Wow. I am so happy to find your channel and to learn that I’m not the only one. I’ve gardened like this for years. I grew up in an area that was wild , creeks, woods, hedges, and that’s where I feel at home. So I turned this place into something that looks pretty wild. The neighbors call it “the jungle”. I didn’t know a thing about permaculture when I started and my goal was to let nature run wild. Along the way I noticed the soil improve, pests reduced, and the hard clay soil didn’t dry out in the summer where it was covered with something green. Eventually I learned there was a name for all this! Permaculture. And after that I read Beth Chato’s books and learned about “right plant, right place”. You never know what’s going to happen when you get up in the morning. I’m wondering what big thing I’m going to stumble across next. Rick
That's so wonderful. Indeed "Permaculture" has been around for longer than when Bill Mollison coined the term. The first humans were mostly foraging nomads with very wide territories. Many planted their favorite fruit around commonly passed rivers in their roaming territories. These people almost had it all figured out! lol
I loved seeing your site all in one video, thanks for putting it together! It was useful to see how all the different parts we have seen in other videos fits together. I've been following your channel since March 2020, and was inspired to start my own youtube channel (Wildwood Gardening, I normally comment as Cassie B....). I noticed that there seems to be a need for cold climate urban permaculture content and wanted to document things as I go along. Thanks for being such an inspiration and all that you are doing to spread the message of permaculture in an easily accessible format!
Oh hi friend :) I have no idea why but this comment got put into the spam filter. So weird. I wish you luck! This is literally the reason I made this youtube channel... to hopefully get other people to try to do this stuff themselves, but moreso to then go make youtube channels or blogs or facebook groups and then start that chain reaction of influence. I'm so happy I was part of your journey, even if just a small part. It's so exciting that you will be part of other people's journeys. There are a lot of houses around that are going to talk about how Cassie is planting food everywhere, or selling dehydrated peaches at the bottom of her driveway, or jars of jam, or whatever you decide to do. I wish you all the luck in the world - I'm sure you won't need it :)
Love that you’re talking up the mushrooms you’re blessed to have right on your property. It is a beautiful benefit of truly connecting with nature and all the benefits it has to offer! 🌱✨
And if I never got interested in this stuff, I would never have known. It is good for us all to start being aware of the gifts available in the world around us.
I love how wild and natural your place is. And I am so going to scatter herb seeds all over the edges of my property. That is such a good idea. I have been wondering what to do with this place, and now I have a much clearer picture. Thanks so much for the tour, and giving me some much needed perspective. ☮️💕
That's awesome! I've been really enjoying chatting with you in the comments. I'm really interested in seeing your place when you get going. Any chance you'd be interested in doing a video on your channel? I love watching my viewers lands and how they change. It's literally why I'm doing this - I get so much happiness from seeing the world get a little bit wilder and nature get a little more habitat. The herbs on every border of a property is a really good idea. I'm sure it's a big reason why I don't spray a single chemical on anything and I get almost zero pest pressure. I have ladybugs all over the place - I run into little clusters of them huddled together in the winter time. It's so wonderful to see. Then we had a tiny little black bug in our kitchen the other day, so I got it ID'd. Turns out it's an extremely beneficial fly who eats the larvae of midges and mayflies. It lays it's eggs in water, so it's almost certainly come to my land now that I have this pond here. The whole "if you build it they will come" thing is so true. Who knew Kevin Costner was so wise. Plant more herbs everywhere, invite all those creepy crawly insects, leave the pests alone (food for the good guys) and just let nature balance your ecosystem. Our job is just to be the catalyst for change. Our goal should be to very quickly transition from the architect of an ecosystem toward being just a passenger and observer.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy I would absolutely love the video idea. I am totally interested. The best thing about winter, besides how crazy beautiful it is, is that you get the chance to slow down and plan and think and visualize. 😃
For your swampy area... when you have the energy and time... you could dig down and make a series of ponds for fish and raise up mounds to get the plants out of the water. At my parents house (temperate rainforest) we used to leave many fallen trees as small bird habitat because without them the cockatoos, magpies and kookaburras would eat them. We had some stunning blue wrens. The fallen trunks gave protection for echidnas, lyre birds, wombats and wallabies. They also protected young ferns from the invasive deer that shouldn't be there. We did chainsaw some branches for firewood, fire protection strategy, aesthetics and access. Fallen trees were part of the forest. I'm finding with cuttings (Mexican desert) if I lay them at a five degree angle with only a bit out of the soil, I have much more success rate. Snow covering may be an issue. I cover them with a sack in winter. If I place the cuttings in a flower pot, I lay the flower pot on its side. I only put it upright when watering and when roots have formed..
Yeah, that was my plan, and why I started with the hand dug upper pond. I wanted to basically dig micro ponds all over the place, and take 50% of that areas soil, dig that down and use it to raise up the other 50% of the land down there. Then I dug that one pond out, that took me 40 hours to go 2 shovels deep (I can't turn the water off, only try unsuccessfully to divert it a bit). Digging in water saturated muck is freakin hard. I decided that I likely need some kind of machine power to do it, or it will take me my whole life. So then I called for excavators and ran across Joe, and decided to do the ecosystem pond up near the house more, directly connected my food forests, and in my zone 1 where I get to enjoy the money I spent more often. The lower areas are still on my plan, but other things are higher priorities like solar power and such. Old man walking trail will probably by my focus this year. Maybe pushing deeper into those wetlands will come in the years that follow that.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Forgive me if this is too private but how much is your property tax?? I've thought about moving to Canada so was wondering, I'd watch a video about how you cover property tax by growing food, just doesn't seem realistic so I'm guessing you have a higher paying main job??
My property tax is around 7k. I easily save this much money on my food budget by growing so much food. I didn't sell much last year because I was focused on canning and storing so much, due to covid. But when I say I cover my property tax by growing food, I don't mean selling it, I typically mean by saving money I would have otherwise spent on food feeding 3 boys. I am meticulous tracking stuff in excel for our personal finances, so I have records going back 15 years about how much we spend in gas, on food, on heating bills, etc Having a garden has been saving me between 10 and 15 thousand per year on groceries. As for a job, yes gardening is just my hobby. I am not a market gardener. I easily could be. If I left my job I could put in more annual beds and grow more greens for example, and sell more stuff at the market. However my wife and I both have full time jobs. She works bylaw, and I am a nuclear engineer.
Beautiful land you’ve got there! Been loving your channel. Have you thought about integrating natural filters into the creek to filter it? Also, what about getting it tested several times a year to determine what you’re dealing with based on the different times of the year?
I think I would tinker with it if we didn't have an Artesian well. The well water is basically pressure filtered through layers of sediment and rock. There's nothing I could possibly do here that could do a better job of cleaning that water than what's going on underground. For the river, that's all surface runoff water, from uphill farmland. Since I have the Artesian well underground water (natural filter through sand and rock) it's no contest, I just use that instead. It's a nice property to have the choice between two infinite sources of water!
