After 16 Years My Front Yard Turned Into a Self Growing Food Forest

Alright! This is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com. Sort of another exciting episode for you here on my original hood, the OG, my place in California that I dug up my lawn I think now 16 years ago now and put it in a raised bed. So I wanted to give you guys an update here. We are here in the end of March. So I'm going to show you guys how I deal or grow in this garden, which is a lot different than my other garden that I have. So maybe you'll learn some tips, also some specific plants that will do well, and maybe even have a more, this is my more wild garden instead of cultivated garden, that pretty much most everything growing in there is from seed. I have planted a few things in there, but mostly everything you see behind me is from seed. Of course I have, you know, more established fruit trees now at this point. So I'll take you guys around, show you guys my favorite crops, my least favorite crops, and how this place is looking, which I think is pretty amazing. So let's go. So the biggest mistake I ever made was planting these guys. These were supposed to be some kind of chocolate vine. They make some little fruit thing, I don't remember the full name. But like they just keep vining, they keep growing, and they just take over everything. It's absolutely insane. It's even like kind of crawling into my big tree and like taking over that. It's just like an invasive weed. My goal is to just cut it all out. I mean, yeah, it's insane. Not for like a residential house. If you have like the forest and you just want to fill a fence up and make food, you could grow this. But look how thick this stuff is. It always sends out runners and tries to expand. I got to keep chopping it back. Alright, so in this front bed, I planted a bunch of fava bean seeds that I grew from last year. I saved the seeds and replanted them, so I have a lot of favas. This is dinosaur kale, and of course my favorite is the ashitaba. Also I started planting, if you notice, I have all these flags, like irrigation flags. It's not because there's like I'm doing irrigation, because I planted purple potatoes last month, and I planted them for, this is probably my third year planting potatoes now, and I've learned I love potatoes. They're one of the easiest crops to grow. I literally just plant them and then come and dig them up, and then I have potatoes to eat, which are purple, which are very hard to find actually and usually cost more. But I put the irrigation flags, because last year I planted all these potatoes and I forgot all the places I planted them, and then I have potato plants popping up the following year. So this year I planted the seed potatoes and I put the flags so I know exactly where I have to dig, and also where I need to pile on soil to top it off to grow more potatoes. Of course I also have all my ashitaba, still one of my favorite plants, one that you guys should look into, Angelica quiesca. I love to mostly juice the stems instead of celery. It's way more nutritious, anti-cancer, has the chalcones. They bleed the yellow sap. I love to eat also the tender baby leaves as they emerge, and you can see just lots of fava beans. They're just prolific. I'm going to have so many fava beans to eat. I do like to eat the young beans raw, and then when they get more mature, I will steam them in an instant pot for about three minutes on high pressure, and then I'll eat the pod and the beans on the inside. I'll just take out the outer strings. Of course along this whole row, which I planted fruit trees back in the day. This is the pineapple guavas, almost starting to flower now. These fruit trees have just been crazy. I'd probably plant the fajoas again. I'd get a name variety instead of just getting a landscape tree, and then you have our pomegranate that never really performed well here, and figs that just grow way too quick that I kind of just let grow on their own, which I never really pruned properly to keep them low. So they're kind of in a pain. Alright, so everything you guys see here in this bed basically was just from seeds. So I basically spread seeds out, dropped seeds, and things just come up. So once again, it's just ashitaba, more ashitaba, and then this was planted purposely. This is called the seltous. This is seltous lettuce. So this is actually grown for the lettuce stem, but then I also eat the greens, and then you can see here we have all this right here. This is basically, this is all my microgreens that I don't, that I let nature grow. So this is all the miner's lettuce. It's a local wild food actually that the 49ers, the miners that came to California to dig for gold, ate. I love it. I have a nice tree collard here that has bad aphid damage, and then over here, this is a really cool Asian green. I forget what it is, because actually I bought some seedlings from Harmony Farm Nursery, and this is a brassica, but it says the most delicate leaves I've ever found. It's some kind of choy. The leaves are so good. They're so tender and not hardcore like kale. They're super tender, like the most tender choy leaves, like mild mustard green I've ever grown. Of course I have. I planted a