How I designed my permaculture food forest: A step by step guide

In 20 minutes I share everything I wish I knew before I started designing my permaculture food forest.
This video covers strategies for capturing and storing water, improving and feeding your soil, creating a baseman for capturing your observations, swales, contours, guilds and layering your food forest and working with succession as well as some syntropic agroforestry techniques that you can use in your backyard.
A permaculture food forest requires upfront work, but the long-term rewards are huge! That is why I believe it’s the easiest way to grow food. No annual tilling, no toiling under the hot sun year after year, no need to purchase inputs once your forest is established. Once you set up a successful system, it will thrive and offer abundance for generations to come.
Want to experience the magic of Goldifarms? Visit our Etsy shop: goldifarms.etsy.com
For more information on these and other permaculture topics, I recommend the following books that have been helpful here at Goldifarms:
Introduction to Permaculture by Bill Mollison
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The One-Straw Revolution: An Introduction to Natural Farming By Masanobu Fukuoka
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Worms Eat My Garbage by Mary Appelhof
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Humanure Handbook by Joseph Jenkins
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Restoration Agriculture by Mark Stepard
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Permaculture Design: A Step-by-Step Guide Paperback by Aranya
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Sepp Holzer's Permaculture: A Practical Guide to Small-Scale, Integrative Farming and Gardening by Sepp Holzer
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Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability by David Holmgren
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Natural Way of Farming: The Theory and Practice of Green Philosophy by Masanobu Fukuoka
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Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture by Toby Hemenway
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(the above links are affiliate links that help Goldifarms by earning us a small commission at no additional cost to you, if you use them, thank you 🙏)
About Goldifarms:
My name is Erin. I started Goldifarms in my backyard in January 2020 as part of my journey to heal myself and restore this land. I follow permaculture design principles to create regenerative abundance here on the Central Coast of California in zone 9a. My intention with this KZbin channel is to provide inspiration to connect with nature, grow your own food and medicine, and help create a more beautiful world together.
Thank you for all your support, I hope these videos will inspire you to follow your heart and pursue what lights up your life ✨ 🌼💛
Sending so much love to you on your journey. Thank you for watching 🐝💛🌻
Want to experience the magic of Goldifarms? Visit our Etsy shop: goldifarms.etsy.com
For a brief history of Goldifarms, check out: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u5z7...
For pics of the whole project, visit: / goldifarms
To learn more and contact Goldifarms, visit our website: Goldifarms.com
To support Goldifarms (which would mean the world to me!), you can become a Patron: / goldifarms
If you never want to miss a Goldifarms video, subscribe by clicking here: kzbin.info?sub_co...
Music from Epidemic Sound. If you create videos and are looking for a huge selection of music, feel free to use my epidemic referral for a free month: share.epidemicsound.com/hlg6dg
Chapters
00:00- Intro
00:33 - Start with Why
01:20 - Imagine
03:03 - Observe
04:09 - Create a Basemap
05:18 - Design for Water
09:45 - Get that GoldiGlow!!✨
11:04 - Feed your Soil
13:52 - Layers and Succession
18:38 - Design Iteratively

[@Goldifarms]

Thank you so much for all your kind words, stories, shares, and encouragement 💛 Your support and gratitude means so much to me 🧡 I'm going through comments and coming up with answers to your great questions, which I'll answer in upcoming videos! In the meantime, I've added chapters to this video so you can more easily refer back to sections as you need them. See you soon ✨

[@ellahenry3221]

O😮

[@ellahenry3221]

😅😅😅😮😮 I'll😅 pop hug lol pop 😅😅😅attetz in😅😅

[@ellahenry3221]

😮2dzo

[@ListenSilent121]

👍👌👏💐🌷☀️🌳🌈💧

[@michaelhudson4171]

Well produced. Your content is as densely and nearly layered as your garden. Mostly watching for nostalgias sake, as I grew up in Northern CA. But it's also fascinating to compare my own systems 17 years into the tropics. It took me a decade to learn to build large scale systems from scratch without any outside inputs. In my case, it's because outside inputs aren't an option. No industry and no road here. It's fascinating to see all the ways that it's so difficult to truely unplug from unsustainable systems, especially within industrialized economies like North America. It's so easy to get hooked on inputs with the excuse of building towards something sustainable. Great job with water conservation too. A note on terracing contours: if you A-frame a steep slope into beds, even with ample connections and mulch, the whole thing can wash out in a heavy rain. Happened to me years ago. A property as flat as yours doesn't need contouring for catchment. You did great with just berms and swales.

[@juanitahamlin8478]

why? it makes sense. as a teen in the seventies, read mother earth news...married young, three sons later, no decent money, had trouble pulling together dinners...kids in school went to work, rushed home no energy to do more. fast forward, kids grown and worked more hours than did before, ridiculous cycle, widowed and married again, couldn't slow down still and stress was high. asking what did I want to do I never did. live as close to the land as possible. retired 2019, bought 13 acres and had a tiny cabin built and a greenhouse and off grid solar and said I am done. I do not work a job. I am a senior. I garden and preserve. I try to fine ways to do with less and minimal lifestyle is perfect. I am at peace finally. why not?

