Jason from NH here.

[ninnymary]

Jason, have you seen the Back to Eden video on gardening? That is the method that Paul uses. I'm going to try it. It should work easily for me since we don't have hot summers. I think it will be hard for me to find free wood chips from tree companies since they don't want to go out of their way to deliver, not even a few blocks. But I'm going to check our municipal waste dump where they have different soils and bark. I'm hoping to find chips that also had leaves ground in and don't mind paying for it. My garden is small so I really don't need much.

Mary

 

[jasonvivier]

Jason, have you seen the Back to Eden video on gardening? That is the method that Paul uses. I'm going to try it. It should work easily for me since we don't have hot summers. I think it will be hard for me to find free wood chips from tree companies since they don't want to go out of their way to deliver, not even a few blocks. But I'm going to check our municipal waste dump where they have different soils and bark. I'm hoping to find chips that also had leaves ground in and don't mind paying for it. My garden is small so I really don't need much.

Mary

I have seen his videos. He does this to an extreme. My designs for these systems are generally more diverse, because he doesn't use hardly any ground covers. In an ideal world your plants would die and become your mulch and so eventually it would become a stable environment.

I'm a big fan of Rhubarb for this. It creates massive amount of mulch even if you make pie out of it lol. It will self seed and pop up anywhere the niche is right.

But starting out it makes a lot of sense to sheet mulch than it does to till. It has been my experience that if you need to till it should only have to be done once in a personal use garden and then never again.

 

[jasonvivier]

Jason, have you seen the Back to Eden video on gardening? That is the method that Paul uses. I'm going to try it. It should work easily for me since we don't have hot summers. I think it will be hard for me to find free wood chips from tree companies since they don't want to go out of their way to deliver, not even a few blocks. But I'm going to check our municipal waste dump where they have different soils and bark. I'm hoping to find chips that also had leaves ground in and don't mind paying for it. My garden is small so I really don't need much.

Mary

Also check out James Prigioni's crazy cool natural garden lol https://www.youtube.com/user/ThePermaculturGarden
He is an excellent natural gardener. I think a mix between the twenty thousand schools of gardening is a good idea.

 

[Lavender2]

Welcome @jasonvivier . I appreciate your approach, in that no system or method is fail proof in every situation or for every plant.

I don't grow many fruit trees for lack of space and sun, but it can be a big expense and time commitment, costly failure on both issues. Healthy trees and companion planting can be of huge benefit, as many orchards are expanding on these concepts also. Would you still select the most disease resistant varieties of trees and berries?

I have mulch composted for years, in my vegetable and perennial beds, lazy -but it works for most things. Blueberries are a challenge here but worth the extra effort to maintain the ph. It takes a LOT of 'waste' material to keep up my small (compared to many) vegetable garden, and I bring a bunch in from relative's yards... it's hard to imagine doing that on a much larger area.

I think a mix between the twenty thousand schools of gardening is a good idea.

 

[jasonvivier]

Welcome @jasonvivier . I appreciate your approach, in that no system or method is fail proof in every situation or for every plant.

I don't grow many fruit trees for lack of space and sun, but it can be a big expense and time commitment, costly failure on both issues. Healthy trees and companion planting can be of huge benefit, as many orchards are expanding on these concepts also. Would you still select the most disease resistant varieties of trees and berries?

I have mulch composted for years, in my vegetable and perennial beds, lazy -but it works for most things. Blueberries are a challenge here but worth the extra effort to maintain the ph. It takes a LOT of 'waste' material to keep up my small (compared to many) vegetable garden, and I bring a bunch in from relative's yards... it's hard to imagine doing that on a much larger area.

Yeah I prefer the old varieties and tend toward old old trees. I'm not a fan of uncertainty and so I stick with the standards and heirlooms. Also I attempt to propagate my successful plants. I am not that great at it lol. So that brings the cost down considerably.

On a large scale the idea of sheet mulching is tricky, it does take access to a lot of resources. I tend to stay away from the idea of large scale. It is overly complicated and in my opinion overly unnecessary on an community level. When we are talking about 7 billion people and no gardeners, yes large scale is a requirement, but if we are talking about 7 billion gardeners than maybe large scale is enough farm land for two billion people instead of 7 billion. That is a whole different conversation though.

 

[ninnymary]

Jason, how big is your garden? Could we see pictures of it?

I have several large containers planted with blueberries and dwarf fruit trees. These containers are wine barrels and ceramic pots that are slightly larger than barrels. How do you recommend I garden in these pots?

Thanks
Mary

 

[jasonvivier]

Jason, how big is your garden? Could we see pictures of it?

I have several large containers planted with blueberries and dwarf fruit trees. These containers are wine barrels and ceramic pots that are slightly larger than barrels. How do you recommend I threat/garden in these pots?

Thanks
Mary

Hey that's pretty cool! Do you have any carpentry skills? The first thing that comes to mind is to build a vertical garden out of the existing wine barrels. That way you can utilize the space on the sides of the barrel as well as the top. You could do this with felt/plastic wall planters or by actually modifying the barrel; the later of which causes structural issues which is why I asked about carpentry skills.

Also any available growing space on the top of the barrel should be considered a niche for a plant, even a small one i.e. herbs, Lupine, strawberries and such.

Vertical space is the most interesting in my opinion because it brings up neat opportunities that are otherwise not possible on a horizontal plane.

 

[ninnymary]

Nope, don't have any carpentry skills whatsoever. I don't think I was clear on my question. I want the containers to stay the way they are with either a fruit tree planted in them or blueberries. I try to add my chicken poop compost every year and a small amount of organic fertilizer. In the square containers where I have a dwarf peach and a dwarf nectarine, I like to plant annuals around them. Any other suggestions as to what else I should be adding to amend the soil. Or instead of annuals, what else could I plant as far as companion planting goes to benefit the trees?

I would love to see pictures of your garden. I know it's covered in snow right now but perhaps you have some old pictures?

Mary

 

[Nyboy]

LOL the newcomer almost gets the "We love photos" Their 1st post. Mary took a little longer today.

 

[ninnymary]

LOL the newcomer almost gets the "We love photos" Their 1st post. Mary took a little longer today.

I seldom ask new people to post pictures because usually others beat me to it! Nyboy, don't you have anything else to do like getting a new phone? haha

Mary