Back To Eden Gardening Documentary. How to Grow a Regenerative Organic Garden

PAUL GAUTSCHI INTRO when you look at the incredible landscape on planet Earth all the different terrains the varying soil conditions the awesome water features oceans lakes rivers streams the waterfalls the different climates the huge amounts of plants and ground covers the requirements are so varied can one fathom how big a project that was when God designed the land project for planet Earth he was so genius he designed it in such a way he would never have to show up to work it is completely self-sustained [Music] [Music] my name is Paul galchi and and I was raised as a garden my parents grew all of our food in Los Angeles as I grew up and I remember as a 5-year-old kid my dad on Saturday morning waking us up and saying well we got to head off into the um you to the horse stables and get some horse manure so we went down to a rental yard and got a trailer and went to horse stables and load up manure and came home and spread out in the garden and spaded it in and as kids we wore shovels out spading in heavy clay ground you know mixing soil and and having a garden it was wonderful growing up because there every any time we were hungry we could go outside and pick fresh vegetables and fruit all the time and just down in California there nothing you couldn't grow so it was just we had it all year long so it was really great and so as I started to you know grow up and I got married and I had some children and I decided you know Los Angeles is no longer a place fit for human habitation as far as I was concerned it's getting really crowded and and smoggy and just not safe and so I thought thought I want to go move to a place where I can continue to do this and grow fresh food for my family have clean water clean there so we came up here to the um Olympic pin of Washington we have a beautiful place but we built a house and we fac a real challenge we um drooled it well went 213 ft and got half a gallon a minute and if you're doing the math and thinking about that that's not enough water to do a garden I'll never forget as long as I live it was August 1979 you know it was a great year to build a house didn't rain all summer but boy in August all this grass was totally dead the road coming in was all dust I'm looking at that saying God how am I going to grow fruites without water and was so incredible I hear inside he says well you're looking at the wrong thing turn around look at your trees and I pushed enough out when I built the house I knew they had shallow roots and I says you know God you really have my attention if you can show me how you do these without irrigation I can do an orchard so I went out to the woods of the fork and I started moving this material underneath the trees and I was totally amazed this beautiful soft black damp incredible compost when I saw that I says well I can do this this this makes sense so I started planting the trees out there and at that time I had you know straw and sheep manure Now using wood chips and it's been amazing this worch has been here 31 years now it's never been watered or fertilized once it goes through droughts or whatever and it's just every year gets better as I was doing this Orchard experiencing these incredible results because I was a creature of habit and because our nature is to do things as we were taught and not to inquire from God I says Okay God thanks for the help but I can handle this on my own and so for I think probably 17 years I was out here diligently road to tilling hauling in organic material you can see a place over here my major rock pile this is my altar this is where all the rocks that came out of my garden over here and I'm just doing this stuff and I'm feeling I'm on this treadmill just running in place going nowhere feeling like I'm going to keep up with this you know every spring the ground is totally muddy and wet when I tilled it it turned to weeds in 5 to 7 Days solid green with weeds I planted plant things 3 ft apart so I can root a till with it you know do the weeding with a tiller and it was just labor intensive and one day I got out my Orchard I don't know what motivated but I got on my knees and started moving these wood chips and I'm down to my elbow in this beautiful black compost and I got up and started screaming I was so angry I said there's something wrong with this picture I have been killing myself to get this in my garden I don't have it I didn't do anything here and I hear inside what works in your garden the same way he didn't ask I was so angry I threw that tiller away and I started covering my garden with wood Chiefs I always say people the greatest gift God G was that lousy well because it opened me up to him and to show me his incredible you know work in creation been a gardener for 55 years I've done tilling done all that stuff and it's so amazing now my only tools to rake and it's just so easy and so simple and the production is so Superior to what I ever had wonder why you're working every Tire of res searching oh there's got to be a better [Music] way so you lift your hands up and pray father can you hear me I'm listening to you now I'm ready to trust you to lead and guide me somehow the creator of the universe concerns himself with me he passionately revealing this culture of love and of peace to Eden Eden Eden is the place of freedom to Eden Eden Eden is the place of Freedom your yoke is easy your burden is light help me to lean on you the rest of my life to Eden Eden Eden is the place of freedom [Music] BACK TO EDEN when I saw how easy and simple this was I I says God where do we lose it how why are we doing this and it was so interesting it took me right back to Genesis in the beginning and if you look at the in in the beginning when Adam and Eve were in the garden they had this beautiful relaxing day in the garden and every afternoon evening God would come down and walk with him through the garden and I'm sure as he walked through the garden he would just share with him things they saw in the garden that day about himself did you notice this this is my character this is all about me kind of thing I'm sure they just had this incredible time totally relaxed no stress every day but when man sinned the scriptures said things are going to change and the wording is by the sweat of your brow you're going to raise food thistles and thorns and weeds are going to compete with you and the next verse says and man began to till the soil you see man never cultivated in the garden he tended the garden but he never Disturbed the ground and when man got disconnected from God he began to till the soil the whole issue is so very simple it's all about THE COVERING cover nowhere in nature where man has not been do you ever see exposed dirt that only happens when man comes and takes the cover everywhere in nature where man has not been it's either covered with needles and leaves or grasses but the ground is covered and the reason is because the ground is a living organism and is all living organisms such as ourselves we have skin to protect us the animals have fur fish have scales birds have feathers and the soil is a living organism and God has designed it and made it so it's always covered with something and when you take the cover off it becomes vulnerable and it gets lost this is the thing that amazes me about us as intelligent human beings how we don't see it because we've been experiencing it for thousands of years in a negative way we're all around us all through creation everything's just growing beautifully with no work and we let are you know we work hard to fail when we came to the Midwest here 200 years ago there was 8 to 12 ft of beautiful top soil I mean gorgeous stuff and if you ever flown across the Midwest you look down at the ground it's almost scary it's just parched cracked hard totally desolate almost looks like desert there's 8 top soil today because it's all blown and washed away and they're still cultivating this is not working we're losing top soil and top soil in nature it takes 100 years to build an inch of top soil I mean it is Criminal and Incredibly devastating what we've done to the planet Soil Conservation people in the midwest will tell you that it's okay to lose around four tons of soil per acre per year I don't believe I may be wrong I don't believe that soil is forming at the rate of four tons per acre per year when the soil erodes the organic matter erods and all the nutrients that were in the soil Road and and that's just gone it's just a a resource that isn't there anymore I found that if I try to help nature at any level I mess it up my Approach now is just to look what it does and it says talk to me show me what you're doing cuz I want to copy it cuz it does it the best I have two properties that I'm doing this on one this one here the ground is clay and rock it would be impossible to farm it would be considered from the agriculture point of view as marginal soil the other place I have is 80% Rock totally Gravel Pit You couldn't possibly till it you couldn't possibly cultivate it and in both of those places I'm experiencing the most incredible beautiful gardens I love that scripture where it says as we behold the Lord we're being changed from glory to glory and I find that anything that comes in contact with God gets changed including clay and rock and rock it's just so awesome to take people and and take him back and show them my incredible ground he came break with a pick and walk on this stuff it's totally buoyant everything's just growing great you know and I didn't do anything I just put the cover down and God does it all whatever organic natural thing you have at your disposal it will work and I've used everything from straw grass clippings leaves animal manures rocks but having used them all I come back to wood chips and I see where it's been for a while and what it's done it is my favorite it just is a NIC nicest thing to use first of all when I speak of wood chips I want to delineate between wood chips and other things that people put in the same category such as bark or or shavings or sawdust W wood chips when I say Woods I'm referring to to branches of the been chipped branches of trees which is about 90% needles and leaves that gone through a chip or a tub grinder you want to go to get it from the source you know either good a tree service someplace who has a good amount of it and um cuz the bag is just too small and too expensive if you live in an area where you have local tree services people that are trimming trees or taking them down I would just get in the phone book and look for those kind of people and and um that would be a great source in most cases to them it's something they they've got to get rid of and so they're looking for places to get rid of it so should be a problem just this whole area can just fill this packet in as much as you much as you can bring man I'll use [Applause] it in the local area here where we remove Hazard trees and trimming and view removals and different things to enhance views and so this is a byproduct of that operation we've dumped chips here for Paul for a lot of years and 12 okay 12 years in Paul's case um this is so handy for us cuz the it actually saves us time so we give it to Paul it's handy for us to get rid of the material so it's getting more and more common for people to call us wanting chips the thing about mulch is pretty much in every municipality there's mulch available cuz someone's chopping a tree down somebody's cutting a tree somebody's shredding leaves if we can try and get things that are as close as possible to us maybe it's your neighbor that's