8 Tips for choosing what fruit you should grow in your permaculture food forest - with examples.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 มิ.ย. 2024
- An update of my top 6 bushes for your food forest video from 4 years ago. Today, we are going to look at what factors make a good bush a good bush? This applies to all food in your food forest. Use these factors to determine what you should be growing.
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Just wanted to say how much I appreciate your channel, the environmental science, the engineering, the in-depth explanations of systems, both natural and constructed, links to peer reviewed publications and how much you dote on your chickens well-being. Great stuff.
My haskap has 1 single berry on it and I'm so excited to try my very first honeyberry!
I find a 10th to 14th (9th you mentioned as "liking the fruit") criteria is useful.
10th-Eating out of hand
-eating fresh food has a taste benefit
-uncooked (unsprayed) food from the land carries microbes that may enhance your microbiome
-e.g. elderberries miss on this because they must be cooked, goji can be eaten fresh, but many people like the flavour change when dried
11th-Ease of processing
- dovetails with preservation
- obviously grazing directly is easiest and smoothies are next, but failing that:
- cooking? - requirement with elderberries
- mashing and straining - autumn olives are a high percentage seed and while the seed is edible, autumn olive seedy jam isn't so fun
- freezing - some sea buckthorn harvest techniques involve cutting branches, freezing them and shattering off the berries
12th-Ease of preservation
- smaller berries dry more easily than large berries
- grape bunches come with a scaffold that allows better circulation vs layers of only fruit when drying
- some freeze better than others-currants work great, grapes slightly less and frozen apples aren' as appetizing
- does the fruit need to be mashed to be able to dry- e.g. fruit leather
- pretty much anything can be fermented to alcohol or vinegar, so it's not really a differentiator
13th-Communal acceptance
- being able to give fruit to neighbors helps in many ways. Since you need to plant enough to have some yield in poor seasons, you necessarily get bumper crops at times. I currently have a deep freezer full of red currants from last year and another freezer's worth on the bushes, but I can't give away red currants to neighbors or strangers even when using social media.
14th-The usual suspects
- integration with permaculture design principles e.g.food fibre fodder farmaceutical fuel, stacking functions etc. currants may be the only thing that fits in a certain shaded spot
- integration with native design principles e.g. native pollinator and caterpillar support etc. black currants may support native populations, sea buckthorn not (for N. America. reverse for Asia)-I find the most Japanese beetles on sea buckthorn (both from asia) when planted in N. America (probably not from the same spots in Asia ironically)
- integration with landscaping principles e.g. visual appeal, color palette, borrowed views etc.
- legality - e.g. red currants, gooseberries of certain varieties are banned in certain jurisdictions
Great additions!
I have an entire hillside of black caps on my property (PNW). They grow and spread like crazy. The only problem is that between the deer eating the new growth and the birds taking a lot of the remaining fruit before they ever fully ripen, it’s really tough to get a decent harvest. But the ones I do manage to get are fantastic….actually heading out this evening after it cools off to see if I can scrounge up a pint or two of them.
Another way of looking at gooseberries is that they improve eye-hand coordination :)
lol
And sometimes one cultivar will work better than another. My Blue Moon haskap grows really well, and my Blue Pagoda suffers almost every year.
as a note: there are both thirnless and semi thornless gooseberries, and they are delicious, but that may not help them do well in your specific area. I'm surprised though that they arent doing well when your currants ARE since they are closely related
Hi. I so enjoy your channel. i have learnt so much, so much valuable info even though we are different zones I can adjust your info to make it work here. Thanks so much 🇨🇦🌷
Love black cap raspberries, miss them so much.
Currants are even easier to propagate then what you said. once I had a cutting of a red currant and I was going to put it into a pot and try to root it. Instead I stuck it in the ground and every once in a while I would pull on it to see if it would move or if it would root. Now this was in our landscape that has automatic watering but eventually it rooted and within a year or 2 it was a rather large bush.
We moved 3 years ago and at our other place there was a black currant bush that was there when we had moved in 28 years before. They were small and I wasn't really a fan except if made into jelly. I never took a cutting of it (We moved in December)but I thought for some reason that our new house should have one. I paid actual money for one and it is way better then the old one. The berries are huge(almost the size of grapes) and they are actually pretty tasty. I have at least 7 bushes now, all by just sticking the cutting into the ground.
One other thing about currants. I have found that they will hang onto the bush for a long time...not really necessary to pick them right away and I haven't found that the birds here go after them.
This is definitely true. I pruned a bunch and did exactly that. It also worked with elderberry.