Swiss chard, and you can see just, I planted these potatoes like a month ago and already they're a foot tall, and then over here we have, I planted this plant also. This is the red Russian kale, still one of my favorites. Oh and then look at this. I was sitting here earlier eating, and then I just go over here and look at this. This is like, my goal is to do like this, right. I have an overstory of the choy, and then understory I have all this mosh, or I think they also call it lamb's lettuce. It's very popular in Europe. Most Americans don't know about it, but I love this stuff. It's so delicate, but here's the thing guys. I don't like using mulch. I know some people like their wood chip mulch and all these things, but I want to have living mulch and I want to encourage you guys to have living mulch. So you can see, you can't even see the soil here because all these basically, the mosh came back from last year's seeds that I let drop. So I let this complete the cycle, drop seeds, and then they come back. Likewise over here, you can see, you can't see the soil over here either. It's all the miner's lettuce that re-grew on its own without me. So I've established over the many years I've been growing in this space to allow plants to go to seed, to drop, so that they re-germinate on their own, so that they create the living soil. They create a cover so the sun does not hit the soil. They also create lots of food and send exudates and sugars down the roots to build the soil even further. Like look at this, we can just move this back here and you can see the same thing is starting. We have all these little seedlings, which to me, well this is some stinging nettle. Here's some of the, actually this is nicer mosh because it's more baby and tender, not yet going to seed. So I love to just pop it off and eat it. And this is some huacate from Peru. I think we got like maybe more celery, like young celery plants coming up, like all over, they're taking over. So yeah, I just throw out seeds. So you know, a lot of times I may tell you guys, I never start seeds. Well yeah, I never start them in six packs, but if I want to start seeds, you know, I let my plants go to seed, like these guys, once they have the seeds, I'll just shake the seeds over the bed so that next year when the timing's right, the seeds germinate on their own. I don't have to start them up. I don't have to water them. Nature does it all for me. So yeah, that's how pretty much I've set up this whole garden by just spreading seeds everywhere and letting nature do all the growing without me. Alright, so this is another area underneath the fig tree that is just overgrown with that stupid chocolate vine. Like this should all be fig tree, but like you can see that chocolate vine just is like, just takes over, man. It's choking out the fig tree, so I'm going to have to cut that down. But anyways, right here, once again I've done the same thing, but underneath here I have another weed, actually known as chickweed. So I love to just harvest the chickweed and eat it. And you know, chickweed likes this space. It doesn't like over there, and so like, I just let nature grow where it wants to grow. I've spread out mosh seeds over here and I've spread out miner's lettuce seeds, but the chickweed really dominates for whatever reason. So you know, I want you guys not to try to like force things on nature, but observe nature and see what happens. And then, you know, you're going to learn a lot by observing, and I think that's one thing a lot of gardeners miss. They try to like, I'm going to do it my way because I'm the human and I'm controlling nature. No man, let nature work and observe to see what's going to happen. You know, I learn a lot just being in my garden, seeing everything bloom and flower, you know, trying different plants in different spaces to see where it's going to grow the best. Alright, once again, in this bed we have more of the miner's lettuce. So the miner's lettuce here is kind of more of an advanced stage. It's a bit older, more mature, so they get kind of tall like this and they have these little flowers. And even when they're at this point, I call them my little lily pads. I'll still eat them, and they're still good, but yeah, they look like that. And I have tons of food here, or when they're like small, just emerging, I'll eat the little like spade-shaped leaves. Here's some fennel growing here, once again, just grew on its own. Of course, I did plant all these fava beans. Actually, some of these fava beans were fun, because last year I let the fava beans, I think some of them dried up on the vine and then just dropped. And then they were sprouting like in the shell, like on top of the soil, not even in the soil. So I'm like, oh, they're sprouting on top of the soil, then I actually buried them where they're sitting. And now I have like all these favas coming up, which, you know, favas, of course, are helping fix nitrogen in the soil. Of course, every one of these flowers can produce a whole fava bean, so I'm going to be like rich in fava beans. And I found that the fava beans, they store pretty good, man. When you harvest them mature, keep them in cold chain, you can keep them good for like a