I've been doing this in Florida for a year now. The sand in my yard has turned dark, holds together and retains moisture for a week or more now where as before I had to water daily. Plants are also growing much faster and a deeper green. I've keept the soil continuously covered in shredded yard prunnings, shredded weeds, and fallen leaves to a height of a couple inches to several inches. The stuff decomposes rather quickly feeding the micro-organisms that transform the soil. I even notice mushrooms popping up now here and there! and some earthworms! I replace the prunnings just as quickly as they decompose so the soil has not been uncovered since I started the method. I'm pretty amazed because I expected it would take years to see any improvement.
Hi Augustus, I am in Central FL. My community does not allow traditional planting in the yard, but raised beds may be allowed. Would these techniques be suited to a smaller footprint as well? Perhaps you can recommend some good starting soil or how best to adapt these practices above ground. Thank you! So happy for your successes.
@@ZoliMusic Mulch cover from yard waste of almost any kind can be cut small and used around anything you want. I live in Florida too, and I live on sand. But I do the "chop and drop" with some variation in that I sometimes cut the pieces smaller to fit what I am doing. It sounds like a lot of work, but it's really not. It goes fast, especially if you cut the pieces/leaves small as you trim your bushes. I leave the grass clippings where they fall from my mulching mower, for the grass's sake. Many food plants look like landscape plants, and if you are clever, you can do hedges with them, borders, base plantings and even hanging plants. No one will know what most of them even are unless you move the leaves aside to see the zucchini. If you sprinkle a little decorative mulch on top of the yard waste mulch, it's very nice and no one will know.
To add to that, there's a famous water harvester from Africa named Mr. Zephaniah Phiri Maseko, who says that he "plants" water in order to get a yield from the land. It's the truth.
It is important to keep soil covered up, in shade, either by using cover crops or weeds or simply with a layer of dried leaves & twigs. My hurt pains when i see commerical farmers ploughing up their lands & leaving it up opened. That is sure way to kill soil & turn it into sand.
@@userNotdefined My garden tiller was stolen last year. I hated to see my property taken, that is very hard to get over, but otherwise, I don't really miss the tiller and I don't plan on replacing it. For my future, it's going to be permaculture food forests with, hopefully, much less work, letting nature do most of it for us.
This is the most inspiring video on soil I have ever seen. I'm stuggling with poor soil at the moment and this video might be the answer. Thank you so much.
I always grow my maincrop potatoes with a mulch covering of cut comfrey, which I grow onsite for mulching purposes. Last summer we had a Mediterranean summer in the UK (once in 50 years we get one - last one was 1976) and I still had a magnificent harvest of potatoes, despite not seeing any rain from mid June to late August and temperatures regularly over 30C. The comfrey mulch protected soil moisture and the autumn rains bulked up the tubers to give a magnificent harvest. I do similar for trailing cucumbers and bush tomatoes grown outdoors in the soil.
keeping ground cover keeps the soil cool, and moist. the leaf above provides evaporative cooling, and the organic matter decreases your soil density both letting the rain in and storing it for a longer growing season. Hence the worms. Also important in temperate areas which your shaded soil resembles.
Wow, thanks for sharing! I did a soil test on my current garden plot in Liberia and it showed N, P, and K all totally depleted (with. Ph of 5). Fortunately, I spent the rainy season building a nice stockpile of compost, which I am planting all my seeds and seedlings into. However, next year I will be relocating to 25 acres near the border with Sierra Leone where I am building a homestead. I had already selected several different kinds of legumes to fix nitrogen and also be used as green manure, animal fodder, or food for my family. I’m encouraged by what you shared in this video and will definitely incorporate these practices into my plan. Thanks again!
I have a friend who does aid work in Sierra Leone. His organization is called Robin Food... Great guy. Sounds like you have a nice plan for the next plot you're moving to. That's the great thing about experience. Even when we move, we can put what we know into practice and get good results even faster than we did on the previous plot. Be well...
Love the video very Nice! ….. I’ve also been working with very sandy soil for years an I’ve found if you put Dead animals in the soil or the remains around the drip line of a fruit tree or most thing will take right off 😉💯💯💪👊
Thanks for sharing this info. Soil health is the foundation of growing healthy vibrant plants. I’ve experienced this myself. Such a beautiful thing that God has given to us.
Oh my good friend. Long time no see. I bought a very sandy soil but the advantage is that there is plenty of water under ground (20ft). Now I'll need to revisit your channel.
Looking forward to applying this in a Food Forest at Muskeg Lake Cree Nation in Saskatchewan Canada. I'm aware of zone and climatic differences, but many of the principles still apply just with a bit of adjustment based on location.
In gardening I think in terms of maxium food value for humans... fruits, berries, mellons grapes, cherries, hot pepers, lemons, herbs and spices, pepermint, cucumbers, tomatoes. Its hard to describe how great blackberries, cherries, conchord grapes, watermellon, blueberies elderberies and strawberries are. Thank you so much for sharing your soil building secrets with us.
Thank you very much Jagannath. I have been a pharmaceutical researcher and now trying to become a natural farmer. Just bought 2 acres land near Bhopal in India. The land is as of now covered with grass, what I need is - sand to soil. I'll get back to you.
Superb superb superb superb superb superb superb superb superb superb superb superb superb superb superb superb sir you did a great work. I am also from a farmer family but we were doing only what other's do or what University's says.with that practices our soil slowly becoming sandy and for that reason we need more and more water for irrigation .
I'm just starting my permaculture adventure, and amongst all i was thinking a similar way to "organize" my sandy soil. I'm using broad beans because of their deep roots, maybe I'm rushing it but we'll see 🙈. Great to have found this channel, it's one of the best so far on permaculture topics 😊
Thank you. I have the Okra at 1 foot now and some squash nearby producing but I will stick in my 2 oddball eggplants over there and transfer some green beans over to that area. I will throw on some treated bean seeds as well. Thanks again for the care you gave to presenting the information.
yup, something I have learnt is that there is no such thing as developing BRAND NEW, groundbreaking agriculture techniques. Life has been here for billions of years. All we have to do is imitate what works in nature. We are just the caretakers.
