Already paused the video to comment 😂 Thank you for putting your efforts into saving the native bees! European honey bees will be fine. They are human managed and bring in money. Capitalism loves a honeybee. The native bees are the ones that need the help. I have tons of native bees on my little city lot and they manage most of the pollination work for me. I've never been stung by them, and they seem to appreciate having a safe place to be. They're fascinating little critters to learn about.
A SIMPLE (but profound) EXAMPLE of the impact of grass/lawn... when we moved into our house, there was an abundance of lawn - including under the pine and maple on the slope in front of the house. The pine looked unhealthy as if it was struggling, and when I stopped mowing in that area and let natural growth take hold, the pine literally "perked up." Based on what I've learned from your channel, it seems that all the natural growth that began nourishing the earth was also nourishing the pine. KEWL! This year, the pine produced produced its first pine cone. My guess is the tree is about 10 years old. THANKS FOR ALL YOU DO. 🙂 BLESSED PHOTOSYNTHESIZING to all! 🌱🌱🌱
Love this so much. Pretty much ever observation I've had since I started a decade ago lines up with this. Anytime I try to follow "common human practice" on how to run an orchard or garden (fence things out, control intensely to include ONLY crop plants, etc) things struggle. But when I take the hands off the wheel a little bit and let nature co-exist in my food forest, sure, sometimes things don't go to plan, but overall the rampancy of nature takes over and it's WELL WORTH that exchange.
Thanks so much for your videos, I have learned so much from them, just planted 8 Haskaps and 6 Currants here in mid coast Maine and your work is an inspiration !
Here in Sweden spring has sprung, daffodills in full bloom, leaves on some trees starting to open, it's been so warm the last few days. I apreciate your videos, since I'm in the process of making a food forest, and also a vegetable garden with raised beds. I've got a lot to do this year, and have made a good start on it already, but it's hard work.
It gets easier as you go, with regard to the exercise. But you'll never stop learning new lessons, making mistakes, and wishing you'd planted things in different places. We've all done that. (I've been a gardener for 40 years and 'still' do that). You did the right thing in starting to turn your garden to permaculture. I just wish more people were doing the same thing. I have an unpleasant feeling that there are going to be fewer and fewer chances to get plants properly established and fruiting well before supermarkets start to struggle to find food at a decent price (we've only just heard that the price of bread is going to rise significantly in the UK. I can imagine what shopping is going to be like tomorrow). From my own experience, I found that I did right by buying in lots of types of berry bushes first. All the colours of currants and gooseberries I could find. Doing the same with raspberries (forget yellow raspberries. Yuck). Aronias (nicer than they sound). As many hybrids of Blueberry as I could find, plus Honey berries, European Blueberries (Bilberries), Jostaberries, Blackberries, Loganberries, Tayberries and lately another Japanese Wine berry (after voles ate the last one). The beauty of getting in lots of fruit bushes is: most of them propagate very easily. In a few years, your blackcurrant will be yielding some great cutting material. A bendy stem on a gooseberry bush can be weighted down on the ground with a stone - and in a few months, you have another gooseberry (takes longer for a Blueberry to oblige). There's no stopping raspberries and blackberries. Logan's and Tays will happily stretch out a shoot in late summer and root right there. Many berries will happily grow and produce berries in light or dappled shade of a fruit tree (my best blackcurrant grows under the dense shade of a very ancient Hazel tree, and still provides cutting material every year). Anyway, wish you luck with your project, watch lots of videos, and hope good weather be with you.
@@Debbie-henri Thank you for your comment, very insightful. I have been watching lots of videos from different creators on youtube for more than a year I think, and I have compiled a lot of information for myself. It's good to hear that even someone that's been doing this for 40 years still makes mistakes and keeps learning, because I am a perfectionist and I hate making mistakes, but I have been telling myself it's okay, because mistakes are great learning opportunities. Good luck with your projects too!
My serviceberries are also in full bloom - they are so beautiful. We are going to stick more of them around the edges of the property. Luckily our half acre front area where everything is planted has a tall fence around it which keeps out the many mule deer which roam the mountains here. They are not really afraid of people, like the white-tails were back east, so fencing is really the only way to preserve a smaller property like ours where we can't afford to lose much to deer browse. But we still get to watch them all the time which is great.
2nd that on the grass; there's a few rabbits that spend all day in my garden just munching on grass for the most part, 9 times out of 10 they only go for plants I like if they stick out of some mulch and there's no nearby grass. They're not gonna be like "oh I know there's grass 10 feet away around this corner, let me go over there so I don't damage this productive plant that humans love"
Always amazes me how much further ahead Ont is to PEI. We have milder weather but shorter season. Looking forward to the back to basics videos. I am developing my land and love the inspiration.
