when IDing it - the drop of blood, the flowers shape, and the pike like strands underneath.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Here's the recipe. (sorry I took awhile to get back to you). I collect the flowers keeping a bit of the stem to use as a handle. Heat oil in a frying pan to 350-400 degrees (I've used vegetable oil.) Holding the flower by the stem, dunk it in a bowl with beaten egg. Then, dip in a 2nd bowl that has a mixture of flour, salt and paprika. Place in frying pan - the flowers cook up really fast - it only takes 30-60 seconds to become golden brown. Place on paper towel and once cooled off a bit, use the stem like a fork and enjoy! I find smaller flowers are easier to handle and get the "dunking" down. Adjust amount of egg and flour mixture based upon the number of flowers you pick. It doesn't take a lot. Don't try this with an air fryer - major fail lol. Many health benefits to be gained from this multi-faceted gift from nature. ENJOY! (PS. I mentioned toxic look-alikes for other readers who might not be aware. I know you know your stuff.) Thanks for all you do.
I love this video. You are always inspiring me. Next step would be a pond but I'm not there yet. hehe. Your chicken harbour is gorgeous. I remember when it was an empty one. It was already fantastic but with chickens in it, it's even better! You make me think, rethink, redo sometimes, just continue to do that!
Thanks for this video, I always love the retrospectives, they're super informative to those early on in our permaculturing. One thing I'd like to point out and one thing I'd really appreciate a video on is invasive species. In taking your advice and following what you were doing in finding waste streams of organic material, I inadvertently seeded my property with jumping worms, which seem to be a pretty existentially threatening thing to confront for a budding permaculture property, as the twenty yards or so of woodchips I've applied are likely to disappear within the next two years unless I find a way to keep the worms in check. Additionally, I've been reading that some things like manure you want to avoid unless you can be sure that the feed that the animals are fed don't have any herbicidal chemicals, lest they kill the very things you're trying to fertilize. In both instances, considering your reach, I feel it would be a service to take a moment to discuss how our own good intentions might be undermining our own efforts.
I had poison ivy years ago where I lived at the time and back then I was managing a co-op store I did use the bad roundup spray and even did way over the concentration from the direction (followed the instructions of a chemical expert) yes it worked for a while but they came back anyway.
I have your stinging nettle problem but with blackberries. Now when I get a load of chips I try to use them pretty quick so that I don't spread them around my yard.
Too many blackberries for your family? Sounds like a great problem to have... Plenty to share with friends & coworkers so they get healthy too! Way too much crappy machine made "food products"
I can relate 😂 they’re delicious, but so. terribly. invasive. @acts-1322 one plant could easily take over my whole .1 acre in a year or two if left unchecked.
You probably did the right thing not using chemicals even if you could have tarped instead. I made the mistake of trying to control thistle and I still regret it 3 years later. It got into one of my pear trees and the tree is still recovering after these 3 years. Could take up to 7 to be back to normal. I'm having a hard time finding where to purchase some plants. I'm in Montana and finding sea buckthorn, autumn olive, Egyptian walking onion, and even Jerusalem artichokes is proving to be quite difficult. Anyone have any suggestions?
Love seeing your thoughts on the good and the bad choices made and what you are doing to correct. I am working on woodchips- actually bought a chipper since I have so much wooded area that had damage from hurricane. Planted trees on contour but didn't dig swales, instead I build up above the soil. Next steps are pond and filling out around the trees to create more functional guilds. I have sand under the tops soil so I will need a liner or basin for the pond so might take me a bit to resource that.
This is for anyone in the comments. Behind my house is a wooded bluff. On the other hill over, there is a way to hook up to some State land trail, but there is no trail getting there. I have a dream to create a living and edible trail for the whole neighborhood to use as the start of a rucking trail through these woods to the summit, about 350 feet grade. How in the world would I get this done if I don't own the land? Please advise.
This is an awesome video. I have learned a lot from you and have incorporated some of your ideas into my lot. It won't be the same of course, but your chickens for example give me the idea of how to allow my chickens/ trukeys/ ducks to run through my perennial garden without damaging the asparagus and small fruit trees and maybe eliminating various insects I really don't want. Maybe even removing the bindweed, lol. I haven't made a pond although I'd love to. But with many horses and a cow, dogs cats and possibly goats or sheep in the future I didn't think I could protect everyone and keep the pond clean. But I do have a super large steel guttered roof (stable) just uphill from the area I'm starting as a food forest/ permaculture paddock. Just have to figure out how to get the rainwater running under the driveway with no ditches.
Good job, told you about the chickens few years ago 😂, I followed your method with wood chips and since found out that putting it (or wood shavings) in annual crop actually deprived The plants from nitrogen. My tomato plants and others are not going well this year. Not doing this again lol
Yeah, I've wanted them since I saw Sean Dombrowski's chicken setup (Edible Acres) something like 8 years ago. It just took some time to convince my family.
Large Poison Ivy plants are nearly impossible to remove permanently. You have to dig out the entire root system. Even a tint bit remaining in the ground will resprout eventually. Sadly, glyphosate, triclopyr or similar is needed for infestations. In my research before tackling it on my 2d property I chose glyphosate since it is not as persistent in the ground as triclopyr.
