Downsizing the Kitchen Garden with Cover Crop
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- Опубликовано: 12 апр 2022
- By dominating the ground with a cover crop Geoff downsizes the kitchen garden at Zaytuna Farm, conserving the soil for future gardeners to inherit.
Geoff Lawton and Sam Parker-Davies show us how to take a garden apart and put it to rest for a while. As the crowds at Zaytuna have lessened, the large kitchen garden (designed to feed 30 people) doesn’t need to be at full production and has slipped into a chaotic state. Geoff and Sam are going to reduce the veggie plot into something more appropriate while keeping the rest of the garden space fertile and occupied.
They leave one bed for vegetables and use the adjacent two beds on either side of it to grow perennial, sub-tropical pineapples. At one end of the plot, a swale path feeding a row of bananas is converted into a mulch swale, covered with trimmings from the banana plants in the row and four nearby banana circles.
The remainder of the kitchen garden has been slashed and double ripped in both directions and planted to a cowpea cover crop, which will act like a green, living mulch, adding fertility while also taking spatial control in the race with weeds. This is how to control space by cultivating rampancy rather than allowing weeds to take over or using herbicides.
Key Takeaways
- Annual gardens that are too large for a site’s needs will slip into chaos.
- Cleared gardens can be planted to a cover crop to hold the soil’s fertility.
- The cover crop will occupy the space for several months until it’s ready to be used again or planted to another cover crop.
- Cover crops act like living mulch, keeping weeds at bay, until they become green manure and fertilize the soil.
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About Geoff:
Geoff is a world-renowned permaculture consultant, designer, and teacher that has established demonstration sites that function as education centers in all the world's major climates. Geoff has dedicated his life to spreading permaculture design across the globe and inspiring people to take care of the earth, each other, and to return the surplus.
About Permaculture:
Permaculture integrates land, resources, people, and the environment through mutually beneficial synergies - imitating the no waste, closed-loop systems seen in diverse natural systems. Permaculture applies holistic solutions that are applicable in rural and urban contexts and at any scale. It is a multidisciplinary toolbox including agriculture, water harvesting and hydrology, energy, natural building, forestry, waste management, animal systems, aquaculture, appropriate technology, economics, and community development.
#permaculture #gardening #covercrop
Its sad and unbeleivable,with whats going on in the world,that Goverments are not sending people to you in droves,you work ethic,easy teaching manor and results, make you a number one world wide,to actually educate the population,to make change Nick Lomas London England
Do you really think the govt want us to be educated and selfsufficient?
@@kiaalexander4161 i think governments worldwide are failing,and knowledge will bring survival,with the likes of Geoff and the late Bill Molloson
Let hope so, otherwise some people are doomed, especially those on very low incomes. We are in the process of propagating an allotment, and both our gardens. If the gov’s don’t care, we do. I use Geoffs advice to help us along the way. I’d love to do the PDC course, and maybe one day I’ll save enough to do so, I really hope so as although I’m more mature, hence don’t work, Im very young at heart, mind and, I’ve been told, body😊. Hence in the meantime, I/we are doing our best to be self sufficient in at least a good choice of veg, and some fruit. Fruits a bit harder as we don’t have a great deal of land, and our gardens weirdly orientated, this is more for development on the allotment. This year we supplied ourselves all our veg, some went to a charity and surplus for neighbours, picking and freezing. I adored Geoffs lock down Q&A (watching retrospectively); this was the point my partner said, that blokes very knowledgable and his voice is one you could listen to for hours, which I do. This was a turning point for my partner. Although the vids were 2 years old, the advice was very pertinent then and even more so today. If we all turned a few square meters over to food production we wouldn’t only have wonderfully tasting food, full of nutrients, attracting wildlife and insects, providing habitats, stabilising soil and the life within the soil, we have our own soak for CO2, on our doorstep. Ask your own MP’s where they get their fruit and veg from, let them show you how they provide for their families, then make your choices about who would rather vote for, the shopper or the grower!
