5-Day Kitchen Garden Permaculture Course: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/regenerativemedia/994534 Todays video explores how I plant for my permaculture growing site to reach a stage of complete self-sufficiency not just in compost, but also be able to be completely independent in terms of fertility.
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42 Comments
my perpetual goal…reducing what i need to bring in from outside. composting in a tiny space is difficult but I'm thinking i might try a wormery instead. the front garden is mostly chop 'n drop but because of that, I have loads of slugs. So I avoid that in the back garden where I grow my veg and unusual plants for food. NOT making compost in the back. Not even composting tubes in the beds is safe to keep slugs away. I seem to cultivate slugs without effort.🤣
Super sir
Leaf mould is the most underrated "compost." Yes you still have to bring a lot of material in from outside, but never do you have to buy your neighborhoods' unwanted autumn leaves.
I wanted to start a small willow "garden" last year, but things happened and I didn't get around to it. I was going to do it for chips and compost as well. Here in Denmark there is an organic compost producer that uses only willow and meadow clippings. I have produced willow compost in the past and it has worked very well.
We do have an interesting systemic problem over the long term I think in heavily cropped areas. We harvest so much, but our waste goes into the sewage system. But you're right, perennials are able to harvest nutrients deeper and for longer. Plants can produce nitrogen from the air (vicia family). So there is something we can do. But I always found these long (!) term nutritional dependencies interesting since I read Seymour and his thought to never ever ever let anything leave your property that could otherwise be returned to the cycle of nutrients 🙂
Thank you.
I enjoy gardening suggestions that encourage us to learn, adapt and tweak ideas and formulas to our location, weather and available resources.
My vermicompost towers and the wire cages for "garden cleaning" waste are never the same. Also, my weed and rabbit poop fermenting buckets never give me the same end product. Weather, temperature and ingredients are never exact. Even my chicken's poop and bedding is never an exact formula to add to our compost, so we go with the flow.
Springtime Best Time now for Garden. 😳🙏👍
Thank you for another useful video. Could you please do a vid on how JADAM/KNF works with composting? By the way, pure-ordered your book and greatly looking forward to reading it!
Great video 👍 The maximum output with the minimum of input (of money) for my space was my aim from the beginning. I collected leaves 🍂🍁🍂🍃coffee grounds and kitchen scraps to get the compost started and there's a lot of biomass in the garden now. I have a worm box but still it's not enough yet – but hopefully soon. You're lucky that you have chickens and that you can collect seaweed 🌱I compensate this with nettles and comfrey. More and more I use grass as well. Happy gardening and a lot of success for your books 📚
Look forward to seeing the Grass experiments. Jim Kovaleski's work on Grass-fed market gardens is astounding!!
Loved this video Huw. I have a very small garden space at home which gets the sun into which I’ve managed to get seven fruit trees, mostly columnar plus blueberries and three raised beds. The trees are at varying degrees of maturity but it doesn’t matter because there is always something that is going to give, especially my older Victoria plum. The fruit is what brings me most joy. I’m always looking for ways to squeeze more in. I also have an allotment but realise at some point as I grow older I may not be able to manage it so when this happens I hope to have a lower maintenance garden that still has plenty of delights!
Fruit – yes! But can’t see your link to partner… is it visible ?
I have too many pill bugs in my compost…I'm afraid I'll spread them everywhere 🙁 Any advice?
Thank you so much for watching! Don't forget to use code 'huwsgarden' for 20% off all plants on Frank P Matthews: https://www.frankpmatthews.com/catalogue/type/fruit-trees/
Why do you have a fence going around the hot bed Huw?
Compost produces a negative emotion for me (and many others). It takes so much space and resource that it just isn’t an option to make it all when you’ve got a 1/45 acre council allotment like myself. Nobody wants to buy in £200 of compost to grow £200 worth of veg, so the best/easiest option is adding raw nutrients. I know you’ve addressed the topic a while ago in another video, but it is a very fortunate person who has plenty of land and knows how to make use of it.
Thank you Huw. I am also trying to avoid bringing resources into my garden as in the long run it just doesn't seem sustainable. I am building up my stock of perennials and trying to see which ones are palatable and worth having.
Great video Huw. Lots of food for thought
I have delicious perennial runner beans. They come up every year and give me consistent abundance of beans.
Lucky!
Looking forward to your collab with Sean and your grass experiments. I have a large site that I am planting a Permaculture Orchard like Stefan Sobkowiak. Diversity seems to be the key for perennial systems and for good compost
While at a conference in the 1970s, student David Holmgren introduced himself to one of the speakers he had just listened to. He told the speaker he was having difficulty finding where ecology, landscape design and food production intersected. The professor posed a question to Holmgren: "If most of nature is dominated by perennial plants – trees and other long-lived plants – why is our agriculture dominated by annual crops? Why doesn't it follow the design rules of nature?"
