So you want a food forest? Bushes - My top 6

what are you doing in the strawberries hey what are you doing in there so you want to build a food forest but you don't know what to grow a lot of videos might jump right - what a lot of people will consider the most important thing in the food forest trees peach tree I could do a list on top trees to use in your cold hardy Canadian food forest I'm actually gonna skip to the bushes and why because the bush layer is probably the most underrated layer in the food forest in terms of sheer production how fast it can get up making you food and money maybe right off the get-go in a cold hardy food forest we're talking zones four to eight maybe four to nine three to nine everything in this video is going to be good for it if you're in that USDA agricultural zone so we're going to talk about bushes because bushes are very underrated and these are my top bushes for your food forests that you're gonna start this weekend stick around [Music] [Music] so if you're just getting started and you haven't seen my video on the seven layers of the food forest it's called companion planting on steroids and I touch on this in almost every video but we don't plant or I don't I don't plant trees at 20 foot centers we are actually going to mimic a natural forest and the reason why is because a natural forest is the most regenerative system on the planet it's the system that if everyone disappeared on the planet forests would take over ignore this old pipe it's just temporary until the pond gets done I know it's hideous isn't it the food force is about to wake up it's starting to wake up we've got bushes leaping out everywhere and it's wonderful we're very very excited over here and today we're gonna talk about bushes and we're gonna talk about seven layers of the food forest and why I think actually bushes are the number one layer and these are my favorite plants for putting into your food forests the bushes are going to be what tie the trees together and turn an orchard into a lush vibrant crazy forest like this picture right here and it's going to get better this year believe it or not this was three years ago and this is what the same place looks like just last year so get planting get those bushes growing right in between the trees rates now I know a lot of people are gonna scream because BlackBerry's in some places of the world can be incredibly invasive they're not bad here but they do really want to grow and I want stuff that wants to grow this is a thornless variety you can see no thorns which is really nice very very large blackberries great plant just make sure that it can't spread where you don't want it and make sure that you get the fruit so that birds you know don't spread it for you be careful with it but blackberry can be an amazing and another amazing cold hardy Bush for your food forest all right this next bush comes as probably the most underrated bush that I had girl coming in I bought some currants this is black or red I think this one's red I bought currants and a seasoned auction similar to many other of my bushes and I got them on sale they were dirt cheap because no one was going for them I had them they're a little bit sour they're a little bit tart the white currants are a little sweeter the blacks are the tardis I find what I didn't realize is just how good black currant Jam is probably my favorite Jam maybe Hoss cap Jam beats black currant Jam but I think there's something magical with sour jams sour berries making great jams you can put very little sugar in them actually and they end up very sweet they got this nice tang to them just a deep complex flavor and the best thing about currants besides being cold hardy and great for bees is actually that they're very shade tolerant so if you have a shade garden you have large overstory trees and you're trying to put a food forest in underneath this right here is where you want to go for your your bush layer lots and lots of currents all right next up we got elderberries elderberries is a great medicinal plant good luck getting any because the birds absolutely love them but if you manage to get any of them they make a great syrup and a great jam they're very tall bushes so if you want like a really really lush forest look elderberries can be where you go you can get them on sale this one you could see here I still have the tag from four years ago it's holding up pretty well to 2199 I got this em to see at end of season for two bucks end of season auctions clearance sells that's where you want to go elderberries a great option a favorite Bush absolutely as Hass caps this is like a very cold hardy blueberry that's got bell shaped blueberries the bees absolutely love it it comes up super early so it gives nectar and food source for the bees before anything else does it's just gorgeous it makes it's a very tart berry so if you like sour fruit then this is the one for you but even if you don't it makes amazing Jam amazing amazing Jam it's got a ton of pectin in it so you can put less sugar in your gym so it's a healthier Jam and it's honestly sour berries especially like a Hass cap a sour berry and a jam can make the best gems you can ever imagine Hass cap a very very cold hardy amazing prolific tall bush very easy to propagate in fact I'm actually stool stool mounding this one here so how you propagate these a great way is just level is actually here on this soil and I mound soil up all around so that each branch is covered in soil and then end of the season I can dig this sorry about that end of the season I can dig this back I can chop and cut and this will Oliver ood it down into the wood or into the soil and I'll have a rooted branch that