chipping up a tree next door then that's the best product for you I you know I'm I'm an arborous I prune trees for living and I and for me it's an art for and I'm so thankful to be able to do it because it's it's a gift that I have and it's just something that's just so pleasing and so pleasurable you know it's interesting that the scripture talks about pruning there in John 15 um Jesus is WR saying that I am the vine and you are the branches my father is a husband and he's the one who maintains and cares for it all and it goes on to say that he prunes the trees for what purpose so they'll bear more fruit and I love these these things about God because they're so much bigger than I when I try to figure that out it makes no sense if I'm cutting a tree taking branches off it would make sense to me from a mathematical point of view I'm reducing his capacity to bear fruit but God's saying he prunes so it'll be bear more fruit and it's just this incredible beautiful illustration of God how his whole principle is it's in giving you receive and so with the tree when it when you're taking stuff out of it and it's giving of itself that process develops it and strengthens it and encourages it to produce more fruit and in my experience I totally see it people will come to my Orchard here you know um this time of year and you can't even walk walk through it and they'll come after I prun it in this in the in January and they says what happened to your trees they're naked I mean what' you do to them I says well come back in September they won't they'll be all touching you know and I'm just basically you know making room from the fill in you know and they just produce so heavily every year and it's amazing how much comes out but they come right back and and uh produce tremendously and I'm finding I always tell people if you want a treat to grow the most stimulating thing you can do to it is cut it cutting it will will we surpass fertilizing watering anything else nothing compares to the effect of pruning every time I prune I've got all these nice all these good branches to chip up and put back and every year it happens over again and it's just it's endless and it's totally free provided by God and it's just again it's such a beautiful picture of his character my name is Steve Johnson I run what's called The Lazy J Tree Farm uh most of the farm is in Christmas trees fruit orchards vegetable operation and uh and then the Compost Facility here I only do uh yard waste through my facility normal yard waste that comes in as long as you got fairly good green coming in you know uh with the yard waste has the right carbon nitrogen ratio to uh compost properly I ran a chipper for years and you have to pick up the material and put it into the chipper and I after a while it's just too much labor and energy for what you're getting out of it and uh so the tub grinder is really a good way to put the material through fast and you never handle it by hand e [Music] it takes a lot takes a lot of material to to farm with it [Applause] [Applause] you know what's so interesting about this track with me I came across this Revelation the other day these wood chips when the wind blows don't move they don't they stay there and they're lighter than dirt exactly you track with that that's bigger than me and I love it it's nature it's so awesome how the Creator designed this I mean there's no tilling there's no digging there's no this is it this is the only tool I need mhm man it is awesome my roses love it everything loves it well I just went to the um place where they make all this good compost and got a nice load of it the last time I put this here was about 3 years ago and I think with this application I'll probably go maybe four or 5 years I'm finding that uh this stuff is like compounding interest it gains in time and and uh you have to put less and less down as time goes on look how the leaves I just love the color of them and just how succulent and healthy they are there it is there's two words I want you to think about when you come here sustainable permaculture everything you see here was created in nature for free and it's renewable it was for Liberty Christ came to set us free everything about God is free and sets free and I love that about his character and it's so beautifully just you know exemplified and shown in nature this is just so freeing and and I love that scripture where he says come unto me all who labor and are heavy laden and I'll give you rest now you have to ask the question why do we labor and why are we heavy laden it's because of the Fall he says take my yoke upon you and what do we use the yoke for that's what attached The Oxen or the animals to some device to cultivate the ground and Jesus says I don't do things like you follow me around and learn from me my yoke is easy and my burden is light and in this incredible environment in this thing that God has created he shows his magnanimous awesome giving generous nature and it is so beautiful in comparison to the man approach of tilling and putting back constantly being on a treadmill running never getting on top of it all these wood chips just sit here I don't do a thing any time I choose to plant put a seed in it totally thrives if I don't use it it just waits for me and and develops you know richer richer qualities and in the meantime it doesn't blow away it doesn't turn to weeds and it just stays where conversely anything that I do if I don't stay right on it maintain it I lose it you know kind of I'm a slave to it and again it's just this incredible quality of God is just setting us free what I find quite interesting is that the issues we have in agriculture and I'll just list them soil preparation fertilization irrigation weed control pest issues crop rotation pH issues none of those issues exist in nature and what I'm finding at my place none of them exist here either and I feel just so thankful to be set free from SOIL PREPARATION that soil preparation when you put the wood chips down they never compact they're always soft every year I come out to my garden all I need is my rake and just grade it out make a little Groove and plant my seeds because the air is always present because it never compacts never has to be prepared you come to a place where you've got you've garden and your garden at the end of the year is all hard again so you bring in this really nice organic material fertili you know manures whatever you know you til in you got this really fluffy nice irated material you're so happy oh what a nice Garden you get out to your rake and you plant your stuff comes up as the year progresses when you get to the end of the growing season that ground is right back to where you started it's all compacted good and heart again and here's what happens I use the example of a fire to to get a fire to go you have to have three ingredients ignition Fuel and oxygen in the soil nitrogen is always present that's the igniter when you bring in raw material the fuel and to get it there air follows it all burns up you don't see smoke but it all burns up there's a number of different ways to use a material if you take the raw grindings and mix it in with your soil it'll Rob all the nitrogen out of the soil to rot the wood or rot the material so you don't really want to do that so I tilled in these beautiful potato chip wood colored orange wood chips into my garden last spring and um I wasn't too successful my soil test um says that I'm way down in nitrogen because I tilled those wood chips in I tied up all the nitrogen in my soil but now I know you never till this stuff you just add to it which was the mistake I made so by getting the faith back and going back to what Paul has t taught me I think this is going to work cuz it just is simpler right basically what soil needs to survive is the same as this it needs air it needs water and it needs food it's a basic principle for all life and so when you take mulch for example which is true in the forest because there's not just one grade like someone didn't go through and sift it and it wasn't always all coarse material or it wasn't all fine material there's all what they have like macro pours so there's all these different air pockets through the soil and so what that does is it keeps the top part of the soil and even further down oxygenated and so there's that oxygen available the microbes and the earthworms come up into the soil and then they can they can actually deal with that material and break it down normally when people think about mulch they might think about what they call Bark nuggets which are just big chunks it has to have different sizes of actual material you have to have small grades you got to have things like needles you got to have things like chips you can't have just one standardized size and expect that to do the same as what I mean if we look of what Paul's got here and I dig down there's probably I don't know how many different sizes of chips all the way down to what the finished product is which is soil or organic material to the point where it's I mean that's what you're going for now if I took and i' I multiplied this by a couple hundred times and that's what I was using it would break down but it would take a lot longer and the ability right away for it to help out um diminishes I started off W with um Alderwood chips which are kind of Big Potato Chip siiz chunks of wood this has been here a year and it's still it hasn't broken down yet so I don't think this is what Paul's talking about it would have taken too long to break down and the other main thing that they're finding with a lot of different um trees grasses plants vegetables compaction levels a true healthy soil is not compacted and when it does get compacted it loses the oxygen like those macro pores we were talking about and you get an area where it becomes what they call anerobic which means the oxygen level is too low for the microorganisms to live we're dealing um as I said earlier with compaction here on our farm and um certainly we're growing root crops to help alleviate that problem what we're also doing is adding wood chips on top knowing that they're going to break down slowly over time create fines and and also work into this compacted soil so it's kind of like a passive tilling almost that's occurring which is uh really exciting prospect to think that we don't we don't need the heavy machinery or you know um the heavy disturbance we can just keep adding and it'll work itself out I have used the raw grindings and there's a number of people that do this is just keep it on the surface you're basically sheet composting and it's a more of a than a um than an additive to your soil I have a tendency to compost between 10 months in a year the compost itself uh once it's composted and then it's a screen material you can use that several different ways you can plant straight in it which is there's a lot of people that do that or you can uh just leave it as on a Surface as a mulch compost is does a lot of wonderful things besides just nutrient benefits in your soil worm worms and beneficial fungus uh that's in there you'll just see the plants just just love FERTILIZATION it fertilization because of the compost material every time it rains or you water compost te is being deposited into the soil so you have a constant input of fertilization going on just not having a fertilize feature to me is just so amazing and such an incredible gift in this kind of stuff and last year had such an incredible experience a real ratory time I planted a row of spinach in the spring and it came up really nice and we enjoyed it and I pulled it out and planted another one it