Great video!! Awesome job at figuring out what your soil needs to build structure. I am working on that now. I have real sandy soil. I've been adding dead leaves grass rabbit manure and urine.
I live in a completely different environment than you but the same principals can be used. I have a clay soil that bears life but doesn't have ANY drainage. I was so pissed that my garden just got drowned from all the rain so I did some researching and found that a no till cover crop system works just as well with clay soils. You have to grow heavily in it to make it work. You have to plant diversely and like you said cover all the soil and canopy layers. I'm planting a cover crop (because we get winters with no harvests) of cereal rye, fixation balansa clover, wild carrot, and plantain. The former will definitely not grow where you live but the latter may although there's no harvest so why should you? You see in my scenerio I need drainage and when roots die they make drainage holes and when they're alive they send sugars down to fungi that open up the soil and give them water and nutrients. They also give sugars to bacteria who turn nutrients into soluble forms. I'm going to do a challenge where I start with fill dirt (mostly clay) and work my way up to having rich soil in the time span of next week to next may.
Excellent advice! Thank you! I live in the PNW, where it’s very sandy as well. I might opt for Cardoon because their massive leaves provide excellent shade, and the roots go way down deep -drawing up lots of minerals and water that make for a nutrient dense chop n’ drop mulch.
Great vid:] I am currently building / growing my soil like this at my grandmothers old farm. I come from 10 years of gardening in clay in the city. The sand is a different beast so so hungry / thirsty:] I have been chop and dropping and letting the weeds grow 4 ft tall hehe I still need more mulch so been using old leaves and grass clipping. I am 3 months in and the soil is getting darker and sticky very happy with this technique! I can not afford 3 trucks of compost nor does it make sense for most large gardens.
Good info. I'm in a 4a on sand and gravel, and started composting weeds last summer. Did a second summer's worth, and will mix in your method. I harvest grasses and sedges from the river side, dredge silt when they drop the water level in the autumn, and pluck volunteer 'weeds' everywhere. Worms are proliferating, and many veggies and herbs are self-seeding.
Thank you for the bean denominator will use it. Rainy days lucky in Montreal is Me with a bucket picking worms and moving them to the organic veggie backyard. Add early season chicken manure, peat moss and my black gold from my composter. Then forget all summer. Thanks for the great info.
@naturalfarmer, i enjoyed your video on how to turn sand to soil. Im a farmer and avid organic gardener, and I've had experience in transforming hard clay soil into rich humus type soil.... I make my own compost with the useual table scraps like banana peels, egg shell's, coffee grounds etc" as well as leafs and grass clippings and livestock manures. I not only top dress the soil but work it into the soil as well, now i have rich and workable soil instead of just hard clay..... By the way you can get free used coffee grounds at your local star bucks and coffee shops as well as restaurants just by asking the manger, you leave a five gallon bucket with your name and phone number when it's full they will call you. Imagine doing that around the city, you would have hundreds of pounds of free nitrogen rich compost to transform your soil..... I read about one older lady that never owned a rototiller in her life, but instead laid down around a dozen layers of news papers or you can use cardboard, and she covered it with several inches of leaves and grass clippings and soaked it down with water and dug holes and planted her tomatoe plants in it..... Now many years later she doesn't even bother digging holes with a tool, she simply keeps adding more leafs and clippings every year and just parts the compot with her hands, and set's her transplants in, no tools needed anymore.
Hello, we are in Tasmania, we used to live on the western shore of the Derwent River wgere thare is heavy clay soil and we were in a flat area, so the water table was not that far down, we grew tropical plants in a greenhouse like bitter melons, it worked quite well for such a cool climate, however we had to move to the opposite side of the river to a place with sandy soil, but already quite black. It was fairly shalllow, about 2’ thick with jurasic sandstone underneath. We are also on a slight hill, slope about 3 drop for every 100 moved horizontally. Our major issue is water retention, any water just runs down the hill, there is no real water table so to speak so we really struggle to grow what we used to grow easily at the old western shore clay soil, level site. My wife wants to try your method but i feel we’d have to pour gigaliteres of water through it just to keep the beans alive, let alone any ocras. Do you feel that the method you mention here has any worth in our situation. Weed mulch is no issure, but water retention is a major issue here.
Greetings from Croatia Jagannath! I did this in my clay soil, introduced bunch of worms and its working sweet and makes me happy! I just love to see those birds nests in hay mulch with a little bit of compost giving perfect home for plants.
Very nice! I have been doing this to the poor soil in my yard here in southern Brazil (subtropical climate) for the last 11 months and it's working too. Also through trying to make compost using fallen leaves and sand in a pile and in a box, I have been able to transform small portions of sand into somewhat good soil.
+Victor Reis Well done! It's a nice feeling when you see progress, but it is quite slow. Glad to hear someone else is doing this type of work. The world is filled with stories of all of the soil that is getting destroyed/eroded. It's nice to hear when soil is created. Be well...
It is important to keep soil covered up, in shade, either by using cover crops or weeds or simply with a layer of dried leaves & twigs. My hurt pains when i see commerical farmers ploughing up their lands & leaving it up opened. That is sure way to kill soil & turn it into sand.
Oh I like this video !! I’m in the process of rejuvenating some raised garden beds in the property we have just moved to, and this information will definitely help
Hello I am brand new in Florida to gardening, and mulching, and have very sandy soil, this is my second year, and so far has been experiencing lots of set backs, I will continue to learn and cann't wait to try this layering, method.
Thank you for sharing your video and it is exactly what I needed to know. I have very dusty dirt and I am using Comfrey plant as my mulch and I have noticed a difference with the soil and that's been not quite 2 months. I'm just starting me offer garden and it is very small like a large pot size and have planted three types of vegetables and I'll see how I go from there. But thanks again for sharing your video I found it very informative.
