If you found this video helpful, please “Like” and share to help increase its reach! Thanks for watching 😊TIMESTAMPS here: 0:00 Chop And Drop Gardening Explained 3:46 How To Chop And Drop Demonstration 6:10 How To Fertilize And Mulch With Chop & Drop 9:56 Can I Just Use Fertilizers Instead? 13:04 Adventures With Dale
Thank you so much for this video! I'm on it tomorrow. I want to say also that I have learned so much from you and you are my favorite garden channel. I never miss your videos/lessons. Don't stop! 🥰🌱
I have to comment on this video. A while ago I bought a small electric shredder/chipper for my prunings for about $150. I just finished pruning some fruit trees like done in this video. I was amazed at how well the little chipper worked on the small leafy branches and all the branches up to about 1.5 inches diameter. Everything was ground up to bits and pieces less than an inch long. It was so easy to spread this fine mulch around I feel I should tell the viewers of this video. Two weeks later the mulch has turned from green to brown and looks just like the bagged mulch I used to buy. In conclusion, I get free mulch instead of buying it now, I don't have to load the branches up and take to the dump, and the little chipper will pay for itself in no time. The footprint of the little chipper is about 15 inch by 15 inch in my storage shed. Everybody should own one of these to make gardening easier, they do work really well for this application.
Exactly. TroyBuilt chippers are great as well. We bought one at the same time we purchased our house. We trim, shred & move the chippings all throughout our garden. It’s portable so we push it to the trees being trimmed. Wifey prunes and i shred it all. In Fall, bag after bag of leaves, chipped/shredded & spread.
The electric chippers are okay for small branches. They won't work on the thicker branches. I personally don't find them worth the cost, because if the branches are small enough to be handled by an electric chipper, you can just chop and drop them. I'd rather put the money toward a gas powered chipper that can handle it all. The gas powered chippers will handle branches in the 3-4" diameter range and chip up the smaller branches at a fraction of the time. I don't mean to be a naysayer, and I'm glad you're happy with your purchase. I would advocate for most people to go the gas-powered route, though, if they want to make the investment in a chipper to ensure it works on a wider array of things.
@@TheGiveittomeall I bought the model with the clear plastic collection bin on the bottom. Rated for up to 1.75inch but I only go to 1.5inch branches. It is sold under many brand names just in different colors. Works well and easy to store. But you have to clean it out regularly if you mulch soft stuff like asparagus ferns: they plugged it up quickly. Cleaning it out only takes a few minutes tho so no big deal.
I got a feeling that your avocado is mature enough to survive the freezes now. They are pretty hardy once mature. The top may die a bit but it always grows back.
I chop and drop in my orchard, and also keep back a few leaves to add to a black trash can filled with water. I shred my leaves, throw them in with a handful of worm castings, stir occasionally and keep the lid on. I then use it as my liquid fertilizer in the orchard
Love this. Because I am on land with lots of older fruit trees already (my grandmother planted many of them in the '60s), I don't usually use anything more than chop-and-drop even for young trees, because we are on ancient soils which, without a healthy fungal network, are more-or-less unusable, so because I have time, I avoid added fertilisers in order to keep our funguses alive. This does mean a lot of trees take a while to get going, but many of the trees planted this way seem a lot more resilient to bad weather than some of the older trees that were coddled more when they first went in. (I do also periodically add some kitchen compost around the canopy line of some trees, and do try to mix and match the dropped prunings from different trees to keep the topsoil a little richer).
This has come at a good time. I have let my back yard become WAY overgrown with "weed trees" (saplings basically). I know about chop & drop but haven't ever done it. I've been just ignoring thinking about what to do with all the material I'm cutting down and now I know! Thanks for the reminder! I even have a small wood chipper for the main stems.
I appreciate the chop and drop throughout my garden and trees. In the summer it's a great free mulch of nutrition and root protection during high heat. During winter ditto, nutrition and root protection. Win all year as nature designs😊
@TheMillennialGardener most of us are taught not to fertilize for over winter so all plants can rest. Food for plants is way different than to fertilize. I'd love for you to do a video on this topic.
That's excellent. Being in a clear cut neighborhood in the coastal South, you can't find a leaf. Seriously. I've never raked leaves since moving here 6 years ago. There aren't any...all the trees we do have are evergreens...
It's a beast. It grows 8 feet every summer. This year, I may try experimenting with pruning it every few weeks to prevent it from growing like that. I'm wondering if the vigor is causing my fruit drop issue in late spring.
You don't need to drop the larger pieces in the forest. You can also use them. If you look on youtube for brazil agroforestry you can see how those guys use it. Cut them in 300mm (1ft) lengths and stack them around the base. In top of that goes the thinner branches and on top of that the leaves.
This actually explains why a tree I pruned had grown like crazy the next year. I happened to leave the prunings & hedge clippings underneath to decompose.
I'm sure that helped. Pruning also enhances vigor. Wherever you make a cut, it will create 3-4 branches in most case. Pruning triggers new growth, and therefore enhanced fruiting on trees where fruits form on new year's growth.
I'm on the west coast, and just moved in to a home that has fruit trees. They are all overgrown, but given I have never owned fruit trees before don't want to do the wrong thing. I'd hate to kill them. They've all established trees. I'm guessing they're all between 8-10' tall. And abt 7-9' wide. And they're all pretty dense. I don't want to prune too much, or maybe I'm not supposed to prune at all till early spring. Seeing you cut yours back got me wanting to do the same thing. Actually though, the citrus trees are still producing. As is the apple tree. Should I leave them alone. I love your channel. I think I learn more from your channel than any other garden channel. Thank you!
