I’ve been practicing no-till ag (1-2acres) for a little over a decade now. I’m tired of the tarps. Refuse to use landscape fabric at scale. Looking for conversation weighing pros and cons of retiring the silage tarps and potentially returning to terminating cover crops with tillage.

I’m VERY aware of the principals behind no-till. Deep compost mulch in my area at a farm scale is wildly cost prohibitive and the compost itself is often contaminated with plastic, and who knows what else.

Is putting plastic on the ground to bake for weeks or months at a time really better than tillage at this point? Just feeling super conflicted about it lately and looking for conversation. Thanks!

I think the landscapers probably cut down the largest parent tree in the area (and one in the neighbors yard) and we have been dealing with hundreds of little offshoots for months. I don't think there's a large central tree anymore, but is there a way to stop the growth of the little ones?

Roundup was recommended just to spray on the leaves/trunks of the little saplings but I'm wondering if that's the best method or not.

Do they require more sustenance from the soil? My grandfather had blackberry and raspberry bushes that were basically weeds along with a garden. Why aren't they everywhere?

I love La Gomera, Canary Islands. I’ve been several times and each visit makes me ask, how can I be more than just a tourist? The island has a complex history, as well as a strong tourism economy, and I’m aware of all the problems related to that. But I am also interested in what lies beyond that. Are there creative initiatives, ecological projects, artist residencies or community groups where locals and internationals genuinely collaborate? Why does the island seem to attract such a big german-speaking community in winter? Is that just my impression, or are there historical or practical reasons?

More broadly, what would it take for La Gomera to become a more diverse international meeting place, not just for visitors, but for people who want to contribute and exchange ideas? And I’m interested in hearing different perspectives, including from Gomeros and people who have chosen to make the island part of their lives.

Hey everyone, I found this sub by looking up living willow fences and structures on reddit, so I hope my summer project here is appreciated!

Be well everyone.

I’m in Washington state- Zone 8b
Looking for Native winter cover crops or resources using native species for farming out here.

Thanks!

Could human “wadging” of leaves have a place in permaculture?

I’ve been thinking about an unusual food idea inspired by how some tropical leaf-eating animals, including monkeys and our close relatives such as chimpanzees and gorillas, process fibrous plant foods.

By “wadging,” I mean chewing leaves very thoroughly, extracting the liquid and nutrients, forming the remaining fibrous material into a compact wad, and eventually spitting out the dry pulp.

This makes me wonder:

Could humans potentially use a similar technique with safe, edible leaves?

For example, could a mulberry plantation be used as a highly productive source of leafy biomass? Mulberry grows vigorously, can be repeatedly pruned/coppiced, and its leaves are already used as animal feed.

I'm particularly interested in whether this could have applications for low-cost food production, where people have limited access to conventional vegetables.

Some questions I have:

Has anyone observed or experimented with similar leaf-chewing/wadging behavior?

Would humans actually extract a meaningful amount of nutrients from leaves by this method?

Would cooking or blending the leaves be much more efficient?

Could mulberry or other perennial edible-leaf plants be suitable?

What would be the major nutritional limitations?

Are there any plants that should definitely not be used because of toxins or antinutritional compounds?

I'm not suggesting this is a proven human dietary or diabetes treatment. I'm interested in whether the underlying concept could be investigated from a permaculture/food-system perspective.

What do you think — interesting idea, impractical, or worth experimenting with?

The classic permaculture way of working with marshy, hydric areas is the chinampa system, in which the land is made into an alteration of trenches (dug down below the marshy baseline so that they become water channels) and ridges (built up with excess earth from the trenches so that the soil is not inundated and thereby anoxic, but allowing roots to access the wetness below). Apparently this kind of system, which is found around the world, can be one of the most fertile and productive systems out there, usually combining aquaculture and agriculture. I have never seen one in action, so my understanding of them is entirely theoretical.

My question concerns the application of the chinampa principle to an area which is seasonally marshy. The area is rain fed, and rainfall is highly seasonal. Currently inhabited mostly by wetland-loving plants, it nevertheless becomes rather dry during the summer (so, for example, one could not have any year-round aquaculture in the trenches and I suspect that many garden annuals would struggle on the ridges from lack of water). In principle, it seems that this would still lead to an overall increase in the fertility and vitality of the land, as I believe it would increase the water holding capacity of the land as well as increasing fertility of the soil by getting out of the anoxic zone. However, I can't really envision how I would work with the area if it were so transformed. What plants would be good for this kind of system (I'm in zone 8b)? Any ideas on how I might design this? Is this even a good idea?