month. My goal is to just actually harvest them as I need them to eat them, otherwise I let them remain on the plant. But yeah, lots of favas. Oh, and then over here, I let some daikon radish that I basically sprinkled out go to seed. So these are the pretty brassica radish flowers from daikon radish. And I encourage you guys, eat your flowers, let things go to seed. A lot of farms, like, actually want to harvest things before they go to seed. Because now, you know, if you try to harvest, like, the daikon root, the radish root, after it goes to seed, it's going to be hard and woody. So it's not optimal to be eaten. But what's even better eating is actually all the flowers. They have a really nice mild taste, of course. Any of the leaves, which, like, there's very little leaf production at this point, they're also edible too in salad. One of the biggest problems I've had here is the aphids. And the other big problem are these guys, snails. I hate snails, guys. So usually these go in the compost bin. They get composted off-site. Yeah, and I hand-pick them. You know, I know they got all the different baits, and I've used baits before and stuff. But you know, these days, I'd rather just hand-pick them off instead of bring anything into my garden. Even on the aphids, right? I could spray kind of, like, neem oil on the aphids or soap stuff. I literally, these days, I'm so lazy, and I just don't want to, like, mess up my soil. I'm so conservative, I guess, in gardening anyways. I just spray water on them, blast them off, and, you know, that gets them away. And I'm not having to, like, put any kind of, you know, even organic items to control them. Although I do need to spray more often. a jungle. Oh, and this is one of my newest favorite crops, guys. I should have started growing this way earlier, and you guys should be growing this way earlier. You guys should start growing these. I actually have two of them. Number one is called Puntarell. So the Puntarell, it's like a chicory. But the cool thing about the Puntarell, it makes these, like, dandelion-like leaves that you can see. But the cool thing with the Puntarell is basically it makes this funny-shaped head as it, like, when it's kind of going to bolt, and that's what's usually harvested and then eaten in Italy. It's, like, a delicacy. I've never really gotten that thing, maybe, like, once or twice. But, like, I just love to eat the leaves because they remind me of, like, a mild dandelion leaf, okay. So even better than that are these guys. These guys are my favorite because these easily reseed. I think I started with six plants of these, like, about two years ago, and I let them go to seed, drop seed, and now I have, like, a whole patch of these guys, and I love these. These are, like, my favorite, like, green to eat in my garden right now at this time of year. The Red Stem Chicory, you know, if you go to the Whole Foods, you know, and buy it, it's called, you know, Red Stem Dandelion, you can get six leaves for, like, $2.99 or some rip-off thing. Look at this. I have, like, a whole little bed of these guys. And like, I really love to eat bitters, and I want to encourage you guys to start eating your bitters. Like, so many people just eat, like, you know, like, romaine or iceberg lettuce that has zero bitter flavor. Like, this has a bitter. This is good for your liver. I was also looking this up the other day. There's, like, properties in this that help prevent aging, actually. And to me, this isn't super, like, bitter, like a dandelion in your lawn. This is, like, the elevated, like, Italy chicory. I'm sure people would, like, cook this up. I love to just eat this raw, dip it in some hummus or dip it in guacamole, cut it up, put it in a salad. I love this stuff. I love the flavor. I want to encourage you guys to, you know, grow new, different kinds of crops. I mean, that's a big thing for me. Like, I'm always experimenting with different things instead of just growing the same thing year after year. Alright, so you guys can see my dinosaur kale here, and I'm going to show you guys something I haven't shown before. I don't really care. Alright, look at this. I just picked a leaf. John, that leaf is all basically, it's gotten all eaten out. Only the stems are left. You know, here's the thing. Like, oh, it's bad. Like, oh, I don't know that it's bad. I mean, you could still eat this. I probably wouldn't eat it. I mean, I'd probably eat one that has, like, a little bit less damage. Like that one. I'd probably still eat it. Oh, look. This is probably the guy that did it. Anyways, even if your leaf has holes in it, that's probably, this is a good thing. Most people will say, oh, that's got damage, throw it away. Here's the thing, guys. When creatures, whether it's slugs, caterpillars, or whatever, are eating your plants up, they break open cell walls. Especially on kale when, you know, the creatures break open the cell walls, they release an enzyme and then anti-cancer compounds are formed in the leaf. So actually, you want to eat the leaves that have the damage. This is not ugly. You go to the grocery store, you'll never find ugly leaves that are as nutritious as this because everything's supposed to look pristine. But