This was my first ever year having a garden and what a year it has been! My area has horrible soil (basically pure sand) so last year in februari we dumped a bunch of woodchips in the back. No till no weed barrier no nothing.

I just started planting a bunch of vegetables without too much thought along with some fruit trees. In April I just put a bunch of potatoes in between the woodchips.

Now in oktober I've seen the results. We've eten zucchini and tomatoes all summer. We now have pumpkins and cabbage to pick from. I also grew some cool stuff like aji Peppers and artichokes. We haven't bought Veggies from the store all summer and we are homecooking vegetarians so that should tell you something 🤭

Moral of the story, you really don't need a lot of work, knowledge or effort to get something. Just woodchips. Even if your soil isn't ideal. I came from traditional vegetable gardening where by juli you'd be pulling out your hair because your whole garden would be a weedy mess. This was a dream in comparison.

This fall/winter i will be planting more trees and transitioning to edible landscaping. A bit more ornamental but with edible or beneficial plants. I will post an update next year but I'd love to show that permaculture can be compatible with urban garden and ornamental landscape and get it to more people's gardens.

It's just a 20 cents of land including our house, a pond and well.

All this has been grown with natural methods, permaculture design and my own experiences over the years. Hugelkultur, mulching, cover crops, water management and good old Kerala weather!

Blood, sweat and tears - literally.

When nobody understands what I do, I hope the people here does.

Thank you 😍🙏💚

Hey folks!

Took us some time to grow all of these and still growing a lot of new plants and trees.

Here's our food forest in Kerala, India! Being a Permaculture practitioner I rely on natural succession than any other methods of regeneration.

Observe-design-observe again- then implement!

Thank you for the support and love.

Nikhil Bose,

Kerala, India.

Do you buy plants? Help a University of Waterloo study understand plant buyers in Canada.

Link to survey: https://uwaterloo.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_1zDlBgl4KWk8Y62

I have 5 acres and was thinking about starting a side hustle of growing a few native trees that are profitable in my area. Also native to the area and resistant to disease etc. I have the equipment like tractor etc. Can automated a lot of things like irrigation systems on deepwells etc.

Has anybody had any luck with something like this? Starting small on the side and see where it goes?

je me demande comment vous chiffrez vos projets de permacultures?

Trynna plan our quarter acre before we break grounds this spring, its mostly cleared, facing south, one oak shading on the east corner, so here's the layout so far:

* 4 raised beds for vegetables along the south fence

* A microgreen shelf out of direct sun

* Herb spiral near the kitchen door

* 6x6 flower bed for pollinators

* Compost bins behind the shed

* A strip open for whatever we figure out later

Mostly it starts from seed, we've only got a mix of heirloom ones and leftover hybrid packs. The open strip's the one i keep going back n forth on, like a part of me wants more veggie beds, tho i prolly should go to perennials so im not starting over every spring. Seen people keeping herbs and microgreens closest to the kitchen n pushing veggie further out, others do high maintenance stuff where you walk past it daily, noticing the problems. I used Organo seeds for the herb spiral and one of the raised beds, started from a plain seed pack, regular setup. If you've had a lot this big, what's u put in that open strip, food or something that just takes care of itself?

Seems like a lot of Permaculture Designers are working at the parcel scale, but policy changes allow you to positively impact far more landmass relative to effort.

Take Arizona and its water issues, for example. Rainwater harvesting for one house is great, yeah, but the groundwater is still depleted and they rely on Colorado for their water. Setting policies that incentivize Big Ag to use water more conservatively would have far more impact as they're responsible for something like ~72-74% of water consumption in the state.

How can we get Permaculture principles into policy? High-leverage Permaculture if you will. Also, why hasn't it happened already?

My grandfather recently passed away, and we deciding to maintain his land as a food forest in his honor.

I see a lot of content on rainwater harvesting and earthworks for permaculture. And im really interested on trying it out. The thing is that most of this content is for dryland, my grandpa's land is a slanted humid tropical forest.

I imagine that water harvesting here would cause mold issue and too much water retention could cause landslides.

What should i do?

Im going next sunday to survey the area

Hello!

I have about 100 chestnuts and 300 persimmons in an air prune bed. I have read that it is risky leaving them in there over winter because the beds don't provide a good frost protection for the root zone. I wanted to know what the optimal "overwintering" process is for seedlings. I have an uninsulated (but enclosed) barn, an insulated but unheated garage, a fridge that I could use if that is optimal, and I have tons of places I could "heel" them into if that is easiest. I do have somewhat of a persistent issue with voles so i wasn't sure how to properly defend against that risk. Zone 6B

Thoughts are welcome!

