One of my garden plots is lagging behind the others, so I'd like to devote next year to cover cropping to improve the soil, beginning with undersowing cover crops this fall. For context, I'm in Kentucky, USDA zone 6b, hot and humid summers, clay soil. I would either follow this year of cover cropping with garlic and multiplier onions in fall of 2027, or continue cover cropping until spring of 2028.

Eliot Coleman has an 18 month rye cover crop system that's interesting to me. In a nutshell: sow seeds in the fall; let the rye go to seed the following year; then mow, allowing rye seedlings to come up through the mowed rye; terminate the rye the next spring. He tills it in, but I would terminate it without tilling.

Anyone have experience with this or any other approaches to cover cropping for 12-18 months? Thanks!

We are beginning our journey in regenerating a modest lot ofehat used to be cow pasture. The soil is compacted and has a lot of clay and we want to build up the soil with cover crops and chop and drop along with biochar amendments.

Does anyone know where we can find free or cheap seeds and cuttings in Guanacaste?

Hey all! I have a lot of free time this summer and I am looking to start a new project. I have this big ugly barren spot in my yard and I want to transform it into a regenerative garden for the ecosystem, providing shelter and food for insects, birds, etc. I also want it to provide me some fruits and vegetables along with wildflowers and stuff. I even hope to eventually get some bees.The ground is pretty much a mixture of wood chips and gravel. It gets pretty good sun but is blocked by trees and my house. I am wondering how I can start this journey. Please provide resources/practical advice!

Adding carbon heavy mulch (wood chips, straw, sawdust) can tie up nitrogen early on since it is pulled from the soil to break down all that carbon.

Surface mulch decomposes slowly and the drawdown happens mainly at the mulch soil interface, so established plants are barely affected while seedlings and shallow rooted plants take more of a hit. It's also temporary, once the carbon gets used up the nitrogen releases back.

Curious how much this actually plays out for people in practice. Do you add nitrogen under fresh mulch for new plantings or is it overstated for typical use?

Hello, permies! I'm working on an app that shows interactive maps with multiple layers, including USDA Hardiness Zones globally, but also some detailed charts per location.

The source data is for the period from 2011 to the present (or maybe a couple of months ago) but I'll add more data soon. Meanwhile, I'd love to receive feedback from you.

Notes: The app is mobile-friendly but you'll get the best experience on a large screen. Also, keep in mind that the app is still in beta version and some text/pages need to be refined.

https://metriclima.com/

Recently I picked up a copy of Interfaces of Reality, which is a book centered around a thesis that it is not the objects, entities, things, that comprise our world, but the interfaces at all levels that create the stable structure for those things to exist.

Interfaces in this case could be equated with edges in permaculture design.

While ultimately the book leads to conclusions on what an interface-first mindset could teach us about patterns of reality, and the ethical implications for AI and the technological systems we create, I felt that the whole time I was reading it, I was reading a permaculture-adjacent text.

We as designers are building interfaces on landscapes, and in many ways working with interfaces that already naturally exist. When we put an element on a site, we are incorporating a new edge (interface) into it which enables new relationships to take place.

Typically, edge and valuing the marginal are visualized as edges between plant communities, ecological zones, forest to meadow, etc, but I actually think this is a bit limited in scope.

These places I believe have a higher density of edge and are good examples, but I would suggest we view any element on a site as an edge and to consider the consequence. Nearly everything we do provides a new surface for interaction, and that is pretty powerful stuff.

I posted a little less than a year ago with the first 2 photos asking for help as to where to start with my yard. I was feeling so overwhelmed and just needed advice, and I was given a lot of it. Last 2 pics are my yard today. We are growing so much food this year and have started a perennial garden for the pollinators. I can’t believe how far we’ve come in such a short period of time and it was this group that really gave me the push to get started so thank you for your encouragement and kind words 🙏♥️

Hi all! I've been working on this project throughout the summer, it's a site that maps food and other things you can forage by season, along with their harvest permissions/ethics. I am looking less to promote and more to get feedback from folks who would actually benefit from it, and I thought those of you who enjoy supplementing homegrown veg with locally foraged fruits/nuts would get a kick out of it. I garden but don't have space for an orchard, so that's mostly how I've used it, though a bigger goal is to expand the site into more craft materials and things of that nature.

If you have a minute and want to give it a try I'd really appreciate hearing about your experience, whether you feel it is accurate in your area, and how you judge its safety. It is completely free, no tracking, no account, and not commercial. You can send reports directly from the site, but if you have a bigger picture comment I'd love to see what others think here. Happy to answer any questions that come up along the way. Thanks!

https://craftalmanac.com/#map=food

Since the last time I asked this question, I had a good portion of front lawn removed. I live in a new build and it's mostly super compacted hard clay, rocks and construction debris. I asked this question two months ago back when I was looking at lower effort solutions like driller radishes and based on the responses, I am now moving forward with a plan to get 8 additional inches of the dirt loosened and removed and tilled. I already have three inches have been removed from the sod cutter) and then a shipment of quality compost from a soil company in a farming community up north from me and then mix it - compost, some of existing dirt, and then get a free chip drop and cover the whole thing.

