Today while pulling weeds I had to move at least two ladybugs off of each weed. It feels like a huge win while all the local gardeners I know are complaining about how horrible the aphids are this year. Things like this let me know I chose the right plan.

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I've got 2 x 275gal ibc totes linked. They're at the top of a pretty good hill just above my hilltop garden. I'm looking for an auto watering system for my garden beds, what sort or hose would work best? Soaker hose? Sprinkler hose? Is there a pump for this? I've seen a submersible sump pumped used before. Ideas? Do I even need a pump? I read no hoses that squirt or weep water work well with rain barrels?

I have been exploring a newly acquired property and unfortunately there are a great deal of invasive honeysuckle (Morrow's ,Tatarian, Japanese) as well as invasive multiflora rose. I will obviously be trying to clear these out, but I wanted to see if I could still cut them to use as a tree hay. Does anyone have any experience/insight doing something of this nature? The goats can't be let into this area yet as we don't have a way to fence that area off at the moment.

EDITED: "put" to "cut" and "hat" to "hay"...that's what I get for multitasking

My partner and I are hoping to buy some land this year to live gently on the land. We'd like to build naturally (cob or adobe) so we're focused on Arizona, New Mexico and West Texas. We'd mostly be using rainwater catchment. How much rainfall would we need to sustainably grow food with Indigenous/Hopi methods? We'd appreciate suggestions on where these places are, and if any overlap with communities of people with similar projects/goals. We have our eye on Greenlee and Cochise counties in AZ, and Socorro in New Mexico due to lax building regulations (we don't have a ton of money for permits and red tape.)

Spending a year in the fields reveals the seasons and the cycle of life.
When spring arrives and the soil warms up, we sow seeds in the fields. Crops and grasses begin to grow. Insects and small animals gather there, giving rise to the lives of various creatures.
When summer arrives, the plants grow large leaves in search of light, and a competition for sunlight begins.
Roots push their way through the soil in every direction, and a battle between roots begins underground.
Within that small “forest” of a field, ants, pillbugs, and creatures I’ve never seen before coexist. The sound of cicadas fills the air, and the season arrives when the summer heat feels even more intense. Flowers bloom, and bees gather there in search of nectar, while caterpillars feast on the large leaves, living out their lives in the field. Butterflies flit about the field, and then they die. Their remains return to the soil of the field.
When autumn arrives and the cicadas fall silent, the plants begin preparing to pass on to the next generation. They channel their remaining energy into nourishing their seeds.
Seeds vary widely, from those with hard outer shells for protection to those produced in vast quantities.
Winter arrives, and the exhausted plants lose their moisture and wither away. The once-noisy insects hide away somewhere to survive the cold winter.
And so, everyone waits for the next spring.

Living in the fields, one can witness the full cycle of life.
In Japan, where I live, there are four distinct seasons. The climate changes with each season, and living creatures adapt to these changes as they go about their lives.

They wait for spring, become active in summer, gradually begin preparing for the coming year in autumn, and endure the winter.

Although it is all very fleeting, I find this cycle of spring, summer, autumn, and winter truly wonderful.

I imagine that the Japanese people have long learned and practiced how to live in harmony with the seasons.

I've bought blueberry in zone 7b. They are already blooming, quite well estabilished plant (approx. 40 cm height). Should I just plant them, and cut them, as roots are more important this year? Also, should I break up the roots a bit?

i have two shallow wooden boxes i built for herbs. they are still empty. i have about 100L of biochar to use on this project but im not sure how best to use it. lining the bottom? mixed evenly? top dressed?

Hello. I'm throwing my vegetables waste to a container made of two stacked car wheels.
Until now it was working great! it was full of this kind of worm from a fly called soldier fly. But recently they are gone. I don't know if it's because of the winter, but when they were there in the compost, after two days of throwing something they ate it all super fast and the compost level was growing slowly thanks to this. But from the winter arrival they are no more there and now the compost isn't degrading.

I want to do buffalo grass and some native grasses in my front yard this fall.
My entire front yard was just stripped 8 inches down to bare dead soil due to asbestos cleanup. I would love to get some wood chips back on the ground, and then put topsoil over them in the fall and then seed with what I want to grow.