@TheMillennialGardener, at around 3:00, notice 3 black barrel bins. Are those new compost bins vs the trash cans you used in the past? Also, citrus trees planted near them...does that help the citrus trees? I find getting citrus started in warmer climates to be difficult...have to leave them in planters on the shaded back porch. I setup a compost bin like your trashcan compost, and has been awesome. Recycling veggie scraps has provided great nutrients back into my gardens.
There are rental companies that day lease various types of wood chippers. Can come in handy if you have a lot of trimmings to mulch. No maintenance or storage of the equipment.
That's true, but often when you look at the rental costs, you can buy a unit for the cost of 3 rentals. You can buy a brand new gas powered chipper online in the $400-500 range, and seeing these places that rent them for $100-150/day makes me feel like it's better to just save up and buy one. One day I will probably invest in one.
@@TheMillennialGardener indeed, that’s a sound economic decision. For those with less time, physical challenges, limited storage, etc., the rental option may be more practical. Or maybe find a friend that could share the expense. Or hire a little help. Otherwise, if it’s feasible it’s an obvious worthy investment. 👍
PS…I’m just fascinated with your citrus and avocado trees in that zone. Excellent permaculture practices and pruning demonstration! Here in zone 7 a/b land locked Oklahoma, we’ve had to bring our citrus trees in the sun room and keep them fairly dwarf in stature. It was much easier in coastal south Texas to grow citrus. Alas, we bloom where we are planted. Now hoping a pomegranate tree obtained from a local grower can handle winter as well as they claim.. 🤷🏻♀️🍋🍊
Great video. I had some extra help with my chop and drop activities recently by telling my little cousin to chop my corn stalks from the summer. I use the same chop and drop method as you with my shrubs in the front of my house and it helps with shrubs like azeleas etc.
Your prunings all look beautiful and healthy. If some prunings are not so healthy looking, should those be hauled away / burned with the bigger branches and thorns?
Great information! Thank you for getting it out there! 😊 I was wondering, how did you learn so much about the subject? Where do you find all that information? You’re very knowledgeable and it’s enriching! Thanks again! 😃
You have to be careful with that, because it will eventually turn into thatch. Lawns don't like being mulched in a lot of cases. They wind up suffocating their own roots, then the have to be de-thatched and aerated. It's one of the many reasons why I don't like having a lawn ☹
HF Predator I found works well unless your going for the Popeye forearms. Ideally you want to plant legumes between your fruit tress for fast establishment as part of "chop and drop" permaculture design.
I’m in a 8a area in Texas and have Meyer lemon I’m trying to grow along with some other trees (dwarf cherry, peach and fig) that I’ll use this with. So far they are still small so hopefully they’ll take off next spring. It’s the avocado that I’m growing that I really want to get in the ground so I need to find your planting of yours for help. Thanks for this video.
Hey MG! I hope you’re doing well this fall! I was wondering, do you read many books on this subject or gardening? Because I think if you haven’t already, you should check out JADAM organic farming and try out some of the techniques that they prescribe. It’s not a super long read, it’s well illustrated and written by a multi-generation family of South Korean organic gardeners. Even if you don’t agree with everything I personally believe this would be right up your alley, and maybe you could make a video discussing low cost organic gardening with the JADAM philosophy in mind. Thanks for reading, have a happy Halloween!
So…this is the first year for Ms. Owari and Mr. Brown…they are in large containers and will go in my greenhouse for the winter. Should they be pruned? And, my lemon and lime are laden with fruits… do they get pruned? Atlanta location.
It’s a foundational principle of permaculture. In warmer climates, it is common to grow nitrogen fixing grasses since they basically filter nutrients from the air. Then, you cut them and use them as mulch. You basically get a never ending supply of free mulch for your trees.
If you had to chose one, figs or persimmons? I don't have the space to really put in a persimmon tree anywhere, unless you think it would grow in a pot? I know figs do well in pots.
I don’t think a persimmon will do well in containers. Figs can easily be pruned for container culture. If you have no in ground space and can only grow in pots, you’d have to go with a fig. Keep in mind persimmons also make excellent front yard trees since they’re beautiful. Fig trees aren’t nearly as pretty. If you can plant a fruit tree out front, Asian persimmons make perfect landscaping.
I hear that Tithonia Diversifolia is an effective chop and drop plant and in summer bought cuttings from Florida. Can chop and drop be used in vegetable beds? This is my plan, although I am not sure my timing is right. I am using it among winter greens and lettuces and where I will plant other vegetables in spring.
My biggest problem in my young orchard is CRITTERS! The orchard is back a ways on farmland. I caged them to protect from deer but over the winter they (rodents, I assume) chew the base of the trees, even under deep snow. I’ve heard of sprays that last a few months, has anyone tried them?
Can you wrap them with something if they're deciduous? Deciduous trees can be wrapped in tar paper or something like that. They also make a lot of tree guards to protect trunks from damage. If you search "tree guard" on Amazon or Google, you can find many options.
Yes, if you don't mind losing the cuttings. Because they're deciduous trees, they will yield less matter, so it's best to collect the leaves as they drop, too.