came up the next one came up bigger nicer than one before and then I was getting ready to pull it up and one of my neighbors was talking about this black black Spanish radish it was so good so I planted that for her and that came up and she couldn't believe the size and how beautiful that was and I'm looking at this and I'm just contemplating what's going on he says now God talk to me every time I planted in the same row this year each one was big bger and nicer than before and I didn't fertilize this is so opposite of what my experience is in gardening whenever I planted something something was taken out I put something back and hear him putting nothing back and each planting is bigger and nicer than one before you know and I hear him say to me was so incredibly in Romans 1 he says the invisible attributes of God are clearly seen by the things he's made so that no one has any excuse not to know God and so I just started taking it in and says God what invisible attribute are you showing me here he took me to Philippians where it says and my God shall supply all your need not from his riches but according to his riches in Christ Jesus and what he's saying there is that when he gives he makes no deduction he makes no withdrawal he is the same and he says this compost is illustrating that quality of my character it gives and it gives and it gives and there's no withdrawal there's no negative it just continually gives and that's who I am these leaves are falling down and the idea is they're doing they're feeding the soil back so they're done so at this state the chlorophyll is going out of them because they're going dormant they're going to drop these leaves that still have nutrients and the reason they're changing color is that green chlorophyll is gone the pigment they drop down in and they're feeding that soil and they're mulching it by their own I mean we're not coming over here and taking the leaves off and mulching below them and if we go over here or we go out in the fort they're doing the same thing so I mean they've been developed over these eons to do it and so I mean why question it obviously that's what that wants to happen and when you go out someone might say well that's not true with grasses you go out into the grass field let's say the Prairie of the mid the Midwest there there was grasses that were over my head but underneath it was mulch from the grass you know what I mean it wasn't just Green living grass with nothing out there was mulch to all those Blades of grass that had broken down fed the grass there's nobody that goes out there and fertilizes that I mean that's the thing that people well you got to have fertili you have to fertilize or I mean where if there is no out you're not taking it away you know it's all going back the animals were eating the grass and it was still going back so if you can recreate that in a garden it's the same exact thing the leaves come out they do their purpose they go back into the soil it's really simplistic and sometimes the most simplistic things are what people don't like to accept as being the answer whenever you buy fertilizers there'll be three numbers or three things that they they're analyzing in the fertilizer it's nitrogen phosphorus and potassium nitrogen what is what gives the green the good vigorous growth the phosphorus is what creates the budding and the flowers and the fruit production and the and the potassium is what gives hardiness and health and strength to resist disease and all those things are important to be in the soil for the health of the plant chemical fertilizers even though they have the numbers that say they're adequate in these features do not have minerals and so the plants that are growing without minerals don't have those in them so they don't have the nutrient qualities that plants that grow in organic soil do the minerals simply aren't there in the soil anymore and so it'll take up what it can get but it but it isn't there to be gotten and so uh and so you end up with a with a fruit or a vegetable or whatever it is that simply isn't as nutritious as it as it once was was when we had U more fertile soils just the T sort of calcium magnesium potassium iodine um those kinds of things the things that aren't fertilized Iz typically um you know has 30 40% reduction in what they were getting 50 years ago that's that's pretty alarming which is one helps explain why food doesn't taste as good as it used to it it isn't as good as it used to it's not as nutritious I always go to that scripture where God says it's good for a man to Bear the Yol in his youth God's saying up front if you're going to have anything of value you got to work for it but he says if you if you to do it the right way you want to do it early on do the work up front and if you've done it right over time it'll produce for you and this is what I think is so neat about the wood chips in God's way you see when they came with chemical fertilizers they told the farmer you can have this immediate Lush growth now and they were right what they didn't tell you down the road using these chemical fertilizers that every year you had to use more and more to get the same effect and your ground eventually became sterile when you use the organic approach up front is kind of a lot of work to bring in those wood chips because you know it's you got to cover the ground it takes a lot of cover but over time what I found at my place is that you start having this incredible gain um initially you put a lot down and you have to you know in a few years you got to put it back again I'm finding that each time I put a layer on it's a lot longer before I have to do it again because I have this incredible base built and so like you have a foundation that's just growing and getting you know better and better so over time you're getting a higher and higher yield with less and less input which is how it should be because you get older you have less energy and you want to get returned for your effort and that's God's way that's how how he is I love that scripture in this it says it says do not despise the days of Small Beginnings you know and I just encourage you to be patient nothing happens of any value quickly things that are value take time and the beauty of this process is that is that as time goes on it just get becomes more and more valuable so you know if you don't expect miracles at first because it's just it's going to take a little bit of time and as you plant things you feel they're not doing as well as you'd like then you can use fertilizers to supplement eventually you won't have to but initially you might and that's okay because you've used them any anyway before this so you can continue to use them now good organic manures if they're clean work well but as as it goes you'll find that you won't need to use those fertilizers and you really have an investment that cannot be compared to what the rest of people are doing in dirt you got horses you get horse manure that's a given not too many constants in life but that's one of them you got to get rid of it okay so what do you do we clean the Stalls we take it out we dump it in a pile people want use it for mulch it has to be kind of a superior product so what we do is we feed Easter Washington hay it's professionally grown and there's no weeds in it and that's really important because weeds uh the weed seeds will go from hay will go through a horse's body un hatched undeveloped and come out and you'll get weeped we use Fern Hemlock shavings so they decompose very rapid as a opposed to using Cedar which decomposes or doesn't you know very slow and it's so simple even I can do it you just make a pile and then I don't haul anything unless it's at least 6 months to a year old and our garden up here our experience has been you can plant right in it you know because it's chips and that have dissolved as well as the manure and so on so we've had really good luck that way it would not be good in the garden without being decomposed with something else you know that's a common complaint if you use straight horse manure I'll go get it some and show you a sample of it you can see how there's no Manu in there it's all decomposed and this is this is gradually Ro decomposing also the same way and as you use it you'll notice that each year the soil gets better you know especially if you like Paul was saying where you put down a ground up wood chips type thing and then cover with it it makes a sustainable program it's a it's a recyclable thing and then of course the vegetables or the or the flowers or whatever you have grow they die for spr winter you put more on they come it's just a it's a circle type thing yeah and it makes you feel kind of good because ecologically it's pretty darn sound you know our culture is is so wasteful and so most people think well get rid of these get rid of this wood chip stuff get rid of it you you take you cut stuff in your yard and stuff one of the things you probably know about Paul now is that any any waste out of his garden goes over into the chicken coop or in the chicken pan and then they eat it and Munch it around and then poop and then they he brings that back over here and dresses it soil I think one of the most beneficial um parts of a a garden is to have chickens around because there there's such I me the eggs are great but you see they deal with all your waste all of your yard waste the expired stuff from the garden my grass clippings any weeds all come to the chickens and those are really nice organic products for them that they eat and whatever they leave over turns into what we're going to be exposing here in a minute they're out here all day long just kicking you can see all those little grooves in here where they've been digging and and they're Excavating they're constantly picking seeds out or any bug kind of so they're always they working this material and as you're going to see shortly I'll tell you this is I've never seen compost so nice this almost is approach this almost approaches top so it makes such beautiful stuff anyway I'll just show you how easy to set to to get [Music] you can just see what beautiful stuff this is I mean look at this stuff just won't compact I mean this is the ultimate top soil and it's all just good compost from my yard waist I I always say that my um my chickens are my soil manufacturing plant the eggs are just a [Applause] bonus look at this beautiful fine stuff [Music] there it is pretty quick somewhere down there there's a soil and that's good you know presumably the soil has been protected and in the meantime it's been breaking down and getting a little bit richer with time but this mulch that is on top is basically organic matter and that's one of the things that we're losing out of our soils around the United States is organic matter organic matter is wonderful it's a it holds the moisture up there there it's like a sponge it just holds it there and it just sits there the plant can stick a little root hair in the water and it sucks it just like a straw about this big around you know it just comes up real easy and uh and plus being in contact with that organic matter it's got plenty of minerals plenty of nutrients uh lots of nitrogen and all that sort of thing I think it's quite interesting people always ask me well what what what your soils like if they tested this is well I've never tested it I've already seen where I came from it's getting so much better that I've just been really happy with my results I think this is really neat they did a soil test we were actually able to see that all this stuff I mean the soil completely is over the top as far as you know nitrogen phosphorus