Farmers said he’d NEVER GROW anything - He proved them wrong by doing THIS…

as our world continues to depend on the use of pesticides depleted soils and large scale factory farming there are those that choose instead to go against the grain they're outliers in their respective domains last summer we were fortunate enough to meet up with Rishad Z so how good is this soil originally what did they tell you about this place well I was told that was meant to be pastured that's it the uh this is too heavy not thick enough there's not enough soil so and that's we have to work with we have that that no no Alternatives that's what we have to work with he's really underestimating when he says not deep you see how it's not even a foot deep and this is pure shale rock this isn't clay this is shale there's almost no soil and what is here is the some of the thickest clay I've ever seen you could make pottery out of this clay that's how thick it is this is what he started with let's see the progress of what it can become so those of you who are in a tough spot let me say gee you got a treat coming we're just on the edge of the property mind that's where we were Risha just grafted this one this spring and I don't see growth like this very often actually never how high is this one yeah that's over two 2 m over 6 feet and it's grafted all the way down here when this was Chip Chip Bud chip yep grafted but a year ago that is incredible growth that is the potential of these soils if you do a few things right so what is the the main treatment that was done in in this area this is one of the oldest areas yeah this about four four and a half years old um we started out with about 12 in 30 cm of uh wood chips the year after it it had shrunk by by you know four fifths and and then we might have added you know a small layer couple of years later and that's it a onetime big dose a one-time big treatment completely can unlock this soil and this is good but there's areas that are even better yep we're just going through the nursery and Thea claims that this property is is ideal for small fruit and well I couldn't let the small fruit go by cuz it is just dripping with fall bearing raspberries fall bearing absolutely use fall bearing they're so easy just mow them down in the spring let them come up and they fruit in the fall but although he says it's it's better for small fruit the tree growth in here is phenomenal it's incredible yeah it's wild is is the best word but you know what these raspberries are getting are getting more ripe so what did you do in these in these beds to uh get them like this we basically uh form some beds 30in wide beds we put the uh this stand this ra raised soil a bit uh standard with a BCS and then put about a foot of uh you know 30 cm or a foot of um of wood chips and I don't know it sort of explodes when we do that after a year we have to wait a year for the um for for the for the nitrogen um to be restored in the in the soil and after that we might have you know added maybe a couple of inches maybe 5 cm of wood chips just to keep it always covered we never leave bare soil when you look at somebody's place look for the growth here's an example yeah look at this apple tree it started here this branch and it's grown by that's about 80 cm or 2 and 1/2 ft this is a young tree it doesn't it's not established it's just a young tree in the nursery with that kind of growth how much how much fertilizer do you put none no fertilizer how much spraying have you done in here oh boy uh none none okay that's what you want to look for when the plants are happy and boy let me tell you they are happy that that's what's the result your soil is alive and this isn't 50-year-old established soil this is taking that potentially very fertile clay soil but that isn't that's got drainage issues that's got really a huge lack of organic matter putting that organic matter and that is really the key that's making this soil come alive and what I want to show you is the one two three threeyear progression of how the soil goes from brick clay to being so really fertile and productive Thea this is what you started with heavy cracking clay not very thick but over your 5 years you've learned what makes kind of your ideal setup uh I see this isn't ground level so why did you raise these up like this drainage is an issue it's the the you know that that's that's the thing that we have to worry the most about you know so basically we we we have to you know scrape off some some some some clay raise do some raised beds so raised bed is just clay just clay okay so raising the clay just raising the clay and then on top putting about a foot 30 cm of of wood chips so this is year zero I mean we just did this oh you said a month ago about about a month ago and we're just about to plant uh trees from our Nursery we'll plant them there we started putting posts and you know deciding which Tre go go goes where and and uh that'll be it for this year when you say plant are you planting your trees in the wood chip never never never never so you actually move the wood chips out of the way dig into the worked clay cuz it's been moved around so it's not going to be a solid cake like this you dig through there put your roots in the clay soil and spread the roots the best way we can because it's going to be bare Roots once the trees uh you know drop their leaves it's going to be a bare root tree we spread them the best possible way and then maybe facing the uh the wind the the wind and um and that'll be it and then we cover it back to uh with wood chips and then we'll you know just uh install our winter protection for WS rabbits and deers that'll be it for this year did that sound complicated if some of you are in a I know I've heard comments oh I wish I