Alright friends, we're back with another episode in our unconventional homesteading topic this season. We've covered how to homestead in different phases of life.

During different age ranges and today we're taking a little bit of a different angle and approach.

We're going to talk about how you can grow food which is really the essence of homesteading within your landscaping and I really, really wanted to talk about this topic in particular it was one of my top ideas when we started conceptualizing the season because I am very aware that a lot of you are into the homesteading lifestyle but you cannot move to the country or you can't even big move to a bigger lot potentially you know you have your spot maybe it's in a town or a city and that's just where you are right now.

And it's always been my goal to give you guys options no matter where you live and one way that you can do that even if you can't grow a conventional vegetable garden is to weave edible landscaping into your yard.

So today I have the ultimate edible landscaping guru Ed livo with me today and he has over 40 years of experience in this field so I can't wait for this conversation welcome Ed happy to have you.

Thank you pleasure to be here.

Yes give us a little bit of a mental picture of what your personal yard and your home is like I know we had tried to get some pictures up for the folks who are watching on video we couldn't get the technology to work as usual as giving us trouble so kind of paint that picture for us with words instead.

I've got an average city lot in California in Antioch California which is in the Bay area and I'm kind of snug up against a state park so I have no neighbors in my backyard it's very cool but I had to terrace my entire backyard because it's on the side of the hill so I have three terraces and on each one of those terraces they're broken up into six different segments.

And I have a fruit tree segment at the top I have garden beds at the top I have a spall years all along the back fence I have fruit trees lining the side as as what do you call it.

Wind breaks or privacy screens if you will on each side of my yard and then I have on the next tears down I have vegetable garden beds I have an herb garden that's the focus of my backyard so right off the patch porch you know the patio you see a full herb garden and then two major beds at the bottom which are really really easy accessible and.

And yeah that's and then i've got container trees all over the place I mulch I capture about a thousand gallons of water a year of rooftop capture um let's see what else yeah a lot yeah.

What kind of varieties are you are you I mean your California so I know you have a wide range of possibility what what's your primary primary variety at it you're growing well you know i'm California so a lot I have a lot of citrus you know.

i've got i've got a tremendous to be exact all my being that they're evergreen the citrus actually are on the on the perimeter of my yard brought blocking out the view of my neighbors I mean i've got full screens that I use for block you know for privacy.

Mander ends as a matter of fact beautiful gold nugget mandarin on one side and a pixie mandarin on the other side loaded with fruit and you know more fruit than we know what to do with it's almost a problem.

Then Washington able oranges up on the side of the hill to block out you know the other neighbor and yeah that's the primary but I have plenty of deciduous as well because you know to be perfectly honest that's my focus is deciduous fruit trees i'm a deciduous fruity specialist.

And that's what I've been into for a better part of the 40 years is deciduous fruit trees.

Yeah so i've pomegranates and persimmons and I let's see pomegranates persimmons figs blue berries cane berries i've got let's see what else i'm trying to say oh jujubees I have grapes.

I get caught yeah that's yeah anyways I do I have a lot of different a lot of different varieties there's always something ripe here to eat.

What are your thoughts I have pop off okay that's is that a southern I don't even I've never even seen one I could I would not recognize what they hit me in the face is that a southern thing or is that all.

Eastern and Midwestern and it you know it's an one of the few fruits it's actually a native we don't have many fruit varieties that are actually native and papa's on and they're in the what else would be native to the US.

Um not much blueberries blueberries yeah cranberries yeah yeah everything else is introduced people would be really surprised surprised to know that.

But plums are not native to the United States.

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