sometimes, all your plants are not going to be pristine. And, you know, I want you guys to embrace ugly leaves, right. There's a whole new produce industry around like ugly fruits and ugly vegetables. I've yet to see them sell leaves that have this many holes in it. But this stuff is good. So eat it. Alright, guys. So I want to share with you guys two arugulas, alright. So number one, we have the common arugula, which makes the arugula flowers, which I love a lot, which of course I will eat. I always say they taste like barbecue sauce to me. They're kind of spicy but fiery. But then I have even a better arugula right here. This is actually known as wild arugula. And this basically, the regular arugula, just you got to keep replanting or let it go to seed and drop the seeds and they'll come back up. The wild arugula, I basically cut this down to the roots and then it comes up back every year. So I've established a nice planting of this here as well as right here. This is kind of more of like an Italian arugula, more wild. It's a perennial type. It's not quite as spicy. It has a little bit different flavor. Delicious. And then over here, oh, we'll go behind the camera person. Now this plant here is super special, guys. This is probably the most nutritious leafy green you could buy. This is known as the watercress in the brassica family. I only get it in the springtime because I don't like when it's too hot. This one will light your mouth on fire. Super nutritious. I love growing it. Even better is popping the tops off and eating these guys. These guys will light up your mouth. Of course below it you can see I have a whole bed of mitre's lettuce. And then over here I have a whole bed of two different kinds of mint, which, you know, in retrospect I probably wouldn't plant this much mint. I would probably plant mint in a pot because there's a lot of space to waste for just growing mint that I don't eat that often. But now that it's here, it's basically like impossible to remove. All right, guys. So the last thing I want to show you guys in this episode is this bed here. These are actually kind of some wild garlic or onions. Some wild alliums. I forget exactly what they are. They just come up in my backyard. So then I moved them out here to grow along with. They make mostly the tubers to eat or the flowers this time of year or you could eat the greens. And of course this whole bed has my yacon, which is a perennial. Wow, those are good. That come back every year, you know. So basically I usually harvest them by December. I leave the crowns in and this bed basically just comes back and grows to like ten feet tall. I cut them back. I leave them cut like this so I know where to dig up where there's going to be the big tubers to eat. But yeah, so you can see in this garden mostly I've had things established that keep coming back every year. So I don't have to keep replanting. I do a lot of things from seed and it's definitely more of a wild style of garden than my other garden in the desert. So I want to know what you guys think. Do you like me doing this style of gardening where it's just basically wild and growing or do you prefer the more manicured style? I mean to me this is a lot less labor because manicured style I got to like individually plant each plant, make it all like nice and compact and fit in here. I just basically throw seeds out and see what the heck comes up, you know. And I'm not going to tell you guys which one is right, which one is wrong. I'm going to share with you guys, hey these are two unique ways to garden. Maybe you want to do one, maybe you want to do the other. Maybe you want to do a combination of both and neither of these ways are right and wrong. You got to, you know, figure out your specific context, your specific situation. In this garden here, this is a very, aside from the weeding, is a very low maintenance garden. Nature does all the work. I'm not planting anything in specific spots. I just come and harvest, right. Whereas my other garden definitely could be more manicured, definitely takes a lot more time. So yeah, I'd love to know what you think. Post your comments down below on what style of garden you prefer and why. I really hope you guys enjoyed this episode, giving you guys a tour of my original OG garden here in California. If you guys enjoyed this episode, please be sure to give this video a big thumbs up. Also be sure to share this video with other people so that they can start growing their own food at home. Also be sure to click that subscribe button right down below so you don't miss out on any of my new and upcoming episodes that come out every five to seven days. Give me a little know where I'll show up, what you'll be learning on my YouTube channel. Make sure you click the little bell so you get notified as many videos come out. Help me to get to a million subscribers. I'm almost there. Also be sure to check my past episodes. Past episodes are a wealth of knowledge. Over 1,700 episodes at this time on this channel dedicated to you guys how to grow your own food at home. So with that, my name is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com. We'll see you next time. And until then, remember, keep on growing.