Buckwheat works very good for this. You can throw it on the ground and when it starts to seed spread more into the standing Buckwheat and knock it down. The stems are full of moisture and breaks down very fast. In 1 year I can do this atleast 3 times here are we have cold winters so not a real lot of growing time
Great video; I just wish it didn't start out with , "and a little bit of organic fertilizer, just to break down the carbon." And I don't understand the "no compost" take on it. I used to live on the Silver Strand, that connects Coronado Island in Southern California, to South San Diego, Chula Vista, and other areas. The strand, and especially the Navy Housing area, was created for a road way, created wholly from the dredgings of the San Diego Harbor and were just sand as far down as you could dig. I went to the race horse farms along the Mexican border and could pick up all of the the horse manure and straw I wanted. One truckload in the fall for a 20x20 bed next spring, allowed us to raise all the fresh vegetables, various lettuces, carrots, beets, tomatoes, cauliflower, broccoli, that we could eat or give away. The only problem with growing in sand, at least in that sand, was gophers. We could sit in the dining room that had a sliding glass door to the back yard, and watch plants of all types just disappear, sucked into the tunnels the gophers made under the ground. We just used traps at the ends and caught a few and at least got the problem mostly under control - but a good part of the fun of our garden was watching the food just disappear in an instant, and we still had plenty to eat for ourselves, so we just let it go like that.
Thanks for your comment. Yes of course. Animal manure is a great fertilizer. This video was made when I was working for an organization that helped isolated villages in India. The goal was to build soil without using any external inputs, ie weeds only. Then we had the good fortune of learning how to make a mix from 1 kilogram of cow dung. Again, minimal external inputs. So those were kind of the parameters we followed while taking on this project. But it's in the Tropics. The area you describe, near San Diego, is Mediterranean. We're on Sicily now. Mediterranean as well. So there is less vegetation available, less weeds, especially in the Summer. So initially it's a big help to have loads of horse manure, cow manure, etc. But I always try and guide the land in a direction that slowly eliminates the need for external inputs. Does that make sense?
Will this work with our land? Our land is pure desert, no canopy trees, no medium trees, or anything below. It's just sand. We are trying to build a food forest for a year and a half now. It will take probably a couple more years for this to work here in our high desert. I understand the concept and it's great. Thank you for sharing
The concept remains the same... moisture and organic material. But then there is an entire design strategy that changes per Climate. My recommendation is to either a) get come consulting work done or b) take a permaculture course. Both of these would catapult your project forward...
The biggest problem with mulching is snakes hiding under it... I have a mango orchard and I am trying natural farming, no tilling but it's hard to trust bushes or a bunch of dry grass... But still I am trying it..
Thanks for the helpful video. One thing I don't understand, and maybe because English is not my native language, is that you start with the beans, and later you plant beans again. What are the other layers than?
Excellent video on dealing with sandy soil. Here in Florida I use utility company woodchips mixed with coffee grounds and plant a cover of okra or sunflower with blackeyed peas or pumpkin. My biggest problem with it is armadillos digging for worms and tearing up the plants.
The Natural Farmer Yes, Gainesville. Armadillos have been in Florida for a long time and are very common. Deer, raccoon, opossum, wild turkey, wild boar, and coyote can all do crop damage here.
The Natural Farmer A wide brush barrier has worked for deer, but I'm in the position of having lots of scrub trees to make the barrier and I am surrounded by good deer habitat. Constant rotating applications of hot pepper spray, ammonia and Milorganite deters other varmits, but trap and kill is more effective. Live trapping and relocating wild animals usually results in their starving to death or becoming a nuisance to some other gardener. I've only had turkeys come thru once and (fingers crossed) have yet to have wild boar in my current garden. A note on boar: They are a destructive invasive species here. The Florida FIsh and Wildlife Conservation Commission encourages their destruction.
Keep me up to date if you can. On this new land we have very very very large wild boars that come at night. We're not up and running yet, but I'll be interested to see how they interact with what we plant. They are so big that they frequently kill hunting dogs 2 or 3 at a time. We'll see....
I’m happy that I have found you!! One question, you have mentioned to mix the manures, urine and some sweetener. What kind of sweetener that you are referring to? Thank for all that you do!!!!
I’ve just moved house & the soil in the garden is sand, rocks & bits of brick. I want to improve the soil so I can have a good veggie garden. I think it’s going to be slow but worthwhile. Thanks
Thank to you ,Paul Gauchi ,and Ruth stout I got such beautiful soil in no time. Thank you so much. I had rocky sand gray dirt. Now is black soil filled with my friends the worms.i even got courage to plant my first 5 fruit trees. Is basic European fruit tree care exactly the same as in the jungles permaculture scenario? I live 500 meters above sea level
This video is very help Jaganath sir. I keep trying different ways of growing vegetables. So this time I added lady's finger and then after they started growing added green gram plants in between and some tomatoes. added these variety of plants to avoid pests and fix the nitrogen. As i am little lazy added all tge mulch inbetween these plants seems to have helped as I got lovely lady's fingers within a month.... But thank you this helped me understand this better. thank you
Suchitra Naidu Thank you for your comment. I am happy to hear that the video helped in some small way. I feel it is good to try new things and then let Nature tell us if she is happy with what we did. Nice work!
I just bought land in Arizona lots of sand, rocks and cactus, I want to get woodchips to help the soil hold onto the water and slow down evaperation and measure the PH then go from there
hello angel thank you I have land in Okeechobee but it only has sand and my dream is to have a vegetable garden but I'm sad because I don't know how to start
ittipong chaisayun Very good. Our land is a demonstration site for tribal villages here in India, so we always try and show the least expensive and most effective way of doing things. Weeds are great for this. I'm happy it helps!
Yes. Then when they grow back, I chop them and drop them. More mulch. Again, and again. It's a similar approach to chopping and dropping a food forest. Or if you don't like weeds, chop them and drop them once, them plant beans on top - that's what the video demonstrates.