Obviously it would be difficult for anyone to do this if they have hundreds and hundreds of fruit trees as in Keith's garden, but I'm finding that a way of defending young trees against deer is to poke loads of sticks into the ground around trees to make it look like a thicket. From what I've noticed so far in my garden (and already starting to happen again in the nearby woods), deer don't 'seem' to like to push into a thicket with lots of close growing stems to get to anything especially tasty. They nibble growth and scrape their antlers up and down plants located on the outside of thickets. Last year, I'd tried my umpteenth 'magic' anti-deer product, which didn't actually work at all - and it was only after that I realised they never go inside my raspberry patch. They'll nip leaves off the raspberries on the outside of patches, but don't go in them. I never thought for a minute that it would work, but I grabbed a load of dead sticks and stuck them all around a few plants they repeatedly attack. It worked. Can they not see them? Or smell them as well? Is it too much trouble to push through? Is it natural wariness and they don't like the idea of maybe getting tangled up should a predator happen along? It's certainly nothing to do with my scent, because they always ignore that and tuck right in. I cut sticks off anything really. Birch, Beech, Buckthorn, raspberries, roses, Hazel, Forsythia, Hawthorn, Eucalyptus. Anything that comes to hand. I make sure there are no leaves on them and just shove sticks in close together (about 2-3 inches apart all around the plant, at least some of the sticks taller than the vulnerable plant). This has worked since last Summer, during which time they still attacked the same poor old Scot's Pine (unprotected) in the corner of a group of pines. Another thing I did throughout the Winter, experimental at the moment, but for the same purpose, was to take lots of cuttings from shrubs they always seem to avoid. Once the cuttings rooted, I planted them in a long drift that encompassed a long line of young Hazels (deer love Hazels). I'm hoping that as the Weigela grow, they keep the Hazels hidden, and eventually form a thicket around them that will protect their stems, especially when young. I'm also working on other plants that might serve to protect other fruit trees or surround oft-slaughtered fruit bushes (like my previous blackcurrants!) I grow all my plants in grass. It's just too big a job for me to smother it all. My fruit plants grew more slowly as a result, but they still grew. Many did get attacked by voles, so watch that. I modify plastic drinks bottles and tie them around the bases of stems. That's enough to put them off, but the blighters chewed halfway through one of my brand new apple trees - amazingly enough. Didn't kill it, but it certainly doesn't look too happy right now. Voles are definitely the price you have to pay if you grow fruit plants in grass. I turned my oldest Birch tree into a predator bird look-out post so they can hunt voles that think of disturbing my blackcurrants. I'm going to add more predator posts around the garden when the little Birch trees grow large enough. Many, how did you get that Pawpaw to grow? Bought one last year. All it did was die slowly. Cost a fortune as well. By the time I realised there was no coming back, the warranty expired. Looking for Pawpaw seeds now. Must try again. We can't have all this hotter weather and not be able to take advantage of it somehow.
Wonderful comment! It's somewhat similar to how I feel like my thorny wall of raspberries, serviceberries and rugosa rose works to keep deer out. I plant Jerusalem artichokes for them on the deer side (as well as the existance of some wild apple trees that I graft on late-holding wild scion wood onto). They have food and water on "their side", and there are thorns and dogs on my side. I do get some deer damage, but NOTHING compared to when we started. I'd wake up many mornings to deer on my lawn, and that doesn't happen as much anymore, despite from what I've told that deer are a major problem right now and their numbers are off the charts.
Lovely update, very excited for your plans for the channel this year, really looking forward to the updates on basics. I totally respect your reasons for giving up the honeybees, would you reconsider having just a couple of colonies though? I appreciate here they are native and suffer from a lack of natural habitat so by keeping a couple of hives I am providing that habitat, and if they do well enough that there's some excess honey that is a great additional yield. A little more complicated when they are non native for you. I suppose I was looking forward to your take on permaculture approach to honeybees for my own sake! I'm having good results with modelling the system closely on nature and would love to hear your thoughts.
I'm going to see how pollination is this year, and closely watch for native pollinators, then adjust the plan based on that. My first goal is to provide support to the wild bees, as they are going extinct faster than the others, and they do more pollination (by a wide margin) than anything else.
