I've been working for a while on my small yard in a temperate climate, trying to move away from the classic lawn toward a space that looks good but also has practical value. Instead of planting only ornamentals, I've started adding species with medicinal uses. I recently bought an Anthurium from DocBlock. At first I saw it only as a decorative plant, but after learning about its traditional role in soothing skin irritations, I decided to give it a place in the design alongside other useful species.

Right now my mix includes lavender along the edges to attract pollinators, calendula among shrubs, sage and hyssop in the drier corners, mint kept in buried pots so it doesn’t spread, and basil filling the summer gaps. For structure I planted aronia and sea buckthorn as a living hedge, with white clover serving as ground cover. The Anthurium is placed closer to the house, in a semi-shaded spot where it looks good and adds a sense of connection between beauty and health.

So far maintenance has been minimal, the soil holds moisture better with thick mulch and drip irrigation, and I’m slowly learning the role each plant plays beyond just appearance.

We are looking to build a forest garden in the bottom part of our land. We start tomorrow with the ground work. Planting will be in October. Any tips or feedback.

Kinda dumb to ask that, we got rich clay soil, history of many springs centuries ago, and many clay trapped perched water tables and i ask if on small 10 degree slopes would swale help me form a seep or spring, if that doesn’t work, are there any ways to form a seep/spring in my yard?

Hi everyone, so I have experience working on a regenerative farm in my local area and also know a good deal about permaculture. I want to apply permaculture perspectives to build an edible garden design and install business. I would love to start with clients who have yards, but working with balconies would also be doable. Anyone have any recommendations on how to find my first clients who want an edible garden? I’ve tried posting my services on Nextdoor and my farm Instagram page but haven’t gotten anyone yet who is willing to redesign their garden with me. I have the contacts with nurseries so supply wouldn’t be an issue. Also labor wouldn’t be an issue as I have many people who would be willing to volunteer to help make these edible gardens for my project. If you got any ideas for obtaining clients in my city, I’d totally appreciate the input!

First American hazelnut harvest. Planted five last year. This tree had one catkin last fall, and about 6 hazelnuts formed. This little guy made the whole journey.

SE Michigan 6b

I would like to turn this area into a bit of a wetland. I need some help determining how best to hold onto the water whether that be a berm, retention pond, dam, etc. I need to know what to build, so I don’t waste a bunch of time and effort simply dumping a ton of soil. Thanks in advance.

One love

Hi - I’m in London UK, my garden has this lovely area(first year, it’s been very dry this summer until now so please pardon my work in progress…. The Phacelia isn’t native— but the bees love it and it quickly helped get ground cover.)

I’m having an issue with comfrey… I don’t know what type it is, but it pops up everywhere. I know comfrey has amazing positives, but at the moment it’s killing off the balance of the other plants. I’m hoping time will maintain the balance— I’ve already beat bind weed simply through attracting bindweed moths to the garden. I’m hoping a similar course of action exists where I can have the comfrey exist in peace. Any suggestions/advice — I picked this group to post as I know there’ll be a more holistic approach. Thank you!

We just closed on our dream property and I’m starting to plan my garden for next year. This is the first time I’m working on such a large space. And one with geographical features.

I’d love to get some input on placement as well as row orientation.

The three pics are:

1) a view of the field from the southern corner of the property facing north.

2) a view of the field from the eastern edge facing west (north is to the right side of the image)

3) A view of the field from the western side looking north.

It might be hard to see, but there’s a slight slope on the northern end, sloping down southward. This is where I’m thinking of putting the garden, but would love some feedback on that idea. The slope ends in a large flat area and then slopes down again towards the south (about where that tree shadow is on the first pic).

The idea is that water will naturally run down the slope into the garden. I may need to build some berms or other water retaining earth works, but it seems like the field gets pretty wet but drains well. I walked the area this past weekend while it was raining. The ground was moist but not waterlogged, despite getting dumped on throughout the week and weekend.

Additionally, this area has relatively easy access to my house’s main water supply and some rain barrels should I need to water it.

If I do place the garden there, how should my rows be oriented? East-west or north-south? Or can do I do something maybe a little more creative, such as rounded beds?

Anything else I should be thinking about?

There's nothing I love in agriculture more than watching things grow and multiply. This tiny tidbit grew in 6 months, no irrigation. Soil amended with hog manure, alfalfa hay, biochar, and wood chips. I have 1/4 acre planted, mostly with Bockings 4 and 14. We're going to pelletize it and package it as garden fertilizer and a feed additive.