You are building an Ark in these Noah times, keep up the great work. I am starting my home food forest in central NSW, I'm learning very fast with all the wonderful help from RUclips.
Do you mean the sinners and gays and race mixers are going to be killed off by a giant flood?
Congratulations Sam Parker-Davies for getting up and running with teaching 👍😉💪
I like Sam! May he go far with permaculture and bring it to the world with his fun energy and delightfully mischievous smile!
I've just started my first little garden and this is exactly what I've done so far!
Love to see Sam has hair again. Thanx for your videos Geoff.
I found his course because of you ! Thnx bro
And thanks for yours Weedy!!
A Big Thank You, Geoff, for this teaching video!! I have a permaculture kitchen garden, and wanting to understand how to use cover crops when beds are resting. Love it! God bless you and your family!!
Thank you Geoff
Thank you for this important topic! I would be super interested in a follow up video „Steps to restart a garden thats covered with cover crops… 🙏🏻❤️
Wow it’s looking amazing! Cover crops for the win!
Amazing how fast that cover crop grows. Great stuff.
I always appreciate your wisdom and enthusiasm. Fun to see a new face too :)
I love this! Thanks Geoff
Great video, I would also love a video on how you are setting up your watering systems. Thanks Geoff!
This was a good video. Watching the change from beginning to finish was pleasant like a kind of time lapse.
Wow! That's some straight forward talk! Full of valuable info! Thanks
Great People do great work for all mankind. Thank you. Be happy.
Looking great, Geoff.
Cow pea is awsome. We use it in qld. Real hardy and great pollination plant.
6:33 wow, a good explanation of thin mulching, i never heard anyone on youtube explaning it
i used to do it often here bc i'm the desert, and dark moist soil have a low albedo and thus get cooked fast by the sun and dry in half a day
i do thin mulching with the smaller hay lefovers that make raise soil albedo and thus reduce drying, but allow germination
Always inspiring!
This place with background view looks like in Papua New Guinea-Love gardening.
Great stuff!
Nice to see a rising Zaytuna star!
Just perfect good job.!
quality content, thanks for sharing
Thankyou for sharing . Love the music 💚🇿🇦
Hi Geoff, you are truely a magnificant person, with full knowledge and eager to share. I have been watching your videos for a long time. I know its all about the soil but would be any possiblility to share some more detailed information about Citrus farming ? The Best,
Wonderful; can you show us what your neighbor's land looks like please?
Id like to see how you then turn around and plant it up again with vege. Thats what puts me off putting in a cover crop, thinking id have to weed it to plant it up, probably just a lack of knowledge but yea
Knowledge is indeed power. Thanks Mr Lowton.
By the why what is a good trucker type to get? Something that is very versatile for a permaculture garden. Thanks
Here in South India we sow velvet bean as a cover crop in coconut garden. It works both as cover crop and control stem bleeding fungus. Animal devour tons of biomass.
Lovely!
I hope we get to see the termination of cover crops and the beds put back in to production
Nice work congratulation
doing my best to come down there!
Thank you
Greening the desert update plss
I'm planting cover crops for Spring and Summer here. I don't want to deal with the heat and having to harvest a lot.
ThankQ
Can it be used as cover crop things like king grass, red clover, alfalfa, chicory and this kind of grasses that can also feed the animals???
What would be a good cover crop for such a space in the tropics, where its season all year around and when you plant something it takes very little for it to grow crazy ?
Do you have any recommendations for swales with 2-3ft heavy clay over a solid shale bedrock layer on a 1-2% slope.
Geoff, what implements are you using on the tractor? I admit some surprise at watching what appears to be tilling at Zaytuna ;)
He planted thousands of trees over the last 20 years or so...mostly by transplanting, which means tilling.
The swales and dams were also tilled. The roads and buildings and other infrastucture implies tilling.
He already showed diferent times, tilling for cover crops (how do you seed cover crops without some kind of tilling?), tilling to unpack hard soil, till to remake the beds, till to plant and harvest veggies, like potatos, etc.
Why are you suprise that a agriculture place do tilling? Its not only normal, its necessary.