and potassium which is what the plants have always indicated but just nice to see that scientifically this you know meets the criteria it's what it looks like every year in the same place I get a higher and better yield because this the compost is being deposited into the soil via rain and water as a compost te and it's just like the soil is the bank and it's a little descriptive of like compound interest just gets better and better and better and the beauty is I do IRRIGATION nothing irrigation although rain does great as it does everything out there nature does everything with rain and so it is here now the summer time when I'm planting seeds out in my garden because it's dry on top I'll Water initially to get them up once they're up I stop watering when you go to plant and you pull them aside if they're not wet you want to water CU you PL you know seeds have to have damp ground to to sprout in and so this you know whatever state it's in when you go to plant will indicate whether you need a water or not irrigation is is a is a big issue these days especially with places where there's not much water or places when there's too much although we're in Washington The Evergreen State um you know it's known for having lots of water here in the rain shadow of the Olympic mountains we're getting about 16 to 18 Ines of rain a year which is very dry and of course that dry season is is the growing season as well and so you know the importance of efficient water use is just you know at a maximum there are a lot of problems with irrigation one is that one is that um it's a lot cheaper or easier it's a lot easier just to waste water spray the water through the air or dump too much water on the ground and and it will infiltrate and it'll sort of disappear and so you're not bothered by it but I think the last thing I heard was that irrigation on the whole is something like 50% efficient it's you know about 50% of the water is getting to the crops and um and now that water's getting scarce and and we're running out of water in in a number of places around the world we're actually the North China plane for example lots and lots of those farmers are going out of business every year the idea that we can use wood chips and reduce our water use by 95 to 99% is just really exciting um that's something that my friend Paul has proven over the years and something that we're we're doing here as well now even in the short time we we've certainly seen um water holding capacity and growth um attributable to you know the fact that we've heavily mulched um you know a lot of our plants and you see it's damp down in here see these tomatoes have never been watered and W won't be watered all summer you can drive a truck on it won't Compact and it just gets better and better and better here have some of these tomatoes are starting to get ripe this is what I get so blessed by look at this look look how damp this is and this is August and it's going to stay this way it will never dry out this is why I don't have to water where in dirt you won't experience this it's going to be compact on top you dig down it's dry look at this beautiful material you know and I find it's it's you know quite interesting in my experience you know um I have a place here that I have a pond and and um I plant my potatoes down there because they like to be watered and I find that things around there grow so much better than they do when I water with from the top and I'm realizing that that the in the beginning before the Before the Flood came there was no rain everything was water with with water coming up from the ground as a miss and that is the ideal way to water it's the ideal I think of um in Psalms it talks about a tree that's planted by the rivers of water it brings forth its fruits in its season it Leaf also should not wither and whatever it does she'll Prosper you ever ever go along river beds or stream beds you'll see the plants alongside the trees are just huge and Lush and just gorgeous and that's the ideal way to water is to have sub irrigation water coming up underneath and and I think it's so interesting you know in the um in the in nature you know the ground it maintains and holds that water so it's always there it's always available to plants on a continuous basis because of the capacity to hold hold it you know and um watering from the top is so counterproductive in a garden situation because that's just you know not as effective as you know Sub sub irrigation or or material that holds water so you you just live off the rain the rain water is a Superior Water groundwater never compares to the benefit of good rain water and if you ever done a garden you see after it rains everything just grows great nothing like when you watered you so if you can live on that that's the best you'll find with wood chips the incredible Advantage is there's no sponge will hold water like wood chips I'm amazed at the water it holds and for example we live in a place we're just 70 miles down the road there's a rainforest it gets 15 feet I'm not saying inches 15 feet of rain water year and you walk in the woods the forest there there's no water to your feet there it's not spongy it's not D it's damp but it's not soggy and it's amazing those wood chips totally absorb that kind of water quantity and another thing that's amazing about wood shifts is when it's not enough like it's like now if you look at my grass out in the front it's all brown but in the wood shifts my Orchard it maintains the moisture and here's an incredible thing about God in his design when there's too much water the wood chips displace it and when there's not enough it retains it at that point I have to check out because that's too big for me the idea is with something like what Paul's got going here is you're creating a layer over the soil that can act as almost like a blanket for the soil so that the moisture level in the soil is staying up to the levels it should be um if this was blank and there was no mulch 9 out of 10 there's a lot of runoff I mean there's water just normal rain is taking any nutrients that are above and either leeching them away or leeching them down into the soil where this mulch when the rain's hitting it it's stopping right there it's slowly working into the soil the microbes and everything the bacteria the earthworms everything that's under that is protected and then they are slowly decomposing that mulch down into the soil which is the food for the plants you know water is such a important thing we couldn't live without it you know and I think it's quite interesting the ratio and and how it is on on the earth 75% of the Earth is water our bodies are 75% water and what I'm finding in my produce and fruit it's 75% water and I'm seeing a real connection here and a real balance and what's interesting in in in plants that are growing in dirt that are irrigated with water they don't have that water content and I've discovered the reason as that we see in dirt because it's compacted and hard Roots can't develop like they would like to and so they're pretty compacted and not very spread out but in this environment where there's so much air in the ground and so so porous The Roots just spread everywhere and because you have this very large root system it's able to take up all this water I've always said the amount of water in the ground has nothing to do with what's going into the plant because you could have you know heavy clay ground which is what I have here and I could be watering all day long and it's not going to go in the plant because the ground's so compacted there's no root system but in this stuff because the ground is so porous I don't need the water at all because the roots are everywhere drawing such a wide area they're taking up such a huge amount of water so it doesn't matter about you know how much water is on the ground is because of their capacity to take up and that's what's so key that's what I just find just such a pleasure anything I pick you break it off or you bite it and just juice and water just flows out of it you know and that's how it's supposed to be that's really the design and it's just so important for us to to be hydrated with our food and to be getting enough water and it's and uh like I say the stuff you buy in the store it just doesn't have that water content oh this fenel is like I can't even describe it it explod in your mouth it's it's amazing but everything you see see all the water in that it's all about Roots you know you got to water two three times a week depending on what the temperature is what your soil is and uh sometimes more if you have sandy soil and Paul never Waters never Waters it's you know just it's you go out there and it just blows your mind just blows your mind you see because the compost holds the water so well in the ground I don't need to irrigate and because I'm not irrigating it just stays totally weed free because when the weed Seas blows in on top of these dry wood chips on the top they can't germinate and the other nice features when you go to pick vegetables it's not muddy it's not got dirt all over it's totally clean because I wasn't watering and when you walk on it it's nice and dry there's no mud it's just such an incredible benefit not having to irrigate continuously and they notice like when we got started getting some rains all of a sudden these little weed started popping up in places so you see those seeds were here all summer but now that starting to rain they're going to come up you know I just take my rake and rake them out it's not a problem they don't have a lot of you know a huge amount and they're very easy to control but it makes such a difference when you don't have to irrigate continuously as far as your weeding WEEDS issues weeds well I have weeds weeds always happen but because the ground is so po soft and nice I can just take my rake and just drag The Rake through and it uproots all the weeds and or if I have to pull them they pull out really easy it's kind of fun pulling here because it's just I enjoy seeing the great root systems and just how nice everything does so and it's great I call them salad green for my chicken because they just love it you know it's this good organic greens so weeds aren't a problem where in other soils when it's got compacted you got to really work to get those roots out this stuff they just come right out so it's much much easier weeds I didn't say the weeds come up really good too if you have weeds they just it's easy to weed easy easy to pull the weeds in this once you have a lot of this material super easy to pull these things out makes your weeding a whole lot easier than what you're used to but yeah I mean look at all those roots too I'm used to things just breaking right off it's amazing revolutionize uh weeding your garden that great look at that good old rot so it just makes it such a difference when you I us to get down I have to pull weeds and you have to get a tool to get underneath to get the root because they break off the blade goes straight down next to the Dandy line and then I just simply pull back like that broke up no I got pretty much all of it when I used to till this it was just solid weeds blows my mind because it's just like this was the same space so the same wind the same seeds are blowing across here because of the cover I don't have the issue this is one of the reasons why organic food is so expensive because of the incredible labor intensive weeding operation they have to you know get down and pull all those weedy because they can't use herbicides this is a beat bed and uh highly intensive labor to weed it just to pick out the the weeds and thin