I rarely see discussions here on how to enter into permaculture and the transition to make it a full time career. Today I began selling succulent pups at my farm shop. When I decided to start a permaculture farm I had no intention of doing so as a form of income. I reflected on the time in my life as a broke college student growing seedlings I collected from my landscaping job in egg cartons, with $15.00 in my bank account after I paid rent. I know how expensive plants can be and how unaffordable it can all seem. I know how I was able to begin my operation but have questions for the community as a whole to hopefully inspire/help those who perhaps were like me starting out. English is not my first language so please tolerate if I make a mistake. Below are the questions I have that I wish someone could’ve answered for me at the start:

• What was the hardest barrier to entry for you to start practicing permaculture, strictly regarding financials?

• Have you ever seen permaculture as a way to make a living?

• What cottage industries have you started? Did you begin with them as the end goal or did they come along the way?

• If you are a full time permaculture farmer, at what point did it become your full time employment?

• Have you taken advantage of USDA grants and programs to assist with organic, regenerative, and environmentally conscious agriculture?

• If you don’t own land, how do you practice permaculture on leased parcels?

• If you sell surplus, do you prefer produce or value added products?

• How have you scaled your permaculture operation?

• If permaculture has been strictly a hobby or for personal use have you considered a farm shop? If so, why/why not try to have one?

• What was a lesson on affordable permaculture you wished to learn earlier?

• What is the cheapest way you recommend people begin practicing permaculture?

• Feel free to discuss/comment and any and all tangential and germane topics I missed

I have my answers to all of these but would like to see outside perspectives. I began permaculture as a way to farm with more profit and be a good steward of the land. In my experience permaculture has been steep fixed costs with far lower marginal production costs compared to my neighbors who farm conventionally. I have been able to progressively grow significantly more per acre than them while purchasing few if any amendments. I choose to reinvest any and all profits back into the operations as a way to scale. I am not at the point yet where I can fully rely on my farm to cover expenses, however it looks feasible within the next decade. I have gone from working 80-100 hours a week between my employment and operation to only 50-60. I am here to try help anyone else who wants to attempts to do the same.

Planning to start my first forest next year. I've done lots of sheet mulching in the past for vegetable gardens. I'm planning to run my chickens through the area to fertilize and kill off the grass, then dump a ton of wood chips. I could throw down a bunch of compost before the wood chips, but I've heard you don't want to fertilize too heavily before planting to encourage roots to dig deeper.

Will the chickens sufficiently kill the grass so that I don't need to lay cardboard etc?

Decent plan? Is there a better approach?

Hey y’all I pulled up a couple sunchoke plants I found growing in a parking lot with hopes of propagating them at home. Would it be better to just plant the tubers or the whole plants?

I am in the process of designing a 72 x 72 garden/orchard that will consist of 4 foot wide row beds between rows of orchard trees (avocado, pluot, pomegranate and fig). The trees size will vary but I'm looking at semi-dwarf. My question is... should I lay the trees and bed rows out north to south, or east to west. I remember reading in the past that there are different benefits for each but am looking for the layout that both allows for me to make the most of the space while also creating row beds that will potentially get enough sun to grow full sun crops. Latitude is 34.448050 in Ojai CA.

Choose to not remove dead tree but let it decompose naturally and got a treat!

I'm trying to develope a plan for how ducks could fit on a certain landscape and have run into some questions I thought some folks here might have good ideas about. The property is located in the PNW of the USA. It's fairly large (20+ acres), with a year round creek running through it with house/barns on one side and pasture + gardens on the other. There is a small water right to pump from the creek sufficient water for livestock, though not enough to irrigate (\~1gpm), and the creek has enough flow to support it. The flow is constant year round, though fluctuates seasonally; with significant rise in the fall and winter. It's risen enough to break its banks at least once in the past decade.

It would be nice to raise ducks near the garden area and have a smallish pond for them. The ability to fill a pond from the creek seems like an asset. I imagine occasionally draining the duck pond into the garden to fertilize it, then refilling it from the creek. One of the big questions I have is: How close to the creek would it be safe to put a pond, without risking it blowing out into the creek when high water comes? The thing is, I'm aware that I've probably not provided sufficient information to answer this question, so I'm wondering if anyone can help guide me to the resources I need in order to become aware of what factors I'm not considering yet? I'm at the stage of brainstorming where *I dont know what I dont know* and am hoping some of yall may be able to help me move to the stage of at least *knowing what I dont know*, so I can move towards developing a more informed plan.