I finally bit the bullet last year and planted some blackcurrants, raspberries, elderberries and pawpaws and I'm just happy they're still alive, lol. I'm a bit jealous of how well yours are doing, but I'm sure mine will get there eventually too! Thanks for being an inspiration. 😁
My robin, nesting on the base of my retractable clothesline attached to my shed, doesn't show up nearly as much as yours. Only the top half of her head shows up, and it's so shadowed under the roofline that I have to use binoculars to make out the white around her eye, as I stand across the yard from her. Four of five haskaps have been leafing out here and yesterday I noticed green buds on the fifth one, which I thought was a goner. I'm starting by putting three dynamic accumulators under each of my apple trees, will be adding nitrogen fixers next, and under the oldest/biggest one I'll be putting in some groundcover...a few years ago I left the ground ivy unmown to feed the pollinators, when other things blossomed I mowed the ground ivy, and it never came back. It's not completely bare ground, but it's close, so I need to get it covered. I have 2500 sq. ft. to work with.
We had a brutal frost last winter in Portland Oregon. There are virtually no bees.Ive only seen only a few fly around. It’s going to take a while for the population to regroup. so I’ve had to hand pollinate a lot of my strawberry flowers. Lots of blueberries have been lost. I am in a position where I might become a beekeeper next year and get a beehive. It hurts to lose so many trees and Berry flowers from Lack of pollination. But Thanks for sharing, your efforts are appreciated.
Keith, could you do a video for people who want to make biochar but don't have land to set up a biochar system? I did see one that used cans on an indoor fireplace, but few people have fireplaces now as well. I thought I could use a small fire but they said the temperature needed to get the char was over 1,000°, which obviously wasn't possible.
I think the barrel system I use is best for that. You can do it on a driveway or even a parking lot if you were so brazen. Just be aware that it will leave a mark. As for the temp of the fire, once the twigs start burning they (and their exhaust gases) will re-combust and create a fire that is roughly 1500-2500F. That being said, I think the temperature threshold to get the gases pushed out of the wood is much much MUCH lower than that. For example, I start my burn with logs, which burn at around 600F only.
Jubuy a bag of hardwood charcoal and powder it. I put it in a feed bag and drive back and forth over it with my truck. Then inoculate with pond water and use.
He usually doesn’t protect his food forest from wild animals. He just lets them go to town. His general idea is to grow so much and so strong, that there is more than enough for wild life and himself. Plus animals pick off weaker plants and fruit, so what’s left is strong and continually gets stronger until there is enough for everyone
Perfectly said!! I very much believe that I'm only one of the creatures on my land, and that it's not all mine. So I share it freely with everyone. My dogs have done some damage, but they do more good than harm (keeping rodents away, but not in the same ecosystem destructive way that an outdoor cat would, etc). It's my philosphy with all major "pests", rabbits, deer, squirrels... they all offer benefits that far outweigh the problems they cause... and even if they didn't, this land isn't only mine, so it's my responsibility to share it with Earth's other creatures also.
Amazing to hear you are going to create habitat for wild bees and gave up the honey bees. 🙌🏻 Definitely share the projects you are doing to create different types of habitat and maybe food for specialist pollinators. 😊
Good grief, Keith! I’m farther south of you and way out west ( Montana) and almost none of my woody plants are in bloom. One exception is golden willow. Most began leaf bud break and then stopped. It’s been too cold out here and this week won’t improve things until the weekend. My comfrey is barely emerging. Alas, we are tied to the weather. Your rhubarb is ridiculous compared to mine at this stage. Most of my rhubarb are huge when they finally get rolling but you appear to be several weeks ahead of us. Enjoy! Having spring return is a awesome,isn’t it. Be well.
@buzzyhardwood2949 You are definitely colder than I am. Fun fact, did you know that the Southern tip of Ontario is at the same latitude as the Northern border of California? I think Montana is roughly the same zone as most of Alberta.
What's your zone there in Canada? I'm just getting started on some acreage here in zone 4a or b in northern Michigan. You might be a good one to learn from. I'll be starting with a vegetable garden next year after I get done building the house, but would like some kind of permaculture/food forest. And yes, my golden retriever knows how lucky she is.
Somewhat close, but just far enough away that I'll leave this comment up. I don't really like my exact location to be known... I've had people before threaten to come burn down my food forest, because they didn't like that I talk about climate change sometimes.
If you have a general idea of where you'd like your food forest, you'd be wise to get some trees in, even if it's the north side of the vegetable garden. They can take anywhere from 3, 5 or 15 years to start producing, and they are patient and will wait for you to fill out the area. Pawpaws take at least five years for most people, as an example. Nut trees can be much longer....