We live in USDA zone 6b, and we have very high bird predation on fruit. We’ve found that large berries aren’t bothered as much as smaller ones, so, we grow larger varieties of blackberries and cherries and leave some smaller varieties ( purple raspberries, mulberries, currants) as trap crops. We can net blueberries so can grow a range of varieties from early to late season.
Good observation and adjustment 😀
Your property is looking amazing!
Thanks :)
Great advice!
Today I found ground cherries growing in my garden. I was super excited because I thought none of the seeds germinated. I've never tried them before but I'm looking forward to tasting them.
I’m eating black caps as I’m watching this. They grow wild around my property. Even after my goats ate a bunch of them they came back as good as ever.
Fabulous information, appreciated the video.
Its a bit easier to navigate the thorns on a gooseberries if you just chop the whole branch out and pick away from the rest of the plant in case you never thought to do that :)
I do that with seabuckthorn because it's so vigorous. I'm not sure my struggling Gooseberry would handle it.
I lived on the prairies and the Saskatoon berries are definitely my favourite. Unfortunately they have been propagated and the taste between the wild and propagated berries is very noticeable.
For people in the PNW boysenberries grow prolifically, are a vining type, and the berries are a crossed fruit. They produce mostly in July, and are sweetest when the berries get a very dark purple.
What fortuitous timing.. Literally looking through treesofantiquity right now, opened another tab to YT and there you were. I definitely need some variety.. Lots of space here but the coast of Maine can be weird. Species that go as low as zone 5 make me want to push the limit but realistically I need to not waste a bunch of money lol.
Beautiful progress on your land. Thanks for the info.
One of my black raspberries put up a huge spurt of growth. Initially, when I planted the raspberry last year, it looked like a little innocent twig, which I sort of forgot about. This year sees a 6-foot or more ... thing shooting out of the ground. No fruit as of yet. The others are probably engulfed by the vegetation. My food forest is quite big and is overgrown with nettles and thistles. The forest is yet in its infancy. Too much work to prune all the nettles and stuff like that and quite often the new arrivals manage to peek through after a while, the nettles dying back each winter. The nettles also provide some much-needed cover against deer, hares, and excessive sunlight. Thanks for the video. I can attest to the gooseberries having nasty thorns. It's the one shrub no animal browses on in my food forest. There's hope.
My black raspberry did the same thing this year, sending up tall and thick growth (with some nasty thorns too). I had to stake the canes because they're taller than me!
@@greenwitchnutrition7860 I staked mine too :)
There is also a yellow currant, I found it a few years ago and has a different flavor, I love them
We have whites also, but for some reason spiders love them and they end up COVERED in webs. I've never heard of yellows. How are they? What's the flavor like?
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy my fault, the official name is white currant, I named yellow because of the color when they are ripe
Thanks for another great video! The more permaculture videos I watch the more confident I am that my plan for my yard is good, now I just have to do all the work to implement it. (Taking a break for the summer as it is over 95 every day here in Eastern Washington)
In the plan for my zone 7, quarter acre property I have included blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, red black and white currants, quince, honeyberries, medlar, black raspberry, thimbleberry, salmonberry, hardy kiwi, persimon, elderberry, mints and many other herbs, alpine strawberries, woodland strawberries and the more traditional ones as well, wintergreen, lingonberry, pomegranate, gooseberry, apple, pear, hazelnut, almond, rhubarb, asparagus, paw paw, mulberry, as well as space for all the annual veggies and fruits. (My family doesn't like cherry so we aren't planting tree or bush versions of those) I am also including many flowers native, good for cut flowers, good for medicine and good for pollinators.
We will see what sticks and what does well.
Good luck!
Can I visit? 🤤 I think I'll just copy your list for myself! :)
It has been fun to try different fruit as my plants are growing. My food forest is only three years old now. This year, I got to taste honeyberries--very sour, gooseberries--yum; now I'll know to look for worms, and rhubarb--an acquired taste that I am acquiring. Next year, I hope more fruits that I have never tasted will start producing. My currants and gooseberries have fruited, but the jostaberry has not. Last year, I got a few black currants, but this year, I don't see any; I'm thinking it, too, is an acquired taste! I thought that this year would be the year that my peaches and cherries would fruit, but then we had that very late cold snap. No grapes either. Bummer! My little Zestar! apple tree has six apples, though, so I am very excited about that.
Keith, do you know of a way to help blueberries not be so sour? I have 50 bushes, and all are very sour. I do wait until they are ripe before picking, but I really don't like them because they are so sour. Is there some sort of soil amendment that I could add to help with this. I've added biochar and hollytone. One has chlorosis, and someone suggested I add sulphur. Any thoughts?
