Suppose you want to plant a permaculture fruit orchard here:
Let’s do the math and see how much this would cost…
Area = 4 acres (1.5 hectares)
Plant the trees an average of 6 meters (20 ft) apart and space the rows generously 10 m (30 ft) apart.
When you run the numbers, it comes that you’d need to plant 270 trees.
Each sapling costs $40 * 270 trees = Total $10800!
That’s a lot of money to cash out just for plants.
But here is the deal: if there is one thing you can save money on, it’s on plants.
You don’t have to buy overpriced, expensive, and questionable quality plants from nurseries when you can grow a whole lot of them yourself.
In this scenario, if you were to grow the plants yourself, you would save yourself at least $10000 (after accounting for some plant propagation expenses). 270 trees, as you’ll see below, are not that many plants, and it doesn’t require that much space to grow.
I always said that growing your own plants is like printing your own money, and today, I want to show you a simple yet effective way to ‘print your own money’ and produce thousands of plants for your permaculture orchard or food forest.
To do this, you don’t have to be a trained horticulturist or a nurseryman or have lots of space for plants; it’s far more straightforward than you think.
For example, look at this image…
This is me propagating plants without any prior practical knowledge about plant propagation. Here, I have a hundred or so plants that I’ve started from seeds and cuttings in an area of 3ft x 10ft (1 x 3 m). With some care and watering, once these plants are a year old, they’ll be worth hundreds of dollars!
Okay, so now that I’ve got you hooked on plant propagation, let me outline the process I’ve developed and use for propagating plants easily from seeds and cuttings.
Let’s dive in!
Step 1. Get plant propagation reference resources
First things first, because there are a gazillion types of plants, and they all are somewhat different in how they propagate, you’ll want to arm yourself with a resource that you can reference as you go about your plant propagation adventures.
For me, the best book on the subject is AHS Plant Propagation—it’s my plant propagation bible. It explains all plant propagation techniques in detail, and I carry it in my backpack everywhere so I can reference it.
I tried many different things, and yes, you can definitely get all this info from the internet, but I like to have everything in one spot and in paper form so I can find what I need quickly.
Step 2. Look at your plant propagation calendar
With the resource in your hands (or your backpack), the first thing you need to be aware of is timing, as specific plant propagation techniques are done at certain times of the year.
In my daily life, I’m constantly distracted by so many other things, but at the beginning of each month, I remind myself to look at this plant propagation calendar that I’ve created for this purpose, and I know what plant propagation technique I should be focusing on right now.
You should be able to find a plant propagation calendar for your climate by searching the web. If you are in a temperate climate, feel free to make a copy or bookmark my spreadsheet so you can reference it when you need it.
Step 3. Find the plant you want to propagate
Next, find the plant you want to propagate. It could be in the wild, in your neighbor’s backyard, in someone else’s orchard or food forest…Keep an eye on what’s out there, and just make sure the plant you are after looks strong and healthy.
For me, a lot of the time, I would just take a walk in nature, go about my business, and then be like: ” Wow, that’s a great hawthorn tree. It looks healthy, produced a ton, and would be a great addition to my food forest. I wonder what it takes to propagate it.”
Step 4. Look at your reference resource
Now that you have a plant in your crosshairs, reference your book, notebook, or website that has information about how to propagate the plant. This will be the blueprint for multiplying the plant.
In my case, I would open my AHS Plant Propagation book and find Hawthorn. There, the whole process of propagating hawthorn is explained.
Step 5. Collect the raw plant material
Now, simply grab the seeds or cuttings of the plant you want to propagate.
In the case of Hawthorn, I would take a whole bunch of seeds into my bag and bring them home into my nursery.
Step 6. Plant into your nursery
Lastly, put up the seeds you harvested or cuttings you took into your pots or nursery beds in your permaculture nursery.
I would put the hawthorn seeds I’ve harvested in a pot, mix some soil with the seeds, and leave the pot outside during the winter.
After a while, the seeds would germinate in spring, and the seedlings would keep growing that season until they’re ready to be planted in autumn.
I forgot to snap an image of the hawthorn grown from seed, but here is an image of some chestnuts I’ve grown using this method.
They’ll be going into the ground soon!
And that’s how you ‘print your own money’ by propagation plants.
Let’s face it: no matter what size of a permaculture system you’re aiming for, you’ll probably need a lot of trees and shrubs, so this skill will be one of the most valuable ones to master.
If you like this propagating from seeds I’ve outlined in this email and would like to give it a go, to get you going, I prepared a list of trees you can grow from seeds, along with the conditions they’ll require to germinate; you can download it here.
Happy money printing,
- William
