guildfordcycads

Like the title says I’m looking for ideas on what to plant.

My backyard Permaculture garden in the raised bed section where I am growing polycrops and complimentary planting of primarily North American vegetables and greens.

• Making tree cages out of 2×4 fencing and wooden garden stake. Maybe too obvious for a hack, but the rolled fencing was much easier than other things I tried since it already wants to be rolled into a circular shape, so its easy to cut into the appropriate width and zip-tie it to a garden stake. Surprisingly sturdy and reusable.
• Planting ground cover inside the same cage as trees. My strawberries kept getting browsed to death until I put them inside, which lets them act as a living mulch for the trees too!
• Planting fava beans fairly densely around tree cages. The cage doubles as a trellis for the beans. Let them grow out and then thin half of them. The half you kill provide nitrogen to the tree, the other half can be harvested for more seed and for a super high protein food which is not easy to get in a food forest. They also provide some dappled light for more sun-sensitive younger trees, like paw paws.

Any good food forest “hacks” or tips you’ve found?

Long post, any soil nerds care to weigh in?

My soil tests indicated that I have crazily high levels of copper, zinc, phosphorus, and potassium. And unfortunately, I also have lead levels that are well above the normal range. Most recommendations I’ve read say I shouldn’t plant food crops in it.

Replacing the soil isn’t an option as I already have many things planted in the soil, including fruit and nut trees. Interestingly, everything except for a few of my currant bushes looks pretty healthy.

I realize the phytoremediation (removing lead and other heavy metals with plants) is a slow process that takes years, and it’s possible I will never be able to plant edible leafy greens in this soil if I want to harvest and use them. I have a plan to tissue test some herbs and berries grown in the soil to see how much lead is making it into them, then make more decisions after that.

For now, here’s what I’m doing;

• In the contaminated section, I am not doing any chop and drop
• Instead, anything I chop gets isolated and composted away from my garden in a place where I don’t plan to plant at all—and the compost won’t get used anywhere else either
• In the fall, I will make up for the loss of dead material by collecting loads of leaf litter from around the neighborhood, shredding the leaves so they don’t form a dense mat during our rainy winters and prevent oxygen exchange
• I have planted dynamic accumulators like comfrey and clover, which I am regularly picking/chopping and disposing
• I am planting a handful of sunflowers each year and disposing of the stalks, since they’re known superaccumulators that take up lead in the soil
• My annual crops are all in raised beds
• Someone has suggested adding biochar as this has the possible ability to tie up heavy metals in the soil, but I haven’t adequately researched this yet
• In a few more years I plan to retest the soil and see if any progress has been made on decreasing the levels of the elements listed above

Any thoughts? Anything I haven’t considered?

He says he either wants to buy land in Southeast Asia or Costa Rica or Latin America, can he just do this? Can he just buy a house there and live there (for the respected visa days) before leaving, and what if he wants citizenship?

He saw a hunch of videos and says “it’ll help him more then I could ever know”

So I’m just asking if this would even work for him

Rather than doing vegetables this summer, my husband planted our biggest bed with a cover crop: sunflowers and cowpeas. But he’s not sure what to do once they’re complete. We’re mostly no-till, and the reason for the sunflowers was to break up the soil a bit, so it doesn’t make sense to dig everything in. But there’s no way we could put a tarp over it all and let it die–there’s just too much vegetation. Should he try to chop it all up and then cover it? He’s hoping to put in winter rye (I think) for the fall, so we don’t want the bed to be out of commission for too long. Thanks.

I have a six gallon batch of fish hydrolysate nearing completion.

It looks great, but every time I make it I get white mold and what looks like kahm yeast on top. This isn’t an issue using it right away: I filter it before putting in my sprayer, but it still gets the yeast on top in storage, which is unfortunately I want to be able to package this in a way appropriate for storage.

Should I pour it into various glass bottles (mostly kombucha bottles) and do a water-bath canning style pasteurization? I am wondering if that would work, and if it harm the nutritional content of my fish hydrolysate.

Thanks!