Hi There, Your property looks amazing all season long. It's nice to see it sleeping and rejuvinating under a blanket of snow. Would love to see the chaga you mentioned. Just in the middle of reading "Mycelium Running," and it was mentioned in there as well. It was the first time I had come across it, so it was interesting that you mentioned it as well. I know I have mycelium in my garden as I've seen some fuiting bodies last fall, but I'm not sure what they are. I added mycorrhizae hyphae when I planted my trees last spring, and I've seen evidence of them when looking below the woodchips or planting new seedlings. Would love to get some King Stropharia in the garden as well. Not sure where to source it. Do you know if there is a local York Region or Durham source? Love seeing the videos in the winter! Thanks for sharing.
I tried to find some when I shot this video but couldn't see any. I will keep my eyes open. For a local source the best I could find is Wylie Mycologicals. They are out of stock last I checked though. But keep checking for them. Haha I just noticed you posted that 1 minute ago. What youtube channel will give you a response in 1 minute? Only the best one lol
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy For sure! :) You're passionate about what you do and you have a lot of knowledge and insight. Love your channel! Thanks for the source. Will look them up.
So I've binge watched quite a few of your videos over the holidays, well done I might add. I'm also in Ontario, Zone 4A, Boreal Forest. I have about a 1/3 acre in an established outer suburban area that I plant a traditional garden and also have a perennial garden, with lots of lawn and several maples. I want to convert a lot of the lawn into a forest garden with real purpose. Let's say I'm tired of the 1 hour lawn cutting and weeding to make perfect. I have a natural swale that runs across the property that I'm planning to utilize. My question, what books would you recommend for those new to Permaculture, that would be specific to colder climates like ours? It's January and like you, once I get something in my head, there's no shaking it, so I plan to use the winter months to design, layout, determine what I selectively need to cut down (my canopy is quite extensive), what plants, shrubs and trees i'm going to plant, where to get them from, etc, etc, etc. Any advise would be greatly appreciated. Keep up the good work! One more thing, any relation to Peter Klute (Legendary Motorcar). Your mannerism is almost identical.
I've never heard of Peter Klute, no relation. It's always neat to me when people find my dopplegangers out there though lol. Here's a list of permaculture books that I really have enjoyed: Here is a good post on good permaculture books: www.reddit.com/r/Permaculture/comments/3txvcn/what_are_some_good_permie_books/? I definitely recommend something like Edible Forest Gardens. Also for what it's worth, I did an AMA (ask me anything) on reddit a while back. Some of the responses there may be interesting to you. You may enjoy reading through the questions and answers: www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/jeaphl/i_am_keith_st_jean_or_canadian_permaculture/
Not yet! I mean, I have lots of videos of them in there, talking about how I prune raspberries for example, how I use strawberries as groundcover, how I propagate them by runners, etc. But I have no info on their varieties, and it's because I lost it! Most of this stuff I planted in the first year I decided to start a garden, and I never saved any of the info of what varieties they were, so I have no idea!
I really hate it when people speak like experts on stuff they don't know. Since I have no experience with it (I don't know what varieties I have), thats what I would be doing if I fave advice on this. I would suggest contacting your state Master gardener at your local extension office. They will know what varieties are best for your specific area.
Great video! I was binging on some of your other tours and wanted a FULL PROPERTY tour, and you delivered!! How much acreage do you have? and how much do you think you have as the upper food forest vs the old man walking trail? You said that you have about 2.5 acres in the lower (permaculture zone 5) area.
I'm on 4 acres and about 2 to 2.5 is in the back, wild and unplanned. Very wet. Saturated wetland. The old man trail is about a half acre, the rest is about an acre.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Thank you! that really puts things (more) in perspective. Keep it up! I can't wait to see what you have planned for this year.
Amazing video as always I enjoyed it. My question is related to evergreen plants in a good forest system. This year I plugged in a lot of heavenly bamboo in places in my food forest just for winter interest. However this plant is pretty invasive and spreads through suckers. Do you think ultimately it’s a bad idea to add these heavenly bamboo plants into my system?
It is if you are going to walk away from them. However, even bamboo can be managed by just constantly cutting it. The problems happen when people plant it then never rake care of it, or they move, etc. Any plant dies when its constantly cut. The thing is, the more voracious the plant, the more you cannot give it an inch. Ideally you could just put these in a pot to prevent them spreading too much. But if not, just make sure you are on top of it constantly.
That’s what I figured too and I figured the evergreens would help support the system in long run too as long as they are managed. The plant is sometimes called Nandina it makes these little red berries in the winter but they are toxic. I don’t think it’s hardy in your zone though.
Indeed, it is actually covered with really great stuff right now that is somewhat dormant. That whole area is a giant reedbed actually. The whole thing is covered with plants that filter the water. It's one reason why the erosion has been minimized. That's the real trick - wind it across contour as much as possible, then fill it with plant roots. Also the water itself is quite clean at the source. It actually perculates up through a granite sandwich and through the underlaying sand and grit which filter it before it even exits. The water is actually extremely clean and we get it tested regularly. The only source of pollution is the farms that spray chemicals everywhere... :( Thankfully most of that gets filtered and diluted as it sinks back down into the water table.
You could do marsh mallows or any other marsh loving plants in that artisan overflow area. But super cool layout, I'm getting more and more excited to get going on our Utah food forest this year!!
In general Ontario has anywhere from zone 7 to zone 2-3. I'm in between zone 4 and 5. Note that this is for Canadian agriculture zones, which are different than American ones. Ours are 1 zone colder. So my zone 4/5 is like American zone 3/4. Kind of sort of, not really. It's more complex than that. American zones are more about "what's the coldest day of the year", and Canadian ones can get into a bit more detail on things like thermal moderation and wind chill effects, etc. Because say a zone typically only gets to -20C, but the odd winter you'll get a gust of wind coming down from Hudson's bay and you hit -40C for a week, then all your stuff is going to die. So even though I'm say "zone 3", it's pretty rare I'll get those -40C days, but they DO come. But mostly we're in the -10 to -15C range most winter days.
Since this is so long I have a lot of comments and questions. So to avoid spam: Have you considered putting in a reed basin at the start of your stream to filter the water as it's coming in? Would be an interesting experiment to cast a bunch of random excess seeds into the wild areas. See how things compete in that set up. As someone who is struggling to save up money for their own land, someone owning 1000 acres and doing nothing with it sounds criminal. Land hording is one of the biggest reasons property prices are so high... Why not ask the neighbor with the well overflow problem if you could solve it for them and maybe sweeten the deal with fruit and nut plantings? Looks like you could do with inoculating your hand dug pond with aquatic clean up crews and plants to steal nutrients from the algae. And the old artesian well pond looks to be a perfect supplier. You know, I think you're almost at the point where you could sharpen your cutting production and start selling them. Plus it's another connection point to funnel viewers. I've seen it work with other channels and you have cold hardy plants which isn't a market you see from the other youtube garden stores.
