Great video; I just wish it didn't start out with , "and a little bit of organic fertilizer, just to break down the carbon." And I don't understand the "no compost" take on it. I used to live on the Silver Strand, that connects Coronado Island in Southern California, to South San Diego, Chula Vista, and other areas. The strand, and especially the Navy Housing area, was created for a road way, created wholly from the dredgings of the San Diego Harbor and were just sand as far down as you could dig. I went to the race horse farms along the Mexican border and could pick up all of the the horse manure and straw I wanted. One truckload in the fall for a 20x20 bed next spring, allowed us to raise all the fresh vegetables, various lettuces, carrots, beets, tomatoes, cauliflower, broccoli, that we could eat or give away. The only problem with growing in sand, at least in that sand, was gophers. We could sit in the dining room that had a sliding glass door to the back yard, and watch plants of all types just disappear, sucked into the tunnels the gophers made under the ground. We just used traps at the ends and caught a few and at least got the problem mostly under control - but a good part of the fun of our garden was watching the food just disappear in an instant, and we still had plenty to eat for ourselves, so we just let it go like that.

Which part of the world is the farm located? Thanks

Wondering if you're incorporating other tropicals into your landscape (looks like you have a banana video) as I've seen online that it's becoming more common in your area. Lychee would probably do well and the trees are beautiful and fruit is amazing when fresh. I'm currently in Florida and there is an invasion of mites that are killing the trees but you probably won't have that problem. The land really looks wonderful there, I must say that I'm a little envious of all the potential things you can achieve provided with sufficient water. It'll be interesting to see more as things progress!

Hello.. thank you for teaching us that.. may i ask what the measurements would be for bamboo and coconut circles?. :)

Good message ❤

Make more vids ❤

Where was this located? You said tropical. Is this in the US?

Wow! I'm from Sicily, where are you?🙏

Wow! In Sicilia? Che benedizione ❤️🙏

Don't have a huge area could you make a circle with papaya' s and bananas in the same circle?

I have dug a hole - 2m diameter by 800mm deep. Unfortunately it is heavy clay with extremely poor drainage. It is on the top of a fairly teep hill. I'm wondering whether I need to put ag pipe in the bottom of the hole to slowly drain out to the hill so I don't end up with a pond with rotten organic matter, rather than OM breaking down to compost with some air available to the process

Hey John, thanks for this inspiring insight into your forest. Do you know how much rainfall you have per year? And how have the recent droughts in Sicily affected the forest?

I like your philosophy of using what you have and saving what you have. I live in an area in Southern Califorinia, and a lot of people in lots above me have wells. During the drought, especially, this has resulted in a lowering of the groundwater table. The oak trees depend on the deep water source to survive our long, hot, dry summers. Not surprisingly, many of the big oaks in my yard died. About three quarters of them. When we do our landscaping, we should always be mindful of our neighbors.

I have zig-zagging swales across my property to catch water from the road above, slow down the runoff, and get more of it in the ground. The problem here is we have Pacific Pocket Gophers. Every now and again, one of their tunnels opens up, and the water runs out of the catchment basin and ends up coming out of a tunnel far down the slope, instead of soaking in. I have to be vigilant and go out in the rain to plug up any gopher holes. I guess you don't have something like a gopher there.

How about if we have clay soil?

So do you use a rtractor to mow everything first the put down seed and mulch?

Thank you for the video, I have watched it a few times, but your talking about mulch, that is something I haven't found yet here in Greece, we do have in wintertime some grass and weeds growing, but that is not enough to cover, we can not get woodchips here, and to buy a machine is costly. is there a solution for this problem?

We live in Greece, and wish we have some rain, the rivers here are dry, and also we have sandy soil, I was at that point of giving up, as we are months now above 34 degrees Celsius, we put shade clothes above the tomatoes but still they don't give fruits, The video about sandy soil is giving me hope, we will educate our self bit more about it. And hopefully next year every thing will go better, thank you for sharing the videos

What an incredible video! The way you showcase rainwater harvesting in Mediterranean permaculture is truly inspiring. It's amazing to see how nature can be harnessed to create sustainable systems. Sending big love from Israel! Keep up the fantastic work!

in che zona della Sicilia... io anche sto in Sicilia...

