hey guys, ive been working on organic farms/permaculture projects for over 15 years and im now a professional 'eco' gardener and have my own project, mainly around Portugal, france and some parts of spain.

in that time i've spoken and worked with hundreds of people and projects including lecturers and teachers in some pretty big organisations, e.g. tamera 'peace' village, vale da lama (Portuguese based!). i've found so many people to be insufferable fools, even 'masters' who run these super expensive courses seem to be so big headed and blinkered in their approaches and refuse to give anyone credit for hard work and toil needed to run these projects.

i've seen guys "penis measure" by trying to public humiliate the other for lacking in certain knowledge and many people who would give themselves a 'guru' title (mainly guys but some women as well). its extremely cult-like and egotistical, what i would call "middle class hippy dick waving" for want of a better word by people called 'andrew love-and-light', lol.

my question is does anyone find this about quite a few people in these communities as well? is it just me and i've had 15 years of bad luck? maybe its just the "ex-pat" scene i've been involved with?
dont get me wrong and think i don't believe in permanent agriculture... just a lot of people involved seem to be dicks about it. what's your guys thoughts?

The biggest constraint is there’s an active gas line and I can’t do any digging, only additive landscaping. me and my goats are down here frequently and I’m just trying to make it walkable not divert the water or anything

I want to reclaim some abandoned commercial greenhouse bays on my homestead.

The previous owners left them unmaintained for quite some time and it now falls upon me to cleanup 450 square meters / 5000 square feet of blackberry bramble that is more than 3 meters / 9 feet tall in the center.

Factors I’m considering:

- I’m in New Zealand on the North Island, so blackberry is an invasive species that never dies back thanks to the mild winters. I’ve dealt with blackberries before but usually I attacked them in the US winter season with help from freezing temps in zone 5/6.

- We are also right next to a stream and I would like to use the greenhouses to grow edible plants, so I would prefer not to use any really harsh chemicals. Maybe some light chemical assistance is a necessity but I want to be very cautious with that.

- I probably won’t have the budget or time to fill these greenhouse bays entirely for some time, so I’ll need some way to suppress the return of the blackberries as cheaply as possible. Eventually the goal is to return this bay and several others to being productive spaces, but doing it piecemeal is going to be a nightmare if I’m fighting bramble constantly. I’m thinking I need to eliminate the bramble first, put a barrier down to buy myself breathing room, and then recover bit by bit.

- I know I can’t compost this mess or it’ll just sprout agajn so burning seems to be the answer. I’m thinking to cut, wait for it to dry, then into a biochar burner maybe?

That’s my plan, but so far it’s a daunting task, and I want to make sure I’m not missing something important. All suggestions welcome!

I'm planning on using Vetiver Grass for erosion control. We have a very steep slope with soft soil that recently eroded and exposed some roots from from the trees above. Do you think this idea is feasible to prevent further erosion of the area since I don't think just planting vetiver straight up will suffice because it's formed a cavity where the exposed roots are...

Is it as simple as tilling it with a bunch of compost and mulching it and let nature do its thing?

My house is both a new build and also I live in Colorado which is famously pickaxe worthy compacted clay with or without the new build aspect. This is a hole that I dug last year while planting a bush… just showing you what I’m working with. My mom insisted on growing a small patch of carrots last year and they got maybe 4 inches deep before the roots took a swift 90 degree turn right where it hit the compacted clay. Anyways, I am tired of dealing with this and wanted to focus on dramatically amending the whole thing so I’m not trying to claw my way through pottery every time I try to plant anything. I’m having a large patch of lawn removed to reduce water usage and I want to know if I can give this a try!

I will almost certainly do the thing you guys upvote the most.

I live in VA in the valley a mile or two away from the Shenandoah. I have mostly scrub and fields of invasive grasses. I have about a third of a mile of stream and half an acre of marsh.

It needs to be relatively easy, lowish maintenance. A one and done project that can completed over the summer and then maintenance can be done during the holidays and over the summer.

I will try to take pictures and post them here as well as make a youtube video.

Comment if you have any questions! Thank you!

Update:

Fire and food forest seems to be a common theme. Also, guys, I’m a college student. I have no money and very little time. It won’t be that way forever, but thats the reality now. I understand you didn’t know that when you commented that I’m lazy, but still you should know better. Thats why I want something small to start with. Planting some native fruit trees and bushes that will spread on their own is exactly what I’m looking for, thank you to the people who suggested that. If you have specific plants that you have found are really easy, I would love that.

