guildfordcycads

I have struggled with spider mites outside on and off Anything I can plant to deter them? Or another responsible way to pre treat so I don’t have to deal with them. I hate losing crops.
We water with a drip system on a timer, I plant to encourage good bugs and plants to draw bad bugs away from crops.

Hi, I live in a Mediterranean climate and I am deciding which property to buy.

Our idea is to have enough to produce for ourselves in terms of legumes, fruits, vegetables, eggs, maybe some occasional milk, olive oil, and maybe some grain between trees.

I’d like to have some extra to sell as raw products or also by cooking them to people who comes visit us that would like to try some products.

I was looking for some answers by who has experience about it.

Would that enough land to produce enough food and have that much surplus considering we are two and maybe 3 or 4 in 10 years.

Thank you!

Looking for a block to implement a design on.

Having Navigated expensive prices, climate preferences, and no more than 2.5hrs from current residence, we’ve narrowed our criteria quite significantly.

This block has come up that fits our budget and ticks a lot of boxes. Perfectly northerly aspect slope with sun exposure in this cool temperate climate all year round. Nice mid slope location to build a house. Good to catch water through Swale and dam construction.

Only issue.

The soil is quite rocky with large large bits of quartz present. Im worried that this is going to be a major hindrance for implementing designs. Even for planting trees, and excavations for house pad.

Theres a granite shelf a few meters below the soil, so im questioning the quality of soil. Currently used only for sheep grazing, and even then, the grass has reportedly been quite slow to growing. The water just runs off too easily. Not much storage at all beside the two dams on the block which even they are quite low.

Whats the general advise using permaculture principles when it comes to navigating rocky soils on a site? A site ripe for improving, or one to turn and run away from?

Anywhere in bill mollisons designers manual where it gets into this?

The soil around my house is pretty clay-y, when I bought this house I had dreams of doing no-till or something similar but is my only real hope to get nice soil to till organic matter in really deep to break it up? If so would topsoil or compost technically be better for doing so?

Good morning everyone. like many people I have a dream of starting a permaculture oriented Homestead in the next 2 to 3 years. I would love to start doing some casual research.

I’m looking for a YouTube channel that provides a step-by-step accounting of someone’s journey building their own permaculture farm/homestead. “Today we build the pig pen, here’s how and why” kind of episodes.

Ideally nothing that focuses on Instagram worthy pictures, Trad Wife content, or bunker building.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Hi, this is my first post in this sub.

We have been working with a small plot of land (0.3 Acre), to grow a range of fruit trees, and veggies. The soil in the plot is red gravel as seen in the pictures, but it’s not natural here. The gravel is dumped here 10 years back to raise the height of the plot where it is used for parking hay, tractors. So, 3 feet below the gravel layer there is a black cotton soil.

When we tried to plant trees in this space it was so hard to dig. Sometimes the crow bar used to bend. But somehow after a month of effort we were able to plant some saplings.

What we are doing: – As the gravel is so hard, we are allowing the grass as seen in pic3 to grow. – Trimming the grass using brush cutter. – Using coconuts as much near the new saplings. – Planted few fruit trees(Banana, mango, Citrus), we got first yield from Bananas.

We need suggestions for : – So when we are allowing grass to grow it’s attracting a lot of climbers, which are hard to remove. So what are alternatives?

• We don’t have mulch materials as they are being used by local industries for boilers, so we need alternative mulch materials!

Alternative thoughts: – We thought of removing the gravel layer, but it’s very expensive and hard to get permits.

• Thinking to have a small layer of soil in future when we get permits (Not sure).

Location – Sub-tropical India with an annual rainfall of 1100 mm. Irrigation : ground water with micro irrigation during dry months.

Notes : I welcome everyone to provide suggestions or any other insights as it might be helping in learning.