Thanks for another great video! It's well-timed, as you've validated some of the choices I've made here in the first year, and given me a few things to think about before it's "too late" to change. I especially liked the discussion of your hand-dug pond, I want to add one as well but I've been unsure how it would fit in. Is it lined with a plastic pond liner? Now is probably a good time to get started on this, with all the landscape and garden supply sales starting up for the season...
Yep. I wouldn't personally do an non-lined pond. Maybe it's just our soil here, but everyone who has made one has had issues with them. Constant leaks, breaks, etc.
Out of curiosity, what is your soul like? I’m working with dead clay dirt and wondering if an unlined miniature pond would work because of the high clay content or if the pond would eventually bring enough life to the surrounding soil that the pond would fail? It may end up being more of a seasonal pond, since my area gets consistent rain for 9 months and drought for the other 3. Either way, I would love to hear about your experience building a micro pond and what works/hasn’t worked for you. I re-watched that section of this video 3 or 4 times because I’m desperately trying to figure out how to make a pond on a .1 acre lot.
I’ve got rabbits, angoras, so you get valuable fleece instead of eggs. They’re around ten pounds so good eating too. The manure is the best, you can use it right away without burning the plants. Chickens are like a garbage disposal/ composting units that give eggs. Goats are good for clearing forest.
I certainly wouldn't either! I constantly get told by people to get rid of my weeds, and it's always QAL or dandelions they are talking about. Shame shame.
Hey at least poison ivy is native lol. Around here, the parks have programs where people go in to pull all the english ivy, and then poison ivy comes in to take over all the bare soil leftover. Some areas are super dense with poison ivy and i've gotten it in my woodchips before from chipdrop. Horrible stuff, learned the oil stays active for 5 years. crazy stuff
I keep forgetting to say this. After I saw the hugel lasagna video, I tried making a container with the method using composted manure and pine shavings. I CANNOT OVER WATER IT. I know for a fact this pot has holes in the bottom but I haven't seen any water come out of it now. It's not flooding either. It's growing marigolds and they are doing amazing.
Thank you for all your content. I'm planning to start up the beginning of a garden that will help teach me the beginnings of how to grow. Any tips for planting in zones 7a and 7b in shade and also in full sun? Thanks!
Thanks for watching! That question is pretty wide open. Could write an entire book on something so general. I would recommend starting with my essentials playlists, and searching my video for "guide" and watch those videos first. Something like a sheet mulching guide, then a permaculture guild guide, then the soil microbiology guide, and you should be really prepared to get started :)
I get that you hate glyphosate, but if you wanted to use it now, you could paint it on the poison ivy leaves. Really direct application and targeted use, and it will systemically kill the plant. Just a thought!
Yes poison ivy is a battle. I as well used glyphosate when I started to remove it. My problem is amplified as I have a vacant farm with a unused pasture behind us, and it grows through the fence. Gorilla digging and tarps might be the next step. Shhhhhh lol
If you're going to use glyphosate, apply it to the leaves just before the poison ivy goes dormant in the fall. It will be carried to the roots. This is a much more effective use if you're trying to kill a perennial plant.
You still need to be careful. My parents house has an invasive forest of sycamore trees on the edge of native Australian reserve. We tried ring barking, cutting them down and cutting them down and painting the bark edge with glyphosphate. The sycamore trees survived but the chemical washed into the soil and made the enormous (100m) very old mountain ash trees nearby susceptible to fungi and quite a few died. The same effect happened when Parks Victoria were spraying blackberries in the Reserve. For us we now had dead trees likely to fall on the house and we spent a fortune getting some removed. My family now constantly cut back the sycamores and use the timber as firewood. Monsanto and Beyer claim that the chemicals breakdown with healthy soil but they never mention that trees share soil biology, nutrients and are closely connected to eachother.
What is the distance between your swales? I’m planning to dig mines now, and wanted to space them about 20’ apart. The slop is about 10%. Is it too far away? Yours seem to be much closer.
Ooh, I should have mentioned that... Mine are too close. I have mentioned it in other videos, but this would have been a perfect one to mention it in. In general, you want them spaced put about 20 to 50 feet.
I'm on new property now, and I'm spraying some of the poison ivy. (I hate to admit it!). I'm quite allergic, and have had several outbreaks. It's a native plant here, with berries that are good for birds. It's all over the edges of my property and under (and running up) nearly every tree. I decided to work hard to eradicate it in areas where I need to grow, in areas where the grandkids will be playing, and areas where I have to walk through. And leave the rest. There's far to much to actually eradicate it, anyway. My plan is spray, wait for it to re-emerge, spray again, and then smother the area in wood chips. We'll see. It's incredibly persistent.
You forgot to give the ladies their lunch, grapes right over your head. ☝️ I have stopped trying to use my big compost bin with finished compost because I couldn't get it hot enough over "winter" to kill off seeds. I took some of that lovely compost, spread it as top dressing, and now I have more tomato plants than I have pots for. Way too many. I had to buy in soil just to pot up at least some of the tomatoes, without knowing what the varieties are. Literally "surprise, surprise!" Water is essential, but unfortunately a neighbour leaves standing water, then the mosquitoes show up. 🤦♀️ Why haven't you even started a worm composting station? I have one right in the kitchen, doesn't have any bad odours, bugs and it's right where the food scraps go.