Sir, your video is amazing and interesting. I want to implement for my land in southern India. Sir I have few doubts. My land is dry, can I implement this technique? Which weeds shall I use for mulching? What is distance between first level of canopy and second one. Kindly reply. Thank you sir.
The key is to crowd the plants to increase root-bacteria-fungi interaction. If you want to get exact dimensions, I'd recommend the square foot gardening spacing for vegetables, which optimises growth in limited space. I've found this method to be very effective in both clay and sandy soils in both cold and extremely hot climates. Any plant material can be used for mulching, as long as it will break down and the soil isn't disturbed. If you use weeds, cut it at soil level, don't pull it out. The dead roots will decompose and provide channels for water to penetrate the earth. I could go on, but you can learn more from videos such as this and Geoff Lawton's project 'Greening the Desert'.
Thank you for the video, I have watched it a few times, but your talking about mulch, that is something I haven't found yet here in Greece, we do have in wintertime some grass and weeds growing, but that is not enough to cover, we can not get woodchips here, and to buy a machine is costly. is there a solution for this problem?
Wonderful video. Would like to share some additional information. The cover crop guys also stress upon diversity. Species diversity and functional diversity (i havent really figured out the functional part yet). I think (need to confirm) they recommend five different species and about 3 functional variants for best overall results. Adding tubers would add to the functional diversity. The darkness is something which you have correctly identified which i haven't heard before. Amazing that you are able to build soil in such a short time. Would be glad if you could mention a diverse mix of cover crops in addition to okra, cheera and beans which wouldnt compete with each other and also serve functional diversity.
bijli vm Thanks Bijli. Yes, you are correct. Diverse cover crop is very important. Slowly we are finding seed in our area... At present we have a somewhat simplified expression in our garden. My hope is to integrate more and more layers of companion plants that work well together, and help determine how to diversify - rather than just diversity for diversity sake. It's amazing when we start to discover all of the beautiful relationships present in the natural system. Thanks for your comment!
my son came with a homework says what are the things that differentiate the nature of the soil in various places in our island so I'm hoping you could help me out. we're from the kingdom of Tonga and I would appreciate your feed back if possible.
Hello there. I'm sure that I am responding well past the moment when your son's homework assignment is due, however... Rent or purchase the film "Symphony of the Soil". It may even be available on RUclips or Vimeo. It will explain your son's question in depth. I hope that helps
This is wonderful Jagannath. One of the best videos. I'm starting farming in about a months time. Will be planing French beans first. Have you planted tomatoes? If say, could you make a video for it?
Thanks Jayanth. Good to hear from you. We've planted tomatoes now, here in Italy. If they go well, I'll make a video. If not, I'll try it again, then make a video :)
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
I've been doing this in Florida for a year now. The sand in my yard has turned dark, holds together and retains moisture for a week or more now where as before I had to water daily. Plants are also growing much faster and a deeper green. I've keept the soil continuously covered in shredded yard prunnings, shredded weeds, and fallen leaves to a height of a couple inches to several inches. The stuff decomposes rather quickly feeding the micro-organisms that transform the soil. I even notice mushrooms popping up now here and there! and some earthworms! I replace the prunnings just as quickly as they decompose so the soil has not been uncovered since I started the method. I'm pretty amazed because I expected it would take years to see any improvement.
Pretty simple, huh? :)
Where are you in Florida?
thank you for your testimony
Hi Augustus, I am in Central FL. My community does not allow traditional planting in the yard, but raised beds may be allowed. Would these techniques be suited to a smaller footprint as well? Perhaps you can recommend some good starting soil or how best to adapt these practices above ground. Thank you! So happy for your successes.
@@ZoliMusic Mulch cover from yard waste of almost any kind can be cut small and used around anything you want. I live in Florida too, and I live on sand. But I do the "chop and drop" with some variation in that I sometimes cut the pieces smaller to fit what I am doing. It sounds like a lot of work, but it's really not. It goes fast, especially if you cut the pieces/leaves small as you trim your bushes. I leave the grass clippings where they fall from my mulching mower, for the grass's sake. Many food plants look like landscape plants, and if you are clever, you can do hedges with them, borders, base plantings and even hanging plants. No one will know what most of them even are unless you move the leaves aside to see the zucchini. If you sprinkle a little decorative mulch on top of the yard waste mulch, it's very nice and no one will know.
Don't grow plants grow soil. I love it.
To add to that, there's a famous water harvester from Africa named Mr. Zephaniah Phiri Maseko, who says that he "plants" water in order to get a yield from the land. It's the truth.
It is important to keep soil covered up, in shade, either by using cover crops or weeds or simply with a layer of dried leaves & twigs.
My hurt pains when i see commerical farmers ploughing up their lands & leaving it up opened.
That is sure way to kill soil & turn it into sand.
@@userNotdefined My garden tiller was stolen last year. I hated to see my property taken, that is very hard to get over, but otherwise, I don't really miss the tiller and I don't plan on replacing it. For my future, it's going to be permaculture food forests with, hopefully, much less work, letting nature do most of it for us.
This is the most inspiring video on soil I have ever seen. I'm stuggling with poor soil at the moment and this video might be the answer. Thank you so much.
Came across this video in 2016, changed our garden forever. Than you brother ♥️✌️😊🙏
My pleasure. I'm happy to hear it :)
@@TheNaturalFarmer I'm going the same for 2 years now, and it's really wonderful.
I'm going to try and do this in the Arizona desert
I always grow my maincrop potatoes with a mulch covering of cut comfrey, which I grow onsite for mulching purposes. Last summer we had a Mediterranean summer in the UK (once in 50 years we get one - last one was 1976) and I still had a magnificent harvest of potatoes, despite not seeing any rain from mid June to late August and temperatures regularly over 30C. The comfrey mulch protected soil moisture and the autumn rains bulked up the tubers to give a magnificent harvest. I do similar for trailing cucumbers and bush tomatoes grown outdoors in the soil.
