I just got an e-mail from my pal David the Good, who shared a time lapse video of him growing 1 ton — yes, that’s 2,000 pounds! — of food in just 7 months. I thought you’d enjoy it as much as I did, so I’m sharing it here:
David says, “By far, the biggest gardening success of 2017 was hitting our goal of growing 2,000 lbs. of food. We hit it in seven months — check out my time-lapse video above for the full countdown. That was just fun!
Much of our success was thanks to the many tree crops on the property we rented. I’ve been a fan of food forests and agroforestry for a long time. Though the yields aren’t always as high for the space requirements as what you get from annuals, trees produce for years and require less work long-term.
We fed the jackfruit heavily in 2016 which led to great results in 2017. We also keep the bananas cleaned up and happy.
If we’d started with bare ground in 2017, though, it would have been tough to reach 2000 lbs.
Some things, such as the avocados and mangoes, basically grew themselves. Others, like yams and pumpkins, required plenty of work. Some things I planted simply failed, like sweet potatoes and beans. It was a very rainy year and the bugs were bad.“
I love that David has his own song at the end of the video….
… and, whew! a lot of piña coladas to be made there, huh? 😉
Marjory Wildcraft is the founder of The Grow Network, which is a community of people focused on modern self-sufficient living. She has been featured by National Geographic as an expert in off-grid living, she hosted the Mother Earth News Online Homesteading Summit, and she is listed in Who’s Who in America for having inspired hundreds of thousands of backyard gardens. Marjory was the focus of an article that won Reuter’s Food Sustainability Media Award, and she recently authored The Grow System: The Essential Guide to Modern Self-Sufficient Living—From Growing Food to Making Medicine.
COMMENTS(7)
Try doing that with lettuce, kale and green beans! Keep up the good work.
no bannas here lol
where is this forest farm. Its not mentioned in the video. I see pineapples and banana, so Hawaii, Central America, Brasil?
Costa Rica
Banana skins weigh a lot. 2,000 lbs. of food?
Love your channel. Please make me laugh more this year.
Sweet song! I lived in Hawaii for over 12 years, and yes, he is correct: Bananas would put him over the payload! Nice that they cared for the land, but as Jeff said, try growing lettuce, kale, carrots or whatever to reach a ton in 7 months!
Now THAT video would be quite astounding to watch.
LOVE your work Marjory and much aloha to you and gratitude for how you’re teaching people to care for the ‘aina.