I wanted to do a Geoff Lawton worm bin in a bathtub in my cedar forest, but Trish didn't me to. I try to ease her into the permaculture stuff, and I'm very understanding that some of it will take time for her to be okay with.
Love the enthusiasm. A touch evangelical in the rhetoric but understandable. I wish I had a homestead but only have a terraced house in a big city with a little garden. Very enjoyable though. Does the wife know you do tend to .... be a little bit critical of her decision-making? #BuriedInHisOwnContouredSwale
She challenges me and it's actually a very good and healthy thing. I tend to think really big (way too big) and it's good that she is more conservative.
Completed unrelated question- I planted a peach tree in the spring and just found out it’s over a town sewer line that is ~4 to 6 ft deep. Do I need to move it? Specifically will the fruit be safe to eat? I doubt it’ll damage the pipes…
What is the sewer line? Solid pipe? Or corrugated big-O, like from a septic weeping tile? I'm assuming it's a solid pipe. There shouldn't be any concerns with that, besides if the city ever needs to dig to get to it, your tree is probably toast. No concerns with eating fruit from it. I wouldn't grow tuber crops like potatoes there, but a fruit tree is no problem.
Great video Keith! Unrelated question: Do you have any thoughts or insights into pursuing Financial Independence as a climate activist? Index funds especially those in Canada are so Oil and Gas dependent but are tried and trusted over the years.
Investing, not so sure, especially with how the markets are right now. Could be a big drop coming. I'm in really safe stuff at the moment. All I can say is to spend as little as possible, and always try to live well below your means. Over time "your means" will improve. Obviously that's getting harder and harder to do though, as most people are just struggling to survive.
Hi, I will always hear the "design on contour" advise. I live in The Netherlands and it is flat like a pancake. Do you have any useful insights for flat terrain? many thanks!
Thanks for supporting the channel! Answering all comments is how I try to stand out above other youtubers. Plus, my goal for this channel isn't to make money, it's to get as many people growing food as possible. Helping people out is a big passion of mine, because it's the only way we survive the next few hundred years. We need to decentralize the food chain, and increase resiliency.
Hey! My issue is poison oak, not ivy, but I originally learned this from a guy using it for poison ivy. It might be tougher now that your plantings are established, but basically you just use a combination of vinegar, salt, and a bit of dish soap as a surfactant (I think it was 1 cup of salt to 1 gallon of vinegar, but I could be misremembering.) It doesn't seem to be super effective, at least on poison oak, unless the temps are around 90F (32-ish celsius), or at least the mid to upper 80s, but if you spray it on the leaves when it's going to be a hot day it causes the leaves to completely burn and desiccate. It doesn't seem to do anything to blackberries or anything else I've hit with it, but it's great on poison oak. Still experimenting with it. The stuff I sprayed during the hot weather this week is completely defoliated, though. Because it's not a poison, and it's just burning the leaves, I'm assuming it'll take a few applications over the course of the summer as it tries to leaf out again, but presumably if I keep it completely defoliated so it can't photosynthesize the roots will eventually run out of energy. I won't really know until next season if I'm able to kill it off completely with this technique, but I'm hopeful. At least something for people to experiment with before resorting to glyphosate. I can tentatively say that it's effective, I just don't know how tenacious the poison oak is going to be. (Though, I also benefit, in this rare exception, from having not rain for 3+ months from late spring through summer... so once they're defoliated, they don't have a lot of moisture to work with to try to regrow.) My other challenging weed that spreads by rhizome is Canada thistle. It can't come up through grass, though, so where I can I just encourage grass in areas where the thistles grow, wait until the thistles run out of energy, and then sheet mulch and plant whatever I want. But there's also a species of rust that exclusively affects and is very effective at killing Canada thistle, and spreads through the rhizome once that plant is infected and spreads to the whole colony. So I do a combination of mulching with thistles or spraying an extraction from thistles with the hope of spreading the spores over areas where I'm trying to kill or prevent thistles. Some universities/ag departments offer the spores, but generally only to commercial growers within their own states, in my experience.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy What about the much higher concentration of salt (and literal poison) in glyphosate? Is there a reason why the salt in glyphosate is better than the salt in salt? Like, sure, they use more than one type of salt in glyphosate, but they use way more of it. What is the actual concern? The potential effect on soil microbiology? Or am I missing something obvious?
No root in the world can store energy indefinitely - you could just keep a gardening glove with you at all times and just remove the solar panels as soon as you see them...
glyphosate is never the answer. Poison ivy is a low-calcium indicator. Try putting (quenched) high-calcium lime on it. Don't use dolomite, as the magnesium that contains will negate the effects of the calcium. If your soil has a high pH already, you might want to use gypsum instead. Amend it well and wait a season or two. If the poison ivy remains, do it again. Calcium is the nutrient that is the most difficult for ecosystems to collect by themselves, and it's easy to lose it.
Hey, great vid. I got a little worried that you might have stopped making videos because of the world situation deterioration or something. I have a question regarding allelopathic toxins produced by bracken. I have a lot of it on my food forest plot and I have decided that this prehistoric beast must go. Any thoughts on how to get rid of it and clear the soil from toxins? Also I live in Northern Europe and I'm sure that you have also heard news about AMOC collapsing within this century. How would this affect you and have you made some preparations since this also concerns Canada?