We just plants a ton of beans and made mounds so excited-Lakeland Fl
keeping ground cover keeps the soil cool, and moist. the leaf above provides evaporative cooling, and the organic matter decreases your soil density both letting the rain in and storing it for a longer growing season. Hence the worms. Also important in temperate areas which your shaded soil resembles.
This is the best video I've seen on the subject of sandy soil. Thank you
Wow, thanks for sharing! I did a soil test on my current garden plot in Liberia and it showed N, P, and K all totally depleted (with. Ph of 5). Fortunately, I spent the rainy season building a nice stockpile of compost, which I am planting all my seeds and seedlings into.
However, next year I will be relocating to 25 acres near the border with Sierra Leone where I am building a homestead. I had already selected several different kinds of legumes to fix nitrogen and also be used as green manure, animal fodder, or food for my family. I’m encouraged by what you shared in this video and will definitely incorporate these practices into my plan. Thanks again!
I have a friend who does aid work in Sierra Leone. His organization is called Robin Food... Great guy.
Sounds like you have a nice plan for the next plot you're moving to.
That's the great thing about experience. Even when we move, we can put what we know into practice and get good results even faster than we did on the previous plot.
Be well...
Love the video very Nice! ….. I’ve also been working with very sandy soil for years an I’ve found if you put Dead animals in the soil or the remains around the drip line of a fruit tree or most thing will take right off 😉💯💯💪👊
Thanks for sharing this info. Soil health is the foundation of growing healthy vibrant plants. I’ve experienced this myself. Such a beautiful thing that God has given to us.
Mother Nature and the sun. Amen
I dont know anything about this stuff at all, but the video was lovely and inspiring. Cheers to reviving a dead planet. Bless you brother.
Oh my good friend. Long time no see. I bought a very sandy soil but the advantage is that there is plenty of water under ground (20ft). Now I'll need to revisit your channel.
Thank you so much. This video is a great education for Florida Gardeners. We have very sandy soil, and much of it is exposed to direct sunlight.
Thank you. Yes, once you follow the principles involved in building soil, it can be done anywhere. Thanks for your comment!
Looking forward to applying this in a Food Forest at Muskeg Lake Cree Nation in Saskatchewan Canada. I'm aware of zone and climatic differences, but many of the principles still apply just with a bit of adjustment based on location.
In gardening I think in terms of maxium food value for humans... fruits, berries, mellons grapes, cherries, hot pepers, lemons, herbs and spices, pepermint, cucumbers, tomatoes. Its hard to describe how great blackberries, cherries, conchord grapes, watermellon, blueberies elderberies and strawberries are. Thank you so much for sharing your soil building secrets with us.
This is so beautiful! So nice to see how easily nature works out when you do it the way nature develops, how God designed it. Thanks man😃
Thank you
Thank you very much Jagannath. I have been a pharmaceutical researcher and now trying to become a natural farmer. Just bought 2 acres land near Bhopal in India. The land is as of now covered with grass, what I need is - sand to soil. I'll get back to you.
Sounds great! Very exciting! Let me know how things go... Congratulations.
Thank you, good wishes, enjoy our beautiful Ocean Planet.
I am thrilled to see how Dame Nature has groomed you. The refreshing aroma of soil drifts to India here. Thank you.
Superb superb superb superb superb superb superb superb superb superb superb superb superb superb superb superb sir you did a great work. I am also from a farmer family but we were doing only what other's do or what University's says.with that practices our soil slowly becoming sandy and for that reason we need more and more water for irrigation .
I'm just starting my permaculture adventure, and amongst all i was thinking a similar way to "organize" my sandy soil. I'm using broad beans because of their deep roots, maybe I'm rushing it but we'll see 🙈. Great to have found this channel, it's one of the best so far on permaculture topics 😊
Excellent info, John! Also, I am hearing hints of Indian accent when you speak. It's totally cute!
I just bought a tiny plot of land on a slope with dry parched soil. This gave me a lot of hope that i can turn it into a food garden.
Organic material is the key
Thank you. I have the Okra at 1 foot now and some squash nearby producing but I will stick in my 2 oddball eggplants over there and transfer some green beans over to that area. I will throw on some treated bean seeds as well. Thanks again for the care you gave to presenting the information.
yup, something I have learnt is that there is no such thing as developing BRAND NEW, groundbreaking agriculture techniques. Life has been here for billions of years. All we have to do is imitate what works in nature. We are just the caretakers.
Great, this really helped me, I am in Saudi Arabia and most of the land is desert, I will work hard to teach this to my students
J
Very instructive video. I was wondering what you planted next after that season of eggplants, okra and beans
Thanks for the knowledge,, i'm from Indonesia, 28 years old. And i still learn natural farming, for my farm.
Salute sir, you are the real son of land. Hats off.
You're very kind. Thank you.
Great video!! Awesome job at figuring out what your soil needs to build structure. I am working on that now. I have real sandy soil. I've been adding dead leaves grass rabbit manure and urine.
I live in a completely different environment than you but the same principals can be used. I have a clay soil that bears life but doesn't have ANY drainage. I was so pissed that my garden just got drowned from all the rain so I did some researching and found that a no till cover crop system works just as well with clay soils. You have to grow heavily in it to make it work. You have to plant diversely and like you said cover all the soil and canopy layers. I'm planting a cover crop (because we get winters with no harvests) of cereal rye, fixation balansa clover, wild carrot, and plantain. The former will definitely not grow where you live but the latter may although there's no harvest so why should you? You see in my scenerio I need drainage and when roots die they make drainage holes and when they're alive they send sugars down to fungi that open up the soil and give them water and nutrients. They also give sugars to bacteria who turn nutrients into soluble forms. I'm going to do a challenge where I start with fill dirt (mostly clay) and work my way up to having rich soil in the time span of next week to next may.
I live in the Mediterranean now. In Sicily.
Dicot radishes, unharvested, left to decompost under soil, works wonders with clay.
