I wish I could convey how much gratitude I have after seeing this video. I am subscribed under another name and watch all of your videos. After watching your videos and Akiva's, we approached this method last Spring with very attractive results. The harvesting method was exactly what we were waiting for. Much thanks my friend!
Sean/Shawn. I just want to say that you are such an inspiration to me. You and Sasha seem like such _Good People_ doing _Good Work._ Thank you. Thank you for the videos. Thank you for for teaching us. Thanks for the Guild Info. Thank you for all the videos. Just *Thank You.*
I used a 1 x 2 ft. airprune bed, 6 inches deep for hazelnuts this year. The potting mix I used settled and they probably only had 4 inches to grow their roots. They did grow well but I’m sure they would have done better with a deeper airprune bed. I’ll put them in the ground and let them grow out another year. I revisit your videos often as they are a wealth of information. Thank you!😊
So glad you are experimenting. Yes, 4" is pretty shallow and would have influence on how well they can develop, but you learn as you go and I'm sure it only gets better over time!
I received my chestnut trees from you guys last week. I cant wait to see them wake up in the spring. The drawing on the package was a very nice touch btw haha
I made a 2.5 by 2.5 square foot airprune bed this year and planted several different trees in it anything i could cram in. Kahzak apples, white walnut, white mullberry, honey locust, hazels ect ect one thing i will say is the mullberry and apples certainly didnt need to be grown in a airprune bed but it wrked well and i used it not only to grow my taprooted trees but also save space. Mullberry was not a good choice i got a very intensly fibrous root system was about 2 feet wide and massive. They were hard to tease out. I had a foot deep of soil in the bed and it was to big to move and airpruned well i would nt go any deeper . Also i think i will irrigate next time
Another great video! I would love to see a video focusing on how you will advertise, market and ship these beautiful fruits of your labor. Both of you are doing much needed and inspiring work I applaud all that you have accomplished. I've been discouraged trying to sell my trees and bushes on Craig's list in our area of Central New York. I have a lot to learn about marketing, selling and shipping trees and bushes. I've learned a lot from your videos and Akiva's Twisted Tree Farm. Thank you for another great video.
@@kirstenwhitworth8079 Yes I just checked it out. Very impressive website and I suspect they spent a lot of time creating it which is probably been very well worth it.
Thank you, this series was so precious for me! I‘m an absolute newcomer to permaculture and forrest gardens and I‘m amazed by this concept. We want to design our new site on permaculture & forrest garden principles. Until I found your channel I was worried about the prices for trees here in Europe, what makes it impossible for us - and I think many other people - to plant a food forrest. I thought it would be rocket science to grow trees and that it would take years… But now I‘m super inspired to grow our own trees and hopefully save all those old varieties of trees that we have around us, here in this area in Slavonia/ Croatia. We have pretty much the same climate conditions and the same trees - locust, walnuts, chestnuts, hazelnuts - like you… plus many fruit trees, we‘re in the fruit area of Croatia… So I‘m still try to keep up watching all your hundreds of valuable videos to learn from you… there‘s nothing comparable in the german speaking garden community! So, THANK YOU! 🙏🏻❤️
You can absolutely do this! Air prune boxes can be made with truly beginner level carpentry skills (thats what I bring to the proejct!) and the numbers of trees you can grow per year that are ready for planting in the field is stunning. Sending you positive and assuring energy that you can grow hundreds if not thousands of trees a year where you live!!
So makes me wish I had more than a tiny yard to grow a couple of your beautiful tree starts into an amazing beauty and resource. Grateful for your work.
The air prune system lets you grow literally hundreds if not thousands of trees a year in the size of a parking space!! You can have your small space be a fountain of trees to send out into the world, so so much higher yield than just a few trees planted :)
Our air prune beds are built for next year. Our land is most suited for a nursery of trees and perennial food forest plants, and for seed saving/selling. Between you and Akiva,we have learned a lot. We have prepared our site for our air prune beds, and for burying our tree seeds to stratify over winter. Definitely, we are looking forward to doing this.
So excited for you! Expect a ton of things to go wrong, lot's of things to come out differently than you thought, and plans to do it for a few years and it can be a super rewarding process! Ha! Took a while to get to the point where I could offer a video of a box filled with little trees! :)
EdibleAcres We figure lots will go wrong (if the first four years on our place are any indication!) Is the spot you have your airprune beds shaded through the day?
Amazing to watch your systems and process. WOW. It's this kind of wisdom that has fallen to the wayside. Thank you for continuing to post these wonderful videos and for doing such meaningful work. The SLOW life and gentle ways. There's real beauty in it.
Good stuff! The 1 X 2's would work great for me since I'm not trying to sell any of my trees. All of my trees will be planted on my land. Thanks for sharing.
When I get the chance to use this method and start reforesting parts of Scotland - if I get in trouble with the polis, I'm blaming you!! Seriously, this method will work for Cherry, Rowan and Birch, will it work for pines as well? Hi Stanley!!
I currently have over 50 young saplings growing in pots to plant on the edge of my local woodland. I'm also in Scotland (fife). A local farmer has gave me permission to plant on a slope that he doesn't use. I'm trying to reconnect 2 patches of woodland.
Great video, one question, imagine you have a group of young trees that need more than one season in the box, such as trees you intend to graft in 2nd year, or slow growers like pawpaw, could you just leave them in the box over winter, or must you take them all out, hill them in and replant them again in the boxes next spring???
If you have a mild winter you could potentially leave them in the box, but you may consider applying some good generous mulch all around the box in the form of leaves, straw, etc... LOVE your videos by the way :)
I watched the sir prune bed videos a year or so ago, after starting some chestnuts and walnuts sprouting. I didn't get the chance to build a bed so used a 40l grow bag with slits cut in the bottom, wrapped in chicken wire for pest protection but also kept it off the ground (sand in my front garden - former drive). They have grown well, about 40 trees, a foot tall each. Now to find their forever homes! Last week, I built 2 air prune beds for this year's nuts! Thanks for the inspiration. Have also layered my hazel trees and taken a couple dozen willow cuttings.
