Suburban Permaculture consultation followup - 3 years later - "Tom"'s Place

Maple Leafs 👍

great backward! congrats!

It is remarkable how much is in that small space--and it does look substantially bigger than when it was empty. I can't imagine that anyone would ever go back to the bare lawn idea after experiencing or having an eden such as this!

His raspberries look a lot like thimble berries lol

In my experience, it takes 3 years for your food forest to start taking shape. After that it will gain enough momentum and show its potential and require less work. Good video. Thanks for sharing.

Any estimate on the amount of food (weight wise) that can be grown in a space like this?

I find that the monarch butterfly love carrot tops. I think it could also be that the caterpillars can find cover from predators and shade from the hot sun.

Isn't it amazing how layers of planting increase the depth, beauty, and serenity of even the smallest of gardens?

Thanks so much for these urban/suburban videos, it really encourages me that I can one day attain this in my suburban setting. I feel like I get so hung up on how little space I really have, or how cold our winters are (Calgary 4b), or I don't get any true full sun due to the massive choke cherry tree on our neighbours property.
Seeing success really motivates me to try, and I know that it'll take several years to get to what I'm envisioning - so I just need some patience.

Excellent work.

Those are thimbleberry like raspberries

The next tour at Tom’s will require a pair of loppers and a machete ! 🤔

What an incredible amount of life and green there is! I love it!

The raspberry plant with the huge leaves is thimbleberry. Same genus as raspberry. Scientific name rubus odoratus and not to be confused with rubus parviflorus which is also called thimbleberry but is from the west coast opposed to the east coast and has white flowers and white hairs versus purple flowers and purple hairs. Great plant for fruit production in part shade.

Rubus odoratus! Currently one of the plants I’m studying in a course I’m taking at Mt Cuba Center 👍🏼 Definitely on my list to add to my property!

That looks so beautiful! I love the wild look also. A little paradise full of food!

A very righteous backyard. I like it.

Wow it's turning out great!

I really like to take a good shovel full of plants occasionally when i go to the forrest. They fill in all the corners and empty spaces of my yard and outcompete even the most aggressive weeds.
I have wild strawberries and sweet bedstraw everywhere now!

What a great project!! I love seeing the purple flowering raspberries. Those are a native plant to this area. I have some from Ontario Native Plants I’m about to transplant into a better location. It’s a great to see an example of what they look like and how big they are!

Thanks for this. In my new place of residence, I've been torn between living in a home close enough to walk to work, or living out in the country with several acres. I'd forgotten how much you can do in a small space. (My first house had a backyard this small, and I had five productive trees in the backyard alone, plus more in the front and side yards, plus a lot of space for an annual garden.)

If a peach tree has leaf curl and I don’t want to spray copper is the only other option removing it? I don’t want it to spread.

Pretty sure that the yellow rasberry is actually a salmonberry

What a wonderful oasis! Yes, Black Raspberries are a pain to deal with, but their fruits are unparalleled and worth the trouble. Re: Pathways. I found that wood chips can get carried into the house on shoes and are not friendly to bare feet, which is how I love to garden in summer. White clover on the other hand is divine to walk on barefoot--grew up with it as a kid. It's so cool and rejuvenating to step onto shaded clover. I established white clover paths years back throughout my little gardens and found that White clover makes a wonderfully resilient living path. I highly recommend it! Thank you for sharing your lovely work/play.

Lovely having the update and seeing how everything is growing. The multilayered complexity does make it look bigger and definitely interesting. I'd like some weedy kale like that one. When you started showing us around, I was surprised how visible the fence was. I was trying to remember what was planted, but I was sure it was a whole lot of trees... So Mr Rabbit had a feast on apple trees. I did think it was amusing that TOM wanted a rabbit or two when planning a small garden. You were quite tactful not mentioning how he feels about them now. If one plants coriander and garlic within the tree fencing guards, the smell will deter rabbits and rodents. If the guard is bent at 90 degrees at the bottom, the diggers will dig at the bend and not under the guard. The grape vines look a little lonely in their patio wells... what about adding some thyme and nasturtiums. A little rock filled water dish would be nice for the bees.

That ornamental raspberry I think it's the one I want to plant. It gives red raspberries. I planted ALL GOLD and JOAN J. The ALL GOLD is doing well, but the red variety somehow didn't make it and I was looking at what to plant instead. That lime leafed raspberry looks awesome with the pink flowers and I think the fruit is good as well. Take care!