@@srantoniomatos No, those things are not taking. Digging is not tilling. Sorry, but that's just not what the word means.
@@srantoniomatos Tilling is also emphatically not necessary for agriculture and I am stunned that someone commenting on a permaculture video would make that assertion.
@@peterellis4262 well, i belive Geoff is the most famous permaculture teacher in the world. Maybe he can explain to you why he does till, to reshape the beds, to unpack hard soil, to prep the ground to seed cover crops, to seed and harvest potatos etc...
You hear him saying " that tilling produces no problem whatsoever". Its just a necessary step to achive the next sucession.
Also, i do bet, you eat, everyday, several times a day, agro products that were produced using some kind of tilling, sometimes heavy tilling, plowing...
But maybe im not seeing right. Can you show me big comercial operations (that feed you) that dont till? Can you show me a "no till" farm, permaculture or not, that feed you, us, the world?
Because "no till" i only know a few very small market gardens in youtube, and a few non comercial permaculture sites...none of them grows to feed us...
@@srantoniomatos and maybe you could understand what till means instead of misusing the word. You're also mistakenly presuming that I don't understand the reasons why in some limited cases actual tillage is needed.
Do you ever made any Miyawaki forest?
love what you create. hate the music
Didn’t know Ed sheeran’s into gardening as well!
Hi Geoff, Iv'e always wanted to ask if grass is a good nitrogen fixer or if it is good for soil. I have seen some communities plant grass as a soil cover. Does grass give any benefit to the soil?
I plant a native clumping grass along my borders. The roots grow deep which stops soil erosion and allows for water to alow down. I use it to help my soil to stop eroding.
Any equivalent of cowpea covercrop for cool temperate ? Thanks for the video !
Normal peas? Field bean.. Vetch
Is nettle slurry bad for a soil? From my understanding slurry smell bad due to the presence of anaerobic(bad?) bacteria.
How about soybean instead of cowpea? Is soybean OK for cows and horses?
Wonderful!Thank you for sharing your knowledge🌳🕊🌿🦋🍀🌴🐝🌲🌱👣🌾🐞🐣🍃🐜🍏🐛#savesoil🌳
What is the thing about quorum sensing where they are seeing even greater benefits by combining a certain number of cover crops? Not as easy to source probably as a ton of cowpeas ... but just asking for educational purposes. This looks great!
Check Dave Brandt also for cover crops: ruclips.net/video/YznWr1sC7-Y/видео.html
I don't think they've found "a certain number" yet. As I have read, experiments with as many as thirty two cover crop species have all shown increased performance as the diversity is increased. No top limit has been noted, afaik.
@@peterellis4262 That's what I've seen as well in online research, which is why I was asking about this. In terms of local resiliency they may not have had any more seed and the situation might be more complex . I know the Weedy Garden in Lismore had really bad floods and we had a fundraiser to get money to the people of the town who lost everything. So perhaps they sourced those seeds from past harvests and they didn't buy seed..... but I'm curious about Zaytuna's perspective on quorum sensing
@@TheVigilantStewards Geoff has discussed his approach to cover crops in other videos. Economics plays a real part in his choices. We're also talking about incremental levels of improvement with each additional species, but the big jump - broadly speaking - comes with getting a nitrogen fixer growing all over and through the soil. So there's a balancing act - what thrives where you are? What can you afford? What is available? You should see good results from just one cover crop species, like cowpea, but you might improve on those results by adding daikon if you have heavy soil. Practical performance may be well below theoretical maximums, but one is obtainable :)
@@peterellis4262 That's kind of where my mind was as well
I wonder if oversaturation of water could be a problem on sloping land because water being a lubricant and the added water weight could make the ground slide on the rock?
Sure only if there are no living roots in place, hence the importance of planting productive trees and support species on your contours and swales, long rooted clumping grasses and herbaceous cover crops between and the "glue" that fungal hyphae hold the soil between the trees it becomes very very stable long term
Hi Geoff ! I am looking for a tractor for my farm in the Philippines.The video was ffwd, can you tell me what tractor you used, and the attachments please. I will research similar models in the Philippines. Thank you !!!