Reed @ stream entry: I have indeed. I actually was going to turn that pooling area into a wetland filter, then draw suction from just below it. Fill that pooling area with reeds and such. I may do that in the future. I need to do more research on how much of a problem herbicides are, and if the reeds will do enough. For the wild seeds - I am trialing it on wildflower hill. If that "plays nicely" with the surrounding areas, then I may do a bit more of it in the wilder places. I would be a lot more selective on what I spread though. For example, I have some lupines in these seed mixes and I would never ever just throw lupines into wild areas. For the neighbour thing - him and I are .... well, very different people. I've tried everything I can to have a good relationship with him, given him so much free food. He's just not like me at all. He tears through his woods on his 4-wheeler nonstop, burns his garbage, and is considered by many people in the neighbourhood to be "the asshole" of the street. I just get to be lucky enough to have him next to me. He yells at my dogs if they bark at all, etc. Just not a nice guy. There's really nothing to be done there - until he grows up a bit. I actually think him and his wife are going through some problems - often we judge people on how they act without thinking what they are going through. He's gotta be going through some real stuff. Put it this way, I wouldn't be upset if I saw a for sale sign on his property. The hand dug pond looks to be full of algae but it's actually just a ton of watercress. Watercress is EVERYwhere. I've definitely thought that I'm being stupid not selling stuff like Jerusalem Artichokes at the very least. So many people have asked to buy them. I really should look into that more. I'm just SO busy with so many things! If this channel ever did get bigger and I could actually consider leaving my job, the first thing I would probably do would be to make a large greenhouse and start an online store selling plants that I propagate myself as a side hustle. But with the fulltime engineering gig, it's just sucking up too much of my time. It DOES fund all my projects though. It's a great job. I'd just love to be able to leave it at the same time, and do so in a responsible way to my kids and family. I think I'll always want to do more than I'm capable of. I'm a very big dreamer.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Thanks for taking the time for a long message. The wild seeds I was thinking about were more along the lines of annuals like squash, tomato and all that. Left to their own devices they should reseed themselves, right? Might take some deer pressure off if it works well.
Donyoy mean for habitat? I have some Mason bee hives but thsts it for specialized habitat. The rest of the habitat is natural. Rotting logs and stumps, leave up the odd dead tree if its not a falling hazard, planting tons of diverse flowers and herbs, especially ones shaped like parsley flowers - these tend to attract diverse plants. If you check out a video in thenpond playlist called "herbaceous layer", I go over some of the plants and their uses as habitat. But the hotels are just flowers and woodchips and stumps and logs. Hotels the way nature builds em.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Yes, I am going to set one up at my place. I can see that you have enough natural habitat to make a bug hotel redundant. The pallets from your old composting station reminded me of it.
Thanks for the offer. One day I may do something like this - basically a workshop. People would basically show up to work on a project together, I would teach things as we go, people could forage fruit off the trees, and the only cost would be for the food that I'd have to buy. We'll have to figure out how to beat this covid thing first, and then I'd have to decide how much is actually possible back there. It's honestly a ton of water back there, it's VERY wet. A lot of digging would need to be manual labour as machines - even skid steer - may get stuck. And I also am kind of leery of having people get pissed off that they showed up and were "used" as labour. I hear that from some workshops. That being said, so many people have made comments like yours over the last year or so. The other thing would be that people would then know where I live, etc. There's always danger in that - lots of crazies out there. I'm not saying no to the idea, but I need to let it ferment a bit longer.
Cool, welcome. I hope you enjoy. Sean has a great channel, and was one of the people I first found when I started my permaculture journey 4-5 years ago.
Absolutely loved this long site tour--thank you for pulling so many pieces together for us!! On the subject of incoming water pollution--perhaps a rhetorical question, but where do you/we draw the line? It's everywhere. We have a small stream crossing our property in a neighborhood of older homes with individual septic systems. The upstream neighbor has no holding tank and no leach field; all waste magically disappears into a swampy spot that drains into the stream. Polite discussions have not been fruitful--the neighbor claims it's not a problem. The water sample bottle from the state lab sitting on my counter is ready to prove it IS a problem, but I really, really don't want to be a jerk about it... On the subject of wells--until now, I had no idea there was such a thing as a flowing artesian well! Quite interesting, as in our area they are typically non-flowing. Wonderful for your wildlife!
Indeed, the method these days is to cap all artesian wells. Apparently when our street was done, this wasn't common practice and they just let it overflow wherever. The old owners of my property decided that "wherever" was into this little rock pond they build, which then overflows uncontrolled into their backyard. They didn't care because they only used 30 feet of the backyard. The water then cut channels and sinkholes into the back 3 acres. This is what I discovered after I bought. So it has been a constant struggle to try to wind this water flow across contour as much as possible to increase the biological soaking and slow the velocity before it enters the stream. It's just a LOT of water. Constant. Never stopping. A good tool to have on the property, but honestly it's just way too much. For the poop water in your situation, I don't think you should ever think you are being harsh about ensuring this water is safe. Up at my parent's cottage there was a family that bought a place, had their septic overflow and just decided that it wasn't worth their effort to fix. It was all going into the lake and getting diluted after all. Well that's great until a bunch of families around started getting sick. REALLY sick. The ministry was called in, they found human feces in the water, traced it back to these people's septic, and nailed them with a massive fine. The surrounding families are now suing those people. One of them almost lost one of their kids. It's no joke. There are bylaws around how to design septic systems, and there are very good reasons for it. Definitely get the right people involved in this, and don't ever feel like you are being a jerk. You are just trying to make sure the community is safe.
I came across and liked your FB page. Any plans for a members only FB group so that the like-minded here can congregate. I know you need just one more thing to do. 😄
I'm all for it if someone wants to set one up, but I don't really use Facebook at all. If I had more time I may force myself on it. I really only use it to advertise my videos when I make one, just because it's another audience source.
It's hard on a flowing creek because the chemicals may only be there as they get applied and rains hit. Typically I think the testing would be done on the body of water that accepts the flow. I don't know any details about specific testing though.