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy I live in central New Hampshire USA. Hardiness zone 5A/5B. The growing season can be very harsh. Two years ago we had 27 degrees on June 1st and 27 degrees on Sept. 9th. Fall and Spring weather is just so hard to deal with. I enjoy your channel though!
You can't eradicate a native plant by spraying. You will only create a more resistant version of it. And maybe you would be making a video about how you or a loved one has cancer and how you should have stayed true to your convictions.
Thanks for this tour of your successes and areas for improvement. I didn’t realize that there was such a difference between serviceberry and Saskatoon bushes, I thought they were synonymous. I will be careful with my next purchase. Elmafolia rather than canadensis, did I get that right? I grew up in western Canada and our Saskatoon bushes produced massive amounts of beautiful berries. 🫐
I was thinking about you yesterday when I was unloading the woodchips we brought home on Sunday after we went walking and foraging in the forest. We live in a more remote area and haven't found many tree surgeons near us, but recently we did find a yard about 40 min away, so we've been collecting woodchips from there a day each weekend. I wish we could do it every evening, the garden would look much nicer by now and the soil would be richer sooner. We do what we can. It is so beautiful to see how it develops.
Thank you for sharing your food forest with us. Take care!
It's heartening to hear that I'm not alone when it comes to needing to put an end to invasive, obnoxious species. I also loathe glyphosate, but very occasionally there are times when careful use is appropriate.
These types of retrospective videos are super helpful as I'm starting out. Very much appreciated.
Also really appreciate you spending your lunch break doing this for other people's (and the planet's) benefit. Very grateful.
Thanks so much! :)
Glyphosate really goes away very quickly.... you could literally spray it on a piece of land and then maybe even plant something like tomatoes within six weeks and probably not have any detectable levels. Assuming you get about three or 4 inches of rain on that land in that time. You could also use tryclopra or crossbow. There are significantly worse chemicals in the world. The reason glyphosate is in all of our blood is because the fda and other organizations approved it for spraying on wheat after wheat was cut.... to help it dry without mold... yeah. Literally agricultural farm people sprayed the chemical right before we eat it.... and it was legal.
If they had sprayed it more than eight weeks before they cut the wheat we all might be ok. That's my limited understanding of it. It might not be 100% correct but that's what I have briefly read
Thank you!
You are very welcome!
You make a good point about toxic invasive species competing with the food forest. Thanks for the tip as I begin planning my own food forest.
Thanks so much for doing this video, it's so cool seeing the food forest grow through your videos, and I love seeing the permaculture principals pull through and develop a lovely and healthy system. Cheers!
I also made the mistake of trying to interplant annual vegetables rather than give them their own space. Now, I have my hedgerow space, which requires basically no maintenance (or irrigation) and coddled annual vegetable space. The goal is to produce a meaningful yield, which wasn't happening with the interplanting.
I intermingle my vegetables but for different reasons. My neighbours, the pecan workers and people using the swimming pools nearby were constantly jumping the fence and helping themselves and we couldn't keep up. Sometimes we would find them with bucket in hand as they scuttled over the fence. I gave up with the annual garden look. I started planting all over the place and mainly in cleared circles in the long grass and and tree wells. I started emphasising edible weeds (lambs quarter, amaranth, purslane, ladies lace, parsley, coriander) and fruit and vegetables that the locals are not very interested in (pumpkin (they see it as a sweet), watermelon, prickly pear) instead of rows tomato, cucumber, onion chilli, beans and silver beet. These are spread out. The only harvest that I usually defend are the pecans... but it's amazing how many visitors we have suddenly drop by. at this time. It's ok, we have too many anyway.
@@annburge291 Irritating! But it's good you can hide the food.
I love that you treat your "girls" with the love and care that any creature deserves. You get what you give. Thank you for this posting! I love your channel. I was raised with chickens on the farm. They are intelligent and fun! ❤
So true ❤️ 🌎
The grapes look amazing! 🍇
This type of video is super valuable. It's also been a while since I've commented since I don't have a garden at the moment. I was renting and my landlord went from saying dig the whole yard up and do whatever you want, it's less lawn to mow, to him coming on to the property without asking and cutting down fruit trees I planted. It really shows the importance of land and having control over those types of things, although guerilla gardening is a way to bypass that as long as it's somewhere it won't be disturbed. I live on the third floor and only have a small roof area to grow stuff, so I don't do much, but my friend is thinking of buying 100 acres of land in Kentucky or somewhere where land is cheap, preferable with some sort of stream or pond and a combination of forest and field. I'll definitely be thinking a lot about water management as I think that will be the most important thing to consider when buying land like that. I'm saving up money for a truck and a camper that I can tow to live in while we first start up production on the property. Then we could build more permanent structures etc. Having built a garden/food forest with like 1000 sqft, I definitely would have done a lot differently, mostly starting with land me or my friends/family owned. With 100 acres the idea is to build a healthy ecosystem and as much nutrition production as possible for ourselves, and other life. With that much space, it can definitely attract other people with similar visions too, but unfortunately places like Kentucky aren't safe for everyone for a variety of reasons, namely bigotry, but land can be expensive in a lot of places. 100 acres in Kentucky is only like 100k. I'm definitely going to be thinking a lot about starting another project from scratch, especially after I save up money to jump start it and start planting. It's funny how I turned a lawn into a forest and then my landlord came back and desperately tried to turn it back into a lawn, but I think the soil is forever changed and trees will keep popping up like they have been. He also built a huge fence around it too.