[@fancyfree8228]

Good for you!! I am so happy for you. You deserve a happy retirement.

[@voltcorp]

Suggestion: When drawing over your basemap, you can use multiple layers of tracing paper, each with sketches and notes on a different topic, so you can be as detailed as you wish without getting confusing or messy. Then you can overlay them as needed to check on how they interact.

[@Ubiquinode]

I do something similar, but with pieces of (recovered) clear poly plastic. The visibility through multiple layers is better than with tracing paper.

[@MissBetsyLu]

Yep. You all are geniuses. I wouldn't have dreamed up using tracing paper. Many blessings everyone.

[@kaylahall1219]

If you have an IPad, pro create us another easy way to add in layers and drawings as well as pictures.

[@MissBetsyLu]

@@Ubiquinode those recovered plastic from things like cake boxes?????

[@joeladams8506]

Geniuses

[@davidthegood]

We've also been too fast on putting in the fruit trees and not nearly enough support species. Your food forest looks great. We don't bother with all the planning, instead we take a really anarchistic, iterative approach, by planting lots of things and then slashing down the losers and feeding them to the winners later.

[@mooneymakes359]

compost your enemies

[@mooneymakes359]

kudzu vs bamboo vs miscanthus in the great biomass wars

[@MissBetsyLu]

​@@mooneymakes359 bad bad. Lol. No enemies.

[@juanitaschlink2028]

Yup. I have a small backyard garden and it was the same, give em all the best start, and what ever goes gangbusters, I seed save and re sew the next year, what struggles and dies, no Buenos.

[@maryjane-vx4dd]

​@@mooneymakes359David the Good?

[@armaanrampadarath4436]

Observing nature and imitating it is the way to sustain and propagate life. All our ancestors knew this and followed this. We unlearned this but now we are slowly awakening up to it once more. 😊

[@tomaitoe]

I am blown away by how well crafted this video is. Thank you for the effort you put into it!

[@biohacker7262]

I can feel the love she put in this project thru this video. When I saw the length of the video thought that will not watching it. But once start hearing I couldn’t stop until the end

[@user-on8ti9cp4r]

​@@biohacker7262✌🏼🌄

[@louisegogel7973]

Agreed! I’m sharing this video on facebook etc.

[@okinoboo4743]

Amazing❤

[@RustyGolfer]

And all in 20 mins, this lady should write a book! Bravo 👏

[@katieschortmann1098]

More info on designing with swales and berms would be much appreciated 😊

[@Megalyssa007]

Best video on the subject. Got entire parmaculture basics covered in 20 minutes. What an awesome job!!!

[@yeseniarobles4289]

I’m Mexico my mom had a forest garden, she had a pipe connecting the water from the sink, shower, and washing machine directed towards her plants, they thrived even with soapy elements.

[@ab-jc8nv]

U do planting?

[@l-kin3480]

Organic soap is safe for crops

[@yeseniarobles4289]

@@l-kin3480there was nothing “organic” in that waste water lol

[@pascaledingenen4894]

I bought a house in Costa Rica. The sink, shower and washing machine water also runs into the food Forrest. All soap is organic and hand made except for the kitchen sink. I want to connect the sink to the septic tank as I'm a little concerned.

[@JoyandSerenity.]

Its taken me almost 5 years to get my rented house's garden to feel like its finally becoming lucious.. Which is a shame because we move in 3 months to our much more perminant home and I start my journey again. I am so excited to take all my failures with me and build bigger and better than ever! (it took 5 years due to very poor soil and very overgrown evergreens)

[@Ubiquinode]

You'll be fine as long as you focus on the learning component of that first garden; it's not 5 wasted years! I did the same, living with my parents-in-law and helping with their existing dense and varied food garden, and adding to it. Now I have taken the best ideas (and clippings and roots) to the new place 2 km down the road. I will never regret that 'apprenticeship'.

[@louisegogel7973]

Five years of practice to make an even more successful garden and a gift to whomever has the rented place now!

[@cajunlady4893]

@@louisegogel7973 💯

[@ariloves10]

Onward and upward!!

[@Padraigp]

Same, except for ten years, and we will probably move next year. Not having f soil is tough. My landlady scraped off two foot of soil and dumped it for me she was doing me a favour. Between me saying yes and going to get my stuff to move in. I cried for six days. Lol.

[@sarahdalmeida9160]

I’m a trained permaculture gardener and do that for a living. Excellent video

[@Goldifarms]

What a compliment! Thank you 🙏

[@franziskani]

@@Goldifarms I agree, excellent video, I learned a lot - or more like you reminded me of a lot (And I watch Geoff Lawton).

