I’ve grown food for a few years, but this is the first season that we’ve dedicated enough space to sow and reap a crop large enough to feed us more than a snack! It definitely feels more important than ever, not only because of food insecurity, but because of how isolated our culture’s way of life is becoming. I’ve so appreciated the skills I’m acquiring for self sufficiency, but then also the community building skills I’m gathering as well. When you successfully grow starts, you want to share them. When you grow an abundant crop, you want to feed others with it. When you become skilled in preparing these things you grow, you are able to bring people into your home and show them hospitality through a good home cooked meal. The more our family does this, the more we realize how we need to prioritize it! I would absolutely be interested in purchasing some Edible Acres garlic for the fall. I planted all that you and Sasha sent me last year, and just harvested it yesterday. It grew brilliantly, and so easily! My cooking beliefs align with when a recipe calls for one garlic clove, it actually means five 😉 So I’d love to triple next year’s crop. Cheers!

Regarding food security, I moved to an area particularly full of small organic farmers and my sustainability plan has been to support the heck out of all of them.

Wow wow wow!

I can’t tell you how much I have learned from your channel! I look forward to every video you post. Thank you so much :)

Beautiful.

We offered up a piece of land for people in the community to grow here. We had one interested person, but the drive was too far. This year I have been trying to establish a larger diversity of mother plants, to get some serious propagation going. But we are suffering a terrible drought so efforts are a bit hindered. We did get some rain yesterday, but it was the first real rain since April.

I'd love to hear more about medicinal plants and how they're used. The cooking videos with Sasha have been awesome so maybe something similar with harvest and prep of medicine crops? Thanks as always!

Inspiring, thanks

Looks good Sean !!!

I have been expanding the garden during the lockdowns, but this makes me feel like I need to do a whole lot more. On 5 acres, but the land is clay and rock, so turning an area into a growing space is not so easy. Once we are through the Portuguese summer, I will be back into digging swales and ponds. Most folk look at me confused when I talk about the upcoming food problems, but your channel really is what I need to spur me on. Cheers.

These videos are so inspiring, thanks so much for sharing your rough sketch process with us. I’m working on a recent clear cut, trying to set a food forest/permaculture orchard up. Your methods make it seem possible 🌻

Growing food where you live is definitely a good idea. I wish I had more space to grow more food. My main garden area is about 1000 sq feet. I have strawberry in as a ground under all the other layers, covering maybe 600 sq feet of it. Harvested about 90 lbs in 30 days mid-May to mid-June. It's an ever-bearing strawberry, so now there is still a trickle of fruit. I ate so many strawberries! I also made a years supply of strawberry jam, a couple strawberry pies, about 5 gallons of strawberry wine, gave away dozens of pounds to friends, family, and neighbors, and still had many pounds to freeze for later. Raspberries and currants are producing now, but in much smaller quantities. It's been a good start to the growing season. I am growing shelling beans for the first time this year, because I wanted to produce more of the food I eat over winter. I am not sure what to expect though. The first time I grow something I typically runs into a lot of problems.

Definitely a good year to aim for more food production in the face of droughts and shortages. Love your channel. It's always a joy to get a tour of your "gnarly and feral" land.

I like meandering! I’m with you on the food security. I only have a little over an acre but my goal is to produce at least 80 percent of our and our chicken’s produce and herbal medicine. We’re doing amaranths too but it followed us from a pot from our old property. All volunteers and it’s a bumper crop haha. Wish I had some of your Valerian! Great job!

We live in the Netherlands on 1/3 acre (land is scarce and very expensive here) and we produce all of our fruit and vegetables. This year I feel the need to produce and preserve as much as I can, more so than other years. We also have chickens and ducks for eggs and some meat, but have to buy in food, besides what they find in their small field. I really love watching your videos and how you manage the gardens. I always learn something new, So thanks for sharing!

We're having a tough time getting some of our medicinal herbs started, but we won't give up, great job!

I really focused on winter squash, carrots, parsnips and potatoes, too, this year! Interesting the weeds helping keep the deer from your nursery plants

Awesome video thanks for posting... Here in Texas we’ve harvested our spring gardens and are working on our hot weather plants ....

This is food for the soul for all of us waiting for the chance to start our gardens. Please keep posting and know that even though you are tired and can only give 10% of yourself right now it really does help us tremendously and we appreciate it!!!

We have lots of wild crabapple trees perfectly adapted to our site conditions. I've been grafting high value apple scions onto them. Doing the same with some volunteer pear trees.