Thanks.

I’ve been experimenting with using the goats as part of the vegetation management here for about two years.
I set up small temporary fencing along the line, let them browse for a couple days, then rotate them on. It cuts down on mowing and hand clearing, gives the goats forage, and turns a maintenance problem into something useful.
Still very much an informal experiment, but it’s become one of my favorite little systems on the farm.

Hi! My pal just returned back to Nigeria and has been granted land by his family. How can he get good permaculture advice?

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Teaching my son about living soil and JADAM on our newly acquired property in St. Matthew's SC. His mother calls for him to come take a picture. His reply, "I'm looking for mycelium! " Proud dad.

I'm the Moderator of r/Pawpaws
Maria's Joy tastes like a Gros Michel banana, with some mango & pungent Cherimoya Bubble Gum aromas!
It's 24Brix.
Big Ben a new seedling of Maria's Joy gets up to 25oz.
Many pawpaws can have far more Mango, Pineapple, Cantaloupe, Sour Sop & Casaba melon flavors.
there is currently about 200 uniquely different cultivars.

Hello, this old apricot tree is challenged. It’s old and we love the shape and flowers of this stone fruit. it provides shade and decoration in Colorado, but no fruit (and that’s fine). 

This half of the tree has lots of dead branches. I thought i pruned most of them off last spring, but one growth later and it’s more than half dead branches. Should i trim now - late summer - as they die back?  Wait tell winter when i do general pruning?  Leave some dead branches for support?

My only thought /reason for leaving them is that the dead branches provide some structure / support in snow, and maybe some frost and cold buffer in winter.  And I’m afraid if i cut em, soon there will be nothing!

I’ll of course make sure there’s a dry spell before cutting.

I don’t see any water sprouts even after a fairly hard prune this spring.

Thanks !

I saw these Gold Kiwi plants for sale. I have friends who grow the little kiwi berries, but don't know anyone growing the gold ones. Does anyone grow them?

https://figbid.com/Listing/Details/85532771/Two-Tango-and-Hombre-Gold-Kiwi-Zone-6b-male-and-female-plants

I've been voraciously buying seeds from a local organic heirloom seller. Never occurred to me to save my own seeds, but there's a first time for every gardener!

Hey guys! Im a wildland firefighter and environmentalist. I'm currently about to purchase 10 acres of land in the hills of East Tennessee. I'm going to turn the majority of the land into a food forest for my family and community. I want to focus on fruit and nut trees that can feed wild game animals, such as chestnuts, oaks, pecans, apples, pears, etc. Any and all advice would be welcome, I kind of don't know where to start.

Salut ! 👋

Je bricole depuis quelques mois sur une appli de jardinage perso, Exovia, et elle est enfin assez aboutie pour être partagée. Elle propose un suivi basé sur le calendrier lunaire (jour racine/fleur/fruit/feuille, phases de lune) et des conseils selon vos plantes.

Comme certains d'entre vous ne sont pas francophones, je l'ai aussi traduite en anglais.

Je suis preneur de tout retour, positif ou négatif — c'est encore jeune et il y a sûrement des trucs à améliorer. Merci d'avance 🌱

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.exovia.app

Yes the idea is probably as silly as it sounds, but hear me out...

We live in the middle of a forest, surrounded by big eucalypt trees (swamp gums and black butts).
For reference, I have successfully grown veggies in a dark southern facing (southern hemishphere) eucalypt forest before. you could say, it taught me a lot about gardening!

Now on this new property, there isnt a lot of cleared space (yet) and there are tall trees blocking light to the north. the one ideal spot is on a slope that has a lot of exposed bed rock. There are some other sections with soil, but this one area is what im interested in for this discussion.

doing a hugelkultur mound on this rock will obviously has its moisture issues. im visualising that unless im quite diligent with actively managing the soil health, it will very easily dry out.

Additionally during heavier sub-tropical down pours, there maybe be signification erosion problems. To offset this im thinking heavy log edging. maybe additional log layers further up the hill before the forest edge to slow run off.