[@dorisparker811]

You, my dear, are a wealth of information and a delight to watch. And your voice is kind to sensitive ears. Goldifarms is particularly relevant to me because I am relocating from Washington state, essentially starting over. My new husband is an architect and wants to build in San Diego County. I have always known only of abundant water, so you are teaching me from the ground up how to create a beautiful and sustainable landscape!

[@acceptingseeking]

This video connected with me so deeply that I am in tears. I am working hard and saving money for this dream. ❤

[@deus22488]

I am shocked how well put together this video is. Your guide shows how scientific your thinking process is while maintaining a deep almost spiritual connection and love for a thoughtful and cooperative relationship with the land. Thank you for sharing that with us.

[@naturalflowalchemy]

My Why is creating a healthy, balanced food source for me and my connections + regenerative and supportive biodiversity practices to create a sustainable loop. Working within - not against.

[@nickyperryman2683]

As a fellow permaculturist this is a lovely and inspiring reminder. Thanks for sharing xx

[@lw2131]

I would love to hear more about consortium combinations. I too planted fruit trees right right away, figs, apple, pear, plum, peach, grapes on my residential lot. Then added shade trees the next year. At 4 years now, I'm getting solid fruit production and shade trees are slowly coming along. Glad to have the abundance of fruit GREAT vid!

[@Euonym.]

This got me imagining different ways I could interact with the land around me.

[@Matt_and_Ray]

I’d love to see a video solely on layering and succession!

[@BenMaina]

Just stumbled on your video and this is exactly what I was looking for. It's very insightful. Perfect for some who has dreams but doesn't know where to start

[@Ruby-Boggs]

Thank you for this precious video, dear. Being in the process of creating a food forest right now it was a treat to experience everything in a time lapse. Keep on going, you've got it all.

[@treygreen6983]

No rain for TWO YEARS?? In Minnesota, Zone 4A, we get rain every TWO DAYS. LOL While winter here is fierce, life is necessarily hardier. We live in opposite worlds, yet it's nice to see nature can thrive anywhere there's a worthy human steward. God's blessings be upon you.

[@k9spot1]

i’d love a full vid about consortiums vs guilds with some more examples 😊

[@KeepOnGrowin]

Love all of this.

[@dorkygirlsurvivalist3482]

One of the best perma videos on the net.

[@teachingandgardeningwithsa2588]

I am inspired. I am doing exactly the same thing in my tiny property (500 sam), already got the output, amazing.

[@drushella]

My WHY is the same as yours AND to help revive the earth and all ecosystems it holds. One of my favorite things of all time is to rebuild ecosystems and watch all the critters return, I have the tiniest bit of native flowers, a few native shrubs, a annual garden, I also always put out bird seed and sugar water next year is the year I really get to go nuts with planting. Something I wish I had done when I first started is meeting more local gardeners, I'm going to check out a farmers market soon, and im going to try to make some connections there.

[@louisegogel7973]

There are also face-group pages of permaculture folk sharing their dreams, successes, failures, and solutions.

[@truestory923]

Thank you for helping me to slow down. There's forces (people, culture) that give me the feeling like there's a hurry... It's been so hard for me to admit that I'd rather just spend time on my land observing things before jumping into moving stuff around... I'm going to follow your design process... once the inside of the house is ready 🙂

[@MissBetsyLu]

Grand planning, there. Many blessings everyone.

[@louisegogel7973]

Let us know how you progress with observations and how you note them down… this is the biggest part of making a successful gardening in my mind and not so obvious to beginners like me.

[@theurbanthirdhomestead]

I transformed a third of an acre into something similar. Water running off my property is definitely my biggest problem!

[@louisegogel7973]

Have you watched Geoff Lawtons videos on greening the desert and his Australian farm, Zeytuna where he deals with water harvesting and dealing with big rains because of the way he sculpted the land and planted?

[@YenRestherac]

I dream of caring for my own garden one day. I'm often afraid, because here in zone 4 (Quebec), it is hard to do anything with the aoil during winter and goung plants must develop a good root system in order to survive. However, I had never imagined we could create such an amazingly beautiful foodforest in a dry land; I'm so used to water abundancy. So I find this very inspiring. Thank you so much! I'll keep dreaming and planning and, one day maybe...

[@joritos21]

Ive just started researching permaculture and food forests, I dont have land yet, but want to be ready when I do. I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around the layering, and the consortium method. I would love a more in depth video on how to do that and where you gather information on what to plant together. Thanks so much for this video, cant wait until I can start my own food forest!!

