Old thread (v1):
https://leftypol.org/hobby/res/7136.htmlThe practice and principles of Permaculture are one of the most important tools for not only creating a sustainable socialism, but also for repairing the damage done to the global ecosystem by capitalism, and lessening your individual reliance on the current capitalist system.Permacultural practice and socialism are two very powerful allies, and learning about permaculture should be necessity for modern socialists and communists.
>>36617Remember you can plant some stuff in the fall too. Garlic for example
>>36635>have u considered permacultureof course. Most of the yard is wild with the 2nd biggest share being my perennials and only a small part (where I actually get decent sun) is for annuals, and even there I do a lot thats inspired by permaculture. I could go on all day about that- no till mulched hugelculture inspired raised beds properly orientated to the sun with swales as paths, a rain water harvesting collection system, no artificial fertilizers, no herbicides/pesticides- yada yada yada
>are u growing treesthe property on all sides is practically shaded out by trees so Im just putting in understory trees and shade tolerant bushes and ground cover, but yes there are two trees that I cant bring myself to remove despite stealing what little sun I have left (Im sure they have other benefits anyway) and Im also planting native trees on the northern end of the property.
I would like to get some plants in pots though, some of the best sun I have is in places where I unfortunately can't have a garden, and I would love some more indoor plants as well. I have the token ones but nothing special. They really lighten a room especially in a cold climate like mine
>>37643Adding Jerusalem Artichokes to the rotation. In spite of the name they are neither form Jerusalem nor are they an artichoke. Rather it's a sunflower(?) that produces a delicious tuber and it's native to north America so hopefully it'll be easy to grow. Not sure if I like the taste of either this or the artichokes it supposedly resembles in taste but we'll see.
otherwise wondering if I should drop garlic in favour of more tomatoes and potatoes. I love garlic but it's so cheap where I am I dont think it's worth growing.
>>37673Garlic is one of the best companion plants. It is good at repelling pests, small enough to easily fit, and easy to propagate. It's particularly good to plant alongside tomatoes since it goes will with them in sauces, grows lower than tomatoes, repels common tomato pests, and can enhance the flavor of the tomatoes. Tomatoes will absorb some of the chemicals of the garlic if they're planted together.
Other plants that go well with tomatoes
https://www.thespruce.com/companion-plants-for-tomatoes-1403289 >>37673>Jerusalem Artichokes From my experience, they are really easy to grow. They are nice in a soup, maybe with a few potatoes and a bit of leek and then blend it all up with some cream. You can roast them in the oven as well.
But they spread very easily, and they'll keep coming back year after year unless you manage to dig up every last bit of the plant. Which can be a bit of a pain in the ass if you need the space for something else.
>>35884True, but the wonderful thing about coppicing (and pollarding, but it's more limited) is that you can get so much usable timber out of a coppice. Everything from faggots (I mean bundles of sticks) to fence posts, if you're willing to wait long enough and have the right species. People even used to make houses out of wood derived from Coppices.
It's entirely sustainable too, and creates habitats mimicing Old-Growth or Ancient woodland. You can also have a Coppice with Standards, which is where you leave some trees uncoppiced (standard) and harvest them as and when. You could have these be big hardwoods or fruit trees, if you want to get some agroforestry going.
>>40545If they allowed cash crops to influence this it would quickly corrupt the project and miss the point entirely. The cash crops would outcompete the alternatives since the people planting those would be able to reinvest the cash back into the project and grow the amount they were planting. Over time they would come to dominate and the ethos would shift towards typical cash crop production, which is to say maximally exploiting the land and failing at regenerative agriculture. Although this kind of project has a major defense against that dynamic: it's by nature using the least desirable land. Anybody trying to make money on cash crops would rather invest in growing somewhere more ideal. It might become a problem as the project continues if it successfully holds or pushes back the desertification.
>>40546IDK how viable coppiced wood would be for construction in the present day, at least for housing. It certainly has a lot of uses however, and would serve as a very useful component of a permaculture project, since the coppiced wood could be used for things like fences, trellises, retaining walls, hugelkultur, etc while being biodegradable.
>>40530>Spring is upon usstill about a meter of snow where I live
>What will you plant?taters, sugar snaps, carrots, salad at the very least. none of the multi-year plants I planted took root. will try to pre-plant some raspberry and whatnot. I will also continue my hemp experiments
a friend of mine is interested in helping out this season. I told him he can plant however much he wants, I'm at no risk of running out of land that can be farmed with the tools I have
>>40617I hadn't though of that, but I suppose you're right.
