Hands-Off Gardening Techniques | Using Permaculture to Build Soil & Grow More Food (DTube Daily Vlog)

in #vlog6 years ago (edited)


Walk with me through the garden showcasing:
Goumi, Holy Basil, Asparagus and more!

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Welcome to Mountain Jewel this morning. Before it got too hot, I got out into the gardens and started Chop and Dropping False Wild Indigo branches in one of the perennial polycultures on our homestead.

This is one of my favorite plantings on the homestead. It has so many wonderful and useful plants, and is evolving nicely. I walk you through one of our beds and showcase just some of the fantastic plants that I love to visit.

This is "Hands-Off Gardening" because, after sheet mulching this area two years ago and planting out some perennials, it is largely self sufficient.

We don't need to ammend the bed because we are using "living mulches" and "green manures" that are growing in the bed to supplement the soil's needs. It is a dense enough planting as well that not too many weeds come up. It is a long term vision, but one that doesn't require much maintenance.

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A polyculture consists of multiple types of plants and is in stark contrast to a monoculture (like row cropped corn or soy) that consists of only one type of plant.

In this example, we have Goumi (Elaeagnus multiflora) as the central plant. It is still young, but will grow into a small tree and really fill the bed out in time. This is a hardy, virtually pest-free plant that produces sweet red berries and even fixes nitrogen! It is known as an actinorhizal nitrogen fixer and has a different type of bacteria that facilitates nitrogen fixation than the more common legumes.

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Goumi

Supporting the soil in the bed are Allstars like Russian Comfrey (sterile version) and False Wild Indigo.

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Russian Comfrey

These are both used as chop-and-drop plants to create mulch, increase organic matter in the soil and accumulate nutrients that increase soil vibrancy.

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False Wild Indigo in flower
I love these plants as they are carefree and add value to any system they are a part of. The false wild indigo is a native shrubby legume that produces delightful flowers and copious amounts of biomass, so we like to keep it trimmed up.

The diversity of species in our beds and the fact that they don't resemble moden row gardening, may confuse many people who see these polycultures. Compared to more linear methods, this can look downright disorganized and weedy! Yet when you start to speak the language of the plants to see how they interact and what types of functions they bring, you can see that there is a rhyme and reason here. It's quite poetic and beautiful, I must say!

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Buckwheat in flower. Reseeds easily, but is definitely not invasive. Great forage for bees and a good green manure.

I also featured buckwheat, which easily reseeds here and talked a bit about some of my favorites, Tulsi and asparagus.

I'm enjoying doing these Vlogs in the morning as it gets me out into the garden to TRANSLATE what's going on. When I take a picture of a bed like this, sometimes it doesn't convey all of the diversity and just looks like a green blob. Vlogs are a fantastic way to showcase this diversity! I love to share!

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Tulsi, my queen AKA holy basil.

If you found this helpful, resteems, upvotes and comments are appreciated. Thanks!

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So enjoy your posts @mountainjewel. Thankful not only that you DO all this, but that you share with all of us! :^)

thank you so much for your kind words! really appreciate it! <3

Always interested in your gardening techniques and plants on your homestead. Enjoyed this post :)

glad to hear it thanks!

I realy like your channel like and follow!👍

greetings @experimentel

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Great video and post @mountainjewel, I just followed :)
Keep up the great work!
Have a great day

thank you! i appreciate the kind words :)

Good job, I loved the presentation, description and the unbeatable photos, THANKS for sharing!

woow, you are amazing, presenting this post, nature can give you everything. thank you

nice channel love the content, keep it up I'm following for sure:)

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