[@mooneymakes359]

its more physical than anything. Shoveling dirt and wheel barrelling dirt rocks and wood chips is very physical She glossed over that to keep the video peaceful but the amount of physical labor this girl did is alot likely 100 to 200 hours of hard physical work before she even planted anything in the ground

[@Goldifarms]

This is true 😅 conditioning my body for the labor was something I wish I had done before I had land. I worked as a software designer and had no idea how physically demanding working the earth is. Even carrying a bucket full of water - that's 40 pounds - which is more than I had ever lifted in a pilates class 😂 . I had to start slow, working just an hour or so a day, then over the years I got a lot stronger. You can do it! Your body will adapt so long as you eat well, rest, and take care of yourself and don't push yourself beyond your limits 💛

[@MissBetsyLu]

​@@mooneymakes359 so. There's always a way to do the physical work. Grand Blessings everyone.

[@Finchersfarmstead]

How long did it take for you to establish your base foundation? Its stunning btw! ​@@Goldifarms

[@chelsiearthome8094]

Thank you so much for your beautiful video! Im Currently in a permaculture design certificate program and cant wait to have a beautiful medicine food forest like yours! Yes on acheiving our permaculture paradise dreams!

[@catcourbelle8287]

Huge accomplishment! Very impressive and knowledgeable ! Congratulations!

[@jsChelimo]

I want a beautiful garden, healthy soils, and plenty of food for my family and our chickens. I also want a haven for the native birds.

[@songsplay9092]

The commentary in this video is A grade! Very inspiring work, I have very small terrace that I am inspired to design with such ideas - Imagination!!

[@TheASMRlogs]

Will have to rewatch while I take notes! Great video!

[@misspermaculture3972]

That is one of the best accessible permaculture design video I've seen!!! I love your spirit, the simple yet powerful elements you put in there! ❤🎉 Long live your dreams! :)

[@Goldifarms]

Wow, thank you! I'm so glad you found it helpful!! sending my love 🧡

[@louisegogel7973]

ditto!

[@RisenUponTomorrow]

This is fantastic! I'd love to see a deep dive on any of the covered topics even if that's just showing more examples of how/why you made the choices you did in a given part of the garden.

[@louisegogel7973]

I agree. I’d also love to know of anyone who is doing this type of gardening in the humid hills of the Black Forest in Germany. There the slugs and aphids are massively eating everything! Also voles chewing the veggies from the roots.

[@SnakeAndTurtleQigong]

Sending gratitude from a Daoist monastery near Seattle (USA)!

[@britt518]

Two years ago I moved from Sacramento to Georgia. The extreme weather in CA is no small thing to deal with. Thank you for sharing all your advice and journey. Georgia has its own challenges with growing here, its been a journey to learn how to work with the soil. The soil in CA is so beautifully rich in a lot of places. Thank you for sharing!

[@monicatemperly6247]

Where did you move to in GA? Near Serenbe, by chance?

[@PearlsPage]

The best ever food Forest video explained 🎉

[@growinginportland]

I’m in Portland Oregon zone 8B. I have just begun my journey. I am on a quarter acre lot with my house so I will make use of what land I have it’s not a lot but I look forward to the journey. I’ve made lots of mistakes already but have managed to plant 10 fruit trees set up 4 Gardening bed. I’ve also planted lots and lots of berries, tons, and tons of berries. Thanks for sharing feel free to drop by sometime. I’ve made some music videos so all my best and have a good one.

[@didgeridooblue]

When my exhaustion becomes overwhelming I recall my "why" to keep me going. It's best to have more than one "why" so at any given time one of the "why"s resonates with you and helps you to keep going. My "why"s are chemical/hormone free meat (protein). For that we raise grassfed beef. Another "why" is prairie restoration. With prairie restoration I'm rewarded when we see a new wild flower or a new bird species on our property.

[@hummusxpress3780]

I like the word consortium I had never heard of it. Great knowledge "high level"

[@BadHexSpokane]

Your visual explanation of guilds is amazing! I've had a tough time understanding guilds and you really helped put together how they are built and why.

[@louisegogel7973]

⭐️💛💚💙 🌱🌿🌺 This is so well put together as a comprehensive summary that anyone can get a real sense of how to approach permaculture. I have been watching many permaculture videos to learn about the principles and how to implement them. I bet Geoff Lawton is proud of your work here! My challenge is going to be seeing if I can do it in the Black Forest in Germany on a tiny garden when I move over there. Thank you soooo much for this! I’m sharing the video and subscribing.

[@SeekingBeautifulDesign]

Very nice to see you squatting to do pruning/harvesting near the ground. Weirdly, more than 50% of permaculture youtubers I've seen model bending at the waist for ground work. Applying design principles to the designer seems like it should be part of the principles. I'm so envious of your wood chip supply. It's so much slower working with nothing imported. In your examples you show landscape CAD and paper trace approaches to topographic planning. Have you developed a preference when considering the role intuition plays in many of our design decisions? What about the virtual reality, post-it or lego approaches to design?