Thanks a lot of people really liked this one, it's great feedback for me, so I can produce videos aimed towards what people like
All the best with your dreams. Very frustrating with the lawn tree back to lawn experience. If you are into container gardening, consider wicking bed large totes on wheeled platforms with multiple plant families. One can cover them with a transparent tote early spring and late autumn if you get the tote sizes that correspond. The revolving tower gardens are also fantastic if you can afford them. Bokashi composting system is a great way to break down household waste for things that worms cannot eat. Although they say it can be on your kitchen counter, I found it was better near my plant containers in an insulated old Thermos.
Great video! I agree with planting very densely, so there is no bare soil .That has helped keep moisture in and improved the soil.
Loved this video. I do feel that you listen and comment on my suggestions. I don't have a bank card at present so it's a bit tricky being a member right now. I hope you realise how much I appreciate your videos. I love walking around your garden hearing lots of common sense and logical order that is sadly lacking in my life. I love seeing all your plants flourish and all the other inhabitants.
Absolutely!! There's never any pressure to join
Queen Anne's Lace is a culinary gift from Nature. First-year plants are best. Roots, leaves, flowers and seeds are all edible. I've made delicious fritters with the flowers. (Happy to share the recipe if you wish.) Leaves have a distinct peppery taste. Just be sure to be 100% you've identified the plant properly as there are toxic look-alikes.
I'd love to see the recipe and try it. These are definitely QAL, I made a video specifically on 3 things to look for when IDing it - the drop of blood, the flowers shape, and the pike like strands underneath.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Here's the recipe. (sorry I took awhile to get back to you). I collect the flowers keeping a bit of the stem to use as a handle. Heat oil in a frying pan to 350-400 degrees (I've used vegetable oil.) Holding the flower by the stem, dunk it in a bowl with beaten egg. Then, dip in a 2nd bowl that has a mixture of flour, salt and paprika. Place in frying pan - the flowers cook up really fast - it only takes 30-60 seconds to become golden brown. Place on paper towel and once cooled off a bit, use the stem like a fork and enjoy! I find smaller flowers are easier to handle and get the "dunking" down. Adjust amount of egg and flour mixture based upon the number of flowers you pick. It doesn't take a lot. Don't try this with an air fryer - major fail lol. Many health benefits to be gained from this multi-faceted gift from nature. ENJOY! (PS. I mentioned toxic look-alikes for other readers who might not be aware. I know you know your stuff.) Thanks for all you do.
Really enjoyed this!
Awesome, this feedback is important to me, so I know what people want to see, thank you!
Wow. That’s a ton of grapes! You must need to bring in some for your coworkers, friends, chickens, freezer…
We make grape kombucha, so yummy
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacythat sounds delicious… I’ve been meaning to learn to make this.
Love this video!
😊
I love this video. You are always inspiring me. Next step would be a pond but I'm not there yet. hehe. Your chicken harbour is gorgeous. I remember when it was an empty one. It was already fantastic but with chickens in it, it's even better! You make me think, rethink, redo sometimes, just continue to do that!
Thanks as always ❤️
Thanks for this video, I always love the retrospectives, they're super informative to those early on in our permaculturing. One thing I'd like to point out and one thing I'd really appreciate a video on is invasive species. In taking your advice and following what you were doing in finding waste streams of organic material, I inadvertently seeded my property with jumping worms, which seem to be a pretty existentially threatening thing to confront for a budding permaculture property, as the twenty yards or so of woodchips I've applied are likely to disappear within the next two years unless I find a way to keep the worms in check.
Additionally, I've been reading that some things like manure you want to avoid unless you can be sure that the feed that the animals are fed don't have any herbicidal chemicals, lest they kill the very things you're trying to fertilize. In both instances, considering your reach, I feel it would be a service to take a moment to discuss how our own good intentions might be undermining our own efforts.
I had poison ivy years ago where I lived at the time and back then I was managing a co-op store I did use the bad roundup spray and even did way over the concentration from the direction (followed the instructions of a chemical expert) yes it worked for a while but they came back anyway.
I have your stinging nettle problem but with blackberries. Now when I get a load of chips I try to use them pretty quick so that I don't spread them around my yard.
Too many blackberries for your family? Sounds like a great problem to have... Plenty to share with friends & coworkers so they get healthy too!
Way too much crappy machine made "food products"
I can relate 😂 they’re delicious, but so. terribly. invasive. @acts-1322 one plant could easily take over my whole .1 acre in a year or two if left unchecked.
You probably did the right thing not using chemicals even if you could have tarped instead. I made the mistake of trying to control thistle and I still regret it 3 years later. It got into one of my pear trees and the tree is still recovering after these 3 years. Could take up to 7 to be back to normal.
I'm having a hard time finding where to purchase some plants. I'm in Montana and finding sea buckthorn, autumn olive, Egyptian walking onion, and even Jerusalem artichokes is proving to be quite difficult. Anyone have any suggestions?
I'm considering a comfrey rhizome barrier/row in my front yard for bindweed, and in my back yard for poison ivy. Good luck!!