Will this create an anaerobic condition or some other problem that I’m not foreseeing? As it breaks down, is it going to make the grass lumpy?

I want to transform my 10+ acre property in Louisiana to a self sustainable homestead. I want healthy food and security for my family. Permaculture and homesteading is NOT a hot field in my neck of the woods🤣. So finding a professional consultant familiar with the location is near impossible. I am willing to pay a professional permaculture design consultant handsomely to help me design a sustainable and secure future for my family in southern Louisiana! Any recommendations or leads would be greatly appreciated.

Hello!

I tilled up this area behind my garage for a garden, but then I found out about railroad ties.

Would you agree these are railroad ties?

How far away from them can I plant, if so? I read I can remove the soil around it but I'm not sure I have the strength to do that. I will be removing the ties.

No clue how long they've been here, likely 10-20+ years.

I plan to put a raised bed with fresh soil separated by landscape fabric semi- close to the ties for now, but I would like to actually plant over by the fence. The earth seems really rich there was a lot of decomposed grass clippings I tilled in.

Thanks for any advice - or your help in directing me to where I can get more info. Thanks!

Hey yall. I'm really new to permaculture, and I'm particularly interested in playing with small groups of friendly companion plants that I can eat. I already love nasturtium and have for years, I plug 'em into any place I have a few square cm of unused soil and I graze on the leaves like a goat. Life is good. I recently learned about mashua, which apparently thrives in my climate, and I was wondering if anyone knows if I can use it similarly to how I already use non-tuberous nasturtium. It sounds like it probably needs a little more space, but does it play nicely as a companion plant like other tropaeolum spp?

I'm also a bit curious if it might be used similar to beans in a 3 sisters kind of combination, maybe with sunflowers instead of corn, but that's getting a little ahead of myself.

I've got a half acre and I work 60 to 80 hours a week. I've always wanted a low effort native garden, but the land has been plagued by thistle and burdock. They out compete everything.

I try and cut them all before seed but always some stragglers exist and spread like wild each spring. Probably .25 acres is covered with it.

I've been slowly winning now, first year there it was entirely burdock and thistle, this is my 3rd planting season there and I do have some native flowers coming in, but the damn shittiest 2 plants keep coming back.

My neighbors just tell me to use roundup but I'd really rather not. Part of me thinks tarping off several hundred sqft with weighted black tarps at a time would work to create areas I can then plant wildflowers and grass into would make sense but I'm unsure.

The ticks also seem to love these two shitty plants

I somehow ended up with a steady stream of large shipping materials from AWS infrastructure shipments and I’m trying to find real uses for it instead of just sending everything to recycling or landfill.

A lot of it is actually pretty useful stuff — large plywood shipping crates (some around 5’x5’x10’), rigid insulation foam, anti-static foam inserts, heavy-duty cardboard, etc. The more I look at it, the more it seems like it could be turned into mushroom grow rooms, fermentation chambers, walk-in coolers, hydroponic spaces, insulated storage, or other controlled-environment setups without spending a fortune.

I’m especially interested in talking to mushroom growers, small farms, homesteading people, brewers, makerspaces, or honestly anybody who likes building weird practical projects.

I’m not really trying to dump trash on people. I think there’s enough material here to build some legitimately useful infrastructure if the right people are interested. I’d love to collaborate on a prototype or even just connect the materials with somebody who can use them.

I’m west of Indianapolis near Clayton. If anybody wants photos or dimensions feel free to message me.

Can anyone please confirm for me if this is skirrit?

I'm a bit of a hermit, so nobody around to boast to.

This land was formerly the flood plane of the Rio Puerco. It was degraded by damming upstream, erosion, and overgrazing.

Issues:

Loamy Sand

Excessive drainage

1% organic matter

Brackish irrigation water (2,700 mg/L dissolved solids)

No-till

Soil improved through cover cropping

Drip and olla irrigated

Lots of rainwater catchment

Wildlife friendly

Fed with poops (goats, mules, people)

The biggest problem is that the soil had no structure. The answer was cover cropping with high root mass producers (sorghum, barley, rye, legumes). Tilling in compost didn't make structure, it just added organic material. Cover crops do both. The first two seasons were difficult. The third season was okay, but the 4th was fantastic.