[@ricos1497]

I love the idea of applying design principles to the designer! Raised beds get a good write up in the UK, because you don't have to bend down to them. Largely because we're a nation that has entirely designed out the squat, replacing it with the chair, in everything from working to pooping. Obviously, bending from the waste has its benefits for the hamstrings and the core too, so it shouldn't be eradicated either. A design that incorporated natural movements from bending, stretching, squatting and maybe even climbing is a great idea. Actually working at all those different heights would be massively beneficial. I know my parents are not unusual in having hips and knees replaced as they have grew older, and I often wondered how much that had to do with a lack of movement designed into their everyday life. I suppose the opposite could be argued too. You design around native species and things that grow in particular environments, so perhaps it could be argued that we should design around the immobility of our Western lifestyles!

[@SeekingBeautifulDesign]

@@ricos1497 A good podcast on this dropped about 14 hours ago on a very popular channel. Some people call this training for the "Centenarian Olympics" (Peter Attia), functional training etc. As you point out, there's a tension between modifying your environment to be more efficient or to build in more necessary exercise/balance/range of motion etc. and become arguably less efficient. Most of these approaches in Western media only go for small environmental modifications like standing desks, treadmill desks etc. When you design including as many factors as you can, you might end up designing a perennial agriculture based lifestyle. I've found that this is that same tension...plant the trees/shrubs (decent squatting, lifting, carrying...) but then it's just raising arms overhead to harvest and forearm workout for some trimming. All the benefits of permaculture/perennial agriculture remove the requirement for a lot of exercise. So far I've gotten maybe a quarter of the body's need for exercise integrated with the perennial landscape, but the other 3/4 aren't yet apparent. I guess until then it'll just have to be exercise for exercise's sake rather than getting exercise while doing something incredibly useful rather than just useful. e.g. Lifting weights in a gym is exercise, but really only serves to wear down the metal. Using a standing step machine at your desk that generates power for your monitor and computer is aerobic and works on balance while creating power, but solar is a much more efficient at generating electricity. Ideally the exercise is something that only a human can do. A good example is walking your land after a meal: documented digestion and blood sugar benefits, harvest of new mushrooms (usually a very short harvest window), issues with any plants ("Footsteps of the farmer are his best fertilizer") etc. But walking, harvesting and pruning seem to be the only repetitive perennial agriculture exercises. Maybe the trick is to always be helping neighbors establish new perennial agriculture as that requires much more varied activity along with all the other personal and social benefits. You mentioned climbing. Have you found a way to bring this into your life as a useful activity (not that it being fun isn't an end in itself). I could see a tropical lifestyle requiring the need to climb coconut trees, but it seems that the physical risk may out weigh the exercise benefits if done daily.

[@louisegogel7973]

Have you reached out to tree service people? In Mew England the tree people really appreciate when they can dump their wood chips locally and not have to bring them back to their base.

[@SeekingBeautifulDesign]

@@louisegogel7973 ;) Your logic is impeccable. Tree service people around here often do have to pay to dump. So when presented with being able to dump 1km/0.6m from their worksite as well as being on the way home...they absolutely had no interest :(. I'm up to 7 rejections now...granted some people said they'd dump but didn't. Have called the owners of the 20 nearest tree companies and they weren't interested. There's a website in this area which coordinates dumping of woodchips. A year online and no hits. Even started helping out a tree service owner with permaculture consulting...no luck. It's really hard on the ego :( Must be me.will look at My original source has retired, so the last chips are finally rotting away. But, at the end of it all, chipping isn't the most sustainable practice compared to growing and processing everything on site. So, that's what I'm working on. Harder in temperate climates than tropical I'm guessing as things don't grow as fast. But then they don't rot as fast.

[@lesboucher542]

A wonderful video and a great help for those who are starting out on the permaculture path. Thank you for helping others to take the first step in what will become a lifetime event...

[@sowinthecity]

You inspire me so much! It’s my goal to have a permaculture food forest one day. - Taryn

[@kendrapayne7598]

To always have healthy food. To spend more time with earthy spirit. To teach others these important lessons

[@ab-jc8nv]

How r u

[@biohacker7262]

I’ve been wondering for a while how to design my food source and you just came with an awesome tools and ideas. Thank you!

[@cautious1343]

Fine job sister! I love everything about you. Many thanks for the ideas and information. I have 3.3 acres in middle Tennessee that is destined to become a food forest. I live on the property in a big army tent. You wouldn't believe how much rain we get.

[@nadiavandermerwe1077]

EXCELLENT and SUPER INFORMATIVE video!

[@loulou_9999]

What a beautiful garden ! thank you for sharing!

[@603ginob]

We’re in zone 9 closing on land in 2 months. I’m looking up ideas now. I grew very successful in zone 10 for five years looking forward to starting on Homestead in a few months. All these ideas are greatly appreciated.

[@mariecook622]

I love this video. I stumbled upon this tonight , just at sucha good time in my life. I wish I had started when I was younger. However I am motivated to continue on my foodie path and pass it down. Tku, I really enjoyed this.