I started watching this channel about the time I learned I was moving to zone 4b. I've already found gardening buddies here to learn from, though they aren't permaculturists, so Keith's channel has been a godsend! The trick is to be very selective about what cultivars you plant. All the trees I bought for this year's batch are good to Zone 3 so I'm hoping everything will be OK. Also have some lingonberries & cold-hardy blueberries arriving soon, plus cold season crops going into my first raised bed tomorrow (hopefully). Next year I'll start thinking about currants & such!
There are many I've used in the past: Black locust, sea buckthorn, autumn olive, clover, peas, siberian peashrub, vetch, alder, goumi berry, lupine, senna, New Jersey Tea, leadplant, etc. However, I've focused pretty heavily on sea buckthorn because we love the berries (one of the healthiest berries on planet earth, and a great fruit to cook with - amazing flavour profile, even if the raw berry is extremely tart).
i have been scouring the internet and cant find any good info on eating root veg that grows in soil that contains juglone, things like jerusalem artichoke, beets, garlic, onions, etc. do you have any experience with planting around black walnuts or have you come into any info pertaining to eating root veg that grow in such conditions?
I have them strategically located here because these are the 2 main spots I've seen cranes land. They are also obfuscating the water surface/fish below.
We actually have many predators. We have foxes and wolves on the ground, owls in the air. There are rabbits, as there should be. So many people see "pests" and think complete removal is the solution, but that's not balance.
Kiwi is a fuzzy, brown skinned fruit that green inside, about 2 inches long. You don't eat the skin. Hardy kiwi is fuzzless, about the size of a large grape and you eat the skin. They are delicious, high in vitamin c. I have never tasted a hardy kiwi, but am told they taste like the one I buy in the store
@@wendyburston3132 It's a vine that will need consistent pruning a few times a year. You'll want a sturdy structure on which they can climb. They take a number of years before producing fruit. I've read 3-7 years, but they are supposed to be even sweeter than the larger ones that you have to peel. Mine is starting its fourth season, so, I too, hope to see fruit this year!
Absolutely not. Our chickens got eaten, and we are getting more this year. We have 4 raised beds and I built 5 more this year. We have a 20 by 40 foot annual garden in addition to that. The bees we didn't give up on, but rather made a conscious choice to prioritize wild native bees, because they are infinitely more important than non-native honey bees.
Good choice on the bees. They are fine if you want the honey, but most people don’t realize that honey bees aren’t native to North America and that their main role is to support monoculture production. Stefan Sobkowiak just put out a video on Friday where he mentioned that he isn’t using honey bees any longer. But he also encourages native insect and bird diversity on the property.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy “Later this year…” It’s chickens you buying not cows… you could buy them right now…. Besides you aren’t rising some rare breed chickens so there are zero reasons not to buy them like yesterday. And no, you can’t protect them 100% with new fancy coup or something like that if it’s that what you’re thinking of…
@@luckyhomestead Why all the anger and negativity? Keith does these videos as a way to help people get started and be inspired and gives a lot of his time to do so without any payment. Lighten up, already!
Glad it wasn't just me who felt that. No idea where that came from, but we all have challenges in our lives that lead to us not being the best versions of ourself from time to time. Sometimes we run into people who are having a bad day. ❤️
Already paused the video to comment 😂 Thank you for putting your efforts into saving the native bees! European honey bees will be fine. They are human managed and bring in money. Capitalism loves a honeybee. The native bees are the ones that need the help. I have tons of native bees on my little city lot and they manage most of the pollination work for me. I've never been stung by them, and they seem to appreciate having a safe place to be. They're fascinating little critters to learn about.
💯
Great video. I really appreciate your emphasis on getting people to take stewardship of their own areas and create their own food forests.
I have a baby food forest and some raised beds etc. I watch you for inspiration! I can always get
In the mood by watching cool gardeners.
Thanks so kindly! And also for supporting the channel! It means so much that I have had an impact on people. ❤️
A SIMPLE (but profound) EXAMPLE of the impact of grass/lawn... when we moved into our house, there was an abundance of lawn - including under the pine and maple on the slope in front of the house. The pine looked unhealthy as if it was struggling, and when I stopped mowing in that area and let natural growth take hold, the pine literally "perked up." Based on what I've learned from your channel, it seems that all the natural growth that began nourishing the earth was also nourishing the pine. KEWL! This year, the pine produced produced its first pine cone. My guess is the tree is about 10 years old. THANKS FOR ALL YOU DO. 🙂 BLESSED PHOTOSYNTHESIZING to all! 🌱🌱🌱
Love this so much. Pretty much ever observation I've had since I started a decade ago lines up with this. Anytime I try to follow "common human practice" on how to run an orchard or garden (fence things out, control intensely to include ONLY crop plants, etc) things struggle. But when I take the hands off the wheel a little bit and let nature co-exist in my food forest, sure, sometimes things don't go to plan, but overall the rampancy of nature takes over and it's WELL WORTH that exchange.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Thank you so much for taking the time to reply. Appreciate how busy you are. 🙂
Beautiful!
