guildfordcycads

This might be unpopular, but a lot of permaculture advice seems to reject efficiency on principle. Stuff like avoiding simple irrigation setups, refusing annuals, or acting like yields don’t matter as long as the system is “natural.” Meanwhile, people still want food, not just a nice ecosystem vibe.

I get designing for resilience and low inputs. That part makes sense. What I don’t get is why practical shortcuts are treated like cheating.

Is the inefficiency the point, or is this just a culture thing that grew around permaculture over time? Genuinely curious how others square permaculture ideals with actually producing food reliably

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’m working on a long-term habitat project and spent the last weeks experimenting with different materials and shapes. Before committing to building 500 boxes, I wanted to understand what actually works for cavity-nesting birds (insulation, moisture management, predator protection, durability).

These are my first seven prototypes. I’ve been talking to ecologists and local conservation groups, and I’m slowly converging on a design made from hollowed logs with a removable wood-concrete lid. One of my goals is to use as much reclaimed material as possible – tree-pruning offcuts, leftover wood-concrete panels, scrap pieces, and maybe even recycled PES sailing rope (still figuring out whether rope or wire is the better choice).

If anyone here has built bird boxes for conservation projects, I’d love to hear your experiences. What has worked well for you and what would you avoid?

(Added the self-promotion flair since I’m documenting the whole project on YouTube – just for transparency.)

Hello earth friends! I have recently learned of the incredible Honey Locust cultivar ‘Millwood’ (Gleditsia triacanthos var. ‘Millwood’) and am desperate to try and grow some here on my property. Unfortunately 🙁 I cannot find a single retailer here in Australia for that specific cultivar. So I’m putting it out into the interweb in hopes that some beautiful individual might have one growing that could be so kind as to send me seeds (if they’ve had luck with the cultivar being passed on through seed before), a living root sucker, grafted specimen, or a root cutting. In exchange I’d be eternally grateful and be more than happy to pay for postage and some extra money for the effort, or maybe a seed exchange if you prefer. Thank you so much 🙂