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Diagnosing Abiotic Disorders II
Diagnosing Abiotic Disorders II In this blog I continue to examine maladies caused by environmental conditions in the absence of a disease agent or insect. Salt affected plants show damage to older leaves starting from the edge of the leaf and moving inward. Salinity Salt in soils or water is simply the presence of too […]
Five of Our Favourite Plants to Attract Beneficial Insects
Five of Our Favourite Plants to Attract Beneficial Insects All organisms are beneficial, and at the very least all organisms past, present and future decompose to nourish something else, but when we speak of beneficial organisms we are speaking of those organisms that provide clear and present benefits, specifically to our polyculture activity. Beneficial organisms, […]
A Homemade Vegan Version of Natural & Organic Fertilizer
A HOMEMADE VEGAN VERSION OF NATURAL & ORGANIC FERTILIZER Last year I worked a couple of gardens with a friend/boss, Buck, who has been cultivating these spaces for decades. Though some of his techniques don’t jive with my permaculture sensibilities, such as tilling every year and walking in garden beds, on many things we were […]
The Polyculture Market Garden Study–Results From Year 4–2018
THE POLYCULTURE MARKET GARDEN STUDY – RESULTS FROM YEAR 4 – 2018 HERE ARE THE RESULTS FROM THE FOURTH YEAR OF OUR MARKET GARDEN POLYCULTURE STUDY. THIS STUDY LOOKS AT THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN GROWING ANNUAL VEGETABLES AND HERBS IN POLYCULTURES VS GROWING THEM IN TRADITIONAL BLOCKS. In this post you will find an overview of […]
How to Make Your Garden Have Less Weeds?
HOW TO MAKE YOUR GARDEN HAVE LESS WEEDS? In crop gardens, we sometimes get into a spatial race with weeds, and the solution is to replace the weeds with “designed weeds” to take up the space. This can be done with green manure mulches to fertilize the gardens and supply quality mulch. This is an […]
Growing Grains at the Home-Scale Farm
GROWING GRAINS AT THE HOME-SCALE FARM I dream of growing grains, of being so far down the line in establishing a kitchen garden, a vegetable garden, a food forest, that time can be allocated to developing a system for handling the cereal part of the food supply. Well, let me put that differently: I aspire […]
Build More Gardens, Phase out Cars
Build More Gardens, Phase out Cars Because plants convert CO2 (a greenhouse gas) into oxygen, gardens combat global warming. Right? Isn’t this, as Sherlock Holmes would say, elementary? So why then is the mayor of a major coastal city, one whose very existence is threatened by global warming, intent on destroying community gardens? Could it […]
5 HA Polyculture Farm Design–Suhi Dol Revisited
5 HA POLYCULTURE FARM DESIGN – SUHI DOL REVISITED Paul Alfrey from Balkan Ecology Project shares with us his observations and thoughts in regards to a visit he made to a farm he designed and how it slowly developed into a polyculture of fruit trees, aquaculture and vegetable gardens. Last week Dylan and I set off […]
The Rhizosphere
THE RHIZOSPHERE The rhizosphere is the word used to describe the area of soil surrounding plant roots. It is the most biologically active layer of the soil; populated with micro organisms interacting and benefiting from chemicals released by plant roots (1,2,7). There are more micro organisms present in a teaspoon of soil than there are […]
Basil: What Every Permaculturalist Should Know
BASIL: WHAT EVERY PERMACULTURALIST SHOULD KNOW In a design system in which we are looking for each element to perform multiple functions, there are few plants that can show off quite the way basil does. As a rule of thumb, things are expected to warrant their placement within our designs with at least two useful […]
Learning More on How to Think About Soil
LEARNING MORE ON HOW TO THINK ABOUT SOIL I don’t know why it is, but I’ve taken to waking up at about five every morning. I kiss my wife Emma on the head, creep downstairs from the loft of our apartment and spend the next hour or more watching Geoff Lawton videos from the PDC course. She […]
Perennial Polycultures-The Biomass Belt: Fertility Without Manure
PERENNIAL POLYCULTURES – THE BIOMASS BELT: FERTILITY WITHOUT MANURE We’re extending the Polyculture Project to include experimental perennial polycultures on various plots of our newly acquired land. Our aim is to develop models that are low cost to establish and maintain, can produce healthy affordable nutritious food and will enhance biodiversity. We’ve been looking into fencing our […]
Perennial Vegetables and the Other Reasons You Should Consider Them For Your Garden
PERENNIAL VEGETABLES AND THE OTHER REASONS YOU SHOULD CONSIDER THEM FOR YOUR GARDEN Luckily for me, my mother was the sort who insisted that I taste something before deciding I didn’t like it. The habit has served me well in later life. As a traveler, I’ve been able to shift my palate from one country’s […]
As Climate Warms, How Do We Decide When a Plant is Native?
As Climate Warms, How Do We Decide When a Plant is Native? The fate of a tree planted at poet Emily Dickinson’s home raises questions about whether gardeners can — or should — play a role in helping plant species migrate in the face of rising temperatures and swiftly changing botanical zones. On rare occasions, the […]
Nature Did It First (and Best).
NATURE DID IT FIRST (AND BEST). Aquaponics are a very interesting development in the world of permaculture and offer some great benefits and advantages. Let’s take a look at hydroponics and aquaponics to see what they offer, and how aquaponics functions in comparison to hydroponics. Hydroponics – the ingenious and highly optimized system of growing […]
