Syntropic Food Forest update @ 5 months. So-Cal.

This Episode is a walk through of the Harbin Hills Food Forest installation at five months along. Learn with me what is working well and what needs to be phased out in this zone 9-10 Arid climate in North county San Diego, CA. Strategic consortiums to plant here.

[@colescompany]

Maybe go get more of the weeds growing on the hillside for bio mass - fun to watch the progress thanks for the video

[@nathanielgraham622]

Looks good brother! i bet that 3/4" garden hose is a work horse. Out where we're at have to use step in post electric fence around our beds to keep the rabbits out and armadillos, skinks, possums that come in to dig up the grubs and worms in the decompositng biomass chop drop wood chips.

[@itaygazit2174]

Awesome design. Question, why don't you use the Ice Cream Bean instead of the Eucalyptus?

[@christianmenendez5284]

I must say I always learn a ton from you. Appreciate it as always

[@dnawormcastings]

Great update video it’s looking very nice 🇳🇿❤️

[@epiphyte8646]

lots of great growth since the last video i watched. i'm also starting a food forest in similar conditions... hot and dry sylmar right next to chaparral. some of my fav species that readily volunteer are... manihot grahamii, caesalpinia mexicana, leucaena leucocephala and euphorbia lambii. chaya (tree spinach, cnidoscolus aconitifolius) grows well here, very easy from cuttings, but i haven't tried eating it yet. in terms of biomass production one of the best is odontonema strictum. it also grows easy from cuttings and the hummingbirds love the flowers. but it's a bit thirsty. a month or so ago i saw some coyote scat filled with seeds. i sowed them and they all turned out to be mulberries. now i have a couple big pots filled with mulberry seedlings. i'm sure coyotes enjoy eating figs as well. evidently they also eat pomegranates. i like the idea of attracting coyotes to eat the rabbits. but not sure if i like it more than the idea of coyotes eating fallen fruit and sowing the seeds, creating food forests wherever they go.

[@joepeduzzi8834]

Extremely dry climate there. Looks extremely challenging.

[@WouterDeWitte-i6o]

Awsome videos my man!

[@tcoxor52]

Have you considered incorporating Paulownia fortunei (Dragon Tree) or Paulownia elongata (Emperess Tree) into your system for rapid biomass production? In particular, P. fortunei is an extremely vigorous grower, can produce upwards of 10 ft. of growth per season, thrives in full sun, and can tolerate a wide range of soil types, as long as it is well draining. As long as they are actively managed, which you’d obviously be doing for biomass, they pose little risk of overtaking the system or spreading to other areas. Just be certain not to use Paulownia tomentosa (Princess Tree) as it is considered much more highly invasive and can severely disrupt local ecosystems if allowed to grow to full sexual, seed-producing maturity. I’ve grown P. fortunei on my zone 6b, hot & arid summers, PNW property as an annual (they are perennial hardy to zone 7) and get fantastic amounts of biomass from them each season. The foliage is also great for using as an input for JLF.

[@HansQuistorff]

I have come to the conclusion that it is easier to make a fence to keep a dog in thant to keep deer, rabbit, and gophers out.

[@tinyjungle_]

Biomass!

[@JohnDaBuilder]

Finally, someone else doing permaculture/syntropic agroforestry in SD. I'm in Spring Valley and been experimenting the last 6 years and also have gopher issues. Few plants that will benefit your system (I know because I grow then) Ash (grows tall quickly) Staghorn sumac Pigeon peas Lavender (take cuttings and put then in dirt during rainy season) Rosemary Tree collard green Willow acacia Tecoma stans Lippia for groundcover Just to name a few...there's a lot more. Check out my food forest and let's exchange info and learn from each other. kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y2rXh3d5gt51d9U

[@rogueregenerativeagriculture]

Ya my friend! I've been installing food forests in Nor-Cal and Oregon for years and it's great to be here in a tropical zone 9-10! I found your videos and really appreciate what your doing in Spring Valley.

