In a Food Forest, Weeds are Your Friends

But those weeds get in the way of your plants and trees, so
CHOP UP YOUR FRIENDS.
(with a hookie knife)
Start composting today - get David's free booklet: www.thesurvival...
Weeds are a big part of a food forest at the beginning, unless you sheet mulch everything - and I'm not about to do that. Instead, I rely on the weeds for chop and drop green manure, compost, and mulch. Establishing a food forest takes time, but if you work with nature and incorporate the weeds back into the soil, it will feed your fruit trees. I don't eradicate weeds completely. Instead, I cut them down repeatedly and let them grow back. Later I will plant more biomass plants but for now, the weeds will do just fine.

[@planthugs]

Shot, but great title, thank you brother. Have a wonderful day. - A farmer from S.Korea

[@davidthegood]

Thank you.

[@starryeyedwish8005]

The way you can pick out plants from a huge mass of plants that look identical to me blows my mind!

[@mikealmere70]

Everything got overwhelmed. But not David the Good!

[@lauraschwager1665]

I love the title of this video, very clever!

[@lauraschwager1665]

I meant the thumbnail title!!!

[@ecocentrichomestead6783]

I just acquired a sickle that I will be using like you use the hooky knife.

[@hughbrackett343]

@@rehoboth_farm *Nobody* suspects the Salmon Mousse!

[@Danfoodforest]

Hooky Knife looks great .. does the job Weeds are your friends Thank you David

[@babetteisinthegarden6920]

Oh yes , I can hear it

[@lizparenzan4761]

Now I want a hooky knife for Christmas.

[@iartistdotme]

Sounds like corn growing which really is a thing. I just finished pulling a lot of huge weeds (it was so easy since it had been raining and the plants were 4' tall) but I pulled off all the leaves and added them to my compose pile then broke up the stems and added them to the ground next to the pile which will soon get covered with more weeds and garden waste. You do have great ideas!

[@davidthegood]

Good work.

[@senorjp21]

I have a hookee knife and it excels for cutting down weeds and branches. Mine is the Fiskars brand brush axe. It has somehow kept a sharp edge for more than a year.

[@deanna4814]

Please write a Florida wild edible book!!

[@davidthegood]

I will.

[@sunnydayssandytoes4337]

Yay!! 😊

[@archenema6792]

In a food forest, no one can hear you scream. All they can hear is chewing sounds.

[@40rtypluss14]

Looking forward to your first book on tropical gardening, food forests, or both!

[@b_uppy]

Hate when I miss your livestreams...

[@allanturpin2023]

Someone clever once said "weeds are just plants we haven't found a use for yet"... so, if you're using them all, there are no weeds.

[@ecocentrichomestead6783]

A weed is a volunteer plant, growing where you don't want it to grow.

[@geraldfranz9085]

Eat the weeds, use the weeds, repurpose the weeds, tea the weeds, smoke the weeds, ooopppsss ........ my Forest Gump just came out !!! Sorry, carry on citizens, nothing to see here. 😎👍

[@ecocentrichomestead6783]

@@geraldfranz9085 I don't like the idea of smoking anything, but there are other ways of enjoying those properties!

[@geraldfranz9085]

@@ecocentrichomestead6783 I like how you think. 😎👍

[@custardcb]

You are a maniac,. I love it

[@GatorLife57]

Ty4Sharing Wolf🐺 👍

[@davidpritchett855]

I ha e found this is an excellent use for a 5 gallon bucket. Simply up end it over the seedling then string trim. Though that doesn't solve for right next to the tree

[@davidthegood]

Good idea.

[@b_uppy]

Wondered how to use that kind of knife.

[@40rtypluss14]

Oh, and where do we get the hookie knife?

[@hughbrackett343]

I suspect there's one hiding in an old saw blade I have.

[@swalker157]

Volunteer pumpkin or government listening device..?

[@archenema6792]

@@rehoboth_farm No pumpkin simply "volunteers". Someone got to them, and they're just trying to protect their seedlings. You can turn them, but a hostage extraction team is what that scenario requires.

[@archenema6792]

@@rehoboth_farm I see you know what to look out for. Good work. And never trust a volunteer strawberry. They may look sweet, but inside they're just bland robotic clones of the collectivist State.

[@archenema6792]

@@rehoboth_farm Yes, the modern world has thrust upon us the ultimate existential dilemma: In order to fight the eternal battle against the attempts of the will of the collective to crush the spirit of the individual, must we become organized into ever larger groups, surrendering whatever degree is necessary of that precious self-determination we are supposedly defending, in order to achieve victory? Must we always become that which we fight against? Must we always plant our gardens in straight and narrow rows? Can we allow the forest to enter our minds, to make our thoughts and views a little tangled, overgrown, and full of obstructions and new developments that obscure comfortable old ideas from view?

[@archenema6792]

@@rehoboth_farm They don't call me Bogart for nuthin. As Bacall told him, “If you want me, just whistle. You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow."