Thus began the journey of David Holmgren and that professor, Bill Mollison, in co-creating Permaculture.
a perennial that I found surprisingly easy and delightful was a sechuan pepper plant (Zanthoxylum simulans) it's a shrub that can grow quite big, but takes pruning very well.
I've had mine for about 5 years now, and it performs wonderfully in our Dutch soil (similar climate zone to yours): I can leave it outside in winter, and the seeds and leaves are a great spice.
another favourite I'm trying this year is horseradish, though that one is going in the greenhouse.
You forgot one source of compost. Human manure. It’s easy to laugh that option off but it’s very viable. Safe and effective when done right. I recommend the human manure hand book which has loads of info
Sounds amazing, you guys are the best 🔥💪🏼🌱
Your idea on self-sufficiency of compost is brilliant. But I am a bit confused on depending on perennials. What shall we substitute instead of tomato, eggplant or other annuals? They have their own unique flavors.
I'm enjoying watching you develop this new space and, in particular, hearing more from you about Permaculture. I've been fascinated by Permaculture for some time and try to incorporate ideas into my allotment and garden, but I find many of the classic texts either too theoretical/dogmatic or based on growing conditions different from mine (north east England). You're a great communicator and I look forward to learning more about Permaculture from you. On a slightly different note, I'd love a video about chicken-proof gardening!
Yippee!! You and Sean=more chicken TV!!!
Great to see the new place and the plans for it! Love it. About to take ownership of a 3/4 acre garden myself and am doing as much coppice as I can for firewood/material, a native mini-forest, pond, huge allotment, cider orchard, cut flower bed, summer house, among loads of other smaller areas. CAN NOT WAIT to get started. I can't imagine how much fun you've had setting the new place up. Looks great.
Happy to hear you follow Sean from edible acres, he is a wealth if knowledge and have been a follower/supporter of him for many years. I like your direction Huw! 🌱👍🥰
My question is do you have issues with rodents?
I love watching as you evolve your ideas as you gain more knowledge and experience. Thank-you so much for your inspiring videos and books 😊
As soon as you started talking about using the chickens to compost, I though of Sean – great that you are using him as a resource, he is one of my favorites, so innovative but a down-to- earth, practical guy. His Edible Acres videos are so interesting and his chicken videos are legendary for those who love the soothing sounds of really happy hens living their best lives.. Looking forward to the coming season and also to getting your book here in the USA.
Annuals are like the most pleasant, but hungriest guests at your party: you'll have a great time but before you know it they have eaten all the cake, and are demanding more;) Perennials are perhaps a little quieter, but they bring the extra snacks.
The idea of combining annuals and perennials on a plot sounds like a very logical step to me, not only in terms of time, but also in the sense of treating your plot as a more or less sustainable eco-system; after all, nature does it as well.
I've never had any problems in terms of self-sufficiency in compost, but that is mainly because a lot of my garden is a cottage-style garden with fruit trees, soft-fruits and (edible) plants. Their leaves, clippings, prunings, etc provide the bio-material that the annuals feed off.
About 4 years ago when I retired, I realized that in the future as I aged it would make sense to move to more perennials because they are less physical work. Since then I've added 2 perennials of some kind each year: fruit trees, berries, asparagus, artichokes, etc. It's been wonderful! 💚
I need to build new wood compost bins that are rat proof. I don't want plastic, but i need a bin with a bottom, sides and a top to keep out rats, even in a bin that is just leaves and stems or wood chips. Rats were using our bins for nesting. Gak. Since our area banned warfarin because of its effect on birds etc that eat poisoned rats, the rat population has exploded in our area. It's changed how we can compost.
So interesting, Huw! When you said that perennials don't require compost, something boinged in my brain – I want a berry bush or two, and artichokes would be nice!
Huw, have you looked into Joe Jenkins and humanure?
Just starting my plot this year. Setting my compost up this weekend. Hopefully get the good stuff next year but taking my time with it. Giving me some ideas on how to cut back on useing compost tho
I think the same, that"s why I planted over 200 raspberry bushes and 30 fruit trees and nuts this year 🙂
It’s nice to see your awesome garden and the chickens doing their thing (beautiful)❤
I garden much more optimistically because of your channel. Thanks!
Great video as always Huw!
Good you are getting a jump on the conversion. Middle age dead ahead. You're getting to be an old man. This bending over crap to baby a bunch of annuals must stop. I feel your pain…literally.
I have more & higher raised beds for annuals & even some perennials like strawberries that do fine in 4 ft diameter 24 in high wire rings. I can grow across the top & down the SE/S/SW sides. I lose fewer to critters & pick more because it is easier.
Annuals I can't do without will get converted to 20-24 in height too.