had your sandy soil well I wish I had this kind of clay soil you think no but it's it's got its problems yes he's learned how to work with this soil to really unlock this soil is naturally so so fertile what happens when you add manure to this soil it's too much it's basically too it's over it's Overkill you you never want to put were in there so it's naturally so fertile you don't need any extra fertility after you've unlock the fertility that's in the clay with this amount of wood chips and this is fresh this is just done what does it look like after a year so this is your one year after the original treatment you've had the wood chips you piled the soil the clay is piled then the wood chips on top and now it's had one year to do what what happens in a year life just thrived it took about a year it doesn't look much after a year let's face it if you if you see this uh this apple tree over there it's got established it's you know it's not thriving it was you know beu transplanting um but if you look closely you know the soil is starting to you know be full of Life full of um mycelium if we dig around there's hardly you know there's about a couple of inches two three inches of wood chips underneath you have you know Oran that definitely doesn't look like the clay and it doesn't look like the wood chips put put that stick in again I mean this is not the clay right now it's decomposed wood chips with a lot of elements of clay mixed in cuz I'm sure there's a few worms in here and boy and look at look at the moisture look at the we we haven't had rain for like 3 weeks is yep three weeks and that is that is looking this this this is just what it's supposed to smell so if any of you ever make compost that you can't smell know that that's not compost if you can't stick your nose to it and smell it and take a deep breath you've got alcohols you've got ammonia in there it's not compost so please don't say y I've got a a that's a stinky pile that's not a stinky pile it's basically mimicking a forest and that's the whole that's the whole purpose of doing all this doesn't look much but we know the way work is being done it's down there it's quiet but when we look at you at a year from now though year two you'll see the type of growth we're getting I just want to because he did say something about it's mimicking what the forest is like forest soil becomes like this but it's not in a hurry a whole Branch or whole tree will fall and it can take 10 20 30 years for that tree to decompose in some spe pie is even longer the difference here is by chipping the wood or the branches not Heartwood mostly small branches 2 in or less this has just sped up the forest creation of forest soil process so yes there is the addition of some energy to get there but how much do you pay for all these wood chips it must be expensive such a big input we're we're shooting we're we're aiming to be as as little carbon intensive as possible so whatever the city the the neighboring City bushville in this case when they chipwood you know Dead Ash we had um you know we had an ice storm dead branches and everything so the wood chips that would have been burnt otherwise is basically being dropped here we asked for the city so whatever is whatever they produce in terms of it's not garbage but I mean it's it's on used uh raw material for us it's cold so we we got about 20 trucks of uh of wood chips this year so for them it's you know it's a few kilometers or a few miles away just a few miles within the city we're getting the wood chips free free and we uh try to uh make the best out of it to create a a a you know a forest uh soil and it if when you think about it just a year takes a year we speed up the process those of you who have access to this kind of material wood chips look at the tree trimming companies look at the companies doing maintenance of power lines they're often chipping them and they're just looking for a place to dump in our part or in the Farm's part it's not free it's expensive but it's still worth it I pay 50 to 100 bucks for a load he just got 20 truck loads do the ma so if you can get get just get it pile it because even if what would happen if this was piled and you didn't spread it and you didn't use it and you had a pile for 5 years what would happen to it free compost there you go so even if you say well I'm not going to make use of it right away have it dumped you're going to have actually that's a great place to make a future Garden so this is the 2-year-old area but let me me point out this is a learning progress this is trial and error many things have been tried some things work better than others desha you were just mentioning how these hazelnuts which this is 2 years old these were down to nothing they were dying last year yeah it was too much rain so we we had to redig those trenches around this patch because you basically dug a hole this this deep and water came you know and we're working with Clay here so it's a it's a work in Pro progress so we had to redig those trenches and as soon as we red them we have growth of about a meter or even more 3 4T even more so over there that's a good lesson watch your plants if they're not doing well it's one of your basics in this case clay soil can be great but boy it can hold a lot of water and if you're drain drainage isn't resolved if you don't figure out and and he's really figured out a beautiful way here to move water where he can create little dams on these paths to hold water if it's really too dry or he could let that water go but not leave the site it simply goes into a pond which could then if needed could be pumped back to the high spot to circulate through this site using these foot paths really well thought out good design simple can imagine just a solar