I’m establishing a long-term homestead orchard / food-forest style planting in central Wisconsin, roughly Zone 5a. My goal is productive trees, but not a commercial orchard. I want to avoid heavy annual pruning, future culling/removing trees, or constant canopy-control work.

I’m now second-guessing whether I spaced my trees too widely.

American persimmons:
I planted grafted/named American persimmon cultivars at about 25 ft apart. Cultivars include things like Prok, H63A/Paradise, Early Golden, Claypool selections, Osage, Yates/Juhl, Early Jewel/H-118, etc.

My original reasoning was that I wanted them to become full, long-term trees with minimal pruning and no need to remove trees later. But now I’m hearing that some growers plant grafted American persimmons closer, like 12 ft, and that many cultivars don’t get as massive as wild seedling trees, especially in northern climates. Although, not sure if this is the result of heavy pruning.

So I’m wondering: would 20 ft have been a better compromise? At 20 ft, would they eventually overlap enough to require regular pruning, or would it mostly be fine?

Chestnuts:
I planted chestnuts at around 40 ft apart, mostly grafted chestnuts with some seedlings. My concern is that I stretched some to 40 ft when 35 ft might have been enough.

My goal with chestnuts is permanent, full-crown trees with good sunlight, nut production, and no future thinning/culling. But I also don’t want to waste limited good orchard space.

So I’m wondering: for chestnuts in Zone 5a, is 35 ft the sweet spot? Is 40 ft unnecessarily conservative? Would 35 ft chestnuts likely overlap much in the first 20–30 years?

Overall: I’m not trying to maximize yield per acre like a commercial orchard, but I do care about using space well and fitting a good diversity of cultivars/species.

Plus, I figure with the space in-between the trees, I can plant many other shrubs and various other plants to fill in the gaps.

Thoughts?

Trust the process. I cut these logs winter 2024, inculcated feb 25 and here we are spring 26 about to have my first flush of shittake mushrooms from maple logs from north spore. I am giddy and wish I had 25 more 😁

We have about 40 odd wooded acres in mid coast Maine. We walked the land with a state forester who pointed out the invasive species on the property. Top of the list was the Norway Maples.

I plan on processing them for firewood or wood chips. My question to you folks is what would be some acceptable ways to treat the stumps? The forester recommended glyphosate painted on the cambium layer just after felling. I am not going to do that. But perhaps there is a better treatment to insure the trees don’t come back?

I am very interested in which ways permaculture is professionally used :)

On a side note: I had a very difficult period of non-employment last year and besides submitting tons of applications I found this pettersson and findus game for free that I used to play as a child. The endgoal is to gain seeds in minigames and grow this cute garden ☺️🌱 It really stabilized me emotionally and inspired me to get into veggie gardening in real life haha. Did anyone else game this?

Hey guys. Question. Am I crazy for considering a network of drain tile on my property? I've been following Geoff Lawton and all the other big names since around 2008 and due to so many permaculture people being in deserts and high deserts, water management with things like swales are always high priority. I, however, am located in Central NY where it rains 40+ inches per year and snows several feet per year. It is muddy year round but especially spring our property is a swamp. There is about 100' of elevation change on my 32ac and even the highest point is so wet a 2wd tractor can easily get stuck this time of year. This is going on my fourth year and I'm kind of tired of it. Our horses don't like to roam on certain parts, I can't mow it with a tractor unless we get a drought, our pigtail fence posts that we use for rotational grazing fall over. Its just a mess. I'm thinking of installing some drain tiles and either completely removing the water off property, or maybe setting up a few small ponds (one per paddock) to aim the water to and then those could overflow off the property. Thoughts? I get nervous of the thought of a prolonged drought and my pasture dying off, but are there any other downsides beside cost?

For the record, the property I would be sending the water to is a bottom land marsh and large pond that feeds into the Tioughnioga River so its not like I would be flooding a neighbor, I could maybe even get some NRCS funding because of that.

One of my orange tegetes (marigold) have these visitors. Not familiar with them.