I have and it's not practical. I don't have enough drop and/or enough flow. Even putting in-stream turbines, the amount of power they would create is almost negligible compared to the power of the pump. Also for me, I'm on a very green grid, so the environmental benefit would actually likely be negative (in terms of materials for producing a turbine, maintenance, etc). So there's very little driver to going that way, unless purely as a hobby/interest. If I would do anything it would likely be solar, or possibly wind. But again, even for those, since my actual grid is so green, there's very little benefit in a practical way.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy cool thanks for your reply! Its really awesome following your journey and watching your land change with the seasons. Always grateful for the hard work you put into your videos
Me too! I hate saying I have a hundred trees in an area, but they are all still 6-12 inches tall. I can't wait until another few years pass and all the 1 year whips I've planted are 4-5 feet tall. It will look so different here. Can't wait until some of the frontyard roadside strips fill in and create corridors. Man, I'm so pumped, even for this coming season. The winters make me go crazy.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Yes that will look wonderful. I can't imagine time better invested than doing what you have done in the last years. Even if you would stop now, you could harvest for ages. But you won't stop :D I feel the same way for next year. I got my first garden now. I planted a plum, raspberries, strawberries and haskaps +some more. And i can't wait so start with veggies. I'll wanna join you in video documenting the process, but in a much smaller scale. The garden is only 50m2 :D
Thags great, make sure you post here if you do. Maybe some of my viewers in small urban lots will love it. There is definitely a market for urban permaculture videos. I get comments all the time about it.
Your property is beautiful.....plants for your road strip apart from all the berries... parsley, coriander, carrots, onions, oregano, cabbage, kale... just thinking of hiking lunch additions... about toxic dirty water... pass it through a barrel of sand then a barrel of biochar. If it has heavy metals the sand can be ziolita which has a negative charge which attracts positive metal ions. The usual set up uses four barrels... dirty water, sand filter, biochar and finally clean water. There are examples online. Young tender birch leaves are tasty. At my parents house we used to eat them boiled and added to meat dishes.
Thanks, great ideas. I actually wanted to do a series of microphones that basically do the exact same thing, using designs by Dr, John Todd and his bioremediation machines. Basically the exact same idea as yours but in each barrel instead of it just being sand, then charcoal, you also plant plants in them, ajd the last one passes through a woodchip filter with water loving fungi. Each stage filters out toxins and binds them organically making them inert... similar to how Geoff Lawton speaks about how they couldn't figure out why the greening the desert project was working so quickly. The local authorities were saying he was lying ajd was water flushing the salts down into the deep soils, and he was searing that he wasn't. It turns out it was because the fungi in his mulch layer was binding up the salts and making them inert. He was just making a Dr John Todd living filter bioremediation machine.
You probably have checked out Diego Footer's latest in search of soil podcast...all about biochar. It explains how it works for water remediation. It's a great conversation. If ziolita is used as the sand, it reduces microbial life like ecoli and heavy metals to turn the water into drinking water. Its ionic charge is slightly greater than biochar. Normal sand and gravel with biochar is used if the water is going to be added to the landscape, river, vegetable garden. In this case the microbes help with the remediation. The algae take up zinc, copper etc
I've watched a bunch of his stuff lately, but not that one. I will go check it out. He has been getting really good the last few years, really into the science side of things. Him and I see things VERY similarly.
Question. I was watching a channel (he's a beginner) and he was putting cut logs, say 10" thick and 18" long in his garden beds. Just one here and there. I know when wood breaks down it's good for the soil but is doing that going to invite undesirable bugs to the area?
Sounds like he's making a hugelkulture bed. Well, kinda... one here and there is a bit odd, but he's doing it in a small scale. Here is my hugelkulture bed video: ruclips.net/video/1ElXBCfEXxM/видео.html. There are other really good ones out there if you search for them. Don't worry about wood bringing in bad bugs, unless you put it right up against your house and get carpenter ants or termites. However, termines in the wild are actually an incredibly useful bug for gardens. All of the "bad" wood bugs you may be afraid of are actually great garden friends. So just keep any wood about 5+ feet away from your house and you should be set.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacyI have a couple decomposing logs,10' long tree trunks, just laying on the surface of my yard. I like them, they add character but I was wondering if I should keep wood like that away from my new fruit trees in case the logs have boring bugs? Sorry I ask so many questions. I've already learned that doing things wrong can get expensive.
Glad to help. As long as they are roughly 3 inches away you should have no problems. Termites can live in woodchips also, but most arborist recommend keeping 2 to 3 inches around the trunk clear from the woodchips. Same idea for the logs.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Sorry I seem so OCD about the bugs but some kind of bug dropped every trunk, over time, of my crab apple tree so I'm just really freaked about bugs getting into the new trees. Thanks for understanding. I wonder if I should treat what's left of the crab apple. Here's one for ya. I thought some (A TON OF) hard little bugs with red on them were box elder bugs. I removed a couple of 100 y.o. trees that were infested. I needed them taken down....a 100 y.o. silver maple is a down right "accident waiting to happen".....especially when it's in the middle of a circular drive where we park....not to mention 16" limbs falling on a kid walking by. Anyway, I thought taking the trees down would nix the bugs but last summer I was folding back some plastic (to weed whack) that I have on the ground till I can plant there and they were living in the ground?????
Indeed, many bugs lay eggs in the soil to overwinter. They then re-emerge in the spring and find some kind of habitat. That is why it's so important that we (as a species) stop spraying insecticides to kill all bugs, and cut down all wild grasslands to build subdivisions and destroy habitat for the insect biome. When we cedte imbalance like this, we get imbalance in the ecosystem. Now that being said, what I would recommend is to take photos of them and post it to Facebook bug groups, and talk to some bug geeks about them. And by geeks I mean that in a very respectful tone. I'm a tree geek, and am learning about bugs every day and every year, but there are some true experts out there on this topic, and I'm sure they can help a lot. A place I like it reddit, ajd ther is a subreddit called "whatsthisbug". It is a great resource.
Wow. I am so happy to find your channel and to learn that I’m not the only one. I’ve gardened like this for years. I grew up in an area that was wild , creeks, woods, hedges, and that’s where I feel at home. So I turned this place into something that looks pretty wild. The neighbors call it “the jungle”. I didn’t know a thing about permaculture when I started and my goal was to let nature run wild. Along the way I noticed the soil improve, pests reduced, and the hard clay soil didn’t dry out in the summer where it was covered with something green. Eventually I learned there was a name for all this! Permaculture. And after that I read Beth Chato’s books and learned about “right plant, right place”. You never know what’s going to happen when you get up in the morning. I’m wondering what big thing I’m going to stumble across next.
Rick
That's so wonderful. Indeed "Permaculture" has been around for longer than when Bill Mollison coined the term. The first humans were mostly foraging nomads with very wide territories. Many planted their favorite fruit around commonly passed rivers in their roaming territories. These people almost had it all figured out! lol
Thank you for sharing! Your videos get me so excited to find my perfect piece of land to protect and grow!
A beautiful Winter Wonderland. Thank you for the tour and for the interesting info!
I can't thank you enough!!! I learn so much... We have so much in common... Thx again!!!
Thanks 😊
I loved seeing your site all in one video, thanks for putting it together! It was useful to see how all the different parts we have seen in other videos fits together. I've been following your channel since March 2020, and was inspired to start my own youtube channel (Wildwood Gardening, I normally comment as Cassie B....). I noticed that there seems to be a need for cold climate urban permaculture content and wanted to document things as I go along. Thanks for being such an inspiration and all that you are doing to spread the message of permaculture in an easily accessible format!