I volunteered with my local wildlife trust about 10 years ago to help coppice a patch of woodland near me. I've been back once or twice since then, but not recently. I might go there on Saturday to see if I can find the old patch. I'll take some pictures share them here
>>40614That's the problem! If you want to coppice it, you'll want to let it grow back up before cutting it again. At the moment the herbivores are essentially keeping it as a grove or field, so if you want any kind of taller vegetation you'll have to fence it off somehow.
Having said all that, I'm not sure what type of habitats Roe and Moose prefer to live in. Roe definitely hide in woodland during the day, and I see them feeding in fields too, but do they prefer high forest, or immature woodland with a low canopy, like you'd find in a coppice after a few years of growth?
>>40624>so if you want any kind of taller vegetation you'll have to fence it off somehowanon the entire point is to feed said herbivores. me and the neighbor have dubbed it "the buffet". I want them to become regulars, because my hunting stand is right next to it
>Having said all that, I'm not sure what type of habitats Roe and Moose prefer to live in. Roe definitely hide in woodland during the day, and I see them feeding in fields too, but do they prefer high forest, or immature woodland with a low canopy, like you'd find in a coppice after a few years of growth?they prefer border areas and young forests with saplings that are easy to graze (to the chagrin of forest companies). old forests don't provide much besides bark, which only red deer tend to eat, and we don't have any red deer where I live
>>40639Just that these things can take a while, and there's lots of talk about how about how we're hemorrhaging users. It'll probably be here for years to come, though.
I look forward to hearing about your endeavours!
>>41156naisu. I've finally had luck with compost for the first time and I think the difference was not using the black plastic container and instead just piling it up on the ground. I'm guessing the container in full sun got too hot and dried things out whereas the pile is in the shade most of the time. The container also made it pretty much impossible to flip/mix it up occasionally but that alone shouldn't have prevented it from breaking down but rather would just slow things down (hot vs cold compost). Still didn't make enough to replace imports but it's nice to get some use out of grass clippings and kitchen scraps.
Speaking of compost the county gave everyone a green bin for free and collects organics biweekly. On the one hand it's nice for those people that don't garden but it goes to show how valuable your biomass is and Ill be damned if Im going to give it away just to have the city sell it back to me. That bin will be collecting dust in the garage
Today I can finally contribute to this thread in more ways than just treating it like a generic gardening blog as this weekend I'll be making liquid fertilizer out of materials sourced entirely from my property which I think fits the permaculture theme. I'll say in advance that I'm still an utter novice so don't take this poor man's effort post too seriously and I'll happily be corrected on anything but for the sake of reviving this somewhat dead thread for the new season, here's the post:
It was in the previous thread way back in 2022 that I told yall that I purchased Bocking 14 Comfrey root cuttings and they are just now finally producing enough foliage that I feel comfortable harvesting it, for as the saying goes, first year plants sleep, second year they creep, third year they leap.
Comfrey is a neat plant as it's a "dynamic accumulator". There seems to be some debate as to whether this is even a thing–wiki claims there's zero scientific evidence to support it–but its such an accepted notion at least in the popular permaculture sphere that I'm running with it. The claim is that these plant put down deep tap-roots that pull minerals and nutrients up from the sub soil, where it's useless for a lot of other plants, and stores it in its leaves. By either waiting for the plant to die back in the fall or manually harvesting said leaves, these resources can be returned back to the topsoil for more shallow rooted plants to enjoy. Allegedly. This combined with the plants vigorous growing habits, allowing it to be harvested multiple times per season, means it's an extremely handy plant to have in the garden. It's potential uses are many, from companion planting to a source of nutritious biomass for mulch, composting or making liquid fertilizer. It's deep and thick tap-root loosens up the soil removing the need to commit the extremely destructive task of tilling the earth, at least in it's immediate vicinity, and it's flowers are an excellent source of pollen and nectar for our pollinator friends. Additionally, this particular cultivar of comfrey is sterile as I want to at least minimize the potential of introducing non-natives to the wider area. It can only spread through root cuttings.
