Orchard to Food Forest Conversion with Chickens | Part 1 | Permaculture

Using chickens to convert a standard orchard into a permaculture food forest without machinery.
Justin Rhodes Chickshaw design:
abundantpermacu...
Justin Rhodes’ channel:
/ @thejustinrhodesshow
Ground cover seeds:
www.greenharve...

[@rosehavenfarm2969]

Good information. Thank you for no "shakey-cam" walking around. I'll look around your channel. Cheers from the Northern Hemisphere!

[@LoganberryForest]

Thanks so much for the feedback!

[@CraigOverend]

Looking forward to seeing your food forest progress!

[@Coccinelf]

You made me google "perennial vegetables". It's hard to find what can survive our winter though. Nevertheless, the seed is sown in my brain.

[@jacobspranger1267]

Asparagus, garlic chives, mint, sage, thyme, arugula, comfrey, dill, lily, basil, oregano. just a few...

[@GreenForestSpirit]

Very intresting video! Can't wait to see next part.

[@Sunnydaypicnic]

So cool!! Thanks for the great content!!!!!!

[@LolitasGarden]

The one question my mind travels back to each time I am introduced to the concept of a food forest is *how do you deal with the shade introduced by the canopy?* In the example b-roll shots of a forest that you showed, there are practically only canopy and herbaceous layers. I struggle with shade from the canopies of trees on either side of my small property and have given up trying to cultivate these areas as garden space. There are niche vines and weeds that occupy those areas and they are more adapted than the shade tolerant plants I introduce and eventually overtake the area. So how, in 10 years when the canopies of walnut trees shade the ground, will your understory grow?

[@LoganberryForest]

Lolita's Garden it sounds like your situation isn’t right for a food forest since you can’t control the canopy yourself. If they are walnuts you also may have additional trouble as many walnuts are allopathic to other plant growth. In most food forest situations the upper canopy would be fruiting trees of some kind and if it got too dense you could copice or prune them so that some light gets through. And there are plenty of plants that like a bit of protection and do fine especially in Australia with slightly less light. Also in temperate climates most big fruiting trees are deciduous providing a neiche for winter fruiting plants to get full sun. It would definitely be leafy rather than fruiting plants in the shadiest parts. What I think you are pointing out rightly too is there are many phases to forest growth. Some of the vid footage was of old growth forest (I had limited choice of free stock footage) which is really at a less productive stage than earlier when there is actually more diversity or later once the big trees die of old age and the forest regenerates. So in a way it is earlier stage forests or managed forest systems we are generally aiming for. This is where a bit of chop and drop or copicing for wood harvest comes in if you are dealing with an established system. But that is still vastly less work than managing a traditional orchard. Geoff lawnton has some wonderful examples of established food forests in his vids if you are interested in seeing more on this.

[@hosoiarchives4858]

Use woodchips in your orchards, search Paul Gautschi back to Eden gardening

[@LoganberryForest]

Yeah I’ve seen his stuff. It looks great but we don’t have an affordable source of wood chips on the scale we’d need and also wood chips don’t add nitrogen, just carbon so they aren’t quite equivalent to legume based grouncovers. I would totally do it in the veggie gardens though if I could! Thanks for watching and commenting !

[@hosoiarchives4858]

Loganberry Forest Permaculture woodchips bring in mycorhyzal fungi which brings in the nitrogen in the forest. If you think about it forests are growing in woodchips. Also, grass competes with the trees. Woodchips is the best option for orchards, maybe the on!y option. Usually tree services will drop them off for free.

[@LoganberryForest]

Not in our area because we are too rural unfortunately. People sadly just burn all here in bonfires and don’t mulch it. I’ve been on free mulch lists run by tree loppers now for a few years and had no luck, I even offered to pay delivery. We aren’t planting grass, we are removing it and are replacing it with things like medic, clover etc. there is plenty of evidence is is beneficial to fruit trees in comparison to regular grass. People like Geoff Lawton and David holgrom use this type of ground cover in succession planting (as would have bill mollison).The other issue we would face with wood chips, if we even had access, is being Australia most trees cut down here are pine and eucalyptus. Pine would make the soil very acidic and then we really only good for a berry plantation and eucalyptus is allopathic to growth for a number of years until it looses its oils. Herbaceous ground covers are an important part of young and medium growth forests which is what we are trying to mimic in our food forest :) not saying wood chips aren’t great too, there are lots of ways of doing things and you have to pick what you can access sustainably and affordably.

[@kimmcpherson8856]

Thanks for sharing your journey. Would like to know how you got your tree lucerne tree seeds started? (I'm not having any luck)

[@LoganberryForest]

Hi Kim thanks for watching. To get tree lucern seeds to germinate it helps to pour boiling water over then and then leave them in the water to cool and swell overnight before planting then next day. Hope that helps!

[@kimmcpherson8856]

@@LoganberryForest thanks, I'll give that a go and let you know what happens.