Thanks so much for your videos, I have learned so much from them, just planted 8 Haskaps and 6 Currants here in mid coast Maine and your work is an inspiration !
Wooo! 🥳 🎉
Lovely tour, thank you! I'm getting some ideas for new trees from your videos, like Sea Buckthorn and Serviceberry.
Here in Sweden spring has sprung, daffodills in full bloom, leaves on some trees starting to open, it's been so warm the last few days. I apreciate your videos, since I'm in the process of making a food forest, and also a vegetable garden with raised beds. I've got a lot to do this year, and have made a good start on it already, but it's hard work.
It gets easier as you go, with regard to the exercise.
But you'll never stop learning new lessons, making mistakes, and wishing you'd planted things in different places. We've all done that. (I've been a gardener for 40 years and 'still' do that).
You did the right thing in starting to turn your garden to permaculture. I just wish more people were doing the same thing.
I have an unpleasant feeling that there are going to be fewer and fewer chances to get plants properly established and fruiting well before supermarkets start to struggle to find food at a decent price (we've only just heard that the price of bread is going to rise significantly in the UK. I can imagine what shopping is going to be like tomorrow).
From my own experience, I found that I did right by buying in lots of types of berry bushes first.
All the colours of currants and gooseberries I could find. Doing the same with raspberries (forget yellow raspberries. Yuck).
Aronias (nicer than they sound).
As many hybrids of Blueberry as I could find, plus Honey berries, European Blueberries (Bilberries), Jostaberries, Blackberries, Loganberries, Tayberries and lately another Japanese Wine berry (after voles ate the last one).
The beauty of getting in lots of fruit bushes is: most of them propagate very easily.
In a few years, your blackcurrant will be yielding some great cutting material.
A bendy stem on a gooseberry bush can be weighted down on the ground with a stone - and in a few months, you have another gooseberry (takes longer for a Blueberry to oblige).
There's no stopping raspberries and blackberries.
Logan's and Tays will happily stretch out a shoot in late summer and root right there.
Many berries will happily grow and produce berries in light or dappled shade of a fruit tree (my best blackcurrant grows under the dense shade of a very ancient Hazel tree, and still provides cutting material every year).
Anyway, wish you luck with your project, watch lots of videos, and hope good weather be with you.
@@Debbie-henri Thank you for your comment, very insightful. I have been watching lots of videos from different creators on youtube for more than a year I think, and I have compiled a lot of information for myself. It's good to hear that even someone that's been doing this for 40 years still makes mistakes and keeps learning, because I am a perfectionist and I hate making mistakes, but I have been telling myself it's okay, because mistakes are great learning opportunities. Good luck with your projects too!
My serviceberries are also in full bloom - they are so beautiful. We are going to stick more of them around the edges of the property. Luckily our half acre front area where everything is planted has a tall fence around it which keeps out the many mule deer which roam the mountains here. They are not really afraid of people, like the white-tails were back east, so fencing is really the only way to preserve a smaller property like ours where we can't afford to lose much to deer browse. But we still get to watch them all the time which is great.
Lovely walk around. I was down to the Cambridge area last week and there were blooms everywhere. Nice to see that spring is moving northeast!
2nd that on the grass; there's a few rabbits that spend all day in my garden just munching on grass for the most part, 9 times out of 10 they only go for plants I like if they stick out of some mulch and there's no nearby grass. They're not gonna be like "oh I know there's grass 10 feet away around this corner, let me go over there so I don't damage this productive plant that humans love"
Always amazes me how much further ahead Ont is to PEI. We have milder weather but shorter season. Looking forward to the back to basics videos. I am developing my land and love the inspiration.
It's that thermal moderation effect of the ocean. Everything is slower... slower to warm up, slower to cool down.
Obviously it would be difficult for anyone to do this if they have hundreds and hundreds of fruit trees as in Keith's garden, but I'm finding that a way of defending young trees against deer is to poke loads of sticks into the ground around trees to make it look like a thicket.
From what I've noticed so far in my garden (and already starting to happen again in the nearby woods), deer don't 'seem' to like to push into a thicket with lots of close growing stems to get to anything especially tasty. They nibble growth and scrape their antlers up and down plants located on the outside of thickets.
Last year, I'd tried my umpteenth 'magic' anti-deer product, which didn't actually work at all - and it was only after that I realised they never go inside my raspberry patch.