That's really impressive! It really drives home how abundance is possible, all around us. I've been relying on the squirrels for my walnuts (black and English) and hazel seedlings, but you've inspired me to try something more organized. My parents in Arkansas get a good crop of wild American chestnuts from a scrubby old multi-branched tree/shrub, every year. We eat a lot of them, but with your system, it would be worth growing some, too. They are delicious, so sweet! It must have been something when Chestnuts were the most common tree in the eastern hardwood forests.
I would hope you grow some of them out from seed. You can see it isn't too big a deal, and if you build nice little boxes you can reuse them for years!
Thank you for such valuable information, I will be trying this method this autumn for a new tree nursery in Norfolk, UK. Excellent video and updates, best wishes
My first year with air pruned beds has been a mixed bag. Many of the seeds failed to germinate at all. We had a droughty period and I failed to recognize how fast these beds can dry out (especially with our very sandy soil) and that definitely inhibited growth of some things. Even so, I have one bed of Eleagnus that has several hundred seedlings in it. My Seaberry bed only produced six or seven seedlings from 500 seeds, but that was with me doing everything wrong about planting them ;) I'll be trying again with better understanding.
Another random thought...where i live a lot of the kids take agriculture in high school. They get class credits for helping on local farms and nurseries. Also kids in the jobs program get work experience. I did that at Commonwealth gardens for 6 months. I loved it! I didn't even mind that i wasn't getting paid and had to drive an hour to get there.
Decided to follow your example after watching your first video. We are repurposing an old wooden trailer into a large (and totally static!) airprune bed. Nearly finished, we'll see how it goes 😊
For Real!! The Forest is the Future! New subscriber, Love your very high quality content. I learned so much in this one video for example. I’m a bit confused though because it seems like you started out on one property of .5 acres and then there is the current 6 acres, with the hedge rows and pond networks...is that correct? I haven’t seen any transition videos so I’m figuring out if it’s the same location with different angles or different location all together and maybe you started over? Wow that sounds like a big project. Love from the west coast.
oh man.. this is one of the MOST EXCITING video series I have watched on your channel :o and that's saying A LOT, cause I freakin' love your work and keep recommending it to everyone I know who has an interest in doing the good work (growing much needed green stuff everywhere, basically). No, seriously, I'm pretty sure if these weren't covid times I'd be accosting strangers on the bus and telling them all about this Edible Acres youtube channel they should check out and subscribe
hi, thx for the video, I love the concept. this year I tried two methods, first was planting walnuts into my raised beds and air pruned containers,. in raised beds, trees were super thick but digging them out was a nightmare I almost lost there my spine (i had to dig a meter deep). air prune beds are a piece of cake to clean. take care
I can't wait until the blight-resistant American Chestnuts are approved and ready for repopulating into the wild. I hope to get my hands on some of those trees and I will plant them EVERYWHERE! :D
@@edibleacres I don't share that fear. Natural hybridization can only get us so far; its limited and can be a losing battle. And it's long window of getting results can be too slow for the most aggressive pathogens. Genetic science gives us a more exacting ability to protect against devastating diseases in a reasonable timeframe.
@@punkyroo Nature has been doing this just fine for a very long time. The more humans get involved, the worse things usually turn out in my experience.
why wait? all chestnuts will hybridize with each other...get some chinese + american+ korean + japanese chesnuts and grow them all together. lots of folks are already growing chestnuts . spite the blight
Just came across you site and you have a nice set up. My wife and I have started planting chestnuts and we gained some great info from this video. I like the boxes, I may build a few this spring.
love these boxes and i'm going to build some...seems like an achievable first woodworking project! started germinating some chestnuts and other trees this winter & i'm gonna have to put em somewhere :) thanks 4 all yr informative videos...found out about yr channel from my local permaculture guild... soil covered thumbs up from the great basin 🌰
Cool application of air pruning I haven’t seen before! You mentioned the tap root gets air pruned at the bottom promoting lateral growth. 1) does this impact the overall growth potential of a tree? 2) does a new taproot grow when the tree gets bigger?
1) I don't believe it has a negative effect on long term growth. 2) I don't think they build a new taproot, but instead build a ton of healthy fibrous lateral roots.
What was the purpose of overwintering the plants by healing them in, rather than leaving them in the boxes all winter? Is it because your winter's are too cold? Or do you need the parking spot? My understanding is that air pruned Trees can stay almost indefinitely in the boxes until you are ready for them.I am just recently learning about this, so I 'd appreciate your input. Thank you for the great video and for caring about the treatment of the Trees. I'll continue to watch your videos.
I don't see these for sale yet on your website. When will these be for sale? I am in N TX and now is the time to plant trees. I loved these videos. I love the beds and will be doing this myself.
We planted a couple hardy pomegranates(northern NJ) out in the open in late August. Any tips for helping them survive their first freezes? The wind really whips through our yard. I was thinking of just mounding leaves around their base.
Thanks for your interest. I will keep it in mind that there is interest in seeing what happens after this first stage and see if we can make a video about it!
Another question (and again, sorry if this has an obvious answer I missed): why do you remove the plants from the beds and heel them in? What's the advantage of doing that over leaving them in the beds? Thanks, Sean! I learn so much from you, much appreciation to you for your generosity in sharing your knowledge.
EA hs cold winters with deep snow. Heeling in keeps the roots a tad warmer with access to deep native soil. In the boxes, the air/cold underneath the roots might kill the roots. Just my 2¢ - I could be wrong.
Recently put out 150 pawpaw seeds into an air prune bed, thinking the seeds will vernalize naturally out doors. Looking forward to see how it turns out!