them cuz there are weeds out here we take about 4 hours per bed a 3T by 30t carrot or beet bed take about approximately 4 hours to weave I was for years in God's face trying to figure out what weeds are all about what I says how come I have weeds here I've done my best to get under New Y how come they're here and he came back so fast it almost scared me he says they're not your weeds they blew in for your neighbors they're cultivating they're creating weeds and the seed blew into your place and you'll always have that as long as they do this kind of a thing you know and I love that scripture where how it says that all of Nature groans and travails waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God you see they know we're disconnected and they're trying they're groaning and travailing trying to save the Earth because we're we're just totally disrupting it and and and losing it all and I and I think the answer is so beautifully described there in in 1 John 3 where it says beloved now we are sons of God but it does not appear we shall be but we know that when he appears we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is and everyone who has his hope in himself purifies himself as he is pure I think that's so key because nature is waiting for that day when we'll be all like Jesus we'll get reconnected with God and be hand taking care of the earth as he intended us to you now occasionally pest will come in nature and will defoliate a few trees every now and then but not serious PESTS enough that it causes any great losses and nature always overcomes I think if you follow organic principles you're less it's very rarely that you your insect population your negative insect population gets out of control and of course if you it doesn't matter if you spray organically you're still going to kill beneficials and so beneficial insects so it's it's best to just deal with whatever damage you have and move on George Washington Carver when people would ask him how to how to deal with a disease in their tree he would say well you don't want to deal with a disease you want to get the tree in good health and vigor and it'll take out the disease I think that's such a a true statement and it's so true about everything if you'll get a real healthy plant as I have here I don't have any insect problems if a bug bites into my plant he drowns because there's so much water there he just is infus with it and he wants cellulose and fiber so he goes somewhere else to find a a stressed you know um dehydrated plant to eat on because he can't eat in M because it's too much water so if you have a healthy vigorous plant insects not a problem as plants became weaker because of chemical fertilizers insects began to be very overpowering and would take out huge amounts of plants and so they stepped up to the plate and created insecticides what they didn't take into account was that the Creator designed everything in nature to be overcoming and as these insecticides would come in contact with these insects they would mutate and and develop opposition to it and the Next Generation those insecticides didn't affect and so it's not a problem so they have to keep improving and strengthening the in insecticides well what's that has progressed to today is that not the insecticides are so powerful so potent they're killing the plants and so what they've done to solve that problem is now they're using genetically modified organisms where they're changing the DNA of the plant and putting the incite into the plant I don't know what you know if you're following this but this is not going to end and and if you just you know it amazes me how people you know think these days if if something is in a plant that's going to kill insects it certainly can't be beneficial for my body we have to decide if it's acceptable to take any one piece of the puzzle out and it'll work like GMO crops that's my perfect analogy for that you can't take a DNA strand and start pulling pieces out and putting in different chromosomes and expect for that to achieve just one thing oh it's just going to make it resistant to Roundup well guess what when you do that it change something on the other side it's like a bubble pressing in the bubble it distorts somewhere else so down the road I mean and so I guess what I'm going back to is we have to keep thinking of a holistic approach on any of this you can't just take one piece out and think it's going to be okay and the mulching idea is just adding something back here several years ago I read an article that really was got my attention in Japan the the typical consumer would go to the store the produce market and pay 30 to 50% more with for vegetables with bug bites and the rationale was that this food is safe to eat the stuff without bug bites is so poisonous the bug wouldn't eat it and they're right this is what's so pathetic about our culture we're so cosmically oriented we see little bug bite a little Wilt oh don't touch that that's not good we want this really pretty goodlook stuff but we don't realize that those things are all part of nature they happen and you can cut around it or you can get rid of it but you know to be so put off by a bug bite and then to create food that's so poisonous that the bugs won't eat and then you eat it is not very smart not very good for our health my name is Edith and I think living here in Squam now for 21 year 22 years this is the the most beautiful place so far because you have always that fresh air squim you know and then the mild winter of course the mild winter is uh uh also bringing along all the little pests that bother us you know but uh Paul has found through the mulching you have much less problems with the insect well the thing about pesticides is that you know whenever you use a pesticide whether it's organic or inorganic you're killing good um insects as well as bad for instance when you have aphids ladybugs come in right after to control them and so my feeling is I don't want to kill them I don't want to kill bees and so I'll just live with the pest you know for that period of time and um it's not a CROP ROTATION problem propop rotation if you look at nature plants go to seed in the seeds fall on the ground and they do it every year decade after decade Century after century and is not a problem but when you cultivate and you have exposed ground you've got to move crops from because you have you have um disease issues and and problems you know I think I've got the classic example down here at my pond area which it's nice good low wet spot I've been growing potatoes now 16 years in a row in the same place and they come out nicer and cleaner every year today we're going to harvest some potatoes and that's one of my favorite fun things to do because it's such a Pleasant you know surface to be on the potatoes come out so clean and nice and it's just it's just fun you know and as I'm harvesting I'll also plant and my harvesting and planting is all done at the same time and makes it so simple and easy this is um wood shavings and HSE manure mixed together and it's just guys just look down in here as you dig just how beautiful it gets it's just oh this is I don't you know any any farmer Gardener would recognize it this is this is like Ultimate Gold this is the most beautiful stuff you could ever ever have look at just how soft with my hands I can move it it's just never never compacts it's totally just the best see this is last year's seed see how it's hollowed all inside see see how much you know oh different that looks than that you that was a seed I planted last year and if you know anything about growing potatoes if you grow potatoes in dirt if you don't rotate them after several years they'll get scabby and that scab will increase to where you can't even use a potato these get so bad but my potatoes down at the pond the girls were here harvesting they're all clean and beautiful no scab and I love it it just makes it so PH ISSUES convenient pH issues you know I have over here at my in my herb garden I've got blueberries which everyone knows is a very acid loving plant but right next to it I can grow Swiss chard or cucumbers or anything else it's alkaline and it does well too so here I I see again all those things that we work so hard to correct soil preparation fertilization irrigation weed control pest issues crop rotation pH issues in nature it's just all beautifully done by itself and so I just enjoy having the convenience and it just makes so much easier the reason people don't grow their own food because if it's done traditionally it's just a lot of hard work I mean you become a slave I always tell people when you do a garden if you don't stay on top of it it turns to weeds and you lose it it's something that requires all your undivided attention so it's very labor intensive and people don't have the time or the energy or the desire to be so tied into something because it's just where this is just so opposite you know it makes it so simple this is why I so want to get CALIFORNIA DEMONSTRATION GARDEN this out because the past has been so hard and so counterproductive and negative where this is just so awesome [Music] we're in Southern California in the South Bay Area of Los Angeles in a town called pal veres Southern California only gets about 13 in a year even in a normal rainfall year and we've had drought for the last four or five years and what we've tried to do is is find interesting California native plants and plant them um around the garden as much as possible and then more recently vegetables that and see how they do in this um area we've basically taken the existing soil which is pretty dry a mixture of adobe and clay and Little Rock and um added mulch as much as we can to make it richer certainly we hope that plants will grow more healthily and more readily with less water and so that's kind of an experiment this is actually soil that we've worked a little bit but has lots of Hard particles and doesn't work very well for plant roots so definitely getting it more moist and add adding some compost um on a regular basis is important in Southern California it doesn't get terrifically cold in the winter but it can get quite hot in the summer and it it's definitely a way to hold in the humidity and to keep the soil from drying out so much during the hot months well just recently we learned about a source of covering through the Los Angeles sanitation department they are taking the green recycled clippings and yard waste and those kinds of things and um grinding it up and making it aail available at I think six or seven different sites around the LA Basin at different times during the week and just come and pick it up so we've done that a couple of times now and getting big barrels full of free mulch is great [Music] and we're just adding it to the Garden in different places once we got our plants we we used both seeds and seedlings in 4-in pots we cleared away the wood chips we had laid down on the original soil just in an area big enough to dig the hole into the existing soil then we put the wood chips back once we got the plant established in the hole and surrounded the plant right up to the edge of the stem with the wood mulch there's no climate in which using a mulch isn't a good idea it it definitely enhances the soil uh encourages uh worms and other beneficial insects and discourages the non-beneficial insects and we've been pleased with the growth of worms in our garden we have lots more worms just in the last 6 months because we've been also working on on getting our own compost going and that's like a worm farm so it's great to add those to the soil easy to do much easier