Speaking of the plants propensity to grow, it's currently still too early to do much and the trees are only just putting out their leaves yet the comfrey is in some cases several feet tall. Without having any experience with harvesting it to inform my speculation, judging by it's rate of growth so early in the season I suspect I'll get four or five cuttings out of each plant this year. Most of this will simply be used as chop and drop mulch for the garden but for this first batch, as previously mentioned, I'll be making liquid fertilizer.
So the plan, as derived from online guides, is to put half a dozen kilograms or so of this comfrey, coarsely chopped and left to wilt for a day, into some kind of permeable bag (don't have a plan for this yet but I've read even an old pillow case will do) to be placed into a 100L barrel of the rainwater I collect before letting it marinate for 2-4 weeks. After decomposing the resulting liquid, which I've read is extremely stinky so I'll be sure to place the barrel far away from the house, can be applied straight onto the garden and is capable of feeding even the most nutrient hungry plants such as tomatoes. One can also make a concentrate that can be diluted 1:100 by filling the aforementioned 100L barrel completely with comfrey and water but alas I don't have enough of the former to do so just yet. I'm hoping this will help to fill the void my inability to create sufficient amounts of compost and my unwillingness to use synthetic fertilizers has created.
In other news, the other stereotypical permaculture plant that I've got, the Egyptian walking onion, is one of the other few plants that is not only awake by thriving, having taken over an entire 4x8 raised without much intervention by myself. I mean I was tossing a lot of the bulbils that form at the tops of the plants into the bed as I harvested the bulbs and greens last year but I was expecting them to take that year and had more or less forgotten about them when they didn't, so to see so many germinate after the winter is encouraging. I'll probably experiment with companion planting tomatoes in the same bed as I started way too many indoors this year.
Finally the rain water harvesting project involving 2 IBC totes continues to amaze me. You really don't need much surface area or rain to fill those bad boys up. I've taken to draining them at the highest point of the yard just because I know it won't be long before they're full again, at least during the spring
finally started re-tilling the same field as last year
>>34175 using the rotary cultivator
I'm trying something new this year - tilling strips with grass between them. the idea is to run the ride mower inbetween, throwing grass clippings as cover and extra fertilization as it breaks down
due to time constraints I only got to making about 3 meters of a grow bed. the soil is definitely more "clay-y" compared to last year's clumpiness, probably from having been broken up yet more. this is promising. the more I till the less weeds and grass that can take root
sharp eyes will notice actual plants in the third picture. I pre-cultivated for 2½ weeks in my apartment this year, rather than sowing right in the ground. hopefully this gives my crops a better chance. I have more pre-cultivated plants to plant but I didn't have time
planted so far:
>squash>spinach>bell peppers>plum tomatoes>iceberg lettuce>three of last year's carrots that emerged when tillingvisible in the first pic is another experiment: I'm covering the ground with tarps and stuff to try and smother weeds in preparation for tilling next year
forming the bed from wet muddy soil definitely felt like vidrel
>dennis! there's some lovely filth down here!>>42247>You can drop cardboard on the grass to kill it without tilling thoughI tilled it last year so it should be sufficiently loose to till it this year too. as I mentioned the soil is improving in looseness thanks to tilling
>erosionit's not a very large area though. but maybe I can make another experimental patch somewhere. I have over 4 hectares to play with
>leaving the area as a pathnah there's plenty of space to walk around
also I need a mulch collector I guess. after I fix the mower. the ignition is off ever since I replaced the generator stator. I even adjusted the magneto's airgap. no dice >_<
update: I planted some taters, beans and carrots. also tilled away the strip of grass visible in
>>42244 . forgot to take pictures. what I planted before seems to be surviving, but there were some yellow leaves. gave everything a good soak with the hose since there hasn't been much rain
there weren't any seed potatoes anywhere in town, so I had to resort to potatoes from the store. I've split them up into two groups: one that went straight in the ground and a second that I will sprout indoors before planting
oh and I bought a new machine key for the mower. turns out the old key had sheared which is why the ignition was off. unfortunately the new key was of the wrong size, so the motor backfired and the new key also sheared. ordering some new ones and will shim them in place if they don't fit perfectly
Figs are almost ripe. I wish tastier fruit grew in my area.
>>34648Not to discourage you from gardening, but I find a lot of the discourse around permaculture is utopian nonsense. North Korea is a good case study on an actual de-mechanization of agriculture. It's doable, but not quickly, and ties up more labor in food production.
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