Back To Eden Gardening Documentary Film - How to Grow a Regenerative Organic Garden

when you look at the incredible landscape on planet earth all the different terrains the varying soil conditions the awesome water features oceans lakes rivers streams the waterfalls the different climates the huge amounts of plants and groundcovers the requirements are so varied can one fathom how big a project that was when God designed the landscape Roger for planet Earth he was so genius he designed it in such a way he would never have to show up to work it is completely self-sustaining [Music] [Music] my name is paul gaussian and i was raised as a garden my parents grew oliver food in los angeles i grew up and remember as a five-year-old kid my dad on saturday morning waking us up and saying well we gotta head off into the you know horse stables and get some horse manure discs we went down to a rental yard got a trailer and went to a horse stables and load up manure and came home and spread out in the garden spaded in and his kids we wore shovels out spading in heavy clay ground you know mixing soil and having a garden it was wonderful growing up because there's ever any time we were hungry we could go outside and take fresh vegetables and fruit all the time and just sat down in california's nothing you couldn't grow so it's just we had it all year long so it's really great and so as I started to you know grow up and I got married and I had some children and I decided you know Los Angeles is no longer place fit for human habitation as far as I was getting really crowded and in smoggy and just not safe and so I thought I want to go move to a place where I can continue to do this and grow fresh food for my family have clean water clean air so they came up here to the peninsula Washington we have a beautiful place but we built a house and we faced a real challenge we um drilled a well with 213 feet and got half a gallon a minute and if you're doing the math and thinking about that that's not enough water to a garden I'll never forget as long as it was August 1979 you know was a great year to build a house didn't rain all summer but we're in August eldest grass was totally dead the road coming in was all deaths I'm looking at that same God how am I gonna go through to that water and it was so incredible I hear inside Isis we're looking at the wrong thing turn around look at your trees and I pushed enough out when I built the house I knew they had shallow roots this is you know God you really have my attention if you couldn't show me how you do these without irrigation I can do an orchard so I went out to the woods of the fork and I started moving this material underneath the trees and I was totally amazed this beautiful soft black damp incredible compost when I saw that I says well I can do this this this makes sense why started planting the trees out there and at that time I had you know straw and sheep and or not using wood chips and it's been amazing this work has been here 31 years now it's never been watered or fertilizer once it goes through droughts or whatever and it's just every year gets better I said it was doing this orchard experiencing these incredible results because I was a creature of habit and because our nature is to do things as were taught and not to inquire from goddess is okay god thanks for the help but I can handle some my own and so for I think probably seventeen years I was out here diligently rototilling hauling in organic material you can see a place over here my major rock pile this is my altar this is where all the rocks that came out my garden over here and I'm just doing this stuff and I'm feeling out I'm on this treadmill just running in place going nowhere feeling like I'm gonna keep up with this you know every spring the ground is totally muddy and wet when I tilt it it turned to weeds in five to seven days solid green with weeds I planted plant things three feet apart so I can rototill with it you know do the weeding with the tiller and it was just labor-intensive and one day I got out my orchard I don't know what motivated me I got on my knees and I started moving these wood chips and I'm down to my elbow this beautiful black compost and I got up and started screaming I was so angry I said there's something wrong with this picture I have been killing myself to get this in my garden I don't have it I didn't do anything here and I hear inside what works gonna get garden the same way he didn't ask I was so angry I threw that told her away I started covering my garden with woodchips I always say people the greatest gift gotta get was that lousy well because it opened me up to him and to showed me his incredible you know working creation been a gardener for 55 years have been tilling done all that stuff and it's so amazing that my little tools a rake and it's just so easy and so simple and the production is so superior to what ever had [Music] ever tired of searching oh there's gotta be a better way your hands up and break [Music] now I'm ready to trust you [Music] with me [Music] to Eden [Music] tewi edan freedom your burden in life tell me to lean on you the rest my light [Music] Eton is the place of freedom [Music] when I saw how easy and simple this was like I says God where do we lose it huh why are we doing this it was so interesting to me right back at Genesis in the beginning and if you look at the in the in the beginning when Adam Eve were in the garden they had this beautiful relaxing day in the garden and every afternoon even God would come down and walk with him through the garden and I'm sure as he walked through the garden he would just share with him things they saw in the garden that day about himself did you notice this this is my character this is all about being kind of thing I'm sure they just had this incredible time I totally relaxed no stress every day but when man sinned scripture said things are gonna change and the wording is by the sweat of your brow you're gonna raise food thistles and thorns and weeds are gonna be with you and the next verse says and man began to till the soil you see man never cultivated in the garden he tended the garden but he never disturbed the ground and when man got disconnected from God he began to till the soil the whole issue is so very simple it's all about cover nowhere in nature where man has not been do you ever see exposed dirt that only happens when man comes and takes the cover everywhere in nature man is not been is either covered with needles and leaves or grasses but the ground is covered and the reason is because the ground is a living organism and as all living organisms such as ourselves we have skin to protect us the animals have fur fish have scales birds have feathers and the soil is a living organism and God has designed it and made it so it's always covered with something when you take the cover off it becomes vulnerable and it gets lost this is the thing that amazes me about us as intelligent human beings how we don't see it because we've been experiencing it for thousands of years in a negative way we're all around us all through creation everything's just growing beautifully with no work and we aren't you know we work hard to fail when we came to the Midwest here 200 years ago there was 8 to 12 feet of beautiful topsoil I mean gorgeous stuff and if you ever fall across the Midwest you look down to ground it's almost scary it's this parched cracked hard totally decimals it looks like desert there's native topsoil today because it's all blowing and washed away and there's so cultivating this is not working and we're losing topsoil and topsoil in nature it takes 100 years to build an inch of topsoil I mean it is criminal and incredibly devastating what we've done to the planet soil conservation people in the Midwest will tell you that it's okay to lose around four tons of soil per acre per year I don't believe I may be wrong I don't believe that soil is forming at the rate of four tons per acre per year when the soil erodes the organic matter erodes and all the nutrients that were in the soil erode and that's just gone it's just a resource that isn't there anymore I found that if I try to help nature at any level I mess it up my approach to knowledge is to look what it does and says talk to me show me what you're doing because I want to copy it because it does it the best I have two properties that I'm doing this on one this one here the ground is clay and rock would be impossible to farm would be considered from the agriculture point of view is marginal soil the other place I have is 80 percent rock told the gravel pit you couldn't possibly tell it you couldn't possibly cultivate it and on both of those places I'm experiencing the most incredible beautiful gardens I love that scripture says as we behold the Lord we're being changed from glory to glory and I find that anything that comes in contact with God gets changed including clay and rock and rock it's just so awesome to take people in and take him back and show my incredible ground he came break with a pick and walk on this stuff it's totally buoyant everything is just growing great you know and I didn't do anything I just put the cover down and God does it all whatever organic natural thing you have at your disposal it will work and I've used everything from straw grass clippings leaves animal manures rocks but having used them all I come back to wood chips and I see where it's been for a while what it's done it is my favorite it's just is a nice nicest thing to use first so when I speak of wood chips I want to delineate between wood chips and other things that people put in the same category such as bark or or shavings or sawdust wood chips well I say which I'm referring to two branches have been chipped branches of trees wood about 90% needles and leaves has gone through a chip or a tub grinder you want to go to get it from the source you know either good tree service or someplace that has a good amount of it and um because the bags is too small or too expensive if you live in an area where you have local tree services people there trimming trees are taking them down I always get in the phone book and look for those kind of people and and then that's be a great source in most cases to them it's something they've got to get rid of and so they're looking for places to get rid of it so it shouldn't be a problem yes this whole area just fill this packet in tight as much as you much as you can bring man I'll use it in the local area here we remove hazard trees and trimming and view removals and different things to enhance views and so this is a byproduct of that operation we've dumped chips here for fall for a lot of years twelve okay twelve years in Paul's case this is so handy for us because the location it actually saves us time so we give it to Paul it's handy for us to get rid of the material so it's getting more and more common for people to call us wanting chips the thing about mulch is pretty much in every municipality there's mulch available because someone's chopping a tree down some it's cutting trees somebody shredding leaves if we can try and get things that are close as possible to us maybe it's your neighbor that's chipping up a tree next door then that's the best product for you I you know I'm an arborist I prune trees for living a night and for me it's an art form and I'm so thankful to be able