Do you feel like leaving fallen leaves is just as good? We have a very large bed for trees and I never remove the leaves in the fall. My chickens do a decent job of turning leaves over. I’ve △⃒⃘lways felt like it was better to just let them decompose.
Given where I live, I don't have leaves. It's all pine and evergreen here, so I can't find a leaf anywhere ☹ But, that being said, leaves make excellent mulch. They're terrible for your lawn and need to be removed (or they can suffocate and kill your lawn), but relocating them around your landscaping is perfect. After all, forest floors are mostly decomposing leaves, so there's really no better mulch for trees than fallen leaves. If I had them, I'd be raking them over to my landscaping beds.
My Meyer lemon didn't have thorns. However, when it died the root stock grew out from below the graft and it had enormous thorns. Are you sure all is well with your lemon tree? ~ Lisa
The root stock might have been a Flying Dragon citrus, this is a dwarfing rootstock with very large thorns. Also, lots of citrus trees have thorns, some trees grow out of their thorns as they reach maturity. Hope this helps!
Meyer lemon is not a thornless tree. All Meyer's have thorns. Are you sure it was a Meyer? It could have been mislabeled. Your rootstock was likely trifoliate orange, and the thorns are absolutely horrific. They are the most vicious thorns of any plant I've ever encountered.
@@TheMillennialGardener The thorns on my tree, and all other Meyer lemons I've seen, were so tiny and soft they were more like new leaves than thorns. My point was that the thorns were not so large as to cause injury. Please forgive the ambiguity. I believe the root stock was rough lemon, although it's been so long ago I can't remember where I got that info. I do remember the horns being almost two inches long, so it could certainly have been trifoliate orange. If that's what your thorns are like, I don't blame you for tossing the logs in the woods. 😄
You're welcome! We have a local company here in the Carolinas called Seaside Mulch. It's a giant mulch yard where you pull your truck around and they dump a backhoe bucket into the bed. However, the local Lowe's has a contract where they bag it up for them, so I'm able to buy the local mulch and compost by the bag. It's half the price of the national brands.
Is sawdust from lumber milling useable in the garden (other than composting)? Looks like you live just across the road (Hwy 133) from me. I recognize the pond.
That depends what the sawdust is from. You don't want to use sawdust from treated lumber or that funky composite faux-wood particle board stuff, so if the mill makes all sorts of things, I would not use it. I would only use it if I was 100% certain it came from totally natural wood. If it's a mixed bag, I'd avoid it.
It won’t make the pH too acidic. Just mildly over time, which isn’t bad since most fruit trees want a 6.5 pH anyway. Most plants prefer mildly acidic soil.
It's not something I've ever grown. There are a lot of different plants that can be grown simply for biomass, but what grows well in the UK won't grow well in Florida. What you should plant for biomass is something that should be determined locally.
It depends what you’re pruning. Deciduous trees shouldn’t be pruned until they’re fully dormant. Deciduous trees won’t be in full dormancy in Zone 5/6 yet. It’s too early.
Have you heard of anyone else not getting stuff from your store for 2 and half weeks? I ordered those bags you posted over a week and a half ago and now they are saying next sunday?
When you order through my Amazon store, it's a standard purchase just like you'd order through Amazon normally. The only difference is I receive a small referral commission. I did notice the 20 gallon sizes of those fabric grow bags were now sold out, so it's possible it's a stock issue. I can only guess. I'm sure they will eventually ship once they get back in stock. If you don't need them right away since we're moving into winter, I'd just hold tight. I just opened my package and they're pretty nice. For the price, you can't beat them.
Some people say to not put mulch against the trunk, but in the forrest there's not one to make sure that mulch doesn't get around the trunk of trees. I also don't see any harm with putting mulch next to my tree trunks in the past 8 years of planting fruit trees so that to me seems like a myth.
Tree canopies drop their leaves away from the trunk. If you wander through a forest, you'll never see mulch piled up against the trunk of a tree. It's just not something that really happens. Also, keep in mind that trees do die in the forest all the time. They get attacked by pests, succumb to disease, and sometimes they even rot. It's not a myth. It happens in landscaping.
@@TheMillennialGardener There's not just mulch in the rainforest- theres vegetation, moist, fungi, all kinds of other things. It is nature, and we are just mulching our backyard trees and doing other things to imitate nature.
I think the debate about bacterial vs fungal is oversimplified and not always appropriate. Ive been doing chop and drop with my raised bed for 4 years now and it works good with tomatoes and other vegetables as well
It works fine if you grow from large transplants. It does not work well if you direct-seed. You will need to scrape back the mulch and remove it in order to sow seeds. That's the real problem with it. It becomes very cumbersome and intrusive when you're sowing many rows in many beds this time of year.
It can be a bit of a challenge but in my experience a few weeks is enough to break down/ dry enough to sow even fine seeded crops if you process the plant matter a littke. Especially in a warm climate like yourself it should be even faster.
Potted plants have limited use for mulch and don’t process mulch well since they have very little soil biology. Potted plants aren’t sustainable, so these principles tend to not work for them. Potted plants need liquid fertilizers to work best in my experience.
The compost layer goes under the mulch. Mulch goes on top. In nature, leaves fall, they decompose into humus (compost), then a new layer of fresh leaves and plant matter falls on top. The natural order of things is soil layer - humus/compost layer - mulch layer in that order.