Oh hi friend :)
I have no idea why but this comment got put into the spam filter. So weird.
I wish you luck! This is literally the reason I made this youtube channel... to hopefully get other people to try to do this stuff themselves, but moreso to then go make youtube channels or blogs or facebook groups and then start that chain reaction of influence. I'm so happy I was part of your journey, even if just a small part. It's so exciting that you will be part of other people's journeys. There are a lot of houses around that are going to talk about how Cassie is planting food everywhere, or selling dehydrated peaches at the bottom of her driveway, or jars of jam, or whatever you decide to do. I wish you all the luck in the world - I'm sure you won't need it :)
Love that you’re talking up the mushrooms you’re blessed to have right on your property. It is a beautiful benefit of truly connecting with nature and all the benefits it has to offer! 🌱✨
And if I never got interested in this stuff, I would never have known. It is good for us all to start being aware of the gifts available in the world around us.
Thanks for the full tour!
Hi! I'm one of the new people from 6 bushes. super cool channel! happy lil subscriber. I live in Denver, CO
Thanks so much. :)
I love how wild and natural your place is. And I am so going to scatter herb seeds all over the edges of my property. That is such a good idea. I have been wondering what to do with this place, and now I have a much clearer picture. Thanks so much for the tour, and giving me some much needed perspective. ☮️💕
That's awesome! I've been really enjoying chatting with you in the comments. I'm really interested in seeing your place when you get going. Any chance you'd be interested in doing a video on your channel? I love watching my viewers lands and how they change. It's literally why I'm doing this - I get so much happiness from seeing the world get a little bit wilder and nature get a little more habitat.
The herbs on every border of a property is a really good idea. I'm sure it's a big reason why I don't spray a single chemical on anything and I get almost zero pest pressure. I have ladybugs all over the place - I run into little clusters of them huddled together in the winter time. It's so wonderful to see.
Then we had a tiny little black bug in our kitchen the other day, so I got it ID'd. Turns out it's an extremely beneficial fly who eats the larvae of midges and mayflies. It lays it's eggs in water, so it's almost certainly come to my land now that I have this pond here.
The whole "if you build it they will come" thing is so true. Who knew Kevin Costner was so wise. Plant more herbs everywhere, invite all those creepy crawly insects, leave the pests alone (food for the good guys) and just let nature balance your ecosystem.
Our job is just to be the catalyst for change. Our goal should be to very quickly transition from the architect of an ecosystem toward being just a passenger and observer.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy I would absolutely love the video idea. I am totally interested. The best thing about winter, besides how crazy beautiful it is, is that you get the chance to slow down and plan and think and visualize. 😃
For your swampy area... when you have the energy and time... you could dig down and make a series of ponds for fish and raise up mounds to get the plants out of the water. At my parents house (temperate rainforest) we used to leave many fallen trees as small bird habitat because without them the cockatoos, magpies and kookaburras would eat them. We had some stunning blue wrens. The fallen trunks gave protection for echidnas, lyre birds, wombats and wallabies. They also protected young ferns from the invasive deer that shouldn't be there. We did chainsaw some branches for firewood, fire protection strategy, aesthetics and access. Fallen trees were part of the forest. I'm finding with cuttings (Mexican desert) if I lay them at a five degree angle with only a bit out of the soil, I have much more success rate. Snow covering may be an issue. I cover them with a sack in winter. If I place the cuttings in a flower pot, I lay the flower pot on its side. I only put it upright when watering and when roots have formed..
Yeah, that was my plan, and why I started with the hand dug upper pond. I wanted to basically dig micro ponds all over the place, and take 50% of that areas soil, dig that down and use it to raise up the other 50% of the land down there.
Then I dug that one pond out, that took me 40 hours to go 2 shovels deep (I can't turn the water off, only try unsuccessfully to divert it a bit). Digging in water saturated muck is freakin hard.
I decided that I likely need some kind of machine power to do it, or it will take me my whole life. So then I called for excavators and ran across Joe, and decided to do the ecosystem pond up near the house more, directly connected my food forests, and in my zone 1 where I get to enjoy the money I spent more often.
The lower areas are still on my plan, but other things are higher priorities like solar power and such.
Old man walking trail will probably by my focus this year. Maybe pushing deeper into those wetlands will come in the years that follow that.
Your garden is beautyfull, even in wintertime.....
Thank you so much 😊
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Forgive me if this is too private but how much is your property tax?? I've thought about moving to Canada so was wondering, I'd watch a video about how you cover property tax by growing food, just doesn't seem realistic so I'm guessing you have a higher paying main job??
My property tax is around 7k. I easily save this much money on my food budget by growing so much food. I didn't sell much last year because I was focused on canning and storing so much, due to covid. But when I say I cover my property tax by growing food, I don't mean selling it, I typically mean by saving money I would have otherwise spent on food feeding 3 boys.
I am meticulous tracking stuff in excel for our personal finances, so I have records going back 15 years about how much we spend in gas, on food, on heating bills, etc Having a garden has been saving me between 10 and 15 thousand per year on groceries.
As for a job, yes gardening is just my hobby. I am not a market gardener. I easily could be. If I left my job I could put in more annual beds and grow more greens for example, and sell more stuff at the market.
However my wife and I both have full time jobs. She works bylaw, and I am a nuclear engineer.
Very happy yt recommended your channel, you’ve got a new sub. Cheers from the Okanogan and happy new year!
You too!
Happy New Year to you Keith, I look forward to seeing what the 2021 season brings for you and your property.
All the best :)
Thanks bestie, you too
Blessings to you and your family. From Ontario
Same to you!
Beautiful land you’ve got there! Been loving your channel. Have you thought about integrating natural filters into the creek to filter it? Also, what about getting it tested several times a year to determine what you’re dealing with based on the different times of the year?
I think I would tinker with it if we didn't have an Artesian well. The well water is basically pressure filtered through layers of sediment and rock. There's nothing I could possibly do here that could do a better job of cleaning that water than what's going on underground.
For the river, that's all surface runoff water, from uphill farmland. Since I have the Artesian well underground water (natural filter through sand and rock) it's no contest, I just use that instead. It's a nice property to have the choice between two infinite sources of water!
Hi There, Your property looks amazing all season long. It's nice to see it sleeping and rejuvinating under a blanket of snow. Would love to see the chaga you mentioned. Just in the middle of reading "Mycelium Running," and it was mentioned in there as well. It was the first time I had come across it, so it was interesting that you mentioned it as well. I know I have mycelium in my garden as I've seen some fuiting bodies last fall, but I'm not sure what they are. I added mycorrhizae hyphae when I planted my trees last spring, and I've seen evidence of them when looking below the woodchips or planting new seedlings. Would love to get some King Stropharia in the garden as well. Not sure where to source it. Do you know if there is a local York Region or Durham source? Love seeing the videos in the winter! Thanks for sharing.
