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One of our volunteers bought a GoPro, allowing us to capture a snapshot of our garden in late May. We have had almost no rain in April and May and have been hand watering, but otherwise, progress has been good. We are creating opportunities for horticulture therapy for volunteers, whilst developing the garden as a teaching resource and an ongoing experiment into the use of biochar and animal manure compost on an otherwise heavy clay soil. It has been a steep learning curve for all of us. We started from scratch back in 2021 and decided to put more energy into the project in 2024, realising that one day a week was not enough, we are now there twice a week for regular volunteer sessions.

This question is inspired by the entertaining subreddit r/whowouldwin.

I have been reading an interesting book called The Rise and Fall of American Growth and there is a section that discusses food productivity in the late 19th century. At this time roughly 75% of Americans lived outside of the city… mostly on farms. These farmers were very good at growing/raising food. Its estimated that Americans consumed almost 500 more calories per day than people in the UK in 1870. Also consider that in the late 19th century poverty was pretty much limited to urban areas. Very few people living off their land were considered poor or malnourished. Synthetic fertilizers were not invented until the early 20th century so these people were really good at creating abundance and surviving off a single plot of land without too many inputs.

Now for the ground rules… Each person gets 5 acres of bare, fertile land in the US midwest in 2025. Both get a $5,000 gift card to Home Depot and $5000 for Tractor Supply/Local animal breeding outfits. And both get $1000 to spend on seeds/plants from any existing US nursery/seed catalogue. After this they are on their own. They can grow anything they want, invasives, natives, etc…

Also, lets set aside modern permaculture goals like wildlife habitat restoration, community sharing, ecosystem remediation, etc… As the 19th century farmer would probably not understand why that would be necessary in the first place. The goal is simply to create the most abundant, resilient & fulfilling homestead for a family to live on. Who do you think would win?

IMHO, I think the farmer might ensure survival of the family because they know how to grow staples, store food over winter, build whats necessary to stay warm, etc…. And these people were tough as nails so working dawn to dusk is not going to be a problem. They also likely had great instincts around weather, timing of when to sow seeds, etc…

But, the PDC instructor has a shot at building a true paradise with a wider variety of food that might be more resilient to crop failures, disease, weather events, etc… The food would also likely be more diverse in the nutrient content, flavors, etc…

Is it possible that I could encourage the development of juglone tolerant varieties of juglone-sensitive species by planting them outside of the range of direct contact but still downhill from Juglans cinerea? I was also thinking of planting Corylus americana directly downhill of the walnuts to act as a buffer.

Hi guys i want to start learning permaculture and im in Egypt and i did have 3 farms that i can start with one of them from scratch 2 of them is in ALEX and one is in fayoum all 3 have good water and sandy soil with no tress

Good afternoon all,

I am looking for advice in regards to my newly planted fruit bush row.

I have planted the following in this order; blueberry, honeyberry, blueberry, honeyberry, redcurrant, whitecurrant, gooseberry, gooseberry.

I have planted them 75cm apart.

I like the idea of attracting bees and trying to keep bugs off my fruit.

Any advice is much appreciated.

Hi all, I’m looking for a bit of perspective from those that manage a food forest – one big advice I’ve often seen online is to take the adult size of plants into account in the layout and not to plant too dense. However my reality plays out quite differently from that: a lot of plants face pressure from disease, insects, deer browse, rabbits etc so that I feel that even with protection in place I cannot rely on all of these making it to their adulthood. I’m now thinking to plant much denser and eventually take out trees and shrubs if I end up with too many healthy ones later. That might also help to build more shade and out-compete the extremely vigorous grasses in the former meadow.

Would love to hear how others have approached it. I’m now in year three on about an acre and it’s been a constant learning experience and had to accept quite a few losses along the way.