I've watched the other air prune bed videos, so I'm sorry if this is a topic I missed: once you plant a baby tree like this in a permanent home, does it restart its taproot development? Or does the taproot prune permanently at this stage? If the latter, do you see a difference between air-pruned trees and trees that were grown from seed in their final location? Thanks!
Once the tap root has been pruned off and the tree focuses on the laterals it continues with that, creating a rich, healthy, fibrous root system in its permanent location.
@@edibleacres Question yet on the tap root .. ( this is why I was scrolling the comments) - so, the trees generally will be truly fine without a natural/site grown taproot ? Will it matter as to what type of ground they're on ( ridgetop area, where rock layer may be fairly close to surface) ? Not my main reason for asking, but I'm interested in growing paw paws - potentially, would have to work w/breed for hardiest/hardier varieties for here in zone 4a. I've always read that due to their establishing a deep taproot right away, they hate being disturbed once planted ( seedlings you'd order) so i wonder, if i grow them, or any tree thus described, if i should plant the seeds or super young seedlings in place ? Avoid limiting taproot along w the least issues in general w being disturbed ? Being clear as I can w what im trying to wrap my mind around, I not very tree-experienced, thanks for any reply !!!
Inspired by you I started an air pruning bed. I am still waiting for the chestnuts and pawpaws I planted to go dormant but there is a few days of frost coming up next week. I'm not sure what to do, disturb them when they aren't fully dormant or let them try to handle the frost. Any advice you might have would be greatly appreciated!
Frost is completely reasonable for them, it is getting down into the teens (in F) that can be tough. A light frost or a few nights down in the upper 20s helps the plants go dormant, and you can move them after that.
On your heavy top cage problem- A 2 in x 2 in frame drilled with holes to accept 3/4 in bent emt conduit in a squared off U shape might be much lighter. I would attach the hardware cloth with wire or UV zip ties.
Hello I'm Honeybe I'm new to your channel but I am a every day home gradner and I love growing fresh food for my family. Now the question how many different kinds of walnut tree's can I grow in southern California. I don't stay in a farming area with great soil and close to the mountains.
Would the healed in beds benefit at all from something like a cattle panel greenhouse over the winter, or would the slightly warmer temps not matter with them being dormant?
I've found that gently tickling tangled roots when the soil is fairly dry works well for separating seedlings. I'd be afraid that the weight of a saturated root mass might drag down and break some of the roots. I guess plants are amazingly resilient and forgiving, so perhaps it works either way!
the plants I got from you last year were the best performers in my yard. will this air pruning work long term for say a pecan or black walnut ????.... doesn't the tap root help to stabilize the tree. ???? if perhaps a black walnut tree gets to 60 feet tall in the open, can it withstand high winds without a tap root or does the tap root grow back?????
There are many thoughts on this. What I understand is that this root pruning approach helps the tree develop many more healthy roots that it can work with in the landscape, giving more options for where to commit it's rooting system.
Some of my ground bed tree seedling persimmons are st a rting to drop leaves for the winter. At what point can i dig and replant? Im worried ill miss some as this bed is much weedier than the air prune boxes i have. Any advice is greatly appreciated!
Are you harvesting all of these nuts from your own plots? Or are you sourcing from somewhere (and if so, where?). I love this idea and built my own a few weeks ago, now the only issue is sourcing enough nuts to fill them.
I dunno about the States, but here in Canada its legal to forage from any public areas, so walnuts, chestnuts, etc can be sourced from parks, natural areas, and even sidewalks at the right time. You can also post online asking if people have fruit or nut bearing plants they'd be willing to share the harvest from, if not free then in exchange for yardwork or barter. Plenty of people would be happy for you to come rake the nuts out of their yards or collect fallen fruit that's starting to rot. Definitely use your friends and family to network too, you never know who's got an old tree out back they never look at or that they've been thinking about chopping down if you don't get to it first. My sister chopped a whole apple tree down in her yard that I could've air layered the branches and got a dozen or more fruit bearing trees out of if I'd known in time.
When planting hazelnuts, do you bury the whole thing with the husk and all? Or do you crack them open and bury just the seed? Asking because I have a bunch of hazels I'd like to try this with, and there's not a lot of info on the topic. Thanks, love your videos by the way.
You absolutely do not need to crack the actual shell to plant a hazelnut, in fact I wouldn't do it! The husky, or the green/brown fleshy wrapper around groups of nuts, can be removed if you'd like or you can plant them as groups of 2-5 nuts in a husk with a little room between them and that works well too. Experiment :)
*_Question:_* Since you are heeling in smaller bundles of plants, is there a reason *_not_* to build 1'-square x 6" boxes? It seems to me they would be easier to handle than 1'x2' x6"or especially 2'x2'x6" boxes. Would they dry out too fast? I'm looking at this from an old(er) lady's perspective. I doubt I could handle 1'x2'x6", much less 2'sq x 6" boxes. Yeah, I realize smaller boxes take up more wood, and there is a balance point; it's the balance point that interests me. You are so much closer to the problem than I; for me at this point it is an exercise in logic and math. I have little income, but do have hazels and other perennials that should begin producing soon. If I could sell some plant starts, it would be a very welcome income for someone who lives on $12K per annum in the PNW. BTW, I am on a shallow well, but have access to irrigation water in the summer, given the pump doesn't go out on me. I get ~16" percipitation per annum.
The smaller the box the more fragile... Overheating, freezing, drying, etc is more of an issue the smaller you go. If you don't need to 'retire' the boxes in the fall for the winter (as we are here since we want the parking space back for winter) you could look into making a single, much larger box, or having help to do that, and have WAY less watering/worrying to do. We're going to experiment more with that in the future. I bet you'll do great selling plants locally where you area! We found farm/garden craigslist posts and getting the word out locally was a good place for us to start.
