From lawn to paradise - how I transformed my backyard in 4 months

hello my fellow Garden lovers it's been a while since my last update and the food forest and garden has exploded in Grove we first prepared the beds and planted the trees in February and now four months later our plants are providing us with so much food we can barely keep up it's the season of corn tomatoes cucumbers onions blackberries and green beans and every morning we Harvest a giant bowl full of produce our biggest accomplishment so far is how much we were able to grow with minimal work on our part we only spend about 20 minutes each morning to harvest and prune which is also our favorite time of the day because it's like being on a treasure hunt we don't spend time mowing weeding watering or dealing with pests because of how we set up the garden and prepared our soil when the plants are well nourished and the soil is biologically active they can harness the power of the soil food web to stay healthy and defend themselves against pests and disease Lauren how we did this later first enjoy the transformation of our SAT long 2 and abundant Paradise in just four months [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] [Music] in a different color [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] we started this project with terrible clay soil it gets hot here in Austin Texas and our native soil is the stickiest clay you'll ever find when it gets baked in the sun it's impossible to dig and it's also very alkaline with a pH of 7.9 I was concerned that the high pH would restrict nutrient availability for the plants because every Garden advice you find online said so but I really didn't want to use soil acidifiers because they contain sulfur which is an anti-fungal meaning it kills mushrooms while I was skeptical if I'd be able to grow anything in the soil I came across the teachings of Dr Elaine Ingham who is spearheading the soil food web movement he claims that if I feed the soil with good quality compost and create an environment for fungi to thrive they will form a symbiotic relationship with the plants and will extract and shuttle micronutrients through their mycelial Network to feed them this works regardless of soil PH because fungi can actually produce acids from their Haifa tips where they take up the nutrients since my goal is to create the most diverse ecosystem in our own little corner of the city I decided to test this Theory out myself I messaged all of the farmers in town that are committed to organic and regenerative practices and found an incredible compost Source made out of organic cotton burrs I highly recommend going this route when you're looking for a bulk compost Source because there's actually so much poor quality compost out there compost has been baking in the sun it can become hydrophobic meaning it'll repel water which is horrible for plant roots and if it hasn't been aerated properly or if it's been sitting in a plastic bag it can become anaerobic which is a breeding ground for plant disease-causing microbes I think of compost as like a sourdough starter or a probiotic for your gut its main function is to supercharge your soil with beneficial bacteria and fungi to kick start the process of recruiting and feeding the underground ecosystem so that they can multiply and evolve and the fact that our soil which could barely grow weeds before is now growing healthy robust plants just by adding good quality compost is proof that our soil ecosystem is functioning properly so other than the initial work we put in to mix compost and azomite into our native soil and to wood chip everywhere else we really didn't do much to be fair moving the wood chips was a lot of physical labor because we covered everything about a foot deep but we probably don't have to supplement for a couple of years it's kept the weeds down and creates a nice mulch for all of the fruit trees we planted and all of our vegetables are on drip irrigation meaning we don't have to manually water anything and because our soil is so biologically active and working in harmony with fungi the plants are well nourished healthy plants that have access to micronutrients like calcium and silicon can grow stronger cell walls which makes it harder for pests like aphids to suck sap out of the leaves they just aren't interested in attacking healthy plants it's too much effort and they'll go find other sickly plants to consume so if you have a boring lawn that you want to convert into a productive and beautiful space you can easily create a low maintenance Garden like we did instead of begrudgingly mowing our lawn we walk around and pick veggies now the food feeds our bodies and the beauty feeds our souls I hope I've inspired you to create Beauty from the mundane and if we could do it anyone can let me know if you have any questions in the comments below and see you next time so why do we pick these early when they're still green uh because of the squirrels take two squirrel damage

Channel: Root Mother

Views: 22,661

Keywords: food forest, permaculture, soil food web, Dr. Elaine Ingham, urban gardening

Id: Rj9uvYzHyLA

Length: 7min 44sec (464 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 08 2023