guildfordcycads

I have a friend who owns a 20-hectare avocado farm with 6,500 trees. While he’s not currently interested in transitioning to regenerative farming, he does want to move away from using Roundup and is looking for an organic pesticide to manage spotting bugs.

In India, I’ve successfully used neem oil and IMO made with inknut to control leafrollers, aphids, and mites on avocado farms. However, these farms were permaculture-based, incorporating companion planting and other ecological factors, which likely contributed to the success. Additionally, neem oil and inknut aren’t readily available in Australia. Neem oil, although accessible, is quite expensive.

Given that his farm is large-scale and neighbouring farms are macadamia orchards, I’d appreciate any suggestions for effective organic pest control solutions that could work in this context.

Hi all,
We are building a new garden, on top of a long ago abandoned spot. We’ll be using downed alder trees (good idea?) for posts to keep out the elk and deer that are out to trample and destroy. Q’s for all you sexy permaculturists:

-I’m thinking 10′ tall should do it?

-how far apart would you space the posts?

-whats a good fence material, square metal welded stuff?

-for raised beds, whats a good method? we have MAJOR volage so I was originally thinking to line it with galvanized hardware cloth, but now I’m reading that that stuff is toxic as it degrades?! UGh. maybe gravel and ground out seashell bits as I’ve read somewhere?

-would love to keep grass out of the raised beds too, should I think about treating the entire garden footprint in a certain way, or just the raised beds?

-we have a greenhouse I’m rehabbing. treat it same as raised beds or what? if you can point me to a good method for greenhouse setup that would be so appreciated.

We’re in NW Oregon, USA. If you are around these parts come through!

I have a brand new 1/2 acre of completely bare land and want to stick a few trees out there before I really get to building and designing. I’m hoping to get some recommendations for some out of the box trees I may not have heard of or am overlooking. Things that you are growing that are not just surviving but thriving with increased temperatures.

Climate: High altitude desert at 5800 ft elevation. Newly upgraded to USDA zone 7a so we do get a fair bit of freezing temps in the winter. Also very dry – just 13 inches of rain per year, although I do have irrigation water (for now). The thing I’m most worried about is the increasingly hot summers – I see it stressing the trees in other people’s yards. Common trees I see planted around my tiny town that are still alive are: cottonwoods, globe willow, honeylocust, black locust, stone fruit, apple, mullberry, northern catalpa, ponderosa pine, pinion pine, Utah juniper. I’ll be planting some of these but want to try a few odd-balls or trees uncommon or non-native to America’s southwest desert. Hopefully I can find something new to the area that really likes it here and can offer me a larger variety of trees for the future.

Ignore how crooked the right one is just yet. I have to move some stuff to put it in the final spot. I plan on filling them using the hugelkultur process. Would you place weed barrier on the ground? This is an established garden area that has last year’s cardboard, with straw and leaves as mulch.