All homegrown produce and fresh eggs from our chickens for our neighbour, building towards a community.

Hi all! I hope you’ll excuse the perhaps stupid question but I’ve read a lot and now I’m hoping to have a conversation about whether what I think I understand is both correct and appropriate to my exact situation.

Okay. So. I bought undeveloped forest land and built a house for it. I also had the builder clear and grade (which required bringing in fill) a section of the land for my horses (who I already have, and are family). In retrospect it was maybe a mistake to use the builder for this, but I was in a tricky situation at the time and it seemed like the best option.

Anyway. They graded with fill dirt (very rocky, DEFINITELY dirt not soil), and really compacted it to keep things in place (which at least saved it from the washouts we’ve had this year, but still). My budget did not allow for them to finish with topsoil as they’d intended.

Obviously this field barely grows anything - some patches won’t even grow weeds - and on top of that it’s WAY too hard to put an arthritic old draft horse on. I tried to help it out this year with annual grasses and daikon radish, but it’s clear I need more drastic action.

Now this is the part I need help with. My harebrained scheme brain says that soil is just rock and mineral matter mixed with organic matter. This redneck inside of me wants to fence the field (it’s been ungrazed this season), chop and drop the weeds, ask all my neighbors for their dead leaves (I live in an area where folks bag them), spread those thick, then add either cows or sheep. Because poop + plant matter + hay waste all chopped up and churned into the ground by hooves all mud season would create topsoil, right? Or not right? Am I misunderstanding something?

For the livestock I’m thinking either a pair of cows or a small flock of sheep, since both are in the near future farm plan anyway. (I know pigs would be best, but I’m a vegetarian, and really can’t afford to keep more animals that don’t generate ongoing use for me). The soil doesn’t have to be great quality or grow awesome grass - it just has to not suck so much. It needs to grow something and needs to not make my horse’s arthritis worse or give me an instant concussion if I fall off of him onto it.

Sorry for the novel but thanks in advance!

Looking for some advice on jerusalem artichoke.

I don't want to have them in pots, I'm not consistent with watering as you can see.

At the same time I don't want them in the full ground cause I have a small garden and don't want them to spread like a madman.

Which doesn't leave me a lot of options I think, but if anyone has some good advice it's more than welcome

I have 50 trees in 5 gallon buckets that can't be planted till spring, how do I keep the roots from freezing? I don't have anywhere I can bring them out of the weather, but have a big open space I can assemble them however I want. I'm in WV, so low winter temps get down sub-0*F at night sometimes.

So I planted a few goji berry plants over the last several years. They just recently started producing pretty heavily. Unfortunately they taste absolutely awful. They taste nothing like the ones you buy at the asian markets and this was the main reason that I planted them.

I know the ones you buy at the asian markets are usually dried but even when I dehydrated the ones I grew, they still tasted bad.

Is there some particular variety that these asian markets are using? The ones that I have are all slightly bitter, full of seeds and not sweet at all. Your first reaction upon eating these is to immediately spit them out.

For those who've done a Permaculture Design Certificate: what practical skills did you feel you were missing afterwards?

I work in permaculture in Northern NSW, Australia, and I'm curious what people want to go deeper on once they've got the design side down. A lot of PDCs are heavy on theory, and I'm interested in where people feel the gaps are.

A few questions:

1. Which area would you most want more hands-on time in? (poll below)
2. If you did a practical program, would 1 week or 2 weeks suit you better?
3. Anything your PDC didn't cover that you wish it had?

Keen to hear people's experiences.

Poll options:

• Farm-wide practical skills
• Earthworks and water
• Soil and compost
• Nursery and propagation
• Natural pools and ponds
• Other (comment below)

I take inspiration from no-till and permaculture gardening, and had this beautiful surprise show up in the community garden plot I managed, wow! What a treat.

So it looks like my heirloom tomato plants are coming to the end of season. what should do with the plant bodies, the stalks, roots and leaves?

leave them be?

rip them out?

cut down the stalk but leave the roots?

compost the stalk? compost them in the bed or in my main compost pile?

Please and thank you?

Where can I find Wolffia globosa culture in India?

I’m interested in growing Wolffia globosa (watermeal/duckweed) as a potential food crop.

Does anyone know where I can obtain a healthy Wolffia globosa culture/starter culture in India—from a university, research institute, farmer, or private grower?

Also, could Wolffia realistically become a staple protein source for humans if grown at scale? I’m particularly interested in its protein content, nutritional limitations, and whether anyone here has actually eaten it regularly.

Any leads or first-hand experience would be appreciated.