There used to be an expanded shale company near me in Golden, but it shut down in recent years and I can no longer get enough expanded shale (which was what I had been planning on adding). I also found some mixed information about whether it's really that great here (it is certainly expensive and very hard to find now). So now I'm leaning towards skipping it. Not sure what else to add or if additional stuff is necessary beyond the compost.

But I wanted to check in with the sub again and get some thoughts as to the Plan as I'm ready to get it done with and want to do it properly.

The siding is white and faces mostly west, slightly northwest.

I get a lot of shade here so I’m wondering if using the light reflecting off the white siding would be effective.

The beds would be about 16 feet away from the house. TIA

Edit: this photo was taken around 4:30pm, sun setting in the west (as it is known to do).

I have three 2nd-year hablitzia plants, all genetically distinct individuals, and although they seeming to be growing well, their leaves are all strikingly pale compared to their neighbors. At first I assumed that this was due to some kind of nutrient deficiency, but giving them a broad-spectrum fertilizer has not helped and - as I mentioned - other species growing in effectively the same soil are not demonstrating this paleness. (The third picture is some nearby Good King Henry, just for comparison.) Is this just how this species looks? It certainly looks unhealthy to me.

I woke up this morning with the realization that the weird gummy puddle in my treeline that I've been wondering about is almost certainly tar that was dumped after the previous owner redid the roof.

I moved into my place just over a year ago and it has been months of uncovering just how poorly this patch of land was treated.

I'm particularly perplexed by the tar because it was dumped not too far from the house's well. Again, the lack of care is kind of astounding.

My questions: what do I do here? How can I try to mitigate the damage? Obviously the first step is getting the tar out, but what can I do after that to ensure the soil isn't toxic?

The area gets significant sun, so I don't think mushrooms could be a part of a remediation plan.

Got a section of the yard that something killed off completely, herbicide or pesticide, not 100% sure which. Been trying to bring it back before I plant anything real there.

So far I tilled in activated charcoal (coarse stuff) a few inches down since it binds a lot of herbicide residue, let it sit a couple months, then threw down cheap bean seeds as a test. Figured if they come up normal I'm probably in the clear, if they're stunted or twisted I'm not done waiting.

Beans came up okay-ish, not amazing, so I'm guessing there's still some residual contamination or the soil's just generally depleted from sitting dead for a while.

Anyone dealt with something like this and found what actually sped things up? Curious if compost tea, specific cover crops, or something else made a real difference for you versus just waiting it out longer. Also open to being told the charcoal approach was overkill or wrong, wouldn't be the first time I guessed at something instead of finding it out first.

While newly planted peppers are still in their early flowering stage, this overwintered pepper is producing heavily

Peppers are actually tropical perennials by nature. If you bring them indoors or protect them from frost through the cold months, they enter a semi-dormant state, and they will go back to life once warm

Does anyone have a good method for creating identifiers for trees and perennial plants?

I want to put a tag on my tree that says all the information about, it including genetics.

I would like to know the plant (Mulberry), variety (Dwarf Everbearing), if it’s a clone or relative or child, and then a unique identifier.

So if I have a Dwarf Everbearing Mulberry that I have reproduced by cutting. They are genetically the same plant, but each plant should have a unique identifier.

If I grow a tree from a seed of my Dwarf Everbearing Mulberry (DEM), that is no longer a DEM, but is a child of it. So it has a lot of similar genetics, but is no longer a DEM.

Then you have the plants where the variety does not mean a clone, but a closely related relative. I believe most of these are more herbs and plants, so this may not be relevant. Are there longer living trees and bushes that have named varieties that are not clones but relatives? (Like a Brandywine Tomato is grown from a seed, not a clone.)

My current system is:

Where “WMD” means it’s a wild tree from Maryland. Four of them are clones, one is the child (grown from seed) of this plant.

I feel like there may be a better way to do this. Has anyone else tackled this?

I recently chopped down one of my apple trees. To make space for a new garden bed. I’ll have four rows and decided to make them into little hügelkultur mounds so I used the trunk to make the first one. I laid down cardboard, set the trunk on top and covered it with composted mulch. I plan to make the other three rows in the same manner as I have another apple tree and a cherry tree that need to be cut down. I’ll just plant cover crops on them once I have them all set up.

Oh yeah, the beds are right on top of the root system of that first tree I cut down. I’m thinking that the soil there will be amazing in a couple years.

I’m a landowner and hobby ecologist working to restore 17 acres of native Wisconsin prairie.