to do it because it's a gift that I have and this is something that's just so pleasing and so pleasurable you know it's interesting that the searcher talks about pruning there in John 15 Jesus is right saying that I am the vine you are the branches my father is the husband then he said well he maintains and cares for it all and goes on to say that he proves that tree is for what purpose so they'll bear more fruit and I love these these things about God because there's so much bigger than I when I try to figure that out it makes no sense if I'm cutting a tree taking branches off it would make sense to me from a mathematical point of view I'm reducing his capacity to bear fruit but God is saying he prunes so it'll be bear more fruit and it's just this incredible beautiful illustration of God how his whole principles is in giving you receive and so with the tree when when you're taking the stuff out of it and it's giving of itself that process develops it and strengthens it and encourages it produced more fruit and in my experience I totally see it people will come to my orchard here you know I'm this time of year and you can't even walk through and they'll come after I've written this in the in January this is what happened to your tree is there naked I mean what'd you do to missus we'll come back in September they won't touching you know and I'm just basically you know making room from the fill-in you know and they just produce so heavily every year that's amazing how much comes out but they come right back and and produce tremendously and I'm finding I always tell people if you want to treat a girl the most similar thing you can do to it is cut it cutting it will will way surpass fertilizing watering anything else nothing compares to the effect of pruning every time I prune I've got all these nice always good branches to chip up and put back and every year it happens over again and it's just it's endless and it's totally free provided by God missus again it's such a beautiful picture of his character my name is Steve Johnson I run what's called the lazy Jay tree farm most of the farmers in Christmas trees fruit orchards vegetable operation and and then the compost facility here I only do yard waste through my facility normal yard waste that comes in as long as you've got fairly good green coming in walk with yard waste has the right carbon nitrogen ratio to compost properly I ran a chipper for years and you have to pick up the material and put it into the chipper and I'll that's just too much labor and energy for what you get out of it and so the top grinder is really a good way to put the material through fast and you never handle it by hand [Music] [Music] [Music] it takes a lot takes a lot of material to farm with it [Applause] [Applause] you are so interesting about this track with me I came across this revelation of the day these wood chips when the wind blows don't move they stay there and they're lighter than dirt exactly you track with that that's bigger than me and I love it it's nature it's so awesome how the Creator design is I mean there's no telling there's no thinking there's no that was that this is the only tool I need mm-hmm my roses love it everything well I just went to the place where they make all this good compost I've got a nice load of it last time I put this here is about three years ago and I think with this application of Holly gold maybe four or five years I'm finding that the stuff is like compounding interest it games and timing and you have to put less and less down the time goes on look I believe this love the color of them so succulent and healthy they are the two words I want you to think about when you come here sustainable permaculture everything you see here was created in nature for free and it's renewable it was for liberty Christ came to set us free everything about God is free and sets free and I love that about his character and it's so beautifully just you know exemplified and shown in nature this is just so freeing and and I love that search where he says come to me all who labor and are heavy-laden and I'll give you rest now you have to ask the question why do we labor and why are we heavy laden it's because of the fall he says take my yoke upon you and we'll use the yolk for that's we attach the oxen or the animals to some device to cultivate the ground and Jesus I don't do things like you follow me around and learn for me my yoke is easy and my burden is light and in this incredible environment this thing that God has created he shows his magnanimous awesome giving generous nature and it is so beautiful in comparison - the man approach of tilling and putting back and constantly being on a treadmill running never getting on top of it all these woodchips just sit here I don't do a thing anytime I choose to plant put a seat until they thrives if I don't use it it just waits for me and and develops you know Richard Richard qualities and in the meantime it doesn't go away it doesn't turn to weeds and it just stays or conversely anything that I do if I don't stay right on it maintain it I lose it you know that I think I'm a slave to it and again it's just this incredible quality of God is just setting us free what I find quite interesting is that the issues we have in agriculture and I'll just list them soil preparation fertilization irrigation weed control pest issues crop rotation pH issues none of those issues exist in nature and what I'm finding at my place none of them exist here either and I feel just so thankful to be set free from that well preparation when you put the woodchips down they never compact they're always soft every year I come out to my garden all I need is my rake and just grade it out make a little move and plant my seeds because the air is always present because it never compacts never have prepared you come to a place where you've got you know we've garden in your garden at the end of the year is all hard again so you're bringing this really nice organic material fertile lot you know manures whatever you know you till them you got this really fluffy nice areata but you're anything you're so happy all what a nice garden you get out into your rake and you plant your pluck comes up as the year progresses and even in the growing season that ground is right back to where you start it's all compacted and hard again and here's what happens I use the example of a fire today to get a fire to go you have to have three ingredients ignition fuel and oxygen in the soil nitrogen is always present that's the igniter when you bring in raw material the fuel and to get it there air follows it all burns up you don't see smoke but it all burns up there's a number of different ways to use a material if you take the raw grindings and mix it in with your soil it'll Rob all the nitrogen out of the soil to rot the wood rot the material so you don't really want to do that so I tilled in these beautiful potato-chip wood colored orange woodchips into my garden last spring and I wasn't too successful my soil test says that I'm way down in nitrogen because I tailed those wood chips in I tied up all the nitrogen in my soil but now I know you never till this stuff you just add to it which was the mistake I made so by getting the faith back and going back to what Paul is talking about me I think this is gonna work because it just is simpler right basically what Suellen needs to survive is the same as uh Andy there needs water and needs food it's a basic principle for all life and so when you take mulch for example which is true in the forest because there's not just one grade like someone didn't go through and sift it and it wasn't always all coarse material or it wasn't all fine material there's all what they have like macro pores so there's all these different air pockets through the soil and so what that does is it keeps the top part of the soil and even further down oxygenate it and so there's that auctions and available the microbes and the earthworms come up into the soil and then they can they can actually deal with that material and break it down normally when people think about mulch they might think about what they call bark nuggets which are just big chunks it has to have different sizes of actual material you have to have small grades you got to have things like needles you got to have things like chips you can't have just one standardized size and expect that to do the same as well I mean if we look at what Paul's got here and I dig down there's probably I don't know how many different sizes of chips all the way down to what the finished product is which is soil or organic material to the point where it's I mean that's what you're going for now if I took and I multiplied this by a couple hundred times and that's what I was using it would break now but it would take a lot longer and the ability right away for it to help out diminishes I started off with alder wood chips which are kind of big potato chip sized chunks of wood this has been here a year and it still it hasn't broken down yet so I don't think this is what Paul is talking about it would have taken too long to break down and the other main thing that they're finding with a lot of different trees grasses plants vegetables compaction levels a true healthy soil is not compacted and when it does get compacted it loses the oxygen like those macropores we were talking about and you get an area where it becomes what they call anaerobic which means the oxygen levels too low for the microorganisms to live we're dealing as I said earlier with compaction here on our farm and certainly were growing root crops to help alleviate that problem what we're also doing is adding wood chips on top knowing that they're gonna break down slowly over time create fines and also work into this compacted soil so it's kind of like a passive tilling almost that's occurring which is a really exciting prospect to think that we don't we don't need the heavy machinery or you know the heavy disturbance we can just keep adding you know it'll work itself out I have used the raw grain deeds and there's a number of people that do this is just keep it on the surface you're basically sheet composting and it's a more of a mulch than a than an additive to your soil I have a tendency to compost between ten months and a year the compost itself once it's composted and then it's a screen material you can use that several different ways you can plant straight in it which is there's a lot of people to do that or you can just leave it at on the surface as a mulch compost is does a lot of wonderful things besides just nutrient benefits in your soil worms and beneficial fungus that's in there you'll just see the plants just just love it [Music] fertilization because the compost material over time it rains are you water compost heaves being deposited into the soil so you have a constant input of fertilization going on it's not having a fertilize feature to me is just so amazing and such an incredible gift in this kind of stuff and last year I had such an incredible experience a real rep Latorre time I planted a roll of spinach in the spring and it came up really nice and we enjoyed it and I pulled it out and plant another one it came up the next one came up bigger nicer the one before and then I was getting ready to pull it off and one of my neighbors was talking about this Black's black Spanish radish it