Do you have poison ivy on your property? If so I'd be interested to know how you deal/dealt with it.

It is surprising how resilient potatoes are. I have dug tubers that have been feral a couple of years. They are not sized like a pampered plant, but quite edible.

First video I've watched :D Amazing and inspiring. I'm 30 and my goal is to try get some land and grow food to sustain myself. I really love the fact that left you some water for the life around you. I love how you provide for both yourself and the land! I look forward to learning more :)

Yes we are thinking seriously about growing enough food to become mostly self- sufficient and perhaps barter as well. I'm growing many of the same crops as you are, minus some of the medicinal herbs. Plantain is a very useful wild plant growing here, I learned more about its ability to reduce cysts and ulcerations this year. It helped reduce my puppy's hernia, which then healed, and that was amazing! Nature has been blessing us. I have a 3 sisters garden growing (corn, beans, squash) and the beans look even better this year than last. Surprising how much better organically grown, home grown food tastes.

I get the impression your layout is a mix of nature, wild visions, compromise and hard work - perfect! I'm slopey and having fun figuring out the "wheres and hows" but planting bushes and trees around the annual areas and letting more come up with experinental/less mowing is exciting! My whole place is directly inspired by the small farm I work at, Geoff Lawton, Mark Shepard, Twisted Tree and Edible Acres!! I can't thank enuf you people doing these things and making it available for us to follow and learn!

Thanks for all the videos really have been following for a few years now. Thanks for the info and reference to wine caps from silver tree got comfrey and spores from them this spring. My wife and our two children grow on about 3000 sqft of our 1.2 acre lot here in WNY. A mix of raised bed gardens, permanent raised beds (market garden style) and are forming a guild with two apples that were here on the property and forming a elder guild with cuttings we have propagated from several bare root stock plants we started with a few years ago. Really inspired by your work and hope to source our nanking cherry and currants from you and Sasha in the future. Thanks again for all you do. Might make some videos one of these days

Great video! In spring I cut down a few 60ft pine trees so that I can plant fruit trees when available in bare root. In the mean time I planed Kabocha pumpkin and Butternut squash plants in their place.

Garlic benefits from drought for the last three weeks before digging up, so I've read. Makes sense since the plant would be encouraged to put its energy in the clove. Your elephant garlic is stupefying. Looking forward to seeing the harvest video. :)

Just went to check out the upper pond we made last year (still have tadpoles), and noticed that the Osage Orange we got from you folks this spring is doing well; we had lost hope for it when it didn't produce leaves (until now). Thank you kindly. p.s. would love a video from Sasha on processing sumac.

Love the camo lol

I laid some cardboard down on a patch of lawn last fall and built a compost pile on top using whatever I could get - lawn clippings, old mulch, leaves from neighbors, etc. Stuck our bird feeder on top of the pile to feed the locals in return for their droppings. In the spring I built a “fence” around it (still in progress) and spread the pile into some raised mounds. The compost is definitely rough but the veggies don’t seem to mind at all! I’m now transitioning my former raised beds in a partly shady area into propagation space for various plants I got from you folks! Very excited to see this all evolve. Thank you so much for the continuing inspiration and affordable plant materials!

👋

Jerusalem Artichoke - another gardening channel says it cooks like potatoes. Some say it’s invasive, I say it’s prolific. They also last the winter in the ground. They may do well in less than ideal soil, i haven’t tried to get this plant out of a garden bed before but I suspect it might help repair soils if left to grow for a few seasons. Might be a way to think long term and yet produce a viable food crop in otherwise less than ideal soil

Man, a few goats would love those wild areas 😍

You really seem to be making great progress at ramping up production on all fronts. I tip my hat! 🤠

gorgeous! thank you so much for sharing. Ashwagandha!!!

Oh if I was 40 years younger! We do a garden but your place is a dream. Keep up the good work. Love your videos.

i just moved onto some land and have been going back and forth about whether or not to start a big veggie garden this season but this really inspired me to just do it. i for sure won't get anything if i don't try!

Thank you for all your time and effort! Great channel!

Wish I had me one of them Juans in my life. ❤️

omg those elephant garlics :D. In about 1 month I will harvest my first ever garlics!

Frist, nice videos and channel mate love your content, all the best from UK

Grateful for everything you share re deer. Little gems like leaving things a bit wild. We’re dealing with them too, in Scotland, and avoiding serious fencing. Trying experiments like dead hedges, cages, piles of spiky brash, CDs dangling on string. Last night’s experiment is a zig-zag pattern line of paracord. Just trying to make it annoying for them. Finding myself dreaming “what would really irritate a deer?”. Hopefully works a bit.