You too!
Love seeing your thoughts on the good and the bad choices made and what you are doing to correct. I am working on woodchips- actually bought a chipper since I have so much wooded area that had damage from hurricane. Planted trees on contour but didn't dig swales, instead I build up above the soil. Next steps are pond and filling out around the trees to create more functional guilds. I have sand under the tops soil so I will need a liner or basin for the pond so might take me a bit to resource that.
Good luck!
This is for anyone in the comments.
Behind my house is a wooded bluff. On the other hill over, there is a way to hook up to some State land trail, but there is no trail getting there.
I have a dream to create a living and edible trail for the whole neighborhood to use as the start of a rucking trail through these woods to the summit, about 350 feet grade.
How in the world would I get this done if I don't own the land? Please advise.
Gorilla gardening via seeds
@@Acts-1322 That is a good idea.
Check out mu video called "no land no problem", and also my visit to Vancouver BC where I have a long tangent on guerilla gardening.
This is an awesome video. I have learned a lot from you and have incorporated some of your ideas into my lot. It won't be the same of course, but your chickens for example give me the idea of how to allow my chickens/ trukeys/ ducks to run through my perennial garden without damaging the asparagus and small fruit trees and maybe eliminating various insects I really don't want. Maybe even removing the bindweed, lol.
I haven't made a pond although I'd love to. But with many horses and a cow, dogs cats and possibly goats or sheep in the future I didn't think I could protect everyone and keep the pond clean. But I do have a super large steel guttered roof (stable) just uphill from the area I'm starting as a food forest/ permaculture paddock. Just have to figure out how to get the rainwater running under the driveway with no ditches.
Good job, told you about the chickens few years ago 😂, I followed your method with wood chips and since found out that putting it (or wood shavings) in annual crop actually deprived The plants from nitrogen. My tomato plants and others are not going well this year. Not doing this again lol
Yeah, I've wanted them since I saw Sean Dombrowski's chicken setup (Edible Acres) something like 8 years ago. It just took some time to convince my family.
Large Poison Ivy plants are nearly impossible to remove permanently. You have to dig out the entire root system. Even a tint bit remaining in the ground will resprout eventually. Sadly, glyphosate, triclopyr or similar is needed for infestations. In my research before tackling it on my 2d property I chose glyphosate since it is not as persistent in the ground as triclopyr.
Thanks for another great video! It's well-timed, as you've validated some of the choices I've made here in the first year, and given me a few things to think about before it's "too late" to change.
I especially liked the discussion of your hand-dug pond, I want to add one as well but I've been unsure how it would fit in. Is it lined with a plastic pond liner? Now is probably a good time to get started on this, with all the landscape and garden supply sales starting up for the season...
Yep. I wouldn't personally do an non-lined pond. Maybe it's just our soil here, but everyone who has made one has had issues with them. Constant leaks, breaks, etc.
Out of curiosity, what is your soul like? I’m working with dead clay dirt and wondering if an unlined miniature pond would work because of the high clay content or if the pond would eventually bring enough life to the surrounding soil that the pond would fail? It may end up being more of a seasonal pond, since my area gets consistent rain for 9 months and drought for the other 3. Either way, I would love to hear about your experience building a micro pond and what works/hasn’t worked for you. I re-watched that section of this video 3 or 4 times because I’m desperately trying to figure out how to make a pond on a .1 acre lot.
I’ve got rabbits, angoras, so you get valuable fleece instead of eggs. They’re around ten pounds so good eating too. The manure is the best, you can use it right away without burning the plants. Chickens are like a garbage disposal/ composting units that give eggs. Goats are good for clearing forest.
I wouldn't call queen Anne's lace ugly. Plus, if carrot "pests" are an issue in the area, they would rather go for queen Anne's lace.
I certainly wouldn't either! I constantly get told by people to get rid of my weeds, and it's always QAL or dandelions they are talking about. Shame shame.
The only real reason to need to get rid of qal is if one is growing carrot out to seed. They'll cross if you look at them the wrong way!
Hey at least poison ivy is native lol. Around here, the parks have programs where people go in to pull all the english ivy, and then poison ivy comes in to take over all the bare soil leftover. Some areas are super dense with poison ivy and i've gotten it in my woodchips before from chipdrop. Horrible stuff, learned the oil stays active for 5 years. crazy stuff
I keep forgetting to say this. After I saw the hugel lasagna video, I tried making a container with the method using composted manure and pine shavings. I CANNOT OVER WATER IT. I know for a fact this pot has holes in the bottom but I haven't seen any water come out of it now. It's not flooding either. It's growing marigolds and they are doing amazing.
Super cool
Thank you for all your content. I'm planning to start up the beginning of a garden that will help teach me the beginnings of how to grow. Any tips for planting in zones 7a and 7b in shade and also in full sun? Thanks!
Thanks for watching! That question is pretty wide open. Could write an entire book on something so general. I would recommend starting with my essentials playlists, and searching my video for "guide" and watch those videos first. Something like a sheet mulching guide, then a permaculture guild guide, then the soil microbiology guide, and you should be really prepared to get started :)
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy I appreciate it :)
I get that you hate glyphosate, but if you wanted to use it now, you could paint it on the poison ivy leaves. Really direct application and targeted use, and it will systemically kill the plant. Just a thought!