Your experience sharing is highly appreciated. Thanking you.
Thank you for posting this video! I have several acres of sand which I want to turn into nice rich soil. I want to try this technique!
Good luck. You just need to grow lots and lots and lots of organic material
Excellent advice! Thank you! I live in the PNW, where it’s very sandy as well. I might opt for Cardoon because their massive leaves provide excellent shade, and the roots go way down deep -drawing up lots of minerals and water that make for a nutrient dense chop n’ drop mulch.
Great vid:] I am currently building / growing my soil like this at my grandmothers old farm. I come from 10 years of gardening in clay in the city. The sand is a different beast so so hungry / thirsty:] I have been chop and dropping and letting the weeds grow 4 ft tall hehe I still need more mulch so been using old leaves and grass clipping. I am 3 months in and the soil is getting darker and sticky very happy with this technique! I can not afford 3 trucks of compost nor does it make sense for most large gardens.
Good info. I'm in a 4a on sand and gravel, and started composting weeds last summer. Did a second summer's worth, and will mix in your method. I harvest grasses and sedges from the river side, dredge silt when they drop the water level in the autumn, and pluck volunteer 'weeds' everywhere. Worms are proliferating, and many veggies and herbs are self-seeding.
Thank you for sharing that.
I learn the most from shares like this.
Much appreciated...
Dear juggernath
Which beans are u talking about?
Which beans will suit in lahore, Pakistan
For this we just used mung. They don't climb and they're popular to eat
Many many thanks
Thank you for the bean denominator will use it. Rainy days lucky in Montreal is Me with a bucket picking worms and moving them to the organic veggie backyard. Add early season chicken manure, peat moss and my black gold from my composter. Then forget all summer. Thanks for the great info.
But is this possible for poor soil that is not in beds? Our yard was a construction site and is covered with poor sand and rocks.
Thank you for this video!!!
I'll start tomorrow morning!!!
Is there a particular bean you'd recommend?
I live in South Africa.
Great information. But not sure how you harvest those beans unless you don't have poisonous snakes like rattlers and mocasins?
@naturalfarmer, i enjoyed your video on how to turn sand to soil. Im a farmer and avid organic gardener, and I've had experience in transforming hard clay soil into rich humus type soil.... I make my own compost with the useual table scraps like banana peels, egg shell's, coffee grounds etc" as well as leafs and grass clippings and livestock manures. I not only top dress the soil but work it into the soil as well, now i have rich and workable soil instead of just hard clay..... By the way you can get free used coffee grounds at your local star bucks and coffee shops as well as restaurants just by asking the manger, you leave a five gallon bucket with your name and phone number when it's full they will call you. Imagine doing that around the city, you would have hundreds of pounds of free nitrogen rich compost to transform your soil..... I read about one older lady that never owned a rototiller in her life, but instead laid down around a dozen layers of news papers or you can use cardboard, and she covered it with several inches of leaves and grass clippings and soaked it down with water and dug holes and planted her tomatoe plants in it..... Now many years later she doesn't even bother digging holes with a tool, she simply keeps adding more leafs and clippings every year and just parts the compot with her hands, and set's her transplants in, no tools needed anymore.
very informative vedio. Thanks for sharing such details. God speed
Hello, we are in Tasmania, we used to live on the western shore of the Derwent River wgere thare is heavy clay soil and we were in a flat area, so the water table was not that far down, we grew tropical plants in a greenhouse like bitter melons, it worked quite well for such a cool climate, however we had to move to the opposite side of the river to a place with sandy soil, but already quite black. It was fairly shalllow, about 2’ thick with jurasic sandstone underneath. We are also on a slight hill, slope about 3 drop for every 100 moved horizontally. Our major issue is water retention, any water just runs down the hill, there is no real water table so to speak so we really struggle to grow what we used to grow easily at the old western shore clay soil, level site. My wife wants to try your method but i feel we’d have to pour gigaliteres of water through it just to keep the beans alive, let alone any ocras.
Do you feel that the method you mention here has any worth in our situation. Weed mulch is no issure, but water retention is a major issue here.
Wow. I was looking for the most natural way to garden. This sounds like this is it. I like composting, but it is better to follow nature's way
I live in a sandpit. I thank you so much. Ground is frozen yet but I start this year.
Great!
Greetings from Croatia Jagannath! I did this in my clay soil, introduced bunch of worms and its working sweet and makes me happy! I just love to see those birds nests in hay mulch with a little bit of compost giving perfect home for plants.
The bird's nest mulching is one of my favorite. I'm very happy to hear it is working. Nice job!
Very nice! I have been doing this to the poor soil in my yard here in southern Brazil (subtropical climate) for the last 11 months and it's working too. Also through trying to make compost using fallen leaves and sand in a pile and in a box, I have been able to transform small portions of sand into somewhat good soil.
+Victor Reis Well done! It's a nice feeling when you see progress, but it is quite slow. Glad to hear someone else is doing this type of work. The world is filled with stories of all of the soil that is getting destroyed/eroded. It's nice to hear when soil is created. Be well...
Wow! Amazing! How do you chop up the leaves small enough?
It is important to keep soil covered up, in shade, either by using cover crops or weeds or simply with a layer of dried leaves & twigs.
My hurt pains when i see commerical farmers ploughing up their lands & leaving it up opened.
That is sure way to kill soil & turn it into sand.
Very informative, thank you! The simple, natural way is always best. I will try your formula this month. Thanks again!
Oh I like this video !! I’m in the process of rejuvenating some raised garden beds in the property we have just moved to, and this information will definitely help
Hello I am brand new in Florida to gardening, and mulching, and have very sandy soil, this is my second year, and so far has been experiencing lots of set backs, I will continue to learn and cann't wait to try this layering, method.
Thank you for sharing your video and it is exactly what I needed to know. I have very dusty dirt and I am using Comfrey plant as my mulch and I have noticed a difference with the soil and that's been not quite 2 months. I'm just starting me offer garden and it is very small like a large pot size and have planted three types of vegetables and I'll see how I go from there. But thanks again for sharing your video I found it very informative.