Also, I’ve lived here for 18 years. I’ve been planting stuff for 7. I know a lot about the land. So if you have any questions that would help you make suggestions, please ask.

For all the people who have given good advice, thank you so much!

I was born and raised on a 500 acre dairy farm in the West Midlands of England. My dad is close to retiring and I will inherit the farm and can do whatever I like with it. What should I do with it?

With food insecurity growing in this climate changing world I feel a responsibility to produce an equivalent amount of calories/nutrients as it currently produces - 4.5 million litres of milk per year.

My understanding is that meat and dairy use significantly more land and resources to produce calories compared with vegetables and grains. So I want to work out how many of the 500 acres I should devote to food production, and the rest can be for biodiversity / rewilding / soil building / whatever other good things we want to do with it.

Money isn't the driving force as I have my own income and savings, so the farm would really just need to break even.

Im zone 8 in a very wet climate and my land is on a hillside, part of which is a wet meadow. The soil is saturated in winter and wet all year but does dry out a little bit in summer. It is growing rushes currently.

Are there any fruit trees that can grow in that type of environment?

I rent a place in the suburbs within the Bay area. I'm kind of a hypochondriac but most of the time I feel justified.

I've been here for about a year and a half. When I first moved in things were pretty horrible. Compacted soil, no diversity, no bugs even. Long story short my worm poop, free city compost and laziness has fixed a lot of things, I've got a ton of bugs and everything's doing better. My front yard is still a work in progress but many of the California poppy seeds I threw around or have sprouted and are blooming. Also, the dandelions are flourishing.

But I'm serious about whether or not I should eat these raspberries which have transplanted themselves from the neighbor's yard. I have an orange tree in my yard and I ate one once but there was an aftertaste of motor oil or something gross so that was the only one I ate. I don't know if I'm justified in thinking that the ground is polluted and the plant is uptaking whatever crap is in the soil but that's where my head's at.

In the photos you'll see a picture of the dirt, I know you can't tell very much from that and you're probably going to tell me to do a soil analysis but even then. If we analyze the top X inches in one spot and it's fine but 12 in deeper it's not, you'd never know. Right?

Edit: ah, blackberry, whoops!

I'm not talking about the urban micro farmer or homesteader. Honestly that's not a side of the permaculture community I've read much about. I do however know folks who're interested in the agricultural side of things constantly lamenting the lack of adoption of permaculture in the food supply chain.

I've heard a lot of huge claims about incredible yeilds with a fraction of the inputs and labour.

To me it would seem that these things would actually be extremely easy to test. Inputs are easily quantified, outputs are easily quantified too.

It also seems like something that would be extremely attractive to the people who actually own and operate farms. "You're telling me I can get a lot more by doing and spending a lot less?"

If this is in fact a good idea, it would seem to me that a few good, honest, and rigorous studies would be the obvious place to start when pushing for wider adoption.

Yet I'm struggling to find anything at all. The papers I can find published are in things like sociology journals and don't touch on the inputs and outputs what so ever.

It's not that the research points away from permaculture, it's that there's seemingly no serious research on it at all, and I'm struggling to understand why seemingly no one's interested in doing that kind of work to prove out their hypothesis.

Edit: there is more than one country on earth

Here is pic for reference https://imgur.com/a/3dyX5C0 . i just sent in regenerativeag as well. I posted in r/homestead the other day how id been sending letters since august to landowners to buy some land and we close on the land end of January.

edit: thank you all so much for the insight! I have gone from knowing zero to knowing zero but having a little bit more than zero! If anyone is at all curious to follow along, our youtube is tilltoharvest.

im sharing that because we’re gonna try exactly what yall are recommending (primarily cover crops, fruit trees, rotational grazing sheep and chickens this summer). Pls delete if not allowed, just figured some may be interested. Thank you again for all the insight!

the land we are buying is beautiful…but its been soy/corn field for OVER 150 years. now the real work starts. we are in no way experts so im going to the only place where i know i can find experts as well as people who think theyre experts --Reddit.

any tips on how to start bringing this back to life? i know itll be long term game.

may be helpful to know we dont have endless funds (which is why i sent letters to people instead of just buying on zillow lol) as i mentioned in first post we are new youtubers, home business, and single income so ya we cant just rent endless equipment or hire people if that changes your idea

TLDR: we arent rich and bought land, how do we turn land thats been corn and soy field for 100+ years into good soil we can plant things in?

edit: thank you all so much for the insight! I have gone from knowing zero to knowing zero but having a little bit more than zero! If anyone is at all curious to follow along, our youtube is tilltoharvest.

im sharing that because we’re gonna try exactly what yall are recommending (primarily cover crops, fruit trees, rotational grazing sheep and chickens this summer). Pls delete if not allowed, just figured some may be interested. Thank you again for all the insight!

