General Question and Answer

Edible Acres is a full service permaculture nursery located in the Finger Lakes area of NY state. We grow all layers of perennial food forest systems and provide super hardy, edible, useful, medicinal, easy to propagate, perennial plants for sale locally or for shipping around the country…
Happy growing!

[nymbeats]

I missed this because I was exhausted after mulching a new garden site at a friend's location, and importing my own chicken compost. got a bunch of raw-compost beds seeded with fava and the occasional optimistic arugula and mustard. a couple turkish rockets and bronze fennels tucked in here and there. it's my first full sun site. Also - I sold my first several bare root cuttings online! thanks as always for sharing your expertise.

[NnJoGg]

I’ve had great success growing chocolate mint under my elderberries. It’s a dream during harvest with the chocolate mint aroma wafting up. Sure beats what I imagine the nettle experience would be.

[conradhomestead]

Excellent Q&A session. I couldn’t turn it off . Stayed till the end. Great information! Thanks for sharing your experience!

[dancingcedar]

Thank you. Lots of info and inspiration :) Many Blessings Always :)

[fourdayhomestead]

Enjoyed the Q&A as I drive home from work. Several of my own questions were answered.

[cpnotill]

Sorry I missed your live stream but so thoroughly enjoyed the replay Sean. Chock full of information from you and the chat room which was awesome. I want to say thank you for encouraging me to start a hotbed in my greenhouse which is working beautifully. So happy to see your growth and the community Sean & Sasha! Much abundance. 🌱💚🌞

[fullofgracehomestead]

Someone last night asked about natural phosphate increase. Use bone meal, dried blood, old banana peels or animal manure. The banana peels and compost need to be composted before use because too much of a good thing can be bad.

Also use wood ash for potash.
For nitrogen you can use rabbit feces compost, rye grass, clover, or perennial plant nitrogen fixers around in the garden.

[argentvixen]

Just wanted to chime in about cleaning up or mitigating toxic run off concern that someone brought up. As many diverse living things as you can get to thrive in the place (plants, fungi, micro organisms) is your goal. Living stuff will clean and balance the fastest. Check out the book "Healing Earth" by John Todd to explore this concept further.

[mezmereyez]

Enjoyed this very much!! I'd love it if ya'll did some more videos of Sasha in the kitchen. I always enjoy those. :)

[justinp]

I’ve got a variety of semi-erect thorny blackberries that have been very productive the last few years with big 2+” fruits. (Though they struggled in 2020- we had a weird growing season). I think the variety is “Prime” but I can check the tag after snow melts. I’m rooting some cuttings from my winter pruning, could possible send you a couple if you’d like.

[TheRegenBeacon]

Hey Sean, love your channel! Wasn't planning on watching the whole video but here we are lol. Lots of good learning tidbits and just enjoyed the casual atmosphere of it.

As a side note, I'm also very interested in chestnuts. I'm currently growing quite a few Chinese-American hybrids and pure Chinese seedlings and have a number of european hybrids coming as well. I hope in the future to develope great open pollinated plants with diverse genetics in the future. I've read mark shepard's restoration agriculture book and largely think mass selection is the way forward for a complicated future of climate change, degraded soils, and novel ecosystems more broadly.

That said, I would encourage you to take a closer look at the specific action of the genetic engineering involved for the American chestnut. I personally am open to the idea that genetic engineering can be a tool for good or for tremendous evil, it just depends how you're using it. Are you using it to make corn better able to handle even more poison? Probably a bad use. Are we using it to make rice with some more beta-carotene ("golden-rice")? Probably fine but people would be better off with the traditional diverse diet and grains like ameranth anyway. That said, a tool is just a tool so I think we're best off looking to what the specific change is that is being made and how it fits into the greater context.

Specifically in this case, the gene introduced is a single enzyme (protein machine) called Oxalate Oxidase (OxO in the literature). Normally, when the fungus that attacks american chestnuts infects a tree, it secrets oxalic acid. This makes the wound so acidic that it triggers the tree to kill it's cells and the fungus feeds on the necrotic tissue. Over time this causes a canker to form that kills the cambium and trunk starves.

Now in the transgenic trees, that are 100% American chestnuts except that they have this additional machine to use, the Oxalate Oxidase breaks down oxalic acid into CO2 and hydrogen peroxide that is broken down into water and O2. Essentially, the only change here is a machine that stops the tissue from becoming acidic so the fungus can't cause the tissue to die and the tree thrives.

I've seen a number of people conflate the wheat origen of the gene to somehow causing the new chestnuts to have gluten which is incredible ignorant of the change being made.

Anyways, I think a healthy distrust of agroscience is warranted given the scale of the past environmental atrocities committed and those ongoing, but that a close examination of the specifics here show that in this case the fear is unfounded.

Anyways, hope that at least offers a little bit of light from the other perspective on the topic. Love your work though always and your deeply ethical perspective!

[nomadclan]

We're also upstate NY and used guinea birds last yr specifically for their ability to eat so many ticks. We would highly recommend them. Not the smartest bird but worth their weight in gold to not have the dogs and kids covered in ticks.

[maxfrieda]

I really enjoyed this, thank you!

I have a question about using plants for remediation in contaminated sites as you mention in the video. What are your thoughts on accumulation of substances in plant matter? Is it safe to compost this material or otherwise use? Or should it be removed and not touched?

Also since you mentioned you are focusing more on growing annuals this spring, how do you balance growing annuals in the context of a site with lots of perennials? do you have issues with established shrubs and trees tapping out the nutrients and water from the soil and hindering the growth of annuals? I am also trying to grow more annual plants this year and I have found that sometimes established root systems will seek out beds with lots of compost and water and the annuals don’t grow as vigorously. What are your thoughts?

[christinerenee]

I would like to know approximately what percent of your food is grown or raised on your own property and how much extra you have to give away. Quantity-wise it seems like you would have plenty to cover your needs, but realistically there are things you can't grow or raise yourself, like lemons and pineapples and coffee beans.

[markglennsodusta]

Do u have any preferences on chicken breeds?

[Regboy]

Nettle elder combo! Thanks for the idea, gonna try it in a massive elder patch we are establishing around a young butternut. I think nettles and their superior nutrition early in spring will be abundant before the elders take off and start to shade out the scene. Then maybe trample the nettles for elder harvest and let them do a regrow into autumn for one last jolt of clorophyll before the dark winter. Il let you know how it goes : )

[jackphillips]

What happens when putting 4 inch flax pipe 3 feet deep?

[Connor-tvgu]

I’d love to hear more about your permaculture fails!

[kerem]

any experience with pollarding pawpaw trees that have grown too vertically 
(due to shade or lack of pruning). with the intention of making them a little wider and the fruit more accessible?

[benneb]

How much wood could a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck had amazon prime?