Kareen Erbe, owner of Broken Ground, is a garden design consultant and educator. For over a decade, she has helped people in cold climates grow their own food so they can eat healthier, live more sustainably, and become more self-reliant. Through consultations, design services, her signature Resilient Homestead Program, and her RU-vid channel, she has helped thousands of people grow nutritious food for their families.
Kareen is certified in permaculture design, a whole-systems approach to land management and sustainable living. She is on the faculty of the Permaculture Women’s Guild and the Green Path Herb School, as well as the lead instructor for the Permaculture Design Course at the Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute.
Kareen and her husband live on a suburban homestead in Bozeman, Montana, with their dog Beni, a greenhouse, pond, vegetable gardens, a food forest of fruit trees and berry bushes, and a flock of chickens.
This year I learned that Honeyberries might make good jam or jelly. I had a handful of ripe ones and I was impressed with their flavor with added sugar. Will plant more next year.
Delicious! That’s great that you’ll be planting more next year. I love my honeyberries, they are becoming a great commercial crop in our region as well.
Yes! Absolutely! Check out the tour of my food forest here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-T4gSnSlKGZI.html I grow apples, pears, plums, strawberries, raspberries, honeyberries, currants and more! It is totally possible. You can get my guide if you need more support!
After you water them in initially, I typically don't water anymore as the rain/snow is enough. But depending on what kind of winter/snow cover you get, you may have to supplementally water a little bit. But that's also what the mulch is for in terms of maintaining soil moisture. I harvest garlic typically the third to last week in July and just cure it in my pantry. It keeps for the whole year. No need to do anything more with it unless you want to!
Do you cut it back every winter and bury it ? I’m in Kansas City…… I did the first year but now it way to big, was curious what our winter prep is? Thanks …..
I don't cut it back every year. The best time to prune is in late winter, early spring. But don't cut back to the ground, the grapes grow on the previous year's wood.I don't do any winter prep and my grapes have been fine. You could always mulch around the roots but that's about it. Because they are right next to my driveway, I get good insulation from the snow that we pile up there. So if you don't get much snow coverage, then I might put down an extra bit of mulch.
Thank you for the video, will use this! Do you have any thoughts on syntropic methods, using ideas of natural succession? I'm a very science based and sceptical person, but especially for poorly developed soils I see value in growing a lot of pioneer species at the start (here alder, poplar, willow, even hazel) to get a lot of bio-mass and offer shelter for other plants to grow. Of course for a cold climate you have to be more careful with shading out, so it would need a lot of cutting back.
Thanks for watching! I don't have personal experience with syntropic methods but it's definitely worth trying. However, I'd have a few hesitations. First, there is the shading that you mentioned, I'd probably just use shrubs rather than trees (we were lucky because the whole back of our yard was already bordered by a well-established Siberian pea shrub hedge (a nitrogen fixer so I think that helped alot, not only with creating a microclimate but also with soil-buildind). There is also the fact that those nurse trees grow so much slower than trees in the tropics, even though some of them might be considered 'fast growers'. In addition, in colder climates, I feel like the breakdown of woody materials is so much slower that it makes establishment even longer. I used the sheet mulching method to build soil and brought in yards and yards of wood chip, manure, compost etc. from mostly free sources so that's how I 'sped up' establishment. I also seeded with clover and grew a bunch of comfrey in the forest. But it's definitely worth experimenting with. Do you know of any good syntropic examples in cold climates?
@@BrokenGround I don't know that much about all the food forests around here (still learning), but I visited one (De Park in Elst, the Netherlands) and spoke to the "manager". He told me they started on almost pure clay and a lot of plants wouldn't grow well, so they used alder trees. From my own experience I know that hazel and willow kan grow more than 2m in a year here, from the ground, so that would create quite some biomass. I've also seen videos from Edibleacres, with an intersting philosophy: grow lots of plants, some don't make it or have to wait for other plants to die, and you can steer it by cutting back. A lot of plants will be unproductive, but the system as a whole can be very productive. It would require propagating a lot yourself, so you don't feel bad cutting something back if it casts to much shade. You are "wasting" a lot of plants, but that doesn't matter if you propagate them for free, and it has the advantages of more biomass and always something waiting in line as soon as another plant dies (like a pawpaw seedling slowly growing underneath a shortlived peach tree).
@@sjoerdmhh Very interesting, thanks for sharing! I would say that syntropic methods might be more effective and efficient in a temperate climate with more rain than we have. So that's definitely a consideration. Quick search says that the Netherlands, on average, gets about 34 inches of rain per year and is a much milder climate than ours. Whereas we only get 16 inches so moisture and therefore breakdown are a lot slower. But again, it doesn't mean that it won't work in our cold, dry climate, the timeline just might be a lot longer.
Yes! I've totally considered that for sure! I'm not sure our cattle dog would appreciate a smaller furry friend though. He's very suspicious of small dogs. But yes, I've considered a jack russell or a dachshund!
I do love dandelions but in the context of establishing a native garden, they’ll outcompete the natives so it’s best to remove many of them, at least initially, until your garden is more established.
I can't remember if it was fall or spring. But honestly, it might be best to buy a couple 1 gallon pots of it and that way, it will establish quicker. You don't need to buy much as the patch will grow and spread but that might be more successful.
In Northern Nevada I've noticed that the Tarantula Hawks love the Narrow Leaf Milkweed. I think both varieties are wonderful for supporting native life. Awesome videos.
Great idea to use "greenhouse" within the greenhouse during the winter. I bought a 10x7 greenhouse last August and bought a heater fan for the winter nights but this winter I will definitely use clear plastic covers to cut down on electricity use. Thank you for the ideas on how to use the greenhouse.
You're welcome. Glad the video was useful for you. It is really surprising how much you can gain. I would suggest you use frost cloths rather than clear plastic, it has more insulation value.
Great to see you, great info and companions, I appreciate your channel I moved and zone 7 and it is a big change from 9 thanks for your help! You have a wonderful property and are very knowledgeable.
@@BrokenGround awesome Maybe next time you can lead with those types of facts and I can promise you … it will draw more community to your platform 🤗 And thanks for the additional information Sometimes I don’t have time to research right away and too often forget to do it later 🤦🏼♀️
Beautiful! I just can’t get nasturtiums to germinate in my greenhouse. Do you have any tips? I just leave the tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini in there all summer and have more food than we can eat, but it is in full shade after 4 pm.
Interesting. When do you plant them in your greenhouse? That might be one of the issues. I put seeds in the garden beds back in March. But they did take awhile to emerge.