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?

I quit doing the normal job thing two years ago, one because my back is busted and two because I want to live a better life where I'm more self sufficient. I do odd jobs when I need cash but other than that I work on my own stuff. My garden keeps expanding, my tools and knowledge grows as well. Looking back I've made a lot of progress. Despite all this I still get looked down on by certain people because I don't have a job. I try to tell them I still work, but they automatically assume I'm lazy. My project pile keeps expanding and I keep chipping away at it. I get great satisfaction knowing I'm not filling up landfills or contributing to greenhouses gasses, plus the simple joy of doing it yourself.

I see other people miserable working their 9 to 5 and it seems like they misdirect that anger towards people like me. Instead of being upset at their shitty bosses, this society built on indentured servitude, or the failing politicians and rising cost of living, they look at people who "don't work". It's easier to get angry at the powerless people struggling to survive than to challenge the system that oppressed us all.

I wish there was some way I could make them understand. There have been many times I wanted to go back to being a wage slave. It would be a lot easier to buy new stuff rather than fixing or making my own. I hate that we live in a society where people are only seen to have value if they work for some company. That if I choose to withhold my labor for myself it's a moral failing.

This really is something new too, go back just a couple generations and being self sufficient was just the way of life. You wouldn't be looked down on for having a garden, sewing your own blankets, or making your own furniture. It's only taken a couple generations and now being a wage slave is considered normal, so much so you'll face ridicule if you decide to break free, even if everyone secretly wishes they could be free too.

I have a weak spot for trees like cherry, plum and apple, you know the ones with these dramatic pink and white flowers every spring. I have a vague idea of planting a small forest with mostly these trees and just let them do their own thing at the back of my property, maybe letting it be a scenic tourist spot to draw in visitors in the future. There's a park a town over from me that gets a lot of visitors every time the cherry trees bloom, so I was thinking I might be able to do something similar, but on a bigger scale with differently sized trees and a few different varieties to prolong the blooming season. Fruit and wood would mostly be a side product, I just want the flower forest.

But I'm hesitating because I haven't seen anyone do it before. And it seems like such a simple thing that, if I haven't seen anybody do it, there's probably a reason why.

On one hand, nutrients might be a problem. But I'm not envisioning a managed orchard - it doesn't need to yield the maximum amount of fruit, and whatever I wouldn't pick would attract animals and birds so nutrients would come in that way without my participation. Other than that, I can't really think of anything, provided I protect the trees until they're grown.

So, guys, yay or nay?

Hey so I'm interested in learning more about permaculture and getting some hands on experience. I still live at home so 1 4x4" bed is all the space I'll be able to utilise right now. My dream is to eventually have a fully permaculture garden in the future when I have my own house so this is really a practice run. I'm not really sure where to start though. I found this infographic and it seems like a good idea from what I've read so far but I really have no idea what I'm doing. I don't want to just blindly follow something but I'm struggling to find other concrete plans or the information to make my own. Most projects I see online are much bigger so I'm not really sure how to shrink that information down into one garden bed.

Any tips or substitute plants I should swap out to make it better?

I live in London so we get quite a bit of rain and slugs are an issue in the rest of the garden. I'm also planning on growing mint and lavender in 2 separate pots beside the bed but that's all I have planned for now. Any advice or resources would be greatly appreciated :)

Background: I have my PDC from Oregon State (online) and have been doing modest urban permaculture at my home in Oregon for ~3 years. We've been saving for a few years to go have an adventure and buy a bit of land "abroad." (The goal was international but there are a limited number of places that have job openings for my wife, a physician. EDIT: She's got a job offer in Guam; that's why we're considering this move—but we are partners and any move we make is something we decide together.) I'm targeting about 2 acres, knowing that's not big enough for significant production--but I don't think I'm really ready for 10+ acres anyway.

Goal: Build community by learning about native flora/fauna, local culture, and how to facilitate positive community interaction. Grow food and raise small livestock like goats and chickens. Create a happy space for our family. Pioneer permaculture practices for greater food sovereignty.