was so good so I planted that for her and that came up and she couldn't believe the size and how beautiful that was but I'm looking at this and I'm just contemplating what's going on it says not God talk to me every time I planted in the same row this year each one was bigger a nice little before and I didn't fertilize this is so opposite of what my experience is in gardening whenever I plant something something was taken out and put something back and her in putting nothing back and each planting is bigger and nicer one before you know and I hear him say tune the solar crowd was in Romans 1 says the invisible attributes of God are clearly seen by the things he's made so that no one has an excuse not to know God and so I started taking it in this is about God what invisible attribute are you showing me here he took me to Philippians where it says in my God shall supply all your need not from his riches but according to his riches in Christ Jesus and what he's saying there is that when he gives he makes no deduction he makes no withdrawal he is the same and he says this compost is illustrating and that quality of my character it gives and it gives and it gives and there's no withdrawal there's no negative it just continually gives and that's who I am these leaves are falling down and the idea is they're doing their feeding the soil back so they're done so at this state the chlorophyll is going out of them because they're going dormant they're going to drop these leaves that still have nutrients the reason they're changing color is that green chlorophyll is gone the pigment they drop down in and their feed in that soil and their mulching it by their own I mean we're not coming over here and taking the leaves off at mulching below them and if we go over here or we go out in the floret they're doing the same thing so I mean they've been developed over these eons to do it and so I mean why question them obviously that's what that wants to happen and when you go out and look someone might say well that's not true with grasses you go out and do a grass field let's say the Prairie of the middle but the Midwest there was grasses that were over my head but underneath it was mulch from the grass you know I mean it wasn't just green living grass with nothing out there was mulch to all those blades of grass that broken-down fed the grass there's nobody that goes out there and fertilizes that I mean that's the thing that people I said well you gotta have fertilize you have to fertilize or I mean where if there is no out you're not taking it away you know it's all going back that animals were eating the grass and was still going back so if you can recreate that in the garden it's the same exact thing the leaves come out they do their purpose they go back into the soil it's really simplistic and sometimes the most simplistic things are what people don't like to accept as being the answer whenever you buy fertilizers will be three numbers or three things that they they're analyzing the fertilizer its nitrogen phosphorus and potassium nitrogen what is what gives the green that good vigorous growth the phosphorus is what creates the budding and the flowers and the fruit production and left and the potassium is what gives hardiness and and health and strength to resist disease and all those things are important to be in the soil for the health of the plant chemical fertilizers even though they have the numbers that say they're adequate and these features do not have minerals and so the plants that are growing without minerals don't have those in them so they don't have the nutrient qualities that plants to grow an organic soil to minerals simply aren't there in the soil anymore and so it'll take up what it can get but but it isn't there to be gotten and so and so you end up with a with a fruit or a vegetable or whatever it is that simply isn't as nutritious as it as it once one was when we had more fertile soils just the tork started calcium magnesium potassium iodine those kinds of things the things that aren't fertilized typically you know if as 30 40 percent reduction in what they were getting 50 years ago that's that's pretty alarming which is one helps explain why food doesn't taste as good as it used to it isn't as good as it used it's not as nutritious I always go to that scripture where God says it's good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth God's saying upfront if you're gonna have anything of value got to work for it it says if you if you do it the right way you want to do it early on do the work upfront and if you've done it right over time it'll produce for you this is what I think is so neat about the wood chips in God's Way you see when I came on chemical fertilizers I told the farmer you're gonna have this immediate lush growth and now and they were right but they didn't tell you down the road using these chemical fertilizers that every year you had to use more and more to get the same effect and your ground eventually became sterile when you use the organic approach upfront it's kind of a lot of work to bring in those wood chips because you know it's you got to cover the ground it takes a lot of cover but over time what I found at my place is that you start having this incredible gain um initially put a lot down and you have to you know in a few years you got to put it back again but I'm finding that each time I put a layer on it's a lot longer before I have to do it again because I had this incredible base field and select you have a foundation that's just growing you know getting you know better and better so over time you're getting a higher and higher yield with less and less input which is how it should be because you get older you have less energy and you want to get return for your effort and that's God's Way that's how he how he is I love that scripture in this it says this is do not despise the days of small beginnings you know they're just encouraged to be patient nothing happens of any value quickly things that are value a take time and the beauty of this process is that is that it as time goes on it just becomes more and more valuable so you know if you don't expect miracles at first because it's just take a little bit of time and as you plant things you feel they're not doing as well as you'd like then you can use fertilizers to supplement eventually you won't have to but initially you might and that's okay you use many anyway before this so you can do use them now good organic manures if they're clean or work well but as as it goes you'll find that you won't need to use those fertilizers and you really have an investment that cannot be compared to what the recipe of we're doing in dirt you got horses you get horse manure that's a given not too many constants in life but that's one of them you got to get rid of it okay so what do you do we claim this dollars we take it out we dump it in a pile people want to use it for mulch it has to be kind of a superior product so what we do is we feed Eastern Washington hey it's professionally grown and there's no weeds in it and that's really important because weeds the weed seeds will go from hay will go through a horse's body unhatched undeveloped and come out and you'll get wheat we use fern hemlock shavings so they decompose very rapid as opposed to using cedar which decomposes or doesn't you know very slow and it's so simple even I can do it you just make a pile and then I don't haul anything unless it's at least six months to a year old and our garden up here our experience has been you can plant right in it you know because it's chips and dissolved as well as a manure and so on so we had really good luck that way it would not be good in the garden without being decomposed with something else you know that's a common complaint if you use straight horse manure I'll go get some and show you a sample of it you can see how there's no manure in there it's all decomposed and this is this is gradually rot decomposing off so the same way and as you use it you'll notice that each year the soil gets better you know especially if you like Paul was saying where you putting down a ground-up wood chips type thing and then cover with it it makes a sustainable program it's a it's a recyclable thing and then you of course the vegetables or the or the flowers or whatever you have grow they die for Sprint winter you put more on they couldn't it's just a it's a circle type thing yeah yeah that makes you feel kind of good because eka logically it's pretty darn sound you know our culture is so wasteful and so most people they will get rid of these to get rid of this woodchip stuff get rid of it you you takes to the cut stuff in your yard so one of the things you probably know about Paul now is that any any waste out of his garden goes over into the chicken coop they're in the chicken pan and then they eat it and munch it around and then who and then they he brings that back over here ingress isn't what I think one of the most beneficial parts of a garden is to have chickens around because the eggs are great but you see they deal with all your waste all of your yard waste the expired stuff in the garden my grass clippings any weeds all come to the chickens and those are really nice organic products for them and they eat and whatever they leave over turns into what we're gonna be exposing here in a minute they're out here all day long just kicking you can see all these little grooves in here where they've been digging in and they're excavating their consulate picking seeds out any bug you can I think so they're always very working this material and you're gonna see shortly I'll tell you this is I've never seen pampas so nice this almost is approached this almost approaches topsoil such beautiful stuff anyway I'll just show you how easy to set to get [Music] you can just see what beautiful stuff is I look at this just won't compact I mean this is the ultimate topsoil this all this good compost from my yard waste I always say that my um my chickens are my soil manufacturing plant the eggs are just a bonus [Applause] [Music] quick somewhere down there there's a soil and that's good you know presumably the soil has been protected and in the meantime has been breaking down and getting a little bit richer with time but this mulch that is on top is basically organic matter and that's one of the things that we're losing out of our soils around the United States is organic matter organic matter is wonderful it's a it holds the moisture up there it's like a sponge it just holds it there and it just sits there the plant can stick a little root here in the water and it sucks it's just like a straw about this big around you know it just comes up real easy and and plus being in contact with that organic matter it's got plenty of minerals plenty of nutrients lots of nitrogen and all that sort of thing it's quite interesting people always asking well why don't your soils like they tested this well I've never tested it I've already seen where I came from it's getting so much better than I've just been really happy with my results but this is really neat to disc tested things we were actually able to see that all this stuff in the soil completely is over the top as far as you know nitrogen phosphorus potassium which is what the plants have always indicated which is nice to see that scientifically this you know meets the criteria