[@noraelkin1372]

Love it!!! Thanks for sharing!

[@williammcpherson1193]

I don’t think I’ve ever seen such thorough coverage of the elements of creating a vibrant permaculture. Great video. Probably the best I’ve ever seen. Thanks!

[@mermaidmermaid5008]

hi from australia! i just subscribed. my dream is a food forest for land i just purchased. but more importantly, the intention is to heal the land alongside myself...hand in hand healing with mother. i feel totally overwhelmed about getting started. and im a beginner gardener, only just starting in the last 12-18 months. my favourite parts of this video were the planning and drawing steps and the huggel mound (i know thats not the right word!) steps where good design will make the most of water. i would love more in depth videos on that, that really spell it out for a total novice like me. i feel totally out of my depth. your video is wonderful, especially the parts about connecting with imagination and inner power. im a novice in this area too. i feel like i can glean a lot from your channel so thank you for this video. i look forward to checking out the rest of your channel.

[@infjstardust4357]

wow...we love the same collection of photos..i love your picture picks! i also can't figure out the best design for our small garden...i can't stop thinking of a better design..but when i went to the garden to start cleaning it yesterday, my body aches until now...but that's the beauty of it...i slept well last night!

[@rawbacon]

When you live with an abundance of water it's always interesting hearing from those who don't.

[@deniseserna7253]

Thank you so much for this video. My husband and I have similar dreams (our land is in Sri Lanka) and the information you are providing is extremely helpful. More videos please! Perhaps a video for each of the strategies covered in this video?

[@melfinaw]

Super excited to find this video because I'm trying to design my own food forest. The plan is to spend the first year observing while allowing ground cover to grow. A deep dive into earth works would be appreciated because it really is the first major step in transforming plans into action. My property is on a slope and I'm wanting to design swales but would love to collect runoff from major storms into an irrigation pond. I'm oblivious on how to design the flow between the swales, what equipment I'd need to pull it off, and how big & deep to dig the pond. What would I need to tap the pond to water my garden? Been having a hard time finding videos on this topic.

[@stupendousy334]

I just watched a video called the water wizard or Oregon on youtube. It was all about irrigation ponds!

[@StevenYu]

This is one of the best explanations of permaculture. Thank you and all the best with your amazing forest!

[@DrRudyScarfalloto]

Thank you, Goldifarms! Most informative and inspiring. I started my Permaculture adventure about 3 months after you did in 2020, and for similar reasons. I have also used many of the same strategies, though I have not been nearly as methodical as you have -- for which I have repeatedly paid the price :). May you continue to prosper and thrive in your Permaculture paradise.

[@gabrielyetnikoff5701]

Hell yeah Erin! Looking so epic here. Excited to visit one day - Gabriel from the PDC :)

[@Goldifarms]

Thanks Gabriel!! Great to hear from you! Can’t wait to see the awesome things you’re up to ✨

[@jeslynnebrown1979]

The educational content in this video is incredible!! I subscribed and I can't wait to learn more from you!

[@kimberlyfoss6344]

Loved the idea of using Canva for making a base map! Brilliant!

[@ab-jc8nv]

Hii

[@solcruz5612]

Thank you 🙏🏼for sharing your knowledge, this is gold for those who like me, are trying to learn to grow most of our veggies and fruits. Your video inspired me to do what I need to, to fulfill my dream. 🤗🥰

[@paulyoung9578]

Don’t really have a comment just want to throw a shout out for the YT algorithm and help get this out to more people so that more people follow your lead! Keep up this awesome work!

[@randnotizbleistift7985]

Thank you for this precious video, dear. Being in the process of creating a food forest right now it was a treat to experience everything in a time lapse. Keep on going, you've got it all. ❤

[@StillOnTrack]

Wonderful video :) I rushed into gardening here in Zone 8B Austin TX this year, somewhat intentionally. I learned some great lessons. In the coming years I plan to properly design my entire yard using permaculture principles and I hope it's as beautiful as yours :)

[@TellMeMoore]

❤

[@goubahi7967]

undoubtedly , you are the prettiest flower in the whole garden !

[@JayZeee23]

Absolutely love this!! Subbed!!

[@franziskani]

Permaculture farmers Mossy Bottom (Ireland) Takota Coen (Canada) made the same mistake. Eager to plant fruit trees, but in their case it is the wind that keeps the fruit trees from thriving. They need the wind break and the support trees, then they can thrive. Geoff Lawton on the other hand is a pro. In the Greening the Desert project in Jordan (close to the Death Sea) they worked for many years with nitrogen fixing support species, and they had very bad soil.. I guess after 5 years of so they were able to start with the high value fruit trees, now after more than 10 years they are reaping the rewards and can even grow citrus fruits.

[@LawOfNewton7]

Fantastic video!

