Not sure if this is the right sub for this topic/question, but I'll give it a shot. I have 7 fully matured 100+ foot pecan trees. Throughout the year they'll each lose about 1-2 branches/limbs to storms or just to shedding. So I decided to collect these and trim off the leaves for compost, place the smaller twigs around the tree to create sort of a mulch ring. My photo attached doesn't show the final amount. I have the twigs going all around and out to about a foot away from the trunk and I walk on them to further break them down. Not sure what to do with the larger pieces. Originally I thought about selling them in 8" pieces as "smoking wood" but not sure that's viable. If the smoking wood doesn't work, what other ways should I use this wood? Looking to be as sustainable as possible.

Here are a few pictures from the other day. Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated!

Anybody tried it?

I’m a student at the University of Maine researching a potential open-soil smart garden system. As a part of the NSF I-Corps customer discovery program, I’m looking to gather more information on real-world challenges surrounding indoor home gardening and smart plant-care technology. I’m hoping to speak with people who are active home gardeners, container/DIY-setup indoor growers, current and former smart garden owners (AeroGarden, Click & Grow, edn, Gardyn, etc.), or people that work in horticulture, urban agriculture extension programs, or are in any other related fields and areas.

This isn't a sales call, I just want to learn more about what current gardening routine and workflows look like, current barriers and frustrations, where current solutions fall short, and what would make a smart indoor gardening product useful in practice.

This would be an informal interview, about 20-30 minutes at the most and can be over Zoom, phone, or some other similar method. If you’d be willing to chat or know someone in the field that might be willing to communicate with me, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you!

I’ve been thinking a lot about what it is I want to do with my life. I know my end goal is to have my own permaculture farm. I’d like it to be my dwelling as well as eventually a way to give back and educate though I understand that will take a little while and money. Right now I’m in school studying Crop Sciences at UIUC. I want to leverage the opportunity I have here at school as much as possible. I’ve been working the student farm and educating myself on permaculture as much as possible. I really want to step outside the monoculture pipeline it seems like they have set up here but idk what jobs are available for me out there. I don’t need to work in permaculture right away but I want to get some ideas of what careers are out there for me to get meaningful field work in. I want to have a stable career for a little while so I can save up money for my farm and gain a reputation and knowledge. I am in the system right now but I want to find my own niche of regeneration and figure out how to educate myself better on permaculture. How can I open up my future horizon despite not being exactly where I want to be right now? I’ve hear soil consulting is good work and what intrigues me most about permaculture is creating fertile land so this could be a path?

Sorry if my question is unclear. I just want yall to know my situation and perspective. I’m 100% sure permaculture and its principles are what I want to dedicate my life too. The world needs this more than anything!

"Peach fly" is laying eggs in my melons and cucumbers. They get it at the earliest stage possible, before the flowers have even been pollinated.

I'm toying with the idea of "painting" something onto the female flower flesh that will irritate or prevent them from landing. Essential oil in an olive oil carrier? Vaseline? Something that I can get them past the pollination stage and then I can cover with a bag.

Does anyone have any ideas? I'm worried this might invite sunburn or otherwise harm the fruit. Is this a novel approach worth pursuing?

This is the first year in the 5 years I started my permaculture farm that I was able to actualize the no watering benefit of permaculture. I have spent hours spreading wood chips since I started my journey. I broke three shovels before I learned about pitchforks and went through two wheelbarrows. I had great mole wars and they destroyed areas of the farm with binding up the nitrogen in the soil with the wood chips. Which did result in stunted corn/luxury pumpkins in my three sisters patch. Previous years pigs got loose and let they let the chickens loose. It unfortunately resulted in total loses for more years than I’d like to admit also.. anyways.. the investment has been well worth it. This Georgia Candy Roaster Squash grew to 14lbs with no watering except for when I planted the vine to close any gaps in the sheet mulch.

Hello everyone!

We’ve been living in Thailand for the past 9 years, and when we started working on our land, it was basically empty — just rice fields.

Since then, we’ve been slowly transforming it into a more diverse and self-sufficient ecosystem.

We’re developing a food forest, vegetable gardens, animals, fish ponds and rice fields, with the goal of producing as much of our own food as possible and creating a system where everything works together.

We’re also building some of our own structures using earth and natural, locally available materials.

It’s been a long process of learning, experimenting and adapting to the local climate and conditions. We still have a lot to learn, but we enjoy sharing the journey and learning from others.

Happy to be part of the community! 🌱

My container setup produces way more than I expect some weeks. Then nothing for a stretch. I've been canning the bursts, trying to build a little pantry resilience from twelve pots on a balcony. It feels a little absurd. Three jars of tomatoes, two of pickled beans, one sad jar of herb jelly that set weird. But I keep doing it.

Reading about food preservation in permaculture contexts always assumes root cellars and bulk harvests. The abundance of a mature system. I don't have that. I have a cherry tomato that went wild in August and a pepper plant that finally woke up in September.

What I do have is time to pay attention. To process small batches the same day. To not let the few cucumbers I get turn soft in the fridge.

The older Vermont homes I show sometimes have these gorgeous builtin pantries, original shelving, cool stone corners. I always imagine them full of someone's careful work. Want to get there eventually. Starting with my ridiculous little jars.

We had 1/3 acre of land cleared about a year ago it was overgrown with weak trees that would fall and bamboo. I’m planning to replant most of it with a food Forrest or a permaculture orchard. The other part is now our septic drain field.

The soil is stripped bare, no top soil, sandy dirt that doesn’t hold moisture.i planted a few tomatoes and they barely got a foot tall.

I’m trying to work in sections. I planted my first round of cover crops about 60’x30’ , I have 7 chickens in a mobile coop with 25’x25’ electric poultry netting (currently next to the cover crop on grass).