it's what it looks like every year in the same place I get a higher and better yield because the compost is being deposited into the soil via rain and water as a compost tea and it's just like that the soil is the bank and it's a rule descriptive like compound interest just gets better and better and better and the beauty is I do nothing irrigation well the rain does great as it doesn't everything out there nature does everything with grain and so it is here now in the summertime when I'm planting seeds out my garden because it's dry on top I'll water initially to get them up once they're up I stopped watering when you go to plant as you pull them aside if they're not wet you want to water because you you know seeds they have to have damp ground up just to sprout in and so this you know whatever status in when you go to plant will indicate whether you need to water now irrigation is isn't is a big issue these days especially with places where there's not much water or places when there's too much although we're in Washington the Evergreen State you know it's known for having lots of water here in the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains we're getting about 16 to 18 inches of rain a year which is very dry and of course that dry season is is the growing season as well and so you know the importance of efficient water use is just you know at a maximum there are a lot of problems in the irrigation one is that one is that it's a lot cheaper or easier it's a lot easier just to waste water spray the water through the air or dump too much water on the ground and and it'll infiltration it'll sort of disappear and so you're not bothered by it but I think the last thing I heard was that irrigation on the whole is something like 50 percent efficient it's you know about 50 percent of water is getting into crops and and now that water is getting scarce and we're running out of water and the number of places around the world where actually the North China Plain for example lots and lots of those farmers are going out of business every year the idea that we can use wood chips and reduce our water use by 95 to 99 percent is just really exciting that's something that my friend Paul is has proven over the years and something that we're we're doing here as well now even in the short time we've certainly seen water holding capacity and growth attributable to you know the fact that we've heavily mulched you know a lot of our plants you see how it's damp down in here and sees these tomatoes have never been watered and yet won't be watered all summer you can drive a truck on it compact and it just gets better and better and better your have some these tomatoes are starting to get ripe this is what I get so blessed by look at this look how damp this is and this is August and it's gonna stay this way it'll never dry out this is right off the water we're in dirt you won't experience this it's gonna be compacted on top you dig down this dry look at this beautiful material you know I find it's you know quite interesting in my experience you know I'm I have a place here that I have a pond and and I'm I plant my potatoes on there because I'd like to be watered and I find that things around there grows so much better than they do when I water with from the top and I'm realizing that that the in the beginning before the before the flood came there was no rain everything was water with your with water coming up from the ground as a Miss and that is the ideal weight of water it's the ideal I think that um in Psalm 2 talks about a tree that's planted by the rivers of water it brings forth fruit in its season leaf also shall not wither and whatever does shall prosper you ever go along riverbeds or stream beds you see the plants alongside the trees are just huge and lush and just gorgeous and that's the ideal weight of water is to have sub irrigation water coming up underneath and and I think that's so interesting you know in the in the in nature you know the ground it maintains and holds that water so it's always there it's always available to plants on a continuous basis because of the capacity to hold it you know and then watering from the top is so counterproductive in a garden situation because that's just you know not as effective as you know some sub irrigation or the or material that holds water so you don't you just live off the rain the rainwater is a superior water ground water never compares to the benefit of get rain water and if you ever done a garden you see after it rains everything just grows great nothing like when you water neo-soul if you can live on that that's the best you'll find with woodchips the incredible advantages there's no sponge I'll hold water liquid chips I'm amazed that the water holds and for example we live in a place we're just setting that miles down the road as a rain for us it gets 15 feet I'm not saying inches 15 feet of rain water a year you know you walk in the woods before there's no water in your feet isn't it's not spongy it's not that it's damp but it's not soggy and it's amazing those wood chips totally absorb that kind of water quantity another thing that's amazing about wood chips is when there's not enough like it's like it's nothing look at my grass out in the front it's all brown but in the wood chips my orchard it maintains a moisture and here's an incredible thing about God in his design when there's too much water the wood chips displace it and when it's not enough it retains it at that point I have to check out because that's too big for me the idea is with something like what Paul's got going here is you're creating a layer over the soil that can act as almost like a blanket for the soil so that the moisture level and the soil is staying up to the levels it should be if this was blank and there was no mulch nine-ten there's a lot of runoff I mean there's water just normal rain is taking any nutrients that are above and either leaching them away or leaching them down into the soil where this mulch when the rains hitting it it's stopping right there it's slowly working into the soil the microbes and everything the bacteria the earthworms everything that's living under that is protected and then they are slowly decomposing that mulch down into the soil which is the food for the plants you know water is such an important thing we couldn't live without it you know and I think it's quite interesting the ratio and and how it is on the earth 7 5% of the earth is water our bodies have seven high percent water and what I'm finding in my produce and fruit it's 75 percent water and I'm seeing a real connection here and a real balance it was interesting in in plants that are growing in dirt that are irrigated with water they don't have that water content and I've discovered the reason as it we see in dirt because it's compacted and hard roots can't develop like they would like to and so they're pretty compacted and not very spread out but in this environment we there's so much air in the ground it's so porous the roots just spread everywhere and because you have this very large root system it's able to take up all this water I've always said if the amount of water in the ground has nothing to do with what's going into the plant because you could have you know heavy clay ground which is what I have here and I could be watering all day and it's not gonna go on the plant because the ground still compacted there's no root system but in this stuff because the ground is so porous I don't need the water at all because the roots are everywhere drawings it's a wide area they're taking up such a huge amount of water so it doesn't matter about you know how much water's intagram is because their capacity to take up and that's what's so key that's why this finds is such a pleasure but anything I pick you break it off or you bite it and just juice and water just flows out of it you know and that's how it's supposed to be that's really the design and it's just so important for us to be hydrated with our food and to be getting enough water and that's and like I say this stuff you buy in the store this doesn't have that water content oh no it's like I can't even describe it it explodes in your mouth that's it to me you know but everything you suit and see all the water in that it's all about roots you know you got a wire two or three times a week depending on what the temperature is what your soil is and sometimes more if you have sandy soil and Paul never waters never waters it's you know just if you go out there it just blows your mind just you see because the compost holds the water so well on the ground I don't need to irrigate and because I'm not irrigating it just stays totally weed free because when the leaf sees blows in on top of these dry wood chips on the top then you can't germinate and the other nice features when you go to pick vegetables it's not muddy it's not got dirt all over it's totally clean because I wasn't watering and when you walk on it it's nice and dry there's no mud it's just such an incredible benefit not having to irrigate continuously and they notice like we've got started getting some rains all of a sudden zuv the leaves started popping up in places so you see those seeds were here all summer but now they're starting to rain they're gonna come up you know let's take my rake and rake in about it's not a problem they don't have a lot of you know a huge amount and they're very easy to control but it makes such a difference when you don't have to irrigate continuously as far as your eating issues weeds well I have weeds that we've always happened but because the ground is so poor soft and nice I can stick my rake and just drag the rake through and up roots all the weeds or if I have to pull them they pull out really easy it's kind of fun pulling here because it's just I enjoy seeing the great root systems and how nice everything does so it's great I call them salad green for my chickens because they just love it you know this is good organic green some weeds aren't a problem we're in other soils when it's got compacted yeah that really work to get those roots out this stuff days come right out so it's much much easier we I didn't say the weeds come up really good - you have weeds it just it's easy to weed easy to pull the weeds in this once you have a lot of this material super easy to pull these things out it makes your weeding a whole lot easier than what you used to yeah look at all those roots - I'm used to things just breaking right off it's amazing we revolutionize weeding your garden great look at that room so it just makes it such a difference when you I used to get down at the pull weeds and you have to get a tool to get underneath to get the root because they break off the blade go straight down next to anyone and I just simply pull back that no I got pretty much all of it when I used to till this it was just solid weeds blows my mind because just like this is the same space so the same way the same seeds are blowing across here because of the cover I don't have the issue this is one of the reasons why organic food is so expensive because of the incredible labor-intensive weeding operation they have to you know get down and pull as we use it because I can't use herbicides this is a beet bed and highly intensive labor to weed it just to pick out the weeds and thin them because they're all weeds out here