Buckwheat works very good for this. You can throw it on the ground and when it starts to seed spread more into the standing Buckwheat and knock it down. The stems are full of moisture and breaks down very fast. In 1 year I can do this atleast 3 times here are we have cold winters so not a real lot of growing time
Great video; I just wish it didn't start out with , "and a little bit of organic fertilizer, just to break down the carbon." And I don't understand the "no compost" take on it. I used to live on the Silver Strand, that connects Coronado Island in Southern California, to South San Diego, Chula Vista, and other areas. The strand, and especially the Navy Housing area, was created for a road way, created wholly from the dredgings of the San Diego Harbor and were just sand as far down as you could dig. I went to the race horse farms along the Mexican border and could pick up all of the the horse manure and straw I wanted.
One truckload in the fall for a 20x20 bed next spring, allowed us to raise all the fresh vegetables, various lettuces, carrots, beets, tomatoes, cauliflower, broccoli, that we could eat or give away. The only problem with growing in sand, at least in that sand, was gophers. We could sit in the dining room that had a sliding glass door to the back yard, and watch plants of all types just disappear, sucked into the tunnels the gophers made under the ground. We just used traps at the ends and caught a few and at least got the problem mostly under control - but a good part of the fun of our garden was watching the food just disappear in an instant, and we still had plenty to eat for ourselves, so we just let it go like that.
Thanks for your comment. Yes of course. Animal manure is a great fertilizer. This video was made when I was working for an organization that helped isolated villages in India. The goal was to build soil without using any external inputs, ie weeds only. Then we had the good fortune of learning how to make a mix from 1 kilogram of cow dung. Again, minimal external inputs. So those were kind of the parameters we followed while taking on this project. But it's in the Tropics. The area you describe, near San Diego, is Mediterranean. We're on Sicily now. Mediterranean as well. So there is less vegetation available, less weeds, especially in the Summer. So initially it's a big help to have loads of horse manure, cow manure, etc. But I always try and guide the land in a direction that slowly eliminates the need for external inputs. Does that make sense?
Will this work with our land? Our land is pure desert, no canopy trees, no medium trees, or anything below. It's just sand. We are trying to build a food forest for a year and a half now. It will take probably a couple more years for this to work here in our high desert. I understand the concept and it's great. Thank you for sharing
The concept remains the same... moisture and organic material. But then there is an entire design strategy that changes per Climate. My recommendation is to either a) get come consulting work done or b) take a permaculture course. Both of these would catapult your project forward...
@@TheNaturalFarmer Ok. Thank you for the advice. I am thinking of permaculture course
Our land is all sand.... Definitely going to try this.
Great! Good luck!
Thanks for valuable info in a modest attitude
The biggest problem with mulching is snakes hiding under it... I have a mango orchard and I am trying natural farming, no tilling but it's hard to trust bushes or a bunch of dry grass... But still I am trying it..
Dandelions are a great weed for harnessing to the effect of improving soil quality.
In Australia have you heard of Peter Andrew and his ideas of Natural Sequence Farming?
No. I'll check him out... Thanks!
I am a new subscriber. I want to leave the city and love to a rural area to do gardening.
Great! I lived in major cities for 20 years. Now I'm out. I still like to visit cities now and again, but I'm quite happy in nature....
Thank you for sharing the method.
That's very cool. I raised-bed garden and have one 20x20ft in ground garden.
Thanks for the helpful video. One thing I don't understand, and maybe because English is not my native language, is that you start with the beans, and later you plant beans again. What are the other layers than?
Ah sorry. The other layers are eggplant and okra
Very nice info .. can do wonders as I can see .. feel ... am working on it, somewhat, nature is amazingly great
Excellent video on dealing with sandy soil. Here in Florida I use utility company woodchips mixed with coffee grounds and plant a cover of okra or sunflower with blackeyed peas or pumpkin. My biggest problem with it is armadillos digging for worms and tearing up the plants.
Sounds like you've got things working quite well! Very nice.
I never knew Florida had armadillos. Are you in the north part of the state?
The Natural Farmer Yes, Gainesville. Armadillos have been in Florida for a long time and are very common. Deer, raccoon, opossum, wild turkey, wild boar, and coyote can all do crop damage here.
That sounds like a challenging environment. Have you found ways to reduce damage from these animals?
The Natural Farmer A wide brush barrier has worked for deer, but I'm in the position of having lots of scrub trees to make the barrier and I am surrounded by good deer habitat. Constant rotating applications of hot pepper spray, ammonia and Milorganite deters other varmits, but trap and kill is more effective. Live trapping and relocating wild animals usually results in their starving to death or becoming a nuisance to some other gardener. I've only had turkeys come thru once and (fingers crossed) have yet to have wild boar in my current garden. A note on boar: They are a destructive invasive species here. The Florida FIsh and Wildlife Conservation Commission encourages their destruction.
Keep me up to date if you can.
On this new land we have very very very large wild boars that come at night. We're not up and running yet, but I'll be interested to see how they interact with what we plant. They are so big that they frequently kill hunting dogs 2 or 3 at a time. We'll see....
Wonderful videos. Can this be done for pots too ?
I believe so. Try it! :)
I’m happy that I have found you!! One question, you have mentioned to mix the manures, urine and some sweetener. What kind of sweetener that you are referring to?
Thank for all that you do!!!!
I am really enjoying and learning alot from your RUclips platform. Thank you. Just want to say keep it up.
Thank god you made this video, I will try it this year
I’ve just moved house & the soil in the garden is sand, rocks & bits of brick. I want to improve the soil so I can have a good veggie garden. I think it’s going to be slow but worthwhile. Thanks
Thank to you ,Paul Gauchi ,and Ruth stout I got such beautiful soil in no time. Thank you so much. I had rocky sand gray dirt. Now is black soil filled with my friends the worms.i even got courage to plant my first 5 fruit trees.