panel with a little solar pump and pushing water and watering the whole thing but when you get this amount of wood chips holding water with clay that really holds water too much water can be a problem but I want to show you this is also 2 years but the drainage was resolved better from here and you said you did a lasagna technique here what's what's lasagna then well it was a row of U sticks basic wood sticks basically then some dirt then some anything we we branches but with with nitrogen so anything with leaves and everything that we picked up everywhere and then we go back again so we make a lasagna of carbon wood and then uh some soil to bring in the uh the the the microbes and um my I and everything and then some green and then again again again we cover it up with cardboard and then 30 cm of wood chips so as much as I've said don't bury wood chips the key detail that he shared is that when he puts a layer of soil underneath there's branches branches complete branches are great to let air go way in and he doesn't create those dead zones where there's just the lack of air this is high and the path so this is up to your knees this bed so about 30 to 40 cm higher and I just have to show you the growth of this apple tree 2 years since it was planted this is a 2-year-old apple tree I mean look at the plants look at the growth and you'll see if the plant is happy when I see this kind of growth this is a meter of growth that's a lot three feet of growth it's still growing we're in October already and it's still growing the other thing to notice and I'm looking for it there is no aphids you think gee growth like that should be loaded with aphids and it's not cuz it's later in the season cuz aphid could still be active it's just that the fertility is not unbalanced you said there was there was a lot of fertility in here because it was buil up of different materials but nothing you would almost think it was pushed but it isn't pushed beyond what naturally the soil could produce for it or give it I mean it produced apples in its second year look at that yeah this is amazing growth the other one was these this is wild this is absolutely crazy you got to see the thickness of these I've never seen red current stems get the I mean it's the size of my thumb onee growth that's not frequent I mean I I kind of drool at this cuz I know what I used to use as propagation material and this would have been considered a really nice piece really pencil thickness at the very top at the bottom yeah this is you're going to have 100% propag ation with this kind of propagation material this would be incredibly easy to propagate these plants and next year you're going to get a first big Harvest and how much do you get out of some of these plants it it takes our volunteers weeks to pick all the fruits here we're thinking about you know opening to some volunteers other others than members of the uh of this um a nonprofit organization because we'll need help basically just as a point this is It's called Collective Vain and it's a it's a nonprofit really with the goal of one demonstrating what you could do and the city has given them this land so it's it it was expensive land that that you had to pay for right the the city had to pay for it yeah but we get it for free and then gave it to them because they could show that they could they want to try something to get it and now how much available does the city put at your disposal if you want to expand it's pretty open you haven't decided how much you want to take on we're trying to stay within 10,000 square meters or 100,000 square fet we're trying to keep it within this size that's but the city be great be very happy if we'd move move along and and develop two or three hectares more or that's four six six six to eight or n Acres more but that starts to be a very producing Garden so and all of this Harvest is it's everybody just eats it right you guys basically we have members everyone since it's a collective Garden nobody has a parcel you know we all share work everybody you know we share equal amounts of food when we of crops when we before we leave but the excess which is significant goes to food banks and um we're developing relationships with several food banks because there's a lot of food bushville food bank cannot handle what we produce so we're opening up to long and to S all the neighboring cities because this is producing I do talk about in the marketing course of our master class I talk about perfect location this is perfect location I mean they're between two pretty large cities right between and they're right on a bike path so on the weekends it's traffic bik hundreds of bikes and you know as much as we've been told that this was supposed to be sort of crappy land what I find is since it's so well located it's it's like paradise people all people when we Garden all the time people stop take pictures of the uh the sunflowers and then they ask ask questions oh we've seen the the garden expand and what's happening and when they see that it actually works they're excited and most of them want to join the the uh the gang so uh we're very happy about it so location location location location is believe it or not even with a foot of or 30 in or you know between 30 30 cm to to a meter of of of soil even if we're we have these conditions the location is so great it's full sun the St Lawrence River is over there it's always we have great sunsets over here we always stay for the sunsets we come from the gardening and we stay for the sunsets so location location location yeah I I totally agree and it even gets better cuz this is only year two so basically when we started the garden we started with this demonstration demonstration patch it was a lasagna but we added we didn't we