than I thought it was going to be I work with middle school students and it's a really good compliment to me to go out and just kind of work with plants and be quiet and enjoy watching them grow certainly I feel that most of my students um have never had the experience of planting a tree or a plant and they're very disconnected so I think that's part of the um the key and the kind of food that most of the middle school students I see eat is heavily processed without much nutritional value so I feel that schools and communities need to look at that seriously as a health problem as a lifestyle problem and deal with it um certainly through garden projects it's one way so that people can potentially create create a small garden um if nothing else it's meditative and um kind of a deep satisfaction knowing you've grown some of your own food but there's a long-term need for that and Ron was right the connection to the Earth business is just completely lost mhm yeah it's pretty sad it's important it's important to reestablish definitely need to get back to the Garden of Eden [Music] PENNSYLVANIA DEMONSTRATION GARDEN hi I'm Diane mccomber hi I'm Hannah mccomber and I'm Mark mccomber and we are in Gettysburg Pennsylvania at the Back to Eden film demonstration garden when uh we were asked to U maybe help do a demonstration garden um we had a slight problem we don't have land we live in town and so we started seeking the Lord and praying we want to be a part of it we want to do it but what do you do if you don't have land and we started the journey the search of asking and it was amazing uh we had four different people that actually offered us plots of land and one day Mark was talking to uh Jeff Wilson and about we needed land and wood chips we had we needed a provision and we were seeking the Lord and none of the things seemed right there were little glitches with each of them and we kept waiting and listening and it was amazing um Chef said I have land you can use the churches and that's how we actually got to have the demonstration garden here at uh Heritage Assembly of God Church when I was talking with Jeff Wilson uh about he was asking how to do a garden I said well first you need wood chips or a covering and around here there are a lot of wood ships because a lot of tree service companies and a lot of people have trees in their yards and woods around and the road crews are always cutting the trees for the power line so that's a good source for wood Shi and uh he said well I have a pile of wood chips and I said really maybe we ought to do the garden there he said fine with me so this is where we ended up doing it and he did have a pile of wood chips about 2 or 3 years old that they were making a walking path around the property so we got permission and used those wood chips and we laid the garden down getting more wood chips has been a little bit difficult because uh the tree service companies they're more than happy to deliver them if it's convenient for them and it just so happens that here this site is on the way home of a tree service company so uh if he's got chips doesn't have another place that wants them if the homeowners don't want them then they drop them off here to lay the garden down the first thing is to go through and dig out all the thistles and we found even dandelions and golden rod and things like grape vine can be a problem so if you have those things to dig them out is very helpful and then find a source for some newspaper and we found a source for free newspaper at um the local uh Rescue Mission gave us all the newspaper that we could that we needed an abundance of newspaper and we laid it out and we're blessed in that um it's wet land down there and everything just laid down and that was to kill all the weeds and the grass that was growing underneath in the newspaper we put it down about 2 to four layers thick and it seems like it really needs to be three or four layers thick and where there wasn't newspaper there were weeds there were weeds coming through and the beauty of it too when we laid the newspaper down uh Grandma and Grandpa were here and Hannah was here and Sarah and Dana it became a whole Community family thing was of laughter and fun we got a the newspaper down and while somebody held it somebody else would take uh a wheelbarrow full or back the truck around and just take a a fork or a shovel and sprinkle it on the wood chips until we could get get the wood chips on there heavy enough and once the the light film was on of wood ships then we could put the covering on with 4 to 6 in deep the first year is really best beyond that it's going to make it difficult for your plants to grow for not being gardeners our first Garden is kind of rather big it's 100t by 40 ft and again the Lord just provided a provision for us U my brother owns a what's it called front end loader front- end loader and he came and he really helped us a lot thanks Steve [Music] the S with your [Music] hand soul with your [Music] heart and when Steve started to dig into them with a front end loader then uh the steam just Rose it was like a a cool morning with the steam coming off a meadow or lake and it was really nice it was [Music] beautiful My Eyes to the Sky where I know I hope will be found thank you the S with your hand where the S with your [Music] heart we were really blessed again because um all of our seeds were donated to us from Washington State and uh that was an amazing gift in October A box came from Washington Paul had given some potatoes for seed and Justin had given us a bag full four times I think of garlic and we immediately in the fall planted the potatoes and the garlic typically it would freeze at the depth it was planted but the wood chips kept it warmer kept it insulated almost every single one of them came up so yeah it worked when we were planting the garden and uh and and while things were germinating and coming up it was so exciting to see these plants come up because it's like we are going to have a garden full we're going to have a a produce department full of harvest yeah we're going to give give vegetables all over the community and as time went on it was a little bit discouraging because things came up and then they stopped growing and I didn't know why so that's when I put the fertilizer on and they grew a little bit more but then they stopped growing and actually went to seed and the reason for that was because I was we were growing in the wood ships instead of in the soil underneath and we can tell in the places in our garden where the plants The Roots actually got into the soil versus stayed in the wood ships because where they got into the soil the plants did remarkably better it didn't take very very long before we realized we needed to do some fertilizing one of the organic materials that's the best for nitrogen and and for fertilization with wood chips is dried blood and so uh we put a couple of 17lb bags on at different times and that did remarkable things for the plants the dried blood worked better than anything for organic nitrogen fertilizer as far as this Garden I think what we would have done differently would have been just to put about 4 in 4 to 6 in of wood chips down and then part the chips and plant in the ground uh beneath the wood chips and that soil really does get prepared pretty quickly by the wood chips it softens the ground up pretty quickly when I moved the wood chips off in one area I just took my finger and I began to dig and in no time I was down 2 in really easily and then in the yard just just off the wood chips I started to try to dig and and and I was you know really stressing my finger to even break the grass let alone break the soil so it makes it really does make a big difference we have a friend that offered they have half an acre between their house and the neighbor's house that it's just empty there's nothing on it at all all they do is mow it so he offered it uh if we wanted to have a garden there or anyone else wanted to have a garden there I have wood chips delivered there that that would be a site that we could do so we set up HOW TO START A BACK TO EDEN GARDEN another Garden there and uh the first thing we did of course was check for the thistles and it was uh has been mowed all along and uh there were no thistles so we put the paper down then we put about 2 or 3 in of mushroom soil down on top of the paper and then once the mush mushroom soil was down we put about 3 or 4 Ines of wood chips uh somewhat composted wood chips on top of the mushroom soil and then over that uh a dusting of less than an inch an inch or less of cure that had been composted and then uh uh that was that was all that we put on that newspaper and then mushroom soil about 3 or 4 in and then 3 or 4 in of uh wood chips and then just a dusting of uh an inch or less of uh commor on top of that and when we got done we felt really good about this Garden is done correctly it's got the nutrients it's got the soil that it needs and and then uh 3 days later we planted HOW TO PLANT SEEDS seeds and here it is a week later they've all come up everything is uh is germinated and we have things growing um and so Father's Day best Father's Day of My Life we uh planted the New Garden when when we planted in that Garden we moved the wood chips out of the way we did not plant in the wood chips we planted in the mushroom soil that had the nutrients and used the wood chips as the covering when you plant in the soil and they get big enough then you side dress them with the wood chips so that's what we'll be doing when they get big enough so it's looking really good it's growing really well something that I think it it's too and it and more about um that honestly really is about the garden I think it is to take kids back for a generation I do think away from video games away from TV away from sitting taking back into nature because God does display himself in nature you cannot look at a seed and see the miracle of something coming out of it we watched as the beans were coming through the ground and the seed was still on the sides and the little green plant was coming out through the middle and we watched it an amazement and you cannot not not have a lesson about God at that moment for a generation Just To See God I mean that's why I believe God started Adam and Eve in a garden we're at Back to Eden organic garden I'm Johnny and I'm 5 years old my name is Hannah mcer and I'm 9 years old I'm Natalie and I'm 7 years old and we are the kids Garden V trol we've learned that lady bugs are actually they eat other bugs and they're good for gardens W what did you find ladybug what's your favorite bug ladybug why is ladybugs your favorite bug I don't know cuz what did they do in the garden they eat that bugs whoa there she goes and these are bad for Gardens they eat the leaves why do they eat the plants cuz they're hungry I guess get off of them there's a fat one what I like about this Garden is that whenever you're weeding it's very easy to weed all you have to do is just pull it out and it usually just comes out all the roots and everything and we have friends where they had a garden and it wasn't with wood chips or anything and they tiled the soil and stuff and it was really hard to pull their weeds out you hardly could pull them out at all and I think that's cool that I can pull the weeds out really easily I wish that all children could learn how to do a garden and teach their children when they get older I like coming to the Garden I like coming to the Garden too I like coming to the Garden as well we love doing it together bye I think that um for the future I mean absolutely the health benefit