I tried to find some when I shot this video but couldn't see any. I will keep my eyes open.
For a local source the best I could find is Wylie Mycologicals. They are out of stock last I checked though. But keep checking for them.
Haha I just noticed you posted that 1 minute ago. What youtube channel will give you a response in 1 minute? Only the best one lol
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy For sure! :) You're passionate about what you do and you have a lot of knowledge and insight. Love your channel! Thanks for the source. Will look them up.
So I've binge watched quite a few of your videos over the holidays, well done I might add. I'm also in Ontario, Zone 4A, Boreal Forest. I have about a 1/3 acre in an established outer suburban area that I plant a traditional garden and also have a perennial garden, with lots of lawn and several maples. I want to convert a lot of the lawn into a forest garden with real purpose. Let's say I'm tired of the 1 hour lawn cutting and weeding to make perfect. I have a natural swale that runs across the property that I'm planning to utilize. My question, what books would you recommend for those new to Permaculture, that would be specific to colder climates like ours? It's January and like you, once I get something in my head, there's no shaking it, so I plan to use the winter months to design, layout, determine what I selectively need to cut down (my canopy is quite extensive), what plants, shrubs and trees i'm going to plant, where to get them from, etc, etc, etc. Any advise would be greatly appreciated. Keep up the good work! One more thing, any relation to Peter Klute (Legendary Motorcar). Your mannerism is almost identical.
I've never heard of Peter Klute, no relation. It's always neat to me when people find my dopplegangers out there though lol.
Here's a list of permaculture books that I really have enjoyed:
Here is a good post on good permaculture books:
www.reddit.com/r/Permaculture/comments/3txvcn/what_are_some_good_permie_books/?
I definitely recommend something like Edible Forest Gardens.
Also for what it's worth, I did an AMA (ask me anything) on reddit a while back. Some of the responses there may be interesting to you. You may enjoy reading through the questions and answers:
www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/jeaphl/i_am_keith_st_jean_or_canadian_permaculture/
Do you have a video on strawberries and which raspberry varieties do you have? Thanks love your site lots of great ideas and inspiration 💖
Not yet! I mean, I have lots of videos of them in there, talking about how I prune raspberries for example, how I use strawberries as groundcover, how I propagate them by runners, etc. But I have no info on their varieties, and it's because I lost it!
Most of this stuff I planted in the first year I decided to start a garden, and I never saved any of the info of what varieties they were, so I have no idea!
So what strawberries & raspberries do you recommend for southeast’s Idaho. I have Oahala straw and canby & latham thanks so much
Ogala🥜
I really hate it when people speak like experts on stuff they don't know. Since I have no experience with it (I don't know what varieties I have), thats what I would be doing if I fave advice on this.
I would suggest contacting your state Master gardener at your local extension office. They will know what varieties are best for your specific area.
Apparently young Linden leafs are edible - and Hosta shoots as well...
They are! I've eaten quite a few leaves off that linden. Rather tasteless, but nutrients nonetheless.
Great video! I was binging on some of your other tours and wanted a FULL PROPERTY tour, and you delivered!! How much acreage do you have? and how much do you think you have as the upper food forest vs the old man walking trail? You said that you have about 2.5 acres in the lower (permaculture zone 5) area.
I'm on 4 acres and about 2 to 2.5 is in the back, wild and unplanned. Very wet. Saturated wetland. The old man trail is about a half acre, the rest is about an acre.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Thank you! that really puts things (more) in perspective. Keep it up! I can't wait to see what you have planned for this year.
Amazing video as always I enjoyed it. My question is related to evergreen plants in a good forest system. This year I plugged in a lot of heavenly bamboo in places in my food forest just for winter interest. However this plant is pretty invasive and spreads through suckers. Do you think ultimately it’s a bad idea to add these heavenly bamboo plants into my system?
It is if you are going to walk away from them. However, even bamboo can be managed by just constantly cutting it. The problems happen when people plant it then never rake care of it, or they move, etc.
Any plant dies when its constantly cut. The thing is, the more voracious the plant, the more you cannot give it an inch.
Ideally you could just put these in a pot to prevent them spreading too much. But if not, just make sure you are on top of it constantly.
That’s what I figured too and I figured the evergreens would help support the system in long run too as long as they are managed. The plant is sometimes called Nandina it makes these little red berries in the winter but they are toxic. I don’t think it’s hardy in your zone though.
So can I plant Jerusalem artichokes and walking onions together.???
Yep. Try to keep the onions on the sunny side border, so that the JAs don't bully them out.
Would it be possibel to put plants around the exit of the water so that it could maybe filter the water naturally?
Indeed, it is actually covered with really great stuff right now that is somewhat dormant. That whole area is a giant reedbed actually. The whole thing is covered with plants that filter the water. It's one reason why the erosion has been minimized. That's the real trick - wind it across contour as much as possible, then fill it with plant roots.
Also the water itself is quite clean at the source. It actually perculates up through a granite sandwich and through the underlaying sand and grit which filter it before it even exits. The water is actually extremely clean and we get it tested regularly. The only source of pollution is the farms that spray chemicals everywhere... :( Thankfully most of that gets filtered and diluted as it sinks back down into the water table.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy thanks for your response
You could do marsh mallows or any other marsh loving plants in that artisan overflow area. But super cool layout, I'm getting more and more excited to get going on our Utah food forest this year!!
I love your channel however, I live in South Texas so I will bypass this video. It hardly ever snows.
What is your hardiness zone, your in Ontario?
In general Ontario has anywhere from zone 7 to zone 2-3. I'm in between zone 4 and 5. Note that this is for Canadian agriculture zones, which are different than American ones. Ours are 1 zone colder. So my zone 4/5 is like American zone 3/4. Kind of sort of, not really. It's more complex than that.
American zones are more about "what's the coldest day of the year", and Canadian ones can get into a bit more detail on things like thermal moderation and wind chill effects, etc. Because say a zone typically only gets to -20C, but the odd winter you'll get a gust of wind coming down from Hudson's bay and you hit -40C for a week, then all your stuff is going to die.
So even though I'm say "zone 3", it's pretty rare I'll get those -40C days, but they DO come. But mostly we're in the -10 to -15C range most winter days.
Since this is so long I have a lot of comments and questions. So to avoid spam:
Have you considered putting in a reed basin at the start of your stream to filter the water as it's coming in?
Would be an interesting experiment to cast a bunch of random excess seeds into the wild areas. See how things compete in that set up.
As someone who is struggling to save up money for their own land, someone owning 1000 acres and doing nothing with it sounds criminal. Land hording is one of the biggest reasons property prices are so high...
Why not ask the neighbor with the well overflow problem if you could solve it for them and maybe sweeten the deal with fruit and nut plantings?
Looks like you could do with inoculating your hand dug pond with aquatic clean up crews and plants to steal nutrients from the algae. And the old artesian well pond looks to be a perfect supplier.