we we tried to experiment we unfortunately put compost in there we shouldn't have because it's so it was about a meter high or 3ot high now it's gone down by about 50% we planted this this pear tree it's a rescue pear tree it's a it's on dwarfing rootstock by the way uh and we planted this one and we've established this so this one we planted in 2020 October so 3 years so yeah so 21 22 23 so and we've established the this the year after so we have ra um strawberries we have lavender we have um black Curr black Curr there are 15 species here of plants uh mixed together and I mean we're trying to break the street we'll have a lot of work to try to Cal it calm it and yeah yeah yeah but as soon as we as we uh you know fold some some branches like this you see flower buds and we've had two years of crop two years cropping already so so far yeah so far but next year is going to be a big job to uh Bend all of these branches and make it produce in 2025 I'm just looking at this because you did we saw the three-year succession to get to this yep you must spend hours and weeks maintaining these beds oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah actually no one's picked any weed from here no one's had to do any maintenance in here so just to show you that once you get it set up and this one the right choice of plants cuz strawberries are a ground cover they will run and fill any available space and you probably got a few strawberries out of here oh boy yes and yeah they're all producing black currents they're they're extremely productive this cultivar is extremely productive so basically once the soil is covered what it wants to do naturally well it becomes a force it becomes what it's supposed to to look like so we the wood chip thing uh I I don't I don't see us supplying wood chips in the foreseeable future um I I maybe down the road but I don't actually see a lot of wood chips it's it's there is a little lay but it's it's minimal it's like at most it's an inch and not even an inch and then it becomes soil so he went from the one foot three years ago y That's gone all the way down but it's really it really has mixed in with the clay so it's no longer that hard brick clay that you started with it's been amended but it hasn't been mixed in it's the soil life that's really mixed clay into the organic matter as it decomposed the organic matter and you end up with I mean this is pretty wild growth for a pear tree uh and everything grows so well it really shows the potential of an area like this if you are in a tough situation a tough s maybe you have you know Clay that you go I can't do anything with the big secrets here and the big takeaways here have been digging some trenches or trenches or paths cuz why just have a p a trench so they filled in the wood chips in the paths so that it really reduces maintenance they've taken the soil from that area to build the bed and then they've added in some cases lasagna but now your recent ones it's it's keep it's simple just take that soil so it's a cut and fill you're cutting soil from here filling it here and then just topping it off with a foot of wood chips and after 3 years I mean I think pretty well anything you put in here now will just grow like crazy you've got good Sun I could see having an island like this every 15 or 20 ft and your fruit trees and in fact they're still small they're growing going like crazy but they will completely occupy or or create some shade over these beds yeah it's pretty wild when people don't yeah I have sand so it it's we're on complete opposite ends of the soil scale and so these I mean I can't even crush this it's so hard it's it's almost like a brick there now it broke up a bit and it goes from this which is what is that one foot of top soil here and this is top soil cuz this is as good as it gets when this is good this is top saw without but then when you add the wood chips and it's given a chance to Mellow and get amended with the organic matter I mean can you actually put anything in there that would be on the edge that would be on the edge but you start seeing holes you start seeing yeah warm holes but look it hasn't rained for 3 weeks almost three weeks and the moisture is right there the moisture is right there yeah so as far as holding water this is an incredible sponge this is moist Y and these plants even though it hasn't rained in in weeks these plants are are not showing any signs of water stress so a path system that does double triple Duty even and boy I I really thought you'd need to see this because if some of you are in a tough situation and you say yeah you know I wish I wasn't don't wish take time think and try things this is five years of trial and error figure out what works on your site and then expand from there do little beds do experiments try it but if you're in clay my goodness get as much wood chips on that as you can and you will create soils that it's it it's insane the growth in a year here and this would be incredible to see in 5 years from now how much these young fruit trees now which are already starting to produce in the second year how much when they're fully producing wow it'll be an awesome site Misha thanks so much for having us here today it's been great we'll put links to his website he has uh his YouTube channel in French for those who can understand in French but there's so many experiments that have been done here over the years thank you very much for having us here thank you very much

Channel: Stefan Sobkowiak - The Permaculture Orchard

Views: 81,436

Keywords: permaculture, permaculture orchard, stefan sobkowiak, miracle farms, food forest, homesteading, forest garden

Id: IT7bjsqBaFM

Length: 30min 11sec (1811 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 04 2024