Are they getting full sun? The more sun, the more sugars. Also what varieties? I have found that boreal is noticeably sweeter than others, and has almost no sour taste.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Yup, full sun. Indigo Gem and Indigo Treat (late fruit)
Blue Forest & Blue Moon (early) I've seen Brix scales on honeyberries where they say that the Boreal series is much sweeter. I will try those next. I got the ones I did because I didn't want monster sized bushes where they were going to be planted. Of course, I've started other gardens where I can go bigger if need be. I don't remember the size of the Boreals, but I can make it work. Thank you. Any advice for sweetening blueberries?
"Today we're going to talk about bushes"😂😂😂😂😂
Have you ever seen the movie role models? "Who wants to smell this bush" 😂
LOL
Enjoyed this show : )
Thank you 😊
That’s easy. Any plant that can withstand -40.
Haskaps, saskatoons, raspberries, strawberries, currants, apples, cherries, cranberries, pears, plums, and so many more. Even kiwi.
There are some fruits with no varieties that are hardy enough, but it's not as limiting as many people think.
I have tons of black caps and they will actually size up as the canes get bigger. Still smaller than my production variety raspberries but those produce bigger fruit than I can get in a store. Big fan of black caps, they taste so much better than any other raspberry.
Yeah they really do!
Lovely!
I agree that 'easy propagation' is a really good point to keep in mind when selecting plants (saved me tons of money), but I am surprised you go through so much fuss to propagate something as easy as Blackcurrants.
I'm in Scotland and probably have quite similar conditions to where you live. Even though my soil depth is thin, it is enough to make hardwood cuttings in the normal way, and stick the cuttings 'directly' in the ground where I want the bush to grow.
All currant types will grow from cuttings (no rooting medium necessary) in this way, also gooseberries have a very high incidence of success, and a slightly lower number but still acceptable number of honeyberries will also take root in this way.
I prefer to take these fruit bush cuttings like this as it totally eliminates the chance of pots of cuttings accidentally getting forgotten and drying out at times when I'm busy watering something else (something I'm always doing).
I seem to be able to take quite long currant cuttings successfully. I tried putting a 3ft stem in the ground last year and it's all leaves, flowers and fruit this year.
P.S...
I like the idea of having tallish flowering perennials around the currants.
Do deer tend to overlook the bushes if they are surrounded like this, as I have had a lot of trouble with deer rubbing their antlers up and down a lot of my trees and bushes this year?
I've tried everything I can think of to scare them off - lion poop, human urine, shiny foil streamers, empty drink cans 'rattling' on strings. Deer seem to get used to everything in a very short space of time and they're back to cause more damage.
Currently, I'm growing a native form of Scottish Rose (bristly thorns, but makes a superior jam - so still a good part of the permaculture scheme) which I intend to grow around plants that are being targeted. They are slow to grow however.
If there are some perennials deer don't appear to like, would very much like to see a video on them (would prefer a video rather than a direct reply, since TH-cam only emails replies to me if they are some troll telling me I'm a climate Change loser or something equally pathetic).
Yummy yummy! 🤤
Watermelons are not only useless sugar, but for example sun protection that works from the inside, when you eat it.
Instead of stool mounding the whole plant, bend down individual branches, cover them with a little soil away from the main rootball and hold down with a rock. The branches will root and you don't have to cut the parent plant.
This method is commonly used in Eastern Europe. Great comment.
30 blueberries = 1 currant, 30 currants = 1 seabuckthorn berry !?!? :O That needs to be a video.
Also, I'd love a video on comparing the diff currants - red, black, gold (where's your gold!?)
Also, since cold climate berries tend to be on the tart side, have you thought of growing your own sweetener - maple, stevia as annual, etc?
Lastly, have you considered growing your own spices? I'm very curious about spicebush and Carolina allspice.
Lastly for real this time - I've heard brambles and nettles can be beneficial by protecting young saplings from deer and rabbits. Have you considered trying that?
Anyway, obviously I'm looking forward to more videos! The more I learn, the more questions I have! :)
Ive definitely done all of that. My next video is on raspberries, and I don't discuss this anti rabbit aspect in the video, but the reason why they are in many locations is for that exact reason - I was using them as rabbit protection.
For the SBT berries, if you search my channel for 'what is the healthiest berry on the planet", you will find actual nutritional details on them.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Thank you!
This is my second year when sea buckthorn from treetime wilts away into mere sticks... I'm giving up on them...
Do you know Jostaberry. It's a cross between Gooseberry and Blackberry. No thorns and pestresistent.