This is great! Except don't do this with plumeria trees. I've been told by experts that they need to have all leaves and debris cleaned up or the tree will get diseased.
The electric chippers don’t work well. They tend to be weak, at least the models I have seen. The gas powered chippers are what you want for real wood.
@@TheMillennialGardener No doubt gas wood chipper has the power. I bought an electric wood chipper and it really does a fast work on fresh cut branches to about 1" thickness. Dried hardwood branches has to be limited to 3/4". There are two different types of electric wood chippers, fine chipping and chunky chipper. I got the fine one and i'm impressed with the its capability.. It's worth $100.
Growing things as a bush makes them easier to protect, easier to cover and they're inherently more cold hardy because the form retains heat. There is no reason to protect against insects, because they do not have any significant problems with insects.
I don't know anything about your growing zone, but maybe you should have waited three or four more weeks before pruning the avocado. It still looked very vigorous and if your still getting warm days the pruning may just prompt new growth that could get damaged once the cold arrives. Once again, I'm in San Diego and know nothing of your zone.
That would ensure no fruit. It gets cold enough here that the avocado tree essentially stalls from mid-November to mid-February. If you wait, you will ensure the avocado tree does not flower. The Lila avocado blooms in late January to mid-February depending on the warmness of the winter, so it is very important you prune in September so the tree has about 60 days where it can produce new buds and new growth. This new growth will be what flowers in February. If you prune too late, you will have no avocados.
It hasn't. It still sets hundreds of fruits each season. Problem is, it drops them after a certain point. I'm hoping that now that it held a fruit to maturity, it will be more reliable.
Permaculture the suburban backyard lazy mans way to grow stuff... not a commercial way to make money. The average Permaculture person had 5acres and still couldn't feed his family. A man who had 1.5 acres had 7 employees and was making $370k a year from it.. That's the difference. Real Farmers have a bottom line.
Permaculture is a fairly new fad. The food forests we see on TH-cam are usually only a few years old. You can't really compare 3-5 year old trees to orchards with 10-20 year old trees at peak production and with staff and machinery that pick them. Backyard gardens often tend to take high losses from pests, too, since we don't have the manpower to protect our harvests like orchards do. That's what's great about growing things like avocados and citrus. The hard skins are naturally pest resistant.
So…this is the first year for Ms. Owari and Mr. Brown…they are in large containers and will go in my greenhouse for the winter. Should they be pruned? And, my lemon and lime are laden with fruits… do they get pruned? Atlanta location.
If you found this video helpful, please “Like” and share to help increase its reach! Thanks for watching 😊TIMESTAMPS here:
0:00 Chop And Drop Gardening Explained
3:46 How To Chop And Drop Demonstration
6:10 How To Fertilize And Mulch With Chop & Drop
9:56 Can I Just Use Fertilizers Instead?
13:04 Adventures With Dale
Thank you so much for this video! I'm on it tomorrow. I want to say also that I have learned so much from you and you are my favorite garden channel. I never miss your videos/lessons. Don't stop! 🥰🌱
I have to comment on this video. A while ago I bought a small electric shredder/chipper for my prunings for about $150. I just finished pruning some fruit trees like done in this video. I was amazed at how well the little chipper worked on the small leafy branches and all the branches up to about 1.5 inches diameter. Everything was ground up to bits and pieces less than an inch long. It was so easy to spread this fine mulch around I feel I should tell the viewers of this video. Two weeks later the mulch has turned from green to brown and looks just like the bagged mulch I used to buy. In conclusion, I get free mulch instead of buying it now, I don't have to load the branches up and take to the dump, and the little chipper will pay for itself in no time. The footprint of the little chipper is about 15 inch by 15 inch in my storage shed. Everybody should own one of these to make gardening easier, they do work really well for this application.
What brand did you purchase?
Exactly. TroyBuilt chippers are great as well. We bought one at the same time we purchased our house. We trim, shred & move the chippings all throughout our garden. It’s portable so we push it to the trees being trimmed. Wifey prunes and i shred it all. In Fall, bag after bag of leaves, chipped/shredded & spread.
The electric chippers are okay for small branches. They won't work on the thicker branches. I personally don't find them worth the cost, because if the branches are small enough to be handled by an electric chipper, you can just chop and drop them. I'd rather put the money toward a gas powered chipper that can handle it all. The gas powered chippers will handle branches in the 3-4" diameter range and chip up the smaller branches at a fraction of the time. I don't mean to be a naysayer, and I'm glad you're happy with your purchase. I would advocate for most people to go the gas-powered route, though, if they want to make the investment in a chipper to ensure it works on a wider array of things.
@@TheGiveittomeall I bought the model with the clear plastic collection bin on the bottom. Rated for up to 1.75inch but I only go to 1.5inch branches. It is sold under many brand names just in different colors. Works well and easy to store. But you have to clean it out regularly if you mulch soft stuff like asparagus ferns: they plugged it up quickly. Cleaning it out only takes a few minutes tho so no big deal.
Yes was gonna say this too. I bought one off Amazon after getting a thumb blister from clipping dozens of branches down to small portions by hand. 😂
I got a feeling that your avocado is mature enough to survive the freezes now. They are pretty hardy once mature. The top may die a bit but it always grows back.
Yes . Some of the outer branches will die but will protect the inside branches.