we take about four hours per bed three foot by 30-foot carrot or beet bed take about approximately four hours to read I was 4 years in God's face trying to figure out what weeds are all about is what I says how come I have weeds here I've done my best to get on your how come they're here he came back so fast almost scared me since they're not your weeds they blew in for your neighbors that are cultivating they're creating weeds and the seed blew into your place and you'll always have that as long as they do this kind of a thing you know and I love that scripture we're how it says that all of nature groans and travails waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God you see they know we're disconnected and they're trying they're groaning and travailing trying to save the earth because we're just totally disrupting it and and losing it all and I think the answer so beautifully described there in in first John 3 where it says beloved now we are sons of God but it does not appear we shall be but we know that when he appears we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is and everyone who has this hope in himself purifies himself as he is pure I think that's so key because nature is waiting for that day we'll be all like Jesus will get reconnected with God and began taking care of the earth as he intended us to you know occasionally pests will come in nature will defoliate a few trees every now and then but not serious enough that that causes any great losses and nature always overcomes I think if you follow organic principles you're less it's very rarely that you your insect population your negative insect population gets out of control and of course if you can doesn't matter if you spray organically you're still gonna kill beneficials and so beneficial insects so it's it's best to just deal with whatever damage you have in move on George Washington Carver he would ask him how did how to deal with a disease in their tree he would say you don't want to deal with a disease you want to get the tree in good health and vigor and it'll take out their disease I think that's such a a true statement and it's so true about everything and if you'll get a real healthy plant as I have here I don't have any insect problems of a bug bites into my plant he drowns because there's so much water there he just is infused with it and he wants cellulose and fiber so he goes somewhere else to find us stressed you know what I'm dehydrated plan to eat him because he can't either in Miami because it's too much water so if you have a healthy vigorous plant insects not a problem as plants became a weaker because of chemical fertilizers insects began to be very overpowering and would take out huge amounts of planets and so they can't step up to the plate and created insecticides or they didn't take into account was that the Creator designed everything in nature to be overcoming and as these insecticides would come in contact with these insects they would mutate and and developed opposition to it and the next generation those insecticides didn't affect and so it's not a problem so they have to keep improving and strengthening the insecticides what's that has progressed to today is it not the insecticides are so powerful so potent they're killing the plants and so what they've done to solve that problem is now they're using genetically modified organs where they're changing the DNA of the plant and putting the insecticide into the plant I don't know what you know if you're following this but this is not going to end and and if you just you know this amazes me how people you know think these days if if something is in the plant is in the kill insects it certainly can't be beneficial for my body we have to decide if it's acceptable to take any one piece of the puzzle out and it'll work like GMO crops that's my perfect analogy for that you can't take a DNA strand and start pulling pieces out and putting in different chromosomes and expect for that to achieve just one thing oh it's just going to make it resistant to Roundup well guess what when you do that it changed something on the other side it's like a bubble pressing in the bubble it distorts somewhere else so down the road I mean and so I guess what I'm going back to is we have to keep thinking of a holistic approach on any of this you can't just take one piece out and think it's gonna be okay and the mulching idea is just adding something back somewhere you usually learn article that really was got my attention in Japan the typical consumer would go to the store the produce market and pay thirty to fifty percent more with four vegetables with bug bites and the rationale wasn't this food is safe to eat the stuff without bug bites is so poisonous the bug would need it and they're right this is what's so pathetic about our culture we're so cosmically orientated we see a little bug by a little will to the ho it'll touch that that's not good we want this to look pretty good looking stuff we don't realize that those things are all part of nature they happen and you can cut around or you can get rid of it that you know to be so put off by a bug bite and then to create food that's so poisonous so the bugs won't eat and then you eat it is not very smart and not very good for our health my name is Edith and I think living here scream now for 21 year 22 years this is the the most beautiful place so far because you have always that fresh air scream you know and then the mild winter of course the mild winter is also bringing along all the little pests that bother us you know but Paul has found through them mulching you have much less problems with the insect well the thing about pesticides is it you know whenever you use a pesticide whether it's organic or inorganic you're killing a good insects as well as bad for instance when you have a fits the ladybugs coming right after to control them and so my feeling is that I want to kill them I don't want to kill bees and so I'll just live with the past you know for that period of time and it's not a problem prop rotation if you look at nature plants go to seed and the seeds fall on the ground and they do it every year decade after decade since check retention is not a problem but when you've cultivating you have exposed ground you've got to move crops from because ships you'll have disease issues and problems you know I think I got the classic example down here at my pond area was nice a good low wet spot I haven't grown potatoes now sixteen years they're all in the same place and they come out nice and clean every year today we're gonna harvest the potatoes and that's one of my favorite fun things to do because it's such a pleasant you know surface to be on potatoes come out so clean and nice and it's just it's just fun you know and as I'm harvesting I'll also plant and my harvest compliant thing is all done at the same time and it makes it so simple and easy this is wood shavings and horse manure mixed together and it's just guys it's just looked at it is you dig just how beautiful against is yourself this is like you know any any farmer gardener would recognize that this is this is like ultimate gold this is the most beautiful stuff you could ever ever have look at just how soft with my hands I could move it and I just never never compacts it's totally just the best you see that this was last year's seed see how it's hollowed all again inside see the see how much you know well different that looks in that yeah that was a seat I planted last night have you know anything about growing potatoes of you grow potatoes in dirt if you don't rotate them after several years they'll get scabby and that scab will increase to where you can even use a potato this gets so bad but my potatoes down at the pond the girls were here harvesting they're all clean and beautiful no scab and I love it it just makes it so convenient pH issues you know I have over here at like in my herb garden I've got blueberries which everyone knows is very acid loving plant but right next to that can grow Swiss chard or cucumbers or anything else that's alkalyn and it does well too so here I see again all those things that we work so hard to correct soil preparation fertilization irrigation weed control pest issues crop rotation pH issues the nature is just all beautifully done by itself and so I just enjoy having the convenience and it just makes it so much easier the reason people grow their own food because if it's done traditionally it's just a lot of hard work I mean you become a slave I always tell people when you do a garden if you don't stay on top of it turns to weeds and you lose it it's something that requires all your undivided attention so it's very labor intensive and people don't have the time or the energy of the desire to be so tied into something because it's just supposed to be where this is just so opposite it makes it so simple this is why I still want to get this out because you know in the past it's been so hard and so counterproductive and negative we're in Southern California in the South Bay area of Los Angeles Midtown called Palos Verdes Southern California only gets about 13 inches a year even in a normal rainfall year and we've had drought for the last four or five years what we've tried to do is is find interesting California native plants and plant them around the garden as much as possible and then more recently vegetables and see how they do in this area we've basically taken the existing soil which is pretty dry a mixture of Adobe and clay and a little rock and added mulch as much as we can to make it richer certainly we hope that plants will grow more healthily and more readily with less water and so that's kind of an experiment this is actually soil that we've worked a little bit but has lots of hard particles and doesn't work very well for plant roots so definitely getting it more moist and adding some compost on a regular basis is important in Southern California it doesn't get terrifically cold in the winter but it can get quite hot in summer and it's definitely a way to hold in the humidity and to keep the soil from drying out so much during the hot months just recently we learned about a source of covering through the Los Angeles sanitation department they were taking the green recycled clippings and yard waste and those kinds of things and grinding it up and making it available at I think six or seven different sites around the LA basin at different times during the week and just come and pick it up so we've done that a couple of times now and getting big barrels full of free mulch is great and we're just adding it to the garden in different places once we got our plants we we used both seeds and seedlings in 4-inch pots we cleared away the woodchips we had laid down on the original soil just in an area big enough to dig the hole into the existing soil then we put the woodchips back once we gotten the plant established in the hole and surrounded the plant right up to the edge of the stem with the wood mulch there's no climate in which using a mulch isn't a good idea it definitely enhances the soil encourages worms and other beneficial insects and discourages the non beneficial insects we've been pleased with the growth of worms in our garden we have lots more worms just in the last six months because we've been also working on getting our own compost going and that's like a worm farm