guildfordcycads

Will this leech chemicals into the soil when heated by the sun?

They are similar to the wheel covers from a semi truck. I’m too poor to invest in a proper black tarp and got these tire covers for free.

I want to kill off a section of weeds and grass to begin a native Perennial wild flower restoration project in my backyard next year where toxic chemicals were already leeched into the soil by an automechanic who lived here before us and worked directly over the lawn.

So I recently stumbled across the scrap of knowledge that woodchips themselves don’t “tie up” nitrogen in the soil, but rather, that the soil microbes require more of their own nitrogen to break down the extra carbon, and stop sharing nitrogen with the roots of the plants they are symbiotic with. So if you feed extra nitrogen during that time, you will still get healthy plants and a huge, huge benefit in the long run.

How does one practically apply this information to annual garden beds? Especially when building soil from a depleted state? How do I use wood chips, and get a good yield, and build my soil most effectively when starting from square one with depleted soil? I have virtually unlimited compost, wood chips, chicken manure granules, and leaf litter at my disposal.

I started a new Discord server (group/chat/forum) for fruit growers that would make a great companion to this group. It is more of a very well-organized, multi-channel real time group chat than an old-school forum, as I noticed a lot of the existing forums have extremely outdated and slow UIs.

This one’s called The Orchard Underground, and it’s meant to be a clean, well-organized space for backyard growers, orchardists, breeders, homesteaders, foragers, rare fruit collectors, preservationists, and anyone else who’s into growing and tasting fruit.

It has various (and growing) collections for online resources, a giant compendium of nurseries, channels for grafting, propagation, orchard design, trading scionwood, recipes, and much more.

Whether you’re working with a full orchard or a few potted trees on a patio, you’re welcome. We’re just getting started but the goal is to build a proper community and knowledge base, with daily activity and easy access.

If that sounds like your thing, come join!

Press “Join a Server” once your account is made on Discord (app or desktop). The invite code is: WCBxANpR6F
Just paste that where it says “invite link” 🙂 Or you can join with this direct invite link! https://discord.gg/WCBxANpR6F

There is a guide to Discord within the server for new users, as I know a lot of people may not be as tech-savvy.

Other than keeping a fruit tree “small” by reducing vigor, what are the benefits of grafting fruit trees to a foreign root stock?

I personally would rather have a vigorous tree and control the growth with strategic and aggressive pruning. Also, I just recently found out that grafted fruit trees (semi dwarf and dwarf) have a shorter lifespan than their standard counterparts. I’m in this for the long haul and definitely don’t want to be ripping up trees every 15-18 years. I don’t understand why decreasing vigor would ever be considered a good thing as it inevitably shortens the trees lifespan.

I’m asking this question for future reference. I plan to air layer some of my grafted fruit trees this year, potting soon after, and then direct planting in the fall; no grafting to a root stock though.

It just makes sense to me that tree growing on its on roots will do better over the long run. Those with lots of experience, what am I missing?

We have an area of raspberry canes in our small-ish city permaculture garden. They’ve been there for years, long before I took over, and by the looks of it so have the weeds. I typically have a laissez-faire approach to weeds but this bed pisses me off!

It’s not just a bit of grass, it’s cinquefoil that makes a really dense mat, and this other tall flowering thing that swamps them. Plus some hidden brambles. It looks ugly, there’s very little air flow (our conditions are a bit airless at the best of times), and at this time of year they’re outcompeting the small canes for sunlight. I have to go out every few days and chop what I can back to ground level. We also had a wasp nest under the thick weed blanket last summer which meant the children couldn’t access the canes to harvest berries.

My aim is to mulch again on top of a thick cardboard layer, and this time replace the weeds with something else, quick growing that will cover the ground and preferably have a benefit to us / the garden. I was wondering about strawberries as they grow a bit like cinquefoil. Borage / yarrow / comfrey, perhaps, but it’s a large area to cover if starting these from seed (I hate buying this sort of stuff). Ideally something that establishes early in the season. Any ideas? What do other people co-plant w raspberries?

These two are two different trees of papaya. These trees are growing at 117 m above sea level. Temperature here is about 20–40 in winter–summer.
Problem is, these papaya trees have been dying, as shown in the picture, when they start developing buds. This unusual sequence has been repeating for 2 years. I tried to grow them in different places of my land but couldn’t get away with this problem. I want to get some expert knowledge on this.

https://preview.redd.it/de0qip9jj40f1.jpg?width=2250&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4b05a24f465dc8f52ea868661a650a2399b57088

https://preview.redd.it/7dhmxv9jj40f1.jpg?width=2250&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4f58dd1ae39dc2208421640dc053ac06b16db3d6