Thanks for the Chop and Drop video. I had no idea how important this technique is for the plants. I appreciate the information.
You're welcome! Glad it was helpful!
I chop and drop in my orchard, and also keep back a few leaves to add to a black trash can filled with water. I shred my leaves, throw them in with a handful of worm castings, stir occasionally and keep the lid on. I then use it as my liquid fertilizer in the orchard
Do you think I could do this with chicken manure?
Wow! Your avocado tree was huge!
Thank you for such great information! 😊👍👍
It really likes the spot it is in. It triples in size every year. It’s a beast!
Love this. Because I am on land with lots of older fruit trees already (my grandmother planted many of them in the '60s), I don't usually use anything more than chop-and-drop even for young trees, because we are on ancient soils which, without a healthy fungal network, are more-or-less unusable, so because I have time, I avoid added fertilisers in order to keep our funguses alive.
This does mean a lot of trees take a while to get going, but many of the trees planted this way seem a lot more resilient to bad weather than some of the older trees that were coddled more when they first went in.
(I do also periodically add some kitchen compost around the canopy line of some trees, and do try to mix and match the dropped prunings from different trees to keep the topsoil a little richer).
I’ve been doing chop and drop for years. Great vid! I can’t believe how huge that avacado tree got from just last year. Amazing!
This has come at a good time. I have let my back yard become WAY overgrown with "weed trees" (saplings basically). I know about chop & drop but haven't ever done it. I've been just ignoring thinking about what to do with all the material I'm cutting down and now I know! Thanks for the reminder! I even have a small wood chipper for the main stems.
Chip those little babies up! Free wood chips!
I appreciate the chop and drop throughout my garden and trees. In the summer it's a great free mulch of nutrition and root protection during high heat. During winter ditto, nutrition and root protection. Win all year as nature designs😊
Yep. Always save the winter and summer prunings. It's gold on the ground.
@TheMillennialGardener most of us are taught not to fertilize for over winter so all plants can rest. Food for plants is way different than to fertilize. I'd love for you to do a video on this topic.
Wow that is very interesting. I will be sure to do that in the spring with all of my fruit trees. Cheers from Ottawa, Canada🍁
Glad you enjoyed it! Stay warm!
Interesting! Hi to Dale!
Dale says hello 🐕
I will chop and drop my summer garden in November. -Tx 8a
I literally live in a forest and have decades of broken down leaves that I use in my garden.
That's excellent. Being in a clear cut neighborhood in the coastal South, you can't find a leaf. Seriously. I've never raked leaves since moving here 6 years ago. There aren't any...all the trees we do have are evergreens...
ive been doing this for years with all my fruit trees. Your avocado got HUGE!
It's a beast. It grows 8 feet every summer. This year, I may try experimenting with pruning it every few weeks to prevent it from growing like that. I'm wondering if the vigor is causing my fruit drop issue in late spring.
You don't need to drop the larger pieces in the forest. You can also use them. If you look on youtube for brazil agroforestry you can see how those guys use it. Cut them in 300mm (1ft) lengths and stack them around the base. In top of that goes the thinner branches and on top of that the leaves.
This actually explains why a tree I pruned had grown like crazy the next year. I happened to leave the prunings & hedge clippings underneath to decompose.
I'm sure that helped. Pruning also enhances vigor. Wherever you make a cut, it will create 3-4 branches in most case. Pruning triggers new growth, and therefore enhanced fruiting on trees where fruits form on new year's growth.
@@TheMillennialGardener That's helpful to know, thanks. I recently got some gooseberries, I'd imagine the same idea applies to shrubs.
Thank you, brother, thank you.
You're welcome!
I'm on the west coast, and just moved in to a home that has fruit trees. They are all overgrown, but given I have never owned fruit trees before don't want to do the wrong thing. I'd hate to kill them. They've all established trees. I'm guessing they're all between 8-10' tall. And abt 7-9' wide. And they're all pretty dense. I don't want to prune too much, or maybe I'm not supposed to prune at all till early spring. Seeing you cut yours back got me wanting to do the same thing. Actually though, the citrus trees are still producing. As is the apple tree. Should I leave them alone. I love your channel. I think I learn more from your channel than any other garden channel. Thank you!
@TheMillennialGardener, at around 3:00, notice 3 black barrel bins. Are those new compost bins vs the trash cans you used in the past? Also, citrus trees planted near them...does that help the citrus trees? I find getting citrus started in warmer climates to be difficult...have to leave them in planters on the shaded back porch. I setup a compost bin like your trashcan compost, and has been awesome. Recycling veggie scraps has provided great nutrients back into my gardens.
There are rental companies that day lease various types of wood chippers. Can come in handy if you have a lot of trimmings to mulch. No maintenance or storage of the equipment.
That's true, but often when you look at the rental costs, you can buy a unit for the cost of 3 rentals. You can buy a brand new gas powered chipper online in the $400-500 range, and seeing these places that rent them for $100-150/day makes me feel like it's better to just save up and buy one. One day I will probably invest in one.
