Let’s Talk About Polyculture’s Most Underrated Benefit (It Makes a Big Difference)

Huw, can you please define permaculture and polyculture

I accidentally created polyculture in my veg garden when I had to unexpectedly travel, and I had open spaces from previously harvested lettuce. I had zinnia seedlings, so I popped them in just to cover the soil. They grew wonderfully, with the only disadvantage being they were too pretty to remove when I needed to plant new veg 😂. Thanks for the post, Hew.

There's more gratification from polyculture gardening than gardening just to feed yourself and family.

I use oyster shells and perlite around my plants to deter slugs. These things also benefit the soil as they break down.

🍀

For me Polyculture is is simply working with nature instead of fighting nature. Today's monoculture agriculture is fighting against everything nature has taught us. For nearly seven decades I've never done any gardening other than polyculture, and probably won't be changing any time soon.

It wasn't me.

It’s so fun to see you so happy about your garden. This video got me to thinking about how happy I have been to just come upon marigolds in different parts of my yard where I did not plant them. And, I get tickled every time I see some nasturtium in the background of your videos after you have commented about how they come up everywhere. This past spring I started nasturtium from seed and love them, and I’m still loving them in the garden because we haven’t really had a frost. And I cannot wait to see where they pop up next year.

Already preordered the new book! I embraced your message of polyculture when I re-started my garden adventure this last summer. It was a brutal summer for growing here in the eastern US, but I managed to produce a lot of food without really trying and making plenty of mistakes as well. The key I think was planting lots of flowers in with my veggies and mixing the veggies up in each raised bed. No one bed was 100% any one thing. I had pollinators galore and that was as satisfying as harvesting cucumbers, beans, tomatoes, peas and peppers. I plan even more variety in the coming year! I am thinking of a comment about worm composting as being a form of forest mimicry and I think polyculture gardening is a form of nature mimicry. We can learn from the best!

So are you saying to grow flowers and veg in the same bed. Interesting love your videos.

I don't have a definite plan for my allotment next year so I might try growing lots of different things in my beds and spreading things around a bit. Being neat and tidy is not my strong point and I love things to look a bit wild so it'll probably suit me.
Having said that my sweetcorn is all going to be together because I just like it like that, I suppose I could interplant something between it, perhaps.

5 min in and I still don't know what this key aspect is.

It also helps to confuse the pests by adding different scents from other plants so they can’t find their favourite food easily

Huw, now the big puzzle is to decode your secret message which is hinted at but still hidden.

I am Spartacus!

The other advantage I find (not that I really ever considered myself to do polyculture as such, I just thought I was a lazy veg grower) is that you don't have the glut issue so much. Also there's not that thing that Monty et al do and wipe out a whole bed after "it's finished" and having a load of blank space to fill again. So right now I have a few purple sprouting broccoli plants from last year which I didn't have the heart to pull up in the spring and now they are greening up again but they are right in the middle of "the bed". This video makes me think I can embrace that and keep just planting around and not worry that my beds don't look so ordered as a certain Mr Dowding's might be! (Sorry for the ramblechat!)

Poly culture is beautiful! My garden almost always looks lush.

I cannot wait for next season to put into practice everything I learned the past one, it'a what excites me the most about gardening, there may be stuff going wrong this year and every lesson learned is golden knowledge to improve next year. I remember an old video of your saying something along the lines of failures are what makes someone better at something and it stuck with me and I have a feeling this video just had the same effect

I learnt the value of "failure" through gardening. Mrs Perfectionist, who would fall apart if one thing went wrong, suddenly found that an ailing plant, or one decimated by critters, was instead the greatest learning opportunity. After my initial "Oh no what have I done wrong by this poor plant???" I'd go inside, analyse the entire process, and record it too. Soil, water, sunlight, which natural fertilizer helped which kind of plant; it was all educational. I learnt MORE from my failures than my successes.

Great video Huw. Looking forward to your book 👍

I can’t wait for your new book. I think I’ve bought everything from you and Sam since I’ve found your channel. Cheers from upstate New York!

I've created a poly culture style garden. I started out just growing vegetables but they weren't thriving so I shifted to perennials for a bit while the pest then predators accumulated then each year I would get more and more predators like spiders, birds, lizards to reduce the pests etc I also read along the way that the more diverse plants you have the more varied roots you have in your soil which is the real way to feed your plants in the long run so I've been planting lots of flowers as well. I have a jungle now! Only problem is I hate spiders and snakes but I have to make peace with them being there. We are in Australia so that's a given

I love the videos. I’ve been gardening for several years. You’ve inspired me to keep it up when it doesn’t go my way! Thank you!

I’ve been following you for a few years now…
Love all your videos
Love your new podcast.
Love your book on the self sufficiency garden
But am really annoyed that you keep telling us about a book and make us wait months to read it… 😉 (there’s probably a lesson for me there too.)

So beautiful

Hello I love your Channel..I wonder if you've ever heard about Miyawaki forest? The botanist are helping people around the world create forest with polyculture of native plants. Big trees, small trees, and shrubs and only in three years they grew big like a forest and no need to water them at all..Mr Akira Miyawaki is so amazing pls share your opinion about the method he's using...his book is "The Healing Power of Forests: The Philosophy Behind Restoring Earth's Balance with Native Trees"

It's not unlike cottage gardening or potager gardening really. Both these ways of gardening have been around for many, many years and lots of us still garden like this. My grandfather and father tucked in what they wanted to grow wherever there was space. They never used chemicals but composted and spread manure. They taught me to garden in the same way. This idea of polyculture isn't new - it just has a new name!

so drawn to this! inspired now to really think about how i can do in 3 small beds. would love to hear more practical suggestions too, how it can be done and be 'food prroductive' in much smaller gardens/spaces :)

Thought provoking.....

@huwrichards do you have any videos with poly culture incorporated into creating your planting plan? The videos I’ve watched only seem to have one or two plants per bed sown in succession.

Due to your emphasis on polyculture. As you begin to implement this concept. I begin. This year was amazing. And seeing a whole bed of squash designated with stem bores. Is Another Failure. However; if you a few here and there. And some survive, it a glorious celebration. You beat the bugs.
Thank you for your thoughtful presentations. At times I envy you weather. I’m in zone 8b/ 9a. Southern Mississippi where summers humidity will rust the hinges of Hell lol keep up the great work

That is a good point Huiw!

I use polyculture when I direct sow all kinds of plant seeds throughout the garden. It's the only way I can afford to try the many varieties that interest me.

Not really a pest as such but I noticed an exponential rise in the little birdie count in my upper garden this year, they were eating the cabbage worms bonus!
(I need to build a hoard of birdhouses over the winter in time for Spring)

Hi Huw. Can you tell me the length, depth and width of your beds in this video? You call it polyculture but its just the way nature grows. Plants take care of each other so it makes so much sense.

maybe organize your script before you start talking on camera?