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Just moved to a blank canvas a few months ago!

We’ve had a decent amount of precipitation lately, although it’s not peak season for that yet so more will come eventually, and we have tons of these wet spots all over the yard. I wouldn’t really mind too much except that the dogs love to muck about in them which is a headache for me.

This side of the yard in particular is a little tricky because to the right is our septic and to the left is our drain field so I don’t want to do major groundwork or plant trees because I don’t want to interfere with any pipes there.

Any ideas for some vegetation we could plant that would soak up the moisture in these low spots? Or any other ideas period?

Zone 9A in NE Florida Sandy soil (waiting on results of soil test to know more details)

Thank you!

Hey there permaculturists! I’m new to this whole permaculture thing (I’m actually not the gardener in the house so please excuse my ignorance). I just bought a house in zone 10a, and we’re looking to finally plant some of the fruit trees we’ve been hauling from rental to rental for years. We wanted to plant some goumi berries because they’d produce fruit at the same time as serving as a nitrogen fixer. But we had taken for granted we could plant them in our zone 10a (as we’ve mostly been able to grow whatever we’d tried to grow in beautiful Southern California before).

So has anyone tried to plant goumi berries in zone 10 a/b before? How’d it go? Anyone able to predict how well they’d hold up in zone 10a?

Thanks in advance!

Hi everyone,

I’m planning to set up a small permaculture farm and am trying to gauge how much daily effort (in hours) is needed for tasks like:

1. De-weeding
2. Irrigation
3. Planting and harvesting

I currently work full-time, but my goal is to transition to part-time remote work and eventually to quit, so I can dedicate more time to building and maintaining the farm. I’m wondering if anyone here has experience balancing part-time work with farm setup.

Also, how much of the workload can be automated or reduced with tools like drip irrigation, mulching, etc.? And does the daily effort significantly decrease after the first year, once the systems are in place and soil health improves?

I’d really appreciate any insights or advice from those of you who’ve started farms solo or integrated permaculture practices into your setup.

Thanks so much!

–Edit–

The plan of the farm is to grow food for my own consumption, primarily fruits and vegetables and eventually staples too, without any plans for selling the produce.

My home has a large sewer output pipe that spans across my entire front yard diagonally. When we moved in a year ago, I realize that there was a sizable dip where the pipe was buried. Over the past year, I’ve been getting free woodchips and filling in that dip. It spans close to half an acre. When the wood chips go down a little bit, I just add another layer since always have a pile at the ready. The sewer output pipe is about a foot beneath the ground. Maybe a bit deeper in some spots, but not more than an inch or so. It’s been somewhat maddening to deal with because it covers so much of my yard and influences where I can plant things.

One option I considered was to just keep adding wood chips and plant lots of wine cap mushrooms. But it’s going to be more than I could possibly eat and the area also receives a fair amount of sun.

Is there anything else I can do with this area?

I of course, don’t need to keep adding wood chips to it. But they’re easy to come by.

Edit: I also would love something that require minimal maintenance from year to year.