They'll nip leaves off the raspberries on the outside of patches, but don't go in them.
I never thought for a minute that it would work, but I grabbed a load of dead sticks and stuck them all around a few plants they repeatedly attack.
It worked.
Can they not see them? Or smell them as well?
Is it too much trouble to push through?
Is it natural wariness and they don't like the idea of maybe getting tangled up should a predator happen along?
It's certainly nothing to do with my scent, because they always ignore that and tuck right in.
I cut sticks off anything really. Birch, Beech, Buckthorn, raspberries, roses, Hazel, Forsythia, Hawthorn, Eucalyptus. Anything that comes to hand.
I make sure there are no leaves on them and just shove sticks in close together (about 2-3 inches apart all around the plant, at least some of the sticks taller than the vulnerable plant).
This has worked since last Summer, during which time they still attacked the same poor old Scot's Pine (unprotected) in the corner of a group of pines.
Another thing I did throughout the Winter, experimental at the moment, but for the same purpose, was to take lots of cuttings from shrubs they always seem to avoid. Once the cuttings rooted, I planted them in a long drift that encompassed a long line of young Hazels (deer love Hazels).
I'm hoping that as the Weigela grow, they keep the Hazels hidden, and eventually form a thicket around them that will protect their stems, especially when young.
I'm also working on other plants that might serve to protect other fruit trees or surround oft-slaughtered fruit bushes (like my previous blackcurrants!)
I grow all my plants in grass. It's just too big a job for me to smother it all. My fruit plants grew more slowly as a result, but they still grew.
Many did get attacked by voles, so watch that. I modify plastic drinks bottles and tie them around the bases of stems. That's enough to put them off, but the blighters chewed halfway through one of my brand new apple trees - amazingly enough. Didn't kill it, but it certainly doesn't look too happy right now.
Voles are definitely the price you have to pay if you grow fruit plants in grass. I turned my oldest Birch tree into a predator bird look-out post so they can hunt voles that think of disturbing my blackcurrants.
I'm going to add more predator posts around the garden when the little Birch trees grow large enough.
Many, how did you get that Pawpaw to grow?
Bought one last year. All it did was die slowly. Cost a fortune as well. By the time I realised there was no coming back, the warranty expired.
Looking for Pawpaw seeds now. Must try again. We can't have all this hotter weather and not be able to take advantage of it somehow.
Wonderful comment!
It's somewhat similar to how I feel like my thorny wall of raspberries, serviceberries and rugosa rose works to keep deer out. I plant Jerusalem artichokes for them on the deer side (as well as the existance of some wild apple trees that I graft on late-holding wild scion wood onto). They have food and water on "their side", and there are thorns and dogs on my side. I do get some deer damage, but NOTHING compared to when we started. I'd wake up many mornings to deer on my lawn, and that doesn't happen as much anymore, despite from what I've told that deer are a major problem right now and their numbers are off the charts.
Lovely update, very excited for your plans for the channel this year, really looking forward to the updates on basics. I totally respect your reasons for giving up the honeybees, would you reconsider having just a couple of colonies though? I appreciate here they are native and suffer from a lack of natural habitat so by keeping a couple of hives I am providing that habitat, and if they do well enough that there's some excess honey that is a great additional yield. A little more complicated when they are non native for you.
I suppose I was looking forward to your take on permaculture approach to honeybees for my own sake! I'm having good results with modelling the system closely on nature and would love to hear your thoughts.
I'm going to see how pollination is this year, and closely watch for native pollinators, then adjust the plan based on that. My first goal is to provide support to the wild bees, as they are going extinct faster than the others, and they do more pollination (by a wide margin) than anything else.
Excellent! Which serviceberry cultivars do you have growing?
Various Allegheny (laevis) and Saskatoon (alnifolia), but mostly wild (Canadensis) varieties for birds. We have only a couple
I finally bit the bullet last year and planted some blackcurrants, raspberries, elderberries and pawpaws and I'm just happy they're still alive, lol. I'm a bit jealous of how well yours are doing, but I'm sure mine will get there eventually too! Thanks for being an inspiration. 😁
I don't mind the review of how to start a food forest, given that I'm doing permaculture on a brand new property! Looking forward to the new season!