Great video! Have you ever reused fabric grocery bags as air prune beds? I have less seed that I had planned and am considering trying to use a handful of bags inside an old large rabbit cage to keep them protected. Any thoughts welcome! Thinking of hazelnuts, chestnuts, plums, and apricots
From an engineering perspective, I'd hinge or make one side of the box removable so you can just slide the trees out all at once easily. That or make the bottom screens self contained, as in not attached to the side so you can just lift the box up and off leaving the bottom screen and the trees.
For a smaller system would it be ok to just put the trees in the garage over winter? Also evergreen trees don't really go dormant do they? So when would you transplant those.
That seems reasonable. I haven't tried so I can't say for sure, but certainly seems reasonable. I'd suspect evergreens in the later fall would be in a good place to be set out to their final home...
May we ask how the seedlings avoid transplant shock. Is it all about the season and temperature? Do you have advice on moving them to keep them from going into shock if it starts to warm up? We are thinking towards how to grow a massive number of natives for Miyawaki urban forests across the U.S.
THere is no transplant shock temp wise if you simply let them grow in the air prune boxes for the season and then dig them out / transplant / etc once they are dormant in the fall... We have worked with these plants in this way for many years, and it works beautifully for us
Hey Sean, see you’re using perlite here. Just watched your ‘Hugelculture in a pot’ video and you were saying how you found you didn’t need a specific ‘perlite/vermiculite ratio bs’ (lololol) for those pots. Why did you use perlite here? Have you found it necessary to use a substrate like that?
This is fascinating, thanks for presenting this. Are the seedlings that you have heeled in going to stay put there for the winter? Do you have problems with mice, rabbits or voles eating the bark?
do pawpaws or american persimmon benefit from being in enclosed air prune boxes to protect from squirrels/critters? do both of the aforementioned species prefer to grow out in dappled shade their first year or so?
Neither seem to be tormented by squirrels/critters, ALTHOUGH if you have them around and they are digging in soils looking for things or planting seeds or otherwise, they may disturb them accidentally! Paw Paw enjoys a gentle shade when it works out for later day, but not critical. Persimmon woudl do best with full on sun if it can have it and really nice rich soils
Do the trees grow tap roots once they're planted in their permanent spot? If not, does that affect their hardiness? Wind resistance? Drought tolerance?
I believe the tap root is really a function of a juvenile tree state... Once established they tend to shed that part of their root system and focus on lateral feeding and holding roots in the landscape... THis speeds that process. No scientist by ANY means but thats my understanding.
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Best unboxing I have ever seen! In fact I think it is the only unboxing I have ever enjoyed!
Now that is true wealth. Thank you for your cold climate permaculture channel as most are in the tropics or subtrpoics.
I wish I could convey how much gratitude I have after seeing this video. I am subscribed under another name and watch all of your videos. After watching your videos and Akiva's, we approached this method last Spring with very attractive results. The harvesting method was exactly what we were waiting for. Much thanks my friend!
SO incredibly happy to read this. Knowing folks are growing more trees out in the world is a big part of what keeps me optimistic about the future.
LOL. This is in all likelihood the *only* unboxing video I would ever deign to watch. Great info. Thanks for an invaluable follow-up.
Our pleasure!
Sean/Shawn. I just want to say that you are such an inspiration to me. You and Sasha seem like such _Good People_ doing _Good Work._ Thank you. Thank you for the videos. Thank you for for teaching us. Thanks for the Guild Info. Thank you for all the videos. Just *Thank You.*
It is truly our pleasure, and thank YOU for being such a consistent part of our community and learning process!
The only unboxing worth watching
I used a 1 x 2 ft. airprune bed, 6 inches deep for hazelnuts this year. The potting mix I used settled and they probably only had 4 inches to grow their roots. They did grow well but I’m sure they would have done better with a deeper airprune bed. I’ll put them in the ground and let them grow out another year. I revisit your videos often as they are a wealth of information. Thank you!😊
So glad you are experimenting. Yes, 4" is pretty shallow and would have influence on how well they can develop, but you learn as you go and I'm sure it only gets better over time!
I received my chestnut trees from you guys last week. I cant wait to see them wake up in the spring.
The drawing on the package was a very nice touch btw haha
Thats all Sasha :)
Wonderful follow-up video to your March one. Very educational to watch you 'unboxing' them. I'm impressed at how well they turned out.
Very cool! *I'd rather unbox hybrid chestnuts than an iPhone!* Thanks for sharing!
This is such a valuable channel! Thank you! I'm enjoying learning so much that I can put into use at my own homestead
Great to hear!
I made a 2.5 by 2.5 square foot airprune bed this year and planted several different trees in it anything i could cram in. Kahzak apples, white walnut, white mullberry, honey locust, hazels ect ect one thing i will say is the mullberry and apples certainly didnt need to be grown in a airprune bed but it wrked well and i used it not only to grow my taprooted trees but also save space. Mullberry was not a good choice i got a very intensly fibrous root system was about 2 feet wide and massive. They were hard to tease out. I had a foot deep of soil in the bed and it was to big to move and airpruned well i would nt go any deeper . Also i think i will irrigate next time
That must have been a sight to behold! We're all learning on this stuff as we go!
Another great video! I would love to see a video focusing on how you will advertise, market and ship these beautiful fruits of your labor. Both of you are doing much needed and inspiring work I applaud all that you have accomplished. I've been discouraged trying to sell my trees and bushes on Craig's list in our area of Central New York. I have a lot to learn about marketing, selling and shipping trees and bushes. I've learned a lot from your videos and Akiva's Twisted Tree Farm. Thank you for another great video.
Sounds like a nice concept to get into when we've got some more breathing room!
@@edibleacres Looking forward to the dead of winter, fire-side chat series on this ☕
Have you seen their website?
@@kirstenwhitworth8079 Yes I just checked it out. Very impressive website and I suspect they spent a lot of time creating it which is probably been very well worth it.
Kevin, check out Etsy for selling small trees, there is a section devoted to that with lots of sources.