[@tiki5900]

rainy season? WTH are you taking anout? North Coast DR no rain. I am digging swales everywhere. Hooky knife? got that. Peace tropical. Ohh tell your daughter I want some cranberry hibiscus seeds! Clean your Tamirind!

[@tiki5900]

about...sorry folks mis spellong lol

[@1voluntaryist]

"chocolate pudding fruit"? My mouth is watering! Strawberry Papaya? You betcha! Ice Cream Banana? Freeze the fruit & blend with cinnamon/vanilla. Tropical is easier with over burden, walls, forming a microenvironment.

[@sunnydayssandytoes4337]

I could hear it. 😆

[@tytyvyllus8298]

I saw Hooky Knife open for the Descendants in '83. Dull...

[@davidthegood]

Seriously? I loved their Secret Files tour.

[@robertbuckley2108]

Chocolate pudding fruit sounds interesting. Any chance I could make it happen in the Florida panhandle? I see it is zone 10....

[@karen-hillshomestead]

@@rehoboth_farm LOL

[@allanturpin2023]

@@rehoboth_farm- no joke, someone who lived on my property before I bought it had a pudding addiction. The whole forest within 100 feet of my house had caches of plastic pudding cups under a multi year layer of pine/oak litter. I've pulled out over 500 and I still find more the further out I cultivate.

[@archenema6792]

@@allanturpin2023 You are disturbing a future World Heritage archaeological site. Please stop.

[@allanturpin2023]

@@archenema6792- and if I refuse to reduce the refuse?

[@archenema6792]

@@allanturpin2023 Well, then that makes you no better than Greenpeace with the Nazca Lines. How can you live with yourself? When you look in the mirror, because you have to to shave, what do you see? You can tell yourself you're a good person all you want, but at the end of the day, do you really believe it? How long can you carry on with this farce?

[@c.j.rogers2422]

You ain't right.

[@janetcutler9539]

A great video and lots of knowledge, I am just getting into vegetables in containers and I do this because I live in the city where I have snails and slugs. I do have an abundance of green weeds, my problem is ( yes good old Google and KZbin search) some say to put a nitrogen base supplement on the container before you put any fresh green vegetation on because the green vegetation will Rob the plant of nitrogen just wondering what your thoughts are because I am confused. Thank you.

[@davidthegood]

Fresh green vegetation contains plenty of nitrogen already. However, you can add green or brown materials to your containers as mulch and they won't rob the soil. It's only an issue when you till under "brown" materials, which then sucks up the nitrogen as microscopic life goes on a feeding frenzy.

[@sandiegotropicalgarden3531]

Awesome tips 👍thanks for sharing 👍👍

[@hughbrackett343]

So now we're composting friends? I'm gonna have so much compost! Um, completely unrelated but everyone's invited to my house tomorrow. Please wear only natural fiber clothing.

[@thenumerousfew1205]

Does skin count???

[@allanturpin2023]

Can you pick me up? I'll be behind the shed.

[@gomezaddams6470]

Could I just give some people your address? I'll help you in your garden later. Wink wink

[@karen-hillshomestead]

Haha!

[@archenema6792]

Having survived numerous alpine plane crashes, I take that as a challenge.

[@eduardogutierrez9418]

Where is it located Sir David?

[@tytyvyllus8298]

@@rehoboth_farm I thought he lived in Macho Grande

[@tytyvyllus8298]

@@rehoboth_farm Well, those wounds run pretty deep.

[@geraldfranz9085]

DTG lives in the Cuba Rica Republic in northern Notyomama. 😎👍💥💥💥😇👍✌🖖

[@geraldfranz9085]

Not to be confused with southern Notyodaddy province. 🐴👍

[@jettyeddie_m9130]

The jungle is truly trying to take over 😅

[@applewoodcourt]

Do you have snakes there? A giant anaconda could be lurking in all of that underbrush. =0

[@applewoodcourt]

hmmmm ... ;-)

[@fenrirgg]

Cashew tree? I'm jealous 😅

[@hilarylonsdale608]

{Ties 7' flagstaff to smaller children before letting them loose} Now over here we have a mango, then another papaya and, yes, just a bit further on, one of the kids.

[@lauriehall7841]

Might be a dumb question but I would like to know anyway. Does the chop and drop cut up weeds cause diseases and pests as they die and decay? Or is that a myth. Thank you for your time.

[@sek4110]

I have so much to learn all the leaves look the same to me good grief lol

[@thumperhunts6250]

What climate are you in, I'm t thinking of starting a food forest in subtropical

[@davidthegood]

Almost at the equator. Subtropical food forests are easy. Go for it!

[@gavinmatthews5618]

bahah sorry that was to funny!

[@joanneoverstreet72]

😊🌱💚🌻🐝

[@shanemillard608]

You have nitrogen fixing trees all over!

[@maxejnar9934]

get a scythe you barbarian

[@davidthegood]

I would definitely break that.

[@maxejnar9934]

@@davidthegood I broke two. The trick is to keep them very sharp so that you don't need a lot of force;)