[@cindytennessee]

Awesome vlog! Awesome information! I’m interested in building a permaculture food forest, so I subscribed to a different channel which turned me off when it showed political leanings. I unsubscribed. Today you showed up on my home page. I was immediately excited. I’m looking forward to gleaning the knowledge you possess that will help me to make my yard a permaculture food forest paradise. 🙋🏻‍♀️❤️ Thank you for sharing!

[@unindoji]

I absolutely love the first video I've watched of you explaining permaculture and on top of that, you included imagination and vision and I started thinking of Neville Goddard, one of my favorite lecturers into the law..toward the end of your video, you showed a quote of Neville....wow...I feel drawn to what you have to share now. Thank You.

[@gustav0q]

Inspiring! A big thanks to you. ❤ from Brazil 🇧🇷

[@RoseaCreates]

Some people call that imagination part self hypnosis. It works, clearly! Thank you for the video as I have two parcels and want to embrace the forest.

[@cautious1343]

Hey Rosea How big are your parcels, and where?

[@RoseaCreates]

@@cautious1343 one is a quarter, the other is over two acres. Both unincorporated.

[@cautious1343]

@@RoseaCreates you can make a fine food producing forest/garden out of that. Do you plan to fence it? I'm going to start by fencing around each tree and building lots of raised beds for the veggies.

[@RoseaCreates]

@@cautious1343 those are excellent ideas! I love the path scenario, and the shade the trees provide so it's going to be heartbreaking when I have to cut one or two to build my tiny sustainable cottage

[@cautious1343]

@@RoseaCreates I was just talking to a friend about how nice it is with all the shade. It's gonna heat things up a lot to cut the trees, but gardens need sun, and we need building materials.

[@renaedery6640]

Thank you so so much for the time and energy to put this out there and share. I truly felt so inspired this morning. You changed the entire course of my day, and it will be one with the excitement and capacity to get closer to my dream. I love your dream, and wish you all the best :))

[@EnergiA854]

The best condensed permaculture lesson I saw! and put into practice too, awesome!

[@caydancebloom]

I can't thank you enough for making this video. I've had visions of making my own video some day and what that might look like as I daydream through the drudgery of chaos my life currently is as we continue trying to recover from a shady contractor for renovations. This has now put me two years behind during a time in our world when it is so very important to have this going already! Anxiety is climbing higher as things continue to get in the way and I struggle through, shall we say, neurodivergent issues making it very difficult for me to grasp things, let alone plan anything! Life has been chaos since 2018 and I've longed for the day when my world looks ..... like your video. There is just no other way to say it. THIS is the vision I keep playing in my head that keeps me going. It gets me out of bed every day instead of allowing depression pin me to the bed and anxiety paralyzing me there. It is my belief that this goal... this vision is keeping me out of a padded room with a self-hugging jacket (said humorously, but absolutely seriously). Of course it hasn't been this EXACT vision. It's still vague as to what it will end up like... but it is like this rather than traditional gardening with straight rows of monocrops. Also... every time I saw you frolicking in your garden... I have envisioned me doing the same with *this* song as the background. (kzbin.info/www/bejne/pl6qmJ2fbbmojKc) I've finally got a little pile of compost as my "learner" pile while trying to construct raised beds out of pallet boards. I'm currently helping my sister and her elderly husband who has dementia. I'm hoping to create a garden that will invite him out of his bed and into nature more, maybe even interacting with the garden. So, before I get to what I envision (like what is in your video), I will be using raised beds for a while. While I do these things, I'm trying to puzzle out some things ahead of me in the not too distant future. Maybe you could help! I live in Alaska, zone 4b. I tend to focus on what it will take to survive the winter. So when I try to figure out where compost is going to live permanently I would like to take advantage of the heat it produces. There are a lot of options to consider. Also, with water storage in Hugelkulture mounds... it will freeze solid. I have not researched yet about the effect of that on the plants within, etc... but I just wonder about it. There are also frost heaves to consider which can be quite damaging. It's what causes the waves in the roads up here, which are more noticeable on longer straight stretches like between Anchorage to Fairbanks. I'm sure there are many other things I've yet to consider in regards to my climate and the things I learn about permaculture... I am quite new to all this. I'm just wondering what insight you might have to doing permaculture in such an environment or... if you have no personal insights, perhaps you know where to direct me?

[@EagleWolf523]

What the F*^%#K Was That Jimmy!! 😮. Neatly Done With the Video Though Thank You!.