You have some of the best, most useful videos. Thank you.
I first saw the air prune beds on Twisted Tree Farm channel. They amaze me how well they work!😊
Thank you, this series was so precious for me! I‘m an absolute newcomer to permaculture and forrest gardens and I‘m amazed by this concept. We want to design our new site on permaculture & forrest garden principles.
Until I found your channel I was worried about the prices for trees here in Europe, what makes it impossible for us - and I think many other people - to plant a food forrest. I thought it would be rocket science to grow trees and that it would take years… But now I‘m super inspired to grow our own trees and hopefully save all those old varieties of trees that we have around us, here in this area in Slavonia/ Croatia. We have pretty much the same climate conditions and the same trees - locust, walnuts, chestnuts, hazelnuts - like you… plus many fruit trees, we‘re in the fruit area of Croatia…
So I‘m still try to keep up watching all your hundreds of valuable videos to learn from you… there‘s nothing comparable in the german speaking garden community! So, THANK YOU! 🙏🏻❤️
You can absolutely do this! Air prune boxes can be made with truly beginner level carpentry skills (thats what I bring to the proejct!) and the numbers of trees you can grow per year that are ready for planting in the field is stunning.
Sending you positive and assuring energy that you can grow hundreds if not thousands of trees a year where you live!!
Thank you for your answer and empowerment, @@edibleacres 🙏🏻❤️ actually I was a carpenter, too… 30 years ago, I think I can do this! 💪💪💪😅
Very informative video thanks! I have many nut trees stratifying now and will get busy making air pruning beds before spring.
So makes me wish I had more than a tiny yard to grow a couple of your beautiful tree starts into an amazing beauty and resource. Grateful for your work.
The air prune system lets you grow literally hundreds if not thousands of trees a year in the size of a parking space!! You can have your small space be a fountain of trees to send out into the world, so so much higher yield than just a few trees planted :)
Thank you for the update.
Our pleasure
Our air prune beds are built for next year. Our land is most suited for a nursery of trees and perennial food forest plants, and for seed saving/selling. Between you and Akiva,we have learned a lot.
We have prepared our site for our air prune beds, and for burying our tree seeds to stratify over winter.
Definitely, we are looking forward to doing this.
So excited for you! Expect a ton of things to go wrong, lot's of things to come out differently than you thought, and plans to do it for a few years and it can be a super rewarding process! Ha! Took a while to get to the point where I could offer a video of a box filled with little trees! :)
EdibleAcres We figure lots will go wrong (if the first four years on our place are any indication!) Is the spot you have your airprune beds shaded through the day?
Thanks for showing the final results! Definitely thinking about trying it out!
I loved to see this one! Lots of useful information in this.
For me this kind of unboxing is better then iPhone!
So glad!
Just spectacular! Cant wait to hear how they get sold or planted.
Amazing to watch your systems and process. WOW. It's this kind of wisdom that has fallen to the wayside. Thank you for continuing to post these wonderful videos and for doing such meaningful work. The SLOW life and gentle ways. There's real beauty in it.
Good stuff! The 1 X 2's would work great for me since I'm not trying to sell any of my trees. All of my trees will be planted on my land. Thanks for sharing.
Hope there are some useful ideas in this for you. Good luck!
Thanks so much for this video. Super interesting and a great idea!
My best unboxing ever just happened, and it was from Edible Acres hand written🍀 Thanks for the videos and awesome plants!
Amazing! Thanks for sharing.
Really cool and super exciting to see the success. Well done.
When I get the chance to use this method and start reforesting parts of Scotland - if I get in trouble with the polis, I'm blaming you!!
Seriously, this method will work for Cherry, Rowan and Birch, will it work for pines as well?
Hi Stanley!!
Yes, it will work for pines.
Should work for a wide range, please let us know what you try and how it goes!
I currently have over 50 young saplings growing in pots to plant on the edge of my local woodland. I'm also in Scotland (fife). A local farmer has gave me permission to plant on a slope that he doesn't use. I'm trying to reconnect 2 patches of woodland.
Great video, one question, imagine you have a group of young trees that need more than one season in the box, such as trees you intend to graft in 2nd year, or slow growers like pawpaw, could you just leave them in the box over winter, or must you take them all out, hill them in and replant them again in the boxes next spring???
If you have a mild winter you could potentially leave them in the box, but you may consider applying some good generous mulch all around the box in the form of leaves, straw, etc... LOVE your videos by the way :)
@@edibleacres Thank you! I find your videos very informative! Do you ever hold any over a second year? If so, what is your process?
Excellent video! I like using black locust for the box. Thank you.
Should last a real long time. Isn't necessary but should be helpful.
But everything is sold out on the website 🤔 I'm interested in the English walnuts and pecans, thanks for all the great videos!
We have to stop shipping or we'll break down physically! If you want to take a drive to us we'll set you up with mountains of plants :)
I watched the sir prune bed videos a year or so ago, after starting some chestnuts and walnuts sprouting. I didn't get the chance to build a bed so used a 40l grow bag with slits cut in the bottom, wrapped in chicken wire for pest protection but also kept it off the ground (sand in my front garden - former drive). They have grown well, about 40 trees, a foot tall each. Now to find their forever homes!
Last week, I built 2 air prune beds for this year's nuts! Thanks for the inspiration. Have also layered my hazel trees and taken a couple dozen willow cuttings.
We're all learning as we grow! Good luck to you!
Wonderful video! Thank you so much!
Happy to share
This is a wonderful video! Thank you!
That's really impressive! It really drives home how abundance is possible, all around us. I've been relying on the squirrels for my walnuts (black and English) and hazel seedlings, but you've inspired me to try something more organized. My parents in Arkansas get a good crop of wild American chestnuts from a scrubby old multi-branched tree/shrub, every year. We eat a lot of them, but with your system, it would be worth growing some, too. They are delicious, so sweet! It must have been something when Chestnuts were the most common tree in the eastern hardwood forests.