[@rogueregenerativeagriculture]

Hey man I'd like to invite you to a potluck this Sun. Oct 6 if you can make it? At the food forest. Me and my roommates are having a few people over and making seed ball consortiums for the food forest. Email me if you'd like more info.. [e-mail]

[@JohnDaBuilder]

@@rogueregenerativeagriculture would love to. Going to try to get that day off

[@timmoore3188]

Mimicking nature is a good thing, but fitting into nature is a challenge. Agree, it requires trial and error. And researching what ecologists, who spend their lives studying ecosystems, say.. I asked a biologist who was doing research on Eucalyptus why the trees were such vigorous growers. He said it was not because they were genetically more vigorous than the native chaparral they invaded, but because they had been taken here to California, and the guild of animals that had evolved to chomp on them over thousands or millions of years, had been left behind in Australia. So, without those checks and balances, the trees have all their energy for growth and are able to displace indigenous flora because of that. And therefore, because they are out of the cycle of nutrients, they do not benefit natural systems, they colonize them. So, keep chopping them down. Pull them out. Turn them into mulch. Indeed, misplaced plants are one of the main drivers of extinction. The word Invasive is a misnomer, though. There is nothing inherently invasive about them. Plants out of their natural ecosystem are called "vagrants" by ecologists or plants out of ecological context. California native Monterrey pines planted in Australia, do the same thing as Eucs here, they are extremely vigorous and can become "invasive", where in the Monterrey peninsula, they are not. Indeed, the native Monterrey Pine forest is falling victim to a disease brought here by the nursery trade. In a natural system, the guilds of animals that have evolved with the plants, chomp on the plants, the plant material is digested in the animals' guts by the micro-organisms, some of the animals are eaten by others, and then the material is dropped onto the soil as fertilizer for the plants. Look, the Live Oak tree has some 30 insects that chomp on it. but the oaks also form relationships with fungi to transfer water and nutrients to other plants as well as providing leaf litter for humus. It is an ingenious system, we really just know little about. It is chomp and drop, basically, growth and decomposition evolved over millions of years. We don't see this free fertilizer given to us, because we, and I do this too cuz I am human, often just notice what we create with our own hands or just the green surface of things, and ignore the non obvious relationship we can't see. Yes, any tree can provide a nesting site and produce biomass, but those are really limited functions any plant can do. As a disclaimer, not all displaced species are bad for the ecosystem. consider the honey bee. It is beneficial to us, but pretty much neutral to the native ecosystem otherwise. But many are bad. Arundo donax is bad here in California, according to the Invasive Species Council and many other science based organizations.. It was brought in by the Spanish missionaries to make thatched roofs for their buildings and has choked many of our waterways in impenetrable thickets. This giant reed is now displacing the native sycamore and willows in our riparian areas, and with them the species that depend on them. Same with castor bean and Mexican fan palms. I am trying to keep the reed out of my arroyo, before it causes an ecological dead zone if left intact. Green and growing, but that is about it. I dig it out, before it gets big or else it is impossible to get rid of without heavy equipment. I don't believe in using chemical pesticides--that is replacing one bad for another. But, keeping native plants in my food forest keeps the benefits of natural cycles, cycles of the web which are so complex, we with our limited brains, will never fully understand or mimic. Without that humility, thinking we can just come in and colonize an area and create an artificial working ecosystem separate from surrounding context is, in my maybe biased opinion, a form of human supremacy thought.

[@samuelmanning4894]

That Arundo, Purple Elephant Grass (Pennisetum ..), and to a lesser extent the Castor, are all very invasive. Please don't propagate these plants, they contribute to the costly destruction of the ecosystems that are much more highly tuned than anything you will develop. This comes from a point of actual environmental health. You are propagating plants that ruin the ecosystem, they're advantageously adapted so they're supporting (i.e. tolerating) the weather. As a rule: don't plant non-endemic grasses, legumes, and weedy asters near even semi-wild areas. Some nontolerant species like Inga will be fine, but this is one of the careful exceptions. Go get native species to use instead of these exotics. Ask any scientist, environmental laborer, professor, or native grower and they will reinforce these notions. PLEASE NEVER PLANT PENNISETUM in Southern California....Please, no... "Resistant" "Vigorous" and "Fast" keep these features in mind, they will often be factors that contribute to the RUIN of the long-term health of your special world. Go read government reports on these species or close cousins, MILLIONS of dollars are allocated to just mitigate the onslaught of these established invasions. Notice I didn't say solve, we're just keeping them at bay.....for now. Their true naturalization would take hundreds if not thousands of years and would involve significant changes in environmental health until successional equilibrium.... -Signed: someone with many hours of restoration, farming, and environmental/biological science work who has had to clear and deal with some of these "support" plants. I've watched them contribute to the current extinction of many habitats and species.. Best of luck on the journey, I think your heart is in the right place. But those plants are not. Please burn or hot compost them.