TOP 5 Fruiting SHRUBS to plant in your Garden or Permaculture Orchard!

we had and that's a big thank you we had such a great response to the top ten perennial vegetables and herbs in there that we decide to do a top five for the shrubs there's a lot in there stay tuned [Music] so what makes for a great shrub to put under your fruit trees or your nitrogen-fixing trees in the permaculture orchard height is important the spread and the size is important so what we're looking for is a shrub like this one that will be about a meter or meter three so three or four feet that's what we're looking at max when you get in and here we have one that's a shrub that's under a fruit tree but this one's up to two meters high in places so see what happens this is this is one of our top five but not necessarily this cultivar this one grows way bigger this is a black currant it grows way bigger and look what happens there's no branches left alive on this side because the shrub will shade it out so what you want is something that will stay smaller that won't shade out your bottom branches so you can have your tree your branch with fruit eventually and underneath that you'll have your shrub that's the goal so let's take a look at some number five red currant red currant does really well has a few great characteristics one is when it's in fruit and the fruit are ripe it will stay for three or four weeks before the fruit dry and they don't even fall off then they just dry the other thing is the birds don't eat them so we really can get fruit and they stay for a while that's a great plus these grow okay under the fruit trees they tend to like a little more Sun so when we plant them and if our self is right over there we want to put them on this side of the tree on the sunny side underneath the tree to get a little more Sun they in the middle we're noticing they're not doing as well as some of the other shrubs but they're good to eat they're good for processing so that's a good number five to start with number four and I wish this was our top one but I wouldn't be that quick yet because they're still fairly new these are some of our oldest Hass cap plants these two and Hass cap is a fairly recent fruit look at that there's already some fruit formed here check these out look at that they have a few really incredible characteristics these fruit there look how full leaf they are already there very early they're a boreal forest species developed a big shout-out to dr. Bob Bors at the University of Saskatchewan he did it him and his team did an incredible job of sourcing Hass cap circum circumpolar virtually like all around the boreal forest from Japan Russia some of the islands and and in Canada he's mixed breeding to get an incredible collection go see their collection and so these are just some of the ones and when we got to try them first time I said so we multiplied 600 of them because we said we got to get more so we got a lot of small ones not as many big ones they leaf out really early they tolerate frost they give a bluish like a long blueberry but they even tastes better than blueberries they grow in a semi shade big plus if you're putting them under fruit trees will see long-term how well they do under the fruit trees but so far they seem to be doing fine they fruit a little bit less if they're not in full Sun but in the forest they grow under trees so this isn't you so we'll leave it as a number four for now give you an update in a few years maybe to see how well this one rates number three highly underestimated in North America if you're in Europe you know blackcurrant really underrated here but these things they can produce a lot of fruit the fruit is underrated because we think of them as fresh eating fruit for all our small fruit but blackcurrant is really a processing fruit mainly I like it not very many people eat it straight out of hand maybe in Europe they do but here think of it as Jam think of it as medicine think of is a nutraceutical high antioxidant got so many virtues if ever you're not sure is this a black currant just grab a leaf grab a bud grabbed any part of it even the branch and just smell it and if you can really smell something off of it then it's probably a black currant none of the other ones that look like it will get will have a fragrance to it nice thing about it it tolerates a little more shade than red currant so we could put them under the tree and they grow well there's a wide variation in cultivars this one grows quite big I won't use we don't multiply this one for this block anymore because it just gets too big so we like the smaller ones the bend series is really nice from Scotland use the smaller cultivars look at the label if you're not sure how big does it say it gets great production great ability to grow under the fruit trees birds don't like it that's great too to have small fruit and the birds aren't eating it that's nice and very easy to propagate go see the propagate either by layer and cuttings you can propagate these things really well so you can multiply them quite well and try it out it's number three but it's a good plant to use number two oops not that kind of number two number two is rhubarb yeah here you saying yeah it's not a shrub why do you put it as a shrub technically I'm not into the technically did details technically I'm looking for one that takes up a volume about a meter wide and a meter high to me that equivalent is a shrub space rhubarb when it goes two meters wide and a meter high six feet by three feet that's the equivalent of a shrub and look at that full leaf already fully grown almost fully grown some of them are starting to flower because it grows so early it's really a springtime perennial it takes advantage you see there aren't many leaves out yet it takes advantage of the full Sun to grow full size and then it pretty well parks itself for the rest of the summer and because it gives you such incredible rhubarb dumplings you gotta grow some of them so rhubarb to me I put it in the shrub category great to have great to grow super easy to grow we tried this year little pieces of root cuttings and we can get plants out of small pieces of root cuttings so easy also to propagate put rhubarb in your landscape we can't stock enough of them we put in four more rows this year and we're still not gonna have enough in the future we got to multiply more because people love them and they're so easy to grow so grow some under your fruit trees rhubarb number two and then the last one before we get to number one you see this orchard and you think this would be a great place to come visit well now you can with the virtual tour you can start the tour of this orchard for free right now just go to miracle dot farm and go check that out something special about being the first to do something there's no manual to consult and no one to call [Music] ultimately it's your story to write and tell and like every good story it starts from the beginning join us as Stefan shares with you the story behind miracle farms an orchard unlike any other on a tour unlike anything you've seen however some stories are better told in person let's go see the last and final one number one this is my favorite trouble I know I'm sure I can hear you going what are you talking how come black currant is not number one or red currant or has cap or rhubarb hey you know what this is my top 5 this is my favorite small fruit gooseberries is to me number one got a lot going for it one of the things you say hey I'm going gooseberries it doesn't seem to grow so well gooseberries have to have shade they need some partial shade that's a great plus if you're trying to grow them under your fruit trees because they already get some shade and they're very happy look how healthy these are looking look at how many fruit they're gonna have on here so this is a great plant and if you've never tried eating gooseberries by golly get yourself some put them in grow them or just buy some at the market if you can find them they're not easy to find yes some of them are spikey and spiny but you know what they've gotta because they're so delicious they got to protect themselves a little bit ours get a lot eaten by chipmunks of all things the Chipmunks eat the whole flesh off all the delicious fruit and then they just eat the seeds that's that what they want but they're great fruit to have easy to grow in this condition really easy to multiply if you just do some layering go check that video but layering and you know what once you start with gooseberries you can go crazy most of our North American ones that are grown here are for dessert they're fresh eating gooseberries in Europe I know you're really big on bigger greener more sour ones for processing into jams and they make great jams too so that was my top 5 your 5 will probably be different write them in the comments below whatever comes out to be your top 5 and you know what probably they're different but remember to put them under your fruit trees thanks for watching see you next week hey please subscribe and check out our latest video before we get to number 1 see this tour and you think wow

Channel: Stefan Sobkowiak - The Permaculture Orchard

Views: 155,796

Keywords: top 5 shrubs, red currant, black currant, haskap, honey berry, rhubarb, gooseberry, permaculture, permaculture orchard, orchard, garden, top 5, shrubs, gardening, miracle farms, stefan sobkowiak, currant

Id: juN-Wl8X2jc

Length: 12min 54sec (774 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 28 2019