Is basic European fruit tree care exactly the same as in the jungles permaculture scenario?
I live 500 meters above sea level
Ps yes indeed it was very helpful
I think I'll do this on top of my septic mound here in zone 9 here in Florida
Thank You so much for your video and great work Sir.
This video is very help Jaganath sir.
I keep trying different ways of growing vegetables. So this time I added lady's finger and then after they started growing added green gram plants in between and some tomatoes. added these variety of plants to avoid pests and fix the nitrogen. As i am little lazy added all tge mulch inbetween these plants seems to have helped as I got lovely lady's fingers within a month.... But thank you this helped me understand this better.
thank you
Suchitra Naidu Thank you for your comment. I am happy to hear that the video helped in some small way. I feel it is good to try new things and then let Nature tell us if she is happy with what we did. Nice work!
Excelente vídeo gracias por la información lo pondré en práctica está primavera aquí en Argentina. Saludos!
Gracias! Non hablo l'espagnol miu bien, pero muchos gracias!
Parlo l'italiano
le francais aussi... :)
great job, very clean and inspiring! thank you John!
Thank you!
Hi John, do you inoculate the beans before you plant them? Also, what kind of beans are you using? Thank you!
I just bought land in Arizona lots of sand, rocks and cactus, I want to get woodchips to help the soil hold onto the water and slow down evaperation and measure the PH then go from there
Thanks John ! Very interesting video
Great! Thanks for your kind comment.
hello angel thank you I have land in Okeechobee but it only has sand and my dream is to have a vegetable garden but I'm sad because I don't know how to start
your video, it is interesting
my land is silty soil, your method will help me to improve my land
ittipong chaisayun Very good. Our land is a demonstration site for tribal villages here in India, so we always try and show the least expensive and most effective way of doing things. Weeds are great for this. I'm happy it helps!
do you mean you use weeds as mulch, and if so wouldn't weeds (seeds) grow back if you use them in bed as mulch?
Yes. Then when they grow back, I chop them and drop them. More mulch. Again, and again. It's a similar approach to chopping and dropping a food forest. Or if you don't like weeds, chop them and drop them once, them plant beans on top - that's what the video demonstrates.
Sir, your video is amazing and interesting. I want to implement for my land in southern India. Sir I have few doubts. My land is dry, can I implement this technique? Which weeds shall I use for mulching? What is distance between first level of canopy and second one. Kindly reply. Thank you sir.
The key is to crowd the plants to increase root-bacteria-fungi interaction. If you want to get exact dimensions, I'd recommend the square foot gardening spacing for vegetables, which optimises growth in limited space. I've found this method to be very effective in both clay and sandy soils in both cold and extremely hot climates. Any plant material can be used for mulching, as long as it will break down and the soil isn't disturbed. If you use weeds, cut it at soil level, don't pull it out. The dead roots will decompose and provide channels for water to penetrate the earth. I could go on, but you can learn more from videos such as this and Geoff Lawton's project 'Greening the Desert'.
Thank you sir
Thank you for the video, I have watched it a few times, but your talking about mulch, that is something I haven't found yet here in Greece, we do have in wintertime some grass and weeds growing, but that is not enough to cover, we can not get woodchips here, and to buy a machine is costly. is there a solution for this problem?
Brilliant short concise video - Thank you!
really good observations . very enlightening video will be giving it a shot and keep u updated
Thanks for your kind words. Good to hear from you. Let me know how it goes!...
Hi
In one of your video u talked about bamboo circles and coconut circle...
Can you plz share video ...or tell us much more about it
Thank so much for the information. I want to do a vegetable garden in a sandy soil in the Tropic.... and everything makes sense....
Excellent information thanks for sharing
My pleasure. Thanks for your kind comment....
such a beautiful, doable, and useful suggestions. Thank you John.
Thank you Mohammad
Wonderful video. Would like to share some additional information. The cover crop guys also stress upon diversity. Species diversity and functional diversity (i havent really figured out the functional part yet). I think (need to confirm) they recommend five different species and about 3 functional variants for best overall results. Adding tubers would add to the functional diversity. The darkness is something which you have correctly identified which i haven't heard before. Amazing that you are able to build soil in such a short time. Would be glad if you could mention a diverse mix of cover crops in addition to okra, cheera and beans which wouldnt compete with each other and also serve functional diversity.
bijli vm Thanks Bijli. Yes, you are correct. Diverse cover crop is very important. Slowly we are finding seed in our area... At present we have a somewhat simplified expression in our garden. My hope is to integrate more and more layers of companion plants that work well together, and help determine how to diversify - rather than just diversity for diversity sake. It's amazing when we start to discover all of the beautiful relationships present in the natural system. Thanks for your comment!
I just love your chenal! Greetings from Bulgaria
Hi, very interesting. Which bean seed did you use? Is any variety good to use?
very nice idea for much nutrient in the sand.
Yes. We were happy to discover this.
Awesome, I'll definitely try it out in Laikipia, Kenya
Cool! Let me know how it goes!
my son came with a homework says what are the things that differentiate the nature of the soil in various places in our island so I'm hoping you could help me out. we're from the kingdom of Tonga and I would appreciate your feed back if possible.
Hello there. I'm sure that I am responding well past the moment when your son's homework assignment is due, however...
Rent or purchase the film "Symphony of the Soil". It may even be available on RUclips or Vimeo. It will explain your son's question in depth.
I hope that helps
This is wonderful Jagannath. One of the best videos. I'm starting farming in about a months time. Will be planing French beans first. Have you planted tomatoes? If say, could you make a video for it?
Thanks Jayanth. Good to hear from you.
We've planted tomatoes now, here in Italy. If they go well, I'll make a video. If not, I'll try it again, then make a video :)
Thanks for video.. sir i want to know can we use weeds which has seeds grown on them.. and should we dry them out before using them to cover the soil
Thank you for your video. Question: Can I put "living root" in the pot?