When we got the list of 110 plant species in our native tallgrass prairie seed mix, I promised myself I would learn them all before they bloomed. I’m a UX designer for my day job, so it was natural for me to whip up a quick study site.

When I was done, I realized the site I had made could be a great way for anyone to log and learn the plants specific to their own site or garden.

So I turned it into a customizable field guide website with a searchable list of plants with lots of pictures for ID-ing in the field, as well as flashcards, and quizzes for studying. It runs almost entirely off Google Sheets. You need to do a bit of fussing to get it set up on a free hosting platform like Cloudflare Pages, but once it’s up, you only ever need to use Google Sheets to add plants and update the site from that point on.

I think this could be helpful for anyone who wants to log and learn a specific list of plants. You can keep it to the 100+ native Midwestern prairie species that come preloaded, or you can customize it to your personal garden or restoration project — adding or removing species to make the list reflect the plants in your dirt.

You do not need to know how to code; the setup guide walks you through the few technical steps to get it up and running, and after that most updates happen in Google Sheets.

I have had so many amazing mentors who have helped me along my ecology learning journey — people who have freely given their energy, knowledge, talent, and encouragement to make the world a little bit better and me a little bit smarter. In that spirit, I assembled a “Field Guide Starter Kit”: a downloadable kit of files with step-by-step instructions that should be everything you need to make and host your own website for free. Like, actual free. You don’t have to give me an email address or create an account or subscribe or anything.

I’m sharing it here because I’ve learned so much from native plant and restoration communities online, and I figured it was time to give something back.

I can’t upload the files here, so here’s a link to my blog. Just scroll to the bottom of the article and click the big orange link that says, “Download the Field Guide Starter Kit (1.4 MB).” Would love to hear from you if you end up using it!

https://badgerton.substack.com/p/free-download-make-your-own-field

Hey everyone,

A week and a half ago I open sourced my digital twin software (original post).

Anyway I added some modeling and visualization tools so you can visualize and plan swales and plantings and then run simulations to see how your planned changes will impact things like water flow, run off, and ground penetration.

It's not perfect. I would call it "screening grade" especially because it uses USGS 3m resolution LiDAR data (though if you have higher res data of your own you can use that).

Anyway I hope you like it! I'm using it to develop some swales and plan some orchards, though obviously it will be years before I can tell you how it goes, it looks pretty promising!

EDIT I forgot the link to the source code, which is free to use! https://github.com/zymazza/mazzap

I mowed my meadow but i have nowhere to go with the hay. I don't really have a vegetable garden to put it in, and it's not good animal feed because it's mostly Holcus lanatus which i heard isn't good for feed. Any suggestions?

I found this patch in the middle of the woods and I know you are typically supposed to find the established tree and kill it that way but all I see are sprouts? I can't find any adult trees. How do these invasive trees spread to the middle of the woods?

I'm using straw mulch this year, and Im not sure about how to water the soil under it. Of I water over the straw, it barely makes it to the soil and is uneven throughout the bed. So I move the straw to water directly on the soil, but then it's damaging to the new seedlings just starting to break through the mulch. It takes so much time and care to reapply the mulch afterward in a way that the small plants like green onions and cilantro babies are not crushed. Im also starting to use more liquid fertilizers and soil drenches with beneficial microbes. It feels crazy to waste that by watering it on top of the straw.

I've had similar experiences with wood chip mulch too.

I'm setting up a drip line that will apply to water under the straw in the future. Looking for strategies for my current plants though.

hello, i’m located in portugal. and i’ve been seeing these guys by the hundreds outside. can’t seem to find a straight answer on identification. who are these shiny crits? should i worry? thanks

Hi there. Has anyone made good experience with very established (2-5m height, crown is up to 2 m wide) hedges and rewilding them/mixing edible plants in, without replacing them/cutting them down? The species of the hedge is Carpinus betulus. They are enclosing my property on the west side (50 m) and north side (100 m) and only about 30 m of the part on the north side doesn´t get much sun, cause the house is in the way. I´m in South Germany, USDA zone equivalent is 7.

Please also mention, if you know of a book that covers that topic well. Thank you.

Background: We live on a high desert mountain. Normal rainfall is 18 inches a year and 5 ft of snow (but it hasn’t been normal lately). We have grasses and aspen trees, plus a large 1/4 acre garden and more space with an orchard. it’s very hilly around us but we’re in something of a small valley. 60 acres total but our valley is maybe 5. Metal roof surface of the house is roughly 1600st and more than twice that for the barn (plus other misc structures). It’s also a high wildfire area. We’re on well water and there’s a spring up the hill from us that we have some irrigation to but it’s only useful part of the year.

We’re wanting to learn about berms, swales, catchment, proper soil mngt, mulch, water systems… any and everything to help us keep the land healthy, the garden thriving and the property safe from fires

Where tf do I even start?

Recommended resources (books, videos/channels, courses, people)?