@@TheMillennialGardener indeed, that’s a sound economic decision. For those with less time, physical challenges, limited storage, etc., the rental option may be more practical. Or maybe find a friend that could share the expense. Or hire a little help. Otherwise, if it’s feasible it’s an obvious worthy investment. 👍
PS…I’m just fascinated with your citrus and avocado trees in that zone. Excellent permaculture practices and pruning demonstration! Here in zone 7 a/b land locked Oklahoma, we’ve had to bring our citrus trees in the sun room and keep them fairly dwarf in stature. It was much easier in coastal south Texas to grow citrus. Alas, we bloom where we are planted. Now hoping a pomegranate tree obtained from a local grower can handle winter as well as they claim.. 🤷🏻♀️🍋🍊
Great video. I had some extra help with my chop and drop activities recently by telling my little cousin to chop my corn stalks from the summer. I use the same chop and drop method as you with my shrubs in the front of my house and it helps with shrubs like azeleas etc.
I gotta get me a little cousin like that! Lol.
Nice free labor! 😄 Corn stalks make great mulch.
Your prunings all look beautiful and healthy. If some prunings are not so healthy looking, should those be hauled away / burned with the bigger branches and thorns?
Great information! Thank you for getting it out there! 😊
I was wondering, how did you learn so much about the subject? Where do you find all that information?
You’re very knowledgeable and it’s enriching! Thanks again! 😃
Great information. I do this with my house plants. Plus gather leaves from a field and add to my garden for winter time
Leaves are the perfect base to create a forest floor. I wish I had access to them, but it's all pine and evergreen here.
Thanks!
You're very welcome! Thank you so much for your support and generosity! I really appreciate it ❤
Great video, thanks for sharing. Didn't know you can grow avocado trees in N.C. How many years do you have to wait to get avocados?
I don't rake up the grass clippings, I leave them to compost in. Seems to make my lawn really happy.
You have to be careful with that, because it will eventually turn into thatch. Lawns don't like being mulched in a lot of cases. They wind up suffocating their own roots, then the have to be de-thatched and aerated. It's one of the many reasons why I don't like having a lawn ☹
HF Predator I found works well unless your going for the Popeye forearms. Ideally you want to plant legumes between your fruit tress for fast establishment as part of "chop and drop" permaculture design.
I’m in a 8a area in Texas and have Meyer lemon I’m trying to grow along with some other trees (dwarf cherry, peach and fig) that I’ll use this with. So far they are still small so hopefully they’ll take off next spring. It’s the avocado that I’m growing that I really want to get in the ground so I need to find your planting of yours for help. Thanks for this video.
Great! I just got some corrections..
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for watching!
Hey MG! I hope you’re doing well this fall! I was wondering, do you read many books on this subject or gardening? Because I think if you haven’t already, you should check out JADAM organic farming and try out some of the techniques that they prescribe. It’s not a super long read, it’s well illustrated and written by a multi-generation family of South Korean organic gardeners. Even if you don’t agree with everything I personally believe this would be right up your alley, and maybe you could make a video discussing low cost organic gardening with the JADAM philosophy in mind.
Thanks for reading, have a happy Halloween!
Thank you very mulch!
You’re welcome!
Thank you
You're welcome!
So…this is the first year for Ms. Owari and Mr. Brown…they are in large containers and will go in my greenhouse for the winter. Should they be pruned?
And, my lemon and lime are laden with fruits… do they get pruned?
Atlanta location.
I have a lemon and a lime tree in a 15 gallon container. When is the best time to root prune?
I'm researching my garden
How does this apply to patio orchards? (Ie container planted citrus)
Glad to be watching 😊😊😊
I appreciate it!
Very interesting. Thanks 👍
You're welcome!
great information as always
Thank you!
i do this all the time, didnt realise it was a thing
It’s a foundational principle of permaculture. In warmer climates, it is common to grow nitrogen fixing grasses since they basically filter nutrients from the air. Then, you cut them and use them as mulch. You basically get a never ending supply of free mulch for your trees.
Can you do that with pear Tree? I don’t want to do it because fireblight desese
If you had to chose one, figs or persimmons? I don't have the space to really put in a persimmon tree anywhere, unless you think it would grow in a pot? I know figs do well in pots.
I don’t think a persimmon will do well in containers. Figs can easily be pruned for container culture. If you have no in ground space and can only grow in pots, you’d have to go with a fig. Keep in mind persimmons also make excellent front yard trees since they’re beautiful. Fig trees aren’t nearly as pretty. If you can plant a fruit tree out front, Asian persimmons make perfect landscaping.
I hear that Tithonia Diversifolia is an effective chop and drop plant and in summer bought cuttings from Florida. Can chop and drop be used in vegetable beds? This is my plan, although I am not sure my timing is right. I am using it among winter greens and lettuces and where I will plant other vegetables in spring.
My biggest problem in my young orchard is CRITTERS! The orchard is back a ways on farmland. I caged them to protect from deer but over the winter they (rodents, I assume) chew the base of the trees, even under deep snow. I’ve heard of sprays that last a few months, has anyone tried them?
Can you wrap them with something if they're deciduous? Deciduous trees can be wrapped in tar paper or something like that. They also make a lot of tree guards to protect trunks from damage. If you search "tree guard" on Amazon or Google, you can find many options.
@@TheMillennialGardener I will try a few different things this winter, thanks ☺️
So do you mix all the leaves up and set down or keep it to it's own variety? like avocado dropped on same tree ?
Can we do this process to Fig tree and Malbury tree? Thanks for the helpful information. 👍
Yes, if you don't mind losing the cuttings. Because they're deciduous trees, they will yield less matter, so it's best to collect the leaves as they drop, too.