I can propagate I have turned and I think three Hass caps into probably about 80 right now amazing plant raspberries are gonna be probably my number one I don't think I could I don't think I could honestly put anything above raspberries for a few reasons first off a wild raspberry is like I'm sorry not a while but a homegrown raspberry does to your mouth what a homegrown strawberry does if you think that you've had a raspberry before but you don't grow raspberries and you haven't had your own you've never eaten a real raspberry they were probably my number one favorite crop last year in terms of just pure taste these ones are everbearing and they fruit twice they fruit one at the end of the season once early in the season so they give you two fruit yields in every single season and they spread this was five to eight ish for ass berries when I planted them and they have spread out into many more but more than that I've been digging them up digging the runners up and spreading them and these things have been spread all throughout my food forest all down this swell all raspberries in the backyard in the front area near the road near the road I've given to raspberry bushes to people father-in-law sister-in-law so many people neighbors so so many raspberries have come out of this and it's three years old I spent maybe I think $10 for eight plants is roughly that at the end of the season auction and it has grown me hundreds and hundreds of dollars of food they really really turn that financial equation around because they produce so quick they spread so quick you can sell canes for a dollar each and still come in under stores who sell them for like $9.99 each just an amazing crop if you want to make money if you want to grow awesome tasting food and if you want to fill in the spaces between your fruit trees raspberries you come look in another month or so this patch will just be a sea of green and it'll make my whole system look so incredibly lush and I will actually have a rabbits living inside the raspberry patch amazing crop I couldn't put a list together of top bushes without putting raspberries at number one 100% I'm gonna do a separate video on specifically nitrogen-fixing trees but this one is special enough to have its own part of the food crop berry level of a cold hardy Canadian permaculture food forest this is sea buckthorn or C berry it is considered to be invasive all nitrogen fixers are going to be considered to be invasive because our soils on our planet are pretty much destroyed and that's what these things do they move in and they heal sea buckthorn berries have one of the most healthiest berries on the planet it is just absolutely incredibly healthy it tastes like Buckley's medicine because it is medicine however it does actually believe it or not make fantastic jams and other drinks you can eat them raw but they will be an acquired taste to say the least they have a really really nice look when they put berries on the berries cluster right up against the tree right up against the branches and right in on the thorns this makes them difficult to harvest but what you can do actually because this is a nitrogen fixer is get clumps cut the branch right off that's going to release nitrogen under the ground via the symbiotic relationship with mycorrhizae bacteria that are holding nitrogen in their bodies and then you can freeze the branch put it in your freezer give it a day take it out the next day bang it into a little mesh covered wheelbarrow or something like that and then collect the berries that way they'll just fall right off very very great tree very ornamental nitrogen fixer feeds and flushes out life to all your other plants healthiest berry on the planet you know what's not to love about this incredible bush except well what's not to love maybe the death thorns if you have apparently there's some thornless varieties this obviously is not one of them these are literally like nails like spikes so be really careful where you put these not just for spreading but for where you walk and as he says that he puts it right next to a walking path through the strawberries so I'm gonna be cutting these making it so I can actually walk by here without getting absolutely impaled by these insane thorns look at these things those are not fun and they this is how not fun they are the thorns have thorns the thorns have thorns guys and in the spirit of gardening for nature and with nature I'm gonna mention roses roses are beautiful flowers they're great insect attractors run roses Wilder roses like Rosa rugosa Ragusa are actual edible you can actually eat the rose hips most roses you can make tea out of the rose hips but Rosa would go so you can actually eat the thing it's not great I'm not gonna lie to you it's not great but a beautiful flower it's got thorns but it can be great for keeping deer out using it as a thick deer wall or just you know growing up a trellis and looking all fantastic so don't forget to make your food for us look good you've got a lot of food growing in there it's okay to put some stuff out there that's gonna catch someone's eye get them asking questions about your food forest and then you can take them in and show them how awesome this can be so don't forget the roses

Channel: Canadian Permaculture Legacy

Views: 469,101

Keywords: permaculture, food forest, canadian food forest, canadian permaculture, cold hardy food forest, cold hardy permaculture, bushes, fruit bushes, backyard orchard, sustainability, self sufficiency, resiliency, haskaps, seaberry, seabuckthorn, currants, elderberry, elderberries, raspberries, blackberries.

Id: RkLLnyvQTwg

Length: 14min 59sec (899 seconds)

Published: Tue May 05 2020