I do. I don't have one though, I've been trying to find them for a few years.
I love those black raspberries too! My regular raspberries are struggling in that area, but the black raspberries are taking over. The thorns do suck though. Curious, at around 8:15, is that creeping bellflower?
Yes, I have some that I cut down after it flowers, to prefent it from spreading, and use it for chop and drop fertility. I don't want it everywhere.
Thank you for this video. Which fruits have you found that grow in the shade?
Currants do well in the shade. Salal is supposed to also, but I'm still growing them, no fruit yet. Most fruit needs sun. Shade is better used for leafy greens, like season extending your kale.
I always enjoy listening to you because of your wholistic approach. What’s is your favorite variety of haskap berry bushes? Are there varieties that are sweeter?
Borealis. Very sweet, really enjoy those the most.
Haskaps require a different variety for pollination and that variety has to flower at the same time. So for maximal efficiency, you must pick 2 favourite varieties within the same early-mid-late classifications.
I’ve never eaten “a lot” of black currants in one day to feel like superman 😂😂😂. I would like to start propagating mine to make more. How many do you eat in a day?!?!?
Today I easily ate a hundred. Today was a harvesting day, and I just snacked all day long. I skipped breakfast and lunch (well, I ate plenty of berries all day long for both!).
Most days I will have 20-30 as I walk by the bush.
Have you looked into aronia berries at all? I’ve been thinking about ordering a bush from Whiffletree farms. Very high vitamin and antioxidant content.
Yes, we have one but it hasn't fruited yet.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy I should have guessed! Any time I think I'm walking down the path of a new garden idea, there's CPL a hundred metres ahead...
Hey, thank you for all that you doing, you are the main source of information for me, couse Poland, where I will start my food forrest, has a similar climate. Is there an online encyclopedia of plants that i can browse them by, for example nitrogen fixer, or when they bloom ?
www dot pfaf dot org. If I put a link in, youtube blocks it.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy thank you so much!
💕
I have 3 black caps blackberries I need to plant. Should I plant together or scatter throughout my berm with trees and shrubs like hazels, oak tree, apple and such. Thanks,
I would spread them out slightly. My next video (which is uploading as we speak) will discuss more on why.
i will add two things to consider:
will you eat it. (or use it) if the PURPOSE of a plant is to grow food or medicine, dont plant a lot if you dont like them.
(i adore currants and gooseberries, so i would happily populate my whole property, but if i didnt like them? why bother.)
Sun. in my specific property i have BRUTALLY full sun, a few spots that are partial shade, and shade. thats IT. so anything that can handle two of the three options? is my friend. if it cant handle some shade, or cant cope with full sun, i am very limited in where i can put it
Great additions
This was a major theme in the video!?
Would it help if you said what planting zone you were in? For example, I’m in Portland, so I’m in zone 8B. Just curious.
Zone 5 here
Omg i just ate a bunch of gooseberries and now I’m all grossed out because i did not check them
If it makes you feel better, if you eat any food at all, you are eating thousands of microscopic organisms, you just can't see them. It's really not any different, except how our brains categorize it.
How significant is soil pH with berries? Mine has tested 7.3 - 7.8
It depends on the berry. You couldn't grow blueberries or cranberries. I don't know which berries enjoy slightly alkaline soils, but you could call a master gardener in your area to find out what grows best local to you.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Thank you. Did I mention I am ordering Heartnut and Pawpaw? So excited
how to propagate plants?
Search my channel for "propagate"
I still worry about the invasiveness of Buckthorn in a weak ecology
I've been having issues getting currants, gooseberries, pawpaw, and figs for the past 2 years... finally tried them all fresh... Waste of time... Red & White Currants are sour without flavor, & Black Currents are Revolting 🤮🤢🤮
Different climates perhaps. Keep trying Different things and find out what works best in your area. If you are in the USA, trying contacting your extension office, and ask a master gardener who will be a pro for your location.
Didn't know black currants were this healthy, to me the taste isn't great but I got some anyway for smoothies to make for my family and I :) Also started sharing a cuttings of my gooseberries and others to friends and family not only cause they get so happy for gifts (which in turn makes me happy) but also to spread cool food forest plants around. I myself weren't aware of a lot of these nor their flavoyrs until recently, love spreading the message through gifts! thank you for another great vid permafluencer, plantfluencer? greenfluencer. cheers
LOL thanks. I also love the "this is fine" dog that you use for your account. It often feels like that is our society (especially during thee heat waves!)
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy ty! I picked it many years ago without knowing it to be a vision into the future ^^ Check out the 'this is fine plants', that's your channel's version, enjoy!