Hey this is Jamie Jackson at Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds and I want to talk to you
today about how to grow a wild perennial pollinator garden and what you can do
right now to get ready for the spring. So we've done a ton of videos on the best
way to do things and how to get the highest germination rate, but I like to
do things the easy way. I don't have a lot of time, I live off-grid I don't have
access to a greenhouse or fans or anything like that. So this is just how I
do it. Germination rates might be a little bit
lower but that's okay. So pretty much now is the time to get ready for the spring.
So what I like to do is cover an area and start killing the grass, and what I
you can use cardboard. So if you use cardboard you might want to, you know,
overlap about two inches. so in the mid- summer to fall, when the growth of the
plant is above ground, it's super healthy, that's when you want to do it. Zo you can
use cardboard - I really like to use the used UV resistant billboard tarps.
They're huge, they're massive, they're super heavy - you don't have to weigh them
down a lot and when you get done you can share them with your neighbors. My
neighbors and I we like to share the tarp. So what you do is you decide what
size patch you want. Let's say your patch is this big, you cut it in half and
you're going to do half a patch at a time. The good thing about the UV tarps,
if you use that black plastic you pretty much get one or two seasons out of it
and the sun turns it into it just crumbles, and it makes a huge mess. The
billboard tarps don't do that and you don't have to cover it up too much. So
you cover it up and then you peek every, you know, every couple weeks to see what
it's looking like underneath, and as soon as it's dead and brown then you, with a
little bit of help, slide it over to the other half so the energy of the plants
you've killed some of the weeds and the energy of some of the stronger plants,
like say the frost weed and the Johnson grass ,so the energy the plant goes down
into the roots. So then you cover up the next patch. Check on that for a while, see
how that's looking. This side should stay nice and brown and then the it's the
stronger plants are gonna start regrowing.
They're gonna send their energy back up because you're still in the summertime.
So then you peek at the other area, you peek under there and as soon as that's
nice and dead you move it back over. o what you're
doing is you're exhausting some of your stronger plants. The energy of the plant
is above ground, below ground, above ground, below ground and you're just
wearing it out. So at some point once the plants are dead once the weeds are dead
or the plants you don't want are dead the roots are gonna let go of the soil.
And so what you're trying to do is time this so that when the winter comes the
roots are dead and have let go of the soil and then you'll get a nice
beautiful fluffy frost heave if you're up north .So most of the plants, or a lot
of the plants that the pollinators like, are their medicinal benefit medicinal
herbs those are also pioneer plants pioneer plants like to go in cover the
soil they they have strong tap roots and if you have good gardens you're really a
microbe farmer. So what you're trying to do - the pollinator plants, the pioneer
plants are going in covering the soil protecting your your microbes, and they
also provide overwintering for the pollinator,s beautiful flowers for the
pollinators and awesome herbs for you to use at home. At this point you've slid
your tarp over a few times, most of the stuff is dead, you've got a nice
beautiful frost fluffy frost heave. Watch the weather and if you're gonna get a
good snow or a nice rain go ahead and pick the tarp up, get the cardboard
picked up. Let it rain, let the soil get nice and wet. This is very technical: then
you throw the seeds out like this, and like this, you just throw it out there
and you know, may the odds be ever in your favor.
So it's not the most technical way to do it, but it's how nature does it. Nature
produces the seed in the fall, it falls on the ground, it rains, they get they go
through a you know cold stratification and then come in the spring, March or
April or May, then the seeds germinate and then you'd have a beautiful
pollinator garden. Once you've got your area covered, go ahead and get straw
bales and lay them near where you're going to put your pollinator garden. Bust
them open let them get rained on, let the seeds germinate, let the chicken scratch
them up, then after you throw your seeds out you'll have straw where the seeds of
already weed seeds have already been germinated, and you can just dust it on
top of your area that you've thrown the seeds out. If
you have chickens, they are gonna want to scratch it, so what I like to do is just
cover it with a little bit of chicken wire, put a few rocks down until the
plants germinate, but you're going to want to get that up fast when the plants
are little, because once those plants grow, the chicken wire permanently
becomes attached to it and then it's going to really make it difficult. So I
picked out some of the ones I like. These are not all perennials, but a lot of
these easily reseed. Some of these are biennials. The pollinators love them,
they're really good for us to have in our dies. So you've got yarrow. Yarrow is
a beautiful one. This is really nice for wounds and for people with acne. You've
got horehound, Horehound is a really good one. Wormwood is beautiful and the thing
I like about wormwood is it's gorgeous all winter.
It's absolutely silvery powdery blue. It looks gorgeous all winter.
Oh yarrow again. Yarrow is so good I had it in there twice.
Purple betony is a nice one. Dandelion. I absolutely love dandelion, it's one of my
favorite plants. I love it in enchiladas I love the roots dug in the fall. It's so
good for your liver. What else do we have? Mullein. Mullein is a really nice one. It's
a big beautiful plant, beautiful taproot. It's good for lung issues, like in teas.
The flowers are nice the second year for oils for your ears. What else do we have?
Plantain. I love plantain. It's really good for wounds and it's also really
good in enchiladas or lasagna. Echinacea. I think everyone's pretty familiar with
echinacea. Gorgeous, gorgeous pollinator plant, really good for the immune system,
absolutely beautiful. And bee balm. I really like bee balm. It's a monarda, it's
got square stems, it's got a lot of mints. You chop this plant up, put it in a
little vinegar for six weeks, a little bit of honey and maple syrup,
boom, sports drink. You got minerals, electrolytes, sugar, water - it's all you
need. And motherwort: really good for pollinators, it's a super digestive
bitter, I really love this plant. What else do I have here?And Elecampane or
Horse Heel. So these are some of the plants you can use. If you like, comment
and share on this video, you get this whole pack that I've got in my hands.
And you know, even if you don't throw seeds out, even if you just cover and
kill some grass, you would be surprised at the seed bank that is already in your
soil that's just waiting to come up. Also usually for those areas, for the
pollinator areas, I don't mow it. I like to cut with a scythe
in the early morning. Every two to three years you get the saplings out cut by
hand, you'll find little like praying mantis egg sacs and things like that. So
happy pollinator garden and like, comment and share this video! Thank you!