Best of luck! You are one of the most knowledgeable people here so I'm sure you will do just fine! 😆 🤣 😂
My robin, nesting on the base of my retractable clothesline attached to my shed, doesn't show up nearly as much as yours. Only the top half of her head shows up, and it's so shadowed under the roofline that I have to use binoculars to make out the white around her eye, as I stand across the yard from her. Four of five haskaps have been leafing out here and yesterday I noticed green buds on the fifth one, which I thought was a goner. I'm starting by putting three dynamic accumulators under each of my apple trees, will be adding nitrogen fixers next, and under the oldest/biggest one I'll be putting in some groundcover...a few years ago I left the ground ivy unmown to feed the pollinators, when other things blossomed I mowed the ground ivy, and it never came back. It's not completely bare ground, but it's close, so I need to get it covered. I have 2500 sq. ft. to work with.
We had a brutal frost last winter in Portland Oregon. There are virtually no bees.Ive only seen only a few fly around. It’s going to take a while for the population to regroup. so I’ve had to hand pollinate a lot of my strawberry flowers. Lots of blueberries have been lost. I am in a position where I might become a beekeeper next year and get a beehive. It hurts to lose so many trees and Berry flowers from Lack of pollination. But Thanks for sharing, your efforts are appreciated.
Sad 😔
Keith, could you do a video for people who want to make biochar but don't have land to set up a biochar system? I did see one that used cans on an indoor fireplace, but few people have fireplaces now as well.
I thought I could use a small fire but they said the temperature needed to get the char was over 1,000°, which obviously wasn't possible.
I think the barrel system I use is best for that. You can do it on a driveway or even a parking lot if you were so brazen. Just be aware that it will leave a mark.
As for the temp of the fire, once the twigs start burning they (and their exhaust gases) will re-combust and create a fire that is roughly 1500-2500F. That being said, I think the temperature threshold to get the gases pushed out of the wood is much much MUCH lower than that. For example, I start my burn with logs, which burn at around 600F only.
Jubuy a bag of hardwood charcoal and powder it. I put it in a feed bag and drive back and forth over it with my truck. Then inoculate with pond water and use.
cant i build my own food forrest and watch you?
Apparently fescue is good for blueberries
How do you protect your plants from your dogs? Hi from Alberta. I'm new to your channel and just subscribed.
He usually doesn’t protect his food forest from wild animals. He just lets them go to town. His general idea is to grow so much and so strong, that there is more than enough for wild life and himself. Plus animals pick off weaker plants and fruit, so what’s left is strong and continually gets stronger until there is enough for everyone
Perfectly said!!
I very much believe that I'm only one of the creatures on my land, and that it's not all mine. So I share it freely with everyone. My dogs have done some damage, but they do more good than harm (keeping rodents away, but not in the same ecosystem destructive way that an outdoor cat would, etc). It's my philosphy with all major "pests", rabbits, deer, squirrels... they all offer benefits that far outweigh the problems they cause... and even if they didn't, this land isn't only mine, so it's my responsibility to share it with Earth's other creatures also.
@@MightyEumendies that's it! I need an acreage.
Amazing to hear you are going to create habitat for wild bees and gave up the honey bees. 🙌🏻 Definitely share the projects you are doing to create different types of habitat and maybe food for specialist pollinators. 😊
Good grief, Keith! I’m farther south of you and way out west ( Montana) and almost none of my woody plants are in bloom. One exception is golden willow. Most began leaf bud break and then stopped. It’s been too cold out here and this week won’t improve things until the weekend. My comfrey is barely emerging. Alas, we are tied to the weather. Your rhubarb is ridiculous compared to mine at this stage. Most of my rhubarb are huge when they finally get rolling but you appear to be several weeks ahead of us. Enjoy! Having spring return is a awesome,isn’t it. Be well.
@buzzyhardwood2949 You are definitely colder than I am. Fun fact, did you know that the Southern tip of Ontario is at the same latitude as the Northern border of California?
I think Montana is roughly the same zone as most of Alberta.
100% about rabbits and grass. it's a giant green plane of distraction lol
Lovely❤
Do you get a good crop of hardy kiwi. I considered planting them in my zone 4, but I've heard they grow very well but don't produce much
Not a single one yet but big hopes for this year
What's your zone there in Canada? I'm just getting started on some acreage here in zone 4a or b in northern Michigan. You might be a good one to learn from. I'll be starting with a vegetable garden next year after I get done building the house, but would like some kind of permaculture/food forest. And yes, my golden retriever knows how lucky she is.
He lives in Oshawa or Whitby, Ontario I think it's 5A OR B
Somewhat close, but just far enough away that I'll leave this comment up. I don't really like my exact location to be known... I've had people before threaten to come burn down my food forest, because they didn't like that I talk about climate change sometimes.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Wow...the ignorance of some people just astounds me!
If you have a general idea of where you'd like your food forest, you'd be wise to get some trees in, even if it's the north side of the vegetable garden. They can take anywhere from 3, 5 or 15 years to start producing, and they are patient and will wait for you to fill out the area. Pawpaws take at least five years for most people, as an example. Nut trees can be much longer....