benefits of eating what comes out of the garden is going to be uh immeasurable but also I I think that times aren't going to get easier they're going to get harder and I really feel like the Lord has released this now worldwide Uh Wood ship garding in order to be able to provide for people that don't have the ability to do traditional gardening they don't have the equipment maybe they don't have the space they don't have the understanding of how to uh do do traditional gardening HOW TO MULCH AN ORCHARD and you can just lay down some wood chips this year and if it turns out that it's 10 years down the road that you need to be able to grow your own food that you need to be able to grow your own food like in the days of the Great Depression then your garden is ready and I really I really feel like that's a major aspect of the Lord releasing this at this time he's he's released it in uh enough time for people to get things ready that they need to get ready don't have to be in a panic about about it but to be intentional about it and to do it some of the spiritual lessons I think that we learned from doing the garden at least that I learned was that God always speaks to you in the garden it's amazing the dialogue um and also U being patient the garden I think just teaches that amazingly and to trust the Lord in the fullness of time the fullness of time he brings forth his glory his Beauty um fun lessons like the seeds to trust even when you're planting them one of the first dialogues I felt like the Lord had with me uh with the seeds was that they might not all germinate but you still plant and just trust him there was Beauty in that for me with even just the spiritual connection with that was we live our lives we just plant and he does the rest I think one of the main things that I've learned from the garden was that you know we really did receive a seed from the the Lord about wood ship gardening the covering and uh was very excited about it and then wanted to just move on it quickly and the having to have patience to wait on his timing as to where it's going to be how it's going to be and then you know things coming up he plants the seeds but the things come forth in his time and he's put the seed in us with this and things have come forth only in his time you can't force it and every time have tried to make something happen like getting wood chips or getting a vehicle or equipment to move the wood chips it's just you have to wait on the Lord because it's his time and and he made such an emphasis over that that it became so clear that if you're working too hard you know you've stepped out of his his rest so just let him do it he puts the seed it'll come forth HARVEST I always come back to I love that that um statement of Jesus come unto me all you who labor and heavy laden I'll give you rest take my yoke upon you and come learn of me my yoke is easy my burden's light and I find that if I'm doing something that's stressing me out and getting in a lot of work I'm realizing this is not God this is not how he does things and I just I just love my harvesting approaches whenever I get around to it I do it if I don't it's all right I I have chickens that'll use it if it's if it's gone too far and the advantage of harvesting when stuff is fresh in seasoned you're getting the ultimate food value I think it's interesting too how um when God's explaining to us how he provides for us he says consider the birds of the field and you know how they don't toil they don't sweat and I provide for them are you not of more value than them and then he he says seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added unto you and we look at all through nature everything in nature is not pressured not under stress and they eat everything fresh in season it's all there for them and they do wonderful where us you know the most sophisticated of all the creation stress out and we don't eat good food and we buy all this processed stuff and we're thinking like Jesus trying to get our attention consider them pay attention this is how it's supposed to work and I care a lot more for you and it's just what I think is so sad is that God's made such an incredible provision for us he's given us land he's given us seed he's given us you know the sun and the rain it's so easy easy to grow food and it's so natural it's what everybody's always done from the beginning of time until the Industrial Revolution so we need to get back to the original and do it [Music] right ever wonder what's this longing Whispering at your heart but the thing that you were meant for for but you don't know where to [Music] start father can you hear me I'm listening to you now I'm ready to trust you to lead and guide me [Music] somehow the creator of the UN concerns himself with me he passionately revealing his culture of love and of peace to Eden eeden Eden is the place of fre to e e Eden is the place of Freedom yeah yoke is easy your burden is life help me to lean on you the rest of my life to [Music] e apples the enzymes that cause them to ripen don't happen till 7 to 10 days before they get ripe so all the apples that you're buying in the store they're picked green and the enzymes aren't there they just don't show up they look nice they have nice color because they did the nitrogen fix and it looks good but the enzymes that cause them digestion are not present and so when you eat that Apple your body has to go Salvage enzymes somewhere else in the body to digest the things so instead of this being a nutrition nutritional um Plus for you it acts as a negative and it's not really good where the when the Apple falls off the tree it's usually pretty ripe that's what I love about this arrange the trees are pretty low to the ground the ground is soft when they fall they don't bruise and the other Advantage is is that you know in harvesting you see when they harvest apples all at once not all apples on the on the same tree are ripe all at once they come on at different times and then some are in a more of a shady place so they don't ripen as quick so if you pick them all you're going to get some unripe ones the advantage of coming out at your leisure when they fall off they're always ripe and so you have all the enzymes present the full nutritional benefit that was in the Apple depending on what it is that you're growing the NUTRITION nutrition comes with the color and that's why you know it's always been you know known to eat a variety of colors and have a rainbow diet and all those kinds of things is because there's different nutrients that are more prevalent with all those different colors but the color doesn't ever come until it's right before it's ready to be picked unfortunately you know the society and the culture that we live in they are picking those things um much before that nutrition is there which is why I believe that a lot of The Taste is not there the sweetness and the or you know whatever that particular plant is prolific and and I think that's really a big reason why people are not you know big fans of eating vegetables in particular is because of the taste I always say that plants that grow fast are sweet and tender things that grow slow are tough and bitter when I used to grow stuff out here they would grow slow they were tough and bitter now I plant stuff man it's up in a week you know and just 3 weeks is just totally huge and beautiful it's just amazing the difference well you know I'm not a um I haven't been formally educated and I don't have a nutritional background but I do have taste buds and I notice other people do too when they come to my place I just love to have them sample my food and the response of everybody is that is so sweet it's just and see listen everything that God created I believe is sweet very sweet very sweet they're so sweet and tastes so good this is good was that's good and see good and it smell good these blue bears are really really good and my gut feeling intuitively is that the nutritional value of food is relative to its flavor if it tastes good it is good if it doesn't taste good it's not good and I come back to this good God that we serve God is a good God and he gave all of us a sweet tooth we desire sweet it's just innate he didn't give us that to frustrate us and and caus us to be you know put on edge and say you can't have this he gave it to us to satisfy and bless us because he's good and I'm finding that in my garden everything is sweet it is all sweet and it's so pleasing and satisfying and I think I'm just beginning I'm just basically on the edge just approaching how God made food to taste and it's just so wonderful and I just tell you from experience when you eat this I eat this stuff all the time I just out here grazing all day long you just you have this sense of just overall feeling good you have energy you're not stuffed you're not bloated you don't get tired I'm thinking like this is how we're supposed to live this is just right and as a result of eating this live food fresh and season and so I can't you know come from a scientific place to analyze why this is better than store bought but I'm just telling you from how I feel and the flavor and the comments everybody else is according to flavor that I know this is way over the top everything I've been eating is just delicious it it's amazing it's packed with flavor it just feels like it's the best food it's so great sweet juicy M delicious this this is this is the advantage of not watering amazing this is this fenel isn't it delicious is that amazing how sweet it is I mean if you could get that what I have in my yard isn't like that no because look what it's growing in this is my point it's minerals that give flavor to food and all of our soils today are so deficient because of chemical fertilizers because of erosions that minerals aren't present but this stuff is just totally Rich this is the answer everything man it's like over the top awesome what I find interesting too back in the 60s when they would analyze potatoes for example they had large amounts of vitamin A vitamin D all kinds of things that aren't in potatoes today and it's because the soil back then had minerals micronutrients things that God created which aren't in soils today because they're just fed chemicals and the organic material is not going back in and so the soil is deplete from all those wonderful things and so the food is and we wonder today you know why we have all these autoimmune diseases and things that weren't even here 50 years ago it's not because our our bodies forgot how to heal is because our food is not good we're not getting proper nutrition and basically today people are taking supplements because their malnutrition they're not getting their food and God created all this food for our bodies I love Genesis the first chapter and I love the way it starts and God said fruits vegetables seeds and nuts this is what I made for your food it is so good to have these vegetables and the fruits especially the figs that make you feel ah you don't need a medicine or anything you just feed yourself with good stuff and like um it has even a better flavor you know when um I have tasted PS vegetables and like so many people uh it has a sweeter flavor because it's not under stress it grows with constant moisture yeah and and this is the beautiful thing about it you know you not only help to make again a layer of fle soil for the future Generations they have good soil there it's not depleted but you have also a vegetable that will nourish you and it is published you know many many places when you read uh the the depleted soil isn't as good so add your little vitamins and tablets forget it if you can