I would love to see a valerian harvest and processing video in the future.

Another pond planned! Excellent. I'm hoping to get another one dug this year.

I’m doing it!

I have had a recurring thought about my gardening w/o knowing why. Hold the light! I hang in there and keep learning and growing. Thank you for the validation that I may not just be the village crazy person. I so appreciate your teaching.

I am fortunate enough that I am able to harvest something each day, but the artic freeze then the early high temperatures haveset me back it (growing in Texas in a city lot). I just built a station for starting seedlings today, so I will see how that goes. Good luck with your forest.

Such an inspiration! Our 0.2 acres is slowly evolving into a micro food forest because of your channel.

Love your gardens. Your voice is so soft and gentle. My kids love it. They really like watching your vids. And I hope your upcoming winter isn't harsh.

Great video, as always. Curious what you might suggest Nikki and I add to the thriving hazelnut and black walnuts that would get large quickly. We feel like our landscape is such a prairie that it needs shade.

Sean how is your new greenhouse doing? Your garlic looks fabulous as does all of your work!!!! Won't be long before garlic harvest time. 👍🌱

Looks great! Having similar problems here in pa with not enough rain, but overall not to bad. Anyone looking to put a garden try to diversity areas where you intend to plant. Sunny spots help out early on in the season, while partly shady areas will help some plants make it through the hottest days of summer. Just enjoy the outdoors and have a good time.

I love squash! What varieties of winter squash did you plant?

Thanks so much for the tour! Right now I am very curious about developing new landrace varieties of all sorts of edibles. Do you now or do you have plans to plant out areas with different selected varieties in order to replant "unknown hybrid" seedlings, and select and repeat? Seems like you may be doing this with potatoes from seed? Any insight or thoughts appreciated! Thanks for growing and sharing!

Perennial proteins and fats are what I really want for my little patch. The big nut trees take a long time to produce, so I'm trying yellow horn, and I'm planning to try dwarf chinquapin oaks. The more novel the better, because they will command more in the market place. I'm also looking at bean foliage, dehydrated, as a way to maximize annual protein yield.

Great video...thank you. I was wondering if some day you could talk about how you store all your over winter veg. I struggle with root veg and squash storage. I put lots of food (kale, celery, tomatoes, roasted peppers) in our freezers and jar lots of other things. Thanks again

I’d love to see video on how you made those cages. Really like them better then netting. Chipmunks causing havoc.

How are the fig cuttings and pond plants doing? Curculio hit my apples and pears hard this year, even damaging fruit through nylon bags, and the brood X cicadas are flagging everything (multiple female cicadas laying eggs in cuts in the same spot on branches, causing the branch to break) except for my pawpaws and figs. Both of those look like they will produce more this year than ever before and are completely pest free, so you win some and you lose some. I just hope that the cicadas don't kill off any young apple grafts. They have caused at least one graft to flag right at the graft union so it will have to grow back completely from a single bud.

Interesting expansion of near wild crafting garden foods...we have to think that way too about the future as this deflation goes on...good to be reminded...Amazing the things that grow wild can be like Eden...Think I had thermal problems with the carbon (weed stalks and wood) getting warm as the microbes decide to start working harder to compost the uncompleted in my hugel mound drying it out ...but more bacterial weeds ..straw and compost will make it ready in the spring by just piling them on top now..3rd year hugel is pretty amazing..going to try covering with wet brown paper bags in spring ..so many things to try..where's the chickens..lol

I've observed Good King Henry (13:25) plants struggling when transplanted as larger plants; background reading generally confirms this. The roots of established plants run pretty deep.

I somehow scored a job ‘teaching’ gardening at a summer camp. I say teaching in quotes because I will mostly be learning as I lead the kids. I’m a long time watcher of your channel and I really appreciate how you learn from the land snd follow the example of what is already happening there. Curious if you have any suggestions for things to plant (in NY area in July with access to watering and good compost) that will really wow kids and perhaps inspire them to become plant growers in future.

Would be great to see a video on how you make some of the air prune beds or just the upper caged part that protects the young tree saplings. Looked as though some of them had no wooden structure and was only (bent?) metal mesh

So close to 100k,

I know you're both extremely busy however you have access to a large variety of perennial plants and your climate & property is sufficient to grow a large variety of said perennial plants with minimal inputs (besides a cage when they're small) and you have the permaculture expertise; seems like an obvious thing is to pack your ENTIRE property full of edible, medicinal and useful perennial plants. Plus you have enough rainfall to do the Masanobu Fukuoka method of tossing seeds of annuals wherever your microclimates seem to best suite each of the plants.