GET AN OLD KUBOTA NO COMPUTERS WITH GOOD OIL AND REGULAR SERVICE THEY RUN
Would you consider peanut as a cover crop?
Peanuts are kinda hard on the soil and their stems are tough. You really need sandy soil to grow peanuts. Better to go with beans or black eye peas.
You should experiment with multi species cover crops, it's way better. Aren't you watching Christine Jones' web conferences ? The more families of plants you have, the more biomass. And for your goal, the less weeds. You should combine a grass with a legume, a brassicacaes, some phacelia, an asteracae like sunflower or chicory...
Oh man, nut sedge is a problem in the subtropics too? What is the ecological role that it’s trying to fill? Decompactor? Soil stabilizer? Or just a pain in the ass?
There is always some purpose that has a benefit… maybe ask that question in the garden sitting in quiet with your mind open and listen to the subtle thoughts that come through.
When you feel as if you have some response from the nut sedge as to its purpose, benefits, and how it can be handled so it works with human gardens etc, please let us know here. And peaceful vibes to you with open heart. Your question is an awesome one.
invigorating music selection
Oh, my, gosh! It's Samwise the Hobbit from the Shire in Middle Earth!!! Has anyone called Sam that yet or am I the first? LoL... (I say that with all due shoulder punching affection... :)
Hi Geoff, what will you do with the cover crop when it comes time to plant kitchen garden crops again?
Yes, I also want to learn this, how will you get rid of the cowpeas to plant the vegetables ?
He planted one huge mono-covercrop mess.
I suspect he had to till it under because it got out of control given how haphazardly & tightly it was planted.
I have been using Lentils.
Did i just see Lawton tilling?
A Farmer speaking 🗣️ University Level English Language. Albeit 🦘 Australian accent.
Geoff is the ultimate Best Nature Conservative teacher too.
I am so lucky 😁 to bump into this awesome 👍 channel
Thanks again for your outstanding contribution.
Please 🙏 teach us, how to 🪴 grow vegetables in the backyard.
Nature conservative?
Do you mean nature conservation?
@@GazB85
Yes, Thanks 👍👌 for corrective
Geoff is no "University English". He came to Australia from England in his 20's so his accent is NOT Australian either 😉.
He has 100s of hours of RUclips available on every conceivable topic of Permaculture.
@@bevvennik1661
England is the Father of Australia 🦘
Ok, I am in a hot Mediterranean climate, these are my issues with cover crops. My main problem is Bermuda grass it grows 8" in the ground in a tight Web though the whole property. It grows though garden beds, raised beds, cardboard does NOT stop it. I use cover crops in the cold/wet season mainly radishes and clover. That keeps the growth down to a certain extent, but it can grow a foot into the air. In the hot season I just can't afford the water to grow a cover crop over the property. I already spent about $3000 just watering this last summer, that is just vegies and trees. I don't have enough land to store rain, (or the money)(you need 10s of 1000s of litres to last 4-6 months in dry hot summers) I want to get a bore but that has issues. Wherever I water in the summer I just get a mat of Bermuda grass. By the time winter comes around again the grass has regained what it lost the previous winter.
One thing I have done is plant heaps of trees, much more than is usually recommended, and lots of grape trellises, I have berries growing under grapes ect. I want as much shade on the ground as I can. I think cover crops are just not the thing here, trees maybe are. It's nice when you get your rain in your growing season.
As far as I understand it it is not just the cover crops. When you have soil that has a lot of various bio mass in it, the right bio mass, with a healthy colony of micro organisms and fungi, it will be much easier for the soil to retain water, which saves you a lot of water.
Not only that, it will give bacteria and fungi the opportunity to work the soil, to release the nutrients for the crops, and to create new passageways for the water to be stored in the soil. In combination with water harvesting structures and structures that slow the water down. And with compost tea and solid compost.
So it is a whole system that is carefully installed to work with each other. If you leave one of those factors out it won't work as well or it won't work at all. Especially fungi are very important for soil grown crops.