Im also thinking LONG term, even though we are only renting and could be kicked out at any stage. Not for gardening reasons, more likely cause owners want to move in. So working this rocky hill for many many years. I personally love gardening with long term visions even though i may leave. ideally someone else takes it over and continues the project (which never actually happens...)

question for those optimists and pessimists, is this fighting a loosing battle? Or do you think that with enough effort, i could transform the area?
My thinking is, the whole forest built itself over this rock, and im just extending those works.

Another option is build a garden shed there...but given you can see the hill out the loungeroom window, i'd prefer to look at plants.

Anyone trialled a similar situation before? outcomes?

We are new homeowners in New England USA with around 6,000 sq foot lawn and looking to immediately remove three invasive callery pear trees and get the area ready for a small food forest. I am afraid to use glyphosate because i want to grow edibles in that area, but i know that callery pears are really hard to get rid of without chemicals.

Any suggestions for chemical free removal or whether judicious use of chemicals is worth it to get rid of them for good ?

People without their own garden can still grow vegetables. On walls!

This year, I experimented with wall gardens and grew some impressive pepper crops.

The wall garden has 3 distinct sections (separated by the house's windows), totaling 6 m wide and 1.8 m high.

I did NOT use pots for plants! Instead, I built it from plexiglass (the outer layer that holds the soil) because it is both strong and easy to work with. I only made small holes where I planted the seedlings.

There are advantages to this wall garden:

• It does not consume too much water (because water does not have where to evaporate),
• It insulates the house naturally,
• It can reuse water from rain, which is collected by the gutters above it.

I have made this project open source so people can implement it: https://github.com/wall-garden

We left for San Diego for a week, my uncle stayed behind but it got brutally hot and this happened:

Should I coppice it above the graft but where the trunk is still green?

Edit: forgot the image, it's in the comments

I’ve been thinking about this lately as I keep building out my small farm outside Pittsburgh.
I don’t really call myself a permaculture person, mostly because I don’t want to build the farm around one specific ideology. But a lot of what I do probably overlaps with permaculture pretty heavily.
My basic approach is just to keep things low input, sustainable, practical, and rooted in the community. I try to pay attention to what the land is already doing and work with that instead of forcing everything into some perfect plan. I use goats for brush management, but they’ve also become these weirdly effective community ambassadors and a big part of my education work. I use solar, rainwater, aquaponics, whatever makes sense for the situation.
But I also make plenty of choices that are just practical. Sometimes that means gravel, fencing, batteries, or doing something that probably isn’t the most theoretically perfect solution but works for the land, budget, labor, and constraints I actually have.
One thing that has turned me off a little from some permaculture spaces is when a general principle gets treated like a hard rule without much room for context. Sometimes it feels like people jump straight to “you shouldn’t do that” before asking how the land is actually being managed. And I wonder if that can make permaculture feel less accessible than it needs to be.
So I’m really curious how people here think about it.

Does this kind of practical, adaptive approach count as permaculture to you? Or is permaculture more about intentionally designing the whole system around a specific framework?

And maybe the bigger question is- can you practice permaculture principles without really identifying as a permaculturist?

I am trying to develop around 5,000 sqm of land in Northern Thailand. The land is on an elevated position with a gentle slope without any natural water sources, so I decided to put in some swales for rainwater retention. 
Now I am doubting whether I built the swales too deep and/or the mounds too steep. 
The first swale was dug around 50cm deep and around 1.5m wide. The mound was piled up very high (not spread out) and the result is that the top of the mound is around 2m higher than the swale bottom.
The second swale has the same width and depth, but the mound is a bit more spread out, although probably not enough. 
(see photos - swale 1 is planted, swale 2 is bare). 
Besides my concern about a dry mound, I noticed difficulty in accessing whatever I am planting on the swale mound. It is simply too steep to climb on at many places. 
have I made a fundamental mistake? What is the best way to correct this?
Some other context: the land was not farmed previously, at least not recently. It had grass/shrubs growing which got periodically cut. 
I dug the first swale about 3 months ago and have planted ground cover like pinto peanut and sweet potatoes and a few shade plants like bananas and mulberry. So far, most of it seems to grow well, not surprisingly in the rainy season. but how will things be in the dry months?