I started watching this channel about the time I learned I was moving to zone 4b. I've already found gardening buddies here to learn from, though they aren't permaculturists, so Keith's channel has been a godsend! The trick is to be very selective about what cultivars you plant. All the trees I bought for this year's batch are good to Zone 3 so I'm hoping everything will be OK. Also have some lingonberries & cold-hardy blueberries arriving soon, plus cold season crops going into my first raised bed tomorrow (hopefully). Next year I'll start thinking about currants & such!
Everything really looks great! What nitrogen fixers do you find to be beneficial in your climate?
There are many I've used in the past: Black locust, sea buckthorn, autumn olive, clover, peas, siberian peashrub, vetch, alder, goumi berry, lupine, senna, New Jersey Tea, leadplant, etc. However, I've focused pretty heavily on sea buckthorn because we love the berries (one of the healthiest berries on planet earth, and a great fruit to cook with - amazing flavour profile, even if the raw berry is extremely tart).
i have been scouring the internet and cant find any good info on eating root veg that grows in soil that contains juglone, things like jerusalem artichoke, beets, garlic, onions, etc. do you have any experience with planting around black walnuts or have you come into any info pertaining to eating root veg that grow in such conditions?
I've probably missed it but have any of the paw paws produced fruit yet? How does it taste?
We've got a video on it! (Link included in another comment, let me know if you see it, sometimes youtube blocks links)
th-cam.com/video/jV3nPRkcQHA/w-d-xo.html
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy got it. Thanks!
I have burdock coming up, too. How do you manage it?
I just keep pulling the leaves off and feeding to my rabbits. Don’t let it go to seed
Fertigate? Very creative
It's a term combining fertilizing and irrigating. When a process does both at the same time. (not a made up word believe it or not)
put the waterpumps in 2 oposite corners?
I have them strategically located here because these are the 2 main spots I've seen cranes land. They are also obfuscating the water surface/fish below.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Fish hide closer to building?
Ask some hunters to come in and clear out some rabbits. You lack predators so the system is out of whack
🤣 the idea of Keith calling someone to come in and kill a load of rabbits! Lol.
We actually have many predators. We have foxes and wolves on the ground, owls in the air. There are rabbits, as there should be. So many people see "pests" and think complete removal is the solution, but that's not balance.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy plus your doggoes :) they chase the rabbits too :)
What? quiwi?
Indeed! Arguta Kiwi, cold Hardy Kiwi (Actinidia arguta)
Kiwi is a fuzzy, brown skinned fruit that green inside, about 2 inches long. You don't eat the skin. Hardy kiwi is fuzzless, about the size of a large grape and you eat the skin. They are delicious, high in vitamin c. I have never tasted a hardy kiwi, but am told they taste like the one I buy in the store
@@maryjane-vx4dd thank you so much. Now I want a kiwi tree. 🤔😊👍
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy where did you buy yours?
@@wendyburston3132 It's a vine that will need consistent pruning a few times a year. You'll want a sturdy structure on which they can climb. They take a number of years before producing fruit. I've read 3-7 years, but they are supposed to be even sweeter than the larger ones that you have to peel. Mine is starting its fourth season, so, I too, hope to see fruit this year!
You given up with everything chicken, bees, vegetable garden and so on …
Absolutely not. Our chickens got eaten, and we are getting more this year. We have 4 raised beds and I built 5 more this year. We have a 20 by 40 foot annual garden in addition to that. The bees we didn't give up on, but rather made a conscious choice to prioritize wild native bees, because they are infinitely more important than non-native honey bees.
Good choice on the bees. They are fine if you want the honey, but most people don’t realize that honey bees aren’t native to North America and that their main role is to support monoculture production.
Stefan Sobkowiak just put out a video on Friday where he mentioned that he isn’t using honey bees any longer. But he also encourages native insect and bird diversity on the property.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy “Later this year…” It’s chickens you buying not cows… you could buy them right now…. Besides you aren’t rising some rare breed chickens so there are zero reasons not to buy them like yesterday. And no, you can’t protect them 100% with new fancy coup or something like that if it’s that what you’re thinking of…
@@luckyhomestead Why all the anger and negativity? Keith does these videos as a way to help people get started and be inspired and gives a lot of his time to do so without any payment. Lighten up, already!
Glad it wasn't just me who felt that. No idea where that came from, but we all have challenges in our lives that lead to us not being the best versions of ourself from time to time. Sometimes we run into people who are having a bad day. ❤️