[@_SunRa_]

Awe yes, Consortium Planting, something I’d like to work more on ! 😊 well done on the vid ! 💚🌱☀️🙏🏼💧🌾🐸🌀

[@neuforteils4479]

Hello there Great video. I think I might apply some of it to my 800m2 domestic garden. I'm also planting a "semi-wild" 1.7 hectares food forest in Brittany, about 2km from the Atlantic coast. USDA 9A, so pretty mild and wet in winter, but we have powerful winds from the West. I'm planning to grow timber, firewood, food and medecine for my family. I also wish to shelter as much wildlife as I can. I've already got forests in some areas, wetlands, dry areas, a river and a spring. I don't think I'll be moving earth, but instead relying on the plantation of wind breaking and nitrogen fixing trees to raise and enrich the soil for the rest of the plantations. I also have to deal with rabbits, hares, roe deer, wild boars and the occasional cow escaped from a neighbouring field, so I've decided to use brambles and defensive trees also. I don't live on that land, but on a neighbouring plot where I'm building a hand hewn timber framed house for my family, and some of it is already a functioning food forest and timber framer's workshop (lots of wood chips!). Do you know of any examples of semi-wild forest gardens like the larger one I'm planning to grow? I've heard of them in tropical climates, but not in temperate oceanic climates such as mine. Any suggestions welcome! Good luck with your homestead.

[@hsbio]

Thank you for Sharing. I‘m from Germany and I practice permaculture here. You are amazing. Humus is extremely important. Unterstand nature and work with it and see yourself as a part of it.

[@mynext30years41]

Beautiful! The video is beautiful. The garden is beautiful. And the host is beautiful. Good luck!

[@motivo-academy]

Wonderful video. I really like the insights into how you designed your forest. Thanks for sharing.

[@lorenaragsdale8235]

Fantastic video, very inspiring, came across after recently becoming a designer. Never explored consortiums. I have looked at time / planting and size just didn't realize it has a name. Lol I must of missed it somewhere. Thank you for the Wonderful video.

[@JeremyChevallier]

Absolutely incredible video! Thank you so much for creating 🙏 looking forward to more from you

[@azureocean8]

This video is amazing and I found it at just the right time!! I just bought my property and I am super anxious to get started - with everything!! But this video calmed me down a bit and now I want to take it slowly, plan, organize.....Thank you!!

[@KatrinPiazza]

Great Video - it‘s a pleasure to watch and very encouraging. I live on an island where we can‘t just buy stuff (or plants) and I love the way you chop and drop. Keep making videos, please! 🎉

[@louisegogel7973]

You’ve probably got some of the best mulch available bring on an island! Seaweed! When I loved on Cape Cod Mass, I gathered bags and bags of seaweed that landed up on the beach after storms, mulched my raspberries a foot thick with the fresh seaweed, no rinsing off the salt, and always had the most incredible crop from the really healthy vibrant canes. I rarely watered if ever, and never weeded or worried about nutrients. The ocean provides!

[@reyn66]

What a wonderful informative video.

[@TimGreenturae]

Thank you for sharing your story. Its inspiring ❤

[@LauraStepney]

Such an amazing video! I'm so inspired by your food forest. I'd love to see a plan view of your forest layout and maybe more information on how you decided to lay it out when you mentioned that you decided not to do swales on contour? I'm struggling to settle on a layout for my front yard food forest right now which has my projects at a standstill.

[@Goldifarms]

Hey Laura, thanks for your kind words and yes, that’s a great question and some thing that stopped me for a while. As you can see from all the different sketches I made, I explored lots of different layouts. I’ll talk about how I chose my layout in an upcoming video ✨🐝💛🙌

[@caydancebloom]

@@Goldifarms my guess is that it is about space? The contour pics and other pictures I've seen of contouring are working with a lot of land. You are working with 1/3 acre so the Hugelkulture makes more sense.

[@veganvocalist4782]

Just start , you will intuitively know what to do , any possible mistakes are simply lessons ;D

[@ShereesAlchemy]

Your food forest is stunning!! I will be transitioning from “backyard gardening” to establishing a food forest/permaculture garden. This was very helpful to see your approach. The water capture part is going to be something I really need to thing about. Thanks for the insight. And happy growing!

[@hansschmidt3144]

hello there. i'm a soil researcher. and i have to say i'm really happy that you teach ppl how to take care of their soils. the best thing is that you don't use any peatland organics. there are too many ppl around claiming to do "sustainable" agriculture while using imported peatland soil to ameliorate. installing a sustainable ecosystem should not harm other ecosystems. cheers :)

[@chameleoncathy]

Great video! So well made- concise-informative-engaging and inspiring all in one. Love your positive tone and outlook ❤ I am an urban roof farmer with large raised beds. I have really had to work hard to maintain soil coverage - chop and drop for sure- experiment with layers and companion plants - deal with microclimates due to shade and wind even in a small space - water harvesting from the roof is easy but holding is limited due to weight… so the principles you have laid out work even the smallest spaces and can result in huge returns in healthy food and a thriving urban ecosystem full of birds, lizards, toads, and soooo many insects!! Thank you for this video. I look forward to following your journey. ❤

[@TheErraticGardener]

I love what you’ve done, and I’d like to get there one day. Right now, I’m trying to figure out how to start small.

[@panzoom3614]

Wow beautiful garden ❤❤❤❤

[@michelleheberling9194]

Thank you so much for4 sharing - this was an amazing video!!