I would hope you grow some of them out from seed. You can see it isn't too big a deal, and if you build nice little boxes you can reuse them for years!
Thank you for such valuable information, I will be trying this method this autumn for a new tree nursery in Norfolk, UK. Excellent video and updates, best wishes
My first year with air pruned beds has been a mixed bag. Many of the seeds failed to germinate at all. We had a droughty period and I failed to recognize how fast these beds can dry out (especially with our very sandy soil) and that definitely inhibited growth of some things. Even so, I have one bed of Eleagnus that has several hundred seedlings in it. My Seaberry bed only produced six or seven seedlings from 500 seeds, but that was with me doing everything wrong about planting them ;) I'll be trying again with better understanding.
Another random thought...where i live a lot of the kids take agriculture in high school. They get class credits for helping on local farms and nurseries. Also kids in the jobs program get work experience. I did that at Commonwealth gardens for 6 months. I loved it! I didn't even mind that i wasn't getting paid and had to drive an hour to get there.
Decided to follow your example after watching your first video. We are repurposing an old wooden trailer into a large (and totally static!) airprune bed. Nearly finished, we'll see how it goes 😊
So excited for you and all the new trees you'll help steward into the world!
Best unboxing video on TH-cam 💗
A bit more meaningful than an iphone 12 case I'd say.
For Real!! The Forest is the Future! New subscriber, Love your very high quality content. I learned so much in this one video for example. I’m a bit confused though because it seems like you started out on one property of .5 acres and then there is the current 6 acres, with the hedge rows and pond networks...is that correct? I haven’t seen any transition videos so I’m figuring out if it’s the same location with different angles or different location all together and maybe you started over? Wow that sounds like a big project. Love from the west coast.
please, more chicken tv! i find it oddly relaxing and it's perfect to watch with a cup of coffee. thanks!
Awesome vid. Thank you.
Superb Sir. I have dozens of Sprouted Acorns that I plan to grow on and am going to use this method. Many thanks. Paul 😊👍
I hope it works incredibly well for you!
@@edibleacres Thank you. I am confident that it will 👍😊
oh man.. this is one of the MOST EXCITING video series I have watched on your channel :o and that's saying A LOT, cause I freakin' love your work and keep recommending it to everyone I know who has an interest in doing the good work (growing much needed green stuff everywhere, basically). No, seriously, I'm pretty sure if these weren't covid times I'd be accosting strangers on the bus and telling them all about this Edible Acres youtube channel they should check out and subscribe
So glad you are enjoying the content we put out!!!
hey! thanks for this excellent video!
hi, thx for the video, I love the concept. this year I tried two methods, first was planting walnuts into my raised beds and air pruned containers,. in raised beds, trees were super thick but digging them out was a nightmare I almost lost there my spine (i had to dig a meter deep). air prune beds are a piece of cake to clean.
take care
Air prune beds make harvesting easier for sure...
Awesome!
I can't wait until the blight-resistant American Chestnuts are approved and ready for repopulating into the wild. I hope to get my hands on some of those trees and I will plant them EVERYWHERE! :D
I am scared of that release. I would hope folks put more effort into growing natural hybrids rather than GMO stuff...
@@edibleacres I don't share that fear. Natural hybridization can only get us so far; its limited and can be a losing battle. And it's long window of getting results can be too slow for the most aggressive pathogens. Genetic science gives us a more exacting ability to protect against devastating diseases in a reasonable timeframe.
@@punkyroo Nature has been doing this just fine for a very long time. The more humans get involved, the worse things usually turn out in my experience.
Coarsegold Guy...Agreed. People tend to be nearsighted and historically ignorant.
why wait? all chestnuts will hybridize with each other...get some chinese + american+ korean + japanese chesnuts and grow them all together. lots of folks are already growing chestnuts . spite the blight
Just came across you site and you have a nice set up. My wife and I have started planting chestnuts and we gained some great info from this video. I like the boxes, I may build a few this spring.
Best of luck, they are really worth the pretty minimal effort I find.
Well done! Thx...
love these boxes and i'm going to build some...seems like an achievable first woodworking project! started germinating some chestnuts and other trees this winter & i'm gonna have to put em somewhere :) thanks 4 all yr informative videos...found out about yr channel from my local permaculture guild... soil covered thumbs up from the great basin 🌰
Amazing ❤️
Great video! I like your channel very much, I am learning so much, thank you
So glad!
Cool application of air pruning I haven’t seen before! You mentioned the tap root gets air pruned at the bottom promoting lateral growth.
1) does this impact the overall growth potential of a tree?
2) does a new taproot grow when the tree gets bigger?
1) I don't believe it has a negative effect on long term growth.
2) I don't think they build a new taproot, but instead build a ton of healthy fibrous lateral roots.
What was the purpose of overwintering the plants by healing them in, rather than leaving them in the boxes all winter? Is it because your winter's are too cold? Or do you need the parking spot? My understanding is that air pruned Trees can stay almost indefinitely in the boxes until you are ready for them.I am just recently learning about this, so I 'd appreciate your input. Thank you for the great video and for caring about the treatment of the Trees. I'll continue to watch your videos.
I don't see these for sale yet on your website. When will these be for sale? I am in N TX and now is the time to plant trees. I loved these videos. I love the beds and will be doing this myself.
This will be for next year hopefully!
We planted a couple hardy pomegranates(northern NJ) out in the open in late August. Any tips for helping them survive their first freezes? The wind really whips through our yard. I was thinking of just mounding leaves around their base.
Leaves could be nice, or deep mulch with aged woodchips, or a combo.
@@edibleacres Thanks! Wood chips is what I wanted to do, but I can only get my hands on the chemically dyed junk at home depot.
learned a lot from this video, and from your channel as well. thanks for the amazing informative videos!
wonderful. what i'd love to see is how best to plant them out to take advantage of such a huge root mass...mygreathanks and blessings to all
Thanks for your interest. I will keep it in mind that there is interest in seeing what happens after this first stage and see if we can make a video about it!