This is exactly the way I would have used it if I did.
I do think the problem is getting better each year as those gardens shade out the main plant.
The right tool for the right job. You don't need to use glyphosate for basic weeds but you sure do need it for poison ivy.
Yes poison ivy is a battle. I as well used glyphosate when I started to remove it. My problem is amplified as I have a vacant farm with a unused pasture behind us, and it grows through the fence. Gorilla digging and tarps might be the next step. Shhhhhh lol
If you're going to use glyphosate, apply it to the leaves just before the poison ivy goes dormant in the fall. It will be carried to the roots. This is a much more effective use if you're trying to kill a perennial plant.
You still need to be careful. My parents house has an invasive forest of sycamore trees on the edge of native Australian reserve. We tried ring barking, cutting them down and cutting them down and painting the bark edge with glyphosphate. The sycamore trees survived but the chemical washed into the soil and made the enormous (100m) very old mountain ash trees nearby susceptible to fungi and quite a few died. The same effect happened when Parks Victoria were spraying blackberries in the Reserve. For us we now had dead trees likely to fall on the house and we spent a fortune getting some removed. My family now constantly cut back the sycamores and use the timber as firewood. Monsanto and Beyer claim that the chemicals breakdown with healthy soil but they never mention that trees share soil biology, nutrients and are closely connected to eachother.
What is the distance between your swales? I’m planning to dig mines now, and wanted to space them about 20’ apart. The slop is about 10%. Is it too far away? Yours seem to be much closer.
Ooh, I should have mentioned that... Mine are too close. I have mentioned it in other videos, but this would have been a perfect one to mention it in.
In general, you want them spaced put about 20 to 50 feet.
I'm on new property now, and I'm spraying some of the poison ivy. (I hate to admit it!). I'm quite allergic, and have had several outbreaks. It's a native plant here, with berries that are good for birds. It's all over the edges of my property and under (and running up) nearly every tree. I decided to work hard to eradicate it in areas where I need to grow, in areas where the grandkids will be playing, and areas where I have to walk through. And leave the rest. There's far to much to actually eradicate it, anyway. My plan is spray, wait for it to re-emerge, spray again, and then smother the area in wood chips. We'll see. It's incredibly persistent.
Best of luck :(
You forgot to give the ladies their lunch, grapes right over your head. ☝️ I have stopped trying to use my big compost bin with finished compost because I couldn't get it hot enough over "winter" to kill off seeds. I took some of that lovely compost, spread it as top dressing, and now I have more tomato plants than I have pots for. Way too many.
I had to buy in soil just to pot up at least some of the tomatoes, without knowing what the varieties are. Literally "surprise, surprise!"
Water is essential, but unfortunately a neighbour leaves standing water, then the mosquitoes show up. 🤦♀️
Why haven't you even started a worm composting station? I have one right in the kitchen, doesn't have any bad odours, bugs and it's right where the food scraps go.
I wanted to do a Geoff Lawton worm bin in a bathtub in my cedar forest, but Trish didn't me to. I try to ease her into the permaculture stuff, and I'm very understanding that some of it will take time for her to be okay with.
very nice. any public tours this season coming up?
I don't think so, we've been so busy, and my work is really intense at the moment. Perhaps next year though.
Makes sense. Alrighty I hope to make it out next year!@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy
Love the enthusiasm. A touch evangelical in the rhetoric but understandable. I wish I had a homestead but only have a terraced house in a big city with a little garden. Very enjoyable though. Does the wife know you do tend to .... be a little bit critical of her decision-making?
#BuriedInHisOwnContouredSwale
She challenges me and it's actually a very good and healthy thing. I tend to think really big (way too big) and it's good that she is more conservative.
Fairly Local Family has recently moved in your general area, it would be fun to make a video together... They'll be unpacking for a while, though..
I have a wooded area behind my house, the poison ivy is terrible. 😢
Completed unrelated question- I planted a peach tree in the spring and just found out it’s over a town sewer line that is ~4 to 6 ft deep. Do I need to move it? Specifically will the fruit be safe to eat? I doubt it’ll damage the pipes…
What is the sewer line? Solid pipe? Or corrugated big-O, like from a septic weeping tile? I'm assuming it's a solid pipe.
There shouldn't be any concerns with that, besides if the city ever needs to dig to get to it, your tree is probably toast.
No concerns with eating fruit from it. I wouldn't grow tuber crops like potatoes there, but a fruit tree is no problem.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy thanks for responding! It’s a plastic kind, 6 inch diameter
Great video Keith! Unrelated question: Do you have any thoughts or insights into pursuing Financial Independence as a climate activist? Index funds especially those in Canada are so Oil and Gas dependent but are tried and trusted over the years.
Investing, not so sure, especially with how the markets are right now. Could be a big drop coming. I'm in really safe stuff at the moment. All I can say is to spend as little as possible, and always try to live well below your means. Over time "your means" will improve. Obviously that's getting harder and harder to do though, as most people are just struggling to survive.
Can you please do a video on fungus and fungicides?
Hi, I will always hear the "design on contour" advise. I live in The Netherlands and it is flat like a pancake. Do you have any useful insights for flat terrain? many thanks!
Flat terrain is perfect in terms of spreading water evenly, so you can just get to planting any design of gardens you want. It's like a blank canvas!
