“Kaye gets a tour of Jay Barringer’s tropical food forest in Mesa, AZ.”
This is another amazing forest garden in Phoenix. Jay makes some very interesting points. He said Arizona has the perfect climate for growing fruit trees. According to him there are several hundred people in the Phoenix area who are starting forest gardens. (Just imagine if thousands of people started doing this in the same city!) When he first started his food forest he lost lots of trees by following standard tree planting advice. Eventually he learned that fruit trees need lots of fungal rich material like trees naturally have in a forest. So now he uses lots of ramial woodchip mulch and a special homemade fungal rich compost consisting of 40% greens, 40% browns, 20% manure. He makes a compost tea out of this mixture and presoaks the roots of fruit trees in it for 24 hours before planting. The tree hole is filled with a 50/50 ratio of this mix and his compost mix. More details on Jay’s tree planting video.
YouTube
Jay’s Edible Foodscaping YouTube Channel
Jay has consulted with several hundred clients in the Phoenix area on how to convert their yards to edible food forests. This is a very good sign.
I’ve heard your name and your compost thru jake mace. I would like to buy it and some advice. Please let me now your info and your availability to visit your forest “IS AMAZING” with my wife. I live in San Tan Valley,AZ and We will try to follow your steps foresting our property.
Thanks
You might try contacting them through their YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_Dp-wrQiH_X4R8_hqmqWcA/discussion
Please send me your contact number. I live in chandler. I have few questions.
I want to do the same in my backyard.
Unfortunately the website with contact information is no longer active.
Amazing stuff. Phoenix gets 8 inches of rain a year. If they can do it there, it can be done almost anywhere. These videos have inspired me to start my own food forest in my totally barren, dead, 7-annual-inches-of-rain desert property.
Not mentioned, but useful to know: the way to get free bulk wood chips to kickstart the process is from tree companies. Call them all up and ask to be added to their list of drop-off-sites. They do it for free because the alternative is paying to take the stuff to the dump. I today just arranged for my first delivery!
These stories are very inspiring to me also. The Back to Eden film from about 3 years ago (search our blog) was very powerful. I’ve since rewatched it 1-2 more times and watched dozens of his other videos on YouTube. Paul Gautschi is the main guy that inspired all of these other people to start using woodchips. His soil was nearly solid gravel like a road in one spot and hardpan clay in another, and his well didn’t produce much water. He noticed how there’s always a layer of leaves and branches on the forest floor and so he decided to replicate nature. The secrete I think is the mycorrhizal fungi in the woodchips. The rest is history. Make sure you get ramial woodchips that consists primarily of small branches and leaves, not chips from big branches.
Here’s the link to his site directly: http://www.backtoedenfilm.com/
Yes, I saw that film as well–also from this website, I believe. Truly inspirational. Keep up the good work; it matters. People change. Eyes are opened.