Great...

Wow, this looks amazing! I would love to do something like this in Sicily as well .. very inspirational Jhon, glad I stumbled across your channel!

Hello John! Just came across your channel after getting interest in permaculture... And saw that you live in Sicily! I am from here and it would be a great pleasure for me to meet you some day and come see your beautiful place and maybe get to learn something from you...

2024 here

Do you advise privately? I am trying to setup a permaculture food forest in Southern Bulgaria. The climate has changed dramatically there and we started growing citruses, pomegranate, figs and kiwis with great success, before that was not possible as they were freezing on minus 15 C. Our climate became like Greece and Turkey from 10 years ago. Although I watch all your videos and read a lot, I need someone to help ( brainstorm with me)me setup these 11 hectares❤

Sometimes, I wish we could install pipes for rainwater from the Netherlands to the Mediterranean. I am collecting excessive amount of rainwater, I dream to help someone in Mediterranean

Any advice if you're in a really dry place? I'm in Granada Spain, almost never rains.

But me and frog don't mix, someone can die when we meet for long

Did you remove the latest video?

great achievement,beautiful paradise you created,please upload more videos

Lovely video

So we are newbies. We bought a piece of land in catalunya with no water on it. The land is on the foot of a little hill. The hill is forest. Then there are three terasses with olives and almonds, and the lowest terasse is a field wich is waiting to turn from brown to green. So where to put a pond? where to put swales? do swales make sense in such a dry area? No infrastructure to collect rain.just one tiny roof. Any help is apreciated. Thanks. We will start out this January by the was.

Thank you so much for this video. I am currently working on a project to plant 100 papaya trees on our property and this is very helpful!

I always see people say use 4 inches of organic mulch but wven when i allow my land to grow wild for a while, i can only produce half an inch at most. I have loamy well drained soil, so i'm wondering if im missing a piece of the puzzle here

Thanks for sharing!

How could i get a plant in northern Italy?

if you put sprinkler doe it run?

Could you tell more about gebbias?

How does the pond hold the water?

I have learnt so much from you. I will be diging my compost pits this next week. My dad used to do it.And I forgot he composted everything he burnt cans from tinned food and put that into the soil. They didnt waste much.

Tried to upvote but couldn't. Very disappointed in that as this is truly amazing.

Haré la prueba con un hoyo de dos metros de pronfudidad en lugar de uno.

En la costa del Perú aún se practica la agricultura en Hoyas. La costa es árida, no llueve, y en ciertas zonas arenosas donde no es posible irrigar se practican las "hoyas" como de dos metros de profundidad para que los cultivos puedan acceder al acuífero. Dentro de la hoya se excava un hoyo más profundo para extraer agua a mano e irrigar los cultivos. En los arenales de la población costera de Chilca, a 60 km de Lima se practica esta clase de agricultura, en la actualidad dirigida a la producción del higo. En

When I saw how much MORE water he had in his well after 5 months I was amazed. I can finally say now that I believe that this process will work on my own land where my well has been devastated by deep bore wells all around me.

Brother I'm from Pakistan can I get yours wattsapp nbr I wants to buy cheep sandy land in Pakistan to convert it into agriculture land I'm not Good in English I need yourself help

Can you do this to a lawn with no cover? Create cover?

Can you have one circle with banana and papaya if space is limited.

WE send down blessed rain from the sky, bringing forth gardens & grains for harvest (& towering palm trees ˹loaded˺ with clustered fruit, ˹as˺ a provision for ˹Our˺ servants. & with this ˹rain˺ We revive a lifeless land. Similar is the emergence ˹from the graves˺. Qaaf 50:9-11)

Good to see a place not mostly covered and dependent on plastic. It's everywhere I look on some of these small farms and it helps me along to see others figuring out a way to grow a bit more like our past fellow humans who were forced by the lack of technology to be more in tune with nature, and accept a way that seems to have almost been forgotten! I too have used machinery to excavate small ponds at my place, but leaning more towards slowly doing everything by hand, and smaller now.

Thanks for valuable info in a modest attitude