It is much better to create a smaller well functioning patch of your land, and to go from there, as to try to do everything at once and to do a bad job because you don't have the assets to do everything as it should happen all at once.
I advise you to do some research about carbon based farming. Because none of the people that I watch on youtube give away all their secrets, or they want you to follow their classes. But when you watch enough videos you can figure it out anyway.
I give you some leads that you should watch in this order.
1- Carbon Farming: A Climate Solution Under Our Feet - NHK WORLD PRIME
2- The Johnson Su bio reactor
3- He Plants Over 25,000 Soil Blocks Every Year!
4- 3-Steps to Rapid Soil Regeneration Part 2: Multiplying the Beneficial Microbes
These are all video titles, so if you copy and paste it you will find it. These videos have enough information to give you a much better understanding about micro organisms and composting and growing food in general. And with that knowledge you will be able to do even more research because now you know what to look for. Harvesting water and cover crops are just a small part of the system. You also need to learn about micro organisms and the right compost composition. Which materials are good to use and which materials are not good to use, and in which quantities, and how it should be composted. Especially the 4th video is very interesting, en they also have a part one and three that is very worth watching.
Anyway, good luck.
Have you looked into the technique called 'flamimg'?
The idea is NOT to actually use the fire to burn the plant. That would send a signal to the roots to grow back like crazy and bolt to seed. Burning the grass would likely cause more of the very plant you don't want.
The idea is to get the flame to pass slowly, near enough to the plant leaves that the radiant heat being emitted out just past the flame will raise the temperature of the leaf structure enough to disrupt the enzyme activity so the plant cannot photosynthesize sunlight. Then it just wilts.
The idea is not to kill the plant outright but, to exhaust it.
If done correctly, the plant will show no physical changes at all for about the first 12 hours. After that, the wilting effect will start showing. It may take repeated treatments over several days to really knock out the existing grass plants.
However, flaming takes a long term commitment, and a light, frequent touch to really work.
This is because as the existing plants wilt away, that opens-the-canopy to the accumulated seed bank below and, it is time to start over again on the fresh seedlings suddenly sprouting up from old seed.
So, it takes a long term commitment to playing the patience game.
It took me 3 years to eventually eradicate a 12' x 12' patch of Johnson Grass in the back yard. Johnson Grass reproduces by seeds, by rhizomes, and by leaf joints that fall over and touch the ground.
It would be best to regard flaming as one of those twice or three times a week garden chores, done over the long haul.
And, it takes a while to get the right touch.
The finesse,
The nuance,
The subtlety,
is in the heat, not the fire.
It might be good idea to start with small equipment like the little kitchen butane torches chefs use to brown the sugar on cream brulee. Then, after you have some experience with the technique, you can decide if you want to move up to the larger hardware store butane torches.
Best wishes.
@@clovergreen9959 Thanks for those insights, I will definitely have a go at that, at least in the beds, I have a butane burner in the shed.
@@markhall8939
I forgot to tell you something.
Bizarre, weird, and strange as this may sound, relax the muscles behind your ears just before you start flaming the burmuda grass with the heat.
Yes, the muscles behind your ears. This will usually make your lower jaw drop, your neck re-align, and your chest relax all the way to the diaphramic muscles.
In other words, relax your respiratory system before you squat down to the task of flaming.
I promise, if you clench your jaw, you will burn the grass.
A calm, zen, meditative state can go a long way in helping you keep focused on where the heat is at.
However, this is exactly when the neighbors cat will be attracted to your calm energy field and want to be petted.
Just go ahead and snuggle the kitty. They usually only want about 10 minutes to visit and the grass isn't going anywhere.
So, enjoy.
😊
We have the problem of Bermuda grass and the only answer for us has been cover crop and aggressive weeding. Dig it out!! It’s an on going constant battle until it’s replaced then we try to maintain borders and if we see it poking above the crops, go after it and dig it out.🌺😊
How do we book you for a zoom meeting or Skype or Whatsapp? Would love to have a live Q&A with us here in America
Damn. Big music upgrades for this video 🎶
lol, not my style music, but amusing for sure snd I like the idea that those who do like such music would tune in to learn about living with then and.