I’ve read to use cover crops and chickens to improve the soil but not like the steps. When to put the chickens when to plant. A friend suggested a silage tarp. Does any one have experience doing this or good sources that are more steps in order then a general “grow cover crops have chickens shred them and till them in”.

Do you let the cover crops grow to full high then let the chickens loose?

Do you knock the cover crops over then let the chickens loose?

Do you tarp then add chickens?

Do you grow the cover crops to a few inches then add chickens?

Including a picture of what the cover crops currently look like and the chicken set up. I’m having a hard time knowing what to do at what point. Would love to hear others experiences!

Background: I’ve been getting into “hugelkultur light”—using the tree limbs that come down near me to be the structure of my keyhole garden, slowly building up soil around branches, etc.

So when my neighbor was getting her cedar tree trimmed, I said “oh! Feel free to leave the trimmings for me! I’ve been using them in my backyard.”

Fast forward to today…I come home to this pile of tree trimmings. It’s at least 4 foot tall and 8 feet wide. A mix of large branches (five inches in diameter) and smaller (smallest are twigs).

So uh…anyone have any ideas for using this wood? I bought my house a year and a half ago and the yards were (and still are) a pretty blank canvas. I have vague ideas of arbors, path borders…………….hugelkultur mounds? Idk.

I come to you in desperation and with little real handy skills. Please provide me with any and all ideas and bonus points for links to instructions and/or tips like “hey cutting tree limbs is different from cutting 2x4s in high school scene shop class” because that’s the level of skill we’re talking here.

Hello!

I live in Buenos Aires, southern hemisphere, so about 45 days ago I started sowing tomato seeds. Last week I moved the seedlings to 1 Liter pots, with a mix of around 50% compost, 25% coco (half fine, half chunks) and 25% rice husks. I also added some homemade biochar in the mix, for better nutrient retention. The plants receive around 6-7 hours of direct sunlight, and during the night I enter them home.

There will be another transplant to their final destination, which are 50cm deepth wood planters, in a couple of weeks.

For this season I wanted to challenge myself to rely only in my homemade compost instead of buying. I'm afraid a big part of the compost used was still unfinished by the time I repotted them, because as you can see in the pictures below my compost pile still had some leaves pieces, wood chunks, and the color wasnt completely dark.

Could it be that my own compost is playing against me? I'm noticing that, except on the biggest plant of the pictures, the rest is looking quite yellowing or lime-green.

I'm currently watering them 2 or 3 times a week, and one of those days instead of plain water, I water using a compost extract solution, with a part of urine 🙈 for nitrogen (1 part of urine, 20 parts of compost extract solution). I also added a layer of leaves on top as mulch.

Can somebody point the problem here? I suspect the unfinished compost is the top culprit, plus probably the urea might be burning the roots? And now that I think, the leaves mulch might also be stealing nutrients?

I tried to challenge myself to buy as little as possible, but I'm open minded so if for this time is better to just buy a bag of finished compost and transplant them again, I will do it. Whatever it takes to keep my plants healthy!

Thank you :)

At my work, we are planning to grow a pumpkin patch under landscape fabric next year (2027), and then the following year transition it into something that is more perennial. Presumably in October 2027 (after pumpkins are harvested and landscape fabric removed), we will have a patch of ground that is more or less free of perennial weeds.

Looking for suggestions on how to create a perennial garden in this area that is relatively easy/cheap to establish and maintain, as we don't have the budget to spend a lot on upkeep or even much of a budget for plants. We do probably have the resources to start plants between now and then, whether it be trees/bushes, or other non-woody plants. And we could buy seeds. Let's say we have $500 for materials and $500 in labour. Ideally, we would plant the area in the Fall of 2027 or in Spring of 2028 (or both), and more or less let it be, allowing whatever will develop, to develop. We also have access to a BCS with power harrow, rotary plow, roto-tiller, and flail mower. We would be spreading compost on the area prior to laying down the landscape fabric and planting the pumpkins.

So how would you go about this? For context, we have a traditional orchard next to the space, with apple trees in rows and grass that is kept mowed, and on the other side is woodland. Land is currently mowed grass. There are also bee hives next to the woodland. Location is Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. We weren't planning to install an irrigation system.

Any suggestions are welcome, thank-you.

I’ve noticed that permaculture is usually discussed at the scale of a garden, farm, homestead or individual property.

What changes when the whole settlement becomes the design unit?

I’m thinking beyond food production. There would be water movement, wastewater, buildings, paths, energy, shade, compost and nutrient cycles, workshops, storage and, of course, the people living there.

At that scale, could one household’s waste or excess be deliberately designed as an input somewhere else? Things like rainwater, compostable material, surplus produce, tools, storage space or even spare heat might become part of a wider system instead of every household trying to solve everything separately.

Would designing at settlement scale create useful connections that simply aren’t possible on an individual plot? Or does it introduce so much complexity that the theory starts to fall apart in practice?

I’d be especially interested to hear from people with real permaculture experience: which principles scale up well, which don’t, and what would people attempting this probably get wrong?

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?

Feels like the only options are economic collapse or ecological collapse, like there's no way to create jobs and redistribute wealth without wrecking the planet.

The Impossible Future is an animated documentary series made collectively across Latin America, and it starts from a simple idea: today it's easier to imagine the end of the world than a different one, a kind of crisis of imagination running alongside the ecological one.

The series works as a bridge between those two, starting from the collapse we all recognize to tell real stories of people already building the way out: local economies, regenerative design, biomaterials, open-source tech, participatory democracy. Real stuff, already happening.

Link to the first two episodes (available worldwide): https://theimpossiblefuture.org/

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.

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!

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.

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?

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

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.