do this hair this mulching with the whole tree that's you know chipped up that's the only way to go yeah in some rational future people are going to wake up and say this is not only a good way to eat but it's a healthy healthy way to live and ultimately when you start thinking about quality of life if you got if your kids are healthy and you're you got plenty to eat and you're leaving a healthy lifestyle man the rest is just gravy whatever else you do so yeah I think I think this is this has a significant potential to be a big part of of the human Future Okay a lot of people M take this place as a farm it's not a farm this is a home where my family lives where I raise my family and I and I did this intentionally to have a place where they'd have a wonderful place to live where we could grow all of our own food and and I've purposely just because of how God's given me this really wonderful Revelation how to grow things and his whole economy it's in giving and receive I've just never been in any position where I wanted to saw anything I just have no desire to and I just have such pleasure in sharing and giving with people because I have such an abundance there's plenty for all of us kind of thing it's just fun for me to watch people just randomly come to my place pick things and walk off and you can't even tell they were here and it's just such a a wonderful feeling you know just and just letting so much like God because it's just his nature to give you know and if we just get connected with him and start doing things his way we have an abundance he provides us with all we need and we have excess to give away and to bless other people and it's just a great way to live I love it I heard about this Garden today from my TESTIMONIALS friend Mara Bree and her brother Mitch so we took a notion to come up here and it's been an incredible Revelation the gardening techniques are a revelation as as the owner was saying they're so simple so straightforward so profound that many people Overlook them uh gardening with compost not using any water and this is the result is uh just uh a revelation to me do you think that you would ever um try this at home immediately in about 3 hours every every um every herb and vegetable that he's grown in this Garden is so flavorful so pungent so powerfully uh flavorful that I haven't tast tasted anything like it in a very long time certainly not in the supermarket and you don't see it this big in the sore this is not elephant garlic this is Italian red and I want you to notice when you use it just how moist and nice oh yeah Fally awesome oh it's yeah thank you thank you you know where that grew that no out in my Orchard in my underneath my trees underneath the trees this is this is gigantic garlic is the EAS thing here's why you plant it over we're amateur gardeners and uh we're going to implement this stuff I know we are it all tasted really good it's just all outrages oh it's it's unbelievable I mean when you drive up that's why I'm put myself in front of this the whole front row this Orchard is these dwarf apple trees with the the wood sticking out the top and it it's just it's magical it looks like it's right out of a movie it looks like uh I expected Alice in Wonderland to come bopping out any minute and say hello and I told my son we're going to see a garden and he's he's you know 10 and A2 going on 15 and like oh do we have to do that and he just came up to me a little bit ago and he said I'm glad we're here even he thinks it's cool if it passes the test with him it it's okay I've had let's see I've had the uh I've had a carrot and I've had some cilantro and uh probably the most shocking thing was the Anis it's it's literally sweet at the end of the the the stem the stem's good which normally would be very tight and at the end it's it's it's like eating piece of candy it's sweet it's amazing so he's turned me into a Believer when I was studying sustainability I was looking at what is it that makes would make a human ecosystem really sustainable and Paul has another besides his farming techniques Paul has another quality that really is ultimately the ultimate sustainable value and and that is he has a big heart and he's generous and he's helpful and he's helping his neighbors out and anybody that comes in here help yourself and that's the sort of attitude if you really want a sustainable human culture that's the kind of attitude that we really ought to be spreading if the human species is ever going to be sustainable it's going to be because of people like Paul not necessarily because of how he Farms but because of his heart Paul is an incredible individual I mean the things that he has been through and what he does and his knowledge about the garden is just absolutely incredible and uh he's sent me quite a few people that have used our products and uh he not only that he's very honest you know I mean he when he get when he talks to people it's from his heart it really is and that's one thing I've always admired about him I just think he's incredibly giving in his knowledge and um I love the way that he presents it you know I tend to be a very lowkey teacher instructor whatever it is I am with the community garden and I kind of feel like I go you know and don't have the the volume and the enthusiasm behind what I say that Paul does and uh he's just such a a gift to all of us who who meet him he truly is because of that enthusiasm it's just wonderful I would say Paul's Evangelical in both definitions of the word in terms of his religion and in terms of his expressiveness about what he believes both of those things he's an evangelist a garden evangelist God is so there for us he so wants relationship I CONCLUSION always thought man God God put man in a garden for the for his health sake you know get fresh food because it's close kind of thing but it's way more than that it's about relationship and when you're out in creation if you're just semi- paying attention you're hearing and seeing God I love you know psalm 19 the heavens declare the glory of God and the Earth shows his handywork day and to day at her speak spe and night and night show of knowledge and there is no speech or language or that voice is not heard and I love it when when I'm outside here I just am amazed at the things God shows me and the thing that I discovered about God is that he's a lot like us if you look in Genesis 1 or in the beginning when he created us he said let us make man in our own image after our own likeness and if any of you who are artists you know how natural it is for you to want to share your art with people because you're just really you know that it's good and you're proud of it and you want to show it to people well God is a the ultimate artist he's the the the master artist and he's very proud of his artwork and he likes to talk about it and I find when I ask him questions about nature he's just is right there yeah and let me tell you this let me show you this it's like it's just awesome what I I find so interesting about about God's creation it is so in line with the word of God because he's the author of both and the and the creation and the word are saying the same thing they're revealing the the beautiful nature of God and showing his handiwork and they're totally synonymous and I love it because whenever I'm I'm hearing from him the holy spirit always brings scripture that verifies and and validates what he's saying and I know it's I know who I'm hearing from I love the scripture you know Jeremiah says call to me and I will answer you and show you Great and Mighty things you don't know then the verse in Proverbs I think is just so helpful he says trust in the Lord with your whole heart and he helps us to remember where our heart is it's not here he says and lean not on your own understanding he say do not try to figure it out and in all of your ways and what does all leave out in all of your ways acknowledge God and he'll direct your paths very simply God's saying he says listen when you have issues ask me and and Trust Me In Your Heart don't try to figure it out and I'll show you what to do when I come out here in the garden I I'll you know I'll have issues and stuff and I'll just ask God I'll just give you a neat example one day we were I was had a bunch of people over here and the guy noticed my potatoes over here and he says well how come you don't heal your potatoes in a typical Garden or Farm where you have potatoes because as potatoes grow they expand and they'll come to the surface and when they surface the light will hit them and turn them green and makes some toxic so the farmers have to keep be healing up dirt to keep keep them covered you know I looked at my potatoes this is what the first answer that comes of mine I don't need to but I'm not sure why so when I I'll go into tonight and I'll ask my mentor and I'll get back with you so I go in the house and says now God how come I don't have to heal my potatoes it was just so beautiful it was like he took me underground and showed me a potato develop he says watch this potato because the ground below it's compacted and it can't move down as it expands because dirt is heavy it falls off the potato and the potato comes to the surface and for that reason they have to keep healing dirt over it to keep it covered but in your wood chips because they're light and they're totally inter meshed together when the potato you know expands the wood chips just lift and I looked at and and I love his responses and remember I told you I did this so I wouldn't have to show up to work healing potatoes is work I just started laugh and God you're so awesome I always tell people when they question you know whe this will work someplace or you know you know may work for you in a small place which you couldn't do on a big scale it says or they have questions that you know um they can't fathom it says you know you know what the issue is here you haven't taken to account into account an omnipotent omniscient omnipresent God who holds all things together by the word of his power that's awesome when you take that into account there's no qu there's no issues because and he's demonstrated this is what I love all through creation it's demonstrated it's not like this is hard to do he's showing us in everything in creation how beautifully he does it because of his incredible all powerful all knowing totally all presentes capability and I love that word he holds everything together by the word of his power awesome END CREDITS [Music] God ever wonder why you're working every Tire of res searching oh there's got to be a better [Music] way so you lift your hands up and pray father can you hear me I'm listening to you now I'm ready to trust you to lead and guide me somehow the creator of the universe concerns himself with me he's passionately revealing his culture of love and of peace to eeden E Eden Eden is the place of freedom to Eden Eden Eden is the place of Freedom your yoke is easy your burden is light help me to lean on you the rest of my life to Eden Eden Eden Eden is the place of [Music] Freedom ever wonder what's this longing Whispering at your heart for the thing that you were meant for but you don't know where to start father can you hear me I'm listening to you now and I'm ready to trust you to lead and guide me somehow the creator of the universe concerns himself with me he's passionately revealing his culture of love and of peace to Eden Eden Eden is the place of freedom to eat it Eden Eden is the place of Freedom yeah Y okayy is easy and your burden is light help me to lean on you the rest of my life to eeden eeden Eden is the place of to [Applause] [Music]