Do you feel like leaving fallen leaves is just as good? We have a very large bed for trees and I never remove the leaves in the fall. My chickens do a decent job of turning leaves over. I’ve △⃒⃘lways felt like it was better to just let them decompose.
Given where I live, I don't have leaves. It's all pine and evergreen here, so I can't find a leaf anywhere ☹ But, that being said, leaves make excellent mulch. They're terrible for your lawn and need to be removed (or they can suffocate and kill your lawn), but relocating them around your landscaping is perfect. After all, forest floors are mostly decomposing leaves, so there's really no better mulch for trees than fallen leaves. If I had them, I'd be raking them over to my landscaping beds.
Do you prune the fig trees?
Yes, but in winter. I have many videos on pruning them here: th-cam.com/play/PL1gY7BoYBGIGMlTTezwO0A0mk0QL_CqQI.html&si=qKszyRv0CotFbedC
My Meyer lemon didn't have thorns. However, when it died the root stock grew out from below the graft and it had enormous thorns. Are you sure all is well with your lemon tree? ~ Lisa
The root stock might have been a Flying Dragon citrus, this is a dwarfing rootstock with very large thorns. Also, lots of citrus trees have thorns, some trees grow out of their thorns as they reach maturity. Hope this helps!
Meyer lemon is not a thornless tree. All Meyer's have thorns. Are you sure it was a Meyer? It could have been mislabeled. Your rootstock was likely trifoliate orange, and the thorns are absolutely horrific. They are the most vicious thorns of any plant I've ever encountered.
@@TheMillennialGardener The thorns on my tree, and all other Meyer lemons I've seen, were so tiny and soft they were more like new leaves than thorns. My point was that the thorns were not so large as to cause injury. Please forgive the ambiguity.
I believe the root stock was rough lemon, although it's been so long ago I can't remember where I got that info. I do remember the horns being almost two inches long, so it could certainly have been trifoliate orange. If that's what your thorns are like, I don't blame you for tossing the logs in the woods. 😄
@@chandlerboudreaux8451 Thank you for replying. I clarified my post under MG's response above if you'd like to have a look. Thanks again. ~ Lisa
Thanks for the great video! Where are you sourcing your mushroom compost from?
You're welcome! We have a local company here in the Carolinas called Seaside Mulch. It's a giant mulch yard where you pull your truck around and they dump a backhoe bucket into the bed. However, the local Lowe's has a contract where they bag it up for them, so I'm able to buy the local mulch and compost by the bag. It's half the price of the national brands.
Is sawdust from lumber milling useable in the garden (other than composting)? Looks like you live just across the road (Hwy 133) from me. I recognize the pond.
That depends what the sawdust is from. You don't want to use sawdust from treated lumber or that funky composite faux-wood particle board stuff, so if the mill makes all sorts of things, I would not use it. I would only use it if I was 100% certain it came from totally natural wood. If it's a mixed bag, I'd avoid it.
No I cut it myself on my portable saw mill. Southern yellow pine mostly.@@TheMillennialGardener
No treated or plastics, 100% natural southern yellow pine.@@TheMillennialGardener
Why are you fertilizing before winter? I've read that can cause the tree to try to grow when they should be headed to dormancy.
Evergreen trees do not have a dormancy period. Only deciduous trees do. Most trees aren't deciduous here.
How about pear treees - do they benefit from this method?
All trees benefit from mulch without exception. The only question is when to apply and how often.
The meaning is obvious from the name.
Also, you can't do this with conifer saplings, unless you want acid soil.
It won’t make the pH too acidic. Just mildly over time, which isn’t bad since most fruit trees want a 6.5 pH anyway. Most plants prefer mildly acidic soil.
I’ve heard comfrey is good for hop-and-drop for most plants. Do you agree?
It's not something I've ever grown. There are a lot of different plants that can be grown simply for biomass, but what grows well in the UK won't grow well in Florida. What you should plant for biomass is something that should be determined locally.
It’s an herb. I see numerous TH-cam videos where they are using it by chop and drop. If you have time you might want check them out.
I got way behind and haven’t pruned yet.. when is is too late to prune in zones 5-6
It depends what you’re pruning. Deciduous trees shouldn’t be pruned until they’re fully dormant. Deciduous trees won’t be in full dormancy in Zone 5/6 yet. It’s too early.
Various fruit trees and shrubs but no deciduous trees… thanks
Have you heard of anyone else not getting stuff from your store for 2 and half weeks? I ordered those bags you posted over a week and a half ago and now they are saying next sunday?
When you order through my Amazon store, it's a standard purchase just like you'd order through Amazon normally. The only difference is I receive a small referral commission. I did notice the 20 gallon sizes of those fabric grow bags were now sold out, so it's possible it's a stock issue. I can only guess. I'm sure they will eventually ship once they get back in stock. If you don't need them right away since we're moving into winter, I'd just hold tight. I just opened my package and they're pretty nice. For the price, you can't beat them.
Our apple trees in zone 6a have rust so I don’t want to use the clippings- any advice
That’s common this time of year. I’m surprised they haven’t been frosted on. Rust is inevitable, so I don’t really worry about it.
Some people say to not put mulch against the trunk, but in the forrest there's not one to make sure that mulch doesn't get around the trunk of trees. I also don't see any harm with putting mulch next to my tree trunks in the past 8 years of planting fruit trees so that to me seems like a myth.