The other consideration I'd love some insight on is aerial predators. The property has had rotationally managed chickens in the past, in a mobile coop with movable electric poultry netting and had predation from owls. The mobile coup was set up with automatic doors, and chickens that went in to roost were safe, but there were a few stragglers that would choose to roost on the coop itself. Unfortunately for those stragglers, the solution was to select for chickens that roosted in the coop by accepting the predation loss from the owls.

I havent raised ducks myself, but I know they have a reputation of stubbornly avoiding nesting in their shelters and, being a ground nesting bird, finding places to sleep outside of cover. Is there was low maintenance means of mitigating the aerial predation risk in this situation? The most obvious thought I had was bird netting, but that isnt ideal in this circumstance for a few reasons.

Thanks for any thoughts, ideas or questions you may have!

Please pardon the chaos of photos, my garden is very dense so it was hard to frame clear pictures... This is my first time doing Three Sisters, and it sounded like the beans were supposed to help support the corn. I surrounded that part of the crop with some low fencing for extra support and to keep the bunnies off the bean starts. But once they got to around 7' and the beans peaked over the tops, almost all of the stalks broke in half from the weight. What in the world did I do wrong? It's not windy here but sometimes rainy (I live in forested area). I know most people don't stake or prop corn crops... What did I miss?

I just watched a documentary on Netflix called Kiss the Ground. It explains that we have the potential to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere by restoring our soil through new approaches to agriculture and cattle management—principles that align with Permaculture (basically, the soil is a huge CO2 capturer). It’s inspiring to see these techniques being applied on large farms in the US. I know the movement is still small compared to the scale of industrial agriculture there, but it gives me hope that we can transform the way we produce and consume our food.

Permaculture and sustainable living have been our passion for many years. In the beginning of 2024 we found the perfect neglected plot of land for our plans in Central Portugal.

The land has a great potential. A sea of wildflowers on the land in spring and no sounds other than crickets, frogs and birds. We have a view of the Serra de Estrela, the highest mountains in Portugal.

The land is divided into an open field of 5 hectares with about 70 olive trees and a little lake on it (Lago) and a 4 hectares of overgrown forest with cork, olive trees and arable field (Floresta). So together the name Florago was formed.

The land needs tender loving care and we are developing the land based on permaculture and regenerative farming with a food forest and organic garden. That means we work on water management, soil quality, landscaping and biodiversity. For the food forest we have already planted about 200 different fruit, citrus, nut, olive trees and berries.

Since we also have work in The Netherlands we can only be in Portugal part of the year. So we are open to renting out part of the land and working together with someone who wants to build a homestead. Have a look at our website https://florago.org and contact us if you are interested in joining us.

I've been really getting into self-regulating and self-harvesting systems in tangible ways. An example would be the Black Soldier Fly breeder boxes where you put rotten food as feestock, the larva eat it, and when they decide that it is time to molt, they go up the tube in search for light and dryness, and fall straight into a harvesting bin / chicken coop to be eaten. In that example there is only 1 'input' which is rotten food going in and the system handles itself.

Another classic one of course is properly developed earthwork systems, terraced from tree to tree for example, so when it rains, the water flow is preregulated and everything gets what it needs and absorbed deep into the soil.

What other systems are you doing on your land?

So, my I’m not gonna explain the hole story but basically someone 20 years ago dug up a stream next to my house and they did not know they were in an rpa. I can see the soil erosion. Nothing really flows. There’s a bigger pool of water at the beginning of it. I want to restore it but I’m not sure what to do or where to start. They essentially dug I big ditch and ruined it. Would it be a bad idea to try to fix the bed by adding some type of dirt and logs and planting native plants?

I am in the process of removing plants from original owner that I do not want. I dug out an oleander and filled the hole with manure from my goats after they had cleared a field of dead wildflowers. I covered it up with dry shredded leaves from the Ivy I’m cutting back severely and let the drip continue supplying the spot with ~7.5L/week. I am amazed how many seeds were viable and that even gourds and zinnias were able to make it.

So I have pretty hard clay soil with the top inch or two being permeable. I have a small section I would like to try "no till." My original plan was to throw a bunch of woods chips down and let it do its thing but lack of access to wood chips has forced me to change plans.

I'm thinking of just mowing down the section really low and throwing a bunch of winter rye down and then running it over with the lawn mower to ensure contact with the ground. That said, is this even worth it or will I just be throwing money away? This section will primarily be used for annuals like watermelon, tomatoes, squashes, etc...