I appreciate your observation that leaving things unweeded will protect the ones you want from deer. Having had two newly planted fruit trees chomped right down by deer this summer was discouraging. I'm hoping I don't need to put in a giant fence around everything; I'd rather find ways to encourage the deer to eat other things instead. I also like the idea of using potatoes as a way to define and defend the edges of the growing beds!

What is the red currant variety? I replayed the video several times and all I can discern is “young care bear red currant variety which sounds like I’m making up lyrics to songs again! Also, I’d love to see step by step how you deal with ribes pruning and when. My jostaberry is getting a tad too big with not enough berries to make up for all that mass. The gooseberries are super productive and a thicket that I’m sure I need to just chin up and prune this year. I’ve seen different approaches from all over the world. Everything from prune right after harvest to fall after frost to early spring while still dormant/just out of dormancy. There are pros and cons to each method. I’m curious which method has found itself into your farming lifestyle. I have been enjoying watching videos about ribes from Russia in Russian. My people love them their currants! Also, of course, the Brits, big currant fans. I’m excited to have multiple varieties in various stages of life in my tiny garden.

That's a great amount of food, very good job

Thank you - this is the next best thing to actually visiting your farm. Shouldn't it be called Juan-dering though? :) I couldn't agree more about the need to grow as much food as possible - especially food that can be stored in one way or another. Our garden is much fuller than it has been in previous years, and that's exciting. I'm also noticing a lot more interest by the birds - they just about wiped out my Ashwagandha seedlings before I got netting put over them. Maybe they know that it's smart to store more food and medicine too?

3:43 genius idea!

😊 Thank you for your informative, exciting videos !!

I just had the good fortune of acquiring a couple of acres in NM. I won't be able to afford a well any time soon, so gardening with rain water reserves, as you are here, is inspirational as a proof of concept, and something I'd like to do. Even though the climate will be a little different : )

I've watched some video on successional planting. I am often amazed at how long some people keep putting out plants. they go ahead and plant onions, but just harvest smaller onions. Beets, short season potatoes, sweet corn and even later the cool crops can go in again like peas and lettuces. I'm not good at this side of garden management but I am trying to get a handle on it. I'm wondering if your hugel mound would maintain moisture a little better in this dry weather if you dimple the top of it. I have also been wondering about the possibility of constructing a cistern since I'm not sure a pond is feasible for us now. Right now we are having excessive rain, but we have just gone through an excessive dry spell, so it would be nice to build in a little water security.

Had no idea u were growing that much just subbed in winter past wow impressive love what you r doing i have 2 raised beds only 1 1/4 acres to work with but weve been here 2 yrs still learning sun patterns dont have nearly as many chickens for making compost like u do but just getting started cause of the move👍👍👍😁😁😁do love your work and info

I have a current finally from a cutting It has fruit this year but tiny because its so dry We dug a few mystery current family but don't know what they are its a surprise

I was not able to put as much effort into my garden at the beginning of the season but I'm hoping to ramp up a bit more for the fall harvest. What other crops can I plant now? Or start indoors for planting out later? I'm always interested to hear what others are up to

Have you found the osage orange can grow from seed without deer eating them down? I hope to plant a living fence/hedge using it from seed and have a lot to plant, nearly 1000 feet. But if deer are all over it that would be a lot of lost planting time.

Amazing bro looks beautiful and full of abundance :) do you have jerusalem artichoke? if you dont will be a nice addition to the food resilience, very strong plant and abundant yields. One question, do you till some of the beds right? and the other ones like hugel mounds? sorry because english is not my home lenguage and i didnt hear well Bless and Love from Uruguay :)

As it seems pretty much every year, I plant a large volume of seeds, see a low percentage of germination, followed by stagnation of most things. One example, fenugreek, got perhaps seven that germinated, they produced spindly seedlings that have fallen over and I think two are not dead. Kale and the other brassicas - germination was better this year than typical in the past, but when other people are showing off their rich green massive kale, I have something that looks like an anemic oversize microgreen. Beans and squash seem to do relatively well here, and we got some sunchokes growing again this year, but roughly half a dozen plants when I have planted over fifty pounds of tubers over the past three years. This spring I made a serious start on perennial installations and there seems to be some hope that many of those will take and make it into future years - but everything here seems to lag behind other sites local to us. It's difficult sometimes to keep making the effort when the returns seem so minimal. Our radishes are bolting without ever having formed their root crop - just long thin red stems running into the ground. And I frankly have no idea why so many of these things are doing so poorly. :( We did have a relatively dry spring, but this latter half of June is making up for it. I watered consistently during the dry spell, but even with that - failure to thrive.