You know, I think you're almost at the point where you could sharpen your cutting production and start selling them. Plus it's another connection point to funnel viewers. I've seen it work with other channels and you have cold hardy plants which isn't a market you see from the other youtube garden stores.
Reed @ stream entry: I have indeed. I actually was going to turn that pooling area into a wetland filter, then draw suction from just below it. Fill that pooling area with reeds and such. I may do that in the future. I need to do more research on how much of a problem herbicides are, and if the reeds will do enough.
For the wild seeds - I am trialing it on wildflower hill. If that "plays nicely" with the surrounding areas, then I may do a bit more of it in the wilder places. I would be a lot more selective on what I spread though. For example, I have some lupines in these seed mixes and I would never ever just throw lupines into wild areas.
For the neighbour thing - him and I are .... well, very different people. I've tried everything I can to have a good relationship with him, given him so much free food. He's just not like me at all. He tears through his woods on his 4-wheeler nonstop, burns his garbage, and is considered by many people in the neighbourhood to be "the asshole" of the street. I just get to be lucky enough to have him next to me. He yells at my dogs if they bark at all, etc. Just not a nice guy. There's really nothing to be done there - until he grows up a bit. I actually think him and his wife are going through some problems - often we judge people on how they act without thinking what they are going through. He's gotta be going through some real stuff. Put it this way, I wouldn't be upset if I saw a for sale sign on his property.
The hand dug pond looks to be full of algae but it's actually just a ton of watercress. Watercress is EVERYwhere.
I've definitely thought that I'm being stupid not selling stuff like Jerusalem Artichokes at the very least. So many people have asked to buy them. I really should look into that more. I'm just SO busy with so many things! If this channel ever did get bigger and I could actually consider leaving my job, the first thing I would probably do would be to make a large greenhouse and start an online store selling plants that I propagate myself as a side hustle. But with the fulltime engineering gig, it's just sucking up too much of my time. It DOES fund all my projects though. It's a great job. I'd just love to be able to leave it at the same time, and do so in a responsible way to my kids and family.
I think I'll always want to do more than I'm capable of. I'm a very big dreamer.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Thanks for taking the time for a long message. The wild seeds I was thinking about were more along the lines of annuals like squash, tomato and all that. Left to their own devices they should reseed themselves, right? Might take some deer pressure off if it works well.
I would think so yes.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy If all else fails, it's content. Hahaha
Linden leaves are edible, btw.
Indeed. I've eaten many from that tree. Rather bland, but still kinda cool to be eating like a deer. lol.
Are you going to make a bug hotel?
Donyoy mean for habitat? I have some Mason bee hives but thsts it for specialized habitat. The rest of the habitat is natural. Rotting logs and stumps, leave up the odd dead tree if its not a falling hazard, planting tons of diverse flowers and herbs, especially ones shaped like parsley flowers - these tend to attract diverse plants.
If you check out a video in thenpond playlist called "herbaceous layer", I go over some of the plants and their uses as habitat.
But the hotels are just flowers and woodchips and stumps and logs. Hotels the way nature builds em.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Yes, I am going to set one up at my place. I can see that you have enough natural habitat to make a bug hotel redundant. The pallets from your old composting station reminded me of it.
Hello, I would love to help with that lower back area of your property by providing labor in exchange for knowledge and experience.
Thanks for the offer. One day I may do something like this - basically a workshop. People would basically show up to work on a project together, I would teach things as we go, people could forage fruit off the trees, and the only cost would be for the food that I'd have to buy.
We'll have to figure out how to beat this covid thing first, and then I'd have to decide how much is actually possible back there. It's honestly a ton of water back there, it's VERY wet. A lot of digging would need to be manual labour as machines - even skid steer - may get stuck. And I also am kind of leery of having people get pissed off that they showed up and were "used" as labour. I hear that from some workshops.
That being said, so many people have made comments like yours over the last year or so.
The other thing would be that people would then know where I live, etc. There's always danger in that - lots of crazies out there.
I'm not saying no to the idea, but I need to let it ferment a bit longer.
GREAT video! I really enjoyed walking around with you.
I should have walked to your place! lol That would have been funny... all of a sudden I'm in Gardening in the North's backyard.
🤣🤣🤣 surprise I’m here for coffee!
Lol
Happy New year 🌺🌺
Happy new years :)
I found you through your comment about advertisement on edible acres. I agree with what you've said and now I have a chance to check out your channel.
Cool, welcome. I hope you enjoy. Sean has a great channel, and was one of the people I first found when I started my permaculture journey 4-5 years ago.
Very nice! So much open space
Absolutely loved this long site tour--thank you for pulling so many pieces together for us!! On the subject of incoming water pollution--perhaps a rhetorical question, but where do you/we draw the line? It's everywhere. We have a small stream crossing our property in a neighborhood of older homes with individual septic systems. The upstream neighbor has no holding tank and no leach field; all waste magically disappears into a swampy spot that drains into the stream. Polite discussions have not been fruitful--the neighbor claims it's not a problem. The water sample bottle from the state lab sitting on my counter is ready to prove it IS a problem, but I really, really don't want to be a jerk about it... On the subject of wells--until now, I had no idea there was such a thing as a flowing artesian well! Quite interesting, as in our area they are typically non-flowing. Wonderful for your wildlife!
Indeed, the method these days is to cap all artesian wells. Apparently when our street was done, this wasn't common practice and they just let it overflow wherever. The old owners of my property decided that "wherever" was into this little rock pond they build, which then overflows uncontrolled into their backyard. They didn't care because they only used 30 feet of the backyard. The water then cut channels and sinkholes into the back 3 acres. This is what I discovered after I bought. So it has been a constant struggle to try to wind this water flow across contour as much as possible to increase the biological soaking and slow the velocity before it enters the stream. It's just a LOT of water. Constant. Never stopping. A good tool to have on the property, but honestly it's just way too much.
For the poop water in your situation, I don't think you should ever think you are being harsh about ensuring this water is safe. Up at my parent's cottage there was a family that bought a place, had their septic overflow and just decided that it wasn't worth their effort to fix. It was all going into the lake and getting diluted after all. Well that's great until a bunch of families around started getting sick. REALLY sick. The ministry was called in, they found human feces in the water, traced it back to these people's septic, and nailed them with a massive fine. The surrounding families are now suing those people. One of them almost lost one of their kids. It's no joke. There are bylaws around how to design septic systems, and there are very good reasons for it. Definitely get the right people involved in this, and don't ever feel like you are being a jerk. You are just trying to make sure the community is safe.
I came across and liked your FB page. Any plans for a members only FB group so that the like-minded here can congregate. I know you need just one more thing to do. 😄
I'm all for it if someone wants to set one up, but I don't really use Facebook at all. If I had more time I may force myself on it. I really only use it to advertise my videos when I make one, just because it's another audience source.