@@edibleacres mygreathanks and blessings to all
Another question (and again, sorry if this has an obvious answer I missed): why do you remove the plants from the beds and heel them in? What's the advantage of doing that over leaving them in the beds? Thanks, Sean! I learn so much from you, much appreciation to you for your generosity in sharing your knowledge.
EA hs cold winters with deep snow. Heeling in keeps the roots a tad warmer with access to deep native soil. In the boxes, the air/cold underneath the roots might kill the roots. Just my 2¢ - I could be wrong.
@@kirstenwhitworth8079 That makes sense! Thanks for answering.
Me encanta toda la información, me encantaría que fuera en español, !! Pero así sigo aprendiendo inglés. Gracias
Recently put out 150 pawpaw seeds into an air prune bed, thinking the seeds will vernalize naturally out doors. Looking forward to see how it turns out!
Killing it in 2019 dude
masterclass.
I've watched the other air prune bed videos, so I'm sorry if this is a topic I missed: once you plant a baby tree like this in a permanent home, does it restart its taproot development? Or does the taproot prune permanently at this stage? If the latter, do you see a difference between air-pruned trees and trees that were grown from seed in their final location? Thanks!
Once the tap root has been pruned off and the tree focuses on the laterals it continues with that, creating a rich, healthy, fibrous root system in its permanent location.
@@edibleacres Thank you! I'm going to try building one of the small beds and propagating some native species around here. You're so inspiring!
@@edibleacres Question yet on the tap root .. ( this is why I was scrolling the comments) - so, the trees generally will be truly fine without a natural/site grown taproot ? Will it matter as to what type of ground they're on ( ridgetop area, where rock layer may be fairly close to surface) ? Not my main reason for asking, but I'm interested in growing paw paws - potentially, would have to work w/breed for hardiest/hardier varieties for here in zone 4a. I've always read that due to their establishing a deep taproot right away, they hate being disturbed once planted ( seedlings you'd order) so i wonder, if i grow them, or any tree thus described, if i should plant the seeds or super young seedlings in place ? Avoid limiting taproot along w the least issues in general w being disturbed ? Being clear as I can w what im trying to wrap my mind around, I not very tree-experienced, thanks for any reply !!!
Does the tap root stay short when they go in the ground?
It does and it helps them focus on much more useful heart root fibers and growth
Inspired by you I started an air pruning bed. I am still waiting for the chestnuts and pawpaws I planted to go dormant but there is a few days of frost coming up next week. I'm not sure what to do, disturb them when they aren't fully dormant or let them try to handle the frost. Any advice you might have would be greatly appreciated!
Frost is completely reasonable for them, it is getting down into the teens (in F) that can be tough. A light frost or a few nights down in the upper 20s helps the plants go dormant, and you can move them after that.
@@edibleacres Thank you so much for the reply! Good to know, I really appreciate the insight and you taking the time to respond to my comment.
On your heavy top cage problem-
A 2 in x 2 in frame drilled with holes to accept 3/4 in bent emt conduit in a squared off U shape might be much lighter. I would attach the hardware cloth with wire or UV zip ties.
👑
Hello I'm Honeybe I'm new to your channel but I am a every day home gradner and I love growing fresh food for my family. Now the question how many different kinds of walnut tree's can I grow in southern California. I don't stay in a farming area with great soil and close to the mountains.
I don't know what would be best for you in that climate..
Would the healed in beds benefit at all from something like a cattle panel greenhouse over the winter, or would the slightly warmer temps not matter with them being dormant?
I wouldn't increase warmth in a heeling bed, I'd encourage the space to stay nice and cool for the winter. Maybe just wood chips mulch.
This is incredible stuff man !
I've found that gently tickling tangled roots when the soil is fairly dry works well for separating seedlings. I'd be afraid that the weight of a saturated root mass might drag down and break some of the roots. I guess plants are amazingly resilient and forgiving, so perhaps it works either way!
Either way you'd want them in water soon after so they don't get stressed.
I started apple trees in pots do i have to do the same or can i leave them in the pots
I would definitely get them into the earth for the winter if you are in a colder climate like us.
@@edibleacres yes it gets to negative 30 thank you for your time
where do you selll your trees what about farmers markets
Locally and online as well.
When you "heel them in" for the winter, are the small saplings leaned a bit onto their sides? Not fully upright? Thanks in advance
the plants I got from you last year were the best performers in my yard.
will this air pruning work long term for say a pecan or black walnut ????.... doesn't the tap root help to stabilize the tree. ???? if perhaps a black walnut tree gets to 60 feet tall in the open, can it withstand high winds without a tap root or does the tap root grow back?????
There are many thoughts on this. What I understand is that this root pruning approach helps the tree develop many more healthy roots that it can work with in the landscape, giving more options for where to commit it's rooting system.
I’ll take an acre of hazelnut trees, seriously, let’s talk... 😁
Shoot me an email: sean@edibleacres.org We may need to find a home for 2000+ Hazelnuts this fall. Maybe 3000+ Paw Paws!!!!!!
thank you! really great to see in practice.. like in the Trees of Power by Akiwa. I think you guys are friends..
We are best buds.
Some of my ground bed tree seedling persimmons are st a rting to drop leaves for the winter. At what point can i dig and replant? Im worried ill miss some as this bed is much weedier than the air prune boxes i have.
Any advice is greatly appreciated!
Are you harvesting all of these nuts from your own plots? Or are you sourcing from somewhere (and if so, where?). I love this idea and built my own a few weeks ago, now the only issue is sourcing enough nuts to fill them.
We have a number of connections and sources that we work with...
I dunno about the States, but here in Canada its legal to forage from any public areas, so walnuts, chestnuts, etc can be sourced from parks, natural areas, and even sidewalks at the right time.
