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I would love to know if you have any recommendations for online retailers to source our cold hardy trees and shrubs? Thank you for your wealth of knowledge you have shared! The library of permaculture is incredible gift to humanity. I stumbled upon the channel a few weeks ago and have been feasting on them any spare second I can. Cheers from South Dakota

Ya dude, clear explanation

This is the best thing i have seen in a long time on this subject . Thank you very much for all that you do

The earth is thousands years old not billions

One of the pieces that I and probably other people miss, is how much chop 'n dropping can/should/could be done sacrificing the biomass producing plants (comfrey, red bud, clover, buckwheat, senna, oats etc,) to the soil. I accidentally ran over my main comfrey bed with the truck, so I hauled it into the food forest and mulched everything. That was during the heat wave and the berries and currants etc. loved it. Better than watering, biomass contains all the nutrients and moisture! -- LOL! I just harvested my early red potatoes. It's like the joke: there weren't many...but they were small. 10 plants and I got as many potatoes. To me, the potatoes are not the only yield. For instantce, the soil having been covered with straw is recovering from being burned out from not being covered or having a cover crop on it last year, which was a huge mistake on my part to leave it in the sun. Digging the potatoes, I observed earthworms and cool, black, friable, moisture-holding soil just under the layer of straw, a complete 180 to what it was last year: hard, dry, cracked, sad. I value soil condition and constituents and this is a work in progress, so I am thrilled with my lil potatoes and soil life indicators. Never done. Always seeking. Thank you!

I am working on a property with a very arid climate, and a soil that’s mainly sand. I’ve gathered some woodchips, but only a few loads which are not enough to do a thick layer on all of it. I started by sheet mulching around the trees, about 3ft (1m) around each tree, thick. Then, I’m spreading woodchips in the most depleted areas, but not thick at all (I don’t have enough material). Would you say that some woodchips are better than no woodchips, even if some bare ground is still exposed?

So basically, don’t have a corporate capitalistic attitude that pursues short-term profit above all else. Unfortunately, our entire society is built upon this very principle. I’m up for tearing it down and starting over, but I highly doubt that’s the sentiment of the general populace.

I love this discussion!💛

Would there also be a difference in the nutrient density of the yielded crop?

lot of insights and very informative content to take away. Thanks Keith.

Thank you! Such a great teacher. My trees say thank you too!

Then there are also other factors that needs to taken into account, such as skill and quality of the yeild. If the quality of the most nutriusiuos food appears to be low due to lack of skill, perhaps the yield wont be attractive enough to be eaten or even harvested. You might think that this is the best food you can eat, but your family might look at the same food and think it's full of worm or something else because of insect preassure, or perhaps the nuts are so small that it's more of a hassle to prepare them than it's worth.

Don’t look interested in any off that food

Your best yet. Great chat.

What's the weather there?

I ran the experiment a different way, and even then the “yield” argument supports growing the soil. I inherited terrible soil and started planting. Well, no surprise, low yield and the soil was still horrible. Used fertilizer, still low yields and bad soil. I started getting into permaculture and started composting, and i let the “weeds” go wild. Within 5 years everything was lush and yields were multiples of what they were before.

What are the little red ones?

I am confused by the repeated reference to pollinators for potatos?

Yes. Feeding the soil = healthy plants, and healthy everybody else too. Thanks for another great message. Love the guild concept! It's helped me so much. For me feeding the soil means nearly zero soil exposure to summer heat. Mulching, protecting, composting in place. I have a big compost heap but when harvesting compost (weeding 😄), if they aren't too large and woody they get laid down in place to protect the soil. 100% green plants solar panels above to shade all soil.

great video

Not to be a nitpicker 😅, but potatoes as they are grown by us don't depend on pollinators. Sadly, our agriculture often favors cloning (asexual reproduction) to safeguard a limited number of cultivars instead of promoting biodiversity. Great video and excellent points. Thanks for sharing.

"Play on words"...?, are you sure...? Is not the Soul, the "soil" in which the body grows?

love your videos; currently looking for my place on this earth to put food foresting into practice! such a wonderful way to teach good stewardship. would love to recommend a book to all (most likely it has already been mentioned - still worthy of more shout outs! it's called dirt by david r. montgomery and an awesome read. food foresting is the antidote to the demise of our ability to grow what we need for sustainability, everyone can play a part and we all have hope

I've just came back to my garden after spending a week in town and everything here has shown such a huge growth after several heavy rains.. including weeds )) I'm practicing divercity and high dencity of planting, but I still practice weeding by chopndroping everything ecxept my "target" plants. But after your video I'm really hesitating, should I weed during the season or not... I'll be gratefull for your comment on that ❤

I feel like Mark Shepard in Restoration Agriculture really have me this “Aha!” Moment with this concept.