Thanks! Heads of to you for being so dedicated responding to questions. @@CanadianPermacultureLegacy
Thanks for supporting the channel! Answering all comments is how I try to stand out above other youtubers. Plus, my goal for this channel isn't to make money, it's to get as many people growing food as possible. Helping people out is a big passion of mine, because it's the only way we survive the next few hundred years. We need to decentralize the food chain, and increase resiliency.
Hey! My issue is poison oak, not ivy, but I originally learned this from a guy using it for poison ivy. It might be tougher now that your plantings are established, but basically you just use a combination of vinegar, salt, and a bit of dish soap as a surfactant (I think it was 1 cup of salt to 1 gallon of vinegar, but I could be misremembering.) It doesn't seem to be super effective, at least on poison oak, unless the temps are around 90F (32-ish celsius), or at least the mid to upper 80s, but if you spray it on the leaves when it's going to be a hot day it causes the leaves to completely burn and desiccate. It doesn't seem to do anything to blackberries or anything else I've hit with it, but it's great on poison oak.
Still experimenting with it. The stuff I sprayed during the hot weather this week is completely defoliated, though. Because it's not a poison, and it's just burning the leaves, I'm assuming it'll take a few applications over the course of the summer as it tries to leaf out again, but presumably if I keep it completely defoliated so it can't photosynthesize the roots will eventually run out of energy. I won't really know until next season if I'm able to kill it off completely with this technique, but I'm hopeful.
At least something for people to experiment with before resorting to glyphosate. I can tentatively say that it's effective, I just don't know how tenacious the poison oak is going to be. (Though, I also benefit, in this rare exception, from having not rain for 3+ months from late spring through summer... so once they're defoliated, they don't have a lot of moisture to work with to try to regrow.)
My other challenging weed that spreads by rhizome is Canada thistle. It can't come up through grass, though, so where I can I just encourage grass in areas where the thistles grow, wait until the thistles run out of energy, and then sheet mulch and plant whatever I want. But there's also a species of rust that exclusively affects and is very effective at killing Canada thistle, and spreads through the rhizome once that plant is infected and spreads to the whole colony. So I do a combination of mulching with thistles or spraying an extraction from thistles with the hope of spreading the spores over areas where I'm trying to kill or prevent thistles. Some universities/ag departments offer the spores, but generally only to commercial growers within their own states, in my experience.
The only thing I don't like there is the salt. I don't ever add it to my soil.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy What about the much higher concentration of salt (and literal poison) in glyphosate? Is there a reason why the salt in glyphosate is better than the salt in salt? Like, sure, they use more than one type of salt in glyphosate, but they use way more of it.
What is the actual concern? The potential effect on soil microbiology? Or am I missing something obvious?
Your poison probably came in with the mulch and was shredded up with the wood. Birds also eat the berries and plant it when they poo.
No root in the world can store energy indefinitely - you could just keep a gardening glove with you at all times and just remove the solar panels as soon as you see them...
Is the hand-dug pond made with liner or with clay? Lots of love from Germany!
Liner, it's sandy gravel soil there.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Thanks. I was wondering the same thing!
As you know, poison ivy often climbs trees. The mulch you are bringing into your yard may have poison ivy roots and seeds hiding in it.
Indeed, part of the cost of doing business :(
glyphosate is never the answer. Poison ivy is a low-calcium indicator. Try putting (quenched) high-calcium lime on it. Don't use dolomite, as the magnesium that contains will negate the effects of the calcium. If your soil has a high pH already, you might want to use gypsum instead. Amend it well and wait a season or two. If the poison ivy remains, do it again. Calcium is the nutrient that is the most difficult for ecosystems to collect by themselves, and it's easy to lose it.
Hey, great vid. I got a little worried that you might have stopped making videos because of the world situation deterioration or something.
I have a question regarding allelopathic toxins produced by bracken. I have a lot of it on my food forest plot and I have decided that this prehistoric beast must go. Any thoughts on how to get rid of it and clear the soil from toxins? Also I live in Northern Europe and I'm sure that you have also heard news about AMOC collapsing within this century. How would this affect you and have you made some preparations since this also concerns Canada?
Actually, I've been VERY busy. I made a short today about what I've been busy with. Something I'm really excited about!
Where in Canada is this?
Near Toronto
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy I live in central New Hampshire USA. Hardiness zone 5A/5B. The growing season can be very harsh. Two years ago we had 27 degrees on June 1st and 27 degrees on Sept. 9th. Fall and Spring weather is just so hard to deal with. I enjoy your channel though!
do you still work in engineering at all?
Yes full time in nuclear.
Just pull the poison ivy every time u see it ...... if u get poison ivy ,just put stick deodorant on it .. works great
You can't eradicate a native plant by spraying. You will only create a more resistant version of it. And maybe you would be making a video about how you or a loved one has cancer and how you should have stayed true to your convictions.
Thanks for this tour of your successes and areas for improvement. I didn’t realize that there was such a difference between serviceberry and Saskatoon bushes, I thought they were synonymous. I will be careful with my next purchase. Elmafolia rather than canadensis, did I get that right? I grew up in western Canada and our Saskatoon bushes produced massive amounts of beautiful berries. 🫐
Alnifolia, yes.