@@louisegogel7973 me neither but it's always fun to add some new energy and yeah, great to get new growers into this field too
So the tractor was used to brush hog first and then what implement was used to shape the beds? Plow?
Probably a hoe and a rake
Banana rama swale
When you say "shareholders", that piqued my interest in your arrangement with them.
There are many smallholders and permaculture places here in UK where the owners seem to maintain most of the benefits of the land whilst relying on volunteers on meagre pay to make it viable.
I would be interested in more egalitarian ways to create a permaculture smallholding. i.e cooperatives or similar.
What do you suggest for a winter cover crop?
Did I miss something, why are so many in the Regen Ag space shutting down shop and becoming homesteaders? Geoff Lawton and Richard Perkins have been such huge influencers over the years but now both are "taking it easy". Hope it isn't a sign that such systems can't be scaled up.
Historically, permaculture and/or regenerative agriculture were originally called subsistence farming.
In subsistence farming, the first priority was to get all the essential systems into place in order to feed a growing family.
If there was any left over, you could trade or barter with the neighbors.
Trying to make a for-profit, economically viable commercial enterprise out of a subsistence farm operation is a really new idea.
Jim Kovaleski and Charles Dowding are still doing great work. I think Richard is stepping back for a while to focus on his family and himself especially after another relationship breakdown.
If u need a working force Geoff I will be happy to help
Do bananas grow well near Eucalyptus trees?
Nothing grows well next to eucalyptus trees.
yes they can
Of course! And so do koalas!
The leachate of the eucalyptus leaves contains a natural herbicide which keep other plants at bay.
@@uglyvulture5172 that herbicide effect can be negated in a soil with high organic matter and high microbiological activity
Politician is so busy to keep their position but not the promise to "Make Earth 🌎Great Again". Good work Geoff.
"politicians" are not put there by elites to save the earth. if you are waiting for that you will be waiting all your life. they are the problem, not solution. They are put there to control the people
I thought you were Hugh Laurie my bad
Great video but bad music.
I understand the need to teach people how to do permaculture ways. I also have difficulty charging people money to come participate and, in effect, do the labour, makes me cringe.
So much for no till & permaculture when it gets out of hand due to neglect.
Just bring in a tractor to rip in both directions & dump cover crops?
Not impresssed.
So much of permaculture available is relating to sub tropical climates, I just tend to skip them because I know most of it won't relate to me. These permaculture gurus always seem to gravitate to the easiest areas. It just becomes a frustrating lesson in what I can't do.
Everything he has said here easily applies to temperate and cold climates. Cover crops are used in all climates.
He has a colection of videos on desert permaculture.
There are some others doing videos on dry lands and Mediterranean.
If,like me,you are in a difficult place,you need to find what works for you.Many times,you need to aply the principles but different techniques.
I had to ""conquer" my arid rocky land one yard after another and still in the process after a few years of work.But it is taking off.
It works great in my mediterranean climate. And you can see lots of great examples in all kinds of climate and soils...
For gardenning, homesteading, self reliance etc its great.
Permaculture is just missing a lot when it comes to comercial prodution. Because its built around a anti comercial philosophy.
Might have helped to mention where you are Mark, so that others might point you in the right direction.
Thanks for the replies. I understand permaculture and have applied a lot of the principles, what I mean is the bias to sub tropical, it seems like most permaculture/food forest gurus are in Central/North East Oz or Florida. I know what I am doing. I have looked at many arid/Mediterranean/sandy videos, it is just nice to see some new ideas coming through for other climates. For example I am trying blackberry/raspberry circles. Bananas do grow here but slowly. I also grow circles of stone fruit and apple trees. I just get a bit sick of hearing about bananas and coconut trees all the time.
I would also like to see more new ideas coming through for smaller blocks which is where let's face it most of us live. With acres of land rich loamy soil and rain in the growing season it's not too hard.
I understand the principles it just would be nice to see more examples in other environments