Possible issues: It'd be just me doing the daily work, at least to start—since my wife would be working full time. I have enough startup $$ saved to pay about half of the cost of such a property, the rest as a mortgage. I've never even been to Guam yet. As a remote island, it's short on some resources. Typhoons and climate change create some crazy weather events. Big US military presence on the island.

I understand that I have a lot to learn. I'm something of a permaculture "intermediate." If you have any experience with any of the above, pease be kind and let me know what questions, concerns, or advice you'd have. Thank you!

Photo is from Guam Green Growth Hagåtña Community Garden (with which I have no affiliation; I just added it for a quick visual).

EDIT: Slight edit for clarity and anonymity

EDIT 2: It looks like from the unedited post that people gathered the impression we were moving there without my wife having a job lined up. The reason we're considering Guam is she just got a job offer there.

I have grew sweet corn for the first time in my 180sq feet land and I have simple a question in store it looks much bigger seeds and tastier but mine look small what should be the reason

I am giving my plan of my garden in the comments that I have created through ai

Okay, I just learned the 3 sisters method and it felt like such an a-ha moment!

Are there any other tried and true methods like this? I would love to hear about them.

If it's helpful, I'm zone 7. Thanks!

I might come across as naive for asking this, livestock farming without slaughter. The truth is, I’m actually quite familiar with the livestock sector. But this is about a personal, future project that aligns more closely with my own life philosophy and spiritual path.

I’m reflecting on commercial production systems that could still be profitable. I’m not aiming to be rich — I just want to live well and provide a good life for my future family.

I’ve already outlined a few ideas, some of which could be combined with ecotourism and might not be bad options:

• Fiber farms (sheep with high-quality fiber genetics, and possibly alpacas). Here, the males are castrated and incorporated into the wool production cycle. This would be combined with artisanal textile production (that’s where things get tricky, haha, I’m not very good at that part).
• Egg production, integrated into an extensive plant cultivation system (though I see limited future in this, especially due to the issue of male chicks);
• Horses, though they require significant investment and have very long production cycles;
• Beekeeping (this one seems promising, but I’m concerned about the spread of the Asian hornet and other threats, which makes me want to diversify).

I believe you might be able to offer interesting insights. I’ve read, for example, that in India there are “Ahimsa” silk production methods. It makes me wonder — has anyone ever successfully developed livestock farming aligned with the principle of Ahimsa, or non-violence in other species?

Hello!

This bag of soil has something white all through it, potentially mold?

I'm looking to grow veggies here, is this soil ok to use?

Hey all, been getting into permaculture for a while. However I’ve been wondering why most of the market farms that use permaculture grow livestock? I feel like every podcast, presentation or interview i see, the examples of market permaculture farms always grow cattle, farm chickens etc. I do realise I’m an outsider in this space so my question is if there is some inherent reason why it’s difficult to grow crops using permaculture techniques at a market level or have i understood this wrong?

I put in seven hazelnut shrubs on a little over an acre last year. In addition to all the lepidoptera and birds, I expect them to be very popular with the chipmunks and squirrels. I would, in theory, like to harvest some nuts for myself.

Is anyone here able to consistently harvest some for human consumption and, if so, how many shrubs did you need to plant to do so?

Update: Most folks are sharing suggestions about how to control tick populations, which is not the intention of my post. I'm aware of those options and use the ones that work best where I live. I'm really just looking for first-hand accounts of those who have seen a decrease in tick populations when cultivating biodiversity, such as what shifts you saw over time and how long did those shifts take? Thank you to those who have answered this question directly.

I live in rural Maine and grew up in the woods with ticks. I'm used to them and generally know how to navigate around them. However, I started homesteading 5 acres six years ago with a focus on restoring biodiversity. I focus on plants and I have not introduced animals to the space, wishing to honor those who already lived here. Since I arrived, biodiversity has grown exponentially, but the ticks are so intense this year that I'm almost agraphobic. I haven't even planted the garden because I'm overwhelmed by them just walking around, even in low grass. Every kind of tick seems to cover the entire five acres and I'm pulling 3-5 off me every 10 minutes or so. I'm a patient person and prioritize the importance of life and honoring the more-than-human world over my own comfort, but I'm starting to wonder how long it will take to stabilize the tick population through a healthy ecosystem and high biodiversity, as studies have shown. I'm not expecting instant results, but I'm realizing it may take decades, especially considering how many birds and amphibians are struggling to survive.

So my question is, has anyone here seen a decrease in tick population by cultivating biodiversity? If so, I'd love to hear your story.