Had a frost last night, thought it was neat to show the difference a big ol’ stone can make on temps, in this case on a birdhouse gourd.

A HUMBLE REQUEST: Thoughtful responses (rather than kneejerk ones) would be appreciated. I'm a mere intermediate permaculturist, but I've been genuinely grappling with this topic and thought the community would be interested in discussing it.

Here's the website that got me thinking:
https://growperma.com/

From what I can gather, it's an AI-created site that uses credible sources to synthesize genuinely useful guides, drawing on venerated and/or credible sources. It presents them as if they're written by a real permaculturist, and the info does seem to be accurate. And IMO permaculturists can sometimes be a bit too anecdotal rather than rigorous/scientific, which can at times lead to unreliable information.

From there, though, it gets problematic. I'm not sure I believe the "About" page, which says it's a real person—but it's written like classic AI "brand story" slop, and every single image is obviously AI. The company behind it is a German sole proprietorship that essentially sells an AI content engine solution to companies. So my guess is the creator fed Claude a bunch of credible permaculture texts and spun up a boilerplate content website to feature the articles it wrote. The profit model is Amazon affiliate links. Perhaps troublingly, a Google search AI summary for permaculture principles referenced this very site for the "three core principles."

My take:

One one hand, there's a true need for quality synthesis and distribution of permaculture insights and research. On the other, AI is a huge polluter and I despise the sloppification of online content.

Though I abhor these facts, 1) we do live in a capitalist world, and 2) AI is probably not going away. So I don't think it's wise to pretend permaculture won't be affected by what's happening there. But we also have agency here: We as a community can set realistic norms and expect people to abide by them. If they don't, give them a nudge (or something stronger) that says, "We don't do that." IMO, we should start flagging any non-original content as such—even a well-made AI-sourced site without fabrications or ulterior motives is just a summary of existing material, and if it pretends to be something other than that, I think it should be flagged.

What I hate about this website isn't the info (which is often correctly referenced and could be useful to people), it's the fact that it's being presented in bad faith, without genuine transparency about the motivation, identity, and methods being used.

What do you think? What can we do to preserve "people care" in the digital space in the age of AI?

Dear amazing people,

I decided more or less 10 minutes ago that I need to learn permaculture. It's an absolute necessity. After a mini research I discovered how useful it is and I did not know such a beautiful community existed! I want to learn as much as I can, and since I'm a blank canvas I thought it would be wise to ask here recommendations for beginners :)

It doesn't matter if it's tomes or hours long videos, if they are begginner friendly and truly helpful to lay the foundations for this field of knowledge I would absolutely appreciate it.

Thank you in advance to everyone!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfQG8LVPnHIbgGC3wHGszYBTwlDMB6ROXoGZwD5-BYkN293VA/viewform?usp=header

• Time: It takes approximately 5 minutes to complete.
• Privacy: Completely anonymous. No identifying information (like your name or exact address) will be collected.

Hello everyone,

I am conducting a study for an academic research poster investigating the long-term health of individuals who spent their childhoods in agricultural regions.

Who is eligible?

• You are 18 years or older.
• You spent a significant portion of your life living in the Central Valley (California).

What is the survey about?

We are exploring potential links between childhood agricultural pesticide exposure, self-reported gut health/microbiome characteristics, and subsequent neurodevelopmental traits or diagnoses (such as ADHD, autism, or cognitive traits) in adulthood.

Thank you so much to anyone who takes the time to help out a fellow Central Valley researcher! I am happy to answer any questions in the comments.

Hello there! I’ve got these walnut, chestnut and various other trees and bushes, roughly 1 to 2 years old, that I’ve planted in pots and air pots.

Now we’ve just had our first frost here, and last year we had a month of persistent below, freezing temperatures, so a lot of my trees died or withered back considerably. I think the mistake I made was that I left them in their pots and put them in a greenhouse in a pretty cold area of the property. Now I have two options, I have a southwest facing slope with a lot of tree cover, and I could stick them there, and I have a root seller that I think doesn’t go below freezing unless it gets mighty cold outside. Should I stick them in the root cellar as soon as they’ve lost all their leaves? Does it hurt trees to be in complete darkness, even if they have no leaves?

Thanks!

Hi, I have a few questions about hardy kiwis

1. I have this trellis, I was initially planning on doing female, male, female, but my new coldframe ended up resting on the furthest left trellis support, and now I'm thinking of doing male, female, female, so that the one without fruit is the one disrupted most by the coldframe. Is that a bad idea / will it lessen pollination significantly or barely at all?

2. Anythibg yall might recommend planting in with the kiwis at the base bed? Where they're growing now they're climbing up my porch coming out of a foundation planting of native flowers. I'm moving them to include the male (they were sold as self fertile but I'm doubtful) and to get more sun. But they seem happy with the flowers so I'm thinking of doing a few native flowers and some wild strawberry at the base

3. Anyone ever dig one of these up that's been in the ground 2 years? 😅 Any encouragement?

​

Our soil here in Maldives is super alkaline almost no organic matter in some areas... So I was wondering would it be a good idea to feed my garden soil with diluted sourdough starter discard since its very acidic? Also any suggestions welcome how to garden in this kind of poor soil... I have been putting in vermicompost everytime I plant something so far. All my plants are still babies so dont know how everything is doing yet..

I'm planning to build a 10x20 ft building using light straw clay with 6-inch-thick walls 9 ft high and clay plaster on the inside and outside.

Assume:

• All materials are already on-site.
• The framing is completely finished and ready for filling.
• The walls will be filled with light straw clay.
• Both sides will be finished with clay plaster.
• I'm doing all the labor myself, with no helpers.

Realistically, how many full days of labor would this take one person from start to finish just to finish the walls completely? I'm looking for an estimate of actual working days.

I'm trying to decide whether this is a reasonable DIY project. If it would take around 60 full days of labor, I'd probably skip it and use a different building method.

I'd appreciate estimates from anyone who has actually built with light straw clay!

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 😍🙏💚

We are going to cultivate coffee plants, vanilla, cacao, dragon fruit, and a wide variety of other crops using syntropic agroforestry systems at our farm in Sortova

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.

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.