This is a great video and a thorough explanation of how to look at yield through a new lens. I am part of a community garden where we strive to maximize the amount of photosynthesis to cover bare soil. This is easier in some areas than others. Between our fruit trees for example, we plant small fruit bushes, strawberries and native perennials. In our tomato rows, we plant basil between the plants. We have not found a solution in a community setting for a cover crop between our potato rows. Do you, or anyone have a suggestion for us? We would like to be able to hill the potatoes during the growing season. The other possibility would be to cover the soil with straw to avoid having bare soil but this will not increase photosynthesis nor attract other pollinators.

Well put. Thank you.

To add my two cents, I started asparagus rows years ago for profit. Following your advice a couple of years ago I added strawberries to the rows but they were still young so I added tomatoes (trellised and pruned) and peppers for personal use to the asparagus rows and cardboard and hay (available at no extra cost) in between the rows. Last fall, I harvested and canned enough tomatoes to last our family 4 years and more peppers then I had ever seen in one place before plus I had my spring asparagus harvest and a better asparagus crop this spring than ever before. But it all didn't start in one season.

So true! Also when we look at how the zapatistas in Mexico or other indigenous communities manage their land as commons that show why capitalism and private property encourages this short sighted, selfish behaviour. A better world is possible!

Love the video, great explaination what's going on now as i saw many industrial farms try to move in organic way but fail to do so because bad yield as they consider and too much pest without much learning about their soil health. Kinda like putting new packaging on the same old product.

Plant them, propagate them, enjoy the berries if your able to, there are many more pressing matters that are tougher to solve and contend with than the planting of a berry bush that may or may not be invasive

Thoughtful and well presented video. Your approach aligns with others such as John Kempf and Helen Attowe who similarly take a scientific and critical-thinking approach to what they do. Kempf has a video where he actually questions growers about what they are trying to achieve each season: the knee jerk responses being “we want yield and quality”. Then Kempf demonstrates (using cherry orchards as an example) that many cherry growers are failing to maximise their profitability because their high yield of low nutrient fruit, with lower shelf life does not command the prices that more enlightened growers are getting. So when you do the maths, you quickly see that yield in isolation is an insufficient determinant for deciding your growing strategy. Helen Attowe talks about how her fruit is noticeably darker/redder in colour than the competitors. When lab-tested, her fruit has a far higher nutrient density. And for home gardeners, a similar consideration applies: do we want to maximise yield, or grow the most nutrient-dense, great-tasting produce?

So love your work

Illuminating!!!!!! Really thank you!!!

Absolutely loving your videos as I recently discovered your channel I think through the weedy garden! I would be really interested in how you grow your vegetables in your food forest. I learn so much in every single video, thank you for that

You're a freacking genius. I still do not understand how an intelligent man like you can still believe in the CO2 warming of the planet globalists scam. I really hope you did not believe in the "safe and effective" massive scam number 2. Anyway, much respect and blessings.

ah yes, i havent forgotten about the soil with dancing pixies visiting at night. your block will be bulldozed in 50 to 100 years, and the soil dancing pixies will leave. seriously, soil health needs to be balanced decisions that lead to improved yield, else you're wasting time and money for some dreams.

Gotta say this is the first time a comment of mine prompted it's own video in response! :D Excellent point btw. I still intended to do it despite the "lower yield" because I'm putting more emphasis on longer term soil health AND because I also think it'll be less maintenance/more bang for the buck.

People are in too much of a hurry to think deeply and systematically about pretty much everything it seems. So they end up complying with some arbitrary and destructive paradigm like maintaining a lawn in spite of the fact that simple input/output analysis clearly indicates the practice is entirely inappropriate and should be obsolete.

Biology is like no other science. Normal maths does not apply.

11:49 such an amazing point. Not enough of us get angry enough to make change. You should do a joint episode with Strong Towns or Climate Town! Great video

I am convinced that my multitude of wheel bugs are not just eating the harlequin bugs, but farming them and making sure not to eat them all too quickly so they have a new family to feast on.

absolutely, I want my 7th generation from me to benefit and have a beautiful bountiful life, not depleted and starving, dependent on someone else.

Just a comment about the butterfly. I was just in Ontario and was amazed at the biodiversity there vs where I live in Calgary. It is very rare to see coloured butterflies. Mostly only just the white cabbage moths fluttering around. Although, we don’t have deer flies which I am very happy about.

What a beautiful design, symbiotic relationship

All great points. Never rent your land. They will strip mine the soil, as you say. What is also left out is the value of the clover. It can be cut and used for fodder. Or let livestock graze on it after the potatoes are removed. Easy peasy. You could reverse the strips next year so that the potato area gets clover. Then the livestock again and that land should be very fertile

I like this. Going forward I will bifurcate my assessment of "yield" - "above ground yield" and "below ground yield". I want both to be as bountiful as possible and to leave my land (and the Earth) better than when I arrived on it!

Indeed, we had April weather in February, and frost in June. Do you think new trees will sprout from the tips of the roots that remained in the soil?

Amazing on so many levels

Thank you for reviewing this. I follow the two golden rules. The garden is robust and full of activities. I use square foot gardening utilizing permaculture applications. My neighbors don't understand how I garden. I am calling mine edible landscaping 😅😅😅.