You can also post online asking if people have fruit or nut bearing plants they'd be willing to share the harvest from, if not free then in exchange for yardwork or barter. Plenty of people would be happy for you to come rake the nuts out of their yards or collect fallen fruit that's starting to rot.
Definitely use your friends and family to network too, you never know who's got an old tree out back they never look at or that they've been thinking about chopping down if you don't get to it first. My sister chopped a whole apple tree down in her yard that I could've air layered the branches and got a dozen or more fruit bearing trees out of if I'd known in time.
Beautiful! Will you be making a video about the next step - individual plants?
Hope to.
When planting hazelnuts, do you bury the whole thing with the husk and all? Or do you crack them open and bury just the seed? Asking because I have a bunch of hazels I'd like to try this with, and there's not a lot of info on the topic. Thanks, love your videos by the way.
You absolutely do not need to crack the actual shell to plant a hazelnut, in fact I wouldn't do it! The husky, or the green/brown fleshy wrapper around groups of nuts, can be removed if you'd like or you can plant them as groups of 2-5 nuts in a husk with a little room between them and that works well too. Experiment :)
*_Question:_* Since you are heeling in smaller bundles of plants, is there a reason *_not_* to build 1'-square x 6" boxes? It seems to me they would be easier to handle than 1'x2' x6"or especially 2'x2'x6" boxes. Would they dry out too fast?
I'm looking at this from an old(er) lady's perspective. I doubt I could handle 1'x2'x6", much less 2'sq x 6" boxes. Yeah, I realize smaller boxes take up more wood, and there is a balance point; it's the balance point that interests me. You are so much closer to the problem than I; for me at this point it is an exercise in logic and math.
I have little income, but do have hazels and other perennials that should begin producing soon. If I could sell some plant starts, it would be a very welcome income for someone who lives on $12K per annum in the PNW.
BTW, I am on a shallow well, but have access to irrigation water in the summer, given the pump doesn't go out on me. I get ~16" percipitation per annum.
The smaller the box the more fragile... Overheating, freezing, drying, etc is more of an issue the smaller you go. If you don't need to 'retire' the boxes in the fall for the winter (as we are here since we want the parking space back for winter) you could look into making a single, much larger box, or having help to do that, and have WAY less watering/worrying to do. We're going to experiment more with that in the future.
I bet you'll do great selling plants locally where you area! We found farm/garden craigslist posts and getting the word out locally was a good place for us to start.
Great video!
Have you ever reused fabric grocery bags as air prune beds? I have less seed that I had planned and am considering trying to use a handful of bags inside an old large rabbit cage to keep them protected. Any thoughts welcome! Thinking of hazelnuts, chestnuts, plums, and apricots
If that is what you have then you should give it a shot!
is the reason you're doing this in the fall and not spring so that you can ship them out while the bed might other wise be frozen still?
From an engineering perspective, I'd hinge or make one side of the box removable so you can just slide the trees out all at once easily. That or make the bottom screens self contained, as in not attached to the side so you can just lift the box up and off leaving the bottom screen and the trees.
That could be a nice design improvement. We have more recent videos where we show some basic but worthwhile improvements we've made in our system
Do you have a follow up on spreading those seedlings out later on.
They went so many different directions that we don't have a specific video on that. Planted in many new homes!
For a smaller system would it be ok to just put the trees in the garage over winter?
Also evergreen trees don't really go dormant do they? So when would you transplant those.
That seems reasonable. I haven't tried so I can't say for sure, but certainly seems reasonable.
I'd suspect evergreens in the later fall would be in a good place to be set out to their final home...
Thanks men for you jobs. Thanks
May we ask how the seedlings avoid transplant shock. Is it all about the season and temperature? Do you have advice on moving them to keep them from going into shock if it starts to warm up? We are thinking towards how to grow a massive number of natives for Miyawaki urban forests across the U.S.
THere is no transplant shock temp wise if you simply let them grow in the air prune boxes for the season and then dig them out / transplant / etc once they are dormant in the fall... We have worked with these plants in this way for many years, and it works beautifully for us
@@edibleacres Thank you, that's very helpful!
New subscriber here ! I was sent here by Tim , from, From Zero to homestead ! I have some catching up to do !
What is the lifecycle of paw paws in air prune beds? Do you keep the seedlings for one or two years?
Ideal is they are dug up and planted/sold/heeled in by the fall of year 1. Our winters would 100% kill every sapling that stays in an airprune box.
Hey Sean, see you’re using perlite here. Just watched your ‘Hugelculture in a pot’ video and you were saying how you found you didn’t need a specific ‘perlite/vermiculite ratio bs’ (lololol) for those pots. Why did you use perlite here? Have you found it necessary to use a substrate like that?
This is fascinating, thanks for presenting this. Are the seedlings that you have heeled in going to stay put there for the winter? Do you have problems with mice, rabbits or voles eating the bark?
Definitely have to protect plants from creatures eating them while dormant.
Could you not just put the same lids over them while on the ground? Might not stop burrowers but could certainly keep a few critters out for a bit
do pawpaws or american persimmon benefit from being in enclosed air prune boxes to protect from squirrels/critters? do both of the aforementioned species prefer to grow out in dappled shade their first year or so?
Neither seem to be tormented by squirrels/critters, ALTHOUGH if you have them around and they are digging in soils looking for things or planting seeds or otherwise, they may disturb them accidentally! Paw Paw enjoys a gentle shade when it works out for later day, but not critical. Persimmon woudl do best with full on sun if it can have it and really nice rich soils
Do the trees grow tap roots once they're planted in their permanent spot? If not, does that affect their hardiness? Wind resistance? Drought tolerance?
I believe the tap root is really a function of a juvenile tree state... Once established they tend to shed that part of their root system and focus on lateral feeding and holding roots in the landscape... THis speeds that process. No scientist by ANY means but thats my understanding.