I have open water containers and because of the consistent rain in Vermont this spring - so far, looks like the dry is in the forecast and the only rain will be thunderstorms - I haven’t kept up with emptying them and am propagating quite the mozzie farm. What do you use in your open containers to mitigate mosquito spawning? Are mosquito dunks safe for other critters? Hopefully the birds and bats appreciate my area ....

Awesome Video! Thanks for all the insights. Couple of questions- Do you sow any dill or herbs along your potatoes and all the beds you've shown? Could you add beets to this or would deer attack them? What kind of winter squash are you planting out at summer solstice? Thanks....PS looking forward to the next cooking / recipe video with SASHA already :)

Love this tour! Do you have any detailed videos on the covers for your air pruning beds shown at 7:33? The covers just made from hardware cloth with a base of wood. I am interested in building some of those. Are they working well for you?

are you able to export seeds to other countries i am in new zealand and know we have very stringent rules about bio security for very good reason

I am in my 1st year food forest and I have so much to learn. Some things are doing well and others not so much. My Chestnut trees that I bought from you are doing great, My hazelnuts are struggling. I seem to either over water or under water. Hopefully, I will be able to get more plants from you in the fall.

I am in the process of creating a few swales on my property, in the area which will be my food forest. I am also considering digging some irrigation ponds as well, but I am concerned about them being a breeding ground for mosquitoes. Any thoughts or suggestions about this? I live in N.C.. The mosquito population here is not extreme, but they do exist. I totally agree that the more people that become involved in growing their own food sustainably, the better off society and the environment will be. It is my hope, once I get my permaculture homestead established, that I will be able to encourage others to do the same. I have lived in the city my entire life, but upon retirement, I bought acreage in the country; in order to establish a homestead. I settled in a somewhat economically depressed area, and I think this community would benefit greatly by utilizing permaculture principles. I am creating this farm as a hobby, an experiment, and hopefully a benefit to the community. Of course, it is always nice to have natural, healthy food growing right outside one’s door,

What are potatoes onions? I’d love to help you with the deer ground hogs I have no advice about the ovules except cut back on the cat food and maybe some jack russel terriers

What do you do with Osage oranges anyways? I found one once, fruit all over the ground, the fruit had a white latex kind of liquid when you scratched it. Why do people like them or what can you do with them?

Wonderful wonderful stuff!! Thank you so much for showing us around! I'm pondering whether the sea kale i got from you would be herbavore resistant... what have been your observations on that one?

Do you have Colorado potato beetle there? I have challenges with it on my taters in KY.

Has anyone been dealing with june beetles? I hit them hard last year by going out at night and picking them off and putting them in a jar but they're still around and giving my sweet potato leaves a beating. Any better methods of control? Id like to try to have predators like frogs and snakes around but i think theres too many cats (including my own) around for them to not be hunted. I do have bacillius thuringiensis dunks for mosquitos, maybe i can use that somehow?

when you build your permanent raised beds on contour, do you dig down in the walkways to create a swale like effect or do you find that building soil up on flat ground accomplishes the purpose of passive rainwater harvesting? I'm in heavy clay and have been considering this as an alternative to swales, since I don't necessarily want a small river to form in my crawlspace

Is neglecting to remove the scapes from the elephant garlic something that's particular to you, or to elephant garlic? I've never grown elephant garlic so I'm not sure how it's usually done.

Just Juan-dering around.

What do currants taste like? Are they tart/sour like a cranberry?

The bird song in the background is bomb diggity. Love and appreciate your videos! Sasha, more cooking videos please? Maybe a video on your fermented hot sauce???!

I would love to know how to keep rabbits at bay. They are cleaning out my garden faster than I can get the seeds/plants in the soil. I've tried fences. Anyone have any advice?

If your serious about food security you'll want to prioritize slow-burning carbs (starchy root vegetables/ winter squash) and fats. Not to mention animal foods

i have acquired some asimina triloba seeds but am unable to find any information about growing these wonderful trees in a coastal position can any one help i m in zone 9

Are you using the native soil there or did you bring in a bunch of compost or manure?

No more bathtub 🛀