so it's great to add those to the soil easy to do much easier was going to be I work with middle school students and it's a really good compliment to me to go out and just kind of work with plants and be quiet and enjoy watching them grow certainly I feel that most of my students have never had the experience of planting a tree or a plant and they're very disconnected so I think that's part of the the key and the kind of food that most of the middle school students I see eat is heavily processed without much nutritional value so I feel that schools and communities need to look at that seriously as a health problem as a lifestyle problem and deal with it certainly through garden projects it's one way so that people can potentially create it create a small garden if nothing else it's meditative and kind of a deep satisfaction knowing you've grown some of your own food but there's a long-term need for that and Ron was right the connection to the earth business is just completely lost mm-hmm yeah that's pretty so important it's important to re-establish definitely need to get back to the Garden of Eden [Music] hi I'm Diane McCumber hi I'm Hannah McCumber nan mark Lacan Bern we are in Gettysburg Pennsylvania at the back to Eden film demonstration garden when we were asked to maybe help do a demonstration garden we had a slight problem we don't have land we live in town and so we started seeking the Lord and praying we want to be a part of it we want to do it but what do you do if you don't have land and we started the journey the search of asking and it was amazing we had four different people that actually offered his plots of land and one day mark was talking to Jeff Wilson and about we needed land and wood chips we had we needed a provision and we were seeking the Lord and none of the things seemed right there were little glitches with each of them and we kept waiting and listening and it was amazing Jeff said I had learned you can use the churches and that's how we actually got to have the demonstration garden here at a heritage Assembly of God Church when I was talking with Jeff Wilson about he was asking how to do a garden I said well first you need wood chips or a covering and around here there are a lot of wood chips because a lot of tree service companies and a lot of people have trees in the yards and the woods around and the road crews are always cutting the trees for the power line so that's a good source for wood chips and he said well I have a pile of wood chips and I said really maybe we ought to do the garden there he said fine with me so this is where we ended up doing it and he did have a pile of wood chips about two or three years old that they were making a walking path around the property so we got permission and used those wood chips and we laid the garden down getting more wood chips has been a little bit difficult because the tree service companies they're more than happy to deliver them if it's convenient for them and it just so happens that here this site is on the way home of a tree service company so if he's got chips doesn't have another place that wants them if the homeowners don't want them then they drop them off here to lay the garden down the first thing is to go through and dig out all the fizzles and we found even dandelions and goldenrod and things like grapevine can be a problem so if you have those things to dig them out is very helpful and then find a source for some newspaper now we found this source for free newspaper at the local rescue mission gave us all the newspaper that we could that we needed an abundance of newspaper and we laid it out and we were blessed and that it's wetland down there and everything just laid down and that was to kill all the weeds in the grass that was growing underneath in the newspaper we put it down about two to four layers thick and it seems like it really needs to be three or four layers thick and where there wasn't newspaper there were weeds there were weeds coming through and the beauty of it too when we laid the newspaper down Grandma and Grandpa were here and Hannah was here and Sarah and Dana it became a whole community family thing it was of laughter and fun we got a the newspaper down and while somebody held it somebody else would take a wheelbarrow full or back the truck around and just take a fork or a shovel and sprinkle it on the woodchips until we could get get the wood chips on they're heavy enough and once the the light film was on of woodchips then we could put the covering on with four to six inches deep the first year is really best beyond that it's gonna make it difficult for your plants to grow for not being gardeners our first Gardens kind of rather big it's a hundred foot by forty feet and again the Lord just provided a provision for us my bro oh hey what's a cup front-end loader front-end loader and he came and he really helped a lot thanks Steve [Music] your hand [Music] and when Steve started to dig into them with the front-end loaders then the steam just rose it was like a cool morning of the steam coming off a meadow or lake and it was really nice it was beautiful my eyes to the sky [Music] with you [Music] we were really blessed again because um all of our seeds were donated to us from Washington State and that was an amazing gift in October a box came from Washington Paul had given some potatoes for seed and Justin had given us a bag full four times I think of garlic and we immediately in the fall planet the potatoes and the garlic typically it would freeze at the depth that it was planted but the wood chips kept it warmer kept it insulated almost every single one of them came up so yeah it worked when we were planting the garden and and and while things were germinating and coming up it was so exciting to see these plants come up because it's like we are going to have a garden full we're gonna have a a produce department full of feet of harvest yeah we're gonna give give vegetables all over the community and as time went on it was a little bit discouraging because things came up and then they stopped growing and I didn't know why so that's when I put the fertilizer on and they grew a little bit more but then they stopped growing and actually went to seed and the reason for that was because I was we were growing in the woodchips instead of in the soil underneath and we can tell in the places in our garden where the plants the roots actually got into the soil versus state and the woodchips because where they got into the soil the plants did remarkably better it didn't take very long before we realized we needed to do some fertilizing one of the organic materials that's the best for nitrogen and and for fertilization with woodchips is dried blood and so we put a couple of seventeen pound bags on at different times and that did remarkable things for the plants the dried blood worked better than anything for organic nitrogen fertilizer as far as this garden I think what we would have done differently would have been just to put about 4 inches and 4 to 6 inches of woodchips down and then Park the chips and plant in the ground beneath the woodchips and that soil really does get prepared pretty quickly by the woodchips it softens the ground up pretty quickly when I moved the woodchips off in one area I just took my finger and I began to dig and in no time I was down to inches really easily and then in the yard just just off the woodchips I started to try to dig and you know and I was you know really stressing my finger to even break the grass let alone break the soil so it makes it really does make a big difference we have a friend that offered they have half an acre between their house and the neighbor's house that it's just empty there's nothing on it at all all they do is mow it so he offered it if we wanted to have a garden there or anyone else wanted to have a garden there I have wood chips delivered there that that would be a site that we could do so we set up another garden there and the first thing we did of course was check for the thistles and it was has been mowed all along and there were no thistles so we put the paper down then we put about two or three inches of mushroom soil and down on top of the paper and then once the mushroom soil was down we put about three or four inches of woodchips somewhat composted wood chips on top of the mushroom soil and then over that a dusting of less than an inch an inch or less of cow manure that had been composted and then that was that was all that we put on that newspaper and then mushroom soil about three or four inches and then three or four inches of woodchips and then just a dusting of an inch or less of cow manure on top of that and when we got done we felt really good about this garden is done correctly it's got the nutrients it's got the soil that it needs and and then three days later we planted seeds and here it is a week later they've all come up everything is is germinated and we have things growing and so Father's Day best father's day of my life we planted the new garden when we planted in that garden we moved the wood chips out of the way we did not plant in the woodchips we planted in the mushroom soil that had the nutrients and used the woodchips as the covering when you plant in the soil and they get big enough then you side dress them with the woodchips so that's what we'll be doing when they get big enough so it's looking really good it's growing really well something that I think it's too and more about that honestly really is about the garden I think it is to take kids back for a generation I do think away from video games away from TV away from sitting take them back into nature because God does display himself in nature you cannot look at his seed and see the miracle something coming out of it we watched as the beans were coming through the ground and the seed was still on the sides and the little green plant was coming out through the middle and we watched it an amazement and you cannot not not have a lesson about God at that moment for a generation just to see God I mean that's why I believe God started out in these in a garden to eat an organic garden and jaan-e-mann side usually my name is Hannah cover and I'm 9 years old I'm Natalie and I'm 7 years old and we are the kids garden Rancho we've learned that ladybug are actually they eat other bugs and they're good for Gardens well what did you find ladybug what's your favorite bug wise ladybugs your favorite bug because what did they do in the garden whoa there she goes and these are bad for Gardens they eat the leaves what I like about this garden is that whatever you're weaving it's very easy to eat all you have to do is just pull it out and it usually just comes out all the roots and everything and we have friends where they had a garden and it wasn't with woodchips or everything and they tilled the soil and stuff and it was really hard to pull their weeds out you hardly could pulled about at all I think that's cool that I could pull the weeds out really easily I wish that all kids children could learn how to do a bargain and teach their children when they I like coming to the garden I like coming to the garden too I like Terry to the garden as well I think that uh before the future I mean absolutely the health benefits of eating what comes out of the garden that it's going to be immeasurable but also I think that times aren't going to