Tree canopies drop their leaves away from the trunk. If you wander through a forest, you'll never see mulch piled up against the trunk of a tree. It's just not something that really happens. Also, keep in mind that trees do die in the forest all the time. They get attacked by pests, succumb to disease, and sometimes they even rot. It's not a myth. It happens in landscaping.
If you have voles you do not want to give them cover to burrow under and attack tree trunks. Voles are notorious for girdling trees.
@@TheMillennialGardener There's not just mulch in the rainforest- theres vegetation, moist, fungi, all kinds of other things. It is nature, and we are just mulching our backyard trees and doing other things to imitate nature.
I think the debate about bacterial vs fungal is oversimplified and not always appropriate. Ive been doing chop and drop with my raised bed for 4 years now and it works good with tomatoes and other vegetables as well
It works fine if you grow from large transplants. It does not work well if you direct-seed. You will need to scrape back the mulch and remove it in order to sow seeds. That's the real problem with it. It becomes very cumbersome and intrusive when you're sowing many rows in many beds this time of year.
It can be a bit of a challenge but in my experience a few weeks is enough to break down/ dry enough to sow even fine seeded crops if you process the plant matter a littke. Especially in a warm climate like yourself it should be even faster.
how can this be done for potted trees
Potted plants have limited use for mulch and don’t process mulch well since they have very little soil biology. Potted plants aren’t sustainable, so these principles tend to not work for them. Potted plants need liquid fertilizers to work best in my experience.
Why would you not put the mushroom innoculant on top of all the branches so that gravity and precipitation would seed fungus over all material?
The compost layer goes under the mulch. Mulch goes on top. In nature, leaves fall, they decompose into humus (compost), then a new layer of fresh leaves and plant matter falls on top. The natural order of things is soil layer - humus/compost layer - mulch layer in that order.
This is great! Except don't do this with plumeria trees. I've been told by experts that they need to have all leaves and debris cleaned up or the tree will get diseased.
I thought pruning occurred in winter?
Only on deciduous trees that have a defined dormancy period. Evergreen trees are usually pruned after harvest, but it can vary from tree to tree.
I'm guessing you don't want to do this with tomato plants right? Mine are diseased so it's probably not a good idea to use them
Hmmm.... new use for electric wood chipper.
The electric chippers don’t work well. They tend to be weak, at least the models I have seen. The gas powered chippers are what you want for real wood.
@@TheMillennialGardener No doubt gas wood chipper has the power. I bought an electric wood chipper and it really does a fast work on fresh cut branches to about 1" thickness. Dried hardwood branches has to be limited to 3/4". There are two different types of electric wood chippers, fine chipping and chunky chipper. I got the fine one and i'm impressed with the its capability.. It's worth $100.
@@MrTiger0002what brand do you use?
@@fieldsofgrace3342 I bought Sun Jow CJ602E. Use 12 gauge extension cord.
Why do U keep them as a bush look? Protect against insects keep trunk trimmed 2- 3feet
Growing things as a bush makes them easier to protect, easier to cover and they're inherently more cold hardy because the form retains heat. There is no reason to protect against insects, because they do not have any significant problems with insects.
You used hand tools for that entire prune job?
Yes. It was a piece of cake.
❤
I don't know anything about your growing zone, but maybe you should have waited three or four more weeks before pruning the avocado. It still looked very vigorous and if your still getting warm days the pruning may just prompt new growth that could get damaged once the cold arrives. Once again, I'm in San Diego and know nothing of your zone.
That would ensure no fruit. It gets cold enough here that the avocado tree essentially stalls from mid-November to mid-February. If you wait, you will ensure the avocado tree does not flower. The Lila avocado blooms in late January to mid-February depending on the warmness of the winter, so it is very important you prune in September so the tree has about 60 days where it can produce new buds and new growth. This new growth will be what flowers in February. If you prune too late, you will have no avocados.
Looks like you are cutting off at least 50% of your avocado tree. Is that going to negative impact fruit production? At what point is too much?
It hasn't. It still sets hundreds of fruits each season. Problem is, it drops them after a certain point. I'm hoping that now that it held a fruit to maturity, it will be more reliable.
Permaculture the suburban backyard lazy mans way to grow stuff... not a commercial way to make money. The average Permaculture person had 5acres and still couldn't feed his family. A man who had 1.5 acres had 7 employees and was making $370k a year from it.. That's the difference. Real Farmers have a bottom line.
Permaculture is a fairly new fad. The food forests we see on TH-cam are usually only a few years old. You can't really compare 3-5 year old trees to orchards with 10-20 year old trees at peak production and with staff and machinery that pick them. Backyard gardens often tend to take high losses from pests, too, since we don't have the manpower to protect our harvests like orchards do. That's what's great about growing things like avocados and citrus. The hard skins are naturally pest resistant.
Thanks!
You're very welcome! Thank you so much for your support and generosity! I really appreciate it ❤
The info and explanations are really appreciated and can be applied easily, thank you for working so hard to help us!😊
So…this is the first year for Ms. Owari and Mr. Brown…they are in large containers and will go in my greenhouse for the winter. Should they be pruned?
And, my lemon and lime are laden with fruits… do they get pruned?
Atlanta location.
Thank you!
You’re welcome!