Are there specific tests that can be done/sent in to relieve concerns about chemicals in streams/creeks?
It's hard on a flowing creek because the chemicals may only be there as they get applied and rains hit. Typically I think the testing would be done on the body of water that accepts the flow. I don't know any details about specific testing though.
WOW you've got a lovely piece of property.
Thanks! We looked forever for this place, and we just knew when we found it, that this was home forever.
Have you thought about hydroelectric power to make use of your stream? Curious to know if it's practical
I have and it's not practical. I don't have enough drop and/or enough flow. Even putting in-stream turbines, the amount of power they would create is almost negligible compared to the power of the pump. Also for me, I'm on a very green grid, so the environmental benefit would actually likely be negative (in terms of materials for producing a turbine, maintenance, etc). So there's very little driver to going that way, unless purely as a hobby/interest.
If I would do anything it would likely be solar, or possibly wind. But again, even for those, since my actual grid is so green, there's very little benefit in a practical way.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy cool thanks for your reply! Its really awesome following your journey and watching your land change with the seasons. Always grateful for the hard work you put into your videos
I'm so excited to see your property progress over the next decade!
Me too!
I hate saying I have a hundred trees in an area, but they are all still 6-12 inches tall. I can't wait until another few years pass and all the 1 year whips I've planted are 4-5 feet tall. It will look so different here.
Can't wait until some of the frontyard roadside strips fill in and create corridors. Man, I'm so pumped, even for this coming season. The winters make me go crazy.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy
Yes that will look wonderful. I can't imagine time better invested than doing what you have done in the last years. Even if you would stop now, you could harvest for ages.
But you won't stop :D
I feel the same way for next year.
I got my first garden now. I planted a plum, raspberries, strawberries and haskaps +some more. And i can't wait so start with veggies.
I'll wanna join you in video documenting the process, but in a much smaller scale. The garden is only 50m2 :D
Thags great, make sure you post here if you do. Maybe some of my viewers in small urban lots will love it. There is definitely a market for urban permaculture videos. I get comments all the time about it.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy I will :)
Nice pizza, we have chicago cut~
Lol
Your property is beautiful.....plants for your road strip apart from all the berries... parsley, coriander, carrots, onions, oregano, cabbage, kale... just thinking of hiking lunch additions... about toxic dirty water... pass it through a barrel of sand then a barrel of biochar. If it has heavy metals the sand can be ziolita which has a negative charge which attracts positive metal ions. The usual set up uses four barrels... dirty water, sand filter, biochar and finally clean water. There are examples online. Young tender birch leaves are tasty. At my parents house we used to eat them boiled and added to meat dishes.
Thanks, great ideas. I actually wanted to do a series of microphones that basically do the exact same thing, using designs by Dr, John Todd and his bioremediation machines. Basically the exact same idea as yours but in each barrel instead of it just being sand, then charcoal, you also plant plants in them, ajd the last one passes through a woodchip filter with water loving fungi.
Each stage filters out toxins and binds them organically making them inert... similar to how Geoff Lawton speaks about how they couldn't figure out why the greening the desert project was working so quickly. The local authorities were saying he was lying ajd was water flushing the salts down into the deep soils, and he was searing that he wasn't. It turns out it was because the fungi in his mulch layer was binding up the salts and making them inert. He was just making a Dr John Todd living filter bioremediation machine.
You probably have checked out Diego Footer's latest in search of soil podcast...all about biochar. It explains how it works for water remediation. It's a great conversation. If ziolita is used as the sand, it reduces microbial life like ecoli and heavy metals to turn the water into drinking water. Its ionic charge is slightly greater than biochar. Normal sand and gravel with biochar is used if the water is going to be added to the landscape, river, vegetable garden. In this case the microbes help with the remediation. The algae take up zinc, copper etc
I've watched a bunch of his stuff lately, but not that one. I will go check it out. He has been getting really good the last few years, really into the science side of things. Him and I see things VERY similarly.
And here I was just wondering what you were up to on your propert these days. Interesting update; thanks. Happy holidays.
Thanks, you too Miq :)
YAY! Thanks for doing a tour!!
Hope you enjoyed it!
Question. I was watching a channel (he's a beginner) and he was putting cut logs, say 10" thick and 18" long in his garden beds. Just one here and there. I know when wood breaks down it's good for the soil but is doing that going to invite undesirable bugs to the area?
Sounds like he's making a hugelkulture bed. Well, kinda... one here and there is a bit odd, but he's doing it in a small scale. Here is my hugelkulture bed video: ruclips.net/video/1ElXBCfEXxM/видео.html. There are other really good ones out there if you search for them.
Don't worry about wood bringing in bad bugs, unless you put it right up against your house and get carpenter ants or termites. However, termines in the wild are actually an incredibly useful bug for gardens. All of the "bad" wood bugs you may be afraid of are actually great garden friends.
So just keep any wood about 5+ feet away from your house and you should be set.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacyI have a couple decomposing logs,10' long tree trunks, just laying on the surface of my yard. I like them, they add character but I was wondering if I should keep wood like that away from my new fruit trees in case the logs have boring bugs? Sorry I ask so many questions. I've already learned that doing things wrong can get expensive.
Glad to help. As long as they are roughly 3 inches away you should have no problems. Termites can live in woodchips also, but most arborist recommend keeping 2 to 3 inches around the trunk clear from the woodchips.
Same idea for the logs.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Sorry I seem so OCD about the bugs but some kind of bug dropped every trunk, over time, of my crab apple tree so I'm just really freaked about bugs getting into the new trees. Thanks for understanding. I wonder if I should treat what's left of the crab apple.
Here's one for ya. I thought some (A TON OF) hard little bugs with red on them were box elder bugs. I removed a couple of 100 y.o. trees that were infested. I needed them taken down....a 100 y.o. silver maple is a down right "accident waiting to happen".....especially when it's in the middle of a circular drive where we park....not to mention 16" limbs falling on a kid walking by. Anyway, I thought taking the trees down would nix the bugs but last summer I was folding back some plastic (to weed whack) that I have on the ground till I can plant there and they were living in the ground?????
Indeed, many bugs lay eggs in the soil to overwinter. They then re-emerge in the spring and find some kind of habitat.
That is why it's so important that we (as a species) stop spraying insecticides to kill all bugs, and cut down all wild grasslands to build subdivisions and destroy habitat for the insect biome. When we cedte imbalance like this, we get imbalance in the ecosystem.
Now that being said, what I would recommend is to take photos of them and post it to Facebook bug groups, and talk to some bug geeks about them. And by geeks I mean that in a very respectful tone. I'm a tree geek, and am learning about bugs every day and every year, but there are some true experts out there on this topic, and I'm sure they can help a lot.
A place I like it reddit, ajd ther is a subreddit called "whatsthisbug". It is a great resource.
Love these helps to inspire me for next year.
I'm so glad!
I think I'll keep doing some winter videos. The feedback has been so incredible.