get easier they're going to get harder and I really feel like the Lord has released this now worldwide woodchip gardening in order to be able to provide for people that don't have the ability to do traditional gardening they don't have the equipment maybe they don't have the space they don't have the understanding of how to do traditional gardening and you can just lay down some woodchips this year and if it turns out that it's ten years down the road that you need to be able to grow your own food that you need to be able to grow your own food like in the days of the Great Depression then your garden is ready and I really I really feel like that's a major aspect of the Lord releasing this at this time he's he's released it in enough time for people to get things ready that they need to get ready don't have to be in a panic about it but to be intentional about it and to do it some of the spiritual lessons I think that we learned from doing the garden at least that I learned was that God always speaks to you in the garden it's amazing the dialogue and also being patient the garden I think just teaches that amazingly and to trust the Lord in the fullness of time the fullness of time he brings forth his glory his beauty fun lessons like the seeds to trust even when you're planting them one of the first dialogues I felt like the Lord had with me with the seeds was that they might not all germinate but you still plant and just trust him there was beauty in that for me with even just the spiritual connection with that was we live our lives we just plant and he does the rest I think one of the main things that I've learned from the garden always that you know we really did receive a seed from the Lord about woodchip gardening for the covering and was very excited about it and then wanted to just move on it quickly and having to have patience to wait on his timing as to where it's going to be how it's going to be and then you know things coming up he plants the seeds but the things come forth in his time and he's put the seed in us with this and things have come forth only in his time you can't force it and every time have tried to make something happen like getting woodchips or getting a vehicle or equipment to move the woodchips it just you have to wait on the Lord because it's his time and and he made such an emphasis over that that it became so clear that if you're working too hard you know you've stepped out of his his rest so just let him do it he puts the seed it'll come forth [Music] I always come back to I love that that I'm statement of Jesus coming to me all you who labor and are heavy-laden I'll give you rest take my yoke upon you and come learn of me my yoke is easy my burden is light and I find that if I'm doing something that's stressing me out and getting a lot of work I realize this is not God this is not how he that does thing and I just I just love my harvesting approaches whenever I get around to it I do it if I don't it's alright I have chickens a little users if it's if it's gone too far and the advantage of harvesting when stuff is fresh in season you're getting the ultimate food value I think it's interesting to how and when God's explaining to us how he provides versus is consider the birds of the field it's you know how they don't toil they don't sweat I provide for them are you not of more value than them and then he says seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you and we look at all through nature everything in nature is not pressured not under stress and they eat everything fresh in season it's all there for them and they do wonderful we're us you know the most sophisticated of all the creation stress out and we don't eat good food and we buy all this processed stuff and we're thinking like Jesus trying to get our attention consider them pay attention this is how it's supposed to work and I care a lot more for you and it's just what I think is so sad as it God's made such an incredible provision for us he's given us land is given a seed he's given us you know the Sun the rain it's so easy to grow food and it's so natural is what everybody is always done from the beginning a time until the Industrial Revolution so we need to get back to the original do it right [Music] ever wonder what's this a long game whispering for the thing that you were meant for but you don't know where to start and you hear me I'm listening to you to trust you [Music] you [Music] leading [Music] Eden is the base to freedom to eat eat [Music] Eton is the place to freedom yokas easing your burden is light tell me to lean on you the rest of my life - eating apples the enzymes that cause them to ripen don't happen til seven to ten days before they get ripe so all the apples that you're buying in the store they're picked green and the enzymes aren't there they just don't show up it they look nice they have nice color because they did the nitrogen fix and it it looks good but the enzymes that caused and digests are not present and so when you eat that Apple your body has to go Salvage enzymes somewhere else in the body to digest the thing so instead of this being a nutrition nutritional plus for you it acts as a negative and it's not really good when the Apple falls off the tree it's usually pretty ripe that's what I love about this arrangement the trees are pretty low to the ground the ground is soft when they fall they don't bruise and the other advantages is that you know in harvesting you see when they harvest apples all at once not all apples on this on the same tree or ripe all at once they come out at different times and then some are in more of a shady place so they don't write them as quick so if you pick them all you're gonna get some unripe ones the advantage of coming out at your leisure when they fall off they're always ripe and so you have all the enzymes present the full nutritional about the benefit that was in the apple depending on what it is that you're growing the nutrition comes with the color and that's why you know it's always been you know known to eat a variety of colors and have a rainbow diet and all those kinds of things is because there's different nutrients that are more prevalent with all those different colors but the color doesn't ever come until it's right before it's ready to be picked unfortunately you know the society and the culture that we live in they are picking those things much before that nutrition is there which is why I believe that a lot of the taste is not there the sweetness and the or you know whatever that particular plant is prolific and and I think that's really a big reason why people are not you know big fans of eating vegetables in particular is because of the taste I always say that plants that grow fast are sweet and tender things are grow slow are tough and bitter right so gross stuff out here they grow slow they were tough and bitter now I plant stuff man it's up in a week you know in just three weeks it's just totally huge and beautiful it's just amazing the difference you know I'm not a have been formally educated I don't have a nutritional background but I do have taste buds I notice other people do too when they come to my place I just love to have them sample my food and the response of everybody is that is so sweet and tastes so good this is good these blueberries are really really good and my gut feeling intuitively is that the nutritional value of food is relative to its flavor if it tastes good it is good if it doesn't taste good it's not good and I come back to this good godly we serve God is a good God and he gave all of us a sweet tooth we desire sweet it's just innate he didn't give us that to frustrate us and tells us to be you know put on edge and say you can't have this he gave it to us to satisfy and bless us because he's good and I'm finding but in my garden everything is sweet it is all sweet and it's so pleasing and satisfying and I think I'm just beginning I'm just basically on the edge just approaching how God made food to taste and it's just so wonderful and I just tell you from experience when you eat this I eat this stuff all the time I decided grazing all day long then you just you have this sense of just overall feeling good you have energy you're not stuffed you're not bloated you don't get tired I'm thinking like this is how we're supposed to live this is just right and as a result of eating this live food fresh in season and so I can't you know come from a scientific place to now analyze why this is better than store-bought but I was telling you from how I feel and the flavor and the comments everybody else is courting flavor but I know this is way over the top everything I've been eating is just delicious it's amazing it's packed with flavor it just feels like it's the best food it's so great sweet juicy delicious amazing this is this fennel it's not amazing how sweet it is I mean if you could get that what I have in my yard isn't like that no because look what it's growing young boy its minerals that give flavor to food and all of our soils they are so deficient because of chemical fertilizers because of erosion yeah that minerals are present at this stuff well this is the answer everything it's like over the top awesome what I find it interesting to sit back in the sixties when they would analyze potatoes for example they had large amounts of vitamin A vitamin D all kinds of things that aren't in potatoes today and it's because the soil back then had minerals micronutrients things that God created which aren't and soils today because they're just fed chemicals and the organic materials not going back in and so the soil is deplete from always wonderful things and so the food is and we wonder today you know why we have all these autoimmune diseases and things that weren't even here 50 years ago it's not because our but our bodies forgot how to heal is because our food is not good we're not getting proper nutrition and basically today people are taking supplements because their malnutrition they're not getting their food and God created all this food for our bodies I love Genesis the first chapter and I love the way it starts and God said fruits vegetables seeds and nuts this is what I made for your food it's so good to have these vegetables and the fruits especially the figs that make you feel you don't need a medicine or anything you just feed yourself with good stuff and like it has even a better flavor you know when I have tasted pulse vegetables and like so many people it has a sweeter flavor because it's not under stress it grows with constant moisture yeah and and this is the beautiful thing about it you know you're not only helped to make again a layer of fertile soil for the future generations they have good soil there it's not depleted but you have all so a vegetable that will nourish you and it is published you know many many places when you read the the depleted soil isn't as good so add your little vitamins and tablets forget it if you can do this here this mulching with the whole tree gets you know chipped up that's the only way to go yeah in some rational future people are gonna wake up and say this is not only a good way to eat but it's a healthy healthy way to live and ultimately when you start thinking about quality of life if you got if your kids are healthy and your you got plenty to eat and you're leaving a healthy lifestyle and the rest is just great whatever he wants to do so yeah I think I think this is this has a significant potential to be a big part of the human future good lobule mistake this places the farmers not a pharmacist a home where my family lives were I raised my family and I and I did this intentionally to have a place where they'd have a wonderful place to live work you grow all of our own food and I purposely just because of how God's given me this really wonderful revelation how to grow things and his whole economy isn't giving you receive I've just never been in a position where I wanted to saw anything I just have no desire to and I just have such pleasure in sharing and giving with people because I have such an abundance there's plenty for all of us kind of thing it was just fun for me to watch people just randomly come to my place take things and walk off and you can't even tell they were here and it's just such a wonderful feeling you know this I just love them so much like God because this is his nature to give you know and if we just get connected with him and start doing things his way we have an abundance he provides us with all we need and we have excess to give away and bless other people and it's just a great way to live I love it I heard about this garden today from my friend Marcia breeze and her brother Mitch so we took a notion to come up here and it's been an incredible revelation the gardening techniques are a revelation as as the owner was saying they're so simple so straightforward so profound that many people overlook them gardening with compost not using any water and this is the result is just a a revelation to me immediately in about three hours every every every herb and vegetable that he's grown in this garden is so flavorful so pungent so powerfully flavorful that I haven't tasted anything like it in a very long time certainly not in a supermarket and you don't see it this big in the store this is the elfin garlic this is Italian red thank and I want you to notice when you use it just how moist and nice oh yeah oh it's yeah thank you thank you what I grew that no underneath the trees this is your this is gigantic garlic it's perfect we're amateur gardeners and we're gonna implement this stuff it all tasted but it's just all outrageous it's unbelievable I mean when you drive up that's why I'm put myself in front of this the whole front row of this orchard is these dwarf apple trees with the wood sticking out at the top and it it's just it's magical it looks like it's right out of a movie it looks like I expected Alice in Wonderland to come bopping at any man and say hello and I told my son we're going to see a garden he's he's you know 10 and a half going on 15 and like oh do we have to do that and he just came up to me a little bit ago any said I'm glad we're here Hiep and he thinks it's cool if it passes the test with him it it's okay I've had let's see I've had the I've had a carrot and I've had some cilantro and probably the most shocking thing was the anise it's it's literally sweet at the end of the the stem the stems good which normally it would be very tight and at the end it's it's like eating it's sweet it's amazing so he's turned me into a believer when I was studying sustainability I was looking at what is it that makes wouldn't make a human ecosystem really sustainable and Paul has another besides his farming techniques Paul has another quality that really is ultimately the ultimate sustainable value and and that is he has a big heart and he's generous and he's helpful and he's helping his neighbors out and anybody that comes in here help yourself and that's the sort of attitude if you really want a sustainable human culture that's the kind of attitude that we really ought to be spreading if the human species is ever going to be sustainable it's gonna be because of people like Paul not necessarily because of how he farms but because of his heart Paul is an incredible individual I mean the things that he has been through and what he does and his knowledge about the garden is just absolutely incredible and he sent me quite a few people that have used our products and he not only that he's very honest you know I mean he when he gets when he talks to people it's from his heart it really is and that's one thing I've always admired about him mm-hmm I just think he's an incredibly giving in his knowledge and I love the way that he presents it you know I tend to be a very low-key teacher instructor whatever it is I am with a community garden and I kind of feel like I don't right I'm riding around you know and don't have that the volume and the enthusiasm behind what I say that Paul does and he's just such a gift to all of us who meet him he truly is because of that enthusiasm it's just wonderful I would say Paul's evangelical in both definitions of the word in terms of his religion and in terms of his expressiveness about what he believes both of those things he's an evangelist a garden again God is so there for us he so wants relationship I always thought Matt got God but man the garden for that for his health sake you know get fresh food because it's close kind of there's way more than that it's about relationship and we were out in creation if you're just semi paying attention your hearing and seeing God I love you know Psalm 19 the heavens declare the glory of God and the earth shows his handiwork deign today at her speech and that light show of knowledge and there is no speech nor language of that voice is not heard and I'd love when I'm outside here I just AM amazed at the things God shows me the thing that I discovered about God is that he's a lot like us if you look in Genesis 1 or in the beginning when he created us he said let us make man in our own image after our likeness and if any of you who are artists you know how natural it is for you to want to share your art with the people because you're just really you know that it's good and you're proud of it and you want to show it to people well God is a the ultimate artist he's the the master artist and he's very proud of his artwork he likes to talk about it and I find when I asked some questions about nature he's just as right there yeah and let me tell you this let me show you this is like it's just awesome what I find so interesting about about God's creation nudists so in line with the Word of God because he's the author of both and the and the creation and the word are saying the same thing they're revealing the the beautiful nature of God and showing this handiwork and they are totally synonymous and I love it because whenever I mean I'm hearing from him the Holy Spirit always brings scripture that verifies and validates what he's saying and I know it's been over here in front I love the scripture you know Jeremias has called to me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things you don't know then the verse in Proverbs I think is just so helpful says trust in Lord your whole heart and he helps us to remember where our heart is it's not here he says and lean not on your own understanding he said do not try to figure it out and in all of your ways and what does all leave out in all of your ways acknowledge God and he'll direct your paths very simply God saying this is listening when you have issues ask me and and trust me in your heart don't try to figure it out and I'll show you what to do when I come out here in the garden I'll you know I'll have issues and stuff all this acid I'll just give you it need an example one day where I was a bunch of people over here and the guy noticed my potatoes over here nice well how come you don't heal your potatoes in a typical garden or farm where you have potatoes because as potatoes grow they expand and will come to the surface and when they surface the light will hit them and turn them green and make some toxic so the farmers have to keep me healing up dirt to keep keeping covered you know look at my potato this is well the first answer that comes to mind is I don't need to but I'm not sure why so would like but I'll go into tonight and I'll ask my mansion I'll get back with you so I go in the house this is not God how come I don't have to buy potatoes and was just so beautiful it was like he took me underground and showed me a potato develop he says wash this potato because the ground below its compacted and it can't move down as it expands because dirt is heavy it falls off the potato and the potato comes to the surface and for that reason they have to keep Hill and dirt over it to keep it covered but are your wood chips because they're light and they're totally Internet mesh together when the potato you know expands of wood chips just lifts and I looked at this anything I love his responses and remember I told you I did this so I would have to show up to work healing potatoes is work I just started laughing yes god you're so awesome I always tell people in that question you know where this will work someplace or you know you know where it may work for you in a small place you couldn't do in a big scale assist or they have questions that you know um they can't fathom is's you know you know what the issue is here you haven't taken to account into account an omnipotent omniscient omnipresent God who holds all things together by the word of his power that's awesome and you take that into account there's no quite there's no issues because and he's demonstrates that love all the creation it's demonstrated it's not like this is hard to do he's showing us in everything in creation how beautifully does it because of his incredible all-powerful all-knowing totally all present kept capability and I love that word he holds everything together by the word of his power awesome God [Music] ever wonder why you are never tired of searching oh there's gotta be a better way [Music] your hands up and Ray [Music] and guide [Music] you with me [Music] and to Eden freedom to eat Eton is the race we go you burden his life tell me to lean on you the wrist [Music] Eton is the place freedom [Music] ever wonder what's this long game [Music] whispering man yaha but the thing that you do a man for but you don't know where to start father and you hear me I'm listening to you now I'm ready to trust you to lead and guide me somehow [Music] you with me [Music] and - eating eat Eden is the place the freedom to eat eat Eden is the place to freedom me yoke is easy your burden is light he'll me to lean on you the rest of my life to Eden [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Dana & Sarah Films

Views: 4,271,623

Keywords: Back to Eden, Back to Eden gardening, Paul Gautschi, Permaculture, Gardening (Interest), How to Garden, How to Grow Food, Free Movie, Free Documentary, Free Video, Mulch Gardening, Food DVD, Food Video, Organic Gardening, Organic Gardening Tips, Gardening Guide, Gardening Tutorial, Back to Eden Film, Back to Eden Movie, Back to Eden DVD, Back to Eden Video, Back to Eden Garden, Garden, Vegetable Garden, Grow Vegetable Garden, carbon sequestration

Id: 6rPPUmStKQ4

Length: 103min 6sec (6186 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 02 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/mum_]

in b4

"gmo's are good for you!" / "organic is a hoax!"

[u/trampagn3]

I was interested but after watching it for 